Kotaku

Next Week On Rock Band: Classic Cred

Next week's batch of fine Rock Band downloadables brings some classic credibility to the table, with a trio of individual songs that you won't be able to buy in some sort of value added, cred-building bundle. Each new download will set you back the standard $1.99 USD (160 Microsoft Points) when they hit next week. Damn, that "Train In Vain" is quite the toe-tapper. I'm so into it, my overbite is showing.

• "Hanging on the Telephone" by Blondie
• "Train in Vain" by The Clash
• "Kool Thing" by Sonic Youth

DLC Week of May 13th [Rock Band Forums]

How cute! We love it when furniture has delusions of gaming hardware. Well, the joke's on us, because this particular coffee table does triple duty, storage gobs of video game paraphernalia and functioning as a working NES controller in addition to its coffee tabling duties. Creator Kyle tipped us off today to let us know the whole thing is finished, with helpful how-to posts and video of the thing in action embedded within the celebratory completion post. He even got a girl to go near it and she doesn't look scared. Nice goin, Kyle!

NES coffee table FINAL POST!! RAH!!!! [Ultra-Awesome]

Conan Drills Deeper Into GTA IV's Kinder, Gentler Side... Again

Poker: The Redemption

To: Ash
From: Crecente
Re: Wife Back Home (What Fetuses Wear)

Tonight I'm meeting up with a slew of local developers for round two of our monthly poker night. If you don't recall, I managed to lose $60 at a $20 poker game last time round. This time, I plan on at least not buying in three times. Big talk, I know, but a mans gotta do what a mans gotta do.

What you missed:
Bad Company Demo Coming June 5th
New SOCOM Confrontation Screens
Call of Duty 5 To Feature "New Military Theater"
New Wrath Of The Lich King Details Galore
Will Verbinski Make BioShock The First Great Game Flick?
BioWare Backs Down From Draconian Mass Effect Authentication
Spore To Use Online Authentication
echochrome Review: Poppin', Lockin' and Thinkin'
MGS4 Character Spoiler

What Are You Playing This Weekend?

Last night we had a bit of a gaming bender at Kotaku Towers West, a night filled with Wii Fit, We Ski, and Rock Band. The highlight, of course, was a two hour Cruis'n session—the Wii shitware title that was finally freed from its shrinkwrap confines last night to much amusement. It's absolutely the most unintentionally hilarious game I've ever played, with some of the sloppiest game design ever... even for a Cruis'n title. Rarely has a game brought me to tears with laughter, so Cruis'n should at least be lauded for that. Highly recommended for your next game night, especially if booze is available.

This weekend I'll be ditching the Cruis'n as I get back to R-Type Command and continue my Rock Band duties, now with added Boston. How about you? Weekend plans?

EA Takes Out $1 Billion Loan For Take-Two Acquisition

SEC filings have revealed that Electronic Arts borrowed $1 billion from Morgan Stanley and other lenders to help finance a possible acquisition of Take-Two.

"There's no news here," said EA VP of communications Jeff Brown. "This is just a process point on something we announced in February."

With $2.3 billion on hand in cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments, EA already has the funds available to do the deal as it currently stands. With the deal not contingent on financing, why borrow more money?

"It helps us maintain maximum flexibility for any opportunities," said Brown.

Take-Two had no comment as of press time.

Sources tell us that the upcoming Call of Duty 5 game in development is already playable, and currently going through quality assurance.

Treyarch is also said to be the developer, and the title, we're told, is set in a WWII Pacific environment and will be using Call of Duty 4's engine, the same engine on which the upcoming James Bond: Quantum of Solace movie game is being built.

Yesterday, on the company's call to investors, Activision publishing CEO Mike Griffith said CoD5 would be coming to Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC and DS, in addition to a return for the franchise to PS2 and Wii for the first time in two years.

Inasmuch as the Japanese software story stays largely the same, as does weekly hardware sales. The PSP continues to sit pretty atop the Media Create sales charts, but regular "Simple 2000: The Japanese Hardware Chart" watchers will notice that the big black slice is starting to thin. A big Wii sales boost has plenty to do with that, but Monster Hunter Portable 2nd G sales trending down—holiday boost notwithstanding—is likely accountable. Numbers were up across the board, but Nintendo benefited the most.

• PSP - 100,870
• Wii - 71,518
• Nintendo DS - 52,542
• PlayStation 3 - 10,177
• PlayStation 2 - 8,802
• Xbox 360 - 1,725

Media Create Weekly Sales

Reader Tony writes it to show off this Metal Gear Solid 4 Old Snake action figure he made by heavily customizing a Dark Knight movie Batman figure. Pretty cool, though it does look a little Thunderbirds are Go! to me. More shots on the jump.

We've seen a teaser that suggests that Metal Gear Solid 4 will feature significant flashbacks to the story's early days, so it's possible that everyone's favorite tragic soldier-turned-despot will show up alongside the other blasts from the past. But Big Boss is dead for good, right?

Right?

Possible spoilers follow the jump, so if you'd rather not speculate on anything MGS 4-related, steer clear.

Sony touted it's minimalist PlayStation Network puzzler echochrome at E3 2007 as a game inspired by the classic, simple-but-deep rule sets of traditional brain teasers like the Chinese board game Go and the Rubik's Cube. Pitched as the PlayStation 3 game with "the least graphics and the most gameplay," echochrome lets players guide an animated artist mannequin through a blocky construct, picking up "echoes" via Escher-esque perspective bending.

echochrome, with its simple black and white line-work aesthetic is certainly lacking in the expected visual fireworks common in most modern games, as promised. But does it feature the proportionate gameplay of its inspiration?

Spore To Use Online Authentication

Despite some hand-wringing by fans, EA today announced that their hugely anticipated Will Wright game Spore will not make use of SecuROM's 10-day periodic re-authetication and instead use a modified version to require online authentication.

The announcement comes on the heels of news that Mass Effect will also be ditching the ten day re-authentication.

We wanted to let you know that we've been hearing your concerns about the online authentication mentioned earlier this week. I didn't want to head into the weekend without getting back to you with some information about how Spore is planning on using this new system.

A few things we wanted you to know:

— We authenticate your game online when you install and launch it the first time.
— We'll re-authenticate when a player uses online features, downloads new content or a patch for their game.
— The new system means you don't have to play with the disc in your computer. And if you are like me, always losing discs, this will be a huge benefit.
— You'll still be able to install and play on multiple computers.
— You can play offline.

We do hope that players will play online - sharing creatures, buildings and vehicles with other players is something that is unique to Spore and one of the coolest features of the game. Every day, when I play the Creature Stage, I get to see wacky and awesome new creatures from my Buddies on the team coming over the hill at me and I can't wait to see what happens when our creative, passionate community starts sharing their creations.

Sounds like Electronic Arts got the message, here's hoping that other publishers do too.

BioWare Backs Down From Draconian Mass Effect Authentication

When Mass Effect comes to the computer it will not use SecuROM's 10-day periodic re-authentication and instead will instead use a modification to do only a one-time online authentication, Bioware announced today.

The developer said the decision came after listening "very closely" to its fans and that the new system will also allow gamers to play the game without the DVD in the drive.

The system will allow gamers to authenticate their game on just three computers, but EA does have the ability to give additional authorizations if they are warranted.

Hit up the jump for the official FAQ and to let us know what you think about this change of heart.

Japanese RPG fans, rejoice. Japan-based publisher Marvelous Entertainment announced a co-publishing partnership with L.A.-based XSeed, who's best known for Shadow Hearts: From The New World and Wild Arms 4 and 5. Through the deal, Marvelous, who among other titles publishes Natsume's Harvest Moon series, gains more North American presence, while XSeed gets to publish some of Marvelous' upcoming games here in the U.S.

Slated for a Fall 2008 launch, the first title they'll co-publish is Valhalla Knights 2 for PSP, a sequel to the April 2007 RPG that the two companies also co-published.

Full release follows the jump.

Will Verbinski Make BioShock The First Great Game Flick?

So, by now you've heard a BioShock flick is in the works, news that excites many fans - while leaving some others wary, thanks to the less-than-encouraging track record of films made from games.

Significant about the BioShock film news is the fact that Pirates of the Caribbean director Gore Verbinski's been tapped for the directorial role. This is interesting, because you may recall that just a couple months ago, Verbinski was the keynote speaker at the 2008 DICE summit.

Lots of gamers may have wondered what a film director was doing at DICE, but now that he's directing our next big game flick, you may want to take a second look at what he said there.

"The 'Believe' campaign catapulted Halo 3 from an ordinary video game into a worldwide cultural phenomenon due to its ability to build an emotional rapport with the audience," said Mary Warlick, CEO of The One Club. "The innovative stream of interactive TV, Web and cinema advertisements was an inspired approach that successfully attracted an audience beyond the typical gamer."