Weekend Note: WiiPez

To: Luke
From: Owen

Hope you landed safely. Then again, if you didn't, I probably wouldn't be writing this, so much for small talk, hrm?

Reader pepsidewd from Montreal sent that in (full size on the jump). It's a Wiimote Pez dispenser. Well, not literally Pez as there's probably licensing issues and such, but nothing's stopping you from stuffing your own Pez in it, I suppose. Says pepsidewd:

"I picked this up at a Dollarama store in Montreal Canada. It is basically a mini Wiimote that dispenses Pez like candy. Funny thing is that the the cashier said that a some people thought that it was a real Wiimote for $1!!! Candy is crappy, I guess the official Nintendo Seal does not mean much in the candy world either!"

It didn't in the cereal world.

Some highlights while you were airborne:
Sarah Palin, in Video Games
Rumor Smash Galore: EA Not Interested in Epic, No Sega Portable
A Look at the New Xbox Live Marketplace
TimeSplitters 4 Concept Art
EGM: LBP Getting "Non-Sony," Disney DLC?
TF2 Spy Crab Calendar Out Now

If you wanted to, you could by 11 versions of three different NBA games on Tuesday. Of course, if you wanted to, you could also buy Imagine Fashion Designer New York and Imagine Babysitters on the same date. And which would be worse? Another jampacked Tuesday for you, with the big NBA drops, plus Fracture on PS3 and 360, and then Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway arrives for the PC if you're waiting on that. Curiosities include CID The Dummy (Monday, Wii, PC, PSP and PS2) and Crash Bandicoot: Mind Over Mutant (Tuesday, PS2, DS, Wii, 360). They do not include Etch-a-Sketch or My Spanish Teacher (both PSP, Tuesday). Full list is on the jump. Let us know what you're buying/renting/playing/sneering at in the comments.

Sarah Palin, in Video Games

All you guys told me STFU this morning and post about video games, not politics. Well, suck it. Pwn or Die has a half-dozen shoops of everyone's favorite fappable vice presidential candidate, and I must say, the Samus costume is quite fetching. But good God, she looks like a dude — Rudy Giuliani with a wig, actually — in that lollipop GTA IV rendering. Guys if you're gonna do it, do it right, Palin never steps foot in public without her indestructible updo. The full gallery is on the jump.

UPDATE: Reader Nick R. supplies box art for Cabela's Alaskan Adventures: Sarah Palin Edition. Is this a retail box drop or DLC for a 2-year-old title? Oh. God, I'm tempted to tag this post rumor just for the hell of it.

Getting a Look at The Conduit's Visuals

This 90 second clip highlights the effort put into The Conduit's visual detail, no mean feat considering it's working on a Wii and that's not exactly a PS3. My visual palate is about like my wine palate, I pretty much like everything, and it's gotta be offensively wrong for me to pan it. That said, you guys are more sophisticated judges of a game's graphical chops, so I'm interested in what you have to say. Does The Conduit earn core-game bonafides with things like bump-mapping, the projected texture lights and depth of field focus changes?

The Conduit - Tech Highlight Trailer [Gametrailers.com]

Often times it's more work to discover something is crap and shouldn't be posted than it is to find something that is. But we've heard so much noise about a couple things it's nice to put the rumor smash on two that couldn't pass the sniff test doused in Chanel No. 5.

First, Electronic Arts is not buying Epic Games, OK? Doesn't matter that EA has tons of money and someone else with a lot of time on his hands has good ideas for what to do with it. "Rubbish," says Epic Vice President Mark Rein, a guy who's in position to actually know something substantive about this.

Well, looks like PC Zone was saving up its 200th issue for Deus Ex. It's the cover story in the latest edition, which has already landed in subscribers' mailboxes and hits newsstands on Oct. 9. The writeup also features the first screenshots of the game, which CVG scanned and uploaded (above).

"Deus Ex 3's vision of the future sees holographic screens flicker atop ferries moving back and forth in front of the Shanghai skyline, now split into two layers with the rich on the top and the poor in perpetual twilight below," says PC Zone.

The preview says Eidos Montreal promised a "powerful, layered" plot for the game, a prequel set in 2027. Eidos also said it's mindful of reaction to the second game in the series and promises that its mistakes won't be repeated. If you're not a subscriber, CVG has written up a pretty good digest of its high points.

Deus Ex 3: First Details [CVG]

A Compendium of Leaked Gears of War 2 Multiplayer Footage

Looks like anyone with a hat cam can waltz into E for All this weekend and film Gears of War 2 to their heart's content. We've been tipped to a bunch of multiplayer footage in different locations, so for those who want to see if chainsaws and blood spatter = server lag, here are plenty of clips. Everyone on camera gives a raving testimonial for the game, which is out Nov. 7 for Xbox 360.

Your first clip is above (showing Horde mode, from youtube user donjugored), and there are four more on the jump.

Also in Realtime Worlds' newsletter for fans, which went out this week, is word that Facebook will play a large role in building the community for APB, the long-awaited cops-and-robbers MMO.

And APB's closed beta stage is upcoming, with alpha testing completed in the middle of September, says Realtime Worlds. "Initially this will be a very core, select number of trusted friends of employees, but does mark the start of what can be considered the ‘Closed’ Beta stage of APB," said Chris Dye, community relations manager.

There were no specifics given on exactly how Facebook will be a part of this. Develop Magazine points out that APB will use social music site Last.fm for its in-game audio, Realtime Worlds has shown a willingness to use existing online services rather than create its own.

The release date is still TBA.

APB to Use Facebook as 'Major Community Tool' [Develop]

Well, get a load of this. Remember the E for All Expo? Yeah it's this weekend in Los Angeles and finished as of today (so are the Cubs, unfortunately). But the Gears of War 2 booth there handed out a dogtagged COG stamped with a supa-secret code that you enter at this site (screenshot above). That delivers you to to a flash site where you can explore the GoW2 environment, pick up some concept art, wallpapers, a lot of stuff to discover and look at.

Marvelous and XSEED are bringing Vanillaware's Wii-exclusive ninja RPG to North America in 2009, and calling it Muramasa: The Demon Blade. Joystiq mentions that this is the second title coming out of a co-publishing deal signed in May, the first being Valhalla Knights 2 for the PSP.

The game is a 2D side-scroller featuring hand-drawn art, probably in the mode of Vanillaware's Odin Sphere. It will be shown at Tokyo Game Show 08, according to Marvelous' lineup, as Oboro Muramasa Youtouden

Muramasa: The Demon Blade is an action RPG and according to its news release, it's set in Genroku-era Japan. Players will inhabit the lives of ninja warriors in a storyline involving a set of cursed "Demon Blades," powerful weapons that exact a terrible price on those who use them. In this case, the blades also summon evil spirits and powerful foes from the netherworld, providing you with your adversaries and the game's world with its existential crisis.

The full text is on the jump.