"Braid: More Fun Than Calculus!"

In an interview with IGN Saturday at the New York Comic-Con, the Epic Games president Mike Capps lays down the law: No Wii game is ever forthcoming from his company. The reason? "We go forward, not back." Apparently the Wii is not next-gen to him.

I'm not gonna poke the snake of what-is and what-ain't next-gen. Let Capps do that for himself:

Death to Clamshell Packaging! (Maybe)

I'm not much of a religious man, but every time I have to break out the kitchen shears to open a set of earbuds or a spare controller, I consider joining a faith just so I can believe in a hell just so whoever designed clamshell packaging can burn in it.

And if you've skinned your knuckles trying to get to a product you bought, made by a company that treats all of its customers like shoplifters, well, now comes word via CNET of a movement to get rid of clamshell packaging. Yay. Naturally, it's something of a green-backed movement, which means it'll need about 15 years to take hold in the U.S. The expansion of big-box stores doesn't bode well for clamshell's demise. My guess also the revenue stream represented by completely bullshit restocking fees — which is to Best Buy what a security deposit is to a landlord, money for nothing — might keep the clam with us awhile, too.

Still, there are people who share our pain and want to do something. Now if they could just do something about DVD packaging. There's another circle of hell waiting to be occupied.

Killing the Oyster Pack [CNET News.com]

Why The Xbox Hate?

Wow, there are a lot of hateful women out there. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure there are just as many hateful men out there too, but none of them have been given the space in large newspapers to spew their anger at video games and the men who play them, so I'll limit my ire to them in this post.

Last week we wrote about the Dallas Morning News' vitriolic rant against men who (gasp) dare play video games. The child-man, Kay Hymowitz writes, lingers in "a new state of semi-hormonal adolescence." That's nothing Kay, you really should have dug a bit deeper. Like, say, Kate Muir, who likens men who play video games to Manatee.

The Littlest PS3 Hater

Angry fanboys are getting younger and younger these days. Fun Tech Talk is reporting that a thirteen year old South Carolina boy was picked up by Toys R Us security after it was discovered that he had written "PS3 Sucks" on twenty three plastic PS3 game security cases with indelible marker. The boy's parents couldn't be reached so he was put in the custody of child services (scary). When asked why he did it, the boy answered, "I have an Xbox and I hate Playstation. I found the marker lying on the shelf and I guess I was bored. Sorry."

If only he'd saved his hate for anonymously posting into the comments on an internet blog site thus starting a massive flame war like an adult.

Boy Arrested For Writing PS3 Sucks On Video Game Cases [Fun Tech Talk]

Folklore Building Bridges

Folklore really seems to bridge any and all cultural gaps. Not only do the characters appeal to all audiences, but the themes of death, love, and redemption are about as universal as it gets. So far, anyone that has played Folklore immediately connects with it. The sound and graphics grab the player's attention, then the combat system and story line draws them into the experience.

I've never played a good game where the developers put a big icon of the button you're supposed to press onscreen... I look at Heavenly Sword and it seems really half-assed, because it's asking you to do all these button-timing sequences but you are not getting much payoff from it.

A hacker has knocked GayGamer.net, the only news gathering gay-gaming site, offline with a series of denial of service attacks after flooding the site with threatening emails and hate speech, the site's owner said Sunday.

Flynn De Marco, the site's owner and Kotaku weekend editor, said small waves of denial of service attacks started Wednesday morning, causing occasional timeouts on the site. By Friday the site, working with their host, was able to block the IPs where the DOS attacks seemed to be coming from. Then Friday evening someone began flooding the site's forums and chat room with hate speech, including some death threats, and over-sized images meant to bog down the site, De Marco said. The flood of messages and images all originated from the same IP in Philidelphia, he added.

The site deleted the offensive messages, but the continued DOS attacks lead to the site's host taking GayGamer down until the attacks could be permanently blocked. De Marco hopes to get the site operational by Monday, but is having problems getting a straight answer from their host, GoDaddy.Com.

According to the Federal Bureau of Investigations a hate crime, also known as a bias crime, is a criminal offense committed against a person, property, or society that is motivated, in whole or in part, by the offender's bias against a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, or ethnicity/national origin.

Its sad to see that even in the virtual worlds of gaming and game coverage people decide that the only way they can express themselves is by attacking others. Hit the jump to read GayGamer's official statement on the outage.

The Ashcraft Pokemon In Action

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PS3 Contest: Teh Winner

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Gallery: Cosplay Hall of Shame

C&C's Kane Speaks

We're at CES