Kotaku: uh, oh

PSP Slim Doesn't Play Nice With Some SDTVs?

fdemarco — Sun, 07 Oct 2007 12:00:00 MDT

An angry Kotakuite sends in this rather upsetting photo for those of you with standard definition TVs. If you are planning on picking up a new PSP Slim and want to play games on your SDTV, you may want to rethink your purchase, check the back of your TV or at least decide how badly you really want to play PSP Slim on it. According to the photo, the only way you can do this is to play connected with a D-terminal AV cable or component cables and the content must be output in progressive scan. UMD movies seem to work fine, but games are a no go unless your TV supports progressive scan.

I did a little research and according to the all knowing internet (which is generally about as reliable as a Magic 8 Ball), only about 20% of homes in the US have HDTVs so you'd think that these companies would try and cater a little more to the other 80%. Of course this opens up all kinds of conspiracy theories about the game companies helping to support the sales of HDTV's and vice-versa. Still, something tells me there are going to be quite a few angry PSP/SDTV owners out there. Why? Because they can be.

Video Games Fix Weak Woman Brains

Mark Wilson — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 12:00:07 MDT

We've long heard that, scientifically speaking, woman are not as good as men at tasks like mathematics. And while my wife, who is incidentally both a psychologist and smarter than me, may disagree with such assertions (or may not), one University of Toronto study has found that video games may give women a leg up in spatial task processing, thereby potentially closing the gap on topics like geometry (...or even driving?).

Our second experiment showed that both men and women can improve their spatial skills by playing a video game and that the women catch up to the men...

Moreover, the improved performance of both sexes was maintained when we assessed them again after five months...Clearly, something dramatic is happening in the brain when we see marked improvements in spatial skills after only 10 hours of game playing and these improvements are maintained for many months.

Men, with the advent of vibrators and now this, our species is clearly doomed to a slavery caste where a penis-wearers sole task is stoking the fires that power highly advanced shoe production machinery.

Action Games Improve Women's Spatial Abilities, Says New Study [gamepolitics]

Uncensored Manhunt 2 Leaks Online

Mark Wilson — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 11:40:34 MDT

Projectmanhunt.com is reporting that an early PS2 build of Manhunt 2 has leaked online. Though credited to Rockstar-unaffiliated Team Slonik, the software had to come from somewhere and YouTube clips are already appearing for public consumption—meaning this could become a quite literal torrent of bad press for Rockstar...who was finally (kinda) out of the fire for Hot Coffee.

Full release notes after the jump.

NFO(release notes):

*******************************************************************************
Manhunt 2 (Banned Uncut)
*******************************************************************************

———————————————————————————————————————-
General Information
———————————————————————————————————————-
Type.................: Game
Platform.............: PS2
Number of Parts......: 57 Including PARS
Image Format.........: Other (specify)
Image Created with...: CloneCD
Burn Tested..........: Yes

———————————————————————————————————————-
Post Information
———————————————————————————————————————-
Posted by............: Team Slonik
Posted to............: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Parts per Day........: Dont Ask
Fills Policy.........: Other (specify)
Repost Policy........: Other (specify)

———————————————————————————————————————-
Release Notes
———————————————————————————————————————-
Greetz to the scene. Here we have the kick ass game (Manhunt 2 Banned Uncut
Version) from Team Slonik.

———————————————————————————————————————-
Install Notes
———————————————————————————————————————-
Extract and Burn with CloneCD

Note: We believe this to be a BETA version, so no crying if it fucks up on you.

Peace out!!!Manhunt 2 Leaked [via play]

Rockstar: GTAIV limited by 360

Brian Crecente — Wed, 02 May 2007 19:00:38 MDT

The Xbox 360's lack of a guaranteed harddrive is creating limitations for the Rockstar team developing Grand Theft Auto IV for the Xbox 360, Rockstar Veep Dan Houser said in a recent interview with Official Playstation Magazine.

In the interview Houser was asked:

"On PS3 you've got a guarantee that every machine is going to have a hard-drive and, with Blu-ray, you've got plenty of storage, whereas on Xbox 360 there's no guarantee of a hard-drive and you're working with the DVD format. Does that create limitations?" To which he replied, "Yep."
He continued, "To be honest with you we haven't solved all those riddles yet." The difficulties aren't limited to working on Microsoft's box, as Houser explains that "both have enormous challenges" and that "both have their own particular pleasures and pains".

I sure hope this doesn't mean that Rockstar would handicap the 360 version of the game. Personally, I'd rather they just say the harddrive is required. Brian Crecente

Xbox 360 is limiting GTA IV, says Rockstar [CVG]