You get what appears to be a watermelon.

The word "sambo" is in the 22,802 wordlist we posted previously, between "sambhar" and "samboussa". Other racial terms (not just for African-Americans, but all ethnic groups) turned up nothing. The word "slave" produced an old white man in a tuxedo. "WASP" produces a "wasp". It's worth noting that the characters in the game are a diverse bunch, with African-American models used to depict a variety of jobs including ballerina, firefighter and life guard.

"We are not a racist company and we don't make racist games," Scribblenauts creative director Jeremiah Slaczka told Kotaku when reached by phone tonight. He said that there was no racial intent involving the inclusion of the word "sambo," a term he was not immediately familiar with.

Further discounting any impression that there was an racial intent, Slaczka also told Kotaku that one of the people responsible for finding and adding words to the game was black — to be clear, Slaczka, however, is not saying that an African-American put the word "Sambo" in.

Warner Bros. Interactive, the game's publisher, responded to Kotaku's request for comment Thursday:

"We deeply regret the unfortunate oversight that led to the word being included in the game," a company spokesman said. "The word was included as a reference to a Spanish based term for a fig leafed gourd but clearly upon review the word should have been excluded entirely."

Washington State-based developer 5th Cell said in the game the word sambo refers not to the racial term but to the Spanish term for a fig leaf gourd that resembles a watermelon.

Slaczka said that the word was included in Scribblenauts because it is an ingredient of the Ecuadorian dish Fanesca, which is listed, on Wikipedia, as including a "figleaf gourd," or "sambo." A Google image search of the term "figleaf gourd" produces an image that looks like a watermelon. Slaczka said that it is common to use the same image for multiple words in Scribblenauts and that that is the reason a word meant to depict a figleaf gourd appears to be a watermelon.

In the U.S. though, the word "sambo" has been used to demean and degrade Africans and African-Americans alike. "Sambo" was a common slave name in the U.S., and the late 19th century children's book The Story of Little Black Sambo is cited as furthering the word as a slur. While the book was set in southern Indian, it did play on the blackface iconography and African-American intellectuals have been critical of the pickaninny motifs.

Here is the Online Etymology Dictionary's entry for "Sambo":

Sambo (2)
stereotypical name for male black person (now only derogatory), 1818, Amer.Eng., probably a different word from sambo (1); like many such words (Cuffy, Rastus, etc.) a common personal name among U.S. blacks in the slavery days (first attested 1704 in Boston), probably from an African source, cf. Foulah sambo "uncle," or a similar Hausa word meaning "second son." Used without conscious racism or contempt until circa World War II. When the word fell from polite usage, collateral casualties included the enormously popular children's book "The Story of Little Black Sambo" (by Helen Bannerman), which actually is about an East Indian child, and the Sambo's Restaurant chain, a U.S. pancake-specialty joint originally opened in Santa Barbara, Calif., in 1957 (the name supposedly from a merging of the names of the founders, Sam Battistone and Newell "Bo" Bohnett, but the chain's decor and advertising leaned heavily on the book), which once counted 1,200 units coast-to-coast. Civil rights agitation against it began in 1970s and the chain collapsed, though the original restaurant still is open. Many of the defunct restaurants were taken over by rival Denny's.
sambo (1)
"person of mixed blood in America and Asia," 1748, perhaps from Sp. zambo "bandy-legged," probably from L. scambus "bow-legged," from Gk. skambos. Used variously in different regions to indicate some mixture of African, European, and Indian blood; common senses were "child of black and Indian parentage" and "offspring of a black and a mulatto."

However, included in the loaded "Sambo" term are things like blackface and other tropes like unkempt hair and watermelons — tropes used to degrade and oppress African-Americans into simple, comical characters. In short, to dehumanize and objectify. From the post-Civil War era, food items like fried chicken and watermelon were used to stereotype "darky" African-Americans. The popular culture depiction of African-Americans during the late 19th and early 20th century was stuffing their faces with watermelons and gnawing on fried chicken.

There was even a New Jersey brand of watermelon called "Sambo brand".

The watermelon images and "sambo" slurs reduced African-Americans to two-diminsional characters. Similar sambo and watermelon imagery have been used by those unhappy with President Obama. As The Chicago Sun-Times' Mary Mitchell writes, "The smiling "darkey" eating watermelon was a popular image during America's racist past, and was the one of the stereotypes used by Obama-haters during the presidential campaign."

Both "sambo" and the image of a watermelon carry the baggage of the American experience regarding racism. There is a connection between them. A long, painful and oppressive one.

Thanks Zachery for the tip! [Pic]

Stephen Totilo and Brian Crecente contributed to this report.

Also featured are more of the slow-mos from the combat system, Detective Mode at work and the glorious voice of Mark Hamill as The Joker.

Go, watch, enjoy. And then pick up the game.

Gadgetry and ass-kicking are a big part of what makes Batman unique among other comic book heroes. While other mutated monsters and masked miscreants waste time yelling incoherently or waxing philosophical about emotional issues, Batman busts out his gadgets, embraces his emo and kicks ass.

Batman: Arkham Asylum aims to deliver plenty of both and a bit more besides. With most of the original voice cast from the animated series of the 90s reprising their roles and Emmy award-winning writer Paul Dini behind the script, the value of the game extends well beyond a mere 12 hours or so of distraction. It's a fusion of all that is Batman.

But does that carry an entire game?

Loved
The Gameplay: Arkham Asylum relies on about 30% gadgets and 70% ass-kicking to get Batman through the twisted halls of Gotham's overtaken mental institution. The gadgets range from the familiar Batarang to the funky Cryptographic Sequencer that blows up electronic locks. The combat is a punch-and-kick throwdown that rewards you for combos and for final knockouts with spectacular slow-mo and zoom-in vision. Both function beautifully, and the latter provides so much entertainment, it gets its own gameplay section in Challenge Mode. Also, you can switch up the gadget-to-combat ratio by using gadgets mid-ass-kicking or as a means to set up traps for goons who then get their asses kicked. Batman is all about variety.

Mark Hamill: Say what you want about Star Wars and Wing Commander -– as far as video games are concerned, Mark Hamill as the Joker is the performance of a lifetime. He's funny, he's sinister, he's scary… he's everything Joker is supposed to be. Even if you're watching the same Joker-mocking-you game over screen for the fifth time, it's just such a joy to hear Hamill at work you almost don't mind the loading screen to get back to the game.

The Production Values: Playing this game is like watching a movie -– and not in a bad Metal Gear Solid way where you could order a pizza and eat it during a cut scene. Arkham Asylum's scenes are eloquent and often witty, and the gameplay for the most part is entertaining and fast-paced. It's definitely a game you'd want to have an audience for, especially if you're not up on your Batman trivia and need some help with some of the Riddler Challenges.

The Riddler Challenges: The Riddler challenges provide Arkham Asylum an excuse to let you wander the grounds, scouring every nook and cranny for interview tapes, Riddler trophies, maps of Riddler challenges and obscure pieces of scenery to scan in Detective Mode. Far from being tedious, this is actually where most of the fan service in the game appears (because sadly, they couldn't work Catwoman in anywhere else) and it rewards you with experience points to spend on upgrades. The Riddler Challenges make the game worth a second play through just to find them all.

Scarecrow: Paralyzing fear of spoilers prevent me from saying anything other than the fact that he's in the game. But yeah, he's easily the best part of it.

It's Really, Really Batman! Almost everything about Arkham Asylum jibes perfectly with what Batman is, was and continues to be in the comics, the movies and the animated series. The gadgets, the combat and the characterization of the entire cast all fit together to form a seamless representation of a superhero most Americans are more familiar with than they are with the President of the United States. Even if you've never read the comics, seen the movies or watched the cartoon, Arkham Asylum is comprehensive and effective enough to be a good place for a newcomer to start.

Hated
The Camera: The right stick controls the camera, but that doesn't mean it will always do what you want it to. Maybe Batman moves too fast, or the camera moves too slow – either way, you'll find yourself fighting it in certain environments or cursing it during boss fights in tight spaces.

The Loss of Pace: The last third of the game drags noticeably—particularly the Killer Croc's level, one is the most repetitive and the least entertaining, standing out as the lame duck of the Arkham Asylum. It's not enough to throw the whole game off balance, but it is a letdown. Part of it comes from the fact that being a superhero is a lot of work; but most of it is that not even Paul Dini is infallible when it comes to plot resolutions.

Pyrrhic Victories: There are several parts of the game where you begin to think that Batman's "I work alone," phrase has a second unspoken part about people always dying when he tries to help them. Oh, the angst!

The Last Two Bosses: For the most part, Arkham Asylum reconciles video game tenets to Batman lore. But some parts –- particularly the last two boss fights -– just can't hack it. In these sections, Batman's intelligence is chucked aside in favor of knockdown, drag-out fights we're more used to seeing in God of War or Resident Evil. That's not to say Batman hasn't had knockdown, drag-out fights in the comics; but the two characters he's matched against in these fights don't really make sense in Batman terms. You might even catch yourself wondering if you're facing off against a Marvel Comics villain instead of a DC one. Ten points to you if you name the one I'm thinking of.

I really enjoyed this game, so much so that I would have its babies if such a thing were possible. Sure, the last two boss fights sour the attraction a little, but all relationships have problems. Just look at Batman's list of lovers and Robins if you want examples.

Seriously, though, Batman: Arkham Asylum is an excellent game. Buy it, play it and bask in the glow of the brightest Batman game to date.

Batman: Arkham Asylum was developed by Rocksteady Studios and published by Eidos Interactive / Warner Bros. Interactive for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC. Released August 25 for 360 and PS3, retails for $59.99 USD. Completed story mode and played challenge mode on the Xbox 360. Found about half the Riddler Challenges in one play through, but only because I was looking around frantically for a Zatanna Zatara reference.

Confused by our reviews? Read our review FAQ.

Scribblenauts is a game in which players help their friend Maxwell acquire "starlite" by solving a series of puzzles in each of the game's more than 200 levels. So what's the difference between this and any other DS puzzle game?

The twist is, in order to solve the puzzle, the player uses the stylus and notepad to write down the word for any object that comes to mind in order to reach the goal. Every object behaves as it would in the real world, and the player can combine countless objects together to create completely new behaviors. Every level has more than one written object to use as a solution, opening up the game to unlimited replay.

It sounds intriguing. Actually it sounds like the sort of game you can't quite explain using only a few tiny screenshots and a bit of text.

Still, developer 5th Cell and publisher Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment give it the old college try.

"We're excited to be working with Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment to bring Scribblenauts to a wide range of gamers, so they can play something they've never experienced anywhere else," said Jeremiah Slaczka, Creative Director and Co-Owner of 5TH Cell. "Scribblenauts is our biggest DS title to date and the culmination of our design knowledge and past experience creating original games."

Still nothing. Well at least they've caught our eye. Scribblenauts should be available this fall for the Nintendo DS. Hopefully we'll know a bit more by then.

A while back, we talked with Warner Bros. about pricing for End is Nigh. At the time, they responded with "It'll be quite a bit more than" $10. So it's not really a surprise to see that Steam is charging $19.99 for the game – but it's still a bummer.

GamerBytes speculates that this may be a case of PC-taxing; but I think it has more to do with marketing and sales. End is Nigh is a short downloadable game meant to be the first in a series of "chapters." How many chapters there are will depend on how popular the first installment is. Since they're already making a second chapter, they're probably hoping to make enough money on the first one to break even. You know, just in case nobody buys the second one.

Watchmen: The End is Nigh comes out on Steam, Xbox Live and PlayStation Network on March 4. The film hits theaters March 6.

PSN, XBLA: Watchmen Twenty Bucks On Steam, XBLA And PSN To Follow? [GamerBytes]

This is most visible in the difference between the story cut scenes and the in-game cut scenes. The former are done in the style of the comic with bright colors and the Dave Gibbons lettering in text bubbles. The latter goes for realism with dark, gritty settings and shiny rain-slick surfaces.

The two halves don't fit together well – but that's not to say the game is completely without pluses.

What Is It?
Watchmen: The End is Nigh is an 8-12 hour action adventure tie-in game to the movie based on the comic written by Alan Moore. Associate Producer Jerry Pritchard stressed that the game wasn't supposed to be a sequel or a prequel – he called it "a chance to explore more of the world." The plot stars "heroes" Rorschach and Night Owl as they try and solve the mystery behind a prison break that leaves Underboss on the loose. The game will be a download for PC and on Xbox Live and PlayStation Network.

What We Saw
I watched Pritchard play most of my thirty minutes with the game in a hotel room booked by Warner Bros. Interactive for their showcase. This covered the first cut scene and roughly a level and a half. During that second level, I was given a brief chance to punch while playing as Rorschach — the highlight of this being that he puts his hands back in his pockets after he hits people.

How Far Along Is it?
The End is Nigh is scheduled to release the same day as the film – March 6. The build I saw was near-final.

What Needs Improvement?
The Lack of Alan Moore: I'm not saying every Moore endeavor that goes on without him is a bad one – but Watchmen was his one of his lifetime achievements (right up there with V for Vendetta, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and From Hell). It feels somehow wrong to play a game that's "an original" Watchmen story and know that he didn't have a hand in writing it. If it were based off the movie, at least you could tell yourself it was an honest adaptation.

Pick a style: It doesn't make sense to have comic book cut scenes and cut scenes rendered with the in-game engine. I'm not talking about transitional cut scenes, like when the player reaches a door that needs unlocking and a short cinematic shows you where the key is. I watched one sequence that went from comic book scene explaining the prison break to an in game cut scene explaining why our heroes were going to the waterfront district. Jumping between the two styles was jarring and, in theory, you wouldn't need "extra" scenes to tell the story if the comic book scenes got it right.

What Should Stay The Same?
The combo system: You can't get by button-mashing in End is Nigh. Normally, I'd count that against a game, but the combos were easy to chain together and for the most part logical patterns of X, X, Y and so on. The combo system is also well-integrated: the more you do, the more your character's special attack gauge fills (Rorschach has Rage and Night Owl has Charge, as in electric charge) and the more combos you unlock.

The co-op setup: End is Nigh features split-screen co-op instead of online multiplayer.

Distinctive styles: I appreciate the game giving Rorschach and Night Owl distinctive styles so that it feels different to play as one or the other. Rorschach is a brawler with quick, weak strikes fit for melee fights. Meanwhile Night Owl uses gadgetry like electric shocks and slow, heavy hits that work well on one foe at a time. Once you've chosen a hero to play, you're stuck with him for the whole game; so there's replay value here.

The partner AI: From what I saw, the partner AI doesn't do stupid things like getting stuck to walls, running away randomly or ignoring you when you're getting your ass beat. According to Pritchard, the AI can't die and for the most part doesn't need babysitting – but it won't fight all your battles for you and just may allow you to die if you run ahead of him and get into fights.

Final Thoughts
I want to like this game, but I'm anxious that it will cost way too much. The official word from Warner Bros. is "quite a bit more than" $10. The game is good, but if it creeps over $20, I'll have a hard time justifying it to my wallet. And although Pritchard pointed out game writers "worked very closely with the original writers of the comic" Moore himself was not involved. And Doctor Manhattan isn't even a playable character – major bummer.

If End is Nigh does well, we can expect more of these "episode" games – and maybe they will add my beloved blue physicist and other Watchmen to the playable cast. Pritchard says the developer is already at work on a second one even now. Sure, I love all things Watchmen, but if I have to pay way too much for this game, I'll turn my nose up to subsequent ones the way that Alan Moore did to Joel Silver.

Movie games tend to leave a bad taste in my mouth. They're most often cheap cash-ins Hollywood studios use to wring extra money from the huddled masses. Graphics are crap, controls are shoddy and you're lucky if there's even a soundbite from the original actors, let along a full voice over.

Wanted: Weapons of Fate is only really guilty of one of those things, and luckily it's the least important.

What Is It?
Wanted: Weapons of Fate is a third person action shooter that's "based on" the box office flop Wanted, starring Angelina Jolie and Morgan Freeman (and others, but those are the only two I care about). Some elements of the original graphic novel made it into the game, according to Associate Producer Ryan French, but not much. ("90 percent film, 10 percent comic," he says.) This PS3/360/PC title is meant to be a sequel to the events of the movie, picking up five hours after the film's end, but it covers events that occurred before the film via "flashbacks" where you play as Wesley Gibson's dad, Cross. Most of the game, you're moving through linear levels, manipulating curving bullets, toggling assassin time (read: bullet time, but with knives) and racking up adrenaline points so you can do more of the same.

What We Saw
I saw about 40 minutes of the first three levels or so in a hotel booked by Warner Bros. Interactive for their showcase. These levels include one playing as Wesley and more or less two as Cross. I played the Cross level boss fight on Xbox 360, which took a little more than five minutes.

How Far Along Is it?
The game is due out March 24. The build I saw looked very, very close to final.

What Needs Improvement?
The script: And you thought the movie dialog was bad. I'm to understand the writing in the original comic was edgy, clever and unpretentious; but from what I saw, the only parts of it that made it into Weapons of Fate were the swear words. It doesn't help matters that the stilted dialog is coming out of the mouths of voice actors who sound like they can't act their collective way out of a paper bag. Except the Morgan Freeman voice twin; he was good. And I also have to give the writers credit for promising not to retcon The Loom.

The face models: It's very hard to take a cut scene seriously when our hero's facial expression resembles a melted Ken doll. The unrealistic, waxy faces are especially jarring when paired off with body models that were motion-captured from people who actually know how to fight.

What Should Stay The Same?
The combat: Executive Producer Pete Wanat said it best, "When you do a movie-based game, you have to continue to innovate." And so Weapons of Fate does, turning bullet-bending from the movie into an interesting gameplay mechanic that forces you to "read negative space" in a level the way you'd solve a puzzle. To make bullet-bending work, you have to be in cover and holding down the R1 button. A line will appear between you and your target – it's red if the shot is no good and white if the shot will hit. Manipulating the line with the left or right analog sticks will eventually yield a shot (if there aren't too many obstacles in the way), but the real art of the game comes from looking at the layout of a level and just knowing you can make a shot based on where everything is. Then you can whip out from behind cover, hold R1, tap the analog stick and release R1 to fire — while already moving to the next cover. Once you've mastered this, you'll never need to wait and see if the shot hits and you'll actually feel immersed in the game.

Offensive cover system: The last thing the developer wanted gamers to do was sit behind cover and wait for the AI to come to them. Not only is the AI too smart to do that, but the game rewards you for using cover offensively; the faster you go, the easier it is to "fool" the AI into shooting at where you used to be instead of where you are. Aside from being a good gameplay mechanic, the cover system also explains something from the film: how assassins could suddenly appear behind somebody without seeming to move.

Final Thoughts
Movie games have a horrible stigma that I don't think will ever go away. The mandate of making a game fit exactly within a film's timeline (and release the same day) stifles the creativity of development teams and often doesn't leave time for the innovation Wanat wants. Weapons of Fate does do something right by rejecting typical models of movie-game development and going for gameplay originality. But even if they escape the stigma of "lousy movie-game," they'll never escape the stigma of "worst Morgan Freeman movie ever."

Not as creepy as I think it should have been, but it still manages to work a couple of good startles in there.

The beat-'em-up-meets-puzzle-game will be released in an episodic format to coincide with the upcoming film. While Watchman writer Alan Moore is off being bonkers and not involved with the game, Watchmen artist Dave Gibbons is acting as advisor. That's a good sign!

Another good sign? The game is being written by the book's editor Len Wein, and what's more, it's completely in the Watchmen cannon. Gibbons explains:

Alan and I have always resisted doing any sort of back-story to the Watchmen graphic novel — at various times it's been suggested that we could do the Comedian's Vietnam War Diaries or Rorshach's journal, which we thought would be a bit dopey. But the precedent is, at the time the original comics came out, Mayfair games did a role-playing game that Alan helped write bits of, and it's completely canon, so this game uses a lot of that less-well known material.

Gibbons does admit that he doesn't know much about the game as he focused more on the artwork and the cutscenes, trying to retain the look and the feel of Watchmen.

Watchmen: The End is Nigh [Eurogamer]

Warner Bros Interactive Entertainment appointed John Quinn as their new executive vice president today for worldwide operations.

Quinn will be in charge of managing the expansion of the company's game publishing sales, including third party titles. That means that such babies as Speed Racer, LEGO Batman and Project Origin are all in his, no doubt, baby-soft hands.

Full release after the jump.

JOHN P. QUINN NAMED EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, WORLDWIDE OPERATIONS FOR WARNER BROS. INTERACTIVE ENTERTAINMENT


December 19, 2007 - Burbank, CA - John P. Quinn has been named Executive Vice President, Worldwide Operations, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, it was announced today by Kevin Tsujihara, President, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group.

In his new post, Quinn will oversee global sales and distribution for Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, leveraging the existing supply chain infrastructure he previously managed at Warner Home Video with the game publishing and development capabilities of Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment.

Within Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, Quinn will play an integral role in the worldwide expansion of the company's game publishing slate, which includes internal and third party titles. In 2008, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment will be publishing "Speed Racer," "LEGO Batman," "Project Origin" and other titles to be announced.

"During the past 12 months, John has been instrumental in establishing Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment's global sales and distribution organization and infrastructure," said Tsujihara. "He brings with him a vast amount of expertise in sales, distribution, operations and supply chain that will allow us to continue to grow in the publishing side of the games business."

Quinn joined Warner Communications in 1977 as Director of Sales for WEA, the sales and distribution division of Warner Music Group. In 1983 he moved to Warner Home Video as Director of Sales and in 1988 was promoted to Vice President of Sales for the U.S. and then promoted to Senior Vice President of Sales in 1996. During Quinn's tenure as head of sales, Warner Home Video saw U.S. revenues grow from $136 million to more than $2 billion. In 2001, Quinn moved to the then newly created position of Executive Vice President of Worldwide Supply Chain. In 2004 he added responsibility for Service Management Mega Process Owner and in 2007 began taking on Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment responsibilities.

Quinn has been involved in many key initiatives, including the transition of the video industry and Warner Home Video (WHV) from a primarily rental business model to a consumer purchase model, the successful launch of DVD, the initiation and global expansion of WHV's Vendor Managed Inventory function, the development and global expansion of WHV's Category Management function with key retail customers and launching WHV's China sales and distribution joint venture. Quinn also established a global sales process for all territories and was part of the team which negotiated the sale of WMG's manufacturing assets with specific responsibility for the long term, multi-billion dollar supply agreement with the purchaser.

About Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment
Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, a division of Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group, is a premier publisher, licensor and developer of entertainment content for the interactive space across all current and future platforms, including console, handheld and PC-based gaming. Leveraging the distribution, marketing and sales infrastructure within Warner Home Video, WBIE is a significant worldwide publisher for both internal and third party game titles.

###