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PSN Picked a Strange Weekend to Have an Outage [Update]
Good old Error 8071053D is back if you try to sign into PlayStation Network from your PlayStation 3. If you try to log in to a PlayStation web site, you get a page tells you the site is down for maintenance. These outages affect North American servers. Update: A Sony representative tells Kotaku that the…
By Owen Good -
Sega Gives Phantasy Star Universe Three Months to Live
Though its singleplayer functionality will, of course, remain, the six-year run of Phantasy Star Universe will come to an end Sept. 7 when Sega shuts off online support for the game for the Xbox 360. Sega announced the shutdown yesterday. “This was not an easy decision but there comes a time when we must consider…
By Owen Good -
Chinese Domain Squatter Won’t Own ‘XboxSmartGlass.com’ for Much Longer
Before E3, Microsoft registered every possible permutation of “XboxSmartGlass” and “MicrosoftSmartGlass,” tipping off Monday’s reveal of the technology that will connect the Xbox 360 to Android and iOS devices. Well, they got every possible combination except one: “XboxSmartGlass.com.” That’s owned by one Tang Haiyue of Guanghzhou, China, who bagged the domain on June 1, right…
By Owen Good -
Some Dude’s Trying to Play Q*Bert for a Ridiculously Long Time. Again.
OK, well, not just “some dude.” The record-seeker is Ed Heemskerk, who set the marathon record for Q*Bert at 68.5 hours back in March, and now is bidding for a 100-hour stretch on a single quarter. He started yesterday morning at 8 a.m. EDT, meaning that, by now, he’s a little more than a quarter…
By Owen Good -
Pay Less for Your Guild Dues
The occasion of Guild Wars 2‘s second beta weekend is good enough to put the game on pre-order discount from one e-tailer. That, plus some preoders from heavily anticipated big hits this fall, and a couple of unusual combo sales, highlight the first post-E3 edition of The Moneysaver. More than 60 savings are below. Dig…
By Owen Good -
What Are You Playing This Weekend?
Rather burnt to a crisp here, coming out of Los Angeles, and not sure I’ll be playing much of anything this weekend as I recover my mental faculties from E3. There’s still a lot left to say from what we saw down there, and it’s hard to break out of mental note-taking, since you can’t…
By Owen Good -
Madden 13 is Mostly Law-Abiding in Its Physics—Though It Does Jaywalk at Times
If you can sit up straight and squirm in your seat at the same time, I did when I got the news Madden NFL‘s creators revealed they were going to go for it this year, with their “Infinity Engine” offering real-time physics. It is a long overdue feature, something seen even in a striver title…
By Owen Good -
THQ Sold Out to EA Sports Because It Didn’t Break Even on UFC 3
In hindsight, it should be no surprise that THQ jettisoned its expensive exclusive license to make video games with the UFC’s imagery and fighters. The company is hurting badly and had gone through a huge, soul-searching reorganization, jettisoning its kids-stuff division and completely bailing on E3 this year as its stock price hovers around 66…
By Owen Good -
A One-on-One Thrashing Reveals the Helpful Teammates of FIFA 13
David Rutter, the executive producer of the highly acclaimed FIFA series for EA Sports, sought me out after a closed-doors briefing and without giving me a chance to explain how terrible I am at his game, picked up a DualShock, handed me the other, and started the game. And he took Barçelona, too, the club…
By Owen Good -
Remembering the Fallen, and the Decisions for Which They Died, in XCOM: Enemy Unknown
XCOM: Enemy Unknown reintroduces itself immediately with very familiar themes of sacrifice. In the first mission, a tutorial, I lost three squad members, and there seemed to be no way to avoid it. The game, I think, was conditioning me not so much to accept death, but to accept that it is on the table…
By Owen Good -
Borderlands 2‘s Horse Cannon Kicks Like a Mule, and I Want You to Have the One I Used [Update]
The Borderlands 2 hands-on demo at E3 involves a bunch of 25-level characters from each of the game’s four classes, partly to give players a chance to spec out higher-level characters and see what that’s all about, and also to give them a taste of combat midway through the campaign. But the gang at Gearbox…
By Owen Good -
Madden‘s Developers Built a Working Canadian Football Game—but Don’t Look For It Anytime Soon
Canadian football—with 12 men to a side, longer and wider fields, and the single point for touchbacks—is feasible within technology available to Madden NFL‘s developers. Back in April, I was told that some developers once built a working CFL game internally, with uniforms and helmets skinned using NCAA Football‘s TeamBuilder tools. I told this to…
By Owen Good -
Forza Horizon Offers an Open Road to Action, Music and the Fast Life
Total simulation racers are not something I’ve played much at all. I’ve got nothing against them, but I tend to drive like a maniac and a lot of the detailing and physics are like pearls before swine with a guy like me. Reflecting on my preferences makes the existence of a spinoff title like Forza…
By Owen Good -
Why All of XCOM: Enemy Unknown‘s Missions Sound Like 1980s Heavy Metal Albums
Every mission briefing screen in XCOM: Enemy Unknown begins with an operation name. Playing through the game’s initial levels, they sounded somewhat deliberate but a little disconnected. Investigating an alien abduction in China, for example, was Operation Burning Pyre, I think. Didn’t really connect with the matter at hand but, eh. Well, they’re randomized. And…
By Owen Good -
Look, Just Forget About a Baseball Game on the Xbox 360 Next Year
The long, slow goodbye to Major League Baseball 2K has been widely expected for more than a year. Gamers therefore assumed that EA Sports—frankly the only publisher with shoulders broad enough to take on this kind of a job right now—would jump back in with MVP Baseball (pictured). You can forget about that happening anytime…
By Owen Good -
Sizing Up Its Competition, NBA 2K13 Will Stick to the Way It Plays the Game
Let’s go ahead and say it: NBA 2K13 is right back where it was two years ago—locked in the only meaningful head-to-head competition in sports video game publishing. It’s a fight it won quite decisively, too, when its competitor failed to launch and then sat out 2011, while NBA 2K turned in its two best…
By Owen Good -
Kirk and Spock Voiced by 2009’s Kirk and Spock in Star Trek
This time last year, Star Trek, the upcoming game from Digital Extremes, had licensed the appearances of Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto, who had portrayed Kirk and Spock in the 2009 cinematic reboot. The actors’ voice work had yet to be signed. Well, yesterday, the two beamed aboard. Not only that, they’ll be joined by…
By Owen Good -
So, What the @$%& is the Deal With Swearing in FIFA 13?
In Microsoft’s E3 keynote yesterday, a demonstration of voice-command Kinect support in FIFA 13 yesterday left the impression that if you’re on the adverse end of an official’s decision and you swear at the judgment, you could draw a booking for dissent. It sure looked that way on the video. There was a bleep and…
By Owen Good -
See This? See This Blend of Sports Skill and Dancing Rhythm? Yeah, Owen’s Gonna Try That on Video
No, NBA Baller Beats, a Kinect rhythm game, is not a joke, but I’m sure as hell going to look like one attempting to play it when I swing by Majesco’s booth later this week at E3. I can’t do a crossover dribble. I can’t even dribble with my left hand. Now, I can dribble…
By Owen Good -
Batman: Arkham City: Armored Edition is Coming to Wii U
Batman: Arkham City is getting a special version, optimized for the Wii U controller, Warner Bros. said on stage at Nintendo’s E3 news conference today. The game’s “Armored Edition” will let players use the Wii U pad to activate features of Batman’s armor and weaponry. The audience was shown how to guide the remote control…
By Owen Good
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