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Licensed Avatar Clothing Starts Rolling Out
Over the weekend, Microsoft’s Larry Hryb confirmed that the mysterious “Xbox 360 Beta” that a bunch of Microsoft employees were “testing” wasn’t a game. Wasn’t Natal. It was…licensed avatar clothing. Here, we can see what he’s talking about, as MS employee “Randy No Arms” here is fully decked out in garish Halo threads, from his…
By Luke Plunkett Published June 29, 2009 - Uncategorized
Sony’s Exclusives Coming Up Short?
From the day of the PS3’s launch, Sony have pursued a bold strategy of constantly launching new, original IP as exclusive titles on the console. But while it’s a move that should be applauded on principle, it’s just not translating into sales. Number-cruncher Matt Matthews has, in a report over on GameSetWatch, detailed the sales…
By Luke Plunkett Published June 29, 2009 - Uncategorized
Michael Jackson Spent Big Bucks On Gaming
We’ve all seen that clip from Living with Michael Jackson where he goes bananas buying stuff in Las Vegas. Jackson didn’t limit his spending sprees to tacky furniture. Oh no. This image from Japanese tv shows that a then-34-year-old Jackson allegedly spent over half a million dollars at a London toy store on video games…
By Brian Ashcraft Published June 29, 2009 - Uncategorized
The Making Of Earthworm Jim: Worms, Beasties, Rocky Mountain High
During the 90’s, Sega had a reputation for some fairly left-field (for the industry/time) marketing. Here’s a great example: the making of Earthworm Jim. WARNING: features John Denver. Isn’t Dave Perry’s accent kooky? What the Hell: Badical Earthworm Jim Documentary [Bitmob]
By Luke Plunkett Published June 29, 2009 - Uncategorized
Tetsuya Nomura On Kingdom Hearts 3
One new Kingdom Hearts game, KH 358/2 Days, has been released in Japan. Two more Square-Enix-meets-Disney mash-ups are forthcoming: Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep for the PSP and Kingdom Hearts: Coded for cell phones. But where is the one everyone is waiting for, Kingdom Hearts 3? Kingdom Hearts designer Tetsuya Nomura says he already has…
By Brian Ashcraft Published June 29, 2009 - Uncategorized
If Only These Characters Were Actually In Scribblenauts…
Scribblenauts looks amazing. 10,000 in-game items? Can’t. Wait. And yet…something tugs at the subconscious. Just like it did with LittleBigPlanet. We love creativity, yes, but we also love existing characters. The game won’t, of course, let you conjure the intellectual property of other characters. So if you’re in a pickle, you can’t just write “TRAVIS…
By Luke Plunkett Published June 29, 2009 - Uncategorized
Hey Look, Now, There Is A Dragon
The countdown page for some game Square Enix is trying to hype. The large “4” and the countdown clock are old, but the dragon drawing is new. Even if we don’t like countdown clocks, we do like dragon drawings. Also, the SaGa (AKA Final Fantasy Legend) style music *might* be new as well, since we…
By Brian Ashcraft Published June 29, 2009 - Uncategorized
StarCraft II Beta Planned To Last 4 To 6 Months
Dustin Browder, lead designer on StarCraft II at Blizzard, says that the team is planning to have a publicly playable beta for the game that runs about “four to six months.” When that would go live, Blizzard still isn’t saying. But considering that we’re already six months into 2009, a four to six month beta…
By Michael McWhertor Published June 29, 2009 - Uncategorized
SEGA PSP Music Title Is Pantsu Heavy
Vocaloid character Hatsune Miku, is coming to the PSP with Hatsune Miku -Project Diva-. So are her underpants! SEGA has been playing up the “3D modeling” of the Miku character. This is perhaps why? Then again, maybe these are just her bathing suit — totally innocent. Still, a slew of new screenshots makes some wonder…
By Brian Ashcraft Published June 29, 2009 - Uncategorized
What’s Inside Blizzard’s Library?
Blizzard’s main campus is home to what might be the coolest (and nerdiest) library you’ve ever seen. The employee library, from which Blizzard staffers can check out books, software and more, is a great place to lose oneself. The Blizzard employee library is home to the informational—programming language texts, maps, historical reference—but it’s also filled…
By Michael McWhertor Published June 29, 2009 - Uncategorized
Japanese Newspaper Wonders About “Game Addicts”
The Mainichi Daily News is running a three part series on online game addiction. Most of it seems like scare mongering — students who start playing Maple Story and suddenly became poor students. There’s even worse with one mother saying this about her game addicted child, “Sometimes, he’ll throw the remote control at the TV,…
By Brian Ashcraft Published June 29, 2009 - Uncategorized
StarCraft II Hands-On: Round Three
This past week, Blizzard invited press to visit its Irvine, California campus to go hands-on with the latest and greatest build of StarCraft II‘s multiplayer game. That wasn’t the original plan. When we were first invited to Blizzard’s headquarters, we were going to get our first hands-on experience with StarCraft II‘s single-player game. We were…
By Michael McWhertor Published June 29, 2009 - Uncategorized
Lost Planet 2 Demo Soonish
Capcom’s Lost Planet 2 is slated for this winter. So, we should expect a demo sometime between now and then, no? LP2 producer Jun Takeuchi tells Famitsu, “I think we might be able to offer it [the demo] in a little bit.” The game was in playable form at E3, and Capcom is busy developing…
By Brian Ashcraft Published June 29, 2009 - Uncategorized
SEGA Comments On Michael Jackson
Michael Jackson passed away late last week. He was remembered by the game industry — and SEGA is the latest to comment. We here at SEGA were very sad to hear about the passing of Michael Jackson. He was a true music legend whose songs touched each of us at some point in our lives.…
By Brian Ashcraft Published June 29, 2009 - Uncategorized
The Golden Years
To: Luke From: Owen Re: The Man You guys know that I’ve been in South Carolina for the past four months, looking after my grandfather while he recovered from a rather serious fall and head injury late last year. The good news is that he is well and capable of resuming an independent lifestyle in…
By Owen Good Published June 28, 2009 - Uncategorized
Week in Games: There’s Bound to Be Blood
Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood is the rootinest, tootinest, shootinest title in a busy week, as nearly every publisher is trying to unload some new release by the end of the quarter deadline. [Sorry folks. I forgot to tell teh interwebs to push this out. OSG] Some sites are still showing Marvel vs. Capcom…
By Owen Good Published June 28, 2009 - Uncategorized
Mass Effect Insanity Explained, May not be Locked in ME2
One gripe among hardcore Mass Effect players is that its toughest difficulty was an unlockable – after playing through the game twice. A design lead explains why, and “insanity” may not be locked in ME2. On the Mass Effect forums, Christina Norman, lead system designer, said that Insanity difficulty was made unlockable, because it was…
By Owen Good Published June 28, 2009 - Uncategorized
Arkham Achievements Unveiled
The list of 47 achievements, worth 1,000 Gamerscore, have made it out – for the Games for Windows Live version of Batman: Arkham Asylum. It’s hard to imagine these will change much for 360. Finishing the game on any difficulty (of three settings) returns 50 Gamerscore; 100 percenting it gives you 75, and solving all…
By Owen Good Published June 28, 2009 - Uncategorized
K6
TABLE OF CONTENTS July 2009 Here’s a Story: The Great Chain Interview The Great Chain Interview, Part 1: Miyamoto Questions Metroid Director The Great Chain Interview, Part 2: Metroid Guy To Xbox Guy To PS3 Guy The Great Chain Interview, Part 3: Sony Questions Sony, Who Questions Shane Kim The Great Chain Interview, Part 4:…
By Brian Crecente Published June 28, 2009 -
UncategorizedA Team Fortress 2 Tribute to Billy Mays
This has been a week unlike any other for celebrity deaths. Billy Mays, the cheerful, if relentless pitchman who hawked such items as Oxiclean and Orange Glo, was found dead in his home today. Mays, 50, was something of the modern heir to types like Ron Popeil. But his pitch style was never greasy or…
By Owen Good Published June 28, 2009