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UncategorizedMadden’s First Video Game — It Wasn’t Football
Tucked in a gallery of vintage video game ads is that at left — John Madden lending his cred as “sportscaster for CBS Video Games” to Atari 2600 versions of GORF and Wizard of Wor. Huh. I vaguely remember that library of games. Tooling around teh Google, lo and behold, there’s video (below) of pre-mushmouth…
By Owen Good Published January 17, 2009 - Uncategorized
Rigopoulos “Would Love to” do Amplitude Sequel on PS3
Harmonix’s big hit before Guitar Hero/Rock Band, and a foreshadowing of their gameplay, was Amplitude, developed for SCEA on the PS2. Harmonix CEO Alex Rigopulos says he’d love to “do it right” for the PS3. Ars Technica interviewed Rigopulos earlier this week, and in the discussion, both noted that Sony owns the IP, but doing…
By Owen Good Published January 17, 2009 - Uncategorized
Duck Hunt for a Dollar, ’til Ninty Bags It
A Duck Hunt knockoff for the iPhone and iPod touch is available for 99 cents, but it lacks two key things: Nintendo’s approval, and the Asshole Dog. Venture Beat’s MG Siegler found the app, which calls its emulator the iPES, probably another reason Nintendo’s gonna smash it, as if the dead ripoff quality of gameplay…
By Owen Good Published January 17, 2009 - Uncategorized
Valve’s View: Pirates are Customers Too
Speaking this week at a forum on game industry law, Valve’s Jason Holtman said the company views pirates as “underserved customers” and used a win-win anecdote about Russia showing how they deal with them. According to GameDaily, Holtman said all Valve games are released simultaneously in Russia, a market rife with game piracy. The reason:…
By Owen Good Published January 17, 2009 - Uncategorized
Chinese Online Gamers Must Now Give Real Names
Two paragraphs is all the China Daily puts to this topic, so I can’t give much context here. But the Chinese government will start “real-name registration” for online game players this year. The item, in the China Daily, also notes that four online game companies had their operations suspended because they did not have “the…
By Owen Good Published January 17, 2009 - Uncategorized
EA Sports Offering Immortality to Pryzbylewskis of the World
If you’ve tried to live vicariously through NCAA Football as a big man on campus, but have such a F-ed up last name the announcers only referred to you by number, now’s your chance. EA Sports is asking you to submit your last name and its phonetic pronunciation for inclusion in NCAA Football 2010. Log…
By Owen Good Published January 17, 2009 - Uncategorized
Nirvana Bassist Vexed by Own Song on Rock Band
“I knew the bass line to the song, of course, but I couldn’t quite master this new, different way of playing it,” writes Krist Novoselic, bassist for Nirvana, of his encounter with Rock Band 2. Novoselic wrote about confronting a song he’d played hundreds of time – in studio, live, you name it – on…
By Owen Good Published January 17, 2009 - Uncategorized
U. of Wisconsin Bulldozes Its Last Arcade
The idea that the University of Wisconsin-Madison is razing its second arcade in as many years isn’t surprising — for-profit arcades are suffering terribly. But demolishing an eight lane bowling alley? In Wisconsin? Jeepers. Wisconsin’s Union South, the campus student union for the past 38 years, is being cleared off to make way for a…
By Owen Good Published January 17, 2009 - Uncategorized
Wii Helping Snowbound Schools Make P.E. Fun
Anyone who’s ever lived in upstate New York can imagine the difficulty gym teachers face in winter, when kids simply can’t go outside. Many schools, however, are using the Wii to get kids some exercise. A story in the Post-Star of Glens Falls, N.Y. reports about the mushrooming uses of video games in local schools…
By Owen Good Published January 17, 2009 - Uncategorized
“Mortal Kombat Killer” Gets 36 Years
Lamar Roberts, a teenager convicted of beating to death a seven-year-old, will be an old man when he gets out of prison. The so-called “Mortal Kombat Killer” received a 36-year sentence yesterday. The 2007 beating death of Zoe Garcia, 7, was described by prosecutors and law enforcement in Greeley, Colo. as a reenactment of fight…
By Owen Good Published January 17, 2009 - Uncategorized
Microsoft Retires Gamerscore Blog
Gamerscore Blog, an important part of Microsoft’s Xbox community outreach for several years, is being retired. Microsoft will now focus that effort through Xbox.com and the Xbox dashboard. In the final post, published yesterday at 5 p.m., Gamerscore said that internal housekeeping had organized community outreach into several channels, making Gamerscore a little redundant, making…
By Owen Good Published January 17, 2009 - Uncategorized
Kotaku Originals: Obi-Wat?
Flipping Obi-Wan from good to bad? Is this pro rasslin’? Apparently Free Radical’s decided to turn eternal Force face Ben Kenobi to heel. I’d rather see a bunkhouse stampede with Zuckuss, Porkins, and a Dianoga. The retcon or newcon or noncon or whatever it was that eagle-eyed Crecente spotted in the leaked Battlefront III footage…
By Owen Good Published January 17, 2009 - Uncategorized
The Physics Of The Mushroom Kingdom Are Worthy Of Research
Glenn Elert is a physics teacher from Brooklyn. He and his students did a little research recently, and published a serious paper reporting their findings. How serious? Mushroom Kingdom serious. Yes, Ebert has wisely forgone teaching his kids about gravity the boring/realistic way, and instead decided to chart the gravity in the Mushroom Kingdom. So…
By Luke Plunkett Published January 17, 2009 - Uncategorized
Why Do You Think Arcades Failed In The USA?
Yesterday was… Thursday. Today is… Friday! Time to talk, time for Tell Us Dammit. No, make that TELL US DAMMIT. Here’s who it works: We ask a question, you answer it. Simple and no strings attached! This isn’t some marketing survey or whatever. It’s an emotional investment in you. Yes, we’re interested in knowing you,…
By Brian Ashcraft Published January 17, 2009 - Uncategorized
Child’s Play Done For The Year, Final Amount Tallied
Another year passes, another Child’s Play charity drive winds up. Each year it seems to be getting bigger, grander, more charitable, so let’s take a look and see how much you lot managed to raise. This time around? Records were broken. No, broken and then broken again. Over the course of the 08/09 campaign, an…
By Luke Plunkett Published January 17, 2009 - Uncategorized
A Week In Comments
Wii Music Coming to Classrooms Comment by: ortega602086 And NASA will implement Dead Space for training astronauts…you never know. Zork Returns In MMO Form, Somewhat Comment by: PositivelyGreg Nominated by: Alternate Maze You are in a twisted set of passages, every one alike. Somebody else’s intellectual property is lying here, forgotten. It looks like it…
By Brian Ashcraft Published January 17, 2009 - Uncategorized
Homebrew Wii HDD Workaround Succeeds Where Nintendo Does Not
No HDD on the Wii eh, Nintendo? Big mistake. Makes Wii owners sad. Never mind, while Nintendo may be lacking the will to make a storage device for the Wii, others are more adventurous. Matrix have parted the curtains on the WiiZii, a plugn-play mod (mod! avert your eyes!) that allows you the user to…
By Luke Plunkett Published January 16, 2009 - Uncategorized
UK Female Devs Make More Money Than UK Male Devs [Update]
According to game site MCV, women in the UK game industry make more than their male counterparts. But how much more is the question. The answer is £2,000 (US$2,947) more. MCV and its sister publication Develop magazine surveyed 528 UK game industry professional to collect its findings. Here’s what we learned: • The average annual…
By Brian Ashcraft Published January 16, 2009 - Uncategorized
NPD Say PC Sales Are Down, Down, Down
2008’s NPD numbers are now out there for analysis. So let the analysis commence! Up for discussion tonight are PC sales numbers, and how the NPD Group tell us they’re down 14% from 2007. Which, according to the way the NPD Group collect their sales data, is correct! Bad bad news, right? No, no, no.…
By Luke Plunkett Published January 16, 2009 - Uncategorized
Let’s Read Final Fantasy XIII Scans IN ENGLISH
These V Jump scans are not new — they popped up a few days ago. They were in Japanese, and now they’re not. Final Fantasy-XIII.net has kindly translated them into the English for your reading enjoyment. So… Enjoy! Jump Scans Translated [Final Fantasy-XIII.net]
By Brian Ashcraft Published January 16, 2009