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McGee
To: Ash From: Crecente Re: Tough Times Yeah, horrible times. I just found out that a paper I worked at years ago had massive lay-offs, like six months ago. Even though it’s old news to everyone involved it’s still pretty shocking stuff. Print may not be dead, but it’s certainly going into hibernation. I really…
By Brian Crecente Published January 7, 2009 - Uncategorized
CES 09: Don’t Count On Rock Band 3 This Year, Expect Beatles Game Instead
Harmonix CEO Alex Rigopulos says that Rock Band may be taking the year off in 2009, with the developer focusing its efforts on the Beatles game it announced in October. Instead, expect more music. Rigopulos said at the Billboard Digital Music Live keynote at CES that the Harmonix team will be directing its “creative energy”…
By Michael McWhertor Published January 7, 2009 - Uncategorized
CES 09: XBLA Doritos Game Downloaded Almost 1 Millon Times
Advergaming is huge. At least that’s the takeaway from Microsoft’s John Kroese, who revealed that the Mike Borland and Ninja Bee developed Doritos’ Dash of Destruction racked up almost a million downloads in December. Kroese, General Manager in the Entertainment & Devices Advertising Business Group at Microsoft said that the Xbox Live Arcade freebie was…
By Michael McWhertor Published January 7, 2009 - Uncategorized
Red Bull Coming to Home This Week
Red Bull island, complete with Red Bull air racing, is coming to Home this week, hopefully free of the lines that have made bowling feel so restrictive in the virtual Playstation 3 world. Playstation Home community manager CydoniaX says that Home-goers will be able to access and explore the island by clicking on the Red…
By Brian Crecente Published January 7, 2009 - Uncategorized
Reggie: Nintendo Listens To Its Fans, Honest
If you’re feeling a bit neglected by the folks at Nintendo of America, now that it’s at the top of the console market heap, President Reggie Fils-Aime wants you to know that they’re listening. Fils-Aime tells GameDaily that Nintendo that “We listen to our fans all the time.” But what about the grumble-inducing decisions? Things…
By Michael McWhertor Published January 7, 2009 - Uncategorized
Tetris Spells Trauma Relief
Researches at the Oxford University in England have discovered that the effects of traumatic stress can be dampened by something as simple as playing a bit of Tetris. 40 healthy volunteers were exposed to a film containing a series of traumatic graphic images of injuries. Half of the subjects were given the game Tetris to…
By Mike Fahey Published January 7, 2009 - Uncategorized
The Kinetics of Pinball
The man behind such pinball greats as Fun House, the Addams Family and The Twilight Zone, Pat Lawlor, recently sat down with Gamasutra to discuss the history and design of pinball games. The interview covers a bunch of topics, but most interesting is Lawlor’s take on pinball kinetics. There are obviously many aspects involved in…
By Brian Crecente Published January 7, 2009 - Uncategorized
CES 09: Audiovox Puts PlayStation 2s In Your Car, Dawg
Yo, dawg, Audiovox heard you like the PlayStation 2 and car ownership. So it co-branded with Sony on a PlayStation 2 for your car so you can play games while you drive. Announced at today’s Audiovox press conference at CES, the new entertainment system featuring an integrated PlayStation 2 and 16-channel wireless FM modulator is…
By Michael McWhertor Published January 7, 2009 - Uncategorized
Uwe Boll Receives Four Razzie Nominations
The Golden Raspberry Awards are the anti-Oscars, celebrating the worst that film has to offer, so it comes as no surprise that our favorite video game movie director Uwe Boll be nominated for four. According to Larry Carroll of the MTV Movie Blog, Boll appears four times on the 2008 Razzie ballot, with nominations for…
By Mike Fahey Published January 7, 2009 - Uncategorized
Major Left 4 Dead Update Coming Very Soon to PC, Console
Valve will be announcing a major update to the software development kit for PC users and downloadable content details for the Xbox 360 “very soon”, a company spokesman told Kotaku today. The new details, first hinted at in our December in-game interview with Valve’s Chet Faliszek, could be announced as early as next week. Valve…
By Brian Crecente Published January 7, 2009 - Uncategorized
Wii, PS3 See Hardware Sales Gains In Japan
The holidays were very good to Nintendo in Japan, with hardware sales big enough to translate to a second bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken on Christmas Eve. We’re talking 380,000 game machines moved in a week. Leading Nintendo’s hardware charge was the Nintendo DSi. Sales were actually down, week to week, but still far enough…
By Michael McWhertor Published January 7, 2009 - Uncategorized
GameCrazy Offers Street Fighter Coinage For SFIV Pre-Orders
Take a gander at this special, limited edition commemorative Street Fighter IV coin, available exclusively to folks who pre-order Capcom’s next big fighting game from retailer GameCrazy. The commemorative Street Fighter 20th Anniversary coin is a thing of joy and wonder, encompassing everything it means to be a coin, while still commemorating an event. It…
By Mike Fahey Published January 7, 2009 - Uncategorized
The 2008 GOTY GOTYs: The Best of the Best
Last year Multiplayer came up with a great idea: sorting through all of the Game of the Year Awards to pick one conclusive winner. This year, I’m stealing that idea, and not making it better. After scouring the internet for upwards of 45 minutes I managed to find 24 different publications that had finished drip-feeding…
By Brian Crecente Published January 7, 2009 - Uncategorized
An American (McGee) In Shanghai
Like most stories, this starts with a girl. Rather, this starts with a boy chasing a girl — to Hong Kong. The boy wasn’t a boy, but developer American McGee. And the girl? We’ll get to her later. For the time being, she’s the impetus that spurred McGee to start frequently visiting Hong Kong and…
By Brian Ashcraft Published January 7, 2009 - Uncategorized
Saint’s Row 2 Hits Steam
The nice folks at Valve have just informed us that THQ’s open-world gangbanger simulation Saint’s Row II is now available to download and play on your PC via Steam. Yes, along with your local PC game dealer, Saint’s Row 2 is now available for download on the Steam Service for the low price of $39.99,…
By Mike Fahey Published January 7, 2009 - Uncategorized
Ubisoft Makes Grey’s Anatomy Game Official
Though most likely perturbed by having their fun ruined by the ESRB last month, Ubisoft has gone ahead and made Grey’s Anatomy for the Nintendo Wii, DS, and PC official. The Grey’s Anatomy games sounds like a cross between Trauma Surgeon and a an adventure game, with players taking on the roles of their favorite…
By Mike Fahey Published January 7, 2009 - Uncategorized
Creat And Tikgames Bring Cuboid To PSN
Creat and Tikgames are combining gamers’ craving for puzzles with their deep-seated love of geometric shapes, resulting in Cuboid, a new puzzler coming soon to the PlayStation Network. In a post over at PlayStation.Blog, Creat Studios producer Olga Sokolova discusses the new 3D puzzle game, available “soon” on the PlayStation Network for $9.99. Cuboid is…
By Mike Fahey Published January 7, 2009 - Uncategorized
iPhone, DS, Touch and Kaossilator Make Beautiful Music Together
In this video you see jetdaisuke jamming with an iPhone, two DS, iPod Touch and Kaossilator. The iPhone has Bloom on it and the iPod touch has Mokugyo. He’s using one DS to run Electroplankton and another to run KORG DS-10. The whole thing is backed up with the touchy Kaossilator. This is where chipmusic…
By Brian Crecente Published January 7, 2009 - Uncategorized
50 Cent Takes Cover In New Blood On The Sand Clip
Isn’t he supposed to be Bulletproof? A fresh new video and screens from THQ’s 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand show off the game’s cover system, which involves Fiddy shouting expletives between firing weapons. At first I was a bit taken aback by the cover system, which as I said revolves around calling the enemy…
By Mike Fahey Published January 7, 2009 - Uncategorized
Bioshock Could See Upwards Of Five Sequels, Story Willing
While wary of “cashing in” on the franchise, Global President of 2K Christoph Hartmann suggests that Bioshock could follow the Star Wars saga, generating sequels as long as the story holds out. Now of course he isn’t guaranteeing five more Bioshock games, but Hartmann says that if the innovation is there and the storyline is…
By Mike Fahey Published January 7, 2009