Shameless Words from Shameless Geeks

Here’s some sad news for those of us who enjoy playing the Company of Heroes series. Brian Wood, lead designer of the series, was killed Friday in an unfortunate traffic accident. From the description of the event, you get the sense that Brian was a true hero. There aren’t many people who would be able to make that split-second decision to sacrifice themselves for their family.

I’d like to hear more about what happens to the driver of the other vehicle. Anyone who kills three people in such a seemingly stupid way (especially with the little drug implication in there) deserves to be treated harshly.

Duke Nukem Forever is back and to be released this Spring. Gee how many times have we heard this?
If Duke Nukem Forever does come out this spring I will fly back to DC and play it in one of Shameless infamous Lan parties.

Texas must of changed me, I am about to ban my daughter from video games. Never thought I would have to do it. Even worse I my wife and I where complaining about how video games are evil. I blame everything on game cheats. Game cheats have turned my daughter into a hopeless video game zombie.
Game cheats are the devils work, we must fight to ban them. They are driving our youth down a path of evil. We must stop them. So let us join hands and pray for GameFaqs soul.

Was the infamous Duke Nukem vaporware actually released today? Can the granddaddy of all gaming jokes be at an end?

Naaaah. We can relax. It’s only a re-hash of the old Duke Nukem 3D title for XBox Live Arcade. They almost had me believing that Duke Nukem Forever was actually released. I suppose that I should have known better. The universe still exists, and hell is… well… still hell. Please go back to fragging.

I heard about the world’s first Commodore 64 LAN party the other day. I guess it was a cool thing to dredge up the old equipment and do it just for the sake of saying it can be done. However, forgive me if I don’t attend… I have config files that take up more memory that the whole C64 has.

One thing to note: Retro is supposed to be a huge trend today, but I found very little about the event online. Most posts just referred to the /. entry, or it’s constituent parts. I guess the whole retro thing is more hype than market.

Here’s a nice little tidbit for gamers out there. It seems that it matters what color you are when you play online. No… I don’t meant your race or ethnicity… I mean it matters whether you are on the red team or the blue team.

The study makes me wonder about the accuracy of their data. There are many ways that this can come out wrong without fudging the data. It’s possible that players just prefer to join the red team. Unbalanced games would throw things way off. Even if the game is auto-balanced you have to wonder if red is the default team for the extra player.

In the end, I guess I’ll just have to play on the red team. That will even the statistics eventually

In one of his trademarked moves, our favorite less-than-completely-sane lawyer Jack Thompson walked out on his own disbarment hearing, leaving a 4500 word rant for the record. It doesn’t look like the rant is going to get him out of an “enhanced disbarment", meaning that he is not only disbarred, he is unable to apply for his license for at least ten years.

I’m sure that Senators Clinton and Obama will be surprised that they are in step with his beliefs (according to him). I don’t think that the endorsement of a raving lunatic is the kind of thing they had in mind. Honestly, McCain should consider himself lucky that his name didn’t come up.

The irony of this story is that Jack devoted himself to eradicating Grand Theft Auto. In the end, it appears that the game outlasted him. You could even say that the game eradicated his law career.

This time, things look bad for our old buddy Jack. He’s headed for a sanctions hearing and it looks like he’s going to be found guilty. Considering some of the things he’s accused of, I doubt that he’ll ever be taken seriously in a court of law again.

I actually hope that he doesn’t disappear completely from the spotlight. I realize that I’ve been known to rant about his views in the past, but I seriously hope he stays around. It’s really easy to make a point when the guy countering it has a question mark in the sanity column.

From the cyberfantasy department: Emotive Systems will begin selling it’s EPOC neuroheadset later this year.

The device is described as a headset that senses emotions and thoughts and translates them for a PC. Even though it sounds like the next big thing in computing, I’ll reserve judgment until I actually see a working device. We’ve all been burned at one time or another by the “next big thing” that turns out to be the “next big scam".

Of course, we now have to ask the question: “do I really want a device that reads my thoughts and emotions"? I know some people who should answer “no” to this question… especially men. You’ve all heard about the “study” that says men think of sex every 5 seconds. Who wants a new porn site to pop up on his screen every 5 seconds?!? That might get uncomfortable at work.

There are other serious questions as well. If you aren’t very bright, does your cursor get dim too? Does it move slower that everyone else’s? or does it just move erratically? What does it mean if some other guy’s cursor is bigger than mine? Inquiring minds want to know.

It looks like GameSpot may have fired a veteran reviewer for writing a negative review. There is nothing new about this kind of thing. Game publishers have been controlling the outcome of reviews for years. How many times have we seen reviews that blasted gameplay, stability, and graphics in the text, yet gave the game a 90% plus rating?

From the perspective of the publishers, it’s an easy business decision. If they can control the outcome of reviews by controlling where they spend their advertising dollars, why shouldn’t they? It’s like getting “unbiased” advertising for free!

If you look at “game journalism” as a whole, this kind of thing is inevitable. The entire “industry” is based on a group of people who play games for a living, then give their opinions of them. Playing video games in your office requires no training and no skills at all. You could argue that writing the review requires some skill, but a large percentage of these reviews show no evidence of skill whatsoever.

Given the amount of skill and training necessary to be a game reviewer, how large do you think the pool of replacement reviewers is? If one of them annoys a cash-cow advertiser, how difficult will he be to replace? Given everything else we know it’s easy to see that negative reviews are anti-survival behavior. In the end, we are left with nothing but a group that is afraid to say anything bad about a current or potential advertiser.

If, after close examination of how and why reviews are made, you still depend on paid reviewers for your info… then I have a really good deal on a bridge I’d like to show you.

Jack Thompson (AKA Wacko Jacko) is facing an ethics trial for his antics in pursuit of the gaming industry. I really can’t think of a better candidate for this kind of action.

I notice he’s trying to play the “persecuted Christian” role. Sorry Jacko, attacking people for personal gain is a very Un-Christian thing to do. It looks like most of the people opposed to you are better Christians than you are.

It looks like Take-Two has a serious, company-wide problem learning from it’s own lessons. They are once again caught up in a case where they hastily hid some overly graphic scenes. The last time (GTA:SA), the scenes were so bad that there was no chance of them avoiding an Adults-Only rating. This time (Manhunt 2), they hid the scenes that got them an Adults-Only rating in the first place.

Is it such a difficult concept that you should DELETE offensive scenes? …or is this just Take-Two’s way of creating controversy around a game that has gotten a mediocre welcome in the gaming community? Either way, I hope they don’t profit from this kind of behavior.

Well, it looks like the CoH series is about to go the way of the EE series.

Yep, thats right… you can’t share it at LAN parties.

The new “anti piracy” measures require that you login to an account as long as you have a network connection active. This means that we either disable the net connection or log on to a relic server for key verification. Either option keeps us from joining a game.

I get together on occasion with a bunch of friends for LAN parties. Generally, we all have copies of a game if we have been playing it for a while. If you know that you’ll be getting together with friends every month or so, you usually want to practice up with the featured games so that you don’t look like a fool.

Most game companies have been content to allow us to share the CD at a LAN party. If we want to play a game that we don’t own, we install it, start it, then pass the CD back to it’s owner. Since most games don’t allow you to start the game without the copy-protected CD in the drive, those who don’t actually own the game aren’t able to play it without the owner being present. This exposes all of us to the game, gives us all a chance to preview it, and eventually leads directly to sales. I like to call this CD-passing “LAN party mode” or “the LAN party shuffle".

Now we have a situation where I won’t be able to share my copy with another prospective buyer at my next LAN party. Since I don’t feel right forcing everyone to buy a copy of a game on my “say so", I’ll probably remove it from the list of games.

… but that’s not all… Not playing it at LAN parties will probably cause me to lose interest in it VERY fast. That’s exactly what happened to me with Empire Earth 2. That was the last LAN party game that disappointed me by removing itself from LAN parties. (by the way… how’s that working out for them? brisk pre-order sales of EE3? I think not)

To add to the confusion, there wasn’t a bit of warning that I would have to create an online account to use the game in single user mode. None. Zip. Zilch. Nada. If there had been some kind of warning on the box, I would have been able to return it unopened. As of right now, I’m beginning to wish I hadn’t bought it.

Oh… I almost forgot… CoH 2 won’t co-exist with CoH. It won’t install until it uninstalls your copy of CoH. There may be some kind of logical explanation for this, but I can’t think of one. The end result is that I can’t even specify the old version of CoH for my next LAN party. It is no longer installed on my machine, and it will no longer be installed on any machine that gets “upgraded” (it really hurt to use the word “upgraded” there).

It’s really a shame when gaming companies change their tactics like this. It makes their customers feel like criminals before they even start the game. Color me disappointed.

The sequel to my favorite WWII RTS has just gone gold. Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts looks to be a standalone game that remains compatible with the original. It includes a couple of new campaigns, and supports 4 armies in multiplayer. That is good news for my LAN party friends, who are getting tired of the same old matchup. The Relic announcement doesn’t give a release date other than “later this month", but I heard a rumor that the release date is 9/28/07.

Here’s a new one. There are reports of sore muscles and joints that are attributed to gamers playing with their Wii too much. Luckily, nobody has gone blind yet

Wiiitis is much less serious than a StarCraft attack, which has been known to be fatal in at least one South Korean case.

That’s the tag line that went along with Blizzard’s big weekend announcement that there will be a Starcraft 2. Rumors and hoaxes have been rampant lately, but this news is directly from blizzard’s web site. Unless the folks at blizzard have gotten cocky enough to annoy their most loyal fan base for a laugh, this one is real.

They give no word on when the game will be released. As usual, “it will be done when it’s done". As someone who has spent years in the software industry, I can see the wisdom in that. As a big fan of the original game, I can see anxiety in it.

Judging by the content of the web page, we’ll be lucky to see a release by Christmas. I haven’t been able to watch the gameplay videos yet (I will someday… when they finish downloading), but I noticed that the rest of the site is pretty light on content. Either they have very little to put up, or they are holding back. I’m guessing it’s the former.

As for the storyline, it claims to pick up where Brood Wars left off. That’s not surprising, since they left the story wide open for just such an event. I’m just surprised that they have decided to pick it up now, 9 years later.

Starcraft 2 has some big shoes to fill. Starcraft became more that just a beloved classic, it became an obsession. It broke up marriages, ruined college careers, got people fired from high tech jobs, and has even been blamed for a death in South Korea. It won’t be easy to top that! Good luck Blzzard, we’re rooting for you!

Heh. Here’s one to laugh at. In yet another article about how the gaming segment is getting older, and how 2nd generation gamers are popping up, someone coined the name Nintendads.

The article itself is nothing new. It’s the same stuff we’ve all seen from tech writers who have nothing to report. However, It’s the first time I’ve seen the term.

Of course, I’ve been out of touch for almost a year. Maybe others have seen it?

A few weeks ago, I started working on getting a few game servers up and running on this machine. As of now, I have Call of Duty 2 and Counter Strike: Source functioning. For now, they only have whatever was available “in the box". I’m considering adding mods in the near future. Both are using the IP address 209.160.73.13.

This server is reasonable powerful, but very lightly loaded. Ping times should be short, and gameplay should be smooth. Enjoy.

Sony reports that the PS3 is currently incompatible with 200+ PS2 games. The announcement, of course, came after store shelves were emptied by the Japan launch of the system. Yet another product launched before it was ready? You be the judge.

It’s been a long time since I’ve posted a review of a good PC multiplayer game. I’d like to be able to say it was because I was too busy to review them for the last year (or more). Unfortunately, I’ve only been too busy for the last few months. The truth is that there just hasn’t been anything that I’ve considered worth playing.

(more…)

The recent surge in retro gaming really doesn’t surprise me much. Then, as now, it’s all about gameplay. Sure, Asteroids had a hideous vector graphic display that started to flicker badly when the number of flying rocks got large. Of course Pac-man had overly simplistic graphics, and Donkey Kong (the original) only used two sprites to walk. It didn’t matter then, and it doesn’t matter now. They were just plain fun.

Current video game developers are beginning to notice, but I still don’t think they fully understand. Stunning graphics and insanely smart AI are always nice, but a reasonable challenge and a good laugh will go a lot further.

It is official the Nintendo Wii launch date is November 19th and it will retail for $250.00. EB Games and Amazon are not yet taking pre-orders but the second they do I will notify you.

Sony announced today that they are not going to be able to ship enough PS3 this year due to production issue with the Blue-Ray lasers for the PS3, forcing delays in Europe and Australia. This most likely means that Sony will not deliver the promised amount of PS3 to the USA market. Then again this may work in favor for Sony since demand is very low for the PS3 amongst gamers right now.

Well, this bit of information may be a little late, but I still need to say it… Whatever you do, Don’t expect to play Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends in multiplayer mode. We have now attempted to play the game at two different LAN parties, but have come away unhappy from both.

The game itself is beautiful, has an interesting array of characters, and plays pretty well (so far) in single player mode. However, we have tried twice to attach 7 players to the same game, and failed miserably both times. The worst part is that there is no rhyme or reason to the troubles. Someone will create a game, 5 of 7 players can join, but the other 2 can’t. Start another game, whether from the same server or a different one, and you might get a 3 or 4 who can join, including the 2 who couldn’t join the first game. It seems as though it it doesn’t matter who starts the game, it is random chance that determines who can join.

This is the second Big Huge game from Microsoft that has given us troubles. Rise of Nations has trouble crashing on some systems in the middle of a multi player game. One would think that a company as big as Microsoft could make a more stable game than someone like Blizzard. I guess the new adage should be: the bigger they are, the harder they crash.

As long as Blizzard keeps releasing new StarCraft patches I’ll keep on downloading them. The new 1.14 patch is mostly a fix for cheats, but adds a few new features to the in-game chat facilities.

For some reason, this games never seems to get old. A few of my LAN party friends have been playing this game since the day it came out, and we still play one or two rounds at the end of every LAN party. A good game never gets boring.

It looks like E2 2007 will be substantially smaller than previous expo’s. I guess it was bound to happen. When a trade show gets so big that it starts scaring away visitors, it’s time to re-think the whole idea. Plus… if they break it up into smaller shows, it will give us more to talk about throughout the year.

I wonder if LeakeNova will be going there for vacation in 2007? Naaaahhhh!

In a recent interview IBM VP Tom Reeve dropped a hint that the yields on the Cell processor for Playstation 3’s are about 20%. He also stated that the Cell will only have 7 slaves and could drop to 6, which is different from the 8 that Sony said it would have. Hopefully, Sony planned on the low chip yields or there are going to be serious shortages of PS3s this Christmas. This may also explain why Sony delayed the launch of the PS3 from Spring till the last quarter. Still… with poor performance, low yields and a hard to program chip, is the Playstation 3 going to worth the $600 price tag? Guess we will have to wait and see.

USAToday is running a story that is essentially a commercial advertisement for the upcoming Call of Duty 3. It gives a little insight into what the developers are doing to advance the technology of portraying WWII.

Actually, I’m not doubting that COD3 will be released. I’m just wondering whether I will be in a rush to buy it. I was one of those who was extremely disappointed by the anti-cheat support in CoD2. The game itself was OK, but I bought it primarily so that I could play online… I even attempted to run a public server. Unfortunately, the cheating was so rampant that I gave up and took down the server. When they finally got around to fixing the problem, I had already lost interest.

I seriously hope that they will pay attention to the online gaming community this time.

Just got reminded that yesterday was Quake’s 10th birthday. Quake was my first multiplayer experience, as it was for most gamers of the time. I wish I could have back all of the hours that I spent playing Quake in the late 90’s. Then again… I’d probably just spend them all on a different game anyway.

Happy birthday Quake! I’ve owned every one of your descendants all of the way down to your great, great, grandson.

This time, Louisiana has enacted a law making it illegal to sell violent video games to minors. It’s beginning to get silly. All of these laws get struck down in the courts relatively quickly. Passing them is just a pathetic attempt to appeal to certain type of constituents.

I don’t see violent content as a good thing, but I’ve yet to see anyone who has a good idea about how to keep it away from kids. The only thing that works at all is good parenting.

Update:

Heh. ’scuze me. looks like I’m a little behind the times. A federal judge had already put the law on hold by the time I had written this post. Guess I need to look at better sources. The opinion part of it is still valid, of course.

Just in case you thought that the worlds most notorious game release schedule was nearing completion, here is evidence that Duke Nukem Forever remains unfinished. That concludes our humorous gaming post for today.

Take-Two and the FTC finally came to an agreement about the “hot coffee” mod that caused a big stir last year.

The deal is a lot more lenient than I expected. It could be that the FTC noticed that Take-Two has been losing a lot of money lately. A big fine would probably have just put them under.

Okay, I know video games can be addictive and at some points they have taken over my life, but do we really need a detox clinic for video games? When are people going to wake up to the fact that some people that can get addicted to anything, and that the most addictive games are the ones that are the most social?

It looks like the Adult video makers are taking a stab at getting a share of the MMORPG pie. Personally, I don’t think adult MMORPGs are going to succeed. There are already a million places online to get the stuff they are offering for free. Still, this is a free country and they have the right to pour money down the drain.

I finally went out and bought a copy of Rise of Legends. Well… better late than never. I think my first impression can be summed up in one sentence: Warcraft III meets Rise of Nations.

First of all, RoL takes a good stab at the kind of asymmetric teams found in Blizzard’s classic RTS games like Starcraft and Warcraft III. The asymmetric part falls a little flat compared to the Blizzard versions, with a whole lot of similarities between armies. However, there are certainly enough differences to keep things interesting.

The next concept borrowed from Blizzard is the concept of hero units. These are fairly standard, and end up being the usual powerful units with special abilities. You are always limited to a single copy of each type, and they are capable of leveling up. The heroes are a good addition, though they aren’t a great one.

The graphics are very good, and the opening cinematic stuff is outstanding. Installation was on 4 CD’s, and didn’t take an excessively long time. Everything seemed to run smoothly on my not-quite-state-of-the-art X800Pro, and Shinnite seemed to have no trouble with her 9600Pro.

Game play is a hybrid combo of a Blizzard style RTS where build order was king, and the Rise of Nations balanced micromanagement approach. I found that one wrong move while setting up an infrastructure would easily put me waaay behind, while failing to have enough units early could be fatal. Game play was good, but there wasn’t much that was actually new.

The most annoying part of the game was the nearly indestructible mega units available to each team. It limits the game play to a contest of who can be the first to create a Glass Dragon, or a City of Vengeance, or whatever. In my opinion, this is a severe downfall.

PROS:

• Good graphics balance. Good enough to look pleasant, but not complex enough to kill game speed
• Interesting characters
• Simple resource model
• Good balance of micromanagement and strategy

CONS:

• Not enough asymmetry. too many units are similar to units on another team
• Non-intuitive build tree. You can’t just jump in and expect to be able to play.
• Hero stuff is overdone
• Mega units severely limit the useful strategies

Verdict:
This game could be an interesting diversion if you have nothing to do on a rainy weekend. There is enough interesting stuff to provide some hours of fun, but the obvious strategy will get boring fairly quickly. The game isn’t bad, but it seems to be a $25 game in a $40 box.

Another week and another list of games coming out this week. Not much to report, however because of technical difficulties I did miss last weeks. The big game last week was the New Super Mario Bros for the Nintendo DS. I bought it this weekend, and it is fairly easy to call it the best Mario game for the Nintendo DS. Onto this week list:

Backyard Baseball 2007 for the Gameboy Advance
Field Commander for the PSP
2006 FIFA World Cup for the PSP
Heroes of Might and Magic V for the PC
Jaws Unleashed for the Playstation 2 and XBox
Lemmings for the PSP
Miss Spider: Harvest Time Hop and Fly for the Nintendo DS
Monster Hunter Freedom for the PSP
Puzzle Challenge: Crosswords & More! for the Playstation 2 and PSP
Rouge Trooper for the PC, XBox, and Playstation 2
Steamboat Chronicles for the Playstation 2
Table Tennis for the XBox 360
Teen Titans for the Playstation 2 and Gamecube

A semi decant list of games coming out this week, here are the highlights:

Heroes of Might and Magic V: I thought we where never again going to see another Heroes of Might and Magic at least as a RPG. I figure some crazed game exec would deiced to turn it into a MMORPG, but nope thankfully we get a classic turn based RPG. Too bad turn based RPGs died on the PC about 5 years ago when the MMORPG surfaced.

Jaws Unleashed : I don’t know why I have been looking forward to this game, but I am. I guess it is like Snakes on a Plane. Hey are they coming come out with a game based on Snakes on a Plane where you get to play the Snakes, that are the plane.

Lemmings: Another franchise I thought was dead, but if done right this could be the puzzle game that saves the PSP. Well maybe in an alternative universe.

Rouge Trooper: This game must have been made for the British market, because right now 99.9% of the American gamers are scratching their heads going who the heck is Rouge Trooper. For some odd reason I am that .1% of American gamer who knows who Rouge Trooper is. Short end of the story he was a back feature in 2000AD, the British comic magazine that was home to Judge Dread. You know the one that was played by Sly.

Steamboat Chronicles : Japanese RPG alert, Japanese RPG alert. Why do I have bad feeling this one is going to be a huge collectors item in a few years.

Ping Pong: Alright someone please explain to me why this game is getting a huge amount of hype?

Teen Titians: Explain to me why there is a Gamecube version of this game but not an XBox version?

My pick for this week is: Jaws Unleashed, Hey any game where I get to play as Jaws gets my vote.

In his latest column, Henry Northmore of Sequart.com was discussing the similarities of comics and video games. He made some very valid points, particularly the point about how comics went through the same censorship that video games are currently going through. However, when he says comics are not in the mainstream, he is dead wrong. Comics are very popular in modern society and very much a part of the mainstream. Walk around town and ask people who Mario/Zelda/Master Chief are and who Superman/Batman/Spiderman are, and I bet donuts to dollars that more people can identify the superheroes than the video game characters. Even my mom, the most clueless person on this earth about pop culture, knows who Superman, Batman, and Spiderman are. If that is not sign that comics are mainstream I don’t now what is.

I think the author’s perspective is skewed because he lives in Britain where the Superhero comics never took off and he doesn’t known much about comic book history. If he did, he would know that comics were a billion dollar industry in the 40’s before their decline and reinvention into a kid media in the 60’s. A decline that may soon happen to video games.

I got a press release today from Microsoft stating that, during last week’s E3 “Bring it Home” XBox Live promotion, people downloaded over 600 Terabytes of data divided over 5 million files from XBox Live. To put that in perspecyive, the entire Library of Congress only has an estimated 20 Terabytes of data. What were some of the top downloads? The Halo 3 trailer, Fable 2 Tailer and UNO. I guess a lot people really wanted to play UNO while watching the Halo 3 trailer.

Remember my early prediction about needing to pre-order the Playstation 3 if you want for Christmas? After the results of E3 you better pre-order the Wii if you want one for Christmas. Sadly no one has yet has started to take pre-orders yet but Amazon is advertising it on their site. On the other hand you can pre-order Wii games from EB Games. Pre-orders for the Wii will most likely start when Nintendo announces the pricing information for the Wii, which will hopefully be soon. Also it looks like the Wii launch date will be November 1, 2006.

CNN has posted a wrap up of E3 with their losers, winners and just plain funny moments. I would give Wii biggest winner at E3 not just biggest surprise. Why? according to my sources it was a 6+ hour wait to play the Wii. If that is not a sign of how popular the Wii is, I don’t know what is.

Spore, the most ingenious game, is shaping up to be the next big breakout mainstream PC hit like the Sims. It has already got a lot of people talking and by next E3 it should be on every hardcore gamers’ lips.

I fully agree with CNN that Sony Playstation 3 was a big disappointment. Still it is funny to see people defending it. Reminds me of all the people that defended the Nintendo 64 against the Playstation.

The funniest moment for me had to be the idiot in the robot head getting attacked viciously by the established gaming media. Granted Paris Hilton’s gaff was funny, but it just proved how vapid Paris is. The robot head guy proved just how vapid and non-inclusive the gaming industry is. I think the guy wearing the robot head response sums it up best why I find it so funny. I agree it is time that the people in the gaming media need to stop taking themselves so serious and start including us in there fun and games instead of slamming the door on us.

I think so. For over a year, we at ShamelessGeeks have been complaining about the gaming industry’s obsession with technology. Along comes Shigeru Miyamoto to agree with us. It’s good that someone is finally talking about what these games should really be stressing: FUN. I’ve never been much for console gaming (I’m all thumbs ), so I’m not an expert on them, but I have noticed the same trends in PC gaming.

Who knows… With a new controller that seems to stress thumbs less, and a product guru who is trying to bring fun back to games, I may just buy myself a Wii. That is… if I can get past the moronic name.

Kotaku has been running around E3 asking various game developers to justify their games. Most are mean and cruel like what they did to the developer on Saint Row and the brand manger for Magic: The Gathering Online. However the funniest had to be when they ask Miyamoto to justify why Nintendo named the next Nintendo console after a bathroom function.

Leading up the final trifecta of pre-e3 press conferences is the Microsoft press conference. Since Microsoft did not have to present a new console, this press conference focus on future games and products for the XBox 360 and the Windows Vista platform. While I was hoping for more info on how Microsoft planned to merge gaming and Vista together, all I got was that they plan to make XBox Live work with Vista. On high note they did show a preview of Halo 3 (again thanks Kotaku), again very cool looking but again it was cut scene of course it is going to be pretty. Some other things announced include Gear of Wars, which is going be the must buy XBox 360 this Christmas, Shadowrun and the HD-DVD drive for the XBox 360. Overall this is the only conference that lived up to what I thought it was going be, pure fluff.

Kotaku has posted to YouTube the Nintendo Wii footage (in two parts) shown at the E3 press conference. After watching it, I am not impressed with the graphics. Most of the games looked no better then Gamecube games. However after watching both videos I now really want a Wii.

Due to a work conflict I missed the Nintendo E3 press conference this morning. Luckily Gamespot has posted the minutes from the press conference. Some of the highlights include:
Two different version of Zelda, one for the Wii and one for the Gamecube.
Zelda will be a launch title for the Wii.
ExicteBike is now ExicteTruck.
Wii controller will have a microphone and rumble.
There is already 27 playable Wii games, which are on display at E3.
No information on the launch date or price point.
Lots and lots of hype about the Wii, the controller and the games.
Over a 100 Nintendo DS games scheduled to be released this year.

Here is the list of game announced so far for the Wii. Plan on this list getting bigger as the week unravels:

• Metroid Prime 3: Corruption
• New Fire Emblem
• Super Mario Bros. Galaxy
• Tony Hawk 4 Downhill
• Red Steel
• Raymand
• Sonic Wildfire
• New Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles
• Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. (thanks Kotaku for the list)

Sony has posted a pdf with the update launch information from last nights press conference. The pdf also lines up the differences between the two price versions of Playstation 3. In addition to a smaller hard drive the cheaper model will lack Memory Stick/SD/Compact Flash support, no WiFi and HDMI support. All three items where big bullet points in Sony speech and make you wonder just how truly committed they are to supporting those three items. Why is the more I hear about the Playstation 3 the less impressed I get?

Thanks to the Internet even though I am not at E3, I am able to watch the Sony Pre-E3 conference. The upcoming PSP lineup looks weak; however there were some highlights with Loco Roco looking to be the most promising. Sony also announced that they are starting the greatest hits for the PSP, too bad only two of the games on the list are worth buying. I was hoping that Sony would announce a bigger storage medium and battery life for the PSP, but instead they announced a GSP tool, a VoIp program, a camera and the ability to do RSS videos feeds to the PSP. I wonder how soon Sony will announce the ability to use PSP as a cell phone?

Sony announced that the PS3 will be Internet ready, run Blue ray disk, and have a hard drive. It will play Playstation 2,PSOne game, PS3 games in HD and work with the PSP. Sony played up how great the Blue-Disk is. I guess Sony believes if you say it enough times it must be true. I am sorry but the impact of blue disk is still uncertain and I doubt most game companies are going to be releasing games in Blue-Disk. At least they won’t be for the first 2 or 3 years, no matter what Sony says, or that is until when HD finally becomes widely available in most homes. Sony however thinks most of its user will be HD users also. Again if you say it enough times it must be true.

Sony announced a world wide November launch, get ready for lots of shortages for the PS3 this Christmas.

It looks Sony finally has some games ready for the PS3. Well at least Gran Turismo HD. I don’t know if it is the feed or the just game but the PS3 version of Gran Turismo HD looks no better then Gran Turismo 4 on the Playstation 2. So far I am fairly under whelmed by the Playstation 3 graphics. At least Gran Turismo HD will be online ready. Strike what I said about it being done, Gran Turismo HD will not be a launch title.

Okay if you are going to sell me on the wonders of the Eye toy do not demo a fantasy card game. Even though it was cool that I could slap a card down and it pops up on the Playstation 2, it still no better then playing card games at my kitchen table. At least when I play at my kitchen table all I have to do is shuffle up my cards and go. Still the fire breathing rubber duckie was cool.

I love Sony’s Internet plans, why do they sound striking similar to what Microsoft currently is doing with the XBox 360? Lets see MySpace like interface; check, download content; check, a marketplace that forces you spend another $20 to play the already over priced games; check. How many are you going to actual bother download songs, excuse me buy $20 songs, which can only be played on the PS3?

Wow the controller looks just like the Dual Shock controller. So not only do PS3 games look no better then an XBox games (not XBox 360 games) but the controller looks the same. Explain to me again why I really want a PS3 again? Oh that’s right it is new and in HD. Too bad I do not have an HD ready TV.
I thought I never say this but Genji 2 looks worse then Genji. F1 looks bad but at least it can show the rear view mirror on the PSP’s screen. To bad I don’t have a third hand to hold the PSP, while I hold the controller in the other two.

Finally half way through the press conference they show a game that looks half decent. Heavenly Sword looks great but to bad the gameplay looks like it as much fun as watching paint dry. My cleaning guy agrees with me all the PS3 games looks are not that impressive. At least the previews of most of the upcoming games that are in way future look good. Only question I have is how many of them are cut scenes versus generated in real time?

The Naughty Dog’s game and Insomniac’s games looks good. To bad Naughty Dog game looks like it will be Tomb Raiders for boys. However please explain to me why both Naughty Dog and Insomniac are moving away from cartoony platformers? I loved both companies because they made kick ass cartoony platformers. Seriously when did Insomniac become Bungie Jr?

Here some random comments about the upcoming third party PS3 games. Gee here is a shock ,there is going to be a Gundam Wing game for the Playstation 3. Another shock, there is going be a Ridge Racer and Tekken at launch time. When is Sega going to give up on Sonic the Hedgehog? Why does Virtua Tennis 3 look just the Dreamcast version of Virtua Tennis? Cool a new Virtual Fighter. I wonder if this version of Bother in Arms will be set some else other then D-Day?

Half way through I lost my feed and missed a bunch of EA stuff. I really wanted to see the Army of Two stuff. Luckily my feed started back up with Final Fantasy XIII. Wow I am impressed at the graphics. Finally we have a PS3 game with great graphics.

Next up is Metal Gear Solid 4. Again another game that looks awesome. Too bad the preview is a cut scene. Sony I want to see in play game graphics not cut scenes. Metal Gear Solid has a long track record of impressive cut scene and alright in play game graphics.

Wow, Nintendo really sent Sony for a loop with their new controller. The big secret, as presented by Ken Kutaragi, about the new PS3 controller is that it will have six degrees of freedom. In other words it will have a motion controller inside like those pinball games for the Gameboy Advance. Oh and it will be wireless. Otherwise it looks and most likely will play just like the dual shock controller for the Playstation 2. Just don’t plan on any Wii like games on the Playstation 3. However the controller will fix one big weakness on the Playstation 2. Flight and space game will be now playable.

I am shocked but Sony announced the pricing for the Playstation 3. It will come in two models, why does this sound very familiar (*cough*XBox 360*cough*). One model will come with a 20GB hard drive and sell for $499. The other model will come with 60GB hard drive and sell for $599. The only difference between the two models appears to be the hard drive. Sony also promises to have lots and lots of PS3 in stores but plan for shortages this Christmas. So you better pre-order or plan on buying one off EBay.

Overall I have to say that I am not that impressed with the Playstation 3. There is hope however some of the future PS3 games do look promising particularly Final Fantasy XIII. Still I love how Sony keeps saying over and over again how great their games are. It must be true if they keep saying over and over again.

I was just browsing a poll that indicated that 4 in 10 American adults play video games. What I found intriguing was that the most popular games were the “small-time” things like board and card games. It seems like the big ticket FPS games that are always in the news find themselves on the short end of this poll. Unfortunately, there is nothing specifying the exact numbers of who plays what.

It’s funny how things like that happen. ShamelessGeeks posters have speculated about just such a change in demographics, while most gaming sites have been hyping the big blockbuster games. I guess it’s a case of who has to bow to their advertisers and who doesn’t.

Square Enix plans to release, hold it, Final Fantasy XII. Why does the game media make this into big news when in reality Square Enix has been saying that for last three E3 years. Okay enough messing with you the big announcement is that Square Enix is also working on Final Fantasy XIII for the Playstation 3 and it looks cooler then any previous Final Fantasy. Why am I not shocked.

–Update—
Gamespot has posted some screenshot of Final Fantasy XIII and XIII VS. If those screenshot are not cut scenes, Final Fantasy XIII is going be one pretty game. Never mind, I forgot that Final Fantasy is just one giant cut scene.

With E3 around the bend literally this week list is going to be very small list since most press people and publicist are converging on LA as we speak. However a few brave souls do blaze on and release a few new games this week. IN honor of those brave fools, excuse me souls, Onto the list.

Garfield and His Nine Lives for the Gameboy Advance
NBA Ballers: Rebound for the PSP
Over the Hedge for the Playstation 2, XBox, Gamecube and PC
Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends for the PC
Tringo for the Gameboy Advance

A small list but still a lot more then 3 that came out last year at E3. The big surprise is that Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends is coming out this week. Rise of the Nations was a fairly cool RTS and hopefully Rise of Legends will also. It is also my pick of the week.

The recent re-rating of Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion from T (Teen) to M (Mature) is already causing a lot of fallout. So far, it looks like the story is something like this:

Take Two (familiar name?) submitted a disclosure about the game that they considered complete. The ESRB took their input and gave the game a T rating. Later, a mod started to circulate that would unlock a feature that allowed for topless female characters. This, of course, is almost a replay of Take Two’s “hot coffee” scandal from last year.

Once again, Take Two is claiming that they have no control over the mods that people create. Also one again, the artwork for the topless mod can be found on the media as distributed. It looks like they did exactly what they did last year, only this time they should have known better.

As for the ESRB: maybe they should re-examine their methods. If they don’t watch out, there will be a horribly inefficient and politically motivated replacement for them soon.

As for Take Two: you just can’t teach some people. Sounds like someone needs to be economically spanked.

Entropia Universe now has a way to use a real ATM to withdraw virtual cash. That’s kinda a neat idea, but I won’t be impressed until they find a way for me to cash in my StarCraft credits for real vespene gas.

Now that the XBox 360 has been released does anyone know what M$ is going to talk about at their E3 press conference? I am guessing it will be a big pitch for Vista. I guess I will have to wait until May 9th at 11:30AM PST to find out. I also wonder are they going give out an exclusive faceplace for the XBox 360 this year that will fit the XBox 360, unlike last years.

For all you fanboys looking for those neat screenshot for the Nintendo Wii games. They are coming soon. According to an E3 email I received they should start popping all over the net Tuesday, May 9th at 6:01 pm PST. In other words right after Nintendo finishes it presentation at E3 about the Wii. If you can not wait that long I am sure someone will leak a few screenshots, just when and where is yet to be decided.

I love this, last year when I went to E3 I could not get an invitation to a party to save my soul. This year now that I am not attending E3, I get this email inviting me to a whole bunch of parties. Isn’t life ironic.

Do you have any parties to add to our E3 Party List? Current list is below:

Karen

Karen Thomas

Thomas PR

(631) 549-7575

kthomas@thomas-pr.com

OFFICIAL KARENNET E3 2006 PARTY LIST v. 1.1

LA, May 10-12, 2006

MON, MAY 8th:

8:00 PM – 2 AM: VGM Watch and IGJA Not an E3 Party – Golden Gopher Bar, 417 W 8th St, Los Angeles

TUES, MAY 9th:

7:00 PM – 12:00 AM: IGDA Members Party – Figueroa Hotel, 939 S Figueroa St, LA, Poolside Terrace (IGDA Members only)

WED, MAY 10th:

I wonder if Nintendo considers their new game system’s name a mistake. They officially changed the name from the code name “Revolution” to “Wii”, which is pronounced “wee".

Of course, the online jokes have already started. Since ShamelessGeeks is such a serious site, wii won’t stoop to any bad puns. Wii just hope that picking a bad name doesn’t mean that Wii ends up in the toilet.

After a long delay, Shamelessgeeks is proud announce the return of the Games of the Week feature. For all our Games of the Week fans we are sorry for not posting for the past few weeks. The reason nothing was posted is that I moved to Texas and did not have Internet access until a few days ago. So I am proud to once again type, onto the list of games coming out this week:

Ace Combat Zero: The Balkan War for the Playstation 2
Atelier Iris 2: The Azoth of Destiny for the Playstation 2
2006 FIFA World Cup for the XBox, XBox 360, Playstation 2, Gameboy Advance, PSP, Nintendo DS and Gamecube
Dr. Sudoku for the Gameboy Advance
Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children for the PSP
Guilty Gear Dust Strikers for the Nintendo DS
The Hustle: Detroit Streets for the XBox and Playstation 2
Lost Magic for the Nintendo DS
Major League Baseball 2K6 for the Gamecube
Metal Saga for the Playstation 2
Neverend for the PC
OutRun 2006: Coast 2 Coast for the PSP, XBox and Playstation 2
Painkiller: Hell Wars for the XBox
Rampage: Total Destruction for the Gamecube and Playstation 2
Top Gun for the Nintendo DS
Winback 2: Project Poseidon for the XBox and Playstation 2

Some of the games of note this week are:

Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children: Okay it is not a game but then again one could argue nor is any Final Fantasy game. The reason it was included is that gamers have been drooling over it since it was announced. Finally it looks like it will be hitting stores shelves this week, granted we did announce a few months ago it was schedule for release but this time it looks like it is for real.

Lost Magic: I don’t know if this is a good sign or not but the game has not yet come out and EBGames is already selling used copies of it.

OutRun 2006: Coast 2 Coast: I have been living under a rock, literally for the past 3 weeks and even I have heard some buzz about OutRun 2006: Coast 2 Coast. Not sure why, it is not like the last Outrun release tore up store shelves.

Rampage: Total Destruction: Okay I have confession to make, I am a total Rampage freak. For some odd reason I love Rampage, maybe it is the mindless destruction, maybe it is the total naked characters, or maybe I am just a freak. I know it is a bad game yet I love it and have to play and own every version of Rampage. When I say everyone, I mean everyone I have (did) an arcade cabinet with Rampage.

Since I have been out of the loop for a while and really don’t now what is rumored to be good or bad. I am going to make a total blind stab at my game of the week pick of: Atelier Iris 2: The Azoth of Destiny. Atelier Iris 2 is a sequel one of last years more successful tactically RPGs and should be a fun play.

Sony announced today that it is dropping the price of the Sony Playstation 2 from $149 to $129. With the next generation looming on the horizon a $20 price drop is really not a big deal. In fact I am shocked it took Sony this long to drop to the price of the Playstation 2. At this stage of the cycle Sony at this point should be dropping it to below $100, with another $50 price drop to flow in a few months when the Playstation 3 does comes out. Then again Sony has been acting kind of clueless lately and this probably is another sign that Sony may not survive the next generation of video games. Granted Microsoft never did drop the XBox when the XBox 360 launched but MS has been fairly clueless from the get go. I am still sticking with Nintendo win the next generation. They are the only one that get that games should cost under $50.00 in America.

Found a cute little ultra condensed version of the Doom movie online. If you get the joke, you are as much of an old school gamer geek as I am. If not, then go ahead and look at the first comment. I’ll ’splain it there.

My review was a little more critical, to say the least.

Major League Gaming is coming to the USA network this fall. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing, but does anyone remember “Battle Bots"? That was a really great geek competition that lost all credibility when it turned itself over to a “Pro Wrestling” type of cheapening. Those who were originally enthusiasts got turned off by all of the gratuitous jiggle shots and testosterone-induced smack talk. Hopefully, the gamers won’t make the same mistake.

Just remember… those who like computer games probably aren’t the same people who spend every SUNDAY! SUNDAY! SUNDAY! at the CAR STOMPING! METAL CRUNCHING! MONSTER TRUCK PULL!.

After Jack Thompson, in his now infamous speech against gaming, created the word Pixelante you knew it was going to start popping up on t-shirts all over the world. Well, it took a few months but finally it has happened. Gamepolitics has released the Pixelante t-shirt to end all Pixelante t-shirts and soon it should be in every hardcore gamers’ closet. Before you get mad that we are shilling for Game Politics, (well, yes we are so you can mad), please note: the t-shirt is cool and all proceeds go the charity Get-Well Gamers Foundation. So go out and get your Pixelante t-shirt. While you are, how about getting one our t-shirts. The proceeds may not go to charity, but they do go to a good cause. They support this site and keep jobs in the USA.

Sorry for the delay but I was busy last night, onto the list of the games coming out this week:

Beatmania for the Playstation 2
Blazing Angels: Squadrons of WWII for the PC
Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth for the PC
Dynasty Warriors 5 Empires for the XBox 360 and Playstation 2
EyeToy: Chat for the Playstation 2
Far Cry Instincts Predator for the XBox 360 and XBox
Full Spectrum Warrior: Ten Hammers for the PC, XBox and Playstation 2
Harvest Moon: Magical Melody for the Gamecube
Kingdom Hearts II for the Playstation 2
Painkiller: Hell Wars for the XBox
Rumble Roses XX for the XBox 360
Untold Legends: The Warrior’s Code for the PSP
Warpath for the XBox
WWII Combat: Iwo Jima for the PC, XBox

Again a lot of games coming out this week. Onto the highlights:

Kingdom Hearts 2: Square, Diseny, Final Fantasy all in one game and no damm Gummi ship this time, is this a perfect game our what. Okay yes the last one was a big letdown, but Square promised they learned their lesson and are not including the Gummi Ship. For those two players that loved the Gummi Ship, tough.

Rumble Roses XX: I love the advertising for this game, now with actual gameplay. Gee I wonder if the fans of this game will notice.

Beatmania: After a delay from a few weeks, the USA will finally get to enjoy Beatmania only a few years late. Okay there was those Playstation version but the less said about those the better.

Harvest Moon: Magical Melody: Shameless will be happy a new Harvest Moon.

Far Cry Instincts Predator: Another game Shameless and the whole LAN crew will be happy about. Another solid FPS.

My pick for this week is: Kingdom Hearts II. It has the hype and it looks like Square did learn their lessons from the first Kingdom Heart. If not it is not like I have not picked a few turds as the pick for the week *cough* Death Jr. *cough*.

Someone has posted pictures from Phil Harrison’s keynote speech at GDC. Included in the set of pictures is a bunch of screenshots of upcoming PS3 games: Warhawk, Motorstrom and Ratch and Clank. Some other things of note is that the PSP is getting a GPS locater, just like it competition the Gizmondo has, and the ability to Voice and Video over IP. Continuing Sony’s tradition of focusing on anything but the games for the PSP. It also appears Sony plans to turn the PSP into a Thinware client by using the power of the Internet to store your data and run software. Gee didn’t that idea bomb back in the late 90’s? Some neat tidbits about the middleware and complier for the PS3. The only thing that stuck out to me was that the compiler was made in my hometown Round Rock (Austin), Texas. I am kinda scarred that Gamespy is providing the network services. Then again GameSpy did invent a really good punkbuster so it may not be as bad as I think it will be. Then again Sony plans for one of the major revenue stream to be in game advertising, just so we can have the pleasure of paying $60 for commercials. Last thing of note is a few blurry screenshots of the upcoming God of War sequel present by God of War creator David Jaffe. Looks like Sony is planning for a big Christmas.

Unless you have been hiding under a rock, you already know that Dell has purchased Alienware, the worlds best known supplier of mega-expensive gaming machines. Sadly, I fear that this is more likely to cause a decline in Alienware than a rise in the pizazz of Dell machines. Who knows… maybe Dell will leave them alone as promised. One can hope.

Now back from the break we took last week, onto the games of the weeks. Onto the list:

Blazing Angels: Squadrons of WWII for the XBox and XBox 360
Capcom Classics Collection Remixed for the PSP
CMT Presents: Karaoke Revolution Country for the Playstation 2 and XBox
Crime Stories for the PC
Daxter for the PSP
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion for the PC and the XBox 360
Go! Sudoku for the PSP
The Godfather for the PC, XBox, Playstation 2
Kao Challengers for the PSP
Kao the Kangaroo Round 2 for the Playstation 2, Gamecube and XBox
Me and My Katamari for the PSP
Mega Man Powered Up for the PSP
Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence for the Playstation 2
Metroid Prime: Hunters for the Nintendo DS
Monster 4X4: World Circuit for the XBox
Neopets Petpet Adventure: The Wand of Wishing for the PSP
The Outfit for the XBox 360
River King: A Wonderful Journey for the Playstation 2
Splinter Cell Essentials for the PSP
Suikoden V for the Playstation 2
Syphon Filter: Dark Mirror for the PSP
Tao’s Adventure: Curse of the Demon Seal for the Nintendo DS
Tetris DS for the Nintendo DS
The Tower SP for the Gameboy Advance
Viewtiful Joe: Red Hot Rumble for the PSP
Warship Gunner 2 for the Playstation 2
World Poker Tour for the PSP
Worms: Open Warfare for the PSP and Nintendo DS

Wow what a big list, lots of PSP games, where were you two months ago when I was craving some serious handheld love. Onto the highlights:

Tetris DS, proving that every format needs some Tetris love or at least the game exec think they do.

Viewtiful Joe: Red Hot Rumble: Capcom continues pumping out the Viewtiful Joe sequels. Too bad people stopped loving them after the first one. Still I will be buying it, no matter how bad it is it is better then most of the other PSP games.

Daxter: Okay it came out last but it is Daxter. I have been waiting for this game for six months now. If I had done the game of the week list this one would have gotten game of the week honors.

River King: A Wonderful Journey: I loved this game when it was a Gameboy game and now it is a PS2 game and a budget price. A must buy for all you Harvest Moon freaks like Shameless.

Go! Sudoku: Just like Tetris ever handheld needs a Sudoku game. Thankfully someone noticed that and is now providing one for the PSP.

Suikoden V: Paging all collectors, another Suikoden is hitting the shelves. Get it before it hits the $100 mark like the others have.

Metroid Prime: Hunters: I thought I was done talking about games I played at last year E3 but I guess not. Another game I played and posted a preview about on this site. I hated but then again I hate Metroid so I am biased.

Me and My Katamari : Leave it to the Japanese to pervert something so sweet and innocent.

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion: Finally after a six month delay we get to enjoy the next Elder Scrolls. Hopefully the delay will remove a lot of the suck that I had been hearing about.

The Godfather: Finally we get the game that is going save EA. Gee and I thought that game was going to be Madden 2007.

Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence: Just what we need another Metal Gear Solid 3 rewrite, just as Metal Gear Solid 3 entered the budget bins.

A lot to pick from but there can only be one and game of the week is: Daxter. Yhea I know it came out last week but since we did not have one last week, well it is fair to pick this week.

As I mentioned here yesterday, Sony will delay the release of the PS3 until November. Now, it’s official.

Sources all over the web are saying that Sony has delayed the PS3 launch till November at the earliest. It’s important to remember that this is only at the rumor stage, and that things may change tonight at Sony’s conference. It will be interesting to see if this one is a real piece of news, or just another hoax.

Another week and another list of games coming out this week. Onto the list:

Alfa Romeo Racing Italiano for the Playstation 2
Burnout Revenge for the XBox 360
College Hoops 2K6 for the XBox 360
Dragon Ball Z: Shin Budokai for the PSP
Let’s Ride Dreamer for the Gameboy Advance
Naruto: Clash of Ninja for the Gamecube
Naruto: Ninja Council for the Gameboy Advance
Pokemon Trozei for the Nintendo DS
Pursuit Force for the PSP
Scurge: Hive for the Nintendo DS
Samurai Warriors: State of War for the PSP
Shadow Hearts: From the New World for the Playstation 2
SpongeBob Squarepants: The Yellow Avenger for the PSP
Tales of Phantasia for the Gameboy Advance
Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter for the XBox and XBox 360
Untold Legends: The Warrior’s Code for the PSP

Again another week with a lot to pick from. The highlights of this weeks are:
Tales of Phantasia: The next game in the continuing the tradition of porting a successful 16 bit RPG to Gameboy Advance.
Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Advanced Warfigher: The XBox 360 version blew people away at E3, hopefully it will live up to hype it got and then lost around that time. Anyways it is the next Ghost Recon and would be Shameless favorite game alongside Harvest Moon if he played console games.
Naruto: you can stop importing this game. Finally some discovered that there is a massive fan following for Naruto and did a no brainier and brought Naruto to the US shores.

My pick for this week is: Naruto. I have to admit I really enjoyed playing the imported version at various Anime cons and this one should be just as good.

Harvest Moon has a special place in the hearts of the staff here at Shamelessgeeks.com. We have been farming mad, particular Shameless, since it came out for the Super Nintendo. Sadly however, the Harvest Moon franchise has grown stale and the game play fairly repetitive. It has gotten to the point that when a new Harvest Moon was announced I no longer eagerly waited for it come out and just did not care. All that changed today when Kotaku posted the new features for the Nintendo DS version of Harvest Moon DS.
My favorite feature has to be the ability to farm while exploring the town at the same time. I have always hated how exploring took time out my farming. Now in the Nintendo DS version I don’t have that issue.
Hopefully Harvest Moon DS will implement half the features as good as they sound paper. No matter what this game just got added to my pre-order list.

I’ve seen a few posts letely about Infinity Ward’s announcement that CoD2 anti-cheat (punkbuster) is in testing. Hopefully, they will release an update soon. I’m getting tired of all of the cheaters. Hopefully, they will either make the patch compatible with the dedicated Linux server, or they will release a new Linux server with the anti-cheat facilities active. We’ll let you know.

Another week another list of games coming out. Onto the list:

24: The Game for the Playstation 2
American Conquest: Divided Nation for the PC
Black for the XBox, Playstation 2
Cowboy Bebop for the Playstation 2
Championship Bowling for XBox
Dungeons & Dragons Online: Stormreach for the PC
FIFA Street 2 for the Gamecube, Playstation 2, XBox, PSP and Nintendo DS
Final Fight: Streetwise for the XBox, Playstation 2
Generation of Chaos for the PSP
Greg Hastings’ Tournament Paintball Max’d for the Playstation 2
The Lord of the Rings, The Battle for Middle-earth II for the PC
MLB ‘06: The Show for the Playstation 2, PSP
MX vs. ATV Unleashed: On the Edge for the PSP
Payout Poker and Casino for the Playstation 2, XBox, PSP
Street Supremacy for the PSP
Super Princess Peach for the Nintendo DS
Ultimate Pocket Games for the Gameboy Advance

Wow this is a big week with a lot of games for all you hardcore gamers. Onto the highlights:

24: The game: I wonder if this game will last 24 hours. Another TV license rehash, do I need to explain why I will take a pass on it.

Cowboy Bebop: Another license rehash of a popular Anime game. Since we have a few Anime fans out there, I figured I mention it here.

Black: Rumored to be a good shooter that got a little hype at the last E3. Gamespot already has a review of it up.

Dungeons & Dragons Online: Stormreach : Newest MMORPG that is attempting to be the next World of Warcraft slayer. I have not played it yet, nor plan too but my MMORPG buddies are looking forward to it. I even had several ask me if I could get them in the beta.

Final Fight: Streetwise: I about peed in my pants when I saw this game on the list. It has been about 15 years since the last Final Fight came out and I thought we would never see another one. Seeing as beat ‘em ups are all but dead. This franchise was one of the greatest beat ‘em ups of all time and I still play it to this day. Well up to the day when I sold off my last arcade machine a few months ago. Too bad this game will fail, Capcom is asking the full price for it when it should be sold at a budget price and well it is a beat ‘em up.

The Lord of the Rings, The Battle for Middle-earth II : Shameless another geeky RTS for you. See I do mention them if you whine loud enough.

Super Princess Peach : I have no clue what this new Mario Platformer is. Still it is a new Mario Platformer staring everyone favorite Princess, Princess Peach. So it must be good.

My pick for this week: Super Princess Peach

I’ve decided to post a few thoughts about my initial experience with Star Wars: Empire at War. Please remember that this review is from someone who actually went out and bought the game.

This one won’t appeal to a lot of die-hard RTS gamers. It seems to be designed with the same philosophy that Battlefront was. It is a very lightweight and easy game to play, but seems like it will get old after a few hours. Lucas Arts certainly took a big risk with this one. It isn’t yet clear to me whether that risk was worth it.

The Battlefront heritage shows up quickly when you start to play the skirmishes. You need to control certain points on that map that are used to bring in reinforcements. These points are captured in exactly the same way that command points are captured in Battlefront. You need to clear out all enemy forces in range of the point, then stand there and wait till control switches to you.

There is no traditional gathering of resources. Income is generated by the buildings and planets that you capture, as well as (in the Rebel case) how much you can steal. This has the effect of eliminating the chance of an economy-based win. As far as I see it, the whole strategy is map domination for it’s own sake.

The Empire’s method of tech advancement is fairly standard, but the Rebels must steal all of their tech from the Empire using spy units. This may be too much of a departure from the normal way that RTS games handle tech in that it always keeps the Rebels a few steps behind the Empire. It seems to me that a good strategy for an Empire player would be to learn how to dominate with early units, then keep the game at that stage of technology by refusing to advance. In other words, the Empire is in complete control of Rebel technology.

Multiplayer brings back the concept of co-operative teams. Everyone on the Empire team shares resources and tech with everyone else on the Empire team. The same goes for the Rebels. This isn’t a new concept. I can remember playing Starcraft in this mode, and I’m sure Starcraft wasn’t the first either. (I can remember watching two headstrong players trying to share resources… hilarious) Unfortunately, this scenario has become a pretty unpopular one. It is likely to make the multiplayer game unplayable. I’ll give it a try, then let you know what I find.

My current assessment: If you are looking for the next big RTS, this isn’t it. However, it seems that Lucas Arts took quite a risk and brought forth a unique game. If you are looking for something different, this may be for you. I haven’t had a long time to investigate gameplay yet, and this game is far enough from what I’m accustomed to that I need to give it a little bit more of a chance before panning it. So far, I don’t think it is worth the $50 price tag ($60 for the collectors edition). Maybe you should wait until it drops below $30.

More to come soon.

– C O Jones

According to a Gamespot article, Infinium Labs, makers of the Phantom Game Console, is cash strapped. This is forcing them to put the Phantom Game Console aside and instead focus on releasing the Phantom Lapboard that was so popular at E3 2004. The Phantom Lapboard is a combo keyboard mouse pad with a stand.

The scary part of the article is that Infinium plans to use a viral marketing campaign to market the product. That is… they plan to post phony positive reviews from people on their staff on blogs, tech sites, and forums.

Please note:
if we find any shill-like reviews of the Phantom Lapboard, the offending post will be removed. Infinium Labs: if you want a honest review, we would be more than happy to review the Phantom Lapboard. Simply email us and we will work out the details.

Cathode Tan recently posted an article asking “is the grind, also know as crunch time, necessary in the Game development cycle“? The Grind is the end of the cycle where the developers and artists work major overtime to meet the deadline and get the product out the door. Having just come off a grind today, I would love to say no, but like with any Software project, the grind is a necessary evil. The reason the grind happens most often is because guessing how long it will take to code something is very hard to do. It is more of an art then a science.

As far as the grinding being used to mainly weed out people, I doubt it. Unless the management is totally evil and could careless about it’s employees, or feels they are easily replaced. That idea is just plain stupid. Good software people are always hard to find and replace, no matter what the industry. Then again, who ever said management was competent?

The new Star Wars RTS is out, and reviews are starting to hit the net. I’m getting mixed signals about this one, which usually either means that there are some “reviews for hire” out there, or that the game is really good, but isn’t the latest technology. You judge for yourself.

I’ll probably be buying a copy soon. Meanwhile, if any of you have a review you would like to submit, I’d be glad to post it.

I’ve seen reviews on Firing Squad, AP, and IGN. Please post others that you find.

Chris Morris over at CNN asks: Is the gaming industry ignoring Grey hair gamers? So are they?

Move over 12-Step program! China now has a hospital ward for internet addicts, where they’re denied use of both the internet and phones for a 20-day period.

I doubt such a method would ever come to the US - geeks everywhere would decry it as “cruel and unusual punishment” under the Constitution. Too bad, because if it did I could send my parents there. XD

Here is the list of games coming out this week:

Chibi-Robo for the Gamecube
Drill Dozer for the Gameboy Advance
EA Sports Arena Football for the XBox and Playstation 2
Finding Nemo: Escape to the Big Blue for the Nintendo DS
LA Rush for the PC
Midway Arcade Treasures Deluxe Edition for the PC
Resident Evil: Deadly Silence for the Nintendo DS
The Rub Rabbits! for the Nintendo DS
Tales of Legendia for the Playstation 2
World Soccer Winning Eleven 9 for the PC, Playstation 2 and XBox
WWII Tank Commander for the PC

Here is the highlights:
Rub Rabbits: Which is popular sequel in Japan to launch DS game Feel the Magic XX/YY.
Tales of Legendia: Which is the next RPG in Namco’s “Tale” series of games. Looks like it will be a good Japanese RPG.
EA Sports Arena Football: Continue EA’s domination of all games Football. You would think EA would at least throw someone a bone and pass on this licensee.

Again not much to pick from this week compared to last year when we having a new A list game every week. My pick for this week is the RPG: Tales of Legendia.

I’ve decided to put the CoD2 server back online as a public deathmatch server. I may be using it for some web-based server experiments, so use it at your own risk. I also haven’t found any real anti-cheat yet, so be warned that there are a lot of cheaters out there.

Enjoy.

Yup. Here we go again. Another anti-piracy nightmare is upon us. This time, Games protected by the Starforce anti-piracy stuff are causing headaches for legitimate users. It seems that the software installs 4 drivers without asking, that these drivers are required to play the game, they slow down computer operation, and that they will not automatically uninstall when the offending game is removed. The Starforce software is also blamed for opening vulnerabilities in Windows systems. Sony rootkit redux.

As usual, anyone who speaks out against the fallacy of copy protection is labeled a “pirate” and ridiculed in public by the company that sold the so called “piracy protection". I guess you can’t really blame them… the world has figured out that their product is useless, and that they should all be looking for jobs. What is the point of copy-protecting a product if someone is going to crack it and put it online anyway? About the only thing you are going to do is irritate legitimate customers. Pirates will just end up using the cracked version anyway. Does all of this sound like part of an old pattern to you?

There is a lot of talk about the Starforce thing out there. Apparently, it has been causing trouble for quite a while now. http://www.glop.org/starforce/#games appears to be a good place to research the problem.

Another week and another list of games coming out. Onto the list:

Curious George for the Playstation 2, PC, XBox, Gamecube and Gameboy Advance
Greg Hastings’ Tournament Paintball Max’d for the Nintendo DS nd Gameboy Advance
Mega Man Maverick Hunter X for the PSP
Neverend for the PC
Payout Poker and Casino for the XBox
Tamagotchi Connection: Corner Shop for the Nintendo DS
Ultimate Brain Games for the Nintendo DS
Ultimate Card Games for the Nintendo DS

A decent selection of games, no a list but a few games worth picking up in a few months when their price drops. Or if you are looking for a game to tide you over. My pick fort his week is: Curious George. I am looking forward to seeing how they translated the classic kids book Curious George into a game.

I’ve put up an experimental Counter-Strike: Source game server for those who like the game. I’m toying with the idea of making it part of an hourly game server rental site. This is a follow-on to the experiment last winter of running a CoD2 server, which I terminated because of all of the cheating I saw.

Hopefully, I’ll be able to rent the bandwidth for a few hours a week to help lighten the financial load of the server. I plan on keeping the number of simultaneous games to 3 or less, which should provide all players with a smooth gaming experience.

In the future, you may see announcements for additional games like BF2 and Quake4. I’ll also be putting the CoD2 server back on line, but it will remain private until Infinity Ward does something about the cheaters. If you have a request for any game that has a dedicated Linux server package available, let me know so that I can try to put it online.

Stay tuned for further details.

The IDGA, the people who run E3, revised its E3 policy this year to remove sexually provocative models from the floor of E3. What this means is: no Booth babes at this years E3. The odd thing is this policy has been in effect for several years but this year IDGA decided to enforce it by adding a $5000 fine for those caught violating the policy. I guess there goes my main reason for attending E3.

Our weekly tradition continuities on, again this week offers a few nice games but again not much. Actual I am starting to like it that way. Onto the list:

GT Legends for the PC
Torino 2006 - the Official Video Game of the XX Olympic Winter Games for the Playstation 2 and XBox
True Swing Golf for the Nintendo DS
World War II Combat: Road to Berlin for the XBox

Not much of note this week. My pick for this week is: Torino 2006. You know it is a bad week when the game of week is Olympic game. Sadly since Epyx went under there has never been a good Olympic game since.

Scientists in London have recently indicated that men actually enjoy seeing cheaters get a mild electrical shock. Men don’t have any empathy for the cheater, and indications are that they feel a little rewarded. They do, however, empathize with an honest player who is unjustly shocked.

Well, I could have told you the part about men enjoying the show, but the fact that women don’t is a bit surprising. This whole thing gives me a great idea for an add-on to punkbuster. Wouldn’t it be great to zap some guy who you caught with a wall hack? Unfortunately, it could never be applied to CoD2… the number of cheaters in that game would overload the power grid and cause a nationwide blackout.

Well, we knew it was happening, but here is a little data about how much PC game sales shrunk in 2005. The main culprit seems to be WoW, even though it sold more than anyone. The fault is being directed toward the fact that more and more people are spending large amounts of time playing online MMORPG’s, which leaves them less time (and desire) to purchase games on CD-ROM.

One other interesting thing: The other top games mentioned in the article are both Sims 2 titles, meaning that the top three doesn’t include any of the traditional macho FPS games. Maybe the gaming industry should take the hint.

The dry period after Christmas is starting to thaw and finally we have a couple games coming out. On to the list:

Wild Arms 4 for the Playstation 2
Mega Man X Collection for the Playstation 2 and Gamecube
Diner Dash for the PC
PQ: Practical Intelligence Quotient for the PSP
Samurai Showdown V for the XBox
Electroplankton for the Nintendo DS
Nicktoons Unite! for the Nintendo DS

Wow a total seven new games this week. A lot of note worthy games so onto my comments:

Diner Dash: I played the demo of this game last night. Enjoyed it but the gameplay reminds me a lot of the old an Apple game I used to play. It has been out on the web for a while and even has a clone. Hopefully Gamelabs will port it to the Nintendo DS. This game would make a great budget/casual game for the Nintendo DS.

Mega Man X Collection: At thirty dollars you are getting a huge collection of Mega Man X games that would cost you over $100 to $200 to collect.

Electroplankton: After reading the press release about this game I am not even sure it could be called a game. Most are calling it a music synthesizers, but Nintendo is calling it a new music instrument. It will be interesting to see what video game bands do with it but I doubt I will be able to do much with it. Still it is so novel that I am picking a copy up when it hits stores this week.

My pick for this week is: Electroplankton. I know it may not even be a game but it just may be part of the next evolution of gaming.

Games coming out this week: Nothing, zip, nada. Not even Dead or Alive 4 which Team Ninja manged to get on shelves last Thursday. Next week should be better with at least 3 or 4 games scheduled to come out.

Early this year I was reporting to watch out for a FUD coming from Sony once the XBox 360 launched. Well the XBox 360 launch came and went and still no FUD from Sony. I was shocked this did not happen, until I saw this article from Kotaku. The answer is simple: the Playstation 3 is not yet ready for a March launch nor any of its games. Hence no FUD.
Also this article hints at what we here at Shamelessgeeks thought from the get go. The Playstation 3, contray to previous rumors, is hard as hell to program on. I was shocked to see it took industry people that long to figure that little fact out. Then again most Video Game programers, execs, bloggers and journalist are NOT computer programers. While we at Shameless are.

A very short list for the week after Christmas. Onto to the list:

Dead or Alive 4 for the XBox 360 (delayed from last week)

That is it. One game. Even though both Gamestop and EBGames list it coming out this week. I would not get my hopes up that Dead or Alive 4 is coming out this week. Several sites have been reporting it is delayed till some time next year.

After all of the bad publicity stirred up by the CCA, I would have expected a response by Activision or Infinity Ward by now. Instead, the only thing that has come from either is a post claiming that they are back from vacation, and looking at the problem. Obviously, they heard nothing.

One would think that 1200+ servers and thousands of gamers screaming in pain would have gotten their attention. They could have replied with a date when they would announce their plans. They could have announced that they would have an anti-cheat soon. Instead, IW responded with an unbelievably curt reply that they are back from vacation and looking into things.

Since I’m now disgusted with spending my own money to supply a server to a bunch of useless cheaters, I’m taking the game server off-line for good. It’s become apparent that there isn’t going to be a response in any reasonable amount of time. It’s time to move on and admit that Activision/IW bilked me out of $50 for CoD2.

Believe me, I’ll be remembering this when the next version comes out. I’ll remember that CoD2 was a downgrade from CoD:UO. I’ll remember that the creators and marketers didn’t give a hoot about any experience I had while playing online. I’ll remember the disappointment of catching my first cheater after having the server up for only a few days. I’ll remember the realization that I had purchased what should have been a $30 expansion pack for CoD. I’ll remember, and I’ll find a better place to spend my $50 next time.

For all those video game companies that did not see the poor sales coming, you where warned. Two years ago Gamespot sat down with Michael Pachter, senior vice president of research for investment banking and brokerage firm Wedbush Morgan Securities, after E3 about his predictions for the future of video games. In this interview Michael predicted: that the Nintendo DS was going to sell better then the PSP. That soon consumers where going to get sick of the sequels. Destroy All Humans would flop. And that EA is due for a fall. How ironic that all of those points came true. Okay so he was wrong that Acclaim may just make it. Still four out of five is not bad. Now if the video game companies would just listen maybe they would be having such a bad year.

The New York Times has posted an article about why the XBox 360 has failed to take hold in Japan. The simple answer is the games. The long answer is best answered by this Japanese blogger. If Microsoft wants to win the Japanese market over they better start making Horse Racing games, pretty boy action games and Pachinko games.

According to this Gamepro article the XBox has outsold the XBox 360 this season. Too bad game sales are doing so bad this season.

Another week and another short list of games the week before Christmas:

Chaos Field for the Gamecube
Dead or Alive 4 for the XBox 360
Peter Jackson’s King Kong: The Official Game of the Movie for the PSP

Wow a list shorter then the E3 list. Games of note of this week are Dead or Alive 4 which is the latest masterpiece from Team Ninja. And Chaos Field which is a 2D arcade shooter from Japan. My pick of the week is: Dead or Alive 4. Team Ninja always make good games and if you have a XBox 360 this is a good buy for it.

Game Gossip has posted some new screen shots of the Vivendi Universal Games upcoming RTS, Joint Task Force (JTF). Normally I could careless about RTS but after what I saw at E3 this year I really can not wait for this one to come out. When I played JTF it felt a lot like the first time I played Starcraft. Granted this was a early build copy but can not wait for this game to come out next year.

Well, today is the day of the big CoD2 strike. I fully support the community in their efforts to push Activision/InfinityWard into releasing an anti-cheat for their games. If you have any question about that, look for a server named WE SUPPORT CCA: Shamelessgeeks.com . I’ll keep it up until the strike is over, or until I decide to completely abandon the cause and put up a Quake4 server instead. Once pushed to that extreme, I’ll start advocating the boycott of ALL games with either the InfinityWard or Activision name.

It’s really disappointing that the only response from IW so far has been an anemic “we’re looking into it". You would expect that a company would pay more attention to the MP server admins after they release a MP-oriented game. The whole thing is beginning to sound like Microsoft’s initial response to hackers (Gee… nobody really hacks, so why should we waste money stopping hackers?).

As of 11:15 AM EST, the results look mixed. A quick browse of the CoD2 dedicated servers I found online showed 400+ servers displaying We Support CCA at the beginning of their server name. I googled the cod2 strike progress in an attempt to find something that would give me a better sense of the overall response, and found a list of 855 CoD2 and CoDUO servers that contained the term CCA.

Unfortunately, the above numbers are at around 10% of the total servers out there. The only real way to get the attention of the greedy MBA’s in charge is to shut down the multiplayer aspect of the game so thoroughly that it will affect sales. I was able to log on to a few low-ping, open sites without trouble. In fact… most of the open sites I saw were completely empty. As long as all of this is true, why would Activision/IW pay any attention at all?

The only bright side of this is that Activision/IW’s disdain for their gamers is coming into public view. I hope that one of 2 things happens:

1. Activision/IW has a few real gamers around who can tell the MBA’s how serious this is. So far, all that has come from those guys is an excuse that they were all on vacation.
2. The community-at-large figures out how little Activision/IW cares and boycotts all of their current and future games. Hitting them in the bottom line should get their attention.

I’ll forward information as I get it.

Update 12:45 PM EST

Nearly 1000 strike supporters.

I missed the part about the strike starting at 6:00 PM. I’ll check again then to see how it all goes. I’ve been looking around at the posted opinions, and find that they fall into 5 categories:

1. Most people are realists. They fully support the action, but don’t think Activision/IW will do anything. Many also say that they will avoid Activision/IW in the future.
2. Many people are idealistic. They believe that this strike will actually result in attaining the goals.
3. Some have already given up and changed games. This is probably the group that we will all end up in eventually.
4. Some believe that the strike is a bad idea. They want to let IW fix the problems in due time. (Note: though most people like me disagree with this opinion, it is a valid one. It’s OK to disagree, but some of the venom I’ve seen spewed against these people is unwarranted.)
5. A few actually believe cheating is OK. these all seem to be either cheaters themselves, or flamebait trolls

Update 6:00 PM EST

About 1200 strike supporters. Not bad, but maybe not enough.

The good news and the bad news: support is at about 15% right now. That’s enough to look serious, but probably won’t sway IW/Activision. I’ll continue supporting the strike for a while, but I’ll eventually give up and change games.

Chris Morris of CNN/Money got his hands on the Nintendo Revolution this week. Chris really liked the way controller worked and felt it was very revolutionary. I look forward to playing with the controller once Nintendo releases the Revolution. Till then I am going to have to settle for reports by Chris and others. If I am lucky, I may get some ‘hands on’ time at E3.

Wired has posted an article about a recent update by Sony Online to the MMORPG Star Wars Galaxies that has wrecked the game and driven away most of its membership. The changes include: streamlining the character class from over thirty down to nine including adding the ability to be a Jedi from the start. Changing the combat from a fairly complex system to a simple FPS style system that rewards twitch ability over brain power. And removing most of the elements that made Star Wars Galaxies a unique experience. In addition to the above the update is fairly bug ridden.
Adding insult to injury Sony Online released the expansion pack “The Trials of Obi-Wan” one week before making the upgrade. Knowing full well that all the significant upgrades to character classes that pack promised would disappear when the update would occur.
Sony Online claims it did all these changes to make Star Wars Galaxies more like the core material and bring in new players. Instead of having that effect it appears the changes instead have brought about the death of the game. I guess the arrogance of the Beast from Tokyo is never ending.

Working Design owner and founder Vic Ireland announced yesterday on his forums that he has closed Working Design. Working Design was best know for bringing Japanese RPGs like Lunar and Arc Lad to the states. Vic’s main reason for closing the doors was the inability of the Beast from Tokyo to approve games for the United States.
In his final goodbye he stated in addition to above that it is pure idiocy on the beasts part for failing to see the market for those games here in the states. The only good news in his goodbye is that he is working with Microsoft to bring to the states the Japanese only RPGs for the XBox 360.
We here at Shamelessgeeks salute Vic and the staff of Working Design for all the hard work they have done to bring over the treasures that we otherwise would have never seen. In there honor I will fire up my unplayed copy of Growlanser tonight and cry.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past few weeks, you’ve probably heard about the CoD2 strike that is planned for December 17. Take it from someone who has a dedicated server running: A strike is a good idea. Allow me to tell you about one of my personal experiences with cheaters.

I joined the ShamelessgeeksCoD2DM server that runs on this very machine as the 19th player. I noticed that a few players were really dominating, but nothing looked strange to begin with. I’m not that good of a player (too busy to develop the skills), so I don’t get upset about coming in dead last at the end of a map. I do, however, make sure to watch the killcam every time I get whacked.

I was watching how I got killed, and noticed that the player’s gun sight was following me as I walked down a flight of stairs out of his view. Wall hack? probably. I switched to spectator and followed the guy for a while. Sure enough, he wasted a lot of ammo trying to shoot through walls. Not only was he hacking, but he was pretty damned stupid too. About then, one of the other players started to complain about the same guy.

So… I tabbed out of the game, fired up my console utility, wrote down his name, then gave him a 5-minute ban. I was slow to boot him, and I thought a 5-minute ban was pretty lenient. The worst part about it is the announcement that he has been banned for cheating.

I rejoined the game after the usual 30 second reload. When I finally got back, I found that the number of players had gone from 19 to 5. The remaining players were all grateful, but a little puzzled. It looked like they had been playing with 14 cheaters.

If this kind of thing doesn’t bother you, then you must not be paying attention. If you think that cheating is fun, then grow up. If you can’t put in the time to develop your skills, then just admit that you suck.

I provide the server as a perk to geeks, hoping that they will associate the web site with the game server. Since I make nothing from either, it is all out of my pocket. I really hate to think that I’m spending all of this money so some knuckle-dragging, crayon-eating, hyper-juvenile moron can pretend that he has skills.

Personally, I applaud the efforts of the gaming community to push IW into an anti-cheat function. Here’s something you can depend on: If IW doesn’t do something soon, I’ll be participating in the strike. You can also believe that, if the strike doesn’t work, I’ll be taking down the server permanently.

You heard it from me here, a few months ago, and now experts agree: politicians are bad for your health.

Well, okay, not that (though I’m sure they do). Instead, one MIT professor has weighed in on the “video game violence provokes real-life violence” debate and his conclusions are, well, basically what any geek who could proudly claim an IQ of 140 because he scored 70 twice on an IQ test would have thought up of. (Cheers to you, Shameless!)

Reality Bytes, so have a lame pun!

The only points I could contend with are 7 and 8. My opinion (and the research I’ve seen) completely differs from 7 and while I agree with point 8, at the same time his evidence is..well…

Lets just say that I think I know which studies he’s talking about, and if it really is the Bobo doll studies he’s talking about, then he quite frankly missed the entire point. The point of that study was the modeling of behavior, and to see from which source (reallife, action media, cartoons) children were more likely to demonstrate a learned behavior of violence from - hence the bobo dolls. That study, btw, found that children were more likely to mimc behavior from the three sources in this order: real-life adults, real-life adults on tv, then cartoons.

Gee, a lighthearted post turned into psycho-babble. I’m quite sure shamless is now sorry that he might, indeed, be getting what he paid for. XD

Over the weekend, Spike TV aired its annual Gaming Awards. Just like last year it was junk. Most of the games that won awards were jokes. Some of the games had not yet come out when this award show was filmed. The skits pandered to the lowest common denominator, and again there was way too much focus on celebrities. I was going post my review of it, but thankfully, Netjak beat me to it.

Another week and another list of upcoming games. Again not much this week as we get closer and closer to Christmas.

Armored Core: Formula Front for the PSP
Final Fantasy IV Advance for the Gameboy Advance
Gauntlet: Seven Sorrows for the XBox and Playstation 2
Pocket Dogs for the Gameboy Advance
Ultimate Block Party for the PSP
SnoCross 2: Featuring Blair Morgan for the XBox
Tony Hawk’s American Wasteland for the PC
World Championship Poker 2: Featuring Howard Lederer for the PSP
WWE SmackDown! vs. RAW 2006 for the PSP

Not much too pick from this week unless you are PSP owner. That is if any of them where any good. Here is the note worthy games:

Gauntlet: Seven Sorrows - Another game I played at E3. The only thing of note I remember about this game was that I meet John Romero when play-testing it. Who had a hand in designing the game. The only other thing I remeber about it from E3 was, it was fairly bland game.

Final Fantasy IV Advance - 15 years after it was released in Japan for the Super Nintendo comes the latest port of Final Fantasy IV. Personally I prefer the Playstation port, but if you are looking for a good RPG for your Gameboy Advance this is one. With the Gameboy getting one, why have they not yet released a Final Fantasy collection for the PSP?

That is it. My pick of the week is: None of the above. There is nothing on the above list that I would recommend. Gauntlet is fairly bland and not worth it at $50. Final Fantasy IV while it would have been a pick of the week 15 years ago has lost all its charm. I am sorry but most Final Fantasy fans have played it to death. Even though I am sick of it, it is still a very good RPG. That is if you have not played ten times in a row.

If you want a XBox 360 go to Japan. It just launched in Japan and is readily available in most shops. That is if ignore Gamespot’s article about how the launch was a smashing success with huge lines and a massive sellout across Japan. Thankfully Kotaku had a man on the ground in Japan who brought us the truth. That is the lines where less then stellar and the XBox 360 is readily available at most locations. And you can get good cocoa out of vending machines. So who do you believe Gamespot or Kotaku?

Gamespot recently posted an article comparing the Nintendo DS against the PSP. In the end they deiced to call neither a winner but two very unique and different type of gaming machine. That is the DS unsexy but has good games and the PSP is very sexy but has poor games.

This reminds me of discussion I had with a Sony developer about the PSP. It went sort of like this…all games are now shooters….the PS3 looks real good….when I was a kid our fancy graphics where stick ons that you put on the TV…the PSP is very sexy. To which I responded: “yhea know, I love the PSP because it gets you laid". To which he responded, “it would be perfect if it actual had good games like the DS.” So remember if you want to get laid buy a PSP. If you want a gaming machine buy Nintendo DS. Just do not blame me when you don’t get laided or get stuck playing sucky games.

Troy Wolverton has posted an article on TheStreet.com discussing how the PSP is losing all its hype to the XBox 360. Troy is 100% correct on this point. What little media attention the PSP was getting vanished once the XBox 360 came out. That is because the media moved on and now has a new darling to talk about and pick on.

Troy also discussed the reasons the PSP failed to catch on fire like it was suppose to. The main reasons he gave for the PSP failure were: the lack of good games, the price point and the loss of hype thanks to the XBox 360. Troy also wrote that the PSP may gain sales this Christmas as an alternative gift for people not able to get a XBox 360. From that comment it looks like Sony may be attempting the Dreamcast Gambit.

The Dreamcast Gambit is where system A is sold out, so another company B that makes system B tries to capture some of demand for System A. This happened five years ago when Sega attempted to increase the sales of the Dreamcast when the Playstation 2 sold out at launch time. This gambit works well in the short run since system B’s sales goes up. In the long run it does not work since sales of System B and its games go down as supply meets demand for System A. That is because most consumers really just want System A and will take System B as an alternative till they can get system A. When consumers finally get System A they abandon System B… That is, unless the company making System B gives consumers a reason not to abandon it. Or the company that is making system A fails in a huge way to the follow up after the launch of system A.

This gambit failed for Sega with the Dreamcast and ultimately forced them to cancel the Dreamcast. Whether the Dreamcast gambit will work or not for Sony is still out there. That all depends on how Sony and Microsoft follow up their systems after Christmas. Right now signs are pointing to a failure if Sony attempts the Dreamcast gambit.

Enough gaming econ theory, lets get back to the subject on hand. While I agree with Tom 100% that two of the big reasons the PSP failed was the price point and lack of games. I think neither of these where the main reason.

The main reasons I think the PSP failed are: Sony does not understand the hand held market, the marketing of the PSP was poorly done and the PSP does a lot of thing Okay but not one thing well. The biggest failure had to be the marketing. When the PSP first launched, as I noted here, the Sony marketing department seemed more interested in promoting God of War than the PSP and the games for it. Two weeks into the launch Sony finally started actually marketing the PSP on the web and TV. By then however it was too late.

The next failure was to run the same commercial for 6 months. I still see the same commercial from April when the PSP launched on the TV and the web. Most consoles at this point in system launch cycle have moved away from advertising the system and on to advertising the games. Granted, very few PSP games are worth advertising, but there were a few. Sony choose not to advertise them on TV. On the flip side I have seen a ton of ads for UMD movies marketed along side the DVD advertisement.

The another big marketing failure was Sony’s attempt to market the PSP as a multimedia machine and not a gaming machine. When gamers heard about all the neat multimedia things and UMD disk their eyes perked up a little. However when they found out the cost of the Memory sticks and UMDs most gamers gave out a loud groan. Then they heard how it was a multimedia machine and many felt Sony was abandoning them in favor of the MP3/movie crowd. Sadly, this attitude may be correct as Sony continues to push the UMDs over the games.

In addition, the MP3/IPod/Gadget guys yawned at Sony’s attempts to market to them. Again because of the PSP battery life and lack of a decant amount of storage. I am sorry but 1 GB no longer cuts in the MP3 gadget market.

This all adds up to Sony not understanding the Hand held market. The hand held market is not like the console market. The games that do well in the hand held market are either long games that can be played for long hours, short, quick, pick me up games, or games like Tetris that can do both. So far the only game that meets that requirement is Lumnies.

Another big factor that Sony missed was the price point of hand held games. Hand held gamers expect to pay 15-30 dollars per game. Yet Sony is trying to sell PSP games in the 25-50 dollar price range.

Another issue is that gamers expect the price of an old game to drop after six months. This has also not happened. PSP launch titles still sell for around $40. Even the crappy ones like Tony Hawk Underground 2.

The PSP can still succeed as Troy pointed out. That is if Sony does a few things. First, Sony needs to figure out a way to increase the battery life and increase the maximum data storage for a low price point. Second, Sony needs to get more good games out there for the PSP that hand held gamers like. Third, Sony needs to lower the price point of the PSP and the PSP games. Fourth, Sony needs to get on the marketing ball and start advertising the games not the system or the UMDs. If most of that happens Sony could just make the PSP into a success.

Ati released Catalyst 5.12 today, with a claim of significant performance increases for multi-core and HT machines. I downloaded and installed the new package. I’ll let you know if I see a difference.

There is also a new ATI driver for Linux available. This one appears to have a self-install utility that will cost you about 57MB. I’ll let you know how that one works as well.

Ign tonight posted an article that is supposedly the specs for the Nintendo Revolution. I have no comment yet and will hold judgment for now.

The Street has posted an article about how the used video game market is growing and the supposed negative effects it is having. In reality, used video games are actually helping the game market, not hurting it. Here is why: Since margins on games are very small, used games enable places like EB Games to turn a profit. If the video game stores did not have used games, places like EB Games and Gamestop would disappear. This happened in the 90’s when video game publishers lowered the profit margin on games. The video game stores that embraced the used market survived and the ones that did not either merged with ones that did or perished.

Most consumers buy new games by trading in old games. The main reason new game sales are down is not because people are buying less games. It is because the trade in deals stink right now at most video game stores. When the trade in deals are good the sales of new games go up and the sales of used ones go down. When the trade in deals are bad the sales of new games go down and the sales of used games go up.

The main reason for all the bad trade in deals is the current generation cycle. Most video games companies are overstocked on current generation used games and want to get rid of inventory… Hence bad trade in deals. When the next generation gets up and going the trade in deals on stuff like XBox 360 will get a lot better as the video game companies rebuild their used game inventories.

How do I know all this? I am an avid video game collector and am friends with 30-40 video game store managers in the Virginia/Maryland area. When managers need their used numbers played with, they call me. That is because I can trade in and will buy enough used games to effect their numbers. Guess what… When the trade in deals are good, they call me to trade in games. When they are bad, they are call me in to buy used games. When the deals are good the managers will often also mention how wonderful their new sales are and how poor their used sales are. When they are call me in to buy used games, they will mention how wonderful their used games are doing but how poor their new games are doing. It is not hard to draw my conclusions from there.

It looks like the litigation over XBox 360 overheating problems has already started. The whole thing begs the question: did Microsoft know about these problems before the release date? If they did, but released anyway to beat Sony to the punch, then the whole thing may blow up in their faces. It couldn’t happen to a nicer company

Another week and another very short list as we head into Christmas weekend. Onto the list:

Animal Crossing: Wild World for the Nintendo DS
Battles of Prince of Persia for the Nintendo DS
Bust-A-Move DS for the Nintendo DS
Dragon Booster for the Nintendo DS
Mario Tennis: Power Tour for the Gameboy Advance
Pac-Man World 3 for the Nintendo DS and PSP
Pinball Hall of Fame for the PSP
Prince of Persia Revelations for the PSP
The Sims 2 for the PSP
Super Mario Strikers for the Gamecube
Tokobot for the PSP

A lot of handheld games but not much else for everyone else. This pick of the week: Animal Crossing.

The rush of games coming out for Christmas has come to a stop now that we passed Black Friday and entered the home stretch for Christmas. This week list may be fairly light but there is still a few gems amongst including a PSP game that may force me to get my PSP out. Onto the list:

American Chopper 2 Full Throttle for the Gamecube
Burnout Legends for the Nintendo DS
Dr. Mario / Puzzle League for the Nintendo Gameboy Advance
Elf Bowling 1 & 2 for the Nintendo DS and Gameboy Advance (delayed from last week)
Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time for the Nintendo DS
PopoloCrois for the PSP
Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones for the XBox, PC, Gamecube and Playstation 2

Again not much compared to 30 or 40 games on average per week for the last 2 months.
The highlights for this week are:

Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time: Mario and Lugi left the Platformer genre a few years ago when Mario Sunshine did not do as well as expected. Since then Nintendo have matured them and created a string of Mario RPGs for his aging fans.

PopoloCrois: Is a Japanese old school 2-D RPG which can go one of two ways. Instant classic like Lunar or instant failure like Shining Tear. Until it is reviewed there is no way to tell. I am leaning, okay praying, that it will be good. The 2-D Japanese RPG is a dieing breed with each generation and will most likely be one of the last games ever in this genre. The genre needs a few good hits before it fads away for good.

Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones: The third installment in the current generation revision of Prince of Persia. If you where a fan of the first two you will like this one. Also if you where a huge fan of God of War you may want to give Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones a go.

My pick for this week is: PopoloCrois, this game has reinvigorated my hope in the PSP. Okay actual because I love 2D Japanese RPGs it has gotten me to dust off my PSP. For that PopoloCrois gets the game of the week.

Over the past few days there have been reports flooding the Internet that the XBox 360 is having issues with overheating and is occasionally crashing. Not one to believe rumors, and since I do not have a XBox 360, I decided to hold on this story until I could talk to my friends that have an XBox 360.

I finally did, and none of them report any overheating issues, but a few of them did have a crash or two. All of them are also reporting that the power supply is huge and gets very hot, which would give credence to the reports of the power supply causing overheating issues. One person complained that he smelled a burning smell when he turned on his XBox 360, which would suggest that Microsoft may have skipped the overnight burn in test.

The biggest complaint I heard was not the overheating or crashing. It was: if you did not have HDTV, games that were ported to the XBox and XBox 360 looked about the same. Again I can not verify this since I do not have an XBox 360. One other thing of note: the five or six vendors I talked to all said they do not plan to have any XBox 360s in stock until after Christmas. This is contrary to Microsoft’s reports that the next wave of XBox 360s should be hitting stories over the next few weeks.

Filed under some-people-have-more-money-than-brains:

Xbox flipping on EBay has been a profitable business today. The only credible reason for this is that paying $800 for a $400 unit is inconsequential to some people. I find it hard to believe that here are 30000 gamers rich enough to buy all of the systems that are being offered. The rest will either be sold at cost, or bought by people with very little in the way of brains.

In a few hours the first XBox 360 will be going on sale across the World. If you have not heard already, the XBox 360 is going to be in short supply. So you better be in line right now or have a pre-order. Microsoft claims it is the demand causing the shortages. The leading conspiracy theory however, is that Microsoft is shorting the supply of the XBox 360 in hopes of creating a massive sales spike down the road. This is similar to what happened with the Playstation 2 and Super Nes in Japan. Personally I feel the truth lies somewhere in the middle. The demand is high but not as high as Microsoft thinks. What is really causing the shortage is the simultaneous launch around the world, with the bulk of the extra XBox 360’s being earmarked for Japan. In a few hours we will find out if it is a fake shortage like the PSP shortage or a real shortage. The sad thing is that if it is a real shortage, Microsoft is sacrificing huge markets, like Europe, for weak markets like Japan. I guess Microsoft thinks that we all will be good lemmings and run out and buy the XBox 360 in a few months when there are plenty.

My personal opinions about the XBox 360 are mixed. Graphically the machine is a powerhouse but other than that there is little that impresses me. The XBox Live arcade stuff is neat but I could already get all that for my PC. The micro market just scares me. I love the idea of being able to buy new content for my game but not when I payed $60 for the game. I want that for free. If you are going sell me a game and then charge me more money to play with the neat red car on the cover… that is just greed. What is going to stop some company from releasing a game and then charging you a fee for each level and character?

If by some chance you get an XBox 360 please post here about it. I was to late to pre-order mine and I am not standing out in the rain for one. I would love to hear some honest opinions about the XBox 360 and the launch games, particularly King Kong and Kameo. Then again if none of you do not buy one I don’t blame you. This has to be one of the most bland launches I have ever seen with no real breakout must buy games. I think only the PSP launch selection was worse. Hopefully, unlike the PSP, there will actually be a few good games six months down the road.

On the eve of Thanksgiving weekend we have a major launch event this Tuesday when the XBox 360 launches. Most gaming companies have chosen to not launch anything this week so other then the 360 games everything else is light. Even though some XBox 360 games are now in stores, I have held of to list them all until you could actual play them. Onto the list:

American Chopper Full Throttle for the Playstation 2 and Gamecube (delayed from last week)
Ancient SuDoKu for the PC
Battlefield 2: Special Forces for the PC
College Hoops 2K6 for the XBox
Combat Elite: WWII Paratroopers for the Playstation 2, XBox
Crime Life: Gang Wars for the XBox
Dragon Ball Z: Supersonic Warriors 2 for the Nintendo DS
Elf Bowling 1 & 2 for the Gameboy Advance
EyeToy: Kinetic for the Playstation 2
Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi: Kaznapped for the Gameboy Advance
Kong: The 8th Wonder of the World for the Nintendo DS and Gameboy Advance
Peter Jackson’s King Kong: The Official Game of the Movie for the PC, XBox, Playstation 2 and Gamecube
Real Time Conflict: Shogun Empires for the Nintendo DS (delayed from last week)
Snowboard Kids DS (delayed from last week)
Zatch Bell! Electric Arena for the Gameboy Advance

Not much to pick from the week mostly budget stuff. The stuff of note is Ancient SuDoKu which is a new puzzle game crazy that is sweeping the county and Peter Jackson’s King Kong: The Official Game of the Movie. I am not convinced King Kong can make a great game but the it does have a great pedigree behind it with both Ancel and Jackson working to make sure it does not suck. Every good geek should know who Peter Jackson is but most of you most likely do not know Michel Ancel. He is most famous for creating Rayman but his best game, which is why Peter tapped for King Kong, was Beyond Good and Evil.
This week I am going make two picks of the week, The XBox 360 launch title and the rest. The pick for this week is Peter Jackson’s King Kong: The Official Game of the Movie.

XBox 360 launch titles
———————————–
Amped 3
Call of Duty 2
Condemned: Criminal Origins
FIFA 06: Road to FIFA World Cup
Gun
Kameo: Elements of Power
Madden NFL 06
NBA 2K6
NBA Live 06
NHL 2K6
Need for Speed Most Wanted
Perfect Dark Zero
Peter Jackson’s King Kong: The Official Game of the Movie
Project Gotham Racing 3
Quake 4
Ridge Racer 6
Tiger Woods PGA Tour 06
Tony Hawk’s American Wasteland

The most talked about launch title is Project Gotham Racing 3 and Perfect Dark Zero. If you are into racing games it is a good buy. The other highlights that are getting hype are Kameo , Call of Duty 2, Condemned, GUN (Gamespot did give it a bad review) and King Kong. The one I am most looking forward to is Kameo. Rare has spent a lot of time working on it and a lot of guys that have played it are talking about on hushed breath. Hence it is my pick for the best XBox 360 launch title.
One other thing of note, even if you do not buy any XBox 360 titles thanks to XBox Live you can download a neat collection of various arcade and puzzle games.

I finally got around to putting up a game server. If you are in the mood for Call of Duty 2, check out ShamelessGeeksCoD2. As of right now, it’s an extremely simple public deathmatch server, but that will likely change soon. If you get a chance to play, please drop a comment here letting me know how your experience was… good or bad.

Anandtech has posted a guide on how to take apart an XBox 360. It has also posted pictures of what the insides of an XBox 360 looks like. Now that people have figured out how to break open the XBox 360, I wonder how long till the first mod chips appear?

Ted Owen, the owner of GPL, has posted an article on GameDailyBiz on how to become a pro gamer. Some of his advice is fairly common sense, like go out and play in multi-player games. Other bits of advice, like take Media classes so you can learn to speak to the media, are just wishful thinking on his part. If Fatal1y took media classes, whoever payed for it should ask for their money back. Ted, I would suggest instead of focusing on making your guys media savvy, that you focus on teaching sportsmanship to your top players. The whole ‘eating of the young’ thing that you point out in your article is a major reason pro gaming will only cater to a niche market and not the main stream. Most normal people do not have the patience for the online antics of pro gamers like Fatal1y, especially when they are starting out.

One week to go till the XBox 360 launches. Even though stores are starting to stock XBox 360 games I am going wait till next week to talk about all the XBox 360 launch goodness. Instead I am going focus on all the games the developers are trying push out before the 500 pound retail giant shows up next week. Onto the list:

Aeon Flux for the Playstation 2 and XBox
America’s Army: Rise of a Soldier for the XBox
American Chopper Full Throttle for the XBox
Armored Core: Formula Front for the PSP
Bust-A-Move DS for the Nintendo DS
Cabela’s Dangerous Hunts 2 for the Playstation 2, Gamecube and XBox
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe for the Gamecube, Gameboy Advance, Playstation 2, XBox, Nintendo DS and PC
Dance Dance Revolution Ultramix 3 for the XBox
Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King for the Playstation 2
Dynasty Warriors 5: Xtreme Legends for the Playstation 2
EyeToy: Operation Spy for the Playstation 2
Friends: The One with All the Trivia for the PC
From Russia With Love for the Gamecube
Half Life 2 for the XBox
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire for the PSP
Infected for the PSP
Kingdom of Paradise for the PSP
The Legend of Heroes: A Tear of Vermillion for the PSP
Magna Carta: Tears of Blood for the Playstation 2 (delayed from last week)
Mario Kart DS for the Nintendo DS
Neopets: The Darkest Faerie for the Playstation 2
Need for Speed Most Wanted for the PC, Playstation 2, Gameboy Advance, Gamecube, Nintendo DS, PSP and XBox
Pac-Man World 3 for the Playstation 2, Gamecube, PC and XBox
Shadow the Hedgehog for the Playstation 2, Gamecube and XBox
Snowboard Kids DS for the Nintendo DS
Sonic Rush for the Nintendo DS
Stuart Little 3: Big Photo Adventure for the Playstation 2
Stubbs the Zombie in Rebel Without a Pulse for the PC and Mac.
Tony Hawk’s American Sk8land for the Nintendo DS
True Crime: New York City for the Gamecube, XBox and Playstation 2
Viewtiful Joe Double Trouble for the Nintendo DS
Wild Arms Alter Code: F for the Playstation 2
WWE SmackDown! vs. RAW 2006 for the Playstation 2

Lots to choose from this week. The big surprise for me is the amount of good RPG are coming onto the market. Also the PSP is finally starting to get games. I will be back tomorrow with my comments about the games for this week. I am fairly sick right now and need some sleep to get healthy so I can be at my smarkest tomorrow.

Stars and Stripes, the hometown newspaper for the Military, has posted a gaming supplement about what games are hot in Iraq and Afghanistan. The gaming supplement is pdf but it gives light to often neglected military gamers and is an interesting read. It was also kinda of eerie to hear that GIs in Iraq have to adjust their gaming cycles depending if they are being shelled or not. Normally when I game the only thing I want to go and that goes boom is my TV. Also if you are GI reading this and want free gaming swaq, Stars and Stripes is running a contest to get some. You just need to tell S&S why.

Heh… It looks like Jack Thompson has finally given up his crusade after being accused of ethics violations. We at ShamelessGeeks truly feel sorry for him. NOT!!!

I’m honestly tired of talking about this sleazy attention hound. Hopefully, we won’t have old Jack Thompson to kick around anymore.

1UP has posted an article comparing the launch of the XBox 360 to that of the Dreamcast. The first part of the article compares how to the two are similar. The second part compares how they are different. Either way the article shows that both the Dreamcast and XBox 360 have shades of similarity. That may just give a hint to the future of the XBox 360, a bad one that is.

Slate has posted an article about the London adventures of a book collector. The first one sums up why the author collects books and the first shop he visted in London. His summary of why he collects books is the same reason I collect Video games and comic books. For the thrill of the hunt and joy of enjoying a great comic book or video game.

According to this article on Slate; Sumner Redstone, the mastermind behind Viacom, is in the middle of buying Midway Games. The main reason Redstone is doing this is not because Midway makes great games but so he can make a fortune adding ads to games. Redstone and lots of TV execs feel with the growth of TiVo and TiVo like devices, new ways will be have to devised to bring ads to consumers. Redstone feels video games is this new way. Personally I do not like paying $50 for a bunch of ads.

It looks like every gamer’s favorite target Jack Thompson is in ethics trouble and may even have his license to practice law revoked. It couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.

You knew it was coming… it looks like commercial ads are coming to online games. Luckily (for now) it looks like they will only be appearing in flash-based games. The only question is: how long will it take some genius to figure out how to add a server mod for commercials in something like Q4? That would be the end of fun as we know it.

Leakenova’s PSP XBox 360 Survival Guide

The PSP XBox 360 is coming out this Thursday later this month and you forgot to pre-order it. Do not worry. Shameless Geeks is here to help to acquire a PSP XBox 360, and once you have what you need, to make your PSPXBox 360 experience the best.

1. Run out right now and pre-order the PSP Xbox 360. Most of the major stores are still taking pre-orders. Word of warning: all the stores will most likely take your pre-order but you might not get it till the second or third tenth or eleventh wave of PSP XBox 360 arrives in stores a few weeks after the launch on Thursday later this month.
2. Get to know the clerks at the store where you pre-order. Most clerks are underpaid, unloved and easily bribed with a free game. It is often up to the clerks who gets their PSP XBox 360 first, and knowing the clerk can make the difference between getting the first wave of the PSP or the fourth eleventh wave.
3. If you were unable or decided not to pre-order the PSP XBox 360, get up earlybefore midnight, head out to one of the stores like Walmart, Kmart, Target or Meijers who do not do pre-orders. Get in the long line, and pray they do not run out before it is your turn to buy. Better yet, go to the store Wednesday night day before the XBox 360 launch with your sleeping bag and tent and spend the night in line. That way you do not have to worry whether god exists or not.
4. Go to the smaller vendors if the bigger vendors sell out. When a new gaming system comes out most people rush off to Walmart, Kmart, Gamespot, Target, Best Buy, Circuit City, Meijers and EBGames. People often forget about the smaller vendors like Suncoast Videos, Game Crazy and Fye. Don’t believe me? Well, here is an example: when Halo 2 came out the quickest place to get a copy of Halo 2 in the DC area was Fye.
5. Issues may pop up with your PSP XBox 360, so make sure you fill out the warranty card that comes with it. Remember SonyMicrosoft’s first generation video game products always seem to have issues. For example: the over-heating issues with the Playstation One, The dreaded disk reading errors on the Playstation 2, and Japanese version of the PSP having dead pixels and non working buttons. The only issue I have heard so far about the US version of the PSP is the rumored crashes from time to time during WiFi play, but that might be a software related issue. XBox 360 is that the wireless controllers signals mess up Walmart intercom system.
6. If your PSP XBox 360 is one of the first million sold, then you will get the Universal Mini Disk (UMD) movie Spiderman 2 for free. If you are a movie buff, pick up one of the cool movies that Lion Gate Films and Sony are releasing for the PSP and enjoy some movies on the go. Well, one movie anyway nothing.
7. Once you get your PSP and a game that uses WiFi over the Internet, like Twisted Metal, head out to Starbucks and start abusing Starbuck’s free WiFi. If you do not like coffee, then you can do what I plan to do: wander around my neighborhood hunting for the one neighbor who forgot to secure his WiFi connection. XBox 360 you may want find an ethernet cord so that you hook it up to XBox Live. This time around the basic version of XBox Live is free. If you want any of the neat benefits of XBox Live you are still going to have to fork out money.
8. The PSP comes with a 32MB memory stick basic XBox 360 does not come with a hardrive, which is great if you only plan to use it for game savesuse memory cards for game saves. If you want movies or music then you will need to get at least a 512MB memory stick for around $90. For an additional $60 you can get the biggest bad boy on the block, the 1GB memory stick. game saves, speedier load times or backward compatibility then you will need to buy the XBox 360 with the Hardrive. Get a bigger memory stick if you want to actually play music or movies that are not on UMD disks.
9.In order to get the music and all those movies onto that 1GB memory stick you will need a memory stick reader on your computer or the (not included) USB cable. Sony also did not create a manager for music files. You will need to download a PSP file manager if you do not want to do a lot of dragging and dropping to the memory stick. the XBox 360 just requires you buy a hard drive so you can rip songs to it and then use them to custom the soundtracks of your games. There is a joke somewhere in there but any grown man listening to Brittany Spears will playing Halo 3 is well just sad.
10. In order to play movies that are not on UMD disks, they need to be in the MPEG-4 format and in a special hidden directory on the memory stick. Luckily, someone had the foresight to create PSP video 9, a program which allows you to convert regular PC video files into the MPEG-4 format. It can also manage the transfer of the movies between your PC and your PSP. PSP Video 9 is free, but the creator does appreciate donations. you will need to buy a remote that will allow you play DVDs. Hold on if you buy the premier version with the Hard Drive it comes with the Media Remote so you can play DVDs without paying extra like you did for the XBox.

11. The battery life stinks if you are taking any long plane trips or plan to watch more then one movie on a UMD disk before having to recharge the PSP. The PSP’s battery life is two to five hours at best. Either you better get lots and lots of battery packs/portable chargers or you will spend a lot of time with the PSP plugged into the wall. is not an issue unless you plan to use the wireless controllers. If you do you may want to buy the rechargeable battery.

12. Lets not forget the real reason you are buying the PSP XBox 360, the interchangeable faceplates. So you can make sure that the front of your XBox 360 mismatches the rest of the XBox 360. Seriously though the real reason is the games. Here are all the games that I have heard a lot of cool things about: Darkstalkers Chronicle: The Chaos Tower , Lumines, Ridge Racer, Wipeout Pure, and Twisted Metal: Head On Gun, Call of Duty 2, Kameo, Perfect Dark Zero, Project Gotham Racing 3, Quake 4, Dead or Alive 4, Ridge Racer 6, and Peter Jackson’s King Kong: The Official Game of the Movie . My personal recommendation is the ultra cool puzzle game Lumines Kameo.

Good luck on getting a PSP XBox 360 and if you fail to get your PSP this week XBox 360 later this month remember there is always Ebay. Alternatively, you can simply wait a month or two six months when there will be plenty in the stores.

So far, this Christmas season has been bad. Yes there were some great games like Civ 4, but most have left me disappointed. Hopefully this week will cheer me up. Onto the games:

College Hoops 2K6 for the Playstation 2 and XBox
Crash Tag Team Racing for the PSP
Disney’s Kim Possible: Kimmunicator for the Nintendo DS
Donkey Kong Country 3 for the Gameboy Advance
Fatal Frame III: The Tormented for the Playstation 2
Ford vs. Chevy for the Playstation 2, XBox
Guitar Hero for the Playstation 2
Gun for the Playstation 2, PC, XBox and Gamecube
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire for the Playstation 2, PC, XBox, Nintendo DS, Gameboy Advance and Gamecube
Karaoke Revolution Party for the Playstation 2, XBox
Lord of the Rings: Tactics for the PSP
Magna Carta: Tears of Blood for the Playstation 2
Mario Party 7 for the Gamecube
The Matrix: Path of Neo for the Playstation 2, XBox and PC
The Movies for the PC
SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs Fireteam Bravo for the PSP
SpongeBob Squarepants: The Yellow Avenger for the Nintendo DS
Suikoden Tactics for the Playstation 2

An interesting list of games. Nothing on the level of Halo 2, but some neat ones anyway. The highlights for this week are:

Guitar Hero - This one has been getting a lot of buzz amongst the hardcore gamers. A lot of the sites that got their hands on this game earlier this week fell in love with it. Most claim to love it because they think it is a great music game. I think it is because it comes with a big electric guitar. You know secretly every gamer hides a 70’s Rockstar waiting to be unleashed… and what says 70’s Rockstar more then a huge electric guitar?

Gun - The best version is still a week away, but this week we get the current generation of Gun. At E3 Activision was giving out bloody rubber ears to promote this game. It was kinda of creepy to walk around E3 and see all the press guys with ears around their necks. In a nutshell, GUN is an over-hyped Western.

Magna Carta: Tears of Blood - I forgot it was that time of the year. Time for Atlus to release another strategic RPG. Every March and November Atlus releases a strategic RPG. Like a bunch of lap dogs, we run out and buy it. Hopefully they will keep this tradition into the next generation. I need my strategic RPGs.

The Movies - Only a year late comes the next Peter Molyneux game. In this one Peter promises that we will be able to create and run movies like a a major Hollywood movie mogul. I will wait a few weeks to see how much of Peter’s promise holds up.

Suikoden Tactics - Hey kids! Look! It is another RPG franchise trying to cash in the Tactics craze. Too bad no one told Suikoden’s makers the craze ended a year ago. Then again, the makers of Suikoden are fairly clueless. I mean… who releases a RPG the same week as Final Fantasy?

My game for the week is: The Movies. Yhea I know it’s a Molyneux game but this time he may just keep his promise of making a game that lives up to the hype. Then again this is Molyneux, so my back up game of the week is: Guitar Hero.

My first impression is that SWBF2 is that it’s worth updating to. I was only able to briefly run a training mission and a few multiplayer missions, but they were a blast. I’m not sure what the trigger condition was, but sometime during gameplay, I was allowed to switch my character to Darth Maul, and that’s when the fun started. As the dreaded Sith, I was able to chew through enemy forces like a hot knife through butter, recharging my health from the little heath canisters of the enemies I killed. I can’t wait to see how the game handles the clash of Jedi vs. Sith.

SWBF2 is just like the original, only more so You still blast your way from CP to CP, capturing them along the way. The gameplay is still pretty simple, and there really isn’t much strategy involved. Single player mode still seems pretty pointless, leaving all of the fun in multi-player mode. In short, this game is great for LAN parties, but will probably get old fast if you play at home too much. If that sounds like a review for the original Battlefront, it isn’t an accident.

I haven’t gotten a chance to try the much anticipated space battles, but if they are as good as the rest of the game, they will be fun. I also haven’t yet checked to see if it works in LAN party mode (shared CD). If anyone has tried it that way, let me know.

Here’s the big fly in the ointment: I can’t seem to get it to play more than a few levels before it crashes to Windows. Once this happens, I have to reboot the machine before I can play again. If I don’t figure the problem out, and if others have the same problem, the game will be unplayable at LAN parties.

At the risk of giving a sound bite to the publisher: if you liked Halo you will enjoy Stubbs the Zombie . That is because the game plays and feels like a Halo mod. A fairly good and innovative mod, that is. The only major difference in the way the two games are played is that Stubbs is mostly third person and is very light on gun combat, whereas Halo is mostly first person and heavy on gun play. The main reason Stubbs the Zombie is so much like Halo is because it is built on the Halo engine and it is made by Wideload. For the uninitiated, Wideload is a group of Ex-Bungie Employees that left after they helped create Halo .

My favorite parts of Stubbs the Zombie was the Zombie Army. I loved the added touch of being able to eat a characters brain and then, instead of them vanishing, they simply stood up and followed you around like… well… a brainless zombie. The Zombie Army AI was fairly simple. If they saw a live human they attacked, if they did not they wandered around trying to follow you. Nothing complex, but it was a breath of fresh air to be able to push and shove the zombies around instead of having to dodge them like in most games.

Stubbs the Zombie was also strong on humor. Most of the cut scenes were semi-funny, but I found few of them worth re-watching. The sound effects where hilarious and drew me into the game, but they got old. The one that got old fastest was hearing brains for the hundredth time. I really got sick of that gag and wish they added some new sound effects later in the game. The thing that drove the humor home was the future-50’s setting in the game and the characters like the Barbershop Quartet and Quaker State Militia. I can not stress how much I loved the 50’s setting. It really felt like you where battling in a 50’s town of the future. Graphically that was also my favorite part.

Stubbs the Zombie may have been a blast to play but like most modern games it suffers from being too linear and short. I beat the game in under six hours and I never really left the main path. The only time I did deviate was when I got lost trying to find the next exit point. Stubbs also suffers from the main complaint I had with Halo. It feels like the level designer hit the copy and paste buttons a lot. Many of the different sections were hard to tell apart, just like in Halo. Also, I had to replay through the same area twice. The only other major complaint I had was there was no background music in most of the game.

Instead of going with the traditional 1 out of 10 rating I am going with a new rating system I have invented, the price point I would buy this game at. My price point for Stubbs the Zombie would be around $30. It is fairly innovative and fun to play, but it just does not have enough to justify the $50.00 price. I know I jump up and down about how you need to support innovative games, but I also feel game publishers need to wake up to the truth. Most games are just not worth the $50.00 - $60.00 price tag. If you rent games instead of buying games I would highly recommend that you rent Stubbs. More details about the actual game can be seen in my first impressions from earlier this week. After finishing Stubbs, my opinions about the game did not change much from my first impressions.

After a long drought of no real goofy press release, I think I finally found one. In fact, I think I found the first press release written in Leakish. A language I thought that I only wrote and spoke fluently. In addition the date when the game is coming out is wrong. SpongeBob: Yellow Avenger is coming out in 2005. Enjoy.

Well, I was afraid of this. Civilization IV is out, and I got hooked again. It’s unlikely that I’ll be able to do anything constructive until I get sick of the game. That should be sometime in the spring. Pity me.

Just to be clear, I realize I’m somewhat susceptible to the lure of Civilization games. I got hooked by both Civ 1 and Civ 2, and had one hell of a time getting clean. Somehow, I managed to completely miss Civ 3, but I suspect I would have been hooked by it too.

If you are looking for a slam-bam action game, or something with stunning graphics, or even something that is up-to-date, you will be disappointed. The graphics are a throwback to the nineties, the entire game is turn-based, and the game engine is mind-numbingly slow. In fact, by most of the usual standards for judging games, Civ IV would get extremely low ratings.

There is, however, an overriding factor that always makes a Civ game worth playing. The gameplay is probably one of the most seductive things you can do to a geek who leans toward megalomania… as all geeks do. This version is no different.

I’ve barely scratched the surface on how this game is played, and I’m already getting addicted. I’ve wasted 10 hours of my life on two games played at the simplest level, and won by the simplest means. I shudder when I think about what is in store for me.

If anyone knows the name of a good video game rehab clinic, please drop me a line.

Another week and for what I assumed would be the heaviest weak of releases turns out to be a fairly light Christmas week. Onto to a rather small list of the games coming out this week:

Animaniacs: Lights, Camera, Action! for the Gameboy Advance
Call of Duty 2: Big Red One for the Playstation 2, Gamecube and XBox
Castlevania: Curse of Darkness for the Playstation 2 and XBox
Chicken Little for the PC
City of Villains for the PC (missed from last week)
Ed, Edd n Eddy: The Mis-Edventures for the Playstation 2, PC, Gamecube, Gameboy Advance and XBox
Guitar Hero for the Playstation 2
The Incredibles: Rise of the Underminer for the Nintendo DS, Playstation 2, Gamecube, Gameboy Advance and XBox
James Bond: From Russia With Love for the Playstation 2 and XBox
Mega Man Battle Network 5: Double Team for the Nintendo DS
NBA 06 for the Playstation 2
Sea World: Shamu’s Big Adventure for the Playstation 2 and XBox
Star Wars: Battlefront II for the PSP, PC, Playstation 2 and XBox
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3: Mutant Nightmare for the Nintendo DS, Playstation 2, Gamecube and XBox
Texas Hold ‘Em Poker for the Nintendo DS
Trapt for the Playstation 2
Without Warning for the Playstation 2 and XBox

Not much to talk about this week not much is being released. Still are is a few so to start with:

Star Wars: Battlefront II: We loved Battlefront last year and it became a staple of the Shamelessgeeks LAN parties. Added to this version is the ability to fight battles in Space and more battles and new locations from Episode III. Also look out this week for the DVD of Episode III.

Call of Duty 2: Big Red One: The PC got its version of Call Duty 2 last week and this week the consoles get their version. It focuses on US Army’s First Infantry Division better know as the Big Red One. Personally I am going hold out two weeks and buy the XBox 360 version. I saw it this weekend at EB Games and I was blown away by how good it looked. Looks like I may be lining up for an XBox 360.

The Incredibles: Rise of the Underminer: The sequel to Incredibles which starts where the first Incredibles left off when the Underminer pops out of the earth. Right now the sequel is a game but could a new Incredibles movie be far off?

James Bond: From Russia With Love: It appears EA is making it a goal to release a new James Bond each Christmas. This one is set back during the early years of Bond and stars the first Bond, Sean Connery. Well… actually his voice, but it is still a Bond game with Sean Connery as Bond.

For one I missed last week, City of Villains: The follow up to the Superhero MMORPG City of Heroes. This time around you are bad guy instead of good guy and you can play both for the same fee.

Like I said not much to talk about this week but there is a lot of good game already out. My pick for this week is: Star Wars Battlefront II.

I do not know if this real or not, but according to this article Target plans to sell an arcade machine that plays a nice selection of 80’s Midways games, for less than $500. At that price this machine is a steal and is cheaper than most do it yourself Arcade kits out there. Hopefully it will support JAMMA so I can change out the game.

The Mad Gamer has posted an article that exposes the dirty underbelly of EB Games. Most of his claims are the norm for the game industry. The thing Mad Gamer fails to realize is the profit margins for most video game stores is slim hence all the profit making tactics. If video game companies offered a better margin rate then 10% a lot of the bad things Mad Gamer claims EB Games does in the spirt of profit may vanish. Including offering a better trade in value. Still selling roach infested and pee covered machines is fairly low. In defense of EB Games in the DC area, most of the store employees are fairly honest and the few EB Game bathrooms I have been in, I have yet to see a stack of game consoles in them. I even heard an EB Game Empoylee tell me that Marvel Nemesis: Rise of the Imperfects sucked.

I ran across this COD2 review at firingsquad.com. The reviewer seems to have a pretty lukewarm opinion of the sequel. I’ll let you know when I try it out this weekend.

The NY Times has posted an article talking about how the upcoming King Kong game based on the upcoming Peter Jackson movie King Kong blurs the line between movie and game. To which most gamers would say DUH it’s a game based on a movie.
In reality the article is more a fluff piece written for the purpose of hyping the game. This leaves me wondering how brown the New York Times author’s lips were after writing it. No matter how much of a gamer Peter Jackson is or who he gets to make the game it’s still a game based on a movie. Shame on you New York Times, you should know better.

Another banner day for PC gamers. It looks like I’ll have to go a little further in debt, because I consider both of these games to be “must buy".

I’m looking forward to COD2 to breathe new life into my LAN parties. COD and COD:UO were both great, and they kept us entertained for quite a while, but it is time for something new. I’m guessing that COD2 and Battlefront2 (released next week), will become standard fare for our get-togethers.

Civ IV is kinda scary. If I get cught up in this one the way I got caught up in the first two, I’ll be lost to the world for weeks. Wish me luck.

I finally got my hands on the game Stubbs the Zombie today and my first impression is mixed. I am still on the fence about whether this a must buy game, or just a fun game with a neat concept that is worth giving a try.
Stubbs plays fairly well with tight control and an easy to understand interface and concept. Simply put, you are a zombie and your main objective is to eat. So like any good zombie, you moan around and eat every human in sight. Again, nothing complex. Moan, stumble around, see human eat human. Rinse repeat do a hundred times. The gameplay is very simple but it does not get boring or shallow. The humans get better weapons and use different tactics each level, requiring me to change tactics. Also, the game allows you to occasionally drive vehicles, but so far I have only done this once. While fun at first, it got boring after a while.
Adding to your quest are several abilities: the super fart which stuns humans, an organ bomb which acts like a grenade, and the ability to detach your hand This allows you to posses humans and use your head like a bowling ball to mow down humans.
So far my favorite part of the game is the Zombie Army. After you eat a human, he or she turns into a zombie that follows you around the level joining you in your merriment as you go around eating humans. I loved creating a huge army of zombies and then unleashing them on a pack of humans. The humans fire off their guns in vain as they are swarmed and turned into more members of the zombie army.
The graphics were on par with Halo. Nothing hugely impressive like Oddworld, but they where fine. I never saw any real clip issue and the frame rate held up throughout the game. So far my favorite part graphics-wise is that they give the feeling that you are in a cheesy 50’s movie. In fact the game reeks of bad 50’s movie from the cheesy art, to the robots and cars of the future.
The animation and sound effects on the other hand were top notch. I loved the variety of ways you could eat a human, each with a unique graphic. So far I am not bored watching Stubbs chomp away on a human and I love hearing the jokes the humans make as you eat them.
My major complaint so far is I often got lost in the game. The main reason is it often felt like the level designer simply cut and pasted the same areas over and over again . I wish Wideload had cut down on the amount of area and instead focused on creating tighter levels. The guys from Wideload are ex-Bungie guys, and I had the same complaint about Halo. The other thing I disliked was the music… actually the lack of it. Whenever there was music I really got into the game, and some of the slower parts really could have benefited from some background music.
Overall, I’ll save my final decision about this game and the story until after I finish the game and write my review. The story so far is alright but I have only scratched the surface as to why Stubbs is terrorizing the citizens of Punchbowl.

As Christmas get closer and closer the list of the games of week keeps growing. That is until after Halloween when the list slow downs a little. Onto the list of what is coming out this week:

80 Days for the PC
Agatha Christie: And Then There Were None for the PC
Atomic Betty for the Gameboy Advance
Battlefield 2: Modern Combat for the XBox and Playstation 2
The Bible Game for the Playstation 2, XBox, and Gameboy Advance (delayed from last week)
Brothers in Arms: Earned in Blood for the Playstation 2 (delayed from 2 weeks ago)
Call of Duty 2 for the PC
Civilization IV for the PC
Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth for the XBox
Dance Dance Revolution: Mario Mix for the Gamecube
Ford vs. Chevy for the Playstation 2 and XBox
Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex for the PSP
Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories for the PSP
Gunstar Super Heroes for the Gameboy Advance
Heroes of the Pacific for the PC
The Hustle: Detroit Streets for the PSP
Lego Star Wars for the Gamecube
Metroid Prime Pinball for the Nintendo DS
Midway Arcade Treasures 3 for the Gamecube and PC
Nicktoons Unite! for the Playstation 2, Gamecube and Gameboy Advance
Ratchet: Deadlocked for the Playstation 2
Real Time Conflict: Shogun Empires for the Nintendo DS
Resident Evil 4 for the Playstation 2
RollerCoaster Tycoon 3: Wild! for the PC
Shrek SuperSlam for the Playstation 2, Nintendo DS, Gameboy Advance, Gamecube and XBox
The Sims 2 for the Playstation 2, Gamecube, Nintendo DS and XBox
Sky Dancers for the Gameboy Advance
Sniper Elite for the PC
Soul Calibur III for the Playstation 2
Spartan: Total Warrior for the Playstation 2, Gamecube and XBox
Taito Legends for the Playstation 2 and XBox
Vietcong 2 for the PC
World Championship Poker 2: Featuring Howard Lederer for the Playstation 2 and XBox
X3: Reunion for the PC
Zathura for the Playstation 2 and XBox

Again another long list of games coming out this week. This week there should be something for every type of gamer out there the list is very diverse unlink some previous long list. Without further ado here is my comments for the week.

The Bible Game for the Gameboy Advance - last week I talked about the console version of the Bible Game and how bad it was. The funny thing is that the Gameboy Advance game is not that bad particularly for children the target market. The reason why, is that the Gameboy version and console version where made by two different studios. One which makes really good Christian/Mormon games in Utah and one well after talking to the lead tester I am still not sure if they are even Christians. Luckily the Gameboy Advance one was made in Utah. The thing that makes the Gameboy Advance game so good is the unique design. It combines trivia with RPG in a collection quest to collect several scared objects that was a blast to play. I think this type of gameplay is a first in the RPG genre. Hopefully the Gameboy Advance version will succeed and the developer will create a Mormon version of where you play Joesph Smith on his quest for the Tablets and the Book of Mormon.

Battlefield 2: Modern Combat the version I have been waiting and waiting for finally hits stores shelves. My E3 preview is somewhere on this site and to say I loved it is mild. I had a blast with this game at E3 and the demo left me wanting more. This game will most likely be the game that gets me to return to XBox Live. Oh yhea if you have an XBox and a Playstation 2 buy the XBox version. Since using XBox Live to play multiplayer games is a lot easier then on the Playstation 2 which this game is all about.

Call of Duty 2 - Shameless talked about in earlier point and I think he best summed up this game. A must buy for WWII FPS shooter fans and FPS fans for the matter.

Civilization IV - The next installment in the classic Sid Meir game that suck up so much of my college free time. What I am looking forward to the most is the fact the engine is programmed in Python and the game can be modded using Python. I am a professional Python programmer so I will be buying this one and modding it like crazy.

Dance Dance Revolution: Mario Mix - my E3 review for this game is float around somewhere on the Net. I am not sure which site it ended up since I wrote E3 previews for three sites. The game is DDR using the music for Mario and Nintendo’s games instead of the normal dance music associated with DDR and a few Mario themed mini games tossed in for good measure. I can not say if I really liked the game or not but the guy who played it for me did. I am way too out of shape to even think about playing any DDR game. Actual it would make for a funny video if Shameless , Crew and I played DDR.

Ford vs. Chevy a question a game should not answer since it is always Chevy.

Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories the next installment in the GTA series which returns to where GTA all started that is Liberty City. Not much to say other then it is GTA people, where do the lines start for this one?

Gunstar Super Heroes a true sequel to the classic Genesis shooter from Treasure. I loved playing Gunstar back in the day and I am really looking forward to play it when I get it for my Gameboy Advance.

Lego Star Wars - Talk about being late to the dance, all the other version came out six months ago when Star Wars Episode Three came out.

Metroid Prime Pinball - For some odd reason the guys at Kotaku went nuts over this game. I guess they liked the new rumble toy that comes with the game.

Ratchet: Deadlocked - Is this becoming a Christmas tradition of releasing a new Ratchet ever year? If so please, please make one for the PS3 I love Ratchet games. That is after they become greatest hits.

Resident Evil 4 - The Gamecube version was huge hit early this year. From what I have heard this one looks and plays better then the Gamecube version.

The Sims 2 only a year late to the dance but now you can play Sims 2 on the consoles.

Taito Legends - I wet my pants when I saw the list of games in this collection. All of them where quarter eaters back in my arcade playing days in the late 80’s and 90’s. I also think this is the first Arcade perfect port for the consoles of Elevator Action, one of my favorite arcade games ever, since the Nes version came out in 1987. Other ones that had me wetting my pants where Bubble Bobble, Rainbow Island, New Zealand Story and Super Qix again none of which have not seen an arcade perfect port since the Nes days. This is a steal at $20 much better then my previous favorite collection the Capcom Collection.

My pick for this week is: Battlefield 2: Modern Combat.

CNN columnist Chris Money in his Game Over column today slamed the Gizmondo over its: upcoming launch this weekend, the Gizmondo price points and the Gizmondo in general. The Gizmondo is Tiger Telematics newest handheld which they will us to attempt to capture its fair share of the growing handheld market from competitors Sony, Nintendo and Nokia. The major issue that Chris Money brings up in his column is how clueless Tiger Telmatics is when it comes to video games.
First the price point of $399 makes the Gizmondo the most expensive handheld ever, even beating the Turbo Graphix handheld. As Chris Money points out for the same price a consumer can a fully tricked out XBox 360.
Second the alternative price point main requirement of having to download and watch commercials to turn off the Gizmondo is well…asine comes to mind. Did Jack Thompson come up with this idea?
Third not launching with retail but only at fourteen mall kiosks across the country and on the web. That one has me scratching my head as to how that is a good idea. With no retail support how do you plan to build brand awayness or for that matter actual sell games and systems. Think about this I live in Washington DC, a major metro area, right now for me to actual buy the Gizmondo or any games after I buy a Gizmondo I need to travel to 10 hours to Georgia or Massachusetts.
Fourth what the heck is the Gizmondo is it a GPS, Camera, MP3 player, movie player, cell phone, Web browser, an ad deliver system or some Frankenstiening monster of all of the above. If I want a device that does all the above and plays a few games I would have bought a Palm Handheld. At least with a Palm I can also store my friends phone numbers. Heck if I really wanted to I could also add a camera to my Gameboy with Gameboy Camera. Then again did anyone actual play with their Gameboy Camera for more then ten minutes?
I have to agree with Chris Money this Gizmondo is deferentially going down in history as the worst gaming system and launch ever. The only nice thing I can say about the Gizmondo is all the entertainment it will give Video Game Journalist making fun of it because we have the new Taco Phone. Who knows maybe Tiger is secretly owned by Nokia so that everyone can forget about the first Taco Phone also know as the N-Gage.

According to Kotaku and PC Enthusiast site Ars Technica, Jack Thompson may be under investigation by the Florida Bar Association (FBA) for ethics violations over the recent Penny Arcade incident. Gamespot is claiming that Jack is not under investigation. According to Brian over at Kotaku it depends on which branch of the FBA you call. Both Tor, the author of the Gamespot article, and Brian have sent a request into the head honcho of FBA and until then Jack Thompson may or may not be under investigation for ethics violations.
One side note in the bottom of the Gamespot article Tor posted a letter from Jack Thompson to the FBA and the media in general about how gamers are harassing him. Quite an interesting read defiantly shows how out of touch with reality Jack is. I liken it to writings of the Unibomber. Also according to Jack I am now guily of being a ‘pixelante’ or “to generate the sort of Internet-based gamers harassment of me (Jack Thompson)". I want what ever Jack is smoking, on my best day I could not make this stuff up.

Just in time for the Doom movie, Slate has posted an article discussing the ins and outs of video game movies. The author also takes some shame in having seen all of the video game movies that have been made. Sadly, I have not seen every video game movie since I have yet to see House of Dead, Alone in the Dark, and Final Fantasy: Spirits Within. The author of the article also agrees with Shameless that Resident Evil was the best video game movie ever, but I am still holding out for the authors number two pick Mortal Kombat. If the author of the article reads this post by some random chance, Alone in the Dark came out for the PC and the 3DO console, not for the Atari Jaguar.

Computer security website F-Security has posted a video demo of how to turn your PSP into a brick. I have been very bad about not posting this warning, but yes… there is a program floating around on the net that will destroy your PSP. Before you get scared and never again buy or download a thing for the PSP, the program in question takes a lot of effort to find. That is because it only effects people when they try to downgrade their PSP’s firmware from 2.0 to 1.5 so they can play homebrewed (pirated) games. When the user runs the downgrader in question it wipes the PSP flash memory of critical files, turning your PSP into a brick. There is no known way to restore the files. This warning is only for people who are involved in the PSP homebrew community. Be careful, you may just end up with a brick.

Also for all you involved in Nintendo DS homebrew community, be careful too. In the past few days a program has appeared on the Net that will turn your Nintendo DS into a brick also. Again it is fairly hard to find and only effects DS owners that are involved in the homebrew community.

This is not something I expected to see but the AP has posted a review for the cult Playstation 2 game “We Love Katamari". The game is the sequel to last years sleeper hit “Katamari Damacy” and outside the hardcore gaming and anime circles the game is unknown. It is nice to see the AP post a review to a game that normally would not get this level of attention. Still, why did the reviewer not mention that playing Katamari Darcy is just like being high on mushrooms?

According to this post on Joystiq, Walmart has playable XBox 360’s on display. Joystiq has confirmed this by calling the first store it was reported at. XBox 360 sightings have also been confirmed at other Walmarts by Joystiq readers. When I tried to verify if the XBox 360 is on display in any Walmarts I came up blank.

IGN has posted what appears to be one of the first reviews of the upcoming DOOM movie on Film review tracking site Rotten Tomatoes. The review was kinda of luke warm on the film with lots comments that made it appear the reviewer was talking through the side of his mouth. I will hold all judgment about Doom until I see it in theaters this weekend. I am glad to see the movie is set on Mars and a lot of creatures are from the game, but lets be honest here… the movie is based on Doom. It was a great game mostly famous for sending horde after horde of bad guys to kill, but not for its plot. However Doom will be called the greatest video game movie ever until Halo hits theaters. Being called the greatest video game movie ever is not that great, seeing as the greatest so far has been Mortal Kombat.

According to gameindustry.biz, everybody’s favorite game banning hypocrite Jack Thompson won’t put his money where his mouth is.

So… Lets’s get this straight… You promise to donate money to charity simply because you think that your rivals will not stand up to your challenge… Then, when you are proven wrong, you hold out on the charity and claim that your challenge was “satire". Could this be the “morals” that you seem to speak of so freely?

I, for one, find it very appropriate for the world to consider everything else you have said and written to be the same brand of “satire". If you want anyone to take you seriously from now on, you will pay up and apologize for your stupidity.

UPDATE:
And it keeps getting better… Jack’s response is to have Penny Arcade’s donation declared as harassment. That’s really nice. It wasn’t enough to stiff a charity by failing to keep a promise… lets get someone else in trouble for covering the failure. I really hope the Christian right and Hillary Clinton, Thompson’s only friends so far, renounce his antics quickly.

Just for those who missed it, here is a link to a posting of Jack Thompson’s Modest Proposal. Technically, there was a little bit more to it than just creating a GTA mod. However, anyone who reads it will have to admit that it doesn’t look much like satire. It looks more like “stupidity used to expose irony” than the opposite.

This week’s list of new PC game releases includes some of the best names in PC gaming history. There are new versions of the Age of Empires series, the Call of Duty series, and yes… There is even a new version of Quake. Add the fact that the Doom movie gets released on Friday, and you have quite a week for us old time PC gamers.

Just for starters, you have Quake 4, which is the latest version of the game that got me addicted to multi player FPS for several years. I can remember staying late at work to take advantage of the company T1 connection during off-hours. I’m probably too old and slow to play it, but I will have to get a copy anyway.

Next up… Call of Duty 2. I was really glad to see Call of Duty when it first came out. It was one of the first FPS games I played that didn’t rely on super-twitch teenage reflexes. Having left my teens a few years ago, I was glad to see a FPS I could play. I have no doubt that this one will be at the top of the LAN party list this winter. I also have no doubt that I will be getting a copy.

Finally, there is Age of Empires III. I must confess that I have never played the AE series. I have, however, gotten very interested in the micro-managed, RTS games like Empire Earth and Rise of Nations, so I’m looking forward to trying AE III.

Here’s a funny thing: I’m actually looking forward to the Doom movie. It’s not that I think it will be any good, but that I really want to see how they turn the story into something that will put butts in the seats. My biggest fear is that the movie will be way too full of itself, and completely miss the fact that people are expecting the same type of technology advance that the games brought. Not much longer to wait…

The VP of Rockstar games rarely grants interviews to the gaming media or the media in general. The New York Times has managed to snag one of those rare interviews with Dan Houser. During the interview Houser mostly talked about Rockstar upcoming game “The Warriors” and refused to answer questions about certain previous Rockstar games like GTA: San Andreas.

The interview did explain why Rockstar choose to make a game out of the movie “The Warriors". Turns out it was a favorite of the owners from when they where kids. So this begs the question: when is Rockstar games going to make a game out Neighbors?
(Neighbors for those of you who do not know was a hugely popular Soap opera series in Britain when the Rockstar owners where kids living in London. It was also the TV series that pop star Kylie Minogue got her start at for all you Trivia geeks.)

We are now deep into the Christmas season and the list of games coming out for the week are going get longer and longer until the first or second week of November, then we will see a small slow down. So onto a long list of games of the weeks. Since they have asked nicely, we’ll be featuring Stubbs the Zombie in Rebel Without a Pulse for the XBox coming to stores this week.

A Boy and His Blob for the Nintendo DS
Age of Empires III for the PC
The Bible Game for the XBox
Big Mutha Truckers for the Nintendo DS (delayed from last week)
Blitz: The League for the Playstation 2, XBox
Chicken Little for the Playstation 2, PC, Gameboy Advance, and Gamecube
Chicken Shoot 1 for the Gameboy Advance
Codename: Kids Next Door: Operation V.I.D.E.O.G.A.M.E. for the Gamecube
The Con for the PSP
Crash Tag Team Racing for the Playstation 2, XBox and Gamecube
Dig Dug: Digging Strike for the Nintendo DS
Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi for the Playstation 2
Fairly Oddparents: Clash with the Anti-World for the Gameboy Advance
F.E.A.R. for the PC
Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance for the Gamecube
Greg Hastings’ Tournament Paintball Max’d for the XBox
Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life Special Edition for the Playstation 2
IHRA Drag Racing: Sportsman Edition for the Playstation 2
Jak X: Combat Racing for the Playstation 2
Madagascar: Operation Penguin for the Gameboy Advance (Delayed from last week)
Major League Baseball 2K5: World Series Edition for the Playstation 2 and XBox
Namco Museum 50th Anniversary for the PC
Quake 4 for the PC
Scooby-Doo! Unmasked for the Nintendo DS
Shadow of the Colossus for the Playstation 2
Shattered Union for the PC and XBox
Shining Force NEO for the Playstation 2
Sniper Elite for the Playstation 2, XBox and PC
SpongeBob SquarePants: Lights, Camera, Pants! for the Gamecube and PC
Spyro Shadow Legacy for the Nintendo DS
Stubbs the Zombie in Rebel Without a Pulse for the XBox
Teen Titans for the Gameboy Advance (delayed from last week)
Tony Hawk’s American Wasteland for the Playstation 2, XBox, Gamecube and Gameboy Advance
The Warriors for the Playstation 2, and XBox
World Poker Tour 2K6 for the Playstation 2, XBox and Gameboy Advance
World War II Combat: Road to Berlin for the XBox and PC
X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse for the PSP

Wow that is a lot of games coming out this week. 35+ titles and a good week for Shameless with not one but two games (Quake 4 and Ages of Empires III). For me, I finally get the game I have been waiting for since playing it at E3. Actually, it is two games… the Bible game and Chicken Little. With all this goodness where do I begin with my comments, how about:

Stubbs the Zombie: Okay I have a confession the grassroots rep for this game contacted us and asked us to talk about this game. Since I am such a nice guy and if I play nice I may just get a free review copy (*hint*) I decideded I have to talk about it. She most likely did not have to ask me to talk about it. I was already interested in it when I saw it a few weeks ago. I almost gave it game of the week honors when I saw it. Why? Stubbs took the traditional Zombie game and turned it on it’s head by having you play the Zombie. So now instead of running around with a shotgun killing Zombies. You are running around dodging manics with shotguns while trying to eat those maniacs brains. Oh yea; the PR person also wanted us to mention that the developer Ignited Minds is holding a contest for the fans of the game where they can win a Apple Nano, the game and soundtrack. To enter the contest click on the below link, which will take you to the Stubbs the Zombie website.
http://links.fanitorium.com/?L2085

Quake 4: Wow it has been about 10 years since the first Quake and now we are getting a shiny new version that has Shameless all jumping up and down. Not sure why? I was a bigger Doom fan but for so odd reason Shameless thinks the story in Quake was better. The big question I have is where is the hype for this game like there was last year for Doom III?

Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life Special Edition: Okay I was not going mention this game since Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life has already come out. However since Farming is a huge part of several of a readers life (okay one and it is not Shameless) I figured I have to mention it. Not so sure what so special about it, the EB Game page for it did not say, but it is Harvest Moon a great franchise. If you have not played a version of Harvest Moon yet treat yourself and give this one a try. You never know you too may become addicted to Farming.

Shining Force NEO: does Sega know when to give up on bad RPGs? Guess not since we have another sequel to the very aging Shining Force. Save your money and buy Shining Force III for the Saturn which sells for the same price. Which if you know anything about collecting video games is a very rare thing.

Shadow of the Colossus: Excuse me as wipe the tears out of my eyes, I only played this game for 30 seconds at E3 and I already love it. If you play one console game this year this is one you should. This game is most of the beautiful games I have ever seen for the Playstation 2. In fact ICQ the only one the compares with it was made by the same people. It is a shame this game is most likely going flop like ICQ did but you can hope sometimes that people may stop playing Halo and give this one a try. Not matter what this will be one of the games the hardcore console gamers will be talking about years from now as one the greatest games they ever played just like they do with ICQ right now.

Blitz: The League: I never thought I say this but I am kinda glad that EA locked down the NFL license. Blitz proves that developers instead of rolling over and playing dead like everyone said (including me) would took the lock down as challenge and have come up with neat ideas for what to me is a boring game concept. I am really digging the idea of an edgy football game that allows you to play the rumored bad boy lifestyle of a football player.

Crash Tag Team Racing: I can not believe I played this game and not Stubbs at E3 but I did and I enjoyed it a little. CTR was a fun little kart racing game and Crash Tag Team appears to be more of the same game with a few new twist. Granted it is no Mario Kart but if you are looking for a little fun kart racing game Crash Tag Team is good one.

Chicken Little: Okay another game I played at E3 (actual I played it a lot) and fell in love with. I think it mostly had to do with the pole graphics and the fact that they replicate an act that males do in the bedroom. Then again it was plan out fun without the normal hardness that most platformers try for. The only platformer that I can think is easier then Chicken Little was Jak and Daxter which I also loved. If you if a Jak fan the latest game in franchise Jak X: Combat Racing is also coming out this week. It is not a platformer but a racing game that most are calling a Road Blaster like game. I did not like it when I played it at E3 but a lot of other journalist did.

Tony Hawk’s American Wasteland: I guess it is now a tradition but get ready for the gaming media to declare this the greatest Tony Hawk game ever to only watch them say next year the next round in the Tony Hawk game is the greatest when it comes out in 2006.

Shattered Union: a game based on the Civil War for the consoles granted it set in the year is 2060 but hey it is a console game based on the Civil War.

The Bible Game: Another game I played at E3 and well this one I did not fall in love with. Actually I do like the Gameboy Advance version of it which was neat game that blended a traditional RPG game with bible trivia but that one is not out yet. The console version on the other hand is a train wreck. Still if you are looking for a fun game to play when you are drunk this is one. The mini games like kill the Romans and Climb Jerichos Ladder are a blast when you drunk. When you are sober on the other hand you may just, never mind I can not write about it here. Skip it if you are sober, but play it when you are drunk. And yes I am going to hell for this.

A Boy and His Blob: Talk about a very old school game coming back but hey it is time someone released a new A Boy and His Blob. This game was a classic on the NES and hopefully the DS version will live up to the greatness that was A Boy and His Blob.

Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance: Wow another old school classic 2-D Japanese RPG appears on the Gamecube. What did happen to all the great 2-D Japanese RPGs for the Playstation? Guess they are slowly moving back on a Nintendo Platform where they belong. Hopefully they will not be forgotten next generation but I have an odd feeling they will in favor of junk like Final Fantasy XIII.

Ages of Empires III: I have a confession to make I have never played any of the Ages of Empire games but the RTS fanboys love them and I guess they will love this one to.

F.E.A.R: This is suppose to be a big FPS for this year but they would not show it to me at E3 so I have no idea. A little hint but we do go to E3 and if you want us to say stuff about your games you are going to have to let us play them and not just a select few. You never know we might just get a few people wanting to buy your game. It does not cost much to send us an invite to preview your game at E3.

The Warriors: See my above and add the following when I finally got to see the game the Japanese journalist showing it to me at E3 could not stop laughing at the screenshots from the game. He also said it was fairly lame. Personally I hate Rockstar after the way they treated me at E3 and I am hoping this game flops like it should if it came out from any developer other then Rockstar. Just because Rockstar makes it does not mean it is a good game, if anything that should tell you it is a bad game. Other then GTA what have Rockstar made that was any good?

There was a lot to pick from this week but there can only be one. One game of the week that is and for this week I choose Shadow of the Colossus with Stubbs, Quake 4 and Chicken Little coming in close second.

Computer collector David Freeman, owner of the ACP Computer Superstore and Freeman PC Museum, is offering up his compelete collect of vintage computers. Some of the gems in his collection include: an Apple Lisa, a version of every Commodore ever made, an Apple IIgs Woz, and lots of super rare vintage computers. In addition to that Freeman is also offering up a huge collection of video game consoles and Pong machines in a separate auction. Highlights in that auction include: the first electronic game from WACO, a Magnavox Odyssey, Coleco Telestar, Intelvision III and a stack of the Coleco mini arcade machines. Right now the Computer auction is over 11K and the console is only $1100. The console one is steal at 2000K. I have most of the consoles he lists and I have personally spent 10,000+ collecting them. On a sad note I may also have to sell my collection of console games soon due to some unplanned finacial difficulties. Anyone interested in a video game collection with over 30+ consoles, 3,000+ games, and lots of video game artifacts for only 20K?

Another week another late list of games of the week. Again I miss my deadline of Sunday but as my mom says: “better late then sorry” so onto the games of the week list:

Codename: Kids Next Door: Operation VIDEOGAME for the Playstation 2, Gamecube and XBox
everGirl for the Gameboy Advance (delayed from last week)
Devil Kings for the Playstation 2
Evil Dead: Regeneration for the PC
Fifa 06 for the Gameboy Advance
Hello Kitty: Happy Party Pals for the Gameboy Advance
Madagascar: Operation Penguin for the Gameboy Advance
Marvel Nemesis: Rise of the Imperfects for the Nintendo DS
NCAA March Madness 06 for the Playstation 2 and XBox
Pac-Man World 2 for the Gameboy Advance (delayed for the past month)
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney for the Nintendo DS
Romancing SaGa for the Playstation 2
Serious Sam II for the XBox and PC
Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga 2 (delayed from two weeks ago. Plan on a long delay with this one. The last two versions where delayed for months)
SOCOM 3: U.S. Navy Seals for the Playstation 2
Splat Renegade Paintball for the XBox and PC
SSX On Tour Playstation2, Gamecube, PSP and XBox
Teen Titans for the Gameboy Advance
Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas: Oogie’s Revenge for the Gameboy Advance, Playstation 2 and XBox
Ty the Tasmanian Tiger 3: Night of the Quinkan for the Playstation 2 and XBox
Ultimate Arcade Games for the Gameboy Advance
Zatch Bell! Mamodo Battles for the Playstation 2 and Gamecube
Zoo Tycoon DS for the Nintendo DS

Now onto the Pick and comment section for this week:
Hello Kitty: Happy Party Pals - See they do also make sucky games for girls. Yes that is sexist but I Hello Kitty games are about as bad as sucky games for boys like Digamon and YuGiHo.

Marvel Nemesis: Rise of the Imperfects - This fighting game for all the other platforms has been getting the hell bashed out by the fighting fan boys, sadly I agree with them.

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - This is the first lawyer simulation game. Yes thats right the main game play action is to slash your DS and shout in the microphone I object. Actual from I what I saw at E3 this game is a fun mystery adventure game that is a must buy for any fan or quirky cool games.

Serious Sam II - Just in time for the Doom Movie comes the game that gives your everything that you love in Doom with even more monsters and bad guys. Yup Serious Sam is an old school hardcore 90s FPS, that is waves after waves of monster with bosses that take up full screens and are hard as hell to defeat. Perfect game to get you psyched up for the Doom Movie.

SOCOM 3: U.S. Navy Seals - In this popular Playstation 2 multiplayer game they added cool vehicles and a few new maps and called it a new version.

SSX On Tour - When will this franchise die, I getting tried of these eXtreme Snowboarding games. If you love eXtreme games the SSX franchise has been the cream of the crop.

Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas - Just in time for Corpse Bride comes the game for the previous Tim Burton’s clay animation movie, The Nightmare Before Christmas. So does this mean we are going to have to wait 10 years for Corpse Bride the game?

My pick for this week: Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney for the Nintendo DS. This game was plan fun at E3 and I so looking forward to filing briefs and shouting object into my Nintendo DS microphone.

In a few years it’ll be all over the news - Psychologists Prove Violent Games Cause Violence.

And psychologists all over the world will laugh as the media once again demonstrates their inability to read between the lines (or even read, for that matter). (more…)

According to an article from Gamespot, Analyast are reporting that retailers are holding off placing big orders of video games for fear of being stuck with excess inventory. Analysts are also predicting that this year’s sales will not be as strong as last year’s. There are no monster titles scheduled like last year’s monsters Halo 2, GTA: San Andreas and Half Life 2 to spur sales. Personally I think the Analyst does not know what he is talking about. The first and second quarters of this year had very strong sales without any monster titles during those quarters. What those quarters and this year’s Christmas season have are a lot of very good games that are worth buying. The analyst also forgot to factor in the XBox 360 which is a monster and could easily equal the sales of Halo 2 and GTA: San Andreas combined (1 million XBox 360 by years end with each owner buying 2-3 games = about the same number of Halo 2 and GTA copies that sold). I think what is really going on with retailers is that they are predicting a slow down in sales of current generation games. This is due to the rising cost of games, the impending next generation which will drop sales of current generation games, the lack of a price drop in current generation games, and the rise in the price of gasoline. Retailers may also be scared that a crash in the video game industry may soon occur and are quietly hedging their bets.

Chalk this up as a victory for workers in the Video Game industry. EA has settled claims with the EA California Employees over the issue of overtime to the amount of 15.6 million dollars. This ends the lawsuit brought forward by several employees and brought to light by the now infamous EA Spouse blog. This victory may have been a hollow one with EA quietly moving all the animation work to EA Canada. The only proof I have of this is when I talked to someone on the HR staff in EA Canada she said EA is spending a lot of money building a huge motion capture studio and hiring a ton of animators for the EA Canada studio. After hearing that EA closed its California Animation studio this makes me wonder.

It looks like Hollywood has embraced video games. Again. If you look at the recent news that Peter Jackson (of LOTR fame) will be producing Microsoft’s Halo movie and combine it with the upcoming release of the Doom Movie and you get the impression that gamers are becoming respectable.

Being an antique geek who has played all of the Doom games as they were released, I really don’t expect much from the movie. I did, however, notice that the TV commercial looks like the scenery was stolen directly from the game. I’m a little confused about the plot changes though… When I read the synopsis on Yahoo, it looked like they used the teleported-demons-from-another-dimension scenario, which would be a good thing. However… When I watched the trailer, the first thing mentioned was the genetic-engineered-monsters scenario that everyone told them to dump. I’d be VERY disappointed with a movie that turned out to be just Resident-Evil-on-Mars.

The Halo movie is still a long way out. It will give me time to try the video game before I see the movie.

Amazon UK has started to take pre-orders on Duke Nukem Forever. According to Amazon pre-order page, Take 2 plans to release the PC version of Duke Nukem Forever Dec 2, 2005. If this happens Hell is going to be one cold place this Christmas.

Another week and another list of games. Since we are entering Christmas season and the amount of games coming each week hits on average of 30-40 games a week I have deiced to change the format of Game of The Weeks. Instead of my normal witty dialog about each game, I am just going list them. I still have my pick of the week but I will also discuss something other highlight for the week. Enjoy and on to the new format:

Backyard Football for the Playstation 2 (Delayed from last week)
Big Mutha Truckers for the Gameboy Advance and Nintendo DS (Delayed from last week)
Black & White 2 for the PC
Blitzkrieg 2 for the PC (Delayed from last week)
Bratz: Rock Angelz for the Gameboy Advance, Gamecube and Playstation 2
Brothers in Arms: Earned in Blood for PC and XBox
Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow for Nintendo DS
Conflict: Global Terror for PC, Playstation 2, and XBox
Cross Racing Championship 2005 for PC
Diplomacy for the PC
Doom 3: Resurrection of Evil for XBox
Dragonshard for the PC (Delayed from last week)
everGirl for the Gameboy Advance
FIFA 06 for XBox, Playstation 2, Gamecube, PC, and Nintendo DS
Ford Racing 3 for the Gameboy Advance
Gretzky NHL ‘06
Halo Triple Pack for the XBox (collection of Halo, Halo 2 and Multiplayer pack)
Indigo Prophecy for PC (Delayed from last week)
Juka and the Monophonic Menace for the Gameboy Advance (Delayed from last week)
Marvel Nemesis: Rise of the Imperfects for the PSP
NBA Live 06 for the PSP
Neverwinter Nights: Kingmaker for the PC (Delayed from last week)
Pac-Man World 2 for the Gameboy Advance (Delayed from last week)
Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga 2 for the Playstation 2
Street Racing Syndicate for the Gameboy Advance
Stubbs the Zombie in Rebel Without a Pulse for the PC (Delayed from last week)
The Suffering: Ties That Bind (Delayed from last week)
Trauma Center: Under the Knife for the Nintendo DS
Virtua Tennis: World Tour (Delayed from last week)
Worms 4: Mayhem for the PC and XBox (Delayed from last week)

The highlights for this week are:
Black and White 2: The newest god game from the mind of British developer Peter Molyneux. Love or hate his games they are always hype to the n-th degree and never deliver, but you never know and Black and White 2 stands to be the first Molyneux game that does meet and exceed expectations.

Brothers in Arms: Earned in Blood: The next volume of Brothers In Arms and continues the heroic 101st Airborne stories as they battle their way to victory in Normandy and on during World War II. For all you guys waiting for Call of Duty 2 you may want to give the PC version of this game a try.

Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow: Hands down the greatest Castlevania had be the Playstation version Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. After Symphony of the Night Castlevania moved from 2D to 3D, expect for a few Gameboy Advance games, and lost a lot of the charm and fun that made the earlier Castlevania games so great. Dawn Of Sorrow returns Castlevania to its 2D roots and from all looks that it will be a worthy sequel to Symphony of the Night.

Diplomacy: Developer Europa Universalis has pain staking recreate the excitement and fun of the greatest board games on earth. The thing that got this game mentioned is the AI. The AI needed successfully recreate the action that makes up Diplomacy is fairly complex and almost impossible to model. Some how Europa has supposedly successfully modeled an AI that can play Diplomacy as well as the worlds best Diplomacy players.

Doom 3: Resurrection of Evil: It is good to see that some developers are going to put out extension for console. The nice thing about Resurrection of Evil is that is stand alone, meaning you do not need a copy of Doom 3 unlike the PC version.

Fifa 2006: Soccer fans rejoice your Madden is now on store shelves. I wonder however which sells more worldwide, Madden or Fifa?

Indigo Prophecy: This has been getting a lot of buzz amongst the hard core gamers. Particular from the Penny Arcade guys (while they are not busy making fun of Harlen Ellison)

Trauma Center: Under the Knife: Another game that is getting a lot of buzz amongst the hard core gamers. Trauma Center is a surgical puzzle game. That right you play a doctor who must you scalpel and other doctor tools to solve medical puzzles.

My pick for this week is: Trauma Center: Under the Knife. This game was a blast to play at E3 and is one of the greatest puzzle games I have ever seen since Tetris.

This time, doctors are using games to help diagnose asthma in young children. No jokes here. Anything that can be used to improve the life of a sick two-year-old is OK in my book.

According to an article from GamesIndustry.biz, handheld developer Gizmondo’s recently released financial report has a lot of questionable charges on it. Some of the highlights include: $170,000 paid to Gizmondo Europe director Carl Freer’s wife for marketing services and an introduction to the performer Sting. $150,000 in base salary, $80,000 in bonus and a $70,000 luxury car to the corporate secretary of Gizmondo Europe, who just happens to be the live-in partner of the director of Gizmondo (according to GamesIndustry.biz). Looks by all signs that the Gizmondo business model is the same as the dot.coms of the 90s. If you are interested in purchasing shares in Gizmondo you should be able to soon. Gizmondo’s parent company Tiger Telematics has filed for a listing on NASDAQ.

YES!! I knew it! It looks like Psychologists are beginning to prescribe video game therapy to patients with ADD. It’s about time that the medical community gave up on their crusade against our favorite cultural phenomenon. This shows that some shrinks actually research their work, instead of just “feeling your pain".

So… If video games help to control ADD, I guess we have our explanation for Jack Thompson.

Sorry for the delay I was out sick yesterday. Due to time constraints I am going be posting the list without comments.

Here is the list:

Backyard Football for the Playstation 2
Bet on Soldier: Blood Sport for the PC
Big Mutha Truckers for Gameboy Advanvce and Nintendo DS
Blitzkrieg 2 for the PC
Cabela’s Big Game Hunter 2006 for the PC.
Capcom Classics Collection for the XBox and Playstation 2.
Cold War for the XBox and PC.
Dance Dance Revolution Extreme 2 for the Playstation 2.
Dragonshard for the PC.
Far Cry Instincts for the XBox.
Firefighter Command: Raging Inferno for the PC: Can not help myself but this is the first firefighting RTS I have ever heard off.
Frogger: Ancient Shadow for XBox, Playstation 2 and Gamecube.
Heroes of the Pacific for the XBox and Playstation 2.
Hoyle Casino 2006 for the PC.
Indigo Prophecy for the XBox, Playstation 2 and PC.
Lost in Blue for the Nintendo DS.
Lunar: Dragon Saga for the Nintendo DS: Finnally after 10 long years a new Lunar game.
Marvel Nemesis: Rise of the Imperfects for the PSP.
Midway Arcade Treasures 3 for the XBox and Playstation 2.
NBA 2K6 for the XBox and Playstation 2.
NBA Live 06 for the XBox, Playstation 2, Gamecube and PC.
Neverwinter Nights: Kingmaker for the PC.
No Surrender: Battle of the Bulge for the PC.
NTRA Breeders’ Cup World Thoroughbred Championships for the XBox and Playstation 2.
Pac-Man World 2 for the Gameboy Advance.
Pokemon XD: Gale of Darkness for the Gamecube.
Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves for the Playstation 2 and now in full 3D.
Stubbs the Zombie in Rebel Without a Pulse for the XBox and PC.
The Suffering: Ties That Bind for the XBox, Playstation 2 and PC
Tiger Woods PGA Tour 06 for the PSP.
Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Lockdown for the Gamecube.
Top Spin for the Playstation 2
Total Overdose: A Gunslinger’s Tale in Mexico for the XBox, Playstation 2, and PC.
Trace Memory for the Nintendo DS
Wallace & Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit for the XBox and Playstation 2.

Lots and lots of games this week to pick from. My pick is Lunar: Dragon Saga since I have waited 10 years for this game. If you would like to add commentary to the above please post it in the comment section. I would love to hear your pick for the week.

Well, yes and no… read on for details.

I ran into a couple of reviews you might be interested in. The first is FiringSquad.com’s review of Crossfire technology and the second is ExtremeTech’s comparison of SLI and Crossfire. Both articles provide benchmarks using some reference hardware supplied by ATI. Both articles come to the same conclusion… wait a while.

Though Crossfire will certainly improve your framerate when compared to a single ATI card, the performance isn’t that much better than a single 7800GTX. This isn’t surprising, since the X850 is a generation older than the 7800. It’s best to wait until you see what ATI’s new R5xx chips are capable of.

The first generation of Crossfire also has a limitation imposed on it by the single DVI channel that it uses to share video between the two cards. Though I’m certain that this won’t get in the way of most people, it’s bad news for anyone who wants to “future proof” their machine.

So… Too little? Well, we really won’t know until we see how the R5xx plays with Crossfire. Too late? Yep. About a year.

Update:
AnandTech has a list of recent Crossfire reviews that you can browse at your leisure. No sense reprinting them all here.

I ran across this hands-on preview of Call of Duty 2 at FiringSquad.com. It looks to me like a lot more of the same thing that Call of Duty 1 was. I was a little disturbed by the fact that they removed vehicles from the multiplayer game. I just loved blowing up my buddies with a shot from a tank.

According to Amazon.com and EBGames, Call of Duty 2 will be available on Oct 25th. I hope they put the vehicles back in by then.

Activision has announced today that it is raising the wholesale price for their next generation games by $10. That change will bring the wholesale price of Activision games to over $50. This hike will bring games to $60 to $65, depending on if the retailers plan to boost profit margins by $5. Right now only Activision has announced price increases, but expect all of the major players to follow suit and announce hikes soon too.

FiringSquad.com has a hands-on preview of Quake 4. My first online shooter was the original Quake, so I’m looking forward to the release of this one. I still haven’t found a good, reliable date for the release. If anyone knows what it is, please post it.

Update :
EBGames claims that Quake4 will ship on Oct 11.

Another week another upcoming game list:

Battalion Wars for the Gamecube: Advance War for the Gameboy moves onto the Game cube with killer 3D graphics.

Big Mutha Truckers for the Gamecube and Gameboy Advance: Big truck racing with a heavy Redneck feel to it.

D.I.C.E. for the Playstation 2: Game based on a popular kid’s anime show.

DK: King of Swing for the Gameboy Advance: Puzzle game staring everyones favorite Nintendo mascot Donkey Kong.

DragonShard for the PC: D&D RTS, Shameless this is more up you alley any ideas if it is any good?

DT Racer for the Playstation 2: Budget demolition racing game.

Fable: The Lost Chapters for the PC: The XBox RPG remixed and released for the PC.

Frantix for the PSP: Average puzzler for the PSP.

Genji: Dawn of the Samurai for the Playstation 2: Feudal Japanese adventure game based on the 11th century classic Japanese tale , Tale of Genji

Gretzky NHL ‘06 for the Playstation 2: Delayed from a few weeks the next game in the Gretzky hockey games.

Hoyle Casino 2006 for the PC: Next Hoyle collection of the casino games.

Indigo Prophecy for the Playstation 2, PC, and XBox: Someone is killed people in bizarre methods and you are the detective assigned to solve why.

Legend of Kay for the Playstation 2: Wow I never thought this would make it to the states. Imagine the classic fighting Legend of Kai but instead of humans change them to cats. Yup another quirky Japanese game.

Madden NFL 06 for the PSP: Why is the PSP getting the shaft even in Madden games? All the other version came out a month ago.

Marvel Nemesis: Rise of the Imperfects for the Playstation 2, XBox, and Gamecube: Fighting game staring Marvel’s superheroes and EA’s made up character for this game since they did not have any.

Myst V: End of Ages for the PC: Another Myst game, hopefully the puzzles are easier then the last one.

Namco Museum 50th Anniversary for the PC: Collection of 26 classic Namco arcade games.

Ninja Gaiden Black for the XBox: Ninja Gaiden remixed with a couple adds, that you can also download if you own the original, at a budget price.

RPG Maker 3 for the Playstation 2: The third toolset to make 3-D RPG games from the classic Maker series.

Tak: The Great Juju Challenge for the Playstation 2, Gamecube, XBox, Nintendo DS, and Gameboy Advance: Third game in the popular kid game series.

The Berenstain Bears and the Spooky Old Tree for the Gameboy Advance: Cute kid game based on the classic Berenstain Bears book “The Spooky Old Tree".

Tiger Woods PGA Tour 06 for the XBox, Playstation 2, Gamecube and PC: The next release in the Tiger Woods series.

Ultimate Spider-Man for the Xbox, Playstation 2, Gamecube, PC, Gameboy Advance and Nintendo DS: Ultimate was a re visioning of the Marvel universe a few years ago that basically the same as what happened to DC comics in the 1960s with the start of the Silver age and the whole Earth-2 thing. Well unlike the 60s we have video games and this one is the first game but most likely not the last in a long line of games based on Marvel’s Ultimate universe.

We Love Katamari for the Playstation 2: The sequel to the classic Katamari Darcy. This time for the non-budget price of $30 and well worth it.

X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse for the PC, XBox, Gamecube, Playstation 2: The sequel to last years classic X-Men RPG game X-Men Legends. For all you X-Men fans this is a must buy.

Wow this week is a huge for all you comic book loving fans with not one but three games to choose for but I have to the game of week nods to: We Love Katamari. Still lots and lots of games to pick from my wallet is going to hate this week.

Nintendo president Satoru Iwata unvieled the much debated Revolution controller today at the Tokyo Game Show in Japan. Contrary to all the rumors, it looks nothing like a traditional video game controller. It looks more like a TV remote control and is designed to work like a mouse that you control by moving through the air. The controller also allows the user to plug in attachments like an analogue controller and a dance mat. Nintendo chose this design over traditional controller design so that it would be more accepted by mainstream audiences. Iwata, during this lecture, also hyped up the success of it’s portable games, like Nintendogs and Brain games, in Japan with woman and casual older games. Iwata plans to take that success and repeat it on the home console with the Revolution.

The ESRB has ordered games publishers to reveal all hidden content in all games published in the last year. This is obviously in response to the “hot coffee” mod found in GTA: San Andreas earlier this year. The deadline for disclosure is Jan 9, 2006.

Go get ‘em ESRB! Rockstar should have been much more severely punished than they were. It’s one thing to release adults-only content that is clearly marked as such. It is quite another to hide it in a product that claims not to have AO content.

This isn’t exactly news, but it looks like video gaming is getting more and more respectable by the day. When you see articles like this one appear on the AP wire, and you find out that non-technical companies are starting to sponsor tournaments, you can bet that the big media won’t be able to ignore it for long.

I’m not sure what all of this respectability will bring. I really don’t think I would want to watch a StarCraft tournament. Despite the fact that I love playing the game, I really have very little desire to watch someone else play.

In the wake of the South Korean man who died of excessive StarCraft, some Asian countries are attempting to restrict online game playing. So far, the restrictions are very light, and seem to be more of an attempt to appear as if they are doing something. I would, however, expect much more insane attempts as ultra-conservatives begin to notice the problem.

It was interesting to see that anyone who spends more than 20 hours per month in online games is considered “hard core". Considering that this averages out to around 40 minutes per day, I guess that I can easily be called a “hard core” gamer. I also spend about 90 minutes per day driving back and forth to work, so I’m also a hard-core driver. I guess I shouldn’t mention that I’m also a “hard core” sleeper and eater as well.

Seems like someone decided to set the bar for “hard core” pretty low.

Sorry for the delay but I had some personal things to take care of Friday. Onto the list of new upcoming releases for this week:

Animaniacs: The Great Edgar Hunt for the Gamecube: The newest latest greatest budget Animaniac game now for the Gamecube.

Armored Core: Nine Breaker for the Playstation 2: The next game in one of the longest running mech games also maybe one of the last in the series.

Battleground Europe: World War II Online for the PC: A blast, excuse me, failure from the past returns to the PC. WWII Online was one of the first MMORPG and it flopped big time due to the buggy code and the fact that there is a little game called Battlefield: 1942 and Call of Duty that does the same thing for free.

Battle of Britain II: Wings of Victory for the PC: Relive World War II air combat action for the hundredth time with this WWII flying simulator.

Burnout Legends for the PSP: Burnout 3 was the sleeper hit of last year with all the neat Takedown action. This year Burnout returns to small screen with more Takedown action and maybe one of the first game to justify buying the PSP.

Burnout Revenge for the XBox and Playstation 2: Take what I said above and add now with more takedown action for the big screen.

Cabela’s Outdoor Adventures 2006 for the XBox and Playstation 2: I can understand why people would want a new football, soccer, baseball game or hockey game ever year. But why the hell do they want a new hunting game ever year?

Dynasty Warriors 5 for the XBox: Save your money and buy Dynasty Warrior 4 it’s basically the same game.

Evil Dead: Regeneration for the XBox and Playstation 2: Bruce Campbell has been one busy boy lately with his new movie and comic book “The Man with the Screaming Brian” but somehow he found time in his busy schedule to voice Ash in this newest Evil Dead game. If that is not a good enough reason to run out and buy this game then the low budget price of $20.00 should make this a must buy.

EverQuest: Depths of Darkhollow for the PC: For the 10 die hards who refuse to play World of Warcraft or EQII comes the 100th expansion for EverQuest.

EverQuest II: Desert of Flames for the PC: For the other 15 non World of Warcraft addicts comes the latest expansion for EQII.

Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children UMD for the PSP: Okay I know this is not a game but for some odd reason all the anime fanboys have drooling to get their grubby paws on it. Then again maybe it is a game since all Final Fantasy is one giant cut scene with a few button presses.

GripShift for the PSP: Some things like Peanut Butter and Chocolate belong together other things like cats and dogs do not. GripShift sets to prove that just maybe driving and puzzle games belong together or not.

Lego Bionicle: Maze of Shadows for the Nintendo DS: For our two 12 year old male readers they released another game for you, enjoy.

MediEvil Resurrection for PSP: Take a cult classic for the Playstation toss in um nothing. Port it to PSP and you get MediEvil Resurrection. If you really, really want to play MediEvil you can get the Playstation game and a PSOne for the same price as the PSP version of the game.

NHRA Championship Drag Racing for the Playstation 2: Okay this was one game I thought would never make the delay list but it has for the 3 week running.

Scooby-Doo! Unmasked for the XBox, Gamecube, Playstation 2, and Gameboy Advance: The next groovy installment in the popular kid franchise Scooby-Doo. Hopefully this time they pull the mask of the Mystery Van and reveal what really happens inside the mystery van when the cameras are not looking.

Tecmo Classic Arcade for the XBox: A collection of bunch of Tecmo Arcade games that I have never heard of and hold your applause: Temco Bowl. Okay actually I did misspeak it will also have Rygar and Swimmer.

The Sims 2 Nightlife for the PC: The next expansion for Sims 2. This time you can take Ken and Barbie out on the town.

World Series of Poker for the Playstation 2, XBox and PSP: Here is your chance to go all in at Harrah’s Rio Casino during WSOP without having to lay down $10,000 for that pleasure.

A lot of games this week. Making this weeks pick a real tough one but I am going for the classic since I wasted a lot of college free time playing it. The game of the week is: Temco Bowl and couple of other forgotten Tecmo Arcade games.

Well, probably not. Human Pacman may seem like a simple concept, but it requires quite a bit of high-tech equipment to actually play the game, and it seems like carrying all of that equipment around city streets would get old fast.

Slate has posted an article about two Thirtysomethings’ first adventures on XBox Live and Halo 2. The article was mostly a fluff piece about their misadventures and how much they suck at online gaming. For some odd reason I have a feeling that if Shameless and I played XBox Live for the first time (disclaimer: Shameless does not have an XBox and I can not stand all the potty mouths on XBox Live) our article would sound a lot like theirs.

Another week another list of new releases. Onto the releases:

Barbie and the Magic of Pegasus for the Gameboy Advance: Hopefully this one will not fall victim to the curse of horribleness that has fallen every other Barbie game. After seeing videos of gameplay I somehow doubt it.

Danny Phantom: The Ultimate Enemy for the Gameboy Advance: 2D Platformer based on the same named Nickelodeon show.

NHL 06 for the Playstation 2, Gamecube, PC and XBox: The next round in the most popular Hockey franchise at the now low price of $30.

NHL2K for the Playstation 2 and XBox: The next round in last years cheapest and best hockey game.

Gretzky NHL 2006 for the Playstation 2: The next round in the most expensive Hockey game of all the current franchises. Guess all the exclusive stuff with Gretzky justifies the extra $10 price tag.

Hoyle Casino 2006 for the PC: Another budget collection of Casino games. This version includes over 500 variants of 16 different games.

Marine Park Empire for the PC: Another budget sim game that allows you to build your own personal Sea World.

One Piece: Grand Battle for the Playstation 2, Gamecube and Gameboy Advance: Cool looking fighting game based on the anime series One Piece.

Radiata Stories for the Playstation 2: A new role playing game from the RPG masters at Square Enix.

Rayman 10th Anniversary Edition for the Gameboy Advance: I remember when I first bought Rayman for the Playstation. I hated it 10 years ago and would most likely hate today. Granted I did love Rayman creators next game Beyond Good and Evil.

Rebelstar: Tactical Command for the Gameboy Advance: Turn based strategy game for the Gameboy Advance.

Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Lockdown for the XBox and Playstation 2: The next release in the long running Rainbow Six franchise.

Again a lot to pick from this week. My pick for this week: Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Lockdown and if you hurry and pre-order it from EB Games you get a free copy of Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow another pick of the week.

Another week and another list of game coming out this week onto the list:

Animaniacs: The Great Edgar Hunt for the XBox: Budget Xbox game staring the Animaniacs delayed from a few weeks ago.

Dynasty Warriors Advance for the Gameboy Advance: Another Dynasty Warrior and only change is this time it is for the Gameboy.

Jetfighter 2015 for the PC: Take a standard airplane fighter formula toss in a couple of terrorist add a few drug dealers and you get Jetfighter 2015.

Mario Superstar Baseball for the Gamecube: Another game that I spent a good deal of time with at E3. Basically Nintendo took its hit Baseball series tossed in a few Nintendo characters and called it a new game. It is fun but it is not different then any other Baseball game.

Moto GP Ultimate Racing Technology 3 for the XBox: Third in the popular motorcycling racing game.

Namco Museum: 50th Anniversary Arcade Collection for XBox, Playstation 2, Gamecube,PC, PSP and Gameboy Advance: Single largest collection of Namco arcade games. Instead of the normal 12 that most collections contain this one has 14 games that everyone already has if they bought the earlier collections. Namco here is a subtle hint 2 more games does not make this a must buy try more like 30 or 40 more.

NASCAR 06: Total Team Control for XBox and Playstation 2: Taking the Nascar to next level by taking a page from FPS and adding Squad combat to the mix.

NHRA Championship Drag Racing for the Playstation 2: Another budget drag racing game.

Pump It Up: Exceed & Dance Mat for the XBox and Playstation2: DDR game that adds in diagonal arrows and moving backgrounds with videos.

WWE Day of Reckoning 2 for the Gamecube: Another Wrestling game that use the same formula started back in the day on the Nintendo 64.

Yu-Gi-Oh! Nightmare Troubadour for the Nintendo DS: Play Yu-Gi-OH! on the Nintendo DS, yhea.

That is it, pick for this week is: Mario Superstar Baseball. Yes it is derivative but it was fun to play baseball with all the Nintendo characters.

According to this article post by Game Industry Biz, the gaming industry is planning to target India as its next big game market. The article also touched on a growing new trend in the game industry, that is outsourcing development and animation work to India. The article also points out the major flaws with outsourcing to India, that is: a culture that does not play video games, very hard to travel too, lots and lots of job hopping and in reality only 10% to 20% savings in salary. However these negatives are not stopping companies like Red Octane and EA to start looking into outsourcing to India.

Another week and another great list of upcoming games. This week has a couple real winners. Onto the list:

Board Game Classic for the Gameboy Advance: A collection of all those board games you played as a kid.

Darkwatch for the XBox and Playstation 2: Vampires meet cowboys nuff said.

Death Jr. for the PSP: Finally a good game for the PSP. Death Jr. is an adventure game in the style of the old Lucasarts games.

Dungeon Siege II for the PC: Dungeon hack

Eye Toy: Play 2 for the Playstation 2: Another collection of Eye Toy games. I am not a big fan of the Eye Toy but if you love goofy mini games this is a great buy at a high price.

Giest for the Gamecube: I wet my pants when I saw this was coming out this week. I played Giest at E3 and loved it. The game is weird - the main way to get around is to posses stuff - but it was fun and innovative. Even the multi-player rocked. Too bad it is for the Gamecube.

Hello Kitty: Roller Rescue for Gamecube: I also played this one at E3 and loved it. Yes for the serious gamer it not a great game but for a kiddie game it rocks. A must buy for anyone with little girls.

Lizzie McGuire 3: Homecoming Havoc for the Gameboy Advance: Another licensed game for girls.

That’s So Raven 2: Supernatural Style for the Gameboy Advance: Another licensed game for girls.

Madden NFL 06 for the PC: It Madden do I need to say anything else. It is not like there has not been a Madden released every year at this time for the past ten years.

Metal Slug 4 & 5 for the XBox: Classic arcade shooter makes it second appearance on the XBox.

Centipede / Breakout / Warlords for the Gameboy Advance: Three classic 2600 games one platform at a budget price.

Millipede / Super Breakout / Lunar Lander for the Gameboy Advance: Three classic 2600 games one platform at a budget price.

Pong / Asteroids / Yar’s Revenge for the Gameboy Advance: Three classic 2600 games one platform at a budget price.

Gauntlet / Rampart for the Gameboy Advance: Two classic arcade games at a budget price.

Spy Hunter / Super Sprint for the Gameboy Advance: Two classic arcade games at a budget price.

Paperboy / Rampage for the Gameboy Advance: Two classic arcade games at a budget price.

Marble Madness / Klax for the Gameboy Advance: Two classic arcade games at a budget price.

Connect Four / Perfection / Trouble for the Gameboy Advance: Another collection of classic board games at a budget price.

Risk / Battleship / Clue for the Gameboy Advance: Another collection of classic board games at a budget price.

Sorry! / Aggravation / Scrabble Junior for the Gameboy Advance: Another collection of classic board games at a budget price.

Sigma Star Saga for the Gameboy Advance: RPG set in space.

Sonic Gems Collection for the Gamecube: Part two of the classic collection of Sonic games. The highlight for this collection is the remake of Sonic CD and Sonic R.

Wow lots and lots of budget Gameboy Advance games but there is a lot of great games coming out this week. This game of the week choice is another hard one with Hello Kitty, Sonic Gems and Death Jr. as all must buys but hands down the game of the week is Giest.

Kotaku is reporting that if you download the latest patch for the game “SWAT 4″ instead of just fixing bugs, it also adds ads to the game. The ads are added in real time when the game loads a level and sends a request out via HTTP and XML to an ad server running Apache. The ad server sends back to the game DDS files that contain the ads and where the ads are suppose to go in the game. All interactions with ads including how long, how far and at what angle the player looked at them is sent back to ad server. What makes this all so slimly is that SWAT 4 publisher Vivendi is forcing players to download the ad stuff just for bug fixes without giving them any more maps or new features and snuck it in via a change to the End User License. Luckily there is a fix that simply requires the player to alter his host file to redirect all the ad server traffic to his localhost.

I just finished watching G-Phoria and I all I have to say is: “please G4 Tech TV, do not make any more!” For that matter… MTV, Spike TV and any one else, don’t even think of it! Please, please stop making these game award shows! First: they are lame! Second: I could care less about what celebrities think of gaming. I do not want see a bunch of celebrities giving awards for things they had nothing to do with. Is it so much to ask for them to show the creators? Oh… thats right… they are too geeky for G4 Tech TV. Third: the extreme attitude withbottle smashing, drunk video game icons, slicing Oprah in half, and whatever Ron Jeremy did, do gamers no favors. Try showing how mature we really are. If Jack Thompson ever needed something to show the world how violent and degenerate gamers are all he would have do is show them a video of this years G-Phoria.
Also, get rid of all the female hosts except Sarah Lane and Morgan Webb. They come across as phony shills who could not tell you the difference between Doom and Super Mario Bros to save their lives (if you do not believe me, watch the video of a certain G4 Tech TV host at Nintendo’s E3 press conference talking about Nintendogs). Also, what was the deal with William Shatner? He looked way too drunk and had to be high on something. That was not the worst moment, however. The worst was when, right after giving Ralph Bhear a lifetime achievement award for inventing video games, G4 Tech TV did a skit where Master Chief shot a drunk Pong line. This was the very thing Ralph Bhear created. Nice. Keep giving Jack Thompson and Hillary Clinton ammo.

Marvel Comics announced this week at Wizard World Chicago the return of artist Joe Madureira to comic books. Joe Madureira got his start drawing comic books like the “Uncanny X-Men” for Marvel Comics. During his time at Marvel he became one of the hottest artist of the 90s. In 1995 he left Marvel and started his own comic book, “Battlechasers” for the creator owned label Wildstorm/Cliffhanger. While working on “Battlechasers", Madureira moved to doing art for video games. After many delays of “Battlechasers” and false promise Madureira decided to cancel his book in the middle of the story and focus all his artistic talents on video games and left comic books for good. At least that was till this week and it appears Joe has sworn off video games for comic books. While I and many fans enjoyed Madureira work, he burned many bridges with the fans with all the tactics he pulled on “Battlechasers". Many fans may not welcome him back. Personally I will take a wait and see but I am still upset with way he left us hanging with “Battlechasers".

I think I have a new hero. A South Korean man died of a heart attack after a 50 hour gaming session. If ya gotta go, I can’t think of a better way.

I didn’t hear which game he was playing, but in South Korea, it’s a good chance that he was playing Starcraft. If so, there may still be hope for him. That game has a habit of bringing dead heroes back to life. If you’ll remember, Fenix came back in the shell of a dragoon and Kerrigan came back as the Queen of Blades.

Sorry. Couldn’t help geeking-out over one of my favorite games.

Update:

It looks like my guess about Starcraft was correct. It’s nice to be right once in a while. I will have to remember this rare and special moment.

Thanks to Nunzalod for the pointer.

Someone has posted a guide on how to play Doom on your IPod. The person did the port using Doom source code, a version of Linux made for the IPod and cross compiler (cygwin/gcc). Is there anything left to port Doom too?

Another week and another list of games coming out for this week. Again the drought continuities but at least this week there is something major coming out. Onto the list:

Advent Rising for the PC: Delayed and delayed again, I hope Majestco is using all this delay to fix all the issues from the XBox version of Advent Rising so that it will be a killer PC game.

Dragon Ball GT: Transformation for the Gameboy Advance: Yet another Dragon Ball game.

Gumby vs. the Astrobots for the Gameboy Advance: The first and most likely only game staring everyone favorite Green eraser head Gumby, beside it’s Gumby Dammit!!!!!

Madden NFL 96 for well all formats including mobile phones expect for PSP (which is due Sept 20): Do I need to explain Madden NFL, it is the longest running and now only new NFL football game in town. This will also most likely be the last Madden game ever since EA has picked up the ESPN license.

Rhem 2 for the PC: Pure puzzle adventure game like the old school Lucas art games.

A lot more this week but nothing compared to a few months ago. My pick for this week: Gumby vs. the Astrobots. I do not know why but I have looking forward to this game since it was announced in March. I also not a big Madden fan.

If you are thinking of enjoying the fine art of Player Killing in video games, and you are under 18, you may not be able to play video games while in China. That is because China has banned underaged players from playing any games that allow Player Killing. I wonder when Jack Thompson will post his praise of China?

Looks like Jack Thompson has changed targets from EA back to Take-Two He’s taking them to task over the upcoming Rockstar game “Bully". While I agree with most of the critics that bullying is a real issue and something which should not be made into a game, I still feel Rockstar has a right to make it. Just like, as consumers, we have the right not to buy it. I would also like people to just ignore the game so it gets zero press and flops.

IGN has posted a top 100 games of all time list. Unlike the Gamespy top list this one is fairly legit with 85% of the top 100 not in print anymore and only four very recent titles (Burnout: Takedown, Resident Evil 4, God of War and Rome: Total War) on the list. Still the list is open to debate and some like Mafia making list but not Legend of Zelda for the Nintendo or Dance Dance Revolution not making the list. Also where was all the Atari love? None of the Atari 2600 games made the list, come on Adventure is still played to this day.

Alright this week is a first there is only one new games this week and an expansion for Ghost Recon 2, that is it. Here is the listing for the two games:

Shaman King: Master of Spirits 2 for the Gameboy Advance: Kiddie anime scroller.

Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon 2 Summit Strike for the XBox: Expansion for Ghost Recon 2 that adds eleven new single-player missions and expanded multiplayer content set in Kazakh and Pakistani as the UN and Ghosts hunt a Pakistani warlord.

No picks for this week.

Attack of the Show is looking for a few good Male geeks to guest host and possible Host the show. Auditions start this Sunday in LA, with more auditions to follow in San Fransisco and New York in August. Looks like it is time for a road trip.

Game cable channel G4-Tech TV has announced the winners to this year’s G-Phoria, with Halo and God of War winning most of the awards. G-Phoria this year was promoted by having all the hosts on G4-Tech TV race each other, with the winner declared at G-Phoria. Since the winners have been announced I guess the race is over and I am sad to see it end. It was one of the few funny bits on G4-Tech TV (btw if G4-Tech TV is looking for a geek humor writer I am available - email me at leakenova at yahoo.com ) I am also annoyed with G4-Tech TV announcing the winners a week and 1/2 before the special and ruining G-Phoria for me. Now the only thing I have to look forward to is how much humiliation the special will lap on Adam Sesseler. After the bit with the bush and bathroom during the race, I can only imagine what “they” are going to do to Adam.

Two of the of the light sabers used in the filming of Star Wars: New Hope and Empire Strikes Back are up for auction this Friday at a Beverly Hills movie memorabilia auction. The lightsabers come from the personal collection of producer Gary Kurtz, who worked closely with Lucas in the 70s and 80s. Also up for auction is Indiana Jones’s leather jacket from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Tom Hanks’ costume from “Saving Private Ryan", John Travolta’s leather chaps from “Urban Cowboy” and the suit worn by The Riddler in the first episode of the 1960s TV series version of “Batman". For the few readers that have the cash, you can place bids on the items at Ebay’s Live Auction site or via phone or fax. For the rest of us we can stare at the pictures and drool.

Another week and another list of games coming out for the week. On to the list:

Advent Rising for the PC: Delayed Sc-Fi epic for the PC that flopped on the XBox. Hopefully in the PC version they improved the frame rate.

Animaniacs: The Great Edgar Hunt for the Gamecube and XBox: The lovable WB mascots: Wakko, Yakko and Dot in the puzzle game with Pinky and the Brain mini games. At a budget price, what is there not to love about this game.

Codename: Panzers Phase Two for the PC: World War II RTS.

Delta Force: Black Hawk Down for the XBox and Playstation 2: Played the XBox and Playstation 2 versions at E3 and loved them both. when the price hits $30 I am buying the XBox version. The best part, which I am not that big into, is the multiplayer part which allows up to 50 players in one game on XBox Live.

Graffiti Kingdom for the Playstation 2: Graffiti Kingdom is the sequel to Magic Pengel- the weirdest RPG ever. The game has already been nominated for game of the year in Japan and looks like it could be the next Katmari Darcy (which sequel is due out soon too). According to EB Games: “Players will take on the role of Prince Pixel, who is on a quest to save his parents and restore Canvas Kingdom back to its normal form after an ancient evil transformed it into a labyrinth full of danger.” Another game I am going to be buying soon.

Harvest Moon: Another Wonderful Life for the Gamecube: F…A…R…M…I…N…G now with the ability to play as a female.

Harvest Moon: More Friends of Mineral Town for the Gameboy Advance: Same game as the previous GBA version of Harvest Moon except you can play as a female.

Makai Kingdom: Chronicles of the Sacred Tome for the Playstation 2: Another Tactical RPG from the other Tactical RPG master NIS.

Outlaw Tennis for the XBox and Playstation 2: Bad boy Tennis at a budget price. If you loved the other Outlaw games you will love Outlaw Tennis for all the same reasons.

A lot more games and a lot of really good ones too. My pick for the week is: Delta Force: Black Hawk Down, Graffiti Kingdom and Harvest Moon: Another Wonderful Life. A know I should pick one, but I like all three equally and will be buying all three soon.

Before you think that GTA’s publisher Take Two got off lightly from the ESRB for the whole Hot Coffee issue, think again. Take Two may not have been fined or forced to recall GTA: San Andreas, but retailers response to the rating change has been to pull the game off the shelves. A lot retailers have also said they will not sell the copies of GTA: San Andreas without Hot Coffee. Then add in the fact that Take Two’s stock is taking a beating over the rating change and you can not say that Take Two got off lightly. Hopefully what happened to Take Two is lesson to the rest of the industry to not mess with the ESRB.
Update
Gamespot has posted the cost for Hot Coffee will be around $50 million or greater for retailers, Take Two and Rockstar.

Jack Thompson fresh on his victories against GTA: San Andreas is setting his sights on Sims 2. According to Jack Thompson using a simple code a player can unblur the box covering Sims when they are naked, to reveal full frontal nudity that EA hid in the game.
Jeff Brown, vice president of corporate communications at EA, in response to the accusations, told GameSpot, “This is nonsense. We’ve reviewed 100 percent of the content. There is no content inappropriate for a teen audience. Players never see a nude sim. If someone with an extreme amount of expertise and time were to remove the pixels, they would see that the sims have no genitals. They appear like Ken and Barbie.”
Either Jack Thompson is blowing smoke or EA is lying. In this case I side with EA. I am also shocked that Jack Thompson did not go after the fact that you can two male or two female sims become lovers.

In response to the Hot Coffee mod, the ESRB has changed the rating of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas from Mature to Adult Only. The rating change has forced Rockstar and Take Two to offer retailers two unpalatable choices. The first choice is to exchange all unsold copies of GTA: San Anderas for a copy without Hot Coffee that will maintain the Mature rating. The second choice is a sticker that will change existing inventory from M to AO (Adults Only 18+) by covering over the M sticker. Major retailers like Wal Mart have already started recalling GTA: San Anderas and I expect most will do so since most stores do not sell AO games. While I do not like to see censorship, I salute the ESRB for taking a stand on this and removing the fire pin from the Holy Hand Grenade before the anti-game lobby was able to pull it.

Now that Jeff Smith has finished “Bone” he started work on the video game version of “Bone” with Telltale Games. “Bone” is a high fantasy comic book adventures of three cartoon characters set in a mythical world with dragons and rat creatures. Smith and Telltale games plans to release each chapter of the series as a stand alone point and click game, like the old Lucasart’s games. They plan to make each chapter downloadable starting in September and the game will stick strictly to the plot of the book. The only major difference between the story in the game and the comic book is that more dialog will be added.
Smith is also working hard on a colorized version of the comic book series that will be released by Scholastic Books’ Graphix imprint. You can also get the complete Bone collection in one giant soft back book at stores right now.

According to Gamesindustry.biz Hitman: Blood Money and the next Tomb Raider will be delayed until 2006. The delay of Hitman: Blood Money has surprised some since it was listed as one of the most violent video games of 2004 by the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility. I guess Hitman: Blood Money had some really violent screenshots.

Another summer week and another week of games:

Asheron’s Call: Throne of Destiny for a PC: Why do they bother with new MMORPG’s when old MMORPG’s never go away? Yet another expansion for the ancient Asheron Call.

Colosseum: Road to Freedom for the Playstation 2: Another game set in the Roman Empire. When are we going to start complaining about yet another one of these games?

Nanostray for the DS: Hidden away in the Majesco booth at E3 was this little gem of a shooter. I am glad I made a wrong turn in the Majesco booth looking for Jaws and found Nanostray instead. Never did find Jaws, I was too busy playing Nanostray.

Thats it only 3 games this week. Pick for the week is: Nanostray.

Last night during Attack of the Show, host Kevin P. revealed that there was a way to unlock the hidden sex mini games on the Playstation 2 using hacking tools like Codemaster 2. After doing some research I found the codes. Instructins for how to enter them in a Playstation 2 have popped up in a variety of game forums like the ones on Gamefaqs.com. It appears the sex mini-games were discovered when people started scanning GTA: San Andreas’s configuration files and noticed a suspicious looking tag. Once the PC version came out hackers were able to alter the configuration files and were then able to unlock the sex mini-games. According to Kotaku earlier today (the article has been taken down), Rockstar has now done a full 180 and will soon confirm that they indeed created the sex mini games and accidentally left them in. If Kotaku is correct, Rockstar games is a lot of trouble with the ESRB for lying to them. Unlike the Motion Picture Ratings board, the ESRB is not a toothless tiger and can level fines, force Rockstar to pull all advertising, recall the game and other various nasty things. I hope the ESRB stands up to Rockstar for doing this to show the American public that the ESRB works and takes rating violations seriously.

Even though its parent company Hip Canada has filed for bankruptcy this week, Hip Europe has announced that it will stay in business. It looks like I will get to see what a Deep One looks like. Also, “City of the Dead", the only game I had a small hand in designing, will hit store shelves after all.

Kotaku has posted Jack Thompson’s response to Hillary Clinton’s press conference about the Hot Coffee mod for Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and the failure of the ESA to give GTA an AO rating because of the mod. Thompson response is more of rant in which he spent most of his time insulting ESA head Doug Lowenstein and calling for his resignation over this whole sordid affair with Hot Coffee and GTA. I think the best part was where he compared Lowenstein tactics to Hilter tactics. I also like how he talked glowingly about Hillary Clinton. I wonder if he would have done that while Bill Clinton was in the White House?

Update:
Kotaku has posted Doug Lowenstein’s response to Jack and Hillary.

Rockstar games has gone on the record to dispute the claims that Hot Coffee (a mod that unlocks sex mini games in Grand Theft Auto: San Andres) is not a mod. They claim that it is not an extension that simply unlocks a hidden section of code, but is a modification created by “disassembling and then combining, recompiling and altering the game’s source code.”

I only see one issue with Rockstar’s statement. When did they start shipping source code along with the game?

Canadian publisher HIP Interactive has declared bankruptcy and will be closing its doors shortly. While previous games HIP has released have been bad, its upcoming line of games that I saw at E3 were really solid. Particularly the games Call of Cthulhu: Destiny’s End, and George Romero’s City of the Dead. Hopefully, some other company will pick up HIP’s games so that I can see all the features I helped design for George Romero’s City of the Dead… and I can see what a Deep One looks like.

The mod Hot Coffee for Grand Theft Auto San Andreas that supposedly unlocks hidden sex based mini games, may get GTA developer Rockstar Games and the ESRB in trouble with lawmakers. Rockstar is already in trouble with the ESRB over this mod and the ESRB may change GTA: San Andreas’ rating to AO. The big issue is that the sex mini games were part of the games code base and simply unlocked by a few keystrokes instead of a user created mod like Counterstrike. However, as the mod author puts it best, the hidden games are “not something it is possible to accidentally stumble across in the course of playing the game.” In other words Rockstar games never intended for someone to play or even see the mini games. They are just guilty of sloppy coding for forgetting to compile the mini games out.

Another week and another game of the week list. The drought continues, on to the games:

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory for the Playstation 2, XBox, Gamecube, PC and Game Boy Advance: Game based on the upcoming Tim Burton movie Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which is a remake of 1960 movie which is based on the classic book. So we have game based on a movie which is based on a movie which is based on a play which is based on a book.

Flatout for the Playstation 2, XBox and PC: Car racing game that has a full damage model including the ability to toss the driver out of the car.

Flipnic for the Playstation 2: Budget pinball game.

Fullmetal Alchemist 2: Curse of the Crimson Elixir for the Playstation 2: Square tries again to bring the hit anime series Fullmetal Alchemist to the consoles. Hopefully this time around they do a better job the last attempt and make a game as enjoyable as the anime series.

NCAA Football 2006 for the XBox and Playstation 2: EA dominance on all games involve football starts with this game.

Realms of Illusion for the PC: Non liner puzzle adventure game with only 20 puzzles but with lots of buttoning pressing.

Sid Meier’s Pirates! for the XBox: Ahoy my maties, time to swash the decks down and loot plunder the Caribbean as a pirate in this remake of Pirates! the classic 80s Sid Meier’s game. No word if the game will solve the classic question who win in a fight Ninja or Pirates.

Well thats it for the week a nice small list of games to select from. My pick for this week: Sid Meier’s Pirates!, if you do not have a XBox the PC version of it is in the budget bin.

It is good to finally see that people are starting to ‘get’ what I have been saying all along. The DS right now is better than the PSP. Joystiq and several other sites have posted the results from the survey conducted by analyst group Wavemetrix, that showed by and large consumers favored the DS over the PSP. The biggest issue raised in the report was the lack of good PSP games, which I have been saying all along is the major issue with the PSP. Other than Lumines, there are no “must” buy games, just a collection of maybe buys, and the selection is even thin there. If you look at the game pipeline for the PSP there is only ONE game (Death Jr.) in the next 3 months worth getting excited over. The DS, on the other hand, may also have a fairly poor selection of games right now, (maybe 2 or 3 must buys) but its game pipeline for the next 3 months is busting at the seams. The updoming DS games that are really worth buying (Nintendogs, Mario Kart DS, The New Super Mario Bros, Elecktroplakton, and Metroid DS). If you add in the price, battery life and the whole dead pixel issue, the DS is just better than the PSP right now. If Sony wakes up and starts pushing a ton more games, increasing the battery life, and lowering the cost of memory sticks for the PSP instead of flooding the market with crappy UMD movies and overpriced memory sticks, games and accessories (yes thats right overpriced accessories. Sony wants $35 bucks for a power cord), the PSP will overtake the DS and hand Nintendo its first defeat in the handheld market. Then again all hope for the PSP may be lost since Ken Kutaragi, Sony’s main visionary for games, may have finally gone over the deep end and looks to be taking the PSP down with him as he slowly sinks further into madness.
Before all you Sony fanboys flame us to death please note, the survey was done via Internet forums and though I agree with it, the report is still just a collection of opinions and shoud be taken with a grain of salt.

1Up has posted an article about the growing trend of people setting up sweatshops in Asia to farm gold for various MMORPG. I have my doubts about how true the article is, it sounds rather out there as far as money making schemes go, but it just may be true. If the article is true, I need to quit my day job and get hacking away. World of Warcraft macros are a breeze to write and pay more in a month then I could ever make in a year.

It is that time again, time for New Games for the week. Onto the games:

Coded Arms for the PSP: First person shooter set in a virtual world that has gone bad. Another forgettable game for the PSP.

Halo 2 Multiplayer Pack for Halo 2 on the XBox: For those 10 Halo 2 players who do not use XBox Live, comes an expansion pack for Halo 2 with some new maps, weapons, and rule fixes. You can also download all the maps and fixes via XBox Live for those of you that do not want to pick this up in stores.

Killer 7 for the Gamecube and Playstation 2: This is the weirdest game I have ever seen. At E3 I asked the Capcom Representative what the heck Killer 7 was about and all he could say was “I have played through it seven times and I still do not have a clue.” If you figure out please email me, I really would like to know.

That is it for the week, we are officially in the game release drought. My pick for this week is: Killer 7 for the Gamecube. The game may be weird but I really want to figure out what the heck it is about. Have a happy and safe Fourth of July.

Gamespy released this week a list of what they thought where XBox’s top 25 games. Gamespy’s list smacks of commercialization. The vast majority of the games in 25-11 range came out in the last six months and all the games on the list are still for sale in stores. Making it even more suspect is seven of the games on the list (LEGO Star wars - April, Unreal Championship 2 - April, Brother in Arms - March, Jade Empire - April, Forza - May, Psychonauts - April, GTA: San Andres - June, Splinter Cell 3 - March) came out in the last FOUR months and not all of them even got Gamespy’s highest rating of five stars.
Actual going by Gamespy Ratings (26 games got a rating of 5) the top 25 would look totally different with games like Outrun 2, Winning Eleven 8, and Doom 3 making the top 25 instead of games like Fable (4 stars), Crimson Skies (4 stars), and Tony Hawk Underground (4 stars) that did make Gamespy’s top 25. The only thing that would have excluded the vast majority of the games with 5 stars from the top 25 is that they are no longer sold in stores. So either Gamespy’s list top 25 list is suspect or their rating system is suspect since a vast majority of XBox games that received 5 stars are absent ( 10 games in total - Doom 3, Winning Eleven 8, NBA Street V3, Outrun 2, GTA: Double Pack, Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, SSX 3, SSX Tricky, Tiger Wood’s PGA 2004, and Tony Hawk 4). Think about it, games that Gamespy said all those games at the time the all the above games where released, they had to be the greatest games on the XBox. Yet after some time later a huge chunk of those games are missing from Gamespy’s top 25 list and where replaced by newer and lesser games. I think Gamespy has some explaining to do.

According to a study of gamer versus non-gamer college students, gamers are much quicker to detect target objects than non-gamers. Though it’s always good to hear that gaming has health benefits, there are other logical explainations. For instance… it is just as likely that the advantage is in the triple-thick glasses or tinfoil hats that they wear.

Does this mean that I can tell Mrs. Shameless that I wasn’t up until 3:00 AM playing a video game… I was actually working on my ability to detect impending auto accidents? Can gamers submit their LAN party bills as health insurance claims? Somehow, I don’t think so.

Joystiq has posted a funny article about a guys failed crusade to buy the XBox version of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas in the UK. According to the clerks he spoke with, he could buy any mature rated game without id except for Grand Theft Auto. So by the British system, I could easily buy the much more violent game like Punisher, but not GTA. I guess the Brits feel murder simulators are alright, but gang banging simulators are not.

Project Gotham 3 developer Bizarre Creations has posted the wire frames of last week picture to prove the screenshot was not fake. They also have posted other screenshots from the level to prove that the level of detail is accurate throughout the game. I will wait until the game is released to show how true the graphics are but from what I saw my opinion on the graphics for the XBox 360 just changed to the better.

According to a Gamespot article, comedian Dave Chappelle admitted to being addicted to World’s of Warcraft during a San Francisco nightclub appearance. This may explain why Chappelle quit work on his Comedy Central show.

Sorry I was late posting this but all of Shameless Geeks staff has been away on vacation without Internet access this weekend. So better late then sorry here is the belated games of the week:

Advent Rising for the PC: Sadly the XBox version did not live up to expectations but maybe the delay gave Majestco time to clean up the frame rate issue.

Atelier Iris: Eternal Mana for the Playstation 2: Atlus next Strategy RPG game and this installment is part of the long running Atelier series. That is long running in Japan.

Bejeweled 2 for the PC: The next Bejeweled game all gussied up in 3D.

Dead to Rights: Reckoning for the PSP: Gritty cop fights the bad guys on the mean streets of Grant City.

Fantastic Four for the XBox, Playstation 2, Gamecube, Gameboy Advance and PC: If you go by the track record of the previous Fantastic Four game or movie (yes there was one before this summers blockbuster) this game (and movie) should go down in the books as the greatest Fantastic Four game ever. However that is not that hard to do.

Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition for the PSP: Rockstar’s street racing game moves off the console on the to PSP.

Mobile Suit Gundam: Gundam vs. Zeta Gundam for the Playstation 2: The next game based on the Gundam anime series. A must buy for all you Gundam fanboys, for the rest of you…save your money.

Realms of Illusion for the PC: Budget puzzle adventure game.

Riviera: The Promised Land for the Gameboy Advance: Fight demons in this RPG for the Gameboy Advance.

Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell Chaos Theory for the Nintendo DS: The handheld version of the great spy series Splinter Cell.

My pick for this week: Atelier Iris: Eternal Mana. I have weakness for Atlus’s RPGs.

This Reuters post quotes a study on the effects of violent video games that found that the human brain may confuse simulated violence with real violence. As usual with these studies, there seems to have been an attempt to equate the playing of video games with aggressive behavior. Also as usual, there was no real link that could be established. Jack Thompson would be proud.

The daisy-sniffing, gun-hating, folk-song-singing, wussy crowd couldn’t use actual statistics to prove that video games were bad for society, so they have resorted to psycho-babble to try to sell their views. Sometimes, I just wanna nuke them all. Damn wimps.

Just when you thought the video game voice actor strike was over, SAG has decided to reject the proposed contract with the video game industry, that they had agreed to earlier in the month. SAG video game voice actors where happy with the contract but the non-video game voice actors where not and pressured SAG to back out of the contract. SAG is riding a dangerous line and could see its members locked out of the game industry if they are not careful. To make the situation even more dangerous for the SAG video game voice actors is that AFATA, their sister organization, has agreed and ratified the proposed contract and it will go in effect July 1 for its members. All I can say to this is the hubris of a few SAG members is going to wreck the livelihood for a lot of people -who where happy with the situation- for no other reason then greed.

Gamespy has posted an interview with clothing designer turned game designer Marc Ecko. The interview is not as arrogant or boastfull as the keynote speech he gave at this years Game Developer Conference, however it still shows how arrogant and wonderful a game designer Marc Ecko thinks he is. After playing “Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure” at E3, all I can say is that Marc Ecko should stick to designing clothes.
For me the worst part of “Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure” was the gameplay. It played like Tony Hawk meets Grand Theft Auto except without the fun parts. Which is not the hallmarks of a great designer.

For all you COS players out there, pimp productions has posted the art book for the woman’s wrestling video game Rumble Rose. For what I saw the Rumble Rose art book is a good buy with lots of character sketches and computer models with lots of details to get the girls costumes perfect. The rest of you stop drooling.

After last weeks lackluster releases, we get a good week packed with a ton of A list release. In fact this week is mostly solid A lists and a big ball of singing poo. Onto the releases:

Battlefield 2 for PC: The great Battlefield series is moved away from the battlefields of yore to a more modern battlefield in some former Soviet Republic. From what I saw at E3, EA has cleaned up the combat and made vehicles easier to control. Look for this one to be tearing up Lan parties soon.

Bomberman DS for the DS: (played to the beat of Donkey Konga drum) Ah the classic multiplayer game Bomberman, you have faired poorly in the 3D world, but now comes a system tailored made for you. Please oh Please, cries the masses. Sucketh yhea not oh Bomberman DS. For yhea have multiplayer WiFi and now voice activated bombing. So go forth and bomb may the masses because the greatest Bomberman is here. (end bongo playing).

Codename: Panzers - Phase II for the PC: I have no clue what this game is about other then it is set during World War II and is a sequel.

Conker: Live and Reloaded for the XBox: Rare took a children’s game icon, left him all cute and fury but added a bit of a potty mouth. Yup thats right the foul mouthed icon of the Nintendo 64 is back. It is still the same game from the N64, with cleaned up graphics and the same piss poor gameplay. So if you like foul mouthed children’s icons or singing balls of poo, this game is for you. Just be warned it plays just as bad, with the same storyline, as the N64 one did.

Destroy All Humans for the XBox and Playstation 2: Grand Theft Auto meets Planet Nine from Outer Space. Yup that rights your a badass alien who is invading earth while jacking cars.

Herbie: Fully Loaded for the Gameboy Advance: Kid game based on the upcoming Herbie movie.

Mega Man Battle Network 5 (two versions) for the Gameboy Advance: Yup another Mega Man game. Oh the horror, when will Capcom kill the damm franchise or at least take a break.

Pyschonauts for the Playstation 2: I loved Pyschonauts on the XBox it was a quirky fun platformer/adventure game from Tim Schaffer, one of the greatest video game designers on this earth. The Playstation 2 version looks to be the same as the XBox version. A must buy for all you non-XBox owning Platformer loving types.

Romance of the Three Kingdoms X for the Playstation 2: Delayed from last week is the next epic in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms series.

RYL: Path of the Emperor for the PC: The newest MMORPG on the block with a focus of online Virtual reality and a tournament for one million dollars. What is with all these games all of sudden offering one million dollar prizes?

Bard’s Tale for the PC: Why oh why did this not come out when the Bard’s Tale came out for the consoles. For the few that do not know The Bard Tale is a Gauntlet like RPG that is perfect for the PC market. Instead of doing the smart thing and release it first for the PC. The publisher released it for the console first, where it was not a big seller and became a forgotten treasure instead of an instant classic.

Lots and lots of good stuff, making this weeks pick difficult. For this week I pick for game of the week: Battlefield 2.

I do not know what pact with the devil Atari founder Nolan Bushnell made to keep Atari alive but no else seems to be able to keep Atari alive. CNN columnist Chris Morris brought up the issue that current Atari is once again heading for doom. Sad as this may sound this is not the first time, nor last time Atari is on the path of doom. At least this time it was not branching out into crazy things like Medical products that doomed Atari, just crappy games. At the current path Atari is heading down it will soon be back on the auction block. For who ever does end buying make sure you hire Nolan Bushnell, otherwise I you are cursed to fail.

Wired Magazine has posted an interview with Mario and Zelda creator Miyamoto, where he talks about how modern gaming is heading down a dangerous path. The gist of the interview is unless the video gaming industry abandons the current trend towards catering towards hard core gamers, the gaming industry could crash in a few years as the hardcore gamers give up gaming. Which is currently going on in Japan. Miyamoto also said the cure to all this is to make games that appeal to everyone, in other words games that are fun like gee Nintendo’s hit DS game Nintendogs. Miyamoto also confirmed that Mario -128 (a tech demo that stared 128 Marios for the Gamecube) will not be a Gamecube, but a Revolution game. He also dodged the question on what the heck the Revolution controllers will look and how they will function. The thing I love most about this interview is how all the gaming websites rephrase it (gee I am doing that) and post several articles about it (*cough*Gamespot*cough*).

1UP sent one of their editors to various game stores possing as a clueless girl to see how good the advice is at game stores. The results are hilarious, particularly the Toy r us clerks, and the advice borders on wrong for all of them except the Gamestop clerk. The irked EBGame clerk was also funny in how he dodged giving any advice. This is definitely something we need to try, but sadly all our girls on staff are way too smart to play bimbos.

GameIndustry posted an article recently about how the MMORPG Guild Wars managed to become the number MMORPG in April and continuities to dominate the charts. Guild War’s publisher NCSoft did this mostly by charging a user fee of 0.00. Other tactics NCSoft did to make this big was to stunt its beta test periods to get hype each time a new beta period started instead of just one and allowing the players to not have to do the grind to get into the action. One other tactic that NCSoft did, that the article missed, was to force ever Gamestop and EBGames employee to hype the game for them by buying floor space and telephone time.

It is that time of the week, time for new release of the week. This week we have a new whole patch of fun. Onto the list:

Arc The Lad: End of Darkness for the Playstation 2: The next in the long running RPG series for the Playstation 2. I wish Working Design was doing this instead of Namco, so I could get a matching collector set to go with my Arc Lad collection for the Playstation.

Army Ranger: Mogadishu for the PC: Is Blackhawk: Down becoming the new Vietnam? This is like the third game I have seen set in Mogadishu.

Batman Begins for the PSP, Gameboy Advance, Playstation 2, XBox, and Gamecube: Newest Batman game based on the upcoming Batman movie. I wish I could say my confidence was that this game would be an instant classic, but with the long track record of poor Batman games and movie games in general leaves me with little confidence.

Capcom Fighting Evolution for the XBox: A 2D fighting game that combines all the characters from several hit Capcom fighting franchise but is mostly made of characters from the Street Fighter series. Capcom Fighting Evolution has been out on the Playstation 2 since Christmas.

Disney’s Magical Quest 3 Starring Mickey and Donald for the Gameboy Advance: Kiddie game staring Mickey and Donald on another magical quest.

Goldeneye: Rouge Agent for the DS: For some odd reason a lot insider have been talking about this one. The console version of the game was rushed mess which now sells for $15.00, but the DS version was delayed and it looks like this may be the true sequel to the N64 Goldeneye.

Juiced for the Playstation 2, XBox and PC: Ah… I talked about this last week when I announced the PC version but this little Street racer is one of the few games to be review twice. See two weeks before Juiced was due in stores, it publisher Acclaim went under and so we thought the game. However it looks like THQ picked this one up during the Acclaim fire sale and now we get to enjoy it.

Kirby: Canvas Curse for the DS: The little pink guy who can suck is back in his next platformer adventure game.

Romance of the Three Kingdoms X for the Playstation 2: Wow I remember buying the first one for the NES and know four platforms latter we are on the tenth one. 15 years ago this series was cutting edge, now the series feels very dated. Still the hardcore fans love the series and Koei will keep pop them out.

Yoshi Topsy-Turvy for the Gameboy Advance: Platform gaming staring the every lovable Yoshi. The neat gimmick about this game is you tilt your GBA back and forth to control Yoshi.

With summer coming up the gamelist are getting shorter with more focus on handheld games, which guess what, thats what this week list looks like.
Get ready to see a lot more list like this as the summer continues on.
My pick for this week: None, there is nothing on this list I want to play. I guess if I had to pick one it would be Arc The Lad: End of Darkness

Motherboard manufacturer Abit was forced to pay out $125,000 to a Chinese player named Rocketboy after ABit spokesman Fatal1ty lost a match to him. To make matters even worse for “the fatality", ABit was quick to signup Rocketboy as spokesman and renamed the Fatal1ty Motherboard to the Rocketboy Motherboard in China. This whole sordid affair started when ABit and Fatal1ty bragged he was invincible and would payout $125,000 to anyone who could prove them wrong. I do not know if it is more satisfying to see Fatal1ty getting pwned or seeing ABit rename his motherboard.

On a recent addition of MTV show “Pimp My Ride", the host Xzibit spoke out against cheap video games. Guess with all his money Xzibit would rather spend his time fighting the scourge of cheap video games, instead do doing something like fighting poverty in Africa like Brad Pitt does.

The New York Times is reporting that the Universal and Fox have agreed to a deal with Microsoft to make the movie version of Halo.(registration required) The script for the Halo movie and the deal to acquire the rights was delivered by Master Chief wearing deliveryman on Monday to the studios. Most studios passed on it due to Microsoft excessive demands. Some of those demands include $10 Million dollars upfront, 60 first class tickets for Microsoft execs to attend the premiere and no merchandise rights. In the final deal Microsoft did not get all of the things they demand but close enough for them to be happy. The one sticking point that may end this deal is the rights over creative control. Microsoft wants a lot and studios do not want give much. Gee I wonder why Microsoft is demanding so much creative control?

According to an article on Gamespot, Sony has shipped 100 PS3 developer kits to developers and is running out of the parts to make more. Hopefully this issue is just with parts for the development kits and not a larger parts issue that will cause the actual Playstation 3 to ship late or ship in short supply.

Video game voice workers and the video game industry have reached an agreement averting a strike. The voice actors union and video game companies have signed a 3 year contract where the voice actors agree to take a 36% increase in pay, increases in benefit contributions and greater protection, instead of profit sharing which the voice actors had been original seeking. The agreements is subject to the voice actors’ unions SGA and AFTRA for final approval. I am glad to see both parties came to agreement but I wonder if we are going to see this again in 3 years when the contract ends.

Nintendo president Satoru Iwata today trounced the popular Internet rumor that Nintendo planned to distribute their back catalog for free on the Nintendo Revolution. Okay… he sort of did. Iwata also said that Nintendo has not yet figured out how to distribute games from the back catalog, but will most likely give them away when someone buys another game, or as part of a promotion. So… yes, you will get them “sort of” for free but not 100% free with no strings attached. All I can say to the rumor is DUH, Nintendo never gives anything away for free without expecting something, you silly bloggers.

Tonight during a very brief special on Spike TV, the Game Critics Awards announced the best of E3 2005 awards. The Game Critics Awards is an independent group of video game journalists from 33 leading North American media outlets that hand out the awards for Best of E3. The big winner was Spore with 4 awards including Best of Show and Best PC game. The other big winners where Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess with 2 awards including Best Console Game and the Playstation 3 with 2 awards including Best Hardware and Special Commendation in Graphics for the Killzone 2 video.

During a business strategy conference today in Japan, Shigeru Miyamoto reveals that the Nintendo Revolution’s controller functionality is still being worked on. This may explain why the controller did not appear at E3, instead of the lame Nintendo excuse that they where worried about everyone else ripping them off. Satoru Iwata added that “We expect that you will be surprised with the Revolution’s controller". Nintendo I am waiting for you to blow me away or at least surprise me.

Pointless Waste of Time has posted the Gamer’s Manifesto up on there website. The Gamer’s Manifesto is basically a rant that points out the flaws in games today. Hopefully they will continue to add to the list because one thing I want to see add to the Manifesto, is the price and amount of games need to go down. I also hope all you game developers out there read this Manifesto and take it to heart.

Microsoft yesterday shiped around to all the Hollywood studios a movie script based on the game from Halo. In true Hollywood style all the messengers delivering the Halo scripts where dressed as Master Chief. Even with all the theatrics involved in the deliver of the scripts, it looks like the Halo script will not be picked up since all but one major studio has already passed on it. This is because according to Kotaku the reason is Microsoft is demanding $10 million upfront for an unsure property. Got to love Microsoft’s hubris.

The geek fight last week between the video game magazines and Blog, has moved onto Video Game Ombudsman when Ombudsman posted his 10 cents on the issue. In addition to his comment on the whole geek fight, Ombudsman also posted a good recap of the whole fight. All I got say about the whole geek fight is YAY INTERNET!!!!

The New York Post is reporting that a handheld game “Laden Vs Bush” (registration required) has gone on sale in shops in Conney Island that allows players to crash planes and bombs into the World Trade Center. The game is being marketed on the box as a boxing game. However when The New York Post fired it up it featured scenes of planes dropping bombs as they crash into what appeared to the Twin Towers. The box of the game also features pictures of the Twin Towers in the middle with Bush on one side and Bin Laden on the other. Not only is it sicken that someone would think something like this up, but worse sell it in New York City.

After Bandai announced last week that they where working hard on a new version of Tamagotchi for cell phones, Bandai announced they where also working hard on a version for the Nintendo DS. Evidently Tamagotchi is the middle in of minor comeback amongst young school girls and Tamagotchi manufacturer deiced to cash in and create a new batch of Tamagotchi while the iron is still hot. No word if the DS version of Tamagotchi will hit the states, but for fans of Tamagotchi can settle for the upcoming Tamagotchi like game Nintendogs from Nintendo.

Microsoft is issuing warnings that there will most likely be XBox 360 shortages when it launches. Microsoft added that these shortages will be caused not from the lack of supply but from consumer demand. In other words Microsoft is trying to create a fake shortage like Sony tried and failed to do with the PSP.

Another week and another batch of games is coming out. Onto the new games for this week:

Area 51 for the PC - Moving off of the XBox and onto the PC comes the gun shooter turned into a First Person Shooter.

Battle of Britain II: Wings of Victory for the PC - Battle as the Germans or Brits in this recreation of the first WWII Air War: the Battle of Britain.

Combat Elite: WWII Paratrooper for the XBox and Playstation - Budget WWII shooter.

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas for the XBox and PC - six months after it came out for the Playstation 2, the long (100+ hours) gangster playground, or as one G4TechTV Filter Journo said “Your own personal evil little playground” moves onto the XBox and the PC.

Juiced for the PC - Saved from the dead comes the street racing game Juiced. Juiced was canceled a few weeks before it hit store shelves last year, when its producer Acclaim went under. Thankfully THQ picked it up and re-released it. Also… one of the few games to have reviews written about it twice.

Medal of Honor: European Assault for the XBox, Gamecube and Playstation 2 - The next game in the long running WWII FPS Medal of Honor series. This time around they are focusing heavily on squad based combat and a huge open map that allows you to go anywhere.

Samurai Western for the Playstation 2 - It’s a samurai game, no it’s western, actually it’s both.

Still Life for the XBox - Budget adventure game that is delayed for another week.

Another short list, My pick for this week: Medal of Honor: European Assault.

The legislation to ban violent video games in California had stalled due to lack of support. This is just one of the many legislative attempts throughout the country to limit sales of violent games based on the perception that they are injurious, and that they incite people to commit crimes. When legislators get a clue, maybe they will try to pass laws that hold poliicians accountable for the crimes they incite.

GameDaily.biz has posted a feature about the next seven big gaming events for the media and which media outlets will most likely will get the exclusive on them. The big ones on the list I will be watching for and blogging about are the Playstation 3 screenshots, Duke Nukem Forever, The Nintendo Revolution and Mario 128.

Just in time for a Nintendogs, the newest form of virtual pet, comes the return of the original virtual pet the Tamagotchi. This time around it will be for cell phones only, and not in the egg form it use to come in. So for all of you who forgot to feed your virtual pet last time, Tamagotchi makers Bandai is giving you a second chance. They even toughed the little guy up so he can last a little longer when you neglect him. Before you say you will not, you know you will but this time it will take you longer to starve his ass.

Game developer and game blogging superstar Costik has posted an article about gamers’ vocabulary to language magazine Verbatim. Most of the terms are well know to gamers and (ab)used like crazy here, but there a few that I have never heard of before (mostly the MMORPG terms). It also a good article for all you non-gaming geeks, to guide you through some of the cryptic language we use. Then again any geek who does not game has no business calling himself a geek.

Someone in New Zealand took the overheating issue to the next level and built a computer case totally made of cooling fans. Yup thats right, over 70 fans went into the construction of this case and they all work too. I still say even with all those fans he would still have overheating issues during Shameless Lan parties.

Josh, of Web blog Cathode Tan, and Matthew Gallant, of Computer Games Magazine, are right now going at it over Matthew’s review of Carnival of Games on Cathode Tan. Josh started this whole fight when he posted a response to Matthew’s bad review of the Carnival of Games. The main issues Josh had with Matthew’s review was: that he judge the Carnival Games to be horrible after reading the first line and not bothering to read the rest of Carnival of Games. Matthew’s poor use of the English language and Matthew’s insistence on calling the Carnival of Games a Blog. When in fact the Carnival of Games is just an article that focus on various gaming blogs.
Instead of ignoring Josh, like a good journalist does. Matthew (person writing the review) posted an almost indecipherable response to Josh’s post over getting free games. Josh (person writing the response to the review) then responded to Matthew’s post, holding him to task over what he said. Matthew then threw off the gloves as other poster started bashing the hell out of him. Right know it is an all free for all geek fight. And boy do I love me some geek fight.

Yesterday, ATI announced their Crossfire Multi-GPU technology. Crossfire is ATI’s answer to Nvidia’s SLI technology that was released about 6 months ago. Although this is the latest in whizzbang gaming tech, I’m always hesitant to waste time talking about anything that is prohibitively expensive. If you don’t mind paying for a ultra-high end motherboard and a pair of $350+ video cards, you may want to check out these options.

EBGames has started offering up XBox 360 and games for it for pre-order on their site. Normally this not news but the listing leaked a little tidbit that XBox 360 games will be selling for 59.99. Yup thats right, the price of games is going up. Add in the “mirco market” that M$ is creating for the XBox 360, that will require you to spend another wad of cash to get the actual game to play, and we are looking at some very expensive games next gen. Well at least next gen we will be able to enjoy the picture of game publishers/M$ swimming in their money like Uncle Scrooge.

The Game Critics Award announced their nominations for Best of E3 2005. The Game Critics is an independent group made up of journalists from 33 leading North American media outlets that cover the videogame industry, The Game Critics Awards are the most respected of all E3 awards (which is not saying much) and will be announced on June 7 on Spike TV. We will see how much respect they have after airing on Spike.

A district in Japan deiced last week to classify Grand Theft Auto III as harmful. This will force retailers to move it in the bins with porn and it can not be sold to anyone under 18. This restriction would have made sense if they had bothered to do it when GTA III first came out two years ago, but now it is kinda of senseless. I wish American censors acted this fast to restrict sales of a game.

This is a follow up to the Gamer Graffix review I did last week. It has been a week and it was time to check if the Gamer Graffix is truly leaves no residue and see how well it held up. After being on the Gamecube for a week it was hard to peel off the Graffix off but once it was off it let no residue. I then stuck it to something else, left it there for a few minutes, peeled off the new object and re-stuck it to the Gamecube. It went on with no major issues with no peeling once it was on.

Another week comes to end and we have another list of upcoming games for this week. For this week we have a few good, a few bad and a few well…
On to the list:

Advent Rising for the PC and XBox: Part one of an epic Sci-fi trilogy from the minds of Sci-Fi author Orson Scott Card and GlyphX Games, comes this intergalactic adventure.

Boiling Point: Road to Hell for the PC: Delayed from last week comes this Shooter staring a Legionnaire pushed to his limits.

Digimon World 4 for the Playstation, XBox and Gamecube: Yet another Digimon game, who the heck is buying them.

ER for the PC: Live the adventures of the doctors from the TV show ER.

Another short release week, actual back to the levels it should be compared to last few months.
Pick for the week: Digimon World 4,no I meant Advent Rising.

According to an interview with financial website TheStreet.com, Microsoft Vice President J. Allard dropped the hint that the XBox 360 will be “in the the neighborhood” of $300 in the US. I am glad to see that Microsoft is starting to come clean about the price point of XBox 360 but I still want to know how much will games for the XBox 360 cost?

Video game blogger Dubious Quality recently posted a marco view of E3. Dubious was able to do this since he did not have a media badge and was able to take a more marco view of E3, instead of the normal micro view that the media focuses on.

One real interesting point that Dubious brought up was the real lack of anything PS3 related at E3. Yes, there where signs everywhere for the Playstation 3 at E3, including a sign at the airport. Yes, the media was treated to some neat displays of the Playstation 3. But the actual convention goers, as Dubious points out, saw very little of the Playstation 3. That is other then some pre-rendered Playstation 3 footage. On the strength of this footage alone Sony was able to wreck the XBox 360 at E3, which has all the tell tale signs of a classic FUD.

I am not surprised to see Sony trying to pull off a FUD or even this style FUD. Sony did the very same type of FUD, that is using pre-rendered footage, to wreck the Dreamcast last generation. It just saddens me that Sony is doing it again and the media not call them out on it. It also sadden to see Sony’s FUD is still able to wreck a console before it has a chance.

There is big controversy right now raging amongst gamers: Was the screen footage of Killzone 2 for the Playstation 3 in game or was it just a cut scene? Well someone managed to get their grubby paws on some “rumored” in-game footage. It is amazing how much the footage looks like Castle Wolfenstien 3D.

Here one for the books. Doris Self, of Fort Lauderdale, may be a grandma and in her 80s but she is not giving up on her quest to regain the world highest score ever in Q*Bert, which she held until 1985. In addition she plans to regain the title of the oldest person to hold a world record score, which she held until 2002. She plans to regain both titles when she sets the highest world score on Q*Bert. Since scoring a world highest video game scores require a judge, Doris plans to do all of this on the weekend of June 2-5. There will be witness from Twin Galaxies present for an annual gathering of classic gamers at Funspot in Weirs Beach, NH. All I got say is you go grandma.

Yesterday on Matrix-Online, Morpheus was killed by a mysterious assassin. This is a big deal because what happens on Matrix-Online is cannon. This means any new movie or book/comic book that is set after the Matrix movies must reflect the fact that Morpheus dies shortly after the movies. In fact anything that happens in Matrix-Online must be reflected in future Matrix movies/books/comic books/video games set after the trilogy.
The death of Morpheus was a planned thing, done with the approval of the Wachowski brothers (or is it brother and sister). This was not some random player killing a big character by accident, like when a player “accidentally” (okay he did on purpose, but he was not suppose to be able to) killed Lord British on Ultima Online. However what happens after Morpheus’ death is up to the players of Matrix-Online and should make for an exciting time.

The New York Times posted an article (registration required) about game developers who make Christian themed games. Right now it’s a small and very independent and underground group, but it is growing. The article did have one mistake, there will soon be a Playstation 2 and GBA Bible Trivia game coming out from Crave.

The AP wire posted an article this morning about the impending strike from the voice actors that do the voices for video games and are part of the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists union. The voice actors main beef is, now that video games are highly successful in part because of their efforts, they should get a share of the video game’s profits instead of an upfront fee for games that sell over 400,000 copies. While on paper this sounds like a very noble idea, it is in fact a stupid idea, that could cost the union voice actors their jobs. The reason is, voice work in video games is a very small part of games and union voice actors can easily be replaced by non-union voice actors, without the consumer noticing or complaining. This strike also makes the voice actors look very greedy. Right now they make $278 per hour of voice work and the gaming industry agreed to up their pay to $375 per hour of voice work, which is a lot for being such a small role in games. To put that in perspective, the artists and programmers who do make a difference and play a huge role in video games get no where near that pay scale and often do not get a share of the profits.
The voice actors are right now voting whether to strike or not. Hopefully they come to sense and vote to not strike.

The XBox 360 was just announced and what do you know, it is already for sale on EBay. I wonder if this “legit” XBox 360 is made by the same company that makes Nintondo games?

The demo of Metroid Prime Hunters at E3 was only setup for multiplayer and it only featured one map. It looked just like the Metroid games for the Gamecube. It played just like them even though the DS lacks an analog stick. It did this by mapping either an analog control, like turning around, to a field on the stylus or via pressing different button combinations and using the arrow keys to do looking around or actual moving. Once you got use to the control it was fairly easy to move Samus around.

Metroid Prime Hunters single player story is, that you and bunch of other bounty hunters are after a set of magical artifact for some mysterious great being. Once an artifact has been found, if you found it, the other bounty hunters will try to steal it from you or if you did not find it, you try to steal it from the bounty hunter that has it. This creates a non-linear story as you chase bounty hunters from planet to planet trying to steal away artifacts from them, while protecting your artifacts and trying to find new artifacts.

I am not a huge fan of the Gamecube versions of Metroid. This may be why I found Metroid Prime Hunters multi-player to be just another shooter with a bland multi-player. I wish the story mode was available for demoing, because it sounds exciting and may have change my opinion of Metroid: Primer Hunter. Alas it was not and the best I can say is right now is, Metroid Prime Hunter is shaping up to be a bland shooter.

Geek On Stun posted their feelings about E3, and how horrible it was. I agree with Geek On Stun on most of his points about E3. However I totally disagree with him about his assessment of Starcraft: Ghost.

At E3, I played the Gamecube version of Starcraft: Ghost and it was not a train wreck. It’s far from finished but from what I saw it looks like it’s starting to shape up into a good game.

Correction, Geek On Stun is parietal correct, if Blizzard published today what I saw at E3, Starcraft: Ghost would be a mess. The big issue I had with Starcraft: Ghost, which makes it look like a mess, Blizzard is packing way too many features and things to do into the game. In particular the bullet time or matrix slow mo like feature, which just needs to go away.

The difference in opinions, between the two of us, may be because we both played a different version of Starcraft: Ghost. Because of a glitch with getting the E3 builds of Starcraft: Ghost to work on the Gamecube, I was able to play the latest build of Starcraft: Ghost. Geek On Stun and everyone else at E3 did not play my build but an older version. That is the only reason I can see why we had a difference in opinion on Starcraft: Ghost.

For the rest of his comments, I fully agree on the rest. Particular on Shadow. All I want to do every time I played Shadow is throw up. He was correct the lines at E3 where insane for everything. I had to even queue up for Shadow.

After posting gamergraffix’s press release two weeks ago, I decided to check out their product while at E3. They had a lot of selection and for a little bit more money you can get your own custom Gamergraffix. The woman at the booth was kind enough to give a free set of Resident Evil 4 Gamer Graffix for the Gamecube. which now resides on my Gamecube. Gamer Graffix comes in a small blue and black box with a cut out showing what the Gamer Graffix looks like inside. The actual Gamer Graffix looks like those puffy stickers you collected as a kid and comes on sheets of paper in pieces which you attach to various sections of the Gamecube. Figuring out where each piece of the Gamer Graffix goes is easy since each section of the Gamecube that the Gamer Graffix goes is on its own piece of paper. You simply peel off the stickers and stick them on the section of the Gamecube it suppose to go on. It was fairly hard to get all pieces on the Gamecube straight and neat but Gamer Graffix peels and re-sticks with no issue. The glue for Gamer Graffix was very strong but when I peeled it off it left no residue at all. After it was all done it did make my Gamecube look better and kinda of cool but it did not blow me away. Gamer Graffix is great if you want to spice up the look of device or you can stand the color it comes in. Now I am just waiting for the week to end to see how well it re-sticks after being peeled after being on the Cube for a week and if it does not leave a residue after being on the Cube for a week.

E3 is now over and I am back in the DC area, I saw a lot while at E3 but on to the new release for this week.

Area 51 for the PC: The Xbox first person shooter alien killing machine moves onto the XBox.

Atelier Iris: Eternal Mana for the Playstation 2: The newest strategy RPG in Atlus huge library of strategy RPGs.

Boiling Point for the PC: Fight as Legionnaire in the jungles of South America who is pushed to his limits.

Classified: The Sentinel Crisis for the XBox and PC: Budget action game delayed from a few weeks ago.

Deep Sea Tycoon 2 for the PC: Manage an underwater kingdom to create a underwater paradise.

Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones for the Game Boy Advance: The next RPG in the Fire Emblem series.

Hidden Stroke II for the PC: Budget RTS that you fight as the British, French and Italian for control of several locations.

Madagascar for Every major platform: Kiddie platform based on the upcoming animation movie Madagascar.

Metal Slug 4&5 for the Playstation 2: Two ports of the classic 2D arcade shooter Metal Slug.

Restricted Area for the PC: An action RPG with a heavy emphasize on action.

Still Life for the XBox: Long delayed budget adventure game set in 1920’s and modern day Prague and Chicago.

WarioWare: Twisted for the Game Boy Advance: Next series of mini games from the wildly popular WarioWare.

After last to weeks list we are starting to get a lot of games again post E3. The pick for this week: Atelier Iris: Eternal Mana, I a huge fanboy for Atlus strategy RPGs.

Found this Reuters article that points out how the gaming industry is losing it’s less skilled customers because games are no longer fun. There is an element of truth in that statement that is hard to ignore.

One of the problems is that the gaming industry has been self-absorbed lately. Only big-time gamers get to rate the games, so only the biggest, baddest, most complicated games get good reviews. A secondary problem seems to be that the game manufacturers exercise too much control over the game reviewers. Reviewers are loathe to pan a big, expensive game for fear that they will be taken off the list of “friendly” reviewers by the manufacturers.

Luckily, you won’t find anything like that on ShamelessGeeks. We don’t make any money, we don’t get any free games, and we don’t appear on the game manufacturers radar scopes. What you get here is honest opinion. We don’t have anything to lose by annoying Sony or MS or anyone else.

I got a chance to play the upcoming FPS Delta Force: Blackhawk Down today at E3. The game is set in Mogadishu during the 1992 time frame when the movie Blackhawk down took place. I sampled the single player mode only, but I was told the multi-player mode is fairly good. The first mission I played was the classic escort mission, which broke with tradition and was actual fun. At the start of the mission you manned the second Humvee’s machine gun and the AI drove you down the road as the enemies swarmed your Humvee. What made this mission fun was firing the machine gun felt like you firing a real machine gun. For example if I fired the gun in bursts I found it easier to hit guys, but if I just held down the fire button I found I could not hit a darn thing. The thing I really like was if you put a burst into a bad guy he went down real fast like he would in the real world. I also liked the random guys firing RPGs at you who could not hit the backside of the barn, just like it happened in Mogadishu. All of this combined together to make me fell like I was Ranger battling the bad guys in Mogadishu.
After we reached our objective for the first mission I was required to get out of the Humvee and take out an enemy compound. You could play this mission had multiple ways you could play it out, you could go in guns blazing or you could sneak around and take everyone using stealth. I tried both ways and both ways where fun. What I loved the most about this mission when I started firing on the bad guys, a lot the bad guys fled instead fighting to the last man. Again making this level feel like how it would really happen if you where a Ranger in Mogadishu. After I defeated the bad guys, a Blackhawk touched down and we hoped a ride on it back to the base. While on the helicopter you manned a Vulcan machine gun (the one with rotating barrels) and had to again fight off swarms of bad guys. This time was even scarier as they where in trucks firing RPGs at you, forcing the helicopter to duck and weaving to avoid all the RPG the bad guys where firing at us. Again I loved this level because the machine gun was fun and felt very realistic to play with. Another thing that was really cool was during all the mission you had you had squad mates who actually offered support. The only downside I found about Delta Force: Blackhawk Down was that the graphics looked very poor. For example all the character’s face made them look like goofy. The most annoy thing graphically was that the Mogadishu bad guys where looked like ghosts and looked like they where hovering through the air. I am looking forward to seeing Delta Force: Blackhawk Down in stores, but I am going to wait till it drops in price to buy it. The game was fun but from what I saw in the preview it is not a must buy for. The above preview was for the Playstation 2 version.
For the XBox version ignore everything I said about the graphics, it looks alright but it is a lot crisper and cleaner then the Playstation 2 version. Also in the XBox version in the same mission I had to do more stuff. Going in guns blazing on the second mission got you killed and it was a lot harder. I would also rate the XBox version worth buying at launch day if you are FPS fan.

Alright E3 is just wild. Yesterday it was running around in the dark. Today I am in the press room working on an interview with Magic the Gathering R&D and some guy next to me shoots out and purpose to his girlfriend in. All the journos heads pop up and then jump right back into work. I guess it is a new form of gophering. On the plus side the power stayed up the entire day.

I got to play Battlefield 2 for the XBox today at E3. The demo I played was 30% finished. They had the basic functionality and multiplayer done, but are still working on the single player campaign. Battefield 2 is set in Kyrgyzstan and you play as either the Chinese or NATO. When I asked the head game producer about why he picked Kyrgyzstan, he said, “Because it has oil and stuff, is near China and has all the environments we need to make the game. It was not because it may be a hot spot in the near future.” The level I played was the a winter level set in a village. The graphics where okay, on par with a high end XBox game. The new innovation is the ability to hot swap between characters at the press of a button. The hot swap works this way: A white x appears above all of the friendly characters in your nearby area. If you press the x button on the XBox controller, you switch to the last character that you were looking at. It was fairly intuitive and it was fun switching from character to character and vehicle to vehicle. EA has fixed all the issues with flying helicopters and it was fun to fly around and blow up guys. Tank combat has been improved, but I felt it was a little over powered. Overall from what I saw of Battlefield 2 I loved it and can not wait to get my hands on a finished copy.

It looks like the staff of a certain LA gaming convention has something to learn about logistics. According to Reuters, E3 had a power outage this morning, and the power hasn’t yet come back on. I guess that they didn’t count on all of those multi-core gaming consoles being turned on at the same time.

I wonder if leakenova got caught in it. Poor guy. He was looking forward to E3 sooooo much.

Microsoft has been kind enough to put up the footage from the pre-E3 conference (requires Windows Media Player) that occurred yesterday. It shows lots of cool features of all the upcoming games and some neat details about the XBox 360. I also misspoke when I said that the XBox 360 will backwards compatible with all XBox games. The Xbox 360 will only be compatible with Top Xbox games. What the heck that means is anyone guess. Enjoy.

Nintendo showed off the Revolution at a pre-E3 conference this morning. Vagusnet has posted the Revolution details from the Nintendo Press conference. Also shown off at the conference was a new micro gameboy advance, DS online plans, and new details about the upcoming Zelda game. It looks like the next Zelda will be Zelda: the Werewolf.

CNN posted an article today talking about all the big things that should take place at E3 2005 this year. They are correct when they say that the big thing for this E3 will be the new consoles. At the end of the article they highlighted some of the bigger games at E3. These games would normally get a ton of press coverage but won’t because everyone and his cousin is releasing a console.

Mircosoft revealed all the details about the XBox 360 today at their pre-E3 press conference. During that conference Microsoft also revealed that the XBox 360 will be fully backward compatilie with the orginal XBox, and that 160 games are in development for Xbox 360, with 25 to 40 games slated for release by end of the year.

Here are the offical details of the XBox 360:
The Xbox Platform - Powering the Xbox 360 Games and Entertainment

Xbox 360 is designed with a singular platform vision that fuses high-performance hardware and intelligent software and services so the player is always in power. Offering the greatest value in entertainment today, Microsoft detailed more key platform experiences that come standard with every Xbox 360 system:

An IBM PowerPC-based CPU with three symmetrical cores running at 3.2 GHz each, packing the most advanced AI and physics processing available

A custom ATI Graphics processor and more than 512 MB of memory for high-definition games and entertainment applications

All games optimized for 16:9 aspect ratio, HD output (720p and 1080i), multichannel surround sound output, and full-screen anti-aliasing

Detachable and expandable 20GB hard drive to download demos and trailers along with new game levels, maps, weapons, vehicles, skins, community-created content and more, to rip music for playback and to listen to custom playlists in every game

A wireless controller with Microsoft®-patented wireless technology; Xbox Guide Button on every controller to instantly connect gamers to their games, friends and music, and to power on or power off Xbox 360 without their having to leave the couch

Gamer Profile software that remembers what players have achieved in games

Instant, out-of-the-box access to Xbox Live , including a built-in Ethernet port for connectivity; Xbox Live Marketplace for downloadable content; a Message Center to receive voice and video messages from friends; functionality that lets users talk to friends, even while watching movies or listening to music; and an Xbox Live Headset

Three USB 2.0 ports for Xbox Live Camera peripheral, to plug in wired game controllers that are also common for Windows®-based PCs; to stream media from a portable media device, digital camera and Windows XP-based PC

Progressive-scan DVD movie playback out of the box; DVD and CD music and photo playback out of the box; support for DVD-Video, DVD-ROM, DVD-R/RW, DVD+R/RW, CD-DA, CD-ROM, CD-R, CD-RW, Windows Media® Audio CD, MP3 CD, JPEG Photo CD

Media Center Extender built in to access recorded TV (including high-definition TV) and digital movies (including high-definition film), music, video and photos stored on Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005-based PCs through any Xbox 360 system

Support for up to four wireless game controllers and an optional Universal Media Remote with Windows XP Media Center Edition Button for Media Center Edition functionality

Support for Xbox 360 Wireless Network Adapter via 802.11b, g and a

Interactive, full-screen 3-D visualizers

Two memory unit ports to save data on portable memory units, starting at 64 MB

Detachable Face so each console can be personalized

Parental Controls to help restrict the games and movies that are played; Xbox Live controls to manage Friends List, voice and video communication, and Gamer Profile sharing

Kotaku has posted the full specs of the Playstation 3. All I got say is the Playstation 3 looks sexy inside and outside.

Its E3 week so the release is very light. Most of the game press and publicists are right now gathering in LA. In other words if you release a game this week it will get lost in the noise that is E3. Still some games companies do not care and so we a handful of new releases. On to this week releases:

Finny the Fish and the Seven Waters for the Playstation 2: Play as Finny, who happens to be a fish, who’s aquatic world is out of whack and now Finny must solve puzzles and dodge evil fisherman to return balance to his aquatic world.

Garfield for the PC and the Playstation 2: Odie has trashed the house and now you must help Garfield to clean the house up before John gets home.

Imperial Glory for the PC: Fight in various 19th century battlefields in this turn based strategy game.

MVP Baseball for the PSP: EA hit baseball series remade for the PSP and the last MLB baseball game from EA for a few years.

Outlaw Volleyball Remix for the Playstation 2: Same Outlaw Volleyball game you loved with new features and online play.

That is it, not much to choose from for pick of the week. My pick of the week: Finny the Fish and Seven Waters. What can I say I am sucker for games that let play as a fish.

Video Game Ombudsman posted a response from Gamespy editor chief John Keefer about the little matter of a Gamespy altering game review of Donkey Konga 2 to make it look better. According to Keefer all the changes where a miscommunication between Gamespy’s staff and the freelancer who wrote the review. They normal communicate changes with the reviewer before they make them. He added that the editor in question who did the edits “feels really bad” and Gamespy does not alter reviews or give extra coverage to any advertiser on the site. Keefer also played up that he comes from print world and that level of ethics from that world is in effect at Gamespy. Yhea right, the only correct answer is:
The editor in question has started working on his resume, here is our new ethics policy so that this will never happen again, and the freelancer in question has been hired as a full time staffer.

Sony has created a billboard in New York with a giant PSP that plays videos about the PSP all day. That is until Microsoft showed them who was the boss and crashed the display.
(Thanks to Kotaku for this one)

The viral marketing game ourcolony.net has been solved and the final video has been posted to the site. The video is really good and wroth the download. The video is presented by Allard and the XBox 360 crew as they go over all the neat gory details of the XBox 360. It is was what I was expecting the MTV special to be. Is it me or is J. Allard look like way out place amongst the very geeky looking XBox 360 staff?

I just saw the first showing of the MTV XBox 360 special, and all I got to say about is uh, not worth the hype. The XBox 360 looks sexy and the games look good but nothing that really blows your mind away. The special was weak on actual details, they did not talk about the camera, the headphone, backwards compatibility, hard or not, actual specs or multimedia features other then HD. Okay they did reveal that the XBox 360 will have wireless controls and it will be customizable. But who cares if you can change the front cover or not, how many people actual buy gamer graphix? They did talk a little about XBox live, particular the stuff you can buy on XBox Live. The whole bit about creating an EBay like market place for in-game items spooks me. Didn’t Sony recently get attacked (darn now I wish I had posted about it) for doing it with Everquest II? The whole special to me felt forced and rushed. The bits particular the one with the pro gamers going to Rare where lame. Companies enough with pro gamers, they DO NOT sell games people. They are just jerks who are full of themselves. Also did they play a feminine hygiene product ad during the commercial set?

“In the Groove", a Dance Dance Revolution (DDR) clone and one of the games that is scheduled to be released this week will most likely not be coming out on schedule. Normally this is not news (delays happen all the time), but “In the Groove” is not delayed because of the normal reasons. It may be delayed because its maker Roxor is being sued by Konami for trademark and patent infringements against DDR. Wow! I did not realize that the little arrow DDR uses was a trademark.

Bill Gates, in an interview published today by German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, said that he felt Apple was going to lose the portable mp3 market to cellphones. During the rest of the interview Bill did his normal Apple bashing (he also bashed Blackberry) and talked about Windows Mobile 5.0, Mircosoft’s upcoming OS for cellphones. He did let out one fact that shocked me:
“
He admitted, however, that Microsoft had made mistakes in the past, for example with the first version of its XBox games console.
“

Wow. I did not realize that Microsoft considers one of the best game consoles ever a mistake.

Someone posted on their blog that Gamespy made the score better and added glowing references to a review of Donkey Konga 2 they did for Gamespy. In response to the posters complaint, Gamespy pulled the questionable review off their site. I wish I could say I was shocked but I kinda of suspected it (see early posts about Jade Empire). Still this is very sad for the state of video game journalism. In real world journalism when something like the above happens, heads roll. The editor who altered the article is fired and added to the list of shamed journalist. The website posts an apology and promises it will work to make sure it won’t happen again. Did Gamespy do this? No, they just simple took down the review. This just saddens me.

In what has to be one biggest doh’s, during the annual meeting the CEO of MoSys, who will be providing the RAM for the Revolution, let it slip that the Revolution will be out by Mid-2006.

The hacker group Pandora has cracked the copy protection scheme on Sony’s PSP UMD disk. The hackers where able to burn the data on the UMD disks onto CD-Roms and DVDs and view the data via an ISSO browser. Other than the aforementioned, they were not able to do much with the movies and games found on the UMD disks. The hackers, however, are working on a way to play games via a memory card.

After a little drought of goofy press release we are finally getting some more. This one has me scratching my head, since when do Christians and gamers get a long?
Last year at E3 the big trivia game was the sexual trivia game “The Guy Game” that featured naked under aged girls. This year at E3 the big trivia game is a Bible trivia game. Guess the rise of the Blue states is even effecting E3.
One other funny thing, the press release that followed the Bible Game was a press release for Championship Poker 2 from the same company. Enjoy

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Think you know your Bible?
Crave Entertainment Announces The Bible Game for PlayStation 2
and Game Boy Advance

Groundbreaking, innovative games provide fun for all ages

Los Angeles, Calif.-May 10, 2005-Crave Entertainment, a leading
publisher of console videogames, today announced the upcoming release of The
Bible Game for PlayStation®2 computer entertainment system and the Game
Boy® Advance handheld system. The first titles of their kind on current
console systems, both games combine wholesome family fun with a
engaging challenge of Biblical knowledge.

The Bible Game for PlayStation 2 casts players as contestants on a game
show with fast-paced, “beat the buzzer” action and a comical off-screen
announcer as emcee. 20 mini- and micro-games with 1,500 questions
reinforce inspirational Old Testament teachings such as Jonah and the Whale,
David and Goliath, The Tower of Babel, and many more. Multiplayer mode
for up to 4 players encourages family members of all ages to play
together, and provides a fun alternative for family game nights.

The Bible Game for Game Boy Advance combines action/adventure play
style with trivia challenges. In their quest to protect the Armor of God,
players may choose to play as either Billy or Jenny across seven levels
including forest, snowy tundra, desert, and tropical island
environments. Along the way they must answer questions from both the Old and New
Testaments. Either the New International Version or King James
translation may be selected, and three levels of difficulty keep the game
accessible for all ages.

Scheduled for release in October 2005, The Bible Game will be available
for the PlayStation®2 computer entertainment system and GameBoy®
Advance handheld system for a MSRP of $19.99.

About Crave Entertainment
Based in Los Angeles, California, Crave Entertainment is a privately
held publisher of videogame entertainment products. Crave produces games
for the major console platforms including Nintendo DS™, Game Boy®
Advance, Nintendo GameCube™, the PlayStation® game console, PlayStation®2
computer entertainment system and the Xbox® video game system from
Microsoft. For more information about Crave Entertainment, please visit
http://www.cravegames.com.

It looks like Big Huge games has decided to opt for a Rise of Nations cousin instead of a direct decendant. As they are describing it, Rise of Legends looks interesting, but not entirely new. They claim to be putting magic armies up against technological armies in this one. It’s more or less a new wrinkle, but not a new game. Still, it might end up being good.

I wish them luck. Creating armies with different types of abilities with an even potential can be difficult. No matter how you try, the losers will always whine, and the will demand you do something to strengthen their favorite race. Case in point: the 12 versions of starcraft that tweaked the strengths of the units in an attempt at leveling, only to end up at just about the same levels that they started.

If they pull it off, this one could end up as game of the year material. If not, it will be released almost directly to the clearance bin. I’ll be watching and waiting.

Kotaku does it again! They have posted more details about the upcoming XBox 360. According to Kotaku these details came from the Team XBox website, which has already taken them down. Thankfully, before Team XBox took them down someone posted them to Gaming Ages forums. Just in case Kotaku and Gaming Ages take them down again, they are printed below:

2 types of Xbox Live:
Xbox Live Silver (no subscription required)
Xbox Live Gold (subscription benefits)

Features for Gold service
* Also for Silver
# Also for Offline

- Seamless transition to Xbox Live account from Xbox to Xbox 360
- Access to MMOs (additional fees may apply) *
- Free Xbox Live weekends *
- Multiplayer online gameplay
- Avatar for gamer profile * #
- Motto for gamer profile * #
- Personalized look for Xbox System Guide * #
- Offline achievments * #
- Online achievements *
- Access to other players’ Gamer cards via Live *
- Cumulative gamer score * #
- Location/language profile * #
- Reputation *
- Enahnced matchmaking using above
- Skill level matchmaking
- Gameplay style profile (casual, competitive, etc.)
- Recent players list *
- Free and premium download game content *
- Free and premium downloadable movies, music, tv *
- Downloadable demos/trailers *
- Microtransactions *
- Custom playlist in every game * #
- Play music from portable devices * #
- View images from digital camera * #
- Strem media from Windows XP * #
- Interactive screen savers * #
- Track info for CDs * #
- Communication with voice, video or text *

360 HW:
1. Support for DVD-video, DVD-Rom, DVD-R/RW, CD-DA, CD-Rom, CD-R, CD-RW, WMA CD, MP3 cd, JPEG photo CD
2. All games supported at 16:9, 720p and 1080i, anti-aliasing
3. Customizable face plates to change appearance
4. 3 USB 2.0 ports
5. Support for 4 wireless controllers
6. Detachable 20GB drive
7. Wi-Fi ready

Custom IBM PowerPC-based CPU
- 3 symmetrical cores at 3.2 GHz each
- 2 hardware threads per core
- 1 VMX-128 vector unit per core
- 1 MB L2 cache

CPU Game Math Performance
- 9 billion dots per second

Custom ATI Graphics Processor
- 500 MNz
- 10 MB embedded DRAM
- 48-way parallel floating-point shader pipelines
- unified shader architecture

Memory
-512 MB GDDR3 RAM
- 700 MNz DDR

Memory Bandwidth
- 22.4 GB/s memory interface bus bandwidth
- 256 GB/s memory bandwidth to EDRAM
- 21.6 GB/s frontside bus

Audio
- Mulitchannel surround sond output
- Supports 48khz 16-bit audio
- 320 independent decompression channels
- 32 bit processing
- 256+ audio channels

Rockstar games announced today a new game that allows you to take revenge on the tormentors of our youth, the bully. The game is aptly named “The Bully” and yes you will play as a geek but now you will have the power to defeat the bullies. Yes!!! Finally a game where you can shove all the bullies into their lockers.

Geek on the Stun has a funny retrospect about J. Allerd various looks over the years. When we first meet him five years ago he was an overweight, balding geek who gets it. Now he looks like all those retards in management who just do not get it.

Gizmodo is reporting that the geek quest of having Linux booting on anything is going strong. They report that the Nintendo DS is now capablable of booting to BASH prompt. Following onto the DSLinux.org site they say that you can play some text games as well. You definitely are a Shameless Geek to buy a dual display game system and then play text games. Go Geeks.

With E3 on the horizon, most publishers and press are busy getting ready for E3. Hence short list this week and next week. Onto the release for this week.

Cold Winter for the Playstation 2: First Person Shooter set in the world of spy’s. Plays and looks a lot like the classic N64 FPS Goldeneye.

Donkey Konga 2 for the Gamecube: Get your bongos and get ready to bang the night away with the next Bongo game in the Donkey Konga franchise.

Haunting Ground for the Playstation 2: An adventure horror game set in a mysterious castle.

In the Grove for the Playstation 2: The home version of DDR Arcade clone In the Grove. In the Grove is famous adding new types of step moves to genre and having a killer soundtrack.

Knights of Honor for the PC: Delayed from last week comes this medieval action adventure RTS.

Need for Speed Underground 2 for the DS: DS version of the popular racing franchise Need for Speed.

Smart Bomb for the PSP: Delayed from a few weeks ago is a puzzler that requires you to use your mad bomb defusing skills to disarm bombs.

Supreme Ruler 2010 for the PC: It is 2010 and the world is chaos and everyone now must fight to protect their country. Supreme Ruler challenges you to take charge in this chaos and take over the world.

Wow a semi short list for this week (thanks E3) my pick for this week: Cold Winter.

Cubed3 has posted a photo of the XBox360 that was secretly taken during the MTV special. It looks the XBox will come with a camera (bottom right). Not sure what is on top but it looks like a some attachment, could it be the rumor hard drive attachment(top center)?
Please note, I can not very if this is picture is real, but the author of the article is not know to post fakes (correction they where getting pictures from EndGadget).

Last night MTV taped the XBox 360 unveiling that which MTV will broadcast on May 12. The first leaks from the special have started appearing on Kotaku and the web. The logo has been leaked and looks like an egg with an X breaking out on top and XBox under it in a box font.

When I first got this email this morning I thought it was spam. I am glad I read it first before deleting it. Free booze and hot woman what more could a geek ask for. Maybe while I am getting drunk on their buck and drooling over the Vivid porn chicks, I will ask them on how they plan to market Playboy skins to Walmart. Small hint btw, the red font you used screams class.

It appears that Zodiac has given up on the current version of the Tapware portable handheld. Tapware was the first portable handheld PDA. It was really neat but it never really caught on. Zodiac has decided to cancel the Tapware and chang its business model to one similar to the ancient 3DO console and Disk One (console that can play PC games). The business model: to provide the design and tools that are then turned in co-branded products by other major named vendors. I wish Zodiac luck.

As most of you are aware, Shameless Geeks is going to E3 as a media guest. Today our mailboxes started getting flooded with press releases from some of the smaller vendors desperate for E3 coverage. Some of the press releases are very good, very legit (hint: we are suckers for RTS games) and hopefully we will be able to give them some coverage. The rest… well, lets just say they are goofy. Since they are so goofy we decided to post them over the next few weeks as we get them in.
So, without further ado, here is our first one from the Great Kat. We have only one question for the Great Kat: what the heck does this have to do with video games.

Continuing with our goofy E3 press release series, here is one we recieved from Digtal Blue. After reading this one, I really want to see how the American Idol camera works. Yup. Thats right. A camera that allows you to look like you are singing on American Idol, even when singing in the shower. Enjoy:

MEDIA ALERT~MEDIA ALERT~MEDIA ALERT~MEDIA ALERT

Discover Digital Blue’s 2005 World of Creativity and Innovation at

the electronic entertainment expo (e³)2005

May 18th-May 20th at the Los Angeles Convention Center

CHECK OUT HOT NEW TECH TOYS LIKE THE HELMET CAM & AMERICAN IDOL CAMCORDER

meet CEO Tim Hall and VP of Marketing Julie Gibbons

WHO: Atlanta-based Digital Blue, founded in 2002 by CEO Tim Hall, is a leading
developer and marketer of interactive electronics for use at home and school. They
make award-winning products including the American Idol Camcorder, the Helmet
Camcorder, the QX5 computer microscope and others.

WHAT: Hot new products that empower kids, teens and young adults, by making
technology fun and accessible.

American Idol Digital Camera

The only officially licensed camcorder for American Idol, licensed by FreeMantle
Media and TV 19, the American Idol Digital Camera has a 640x680 resolution and 60 MB
memory. It records four minutes of video when not connected to the PC and unlimited
recording when attached. The software is the real magic of this item, loaded with
video right from American Idol! Users can edit footage of themselves performing and
add real footage from the show including background music, special effects and wild
audience applause-even a standing ovation!

Helmet Camcorder

Now skateboarders, bikers, snow boarders and all sports enthusiasts can capture
their extreme sports feats on video. The Helmet Camcorder is a cigar-shaped video
camera that straps to any size helmet and comes with a 32MB memory card recording up
to 20 minutes of video and sound. The Helmut Camcorder weighs less than ½ lb and
uses just two AAA batteries.

Mixman LoopStudio™

A powerful suite of software, hardware and sound tools, the LoopStudio™ is the
first integrated audio-DJ-production tool that enables home producers and “beat
twisters” to get the musical job done with ease and complete control.

Newtonian Reflector

The 70 MM Newtonian reflector telescope comes with software and a camera that easily
attaches to the eyepiece. Software includes celestial navigator guide. The 1.3 mega
pixel digital still camera features 16 MB built in memory, plus 1.5″ view screen.
Kids can add animation, special effects, music - even aliens and flying saucers - to
create movies right on their own computer!

WHEN: Wednesday May 18th, Thursday May 19th and Friday May 20th

WHERE: E³, Los Angeles Convention Center: Kentia Hall (under South Hall-Activision);
Room 7040

For more info, go to www.playdigitalblue.com . For
advance interviews, product images or samples, or to schedule an appointment,
contact:

Today, during the annual meeting of the Society of American Business Editors and Writers, Bill Gates stated that the next gen XBox will be more of a media hub than the current XBox. He revealed that it will allow the player to see when his buddies are online, chat with them, listen to music and look at pictures. I thought the current XBox did all that. So, Bill, how is the next gen XBox a better media hub than the current XBox?

What is coming out this week? As usual, lots and lots of games again:

Advent Rising for the XBox and PC: Sci-Fi epic that has the press drooling over it. It looks very pretty and the story looks really good.

Asheron’s Call 2: Legions for PC: Add on for Asheron’s Call 2. I thought Asheron’s Call 2 was a dead MMORPG, guess not.

Beyond Blitzkrieg for PC: The ancient (pre-2000) MMORPG World War II Online returns to the PC (hopefully bug free this time). How is this game different from the free Battlefield 1942?

BloodRayne 2 for the PC: Voted by XPlay as one of the goriest games ever, it moves it’s gory action from the XBox to the PC. While it will mostly like keep the same level of gore and T&A, I hope they improve the story and gameplay with the PC port.

Dungeon Lords for the PC: The RPG by the creator of Wizard and Warriors and Wizardy is delayed for another week.

Dynasty Warriors DS for the DS: Nothing has been released about this game other then it is part of the Dynasty Warrior franchise and it ships tomorrow. It is fairly easy to guess what it will be like. All of the Dynasty Warriors have been the same.

Egg Monster Hunter for the DS: Square Enix RPG that makes heavy use of the Stylus in the combat sections. Looks like standard Japanese RPG fair.

Enthusia Professional Racing for the Playstation 2: Exclusive racing game that features lots of real and fake world racing tracks and 40 manufacturer’s licensed cars.

Forza Motorsport for the XBox: Racing game created by Microsoft to be a Gran Turmiso killer. Just like GT it features ultra realistic cars (that you build) and race tracks.

Hot Shot Golf: Open Tee for the PSP: Comedic golfing game moves off the consoles and onto the handhelds.

Killer 3D Pool for the Gameboy Advance: Pool game delayed again. How the heck do you delay a fairly simple game by three weeks?

Mobile Suit Gundam Seed for the DS: Jar-jar’s race makes an appearance on the DS. Excuse me, just got a memo from Shameless. According to Shameless, Gundam are not part of the Star Wars Universe but a mech from a Japanese Anime game.

Necromania: Traps of Darkness for the PC: Play as the bad guy in this medieval style strategy game. The basic idea of the game is that you are on a quest to free your evil lord by getting the keys from “good guys". Sounds like an interesting game and it is a cheap buy.

Pac-Man Pinball Advance for the Gameboy Advance: Delayed from a few weeks ago, it is pinball using the Pac-man characters.

Pariah for the PC and XBox: From Digital Extremes, one of the makers of Unreal, comes their next FPS.

Puyo Pop Fever for the DS: Delayed from last week is Sega’s next version of the puzzle game Puyo Pop Fever.

Scrabble Blast! for the Gameboy Advance: Okay these delays are getting ridiculous. This game has now been delayed for three weeks and it is just Scrabble on a Gameboy.

Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith for everything: Live the next upcoming Star Wars movie and watch clips of the upcoming movie before Revenge of the Sith hits theaters.

Star Wars Galaxies: Episode III Rage of the Wookiees for the PC: Expansion for MMORPG Star Wars Galaxies. This one focuses on changes to the Star Wars universe brought on by the upcoming Star Wars movie.

Still Life for the PC: delayed adventure game from last week.

Track mania Sunrise for the PC: British racing game that has a lot of buzz over in the UK. The game allows you to race on normal tracks or stunt tracks like the ones you built with your Hot Wheel race sets as a kid. Actually you can also build the tracks too.

Lots and lots again this week, when the heck will there by an easy week with no releases.
My pick for the week: Advent Rising for the XBox and PC.

Valve and Vivendi Universal Games (VU) have setteled their lawsuit out of court. The fight between two was over who had the rights to distribute the game in cyber cafes and VU for delaying the release of Counterstrike for the XBox. According to the know details of the settlement VU will no longer distribute games for Value as the end August and Valve retained exclusive rights to distribute their games to cyber cafes. It is good to see the two companies make nice after a long and nasty fight. My only big question is who is know going to be distributing Half Life 2?

Sony has retired the PS One and will no longer make any new ones. The PS One had one of the longest runs of any console, lasting over 10 years. Do not worry about being able to play your PS One games, 15,000+ PS One games can still be played on the Playstation 2.

Sony has announced that PSP will launch on September 1, 2005 in Europe. The PSP will sell for 248 Euros/148 Pounds bundled with some PSP accessories. Anyone have any idea when the Middle East launch date is?

Empire Earth II was released to stores today. Empire Earth was one of the greatest Real Time Strategy games ever. Empire Earth II by all appearances looks like it will be better then Empire Earth. So go forth my mass and smite your opponent with many nukes.

Hiroshi Yamauchi the president of Nintendo during the 50s-90s has resigned from his position on Nintendo’s board of directors. Yamauchi is staying on as a adviser but Yamauchi will no longer have any direct involvement with Nintendo’s day to day affairs. Yamauchi’s resignation was the final step in long the process of unwinding his involvement with Nintendo’s day to day affairs. The process was started when he resigned as the president of Nintendo two years ago.
Yamauchi is best remember as the man who changed Nintendo from a small playing card company into the powerhouse gaming company it is today. He is the man who had the vision to see that video games where still viable after the crash in the 80s. Thanks to that vision, video games are still alive and do well today.
It is sad to see a titan of the gaming industry leave but life moves on. I will miss Yamauchi outspoken interviews where colorful character came out. The Yamauchi era of gaming is now over, hopefully the new titans of gaming industry will live up to half of what he did.

1UP posted a list of girlfriend-friendly games. Most of the games on the list are of the cutesy, cuddly, Hello Kitty variety. I personally feel the list is sexist and does not represent games that girls like. The list should have never been published. Then again a lot of gaming journalists can not accept the fact that a lot of girls enjoy “boy games” like Counterstrike and can kick butt in them.

Empire Earth II shipped today, and is expected to be available in retail stores on Thursday, April 28. I’m already planning to attend a LAN Party featuring EE2 in the near future, so I better get a copy quick, or I’ll end up as cannon fodder (again). Y’all know I’m a fan.

GameDaily.biz has posted a good humor article about eight annoying things to do at E3. Does anyone know where I can get a rising sun headband?

Video game sales rose 22% to 2.2 billion in the first quarter of the year. Normally video games sales in first quarter drop as industry recovers from Christmas. The growth was attributed to the PSP and DS, but consoles not handhelds led the sales. Maybe that was because there was at least one A+++ title for consoles released every week. Kinda proves the point, release a strong game and the sales will come.

Games coming out for the week a little less than last but still a lot:

American Civil War: Gettysburg for the PC: now you can relive Picket’s charge in full 3-D graphics and at a budget price.

Area 51 for the XBox and Playstation 2: The classic arcade shooter remade into a FPS with lots of alien killing action. Preorder it and get a free copy of Midway Tresures 2 for free.

Cossacks II: Napoleonic Wars for the PC: Another turn based game for all you Napoleonic buffs that looks fairly good looking. Lots of armies too, including the Egypt.

Dugeon Lords for the PC: From the mind of D.W. Bradley comes his next action RPG. It is delayed from last week.

Empire Earth II for PC: Sequal to one of Shameless’s favorite RTS. For further infor read his review of the demo.

FIFA Soccer for the PSP: Another soccer game for the PSP.

Finny the Fish and the Seven Waters for the Playstation 2: Play as a fish sent on a varitey of quest to save his home.

Guild Wars for the PC: The next MMORPG from NSoft, the creators of the MMORPG City of Hereos and Linages.

Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: Adventure Game for mobile phones: A cell phone game that allows you to relive the adventures of Arthur Dent. Why oh why can they simple just republish the Infocom text game the best Hitchhiker game ever.

Motorcross Mania 3 for the Playstation 2: Another budget off road racing game.

NBA Street Showdown for the PSP: A much need basketball game for the PSP.

Pac-Pix for the DS: A Pacman game that is reinvisioned for the DS. You still eat dots and Ghost but you control Pacman by drawing him.

Pokémon Emerald for the Gameboy Advance: For the sixth year straight we have another Pokeman game. If I need to explain Pokeman then you then might be at the wrong site. For the rest of you, stop buying these damm Pokeman games.

Predator: Concrete Jungle for the XBox and Playstation 2: 3D person action game that play as the Predator.

Puyo Pop Fever for the DS: Yet another port of the Sega puzzler Puyo Pop, this time for the DS. Connect away.

Rengoku: The Tower of Purgatory for the PSP: Sc-fi action adventure game set in a dark furture with lots of andorid action.

Resident Evil Outbreak 2 for the Playstation 2: Sequal to last year lackluster Resident Evil Outbreak.

Stella Deus: The Gate of Eternity for the Playstation 2: Like clockwork Atlus releases its next strategy RPG. Looks like standard RPG fair.

Virtual Pool: Tournament edition for the XBox: Budget pool game for the XBox.

Pick for this week: Empire Earth II for the PC.

In anticipation of Tuesday’s release of Empire Earth II, our own C O Jones has submitted a review of the EE2 demo. I promise that it will be converted into a review of the full release version ASAP. It will be interesting to see how much of it will have to change.

Update:
You can download the demo here.

CNET has taken the time to sit down and write a good FAQ explaining what to expect from the upcoming game consoles. The FAQ is one of the best clearinghouses for information on the upcoming consoles.

Sony plans to open an auction site this June that will allow players to buy and sell items from the Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG) Everquest II for real world cash. The new auction site is a total reversal of Sony’s previous efforts to shutdown the gray market in Everquest goods on auction sites like Ebay. Looks Sony finally deiced if you can beat them, join them.

The rumors about an upcoming Star Wars: Battlefront sequels can end now that Lucas Arts has formally announced the game. The playable Jedi and space battles look extremely interesting. I know that the current version of Battlefront is always a hit at my LAN parties, and Battlefront II looks to continue that trend. Look for the game to be released this Fall.

3D Realms has revealed that Prey is in development, confirming rumors that it was. The announcement and details on the first person shooter game “Prey” where revealed in post to 3D Realms forums by George Broussard, the president of 3D Realms. According to the post, Prey will be made by Human Head studios and published by Take Two. 3D Realms president George Broussard gave the usually 3D Realms answer of “when its ready” for when Prey will launch. Now if 3D Realms could get its act together and finish Duke Nukem we may have another great year for first person shooters.

Jade Empire came out last week to a lot of hype. Even Shameless Geeks was guilty of hyping it. The hype went into overdrive when the reviews came out a few day before the game came out. When the hype went into overdrive, things changed from “its a good game” into “this is a game of year candidate".
According to game rankings, Jade Empire was the 9th best rated XBox game ever, with an overall score of 92%. Numbers like that would normally make Jade Empire “game of the year” material. When players got their paws on Jade Empire, it’s ratings and hype collapsed.
To make a long story short Jade Empire was never game of the year material, and definitely was not the 9th best XBox game ever. In reality, Jade Empire is just an average RPG.
I was puzzled about how a top rated game could turn out to be just average, So I did something I should have done in the first place and read the reviews. Wow, was I shocked to discover that the reviewers would tear Jade Empire a new one in the review, then give it a high rating. At that moment I lost what little faith I had in reviews scores.
Then along came Inside pulse and restored my faith in game review scores. Inside Pulse had the guts to tell it like it is and give Jade Empire a bad score and a bad review. Kudos to Inside Pulse for being honest, willing to go against the flow and not allowing hype to cloud their judgment. I hope BioWare and Microsoft do not punish them for publishing that review.

Oddworld studios announced today that is leaving the gaming market. Oddworld studios will now focus on computer animation for television and movies. Lorne Lanning ,the president of Oddworld studios, did not rule out that there will be no more Oddworld games, just none made in house. The plan is now to have an external production company, with a little help from Oddworld studios, to make all the Oddworld games.
Here is what Lanning had to say about why he is changing directions:
“We believe there’s a window that’s open for all-CG feature films and TV,” he explained. “And if we don’t crack it in the next 2-1/2 years, we’re not going to be able to. Our plan is to be a content creation company with someone else bearing the load of the actual production. We’ll stay focused on multimedia content, really solid concepts that would make great games, great TV, great movies.”

I am glad to see Lanning is not outsourcing all the game work to India . I am sad to see that he is leaving the game industry.

EB Games and Gamestop announced today that they are merging to form the largest retail video game store in the world. The merger should pass with no issue since even with the two store combined the market share will still be only 23% of the total video game market. After the merger is completed all EBGames stores will become Gamestop stores. I do not know what to say. EB Games was my favorite game store and I will be sad to see it go.

It appears that Microsoft has decied to show the MTV launch of the next gen XBox in Japan at the same time the US sees it. In addition to Japan getting the special, the Japanese press has been invited to a three hour event built around the MTV special. What is going to occur at the three hour event is unknown at this time. The most likely thing to occur at the event will be a live showing of the next gen XBox. If this happens Japanese will get the first real look at the next gen XBox. The stateside press will have to wait until E3 for a live showing of the next gen XBox.

Lists are starting to appear of what games will be showed off at E3 this May. Looking over the list I have no idea how I am going to be able to cover everything. Any suggestions on stuff you would like me to cover?

After having a fairly low number of new release this week comes out with a roar. Lots and lots of A list games again this week.

Onto what you came here for, here are the games for this week:

ATV Off road fury: Blazing Trails for the PSP: The popular series ATV Off road moves onto the PSP for you all you off road fans out there.

Close Combat: First to Fight for the PC: Delayed again for another week. To recap Marines, squad action, Marine training tool, and loads of fun for fans of the Marines.

Delta Force: Xtreme for the PC: The hit game from the late 90s revamped with a new graphical look, more maps, and shiny new game engine.

Dungeon Lords for the PC: For all our Japanese fans, new Action RPG game from the guy who made Wizardry. For all our American fans, new action RPG game from the guy who made Wizards & Warriors.

Ford Mustang: The Legend Lives for the XBox and Playstation 2: Budget game with lots and lots of Ford Mustang racing. If you are lover of the Ford Mustang then you will love it and the price. Otherwise it looks like an average racer.

Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: Vogon Planet Destructor for mobile phones: I rarely add Mobile phones games to the release list but Shameless Geeks are huge Hitchhiker fans so any game that use Hitchhiker gets talked about. In this game you pilot a Vogon Planet Destructor with the simple task of destroying five planets.

Hugo: The Evil Mirror for the Game Boy Advance: A good cheap 2D platformer for kids.

Killer 3D Pool for the Game Boy Advance: Pool game what else is there to say.

Laser Squad Nemesis for the PC: Delayed game from the creators of XCom one of the best turn based games.

Pac-Man Pinball Advance for the Game Boy Advance: Delayed pinball game set in the Pacman world.

Polarium for the DS: Puzzle game that uses a theme of light and darkness to solve puzzles. You can also create and share puzzles.

Popeye: Rush for Spinach for the Game Boy Advance: Popeye returns to the consoles in this racing game for the Game Boy.

Psychonauts for XBox and PC: Tim Schafer returns to games with his next bizarre about totally awesome adventure game Psychonauts. Tim Schafer is the mind behind all the great Lucas Arts adventures games ( Monkey Island , Day of the Tentacle, Grim Fandango, Full Throttle) of old days. Yup the ones that fanboys drool over.

Smart Bomb for the PSP: You are a member of an elite bomb squad that defuse complex bombs created by a mad bomber. Defusing the bombs will test all your puzzle solving skills.

Scrabble Blast! for the Game Boy Advance: Delayed Scrabble game from last week.

Stolen for the PC, Playstation 2, and XBox: You play a female thief in this third person stealth action game.

Stronghold 2 for the PC: The next game in the siege-warfare RTS and castle bulding series Stronghold. This time its in full 3D.

Unreal Championship 2: The Liandri Conflict for the XBox: It is the next game in the Unreal series and this time built with XBox Live and XBox built in mind.

WWE WrestleMania 21 for the XBox: Hey it another wrestling game from the WWE.

My pick for this week is: Psychonauts

The NPD sales figures for March just came in and the best selling PSP game was Twisted Metal: Head on ( it made $5,034,513 and 127,403 copies sold). The PSP game that made the most money was Need for Speed Underground ( it made $5,973,790 and sold 121,293 copies). The reason that Twisted Metal did not make the most money for a PSP game was it sold for less then Need for Speed. Untold Legends, the game hyped as the best selling PSP for March by other sites, was in third place with $4,078,071 and 103,010 copies sold.

It looks like Doom fans will have to wait a while longer to see the Doom movie. There was no reason given for rescheduling the release from August until October. From what I’ve heard of this movie so far, maybe the cast was too nauseated to continue

NVidia has posted their lates forceware version today. Get a copy here.. I don’t currently have an NVidia card to test it on, so I won’t be posting an opinion. I encourage anyone with first-hand opinions to post them here. Since I am likely to be purchasing one soon, I would be interested myself.

New York Police, working with the FBI, busted a large piracy ring dealing in fake 8-bit Nes consoles today. The pirates also were trying to sell pirated copies of the 8-bit versions of Super Mario Bros, Dunk Hunt, Contra and Donkey Kong. Nintendo claims that this type of piracy cost them millions of dollars a year. I want an explanation from Nintendo on how the heck piracy of a console system and games that they stopped selling 10 years ago can cost them millions of dollars in sales?

An article on Microsoft UK gaming site gamesradar puts to bed rumors that work on XBox games once the XBox 360 (the next generation XBox) hits stores. Microsoft plans to support games for the current XBox hardware until 2007. The article also heats up the rumors that Microsoft plans to make the XBox 360 backwards compatible with the current XBox.

It is official the next gen XBox will be called XBox 360. This is according to some mysterious British source who is privy to Microsoft Marketing documents. The source also claimed: the XBox 360 will have a concave design that hallows in the middle with a platinum white finish. XBox 360 will be able to stand up right and the logo for XBox 360 will be simple round nexus with words 360 written in it. Please mind this all rumor and the real details of the next gen XBox will not be released until May 12th during a MTV special.

Microsoft, breaking with tradition, has decided to unveil the next generation XBox on May 12 during an MTV special and not at E3. Microsoft plans to make the unveiling a star-studded affair with lots of sports stars, movie personalities, and a live rock performance by the group Killer. Microsoft sums it up best on why they are breaking with tradition: “It doesn’t make sense to unveil the product behind a closed door, at a trade-only event,” according to Microsoft corporate VP Peter Moore. “We wanted to talk directly to the consumer first.” I guess XBox felt that the game press was not going do a good enough job presenting the XBox to the public.

Shameless Geeks finally got their grubby hands on a PSP and a Nintendo DS and here are my first impressions. The PSP looks better than any sexy device from Apple, that is, until you get your grubby palms on it. The PSP LCD screen quickly turns into a cloudy mess of fingerprints and then the PSP loses all of its beauty. Plan on using the polishing cloth that comes with the PSP a lot. The Nintendo DS looks kinda boxy and not very sexy. It comes with two screens and both attract their share of grime, but not as bad as the PSP.

The user interface for the PS is awful. It is a nightmare to navigate, it has no guide to get from point a to b, and it is just very non-intuitive. It may take you a while to figure out how to get to the main menu from a game. It is not the normal method on all other game systems of simply hitting power. Switching games was just as much fun. If you have to type anything forget it, you have to enter data just like you would on a phone. The Nintendo DS user interface was a piece of cake to use. It brings everything up in the stylus window and you simple click away on what you want. Typing in data on the Nintendo DS was breeze, the DS simply brings up a keyboard and you type away.

The movie, pictures and music features on the PSP were cool. It took forever (and a couple of manual consultations) to figure out how to load movies. Loading movies was a breeze once I found a (not included) USB cable and had the memory card setup correctly. The DS does not have any of these features but it does have the cool picto chat. Picto chat is simple to use and fairly fun to play with, if I could just find someone to chat with.

The big thing about the DS is the touch screen and the stylus to play games. The stylus and touch screen do add a whole level of gameplay. Only a few of the games take advantage of it right now but I look forward to seeing what the developers can do with the stylus and touch pad.

Wireless would be awesome if I could get it work for either system. I tried really hard to connect with the PSP but it would never connect to any wireless networks. The DS appears to not have the ability to connect via wireless over the Internet.

The games on both where okay. I loved “Lumines” for the PSP and “Yoshi Touch and Go” for the DS. The only other game I played for the DS was Super Mario 64 and it was an average game. The other two PSP games I played where: Ridge Racer and Untold Legends and both where alright, nothing special to write about. My favorite game so far for either system has been “Yoshi Touch and Go” for the DS.

The DS did live up to my impression of being a neat, quirky system that is fun to play with. The PSP on the other is over hyped, it is alright but not the greatest thing since sliced bread. Neither title has yet to have a break out game and until that occurs neither is worth the money yet. If I had to be stranded on a desert island with one or the other, I would pick the Nintendo DS. The main reason: at least it has a huge library thanks to its backward compatibility with the Gameboy Advance. I also love “Yoshi Touch and Go".

Francis Ford Coppola is not happy about the upcoming Godfather video game from EA games. Coppola’s main gripe was the misuse of the characters from the Godfather movies. Here is Coppola’s exact quote: “They use the characters everyone knows, and they hire those actors to be there, and only to introduce minor characters. And then for the next hour they shoot and kill each other,". Coppola also claims he had nothing to do with the game and was in fact unaware of it. Thanks to all the hype surrounding it there is a lot of coverage for the Godfather Game. The coverage disagrees with Coppola’s claim that he knew nothing. The creators of the game claim (see Developer interview, 9 minutes into the video) they visited Coppola and talked at great length about the game. The creators also claim to have gained access to Coppola’s private library, from Coppola. To me this sounds like there is more to Coppola’s comments then just the misuse of the characters. Coppola may be after something else.

Another week another batch of games….this week one game finally is not on the list:

Close Combat: First to Fight for the PC: The Marines bring their squad action port and ready to be played on the PC.

Dead to Rights II for the XBox and Playstation 2: Next game in the gritty cop fight on the mean street Dead to Rights franchise.

Jade Empire for the XBox: The next RPG from the mad doctors in Canada. This time the RPG takes place in mythic China with lots of Kung Fu Action. This one may be a game of the year candidate.

Killer 3D Pool for the Gameboy Adavance: Pool game for the Gameboy that allows you play against the CPU or your buddy via the link cable. With a title like Killer you would expect to release fatal electric shocks or something.

Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition for the Playstation 2 and XBox: Satan’s personal studio next street racing game in the Midnight Club series.

MLB for the PSP: PSP baseball action that has been delayed for awhile, ready to come out now.

Pac-Man Pinball Adavance for the Gameboy Adavance: Pacman loses the town on a game of Pinball and now must smoke the ghost in pinball to win back the town.

Scrabble Blast! for the Gameboy Adavance: Word game styled after the popular board game Scrabble.

Still Life for the XBox: Some one has died in Prague in modern times and then some is murder in 1920’s Chicago and somehow they are connected and you have to figure out how.

Tokyo Xtreme Racer Advance for the Gameboy Adavance: Race around Tokyo in some cool souped up cars, as the next in the Tokyo Xtreme Racer series moves to the Gameboy.

Virtual Pool: Tournament Edition for the Playstation 2: A budget Pool game for the Playstation 2.

World Championship Poker for the Nintendo DS: Play lots of different Poker games on DS, hopefully this version has Razz. Razz for you less informed poker players, is a variant where the player with the lowest hand wins. Razz is also one of the hardest forms of Poker to play and the format which I am a champion in.

The game missing because it finally released was Digital Devil Saga and the new release are stating to calm down.

For a chance to regain fun time from your youth go to LEDhead Classic Electronic Handheld Game Simulator. Games back then were so much simpler no 1280x1024x32 graphics or 7.1 suround sound. Just a plain LED matix 3x10 or so with a fixed overlay and beeps for sound. Ah fond memories