inFamous Trailer

Look good? You don't even need to watch the video, and I'll just tell you the answer is yes.

God of War III Shit

The Future is a Little Closer

Thanks to Nintendo and Lionsgate in their plans to offer TV shows and movies over the internets. Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's PS3 already offer such services, but the Nintendo's much greater influence on the world could really give this market the puch it needs to really get to the public. The downside of the service on the Wii is its lack of a HDD and the fact that it isn't Hi-def. Despite these things, it is much more popular than the other two things, and let's not forget with the internets, we still have the option to stream, so the HDD problem isn't as much of a problem as it might at first seem.

Sony's Doing What?

15 Hours w/ Street Fighter IV

I finally got some time after class last night to get over to Gamestop to get my reserved copy of Street Fighter IV "COLLECTORS EDITION." I was very excited as anyone would imagine, this being the first Street Fighter since Street Fighter II that has gotten any attention for actually being a good game. Not only that, but most video game publications have been giving it very high scores (we're talking like 9.5/10 and higher), and many of those calling it the game of the month. So, I get the big box it comes in (because the game also comes with the animé film Street Fighter IV: The Ties that Bind on BD--DVD for Xbox 360 owners--which also has a CD soundtrack from the game in the case, and it also comes packed with a Ryu figurine--or Crimson Viper, who is a cunt, for 360 owners-). The Collector's Edition also comes with a redemption code to be used to download, for free, the Brawler Pack, which includes alternate costumes for Zangief, E. Honda, Rufus, El Fuerte, and Abel.

I get home with my new game, and I pop the BD into the PS3, figuring I could take a shit in the time it would take for my PS3 to install the game. To my surprise, the game required no install. I was floored--you see, this is the first time I've ever played a PS3 game that didn't require the install. I figured they were all like that. Well, after going through the ten seconds of waiting for my fights to load, I decided to go ahead and install the game anyway. It turns out to have been a good choice, because now I only have to wait five seconds for the fights to load. Very nice.


The Review

This game has, as most reviews have already stated, almost no issues with gameplay, story, etc. I have, however, found two glaring problems with the game that will, if anything, require a quick depressing of the mute button of your remote to solve. The first problem, is the opening theme song. I don't know if it's *NSYNC performing the song or what, but it's fucking gay, and it makes my ears bleed. The second problem, the announcer from Marvel vs. Capcom 2 and other CAPCOM fighting games, I'm sure, is back, and I've never been more suicidal hearing his voice. That's really all I can say for the bad right now.

The intro with gay music:


This would have been much better:


Everything else in the game appears to have been done very well, though, I would have preferred the arcade mode worked more like it did in Street Fighter II. IT isn't really a problem, though, because there are many more characters in this rendition than there were in that one, so it would definitely (and by definitely, I mean probably) make the game far too long to enjoy. The online modes are very responsive and quick to load. There is even an option where you can play through arcade mode and allow people to challenge you online while you're playing, and the game will just pull you out of your offline fight to compete in the online one. This doesn't work too well due to the fact that one can never finish a fight without having someone challenge him or her online. A way to make this work would have been to make the offline game remained paused while you play your online match and pick up where you left off, but that's not what happens. What happens instead, is the offline match you were halfway through has to start over completely, so someone can never progress in the game due to the constant stopping and restarting. Now, I'm hoping (and I'm sure this will happen) that once the game has been out for awhile, people will not be challenging others so much, and this option will serve its purpose well; because it really is an interesting concept, and I would like to use it if it only weren't so goddamn annoying.
I've played the game little more that two hours at this point, so I might put more review material out for new experiences, but I probably won't.

Nintendon't What Micro...soft?

Have you ever wished someone would chronicle Microsoft's entire 119 year console defects? Well, as they say in the business, "Her legs...went on for days."

Due to the major success of Microsoft's Ensemble Studios, Microsoft has decided to shut down operations upon the completion of Halo Wars.

The internal Microsoft game studios e-mail on the subject:

Today, we shared with our employees at Ensemble that we have plans to close the studio after Halo Wars RTM. Such a decision is never easy. Like any business, we’re accountable for making tradeoffs and the right level of investments that will drive profit and future growth. However, as we reviewed our first-party portfolio and where we need to invest and divest our resources to achieve our long-term strategies, it became clear to us that closing the studio and redeploying those resources to other more scalable ventures is the right thing for our business at this time.

Unfortunately, our decision to close Ensemble will adversely impact many of the studio's team members. Following the closure, the Ensemble leadership team will form a new entity and have agreed to partner with Microsoft to develop future products and provide support for Halo Wars post launch. While the new company will be hiring a portion of the Ensemble employees, its size and resources prevent it from offering positions to the entire Ensemble team. We hope to integrate much of this creative talent into MGS or the broader IEB team, where we have relevant openings.

Ensemble Studios has produced many notable games over the years – including the Ages franchise – that have helped MGS become a leader in interactive entertainment. And now, Halo Wars is already proving to be a hit by people who have seen and played early versions of the game. The Ensemble team is committed to continuing its development, testing and support of Halo Wars through to the completion of halo wars. We're also working closely with the studio’s leaders to ensure a smooth launch of the game in early 2009 and continuing support thereafter. We will support the studio in every way possible as they work to deliver this highly anticipated game.

This action notwithstanding, I want to emphasize that the overall investment Microsoft is making in video game development is not diminished, and we will continue to bring in talent to work on titles and franchises where we'll see the most ROI. Our priority is to continue to nurture the creative freedom that allows us to successfully drive our business strategy forward. Meanwhile, we're launching some outstanding games over the next few months. We've just launched Too Human and Viva Piñata: Trouble in Paradise, and soon we'll see many other games hit retail store shelves, including Scene It! 2, Fable 2, Gears of War 2, Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts, Lips and, of course, Halo Wars.

I want to thank you for your hard work and focus as we head into the next few months and make this a blowout year for first-party games. Please be supportive and respectful of our Ensemble colleagues as they go through this tough time.

Phil

This is, obviously, great news for everyone.



On a lighter note, Microsoft should be selling a few more Xboxes, due to the latest price drops.

The arcade model is now $199.99 (down from $279.99).
The premium (60GB) model is now $299.99 (down from $349.99).
The elite is now $399.99 (down from 449.99).

This price drop officially makes the Xbox Arcade the cheapest of the current generation video game consoles, beating Nintendo's Wii console, which retails for $249.99. It will be interesting to see how this affects sales for all companies. My guess is it won't do much, considering Xbox 360 is nearing the end of its lifespan, and the fact that it just didn't sell all that well when it was still fresh.

And how is Sony reacting to the news? As Julie Han told Gamasutra.com:

"We're really confident that consumers are making choices driven by value," she says, "and we know PS3 offers that value across the board, with the built-in Blu-ray player the broadest and deepest software lineup in the industry, with LittleBigPlanet, Resistance 2, Motorstorm [Pacific Rift]... we're quite confident our holiday sales will be good...We try to stick to our strategy... we feel the PS3 offers the value at that price point. More than anything, you'll see with the 80-gigabyte announcement at E3 as well as with the recent 160 gig, consumers are telling you they want more storage for photos, music... new games are also getting quite a bit of pickup through PlayStation Network. There's also our new video download service that consumers are going to want to do. It's showing that we're moving in the right direction."