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Dragon's Dogma: The Kotaku Review I never eat fast food. Well, maybe I should say I rarely eat fast food. Very, very rarely. But when you’re on the road, it is often a necessity if you want to be somewhere on time. We wer about an hour outside of Vegas when my friend and I decided to stop for a quickee breakfast at the only place we had seen for miles which happened to be a McDonalds inside a truckstop cum casino called Terrible’s.
Seeing as Vegas was kind of like Disneyland for gamblers I decided it would be a good idea to relive the days of my family trips to Disneyland. We always stopped for a breakfast at McDs on the way and I always got an Egg McMuffin so it was with much anticipated nostalgia that I entered this tiny fast food joint in the middle of nowhere.Upon entering I ordered my memory soaked breakfast and looked around to see a McDonalds branded Gamecube gaming station in the middle of the restaurant.
Now, once again I never eat fast food so for all I know this could be a staple of McDs everywhere, but this was the first I’d seen of it. It had four separate sides, each emblazoned with a different McDonalds character including my favourite unclassifiable purple blob, Grimace. I got a little closer hoping to see what kind of games they had and maybe even play a round of something. Unfortunately it was all turned off so I started taking photos of it for posterity. Looking through my lens at the controllers I saw a site that made me reconsider that McMuffin.
Edward Castronova, an associate professor at Indiana University and the guy behind a Shakespeare-themed MMO, published a new book last month entitled Exodus to the Virtual World: How Online Fun Is Changing Reality. He spoke to BBC News to talk about his new book and the contents within:
He said while some people will be colonists – “the virtual frontier opens up and off they go and disappear” – others will just use virtual worlds to get together with distant family and friends.
But he stressed there will be a group of people that spends all their lives there, and that the big question is the size of this group.
“We forget how many people there are, and we have to ask ourselves, how exciting is the game of life for most people out there?” he said.
Poor Rockstar Games, constantly vilified and in some sort of trouble. People seem to take endless pleasure in posting every bit bad news that surrounds them but we never get to hear about any of the good things they do, so it is my pleasure to bring you this bit of Rockstar charity.
GamingAngels.com reports that Rockstar has entered a piece in the annual Lunchbox Auction to benefit the Food Bank For New York City and The Lunchbox Fund of South Africa. According to GA, Rockstar is the only game company to have donated to the auction that boasts lunchbox creations from celebrities including Joaquin Phoenix who’s piece currently holds the highest bid at $US 3,500.00. The Rockstar piece is still going for a reasonable $US 180 with the auction closing on Dec. 21. Click through here to place your bid. It even comes with free replacement bulbs so how can you lose?
NCsoft release their latest expansion for Lineage II, called Kamael. It would appear there’s plenty of new stuff (including one-winged maidens in various states of skimpy dress) and the expansion is free for current subscribers. The full release is after the jump, or you can wander over to the Lineage II site to see what’s new.
Chan Sing, a 31 year old single father, left his seven year old daughter to fend for herself while he hit up an arcade after being informed that children weren’t allowed inside. I understand the lure of gaming to the exclusion of most other pressing matters, but this seems a little over the top. Apparently upon arrest, he informed police ‘I have to play video games’:
[He]left the girl alone in the street for an hour after staff told him children were not allowed inside the arcade, the South China Morning Post reported.
He then sat her in a restaurant with a drink for three more hours while he continued playing games before staff called police to track down the father.
When he was arrested, Chan told police: “I have to play video games,” Kowloon City Court was told Friday.
Chan plead guilty to child abuse and was summarily sentenced to 120 hours of community service; one hopes that next time he decides that he just has to get his gaming fix in, he leaves his daughter at home with a babysitter. I suppose it could have been worse, considering the marathon session some Chinese gamers have gotten in the news for (usually culminating in death by exhaustion or heart attack).
Game addict Hong Kong dad abandons daughter, 7, outside arcade [Earth Times]
When I checked my Kotaku email this morning I was nearly buried under the dearth that three weeks away brings. But ,one that seemed to keep coming in repeatedly over the last several hours were reports of an extended FF XIII trailer that was unceremoniously ripped from a DVD that was included in a Japanese Final Fantasy “Cloud” book. Much of this footage was seen at E3 and TGs, but there is some new footage in there as well. As an added bonus, there’s an extended FF Versus XIII extended trailer after the jump. The quality on these isn’t the best, but I’m sure with a little searching you can dig up some higher quality footage.
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in ]
Well, I am finally back after my two weekend hiatus.That makes three full weeks since I have roamed the hallowed halls of Kotaku Tower. Thankfully, Ash swept my room in my absence and fluffed the straw on my cot so I would be comfortable upon my return.
It was an amazing trip across the country and between the stops at Graceland, catching sight of a 72oz steak, a 4lb hamburger and the Liberace Museum, I even managed to see some video game related things . Arcades in truck stops, game stations in fast food joints and the Spike VGAs, not to mention the myriad video poker machines in Vegas. Sure, you could argue that those aren’t video games, but Xbox LIVE has Texas Hold ‘Em which is basically the same thing. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
Reporting to you live from my favourite cafe in San Francisco, I will be bringing you some of the stories from the road mixed in with the regular enormous dearth of news there always is on the weekends and especially around the holidays. Hopefully there will be something in there that will interest you.
I never really thought I’d miss writing twenty four articles a weekend, but damn it’s good to be back
Welcome to another fine collection of Kotaku originals. This week Reggie talked the Wii holiday production schedule, Funde Razor 07 rocked Child’s Play’s house and I get a heaping helping of Vegas with a side of Spike TV Video Game Awards.
New Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway Screens
Nintendo: Wiis Hit Shelves This Weekend
Reggie On Third-Party Wii Game Quality
Nintendo Announces GameStop Wii Raincheck Program
Nintendo Triples Wii Distribution Workforce, I Talk With Reggie
November NPDs: Microsoft’s Reaction
November NPDs: Sony’s Reaction
November Hardware Sales Dominated By The DS
Rumor: EA Considering a Colorado Dev Studio (Update)
Rumour: Best Buy Sitting on Wii Stockpile
Buy a Life-Sized Companion Cube for Charity
Funde Razor: I Am My Own Roadie
Come Snow, Come… Snow, Funde Razor Tomorrow Night
The Orange Box (PS3) Impressions: Epilogue
Become the King of Komments at Kotaku
Regis and Kelly Play Rock Band
Reader Feels Bad, Makes No More Heroes Wii
“Chuck’s” Josh Gomez Talks Games
Call Of Duty 5 Heading For The Pacific?
Uncharted Calls Spanish Readers “Huge Nerds”
Least, it’s coming to the Australian Virtual Console. Sure it’ll follow elsewhere at the same time, though, so chin up. A classification for the game’s turned up on the Office of Film & Literature Classification’s database, which means a Virtual Console release isn’t too far off. Never played the NES version myself, as I had it on C64 (and blindly reckon its the best iteration of the lot), but hey, they all feature skating and they all feature Rodney, so there’s no real need to split hairs.
In an interview with Next-Gen, Nintendo of America’s George Harrison was asked just how many Wiis we can expect to see on the shelf come Christmas time. Despite initially trying the old “well, we won’t meet demand” line, George eventually fesses up and dishes with the cold, hard numbers: I can’t give an exact number for November and December. We had to make our final decision on how much to produce each month for the holidays back in the summer. It takes about five months for us to increase the actual monthly rate of production. We’re at a rate now worldwide of about 1.8 million Wiis produced every month, and that’s going to sustain itself until we get on top of this.
That’s a global figure, by the way. 1.8 million. Divide that up amongst North America, Europe, Japan and everywhere else, and you get…oh dear. INTERVIEW: Wii Triumphs in October [Next-Gen]
