GAME Australia Lays Off 281 Employees, Closes 60 Stores 
How Diablo III's Always-On Internet Requirement Makes It A Better Game GAME: No Buyers Yet, Crisis To Drag On For Another Month 
Have Your Say On Video Game Pricing 
35,000 Telstra Passwords Reset After Games Services Hacked 
Dragon's Dogma: The Kotaku Review Unreal Tournament’s always been big on mods. On PC, mods are easy. On PS3, mods are easy enough. On 360? Lots harder. Microsoft rule their platform with an iron fist, demanding that every single thing that turns up on the system be checked, re-checked, triple-checked then certified. Which greatly reduces the chances of your little brother’s “King Willy’s Ding-Dong of Ding-Doom” mod from reaching the masses.
Thing is, Epic want you to be able to do this. So they’re delaying the release of the 360 version of Unreal Tournament III until they can find a way around Microsoft’s vice-like grip. With Microsoft busy until Christmas, according to Mark Rein, the solution is going to take a while. And may end up as downloadable content:
Forget dirty movies. You know you’ve made it, when you get a prostitution business named after your game. And with Cooking Mama, developer Office Create has made it. Head over to Osaka’s tricks-for-cash “Cooking Mama.” Adult mini-games run ¥10,000 an hour ($US84), but probably are short. Much shorter. It specialises in not just in older motherly-types, but older motherly-types wearing nothing but aprons. Apparently, there is an audience for this! Oddly, there is a “Cooking Mama Corporation” behind this hooker outfit. It was established in 2006, which is the same year Cooking Mama hit the DS. Coincidence? Ha! Cooking Mama [NFSW!!!, Thanks Taku!]
Game adaption frenzy! PC first-person-shooter Painkiller is latest to get the Hollywood make-over. The game is being brought to the silver screen by the team behind up coming Eddie Murphy film Starship Dave, written by Mystery Science Theatre 3000 scribe Bill Corbett and some other dude. Why a Painkiller flick? After movie producer Jon Berg (Elf) saw the title on a 60 Minutes segment last year about competitive gaming, he decided to pursue the film rights. Originally released in 2004, the PC game follows a character stuck between heaven and hell. It received an Xbox follow-up in 2006, and another sequel is slated for release, but the movie adaptation is probably a way’s off. The Painkiller adaptation will be penned new comer Ben McGaw — who we hear is very much a gamer. Let’s hope they can find a director who’s one as well. A good director at that! Painkiller Movie [Variety, Thanks John!]
You kids keep playing WoW, and keep showing your credit limit is good, companies like Sideshow will keep throwing the high-priced merch your way. Pictured is Sideshow’s Blood Elf Rogue VS Draenei Paladin Diorama. Which I’d presume says it all, though I’ve never played WoW so it all might be some kind of witty in-joke. I don’t know. It’s made out of polystone, is 1:9 scale (for handy comparisons with real Draenei Paladins) and will set you back $US300. Blood Elf Rogue VS Draenei Paladin Diorama – Sideshow Exclusive [Sideshow]
The latest issue of British mag NGamer has a rumour that Rare’s Donkey Kong 64 might be on its way to the Nintendo DS. Hrm. It’s not that Donkey 64 was a bad game, I can just remember being completely and utterly unmoved by it. Kinda like Diddy Kong Racing. Which is already on the DS. Which may just lend this rumour a bit of substance. Donkey Kong 64 coming to DS? [Rocked @ NeoGAF]
Computer worm capitalising on retro gaming and Nintendo’s resurrection? Believe. Computers are getting infected via a Super Mario Bros. game attachment. Folks that click on it will infect their computers with the Romario-A worm, which spreads by sending itself to email address on the infected computer, forges the infected computer’s email and reduces system security. Other examples of malware packages masking as games include the Gonori-A Trojan with tantalises with Minesweeper. Okay, I can see accidently downloading Super Mario Bros., but Minesweeper? Talk about deserving it. Mario Worm [The Register via Game|Life]
Oblivion recently released in Japan means one thing: More strange Oblivion clips! Nipples aside, here’s gaming’s equivalent of rubbing Barbie and Ken together. The first two minutes are normal enough. The last seven minutes, well, aren’t. Call it necrophilia, thanatophilia or necrolagnia. Your choice!
Newsweek‘s gaming news ranger N’Gai Croal pinged Midway about its upcoming Stranglehold. The non-region free (bastards!) PS3 Special Edition version contains a copy of John Woo’s classic Hard Boiled packed on the same Blu-ray disc. That’s actually a somewhat revolutionary idea: packing games and movies on the same disc for only ten dollars more than the Blu-ray movie. Midway’s Steve Allison, who pitched the original game-movie pairing pack, explains how Midway structured the deal:The Weinsteins and Genius Products, their home video partner, are very forward thinking on this issue, I have to say. We approached them not knowing their plans for their own re-release of “Hard Boiled” at the end of July. To protect them against worries of cannibalising their release we did two things:
Rock Band has people excited. Guitar Hero did have people excited, but not anymore, because they’re all excited about Rock Band. Analyst group Janco are aware of this, and are on-hand to offer a daring prediction: that Guitar Hero will be seeing more instruments next year. …we expect Guitar Hero to follow a natural product evolution by adding additional music peripherals in CY08.
Could the market support two rock games based on a series of overpriced peripherals? Since we’re not sure whether it can even support one, I’m going to offer my own prediction and say no. No it can’t. Besides, what would you call the thing? Guitar Hero & Friends? No.
A prototype chip based on the PS3 Cell processor has been developed and will be shown next week in San Diego. The prototype is for computer boards (not the PS3), and it shouldn’t come as a surprise as applications for the Cell have been mentioned for some time now. The original chip was developed by Sony, Sony Computer Entertainment, IBM and Toshiba. Called the “Cell Computing Board,” this new prototype is the Cell Broadband Engine microprocessor married with the RSX graphics processor, which, according to Sony, goes beyond the Cell chip’s power. That’s right, a super computer. Fingers crossed for 4D output! New Cell Prototype [PC Advisor]
