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 Not that the Wii’s necessarily short on peripherals, but if you could squeeze room for one more, this’d be it. Hori’s Fighting Stick. Previously available in Japan, Gamestop now have a listing for an American release on November 6. Price? USD$50. Which is not too bad considering the imported version is a couple bucks more. Or when you consider there’s not a single Wii controller layout that’s any good for Street Fighter II. Hori Wii Digital Arcade Stick [GameStop, via Go Nintendo]
Why Chopin? Why? I mean, really. Why? GameSpot gets to the bottom of that and other burning issues in a short interview with the game’s director, Hiroya Hatsushiba. The game is set in composer Frederic Chopin’s subconscious as he lays on his death bed. Let’s go back to my initial questions. Hatsushiba answers: People who play games and people who love classical music are not necessarily sharing [the]same type of interests. Most people in Japan know the name of Chopin; however, most of the people who know of Chopin think he is just some kind of a great music composer without knowing any more about him. Most of them have heard Chopin’s music but not a lot could put his name to it immediately. By creating a colourful fantasy world in Chopin’s dream, I was hoping that people would get into this game easily and also come to know how great Chopin’s music is.
And believe that Chopin could dish out some wicked chain attacks. When a game is as fun as Eternal Sonata who needs historical accuracy? Eternal Sonata Interview [GameSpot]
What did you buy last week, British readers? Curious? Well, the love affair with licensed content continues, with four movie tie-ins still in the top 10. Also popping in are Rugby 08, just in time for the World Cup, as well as the expected, obligatory Pokemon content.
1) Transformers 2) Pokemon Diamond 3) Pokemon Pearl 4) Harry Potter & The Now-Hot Sidekick Girl 5) Mario Party 8 6) Shrek III 7) New Super Mario Bros 8) Pirates III 9) Tiger Woods 07 10) Rugby 08
[charts courtesy of ChartTrack]
Just look at those Tetris plug ‘n’ play controllers. Blue and pink! So great. Dubbed Minna no Tetris (a nod to Minna no Golf — AKA “Hot Shots Golf”), the game features 11 different modes. They include stuff like “Relaxation” (the blocks move slow) and “Easy” (giant blocks drop). Exciting! The makers of the game point out that some Japanese professor discovered that playing Tetris for three minutes activates the brain’s frontal lobe. No doubt other findings show playing Minna no Tetris on “Relaxation” or “Easy” makes you dumb. Really fucking dumb. Minna no Tetris [Epoch via Plastic Bamboo]
I really dug the look of City of Metronome. We first heard about the game a while ago now, then little else, but at least got confirmation in January it was still being worked on. Sadly, that no longer appears to be the case. Kotakuite Craig checked in on developers Tarsier Studios to see how things were going, and got the following reply: Hi Craig, very cool to hear that people are still interested in the game. Unfortunately we still have not secured any more funding for Metronome so the game is still on the back burner.
Even taking the low-risk nature of this industry into account, I find it hard to understand why publishers can’t at least spare a PSN-sized budget for a game like this. Ah well. Back to WWII: Soldier I go.
Tsutomu Kouno is a creative guy. Hey, he created LocoRoco. Thing is, he works for a big multi-national corporation. Guys in suits aren’t known for their creativity — even at Sony. So imagine the bewilderment Kouno got trying to explain LocoRoco to them. He recalls: To start off with, the upper management didn’t understand the idea. It was hard to communicate, so I tried to show them what it would be like moving — I created the demo and then they went for it…They liked the concept of rotating the world to move the LocoRocos to the goal, but they didn’t understand what I meant when I said I wanted to apply AI to the LocoRoco and put other AI creatures in it — they couldn’t see how that would be interesting or fun.
And dear reader, please don’t be so naive to think that this is unique to Sony, but rather, sadly prevalent in the gaming industry. Bright side: Dude got to make his game. It all worked out! Uphill Fight [Develop Mag]
Now that loads of women are buying a DS, somebody needs to teach them things. Like their place. Enter Ubisoft with their Imagine series, aimed at instructing 6-14 year-old girls in the sacred, lost arts of womanhood. Things like cooking, fashion design and the making, and subsequent caring, for babies. Those are actually three of the first games in the series, with further titles to come including things like…Figure Skating, and another cooking game. Because girls are never too young to start learning about the glass ceiling, right Ubisoft? What’s next? We kicked a few possible suggestions around Kotaku Tower.
Pete Molyneux has been around. He knows his games. He especially knows his role-playing games, since it’s all he’s been doing for the past 4-5 years. So when asked about Fable 2′s combat system, dude let loose: It’s amazing for a role playing game, because most role playing games are shit! Oblivion was a great game, but the combat was rubbish; we all talked about it being rubbish. So imagine you had a great role-playing game and really, really good combat system.
Love it. Though we should normally chastise anyone who falls off the wagon, when it’s Peter Molyneux’s “I won’t make grandiose claims” wagon we can allow a wry smile. Fable 2 Hands-On & Molyneux Interview [Kikizo]
That Forever Blue bug made everything, well, suck. When shark rays are added to the underwater aquarium, the game emits a loud BUZZING noise that doesn’t exactly jive with the smooth sea experience. Nintendo has come to the rescue and is offering consumers the chance to exchange their bug infested copy for a deloused one. Yamato messengers will swing by residences to exchange bad-for-good copies on August 21st, which is among other things, my birthday. I will be 29 years old, and Japanese Forever Blue owners will be happy. Delightful! Forever Blue Exchange Program [Nintendo]
Last night’s Wii update added a bunch of new stuff. Some good. Some bad. And some unexplained, but still good. Sort of. Let me explain! Seems Nintendo have quietly added USB keyboard support for the Wii. I say quietly because first, it’s unannounced, and second, because so far we’ve found it only works in the Shop Channel, Settings Menu and the Message Board, not the Internet Channel. Yet. But give ‘em time, it’s obviously something that’s coming.
