To: Ash From: Crecente Re: Heavy Heart, Old Friend and One Cruddy Pumpkin
So I think I’ve found the place for the Denver funde razor. It’s this cool Denver bar that has a back room concert club, one of the nicest in town. There’s a stage, a big screen, a separate bar and top of the line sound system. I think it can hold about 300, but my guess is I’ll be lucky if 100 show up. I talked to the manager today and he said I can rent it for not too much. I’m going to try and swing by there next week to check it out and put down the deposit. Once the venue is locked in I’ll spill the details.
What you missed: Sony Sinks £1m Into Rachet & Clank Euro Commercials Wii Play Is Nintendo’s Quiet Hit Halo 3 Kotaku Vs. Gizmodo Smackdown Report Medal of Honor Heroes 2 Wii Hands On Impressions HowTo Wear Your Halo Helmet Metal Gear Box Set Doubtful For 2007
After speaking to Konami USA marketing VP Anthony Crouts earlier this year at Comic Con, he gave us hope for a stateside release of the Metal Gear 20th Anniversary Metal Gear Solid Collection, a package that stuffed six Metal Gear games and two bonus discs into a budget priced package. After hearing nothing about a release for the past three months, I bugged Kojima Productions producer Ryan Payton about the possibility of it shipping outside of Japan before Metal Gear Solid 4 hits. Our hopes? More measured, but Payton says it’s still a possibility.
“We’re working on it pretty much every day to make it happen”, he said at the E For All Expo “but there are a lot of issues that the average gamer doesn’t know about.” So, who’s to blame for the lack of box set love? Retailers? Maybe. Canada? Only partially. If you’re going to blame anyone, blame your fellow tightwad gamers, who make convincing the Powers That Be difficult with their garage sale attitude toward video games.
Still, Payton has hope. “At some point next year, I want to have a box set on store shelves to give people a chance to play MGS1 and MGS2 before they jump into MGS4.” But don’t count on the box set coming out before the PlayStation 3 sequel and don’t expect it to look like its Japanese counterpart. Payton talked briefly of his design document for the Western version of the package, one that’s slightly different from the home turf release.
More details on the progress of Metal Gear Solid 4 and additional details on the Metal Gear Solid Collection coming in our full interview with the Kojima Productions producer.
Old clip is old, I know, but I’ve finally found the time to sit through 14 minutes and 43 seconds of Sega logos, shredded, blown up, bastardised and molested in every imaginable way by anyone and everyone who ever published a Sega Genesis game. The only thing more surprising than the wide variety of title screen mash ups is that Sega brand stewards never seemed to crack down on third parties messing with its corporate logo.
Update: Here’s the static version.
After French gaming site Xboxygen wrote of a Play magazine report on Secret Level’s Golden Axe: Beast Rider, indicating Xbox 360 exclusivity for the Sega published title, many of you lamented another lost PlayStation 3 game. Fortunately, Sega was nice enough to get back to the gang at PlayStation Universe, who confirmed that the PS3 version of the Golden Axe-themed action RPG was still on track. I’ll reserve my “Yay!” until we hear more about the game, but at least it’s coming.
Following another unspectacular month of PlayStation 3 sales in the U.S., showing another month-to-month decline, you might start thinking that Sony was in a bad way. Sony’s spin on the 119,000 PS3s sold in September was glossed over in its statement regarding yesterday’s monthly NPD sales data, with the company instead choosing to underscore the recently announced 40GB model and the 80GB model’s price drop. Worse news for Sony comes from San Jose Mercury News’ Dean Takahashi who writes that Sony recently “pleaded with third-party developers not to abandon its struggling platform”, attempting to make the argument that the PS3 is filled with untapped hardware potential.
As Takahashi writes, it’s a decidedly different attitude, one that’s been reflected in Jack Tretton’s E3 presser speech and Kaz Hirai’s Tokyo Game Show keynote. Both execs approached the opportunity to present a more humble Sony, with Hirai stressing that the company was working to bring down hardware prices and work more closely with third parties.
Is it too late? Many of Sony’s PlayStation 3 exclusives have failed to light a fire under consumers and one has to wonder how this holiday’s upcoming library contributions will fare in the face of what Microsoft and Nintendo have to offer. We’ll soon know if cheap arse PS3s are really all it’s going to take.
Dean’s Take on NPD numbers for September [The Mercury News]
After reading of the MTV intern’s plight to create a Master Chief costume earlier this week I remembered that some reader had sent me a picture showing a pal of his wearing the helmet from the Legendary version of the game on his head.
I had asked him to email me the details on how it was achieved and then never heard back. So I decided to do it myself… big mistake.
One of the four games in Nintendo’s so-called “Zapper Alley” was EA’s Medal of Honor Heroes 2, the Wii sequel to the PSP-exclusive entry in the long-running World War II shooter series. It follows the first Heroes adherence to the Medal of Honor gameplay, already established by numerous games and expansions on virtually every platform, but also contains a Wii-friendly on-rails shooter mode. My first hands on time with the game was spent with the more arcade-style light gun-esque mode, one that should prime FPS noobs for the more complex half of the game. While Medal of Honor Heroes 2 doesn’t shatter the mold, it does nail both modes from a control perspective. Unfortunately, there are a handful of problems.
Capcom’s Dark Void may have gotten a little lost in the noise of this week’s announcements of Lost Planet for PlayStation 3(!), Okami for Wii(!!) and Street Fighter IV(!!!). Based on this, the debut trailer for Dark Void, that may or may not have been such a bad thing. The game’s visuals and gameplay make for an odd mix, lying somewhere between deadly serious and cartoonish. It’s Airtight Games first project as a developer, but not the first for many of its employees. Some of the key team members came from FASA and Midway.
Could Cammie Dunaway, the marketing maven who just jumped ship from Yahoo, be looking to land somewhere with game? That’s what several tipsters tell us. Specifically that Yahoo’s soon to be chief marketeer may be on her way to Nintendo of America, where a trio of vacancies are looking to be filled thanks to the recent departures of George Harrison, Perrin Kaplan and Beth Llewelyn.
In her internal goodbye note Dunaway says:
“While I can’t share the specifics until mid next week, suffice it to say that it is a natural fit for someone who loves driving profitable revenue for big, well loved consumer brands and can’t pass up the opportunity to be the coolest Mom in the universe.”
She also added that she would be staying in the area.
Of course all of that could mean Disney. Heck it could be anywhere from McDonald’s to the NSA depending on what type of kid you have. Even if it is in gaming, there’s always the possibility that she could land at Sony Computer Entertainment of America, where David Karraker’s shoes have yet to be filled.
What say NOA and SCEA? Absolutely nothing, dressed up to be a big fat no comment. We could wait until next week to find out, but it would be oh so much more fun if someone just shot us a tip now and cut the suspense.
The Cammie Dunaway Files [Valleywag]
This week’s updates to the Smash Bros. Dojo won’t blow you away (no new Zero Suit Samus pics), as its strictly for the hardcore fans. A Mother stage, a new assist trophy and a handful of practical updates make for a rather dry Dojo Dump. I’m starting to wonder how many updates Sakurai and crew will be able to squeeze out of the game now that it’s shipping three months later. Hopefully, they have some Zero Suit Samus wallpapers tucked away…
Just think, if you were at E For All right now, you could be playing this game instead of all this icky reading. What’s new in the world of Super Smash Bros. Brawl? All this stuff!
