Hailing from a nation where not only are mod chips an importing necessity, but also 100% legal, I’m a little cloudier than others on the rights and wrongs of the things. What I do know, though, is that in countries where the law says it’s illegal to sell them, if you are going to sell them, you’d best do so on the quiet. Neil Stanley Higgs, of Bristol, did no such thing. He’s been arrested and convicted of 26 offences after an investigation by the ELSPA, which found his dodgy business by the name of its website: mrmodchips. Real subtle, Neil. Way to shake the fuzz. Mr. Modchips Nets £1 million, Gets Convicted [Next-Gen]
Some are worried! Electronic Arts bought up Mass Effect developer BioWare. Mass Effect looks like all kinds of awesome, and the purists are concerned that being an EA subsidary will change the type of games the Canadian developer makes. Not so, says co-founder Ray Muzyka:
We’re not going to sacrifice quality because our fans deserve the best and we’re going to make sure that we continue to deliver that, each and every game we make.
You should believe Muzyka. He’sa medical doctor. And a giant. So everyone just take a chill pill! BioWare Piece [Reuters]
Because we’ve had just about enough of the Nintendo ones. There are other 8-bit heroes that need pumpkin representation. Jonathan writes: It’s not a masterpiece by any means, but I think it turned out pretty well… and I hadn’t seen other megaman pumpkins yet. My friend was going to do a quickman pumpkin so he’d have someone to fight against, but that didn’t work out :-) Anyway, I hope you like it!
We do! Our condolences over Quickman, though. His passing will leave a gaping chasm in the vegetable-themed Megaman universe.
Before you click, know that it’s NSFW. Though, Mike Tyson having lunch with a bunch of hipsters is bound to be NSFW. The odd thing? I saw this thing on Japanese TV a few years back where he had lunch with a TV announcer and kept sipping a mimosa. It was kinda like this — though, Tyson didn’t punch anyone or mention fucking people’s blood. Not on camera, at least.
Brunch Out!! [Meth Minute]
Online activation is all the rage these days. Yet, despite the good intentions of publishers, things always go awry.
Tipster Brendan sends word that gamers who pre-ordered Crysis through EA’s digital download system, with the promise of receiving the demo a day before everyone else, have been disappointed. According to this post on EA’s forums, there’s a problem with both the demo’s delayed activation and authentication system:
I was actually able to install it, amazingly enough, but everytime I click “play” or try to run it from the Bin32 folder, it says “The game can not start. In order to launch this game, please login to the EA Download Manager to verify ownership, then try again.” Even though, of course, I’m already logged in. How about keeping your promise and removing that final barrier so we can actually, god forbid, play the demo that’s owed to us?
Apparently, no one has been able to play the demo.
Not that it’s a huge deal, we’ll all be able to play it in less than a day. Unless the problem hasn’t been resolved…
OFFICIAL-SP Demo ISSUE thread [EA Forums, thanks Brendan]
Holy crap! We got some good entries in our Dementium bandage contest. Tons of brave folks were more than willing to cover themselves in TP, band-aids, w/e to enter this contest. For that, respect and much love! We’ve picked our top ten finalists. Now, it’s up to you Kotakuland to pick the winner. In the comments section, vote for ONE finalist that you like. Just one, not more than that. Voting ends at midnight, tonight. Congrats to the finalists!
Australia doesn’t just abandon the Master Chief once he’s been on the shelf for a week or two. No, we BELIEVE. And so it is that Halo 3, a month after release, still tops the charts, no doubt helped along by the fact Orange Box only came out only this week and that the general public seems blissfully unaware that Project Gotham Racing 4 actually exists.
1) Halo 3 2) Phantom Hourglass 3) Drawn To Life 4) Crash of the Titans (PS2) 5) Catz 2006 (DS) 6) SingStar Pop Hits (Game + Mics) 7) Juiced 2 (PS2) 8) SingStar 90s 9) Dogz 2006 (DS) 10) SingStar Rock Ballads
[charts courtesy of GfK]
Activision’s Guitar Hero III will be with us shortly (November 7 for the picky), armed with wireless guitars, new songs and the promise of downloadable content. It’s so close you can’t help but smell that pungent combination of groupie armpit sweat and lead singer musk.
Reviews should start appearing in the next ten days or so. Until then, here’s some photos of the AU Wii and 360 packaging, including the guitars. Yes, they do come apart, and the 360 version is much prettier looking than the Wii. Though I think sticking a Wiimote in that hole would help a great deal.
All the photos after the jump. But just before you do that, here’s all the pricing info:
Guitar & game bundle: Xbox 360/PS3: $169.95 PS2: $149.95 Wii: $159.95
Game only: Xbox 360: $89.95 PS2: $69.95
Guitar only: All: $79.95
What’s all the rage in nerdland? This. That is a clip of “Cute Pop Idol” Miku Hatsune (ミクåˆéŸ³), who’s name means “Future” (ミク=未æ¥=Miku) “First Sound” (åˆ=hatsu=first 音ï¼neï¼sound). She is a hugely popular character in Yamaha’s singing synthesiser application Vocaloid2. Here’s the interesting bit: The vocal software is tweaked especially for J-pop anime-type songs. The software is apparently way easier to learn than stuff pros use, so otaku are easily able to create things like the this melody from THE iDOLM@STER, Super Mario RPG, Megaman, Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy, Haruhi and Lucky Star. Epic. Thanks, Miki for the tip!
Elite is a classic. Frontier: Elite II isn’t as…recognizable, but it too is a classic. First Encounters (Elite III) was…well, it had problems. Which brings us to Elite IV, David Braben’s fourth crack at an interstellar space combat/trading sim. First announced a long, long time ago, we’ve heard neither jack nor shit on it since, but in a recent interview he’s promised that the game is still in development, and is actually going to be released. This generation, even, if you want to believe him. And we do want to believe him. Dearly. Braben reveals more on The Outsider, Elite IV [IGN]
