To: Simon From: Luke
Hey Simon! Welcome to Kotaku Towers, and good luck on being our third, and final, guest editor. Between Keighley and Bogost that seat should be pretty warm by now. Toasty, even. If you need anything, air hockey table’s on level 6, while you can find the boutique brewery on level 9, past Crecente’s private barbershop.
Speaking of warm, it’s hot here today. Too hot. While Australia’s got a reputation as a hardy, rugged place, I am not a hardy, rugged man, and with my air conditioner broken I’ve wilted like a delicate flower. Which makes concentrating, let alone typing, difficult. So I’ll stop doing both and have a good lie down. Here’s what you missed while Fahey was seeing to your bags:
• Jam Sessions causes youth delinquency.
• Optimus Prime visits an old friend in the 12th century.
• Korean kids learn too much online is bad, but not as bad as refusing to tell their parents they really love them. More »
Above, you’ll see how difficult and time-consuming it is to rack up 1000 achievement points in Avatar: The Last Airbender: The Burning Earth. To earn them all requires hours of combat, days of trial and error, weeks of exploration. So don’t even think of renting this for just one night, score-whores. [via Aeropause] More »
For those of you ready to clean house, have we got a day for you! Today is our favourite Kotakuday, Ban Monday. Our willingness to ban increases ten-fold as we clean up and clean out. We want to keep the comments section readable (AKA thin the herd), and we want you to help. Here’s how it works: Send tipsATkotaku.com commenter pages for anyone you think should get the boot. Our ban threshold is going to be way lower (hello fanboy trolls!). Nothing is definite, but ban requests from longtime commenters will be given great authority with the hammer. So be sure to include your own commenting profile! Ban Monday ends in exactly 24 hours. Tuesday’s comment section will be lighter, faster, better. Onwards! More »
You’re almost at the breaking point when it comes to this new Ghostbusters game. Almost. Too many fluffy words in quick succession, not enough solid info, we know, we can tell. These screens should about do you, then. Least until we get either more news on what the game’s actually like, or shots of just how old Bill Murray’s going to look.
Interested, and able, in getting hold of a PS3 dev kit? Oh boy, is this your lucky day. Sony have just announced that the cost of such a unit has been cut by nearly 50% across all three territories, with Japanese kits now at Â¥950,000, American at $US 10,250 and European consoles for €7500. Course saving a few thousand bucks means little/nothing to a big studio, but to the wee ones, that’s a ton more cash to spend on essentials like whiteboard markers, nodoze and crummy pizzas. Sony halves cost of PS3 development kit [GI.biz] More »
Man, how good did that “free Halo 3″ deal sound? I’ll tell you. Too good to be true. If you check the source on the original post from Friday, you’ll see the Bungie link broken. And we used the Bungie link because the Xbox.com one was broken. Figured it was just for maintenance or some glitch, but no, it was because they’ve gone ahead and changed the details of the offer. Or, more likely, they forgot to include perhaps the most necessary details when they first published them. Either or. End result’s the same: the deal does not mean everyone gets a free copy of Halo 3 when you buy a 360. It means the four people still soldiering on with an old Xbox and an Xbox Live subscription on their old Xbox will get a free copy of Halo 3 when they upgrade to a 360. Just them. And only between November 21 and December 21. How very disappointing. [Xbox.com] More »
Let’s have a look! While killing time waiting for the ridiculous reviews embargo on Mass Effect to be lifted, Games Radar decided to put the game’s character creation utility to the test. Put it through the motions, see how much of a Benetton commercial they could come up with. The results? Except for where they get all silly, many of the characters look pretty good. Sexy ladies, handle-bar moustaches, plastic surgery nightmares, what looks like a chubby John Waters…definitely an improvement on most of the competition’s plastic-eyed action figures. More »
For when official Rock Band figures just aren’t enough! Kotakuite Peter throws together custom resin kits. He’s also an impending Rock Band fan. You know where this is going. He’s decided to combine the two loves and craft this naughty Rock Band kit, complete with official controller, to a scale that’s got us thinking that’s one saucy midget. More »
One ending? Boring. Two? Thanks, but it’s just not gonna cut it. Not with Fallout 3 boasting of not just two endings, but two, two, two and then some. Bethesda’s Pete Hines has told CVG that depending on what you do during the game and how you do it, you can expect between 9-12 different endings to the game. That’s a lot. Hopefully this move has been made with more than just replayability in mind. Because playing an RPG 9-12 times? Not. Fun.
Way I see it, there’s two ways to curb Korea’s rampant obsession with online gaming. One is to ban all players, destroy all computers and shoot those who don’t tow the line. Which would be effective, but also a little drastic. Onto plan B, then: boot camp. The NY Times has an interesting article on the “Jump Up Internet Rescue School”, a military-styled camp where kids addicted to online gaming can be sent to get acquainted with friendship, routine, the outdoors and hard (physical) work. Computers are banned, online contact is banned and phone contact’s restricted to one hour per day. Does it work? Maybe! One participant/inmate, Lee Chang-hoon, says: I’m not thinking about games now, so maybe this will help. From now on, maybe I’ll just spend five hours a day online.
Only five hours? Success!
In Korea, a Boot Camp Cure for Web Obsession [NY Times] More »
