Harley Quinn's Revenge Is Batman: Arkham City's Bad New Ending 
High Scores And Egos: There's Always A Bigger Doodle 
The Last Moments Of GAME 
How Bad User Interfaces Are Ruining Video Games And Other Wonderful Things 
She Tried To Make Good Video Games For Girls, Whatever That Meant 
The Story Of Doodle Jump: Brotherly Love And Digital Snacks We feel dizzy. Seems every month or two we get a rumour on a PlayStation Phone, we get near-confirmation, then we get denial. All build-up, no happy ending. Last time was…earlier this week, with Sony exec Jim Ryan saying the idea was “definitely plausible”. Today, we get Sony saying he was “misquoted”: Jim Ryan was misquoted in his interview and we do not have any plans at the moment for a PlayStation phone.
Not a denial, then, just no plans “at the moment”. Does this merry-go-round have season tickets? We feel a bit cheated having to pay every single time we jump on.
Sony Shoots Down PlayStation Phone Rumors [Next-Gen]
Ubisoft, not to be outdone by Nintendo’s moustachioed mascot, had a dude dressed up in a Haze suit trolling the eGames expo hall for gamer arse.
Okay, I made that “arse” bit up.
I’m trying to decide if the pose is meant to be menacing or dashing. I know the “hands-on-hips” stance is a classic with the ladies, but I didn’t want to say anything unless he got the wrong idea. It’s also why I didn’t put my arm around him for a group shot.
Speaking of Haze, the game was playable at both the Ubisoft and Sony stands during the event. Seeing as Ubisoft yesterday pushed the game from December this year to early 2008, I’d say those who had a chance to play should be treasuring that moment right about now. Envy of your friends and all that mush.
Advance Wars: Days Of Ruin? Maybe not. Just got a presser from Nintendo, and on its release schedule it’s got the title of the upcoming Advance Wars DS title listed instead as Advance Wars: Dark Conflict. Not that there was anything wrong with Days of Ruin, but Dark Conflict is a little snappier.
Regardless of Activision’s claims that the recent Steam price hike of Call of Duty 4 was a mistake by Steam and a manoeuvre to stem undercutting of Australian retailers, you guys were angry.
As it stands, Oz Steam users will have to fork over $US 88.50 ($101) to get their hands on Infinity Ward’s shooter. Many of you pointed out that this cost does not factor in the 6GB download, or the lack of a retail box and disc. Considering that several Oz retailers have the boxed game available for less than or near to this price, the Steam offer seems not only rude, but pointless.
By far the most popular reader theory was that Activision is trying to take advantage of the weak US dollar. Sensible from a business perspective, yes, but true? I really can’t say.
What I can do however, is grab the top comments from the original post. You can check them out after the jump.
Because when it comes to ambition, there’s no point in going in all half-arsed. Speaking with Rock, Paper, Shotgun, Valve’s Gabe Newell has said he doesn’t want just a few games on Steam. He doesn’t even want a lot of games. Nope. Guy wants all of them. Every PC game, ever made, on Steam: Oh yeah, I expect we’ll go back in time and eventually pretty much every game that’s ever been available will be on there 24/7.
Every game? Ever? Even Privateer? Even Colonisation? Why not. Think I just made it abundantly clear there’s an excitable market for that old junk.
RPS Exclusive: Gabe Newell Interview [Rock, Paper, Shotgun]
Actually, I don’t think anything could make multithreading less difficulty for a developer, short of ancient Aztec magic. You know, because the Aztecs were just awesome with the whole concept of hardware threads and “Tony” units.
Unable to tap into whatever the Aztecs knew, Microsoft has come up with its own solution. Well, for the Xbox 360 anyway. Included in the August 2007 SDK for the console was a new library, called XMCore.
Microsoft’s Pete Isensee detailed the features of the new library at Game Connect last weekend. To put it simply, XMCore will make “lock-free programming” easier for game developers.
So what the hell is lock-free programming?
Epic aren’t bringing the Unreal Engine 3 to the Wii. Never were, never will. Doesn’t mean it’s not going to happen, though! In an interview with Kikizo, Epic talisman Mark Rein has said that while they themselves would never dream of such a thing, he knows there’s someone out there, somewhere, taking a crack at it: I know one of our licensee who’s giving it a shot. It’s their own port, in the same way Ubisoft brought Unreal Engine 2 to the Wii.
Hrm. Best of luck to them. But honestly, the Wii? I love the thing, but you can’t actually get blood out of a stone. That’s just a saying!
Wii Unreal Engine 3 in Development [Kikizo]
But isn’t Gas Powered Games busy with its intergalactic RPG Space Siege? Well, according to the latest GPG newsletter, it is, but the developer is also gearing up for two new, shiny things: another expansion for Supreme Commander, and something as-yet-unannounced for the PC.
Here’s the snippet from the newsletter:
You’re probably thinking, these guys know how to keep busy, and that’s a bit of an understatement because we have so many new things in development. I already hinted at another expansion pack for SupCom, and I’m even going to hint at another big secret: We have a new PC game that will be announced very shortly, and it’s unlike anything we’ve done before. Stay tuned for more information!
As long as it’s not Dungeon Siege III, count me in. Chris Taylor may know the RTS genre like the back of a Krogoth, but when it comes to role-playing… well, here’s hoping Space Siege is amazing.
Gas Powered Games Announcing New Title [Voodoo Extreme]
It might be Thanksgiving over in the States, but we’re still running with a full head of steam in Australia. Here’s the best of last night’s US content, minus the chunks of turkey.
Mmm… turkey.
Zelda, Nintendogs DS Bundles Not For UK, Australia Another reason to fire a frown at Nintendo. Hey guys, we love bundles as well!
Australian Sales Charts Find out which games were the most popular this month. Hint: Call of Duty 4 is one of them.
GHIII Still Driving Music Sales Well, I guess it’s something the RIAA can be happy about. You know, when it’s not prosecuting grandmas for download tunes with BitTorrent.
Earlier this week we posted our first ever, sorta, Gaming Gift Guide. While the G3 was packed full of all sorts of goodies, mostly game related, but not totally, it was completely missing any actual games. That’s because we had a different idea for listing out which video games would make good gifts and why.
This year, the problem isn’t finding a game to give, it’s figuring out which of the more than 50 or so top-tier titles you should pick to hand out or ask for. So instead of compiling a list of the 50 games and saying, go make up your own mind, we decided to mix things up a bit. Each of the Kotaku writers were given $US 300 in fictitious Kotaku Kash to spend on themselves. We figured that way the writers would be completely honest about which games they would buy or ask for if they were limited to a still rather high budget.
Hit the jump to see the lists and explanations, then feel free to join in with how you’d spend a $US 300 gaming gift card.
