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 The Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences have bestowed their 2008 Lifetime Achievement Award on former Sony exec and, yes, we’ll wheel it out again, Father of the PlayStation Ken Kutaragi. The award is, obviously, for his role in the creation of the original PlayStation and subsequent models. AIAS Presidnet Joseph Olin: Ken Kutaragi’s passion, innovative thinking and business savvy sparked a monumental movement that was unstoppable.
If it wasn’t for Ken and his concept of the original PlayStation, there wouldn’t be the billion dollar industry there is today. His contributions have clearly set new standards for developers, publishers and consumers worldwide.
The gong will be handed out in February during the D.I.C.E. summit, and is the second award he’s picked up in the past two months. Bravo, Ken! Write us sometime, we miss you. :(
Don’t be judgmental: Different strokes, different folks. Some people are into playing the DS. Others are into the Game Boy. Then some (see above) are into wrapping Game Boys in Japanese rope bondage shibari [NSFW] . I feel slightly sad for the shameful way this Game Boy Color is being abused.
SM Game Boy [Hobby Blog]
Hitman didn’t go down very well with critics. And we can’t blame them – Timothy Olyphant is great as a cold, brooding sheriff, but as a cold, brooding assassin? He’s lousy. Mostly because without a moustache and hat (and hair) he looks like a big sulky baby. Seems to have gone down… OK with you lot, however, with the movie coming in at #4 in last week’s box office takings, earning $US 21 million from 2458 screens. For those more interested in princesses and/or 3D Danish blood-spillers, the movie was beaten by Enchanted, The Christmas and Beowulf.
[Variety]
To recap, the recommended retail price for a Nintendo Wii in the United States is $US 249. Not pocket change, but then for a games console so early in its lifespan, pretty cheap. Note, however, that’s recommended. Christmas, hype and the frantic spending habits of desperate parents are ensuring that many Wiis are going for a lot more than that. A look on eBay shows prices for the console already reaching $US 350-$US 450, and that’s just for a vanilla console with one controller, Wii Sports and no Zack & Wiki. How ’bout them market forces, huh?
[via gkrykewy @ NeoGAF]
Take-Two? Not for sale. Back in March, current Chairman Strauss Zelnick led a group of investors in ousting the then Take-Two management. Strauss Zelnick has turned the company around! It’s now efficient! Better yet, Strauss Zelnick is a super name! He’s known for fixing up company companies and selling them off. This time is different. Strauss Zelnick explains:
I’m much more interested in growing the business than in selling it, to be clear. I would say for the next five to seven years this is a terrific time to be in the video game business.
That’s swell and all, but do you think Strauss Zelnick is his real name?
Take-Two Plans [Reuters]
Perpetual Entertainment’s new purse-string holders haven’t only shaken up (read: cancelled) development on Gods & Heroes: Rome Rising, they’ve got their dirty fingers in Star Trek Online, reports Shacknews. The results? They’re a bit expectations-lowering. According to Shacknews’ anonymous internal source, Star Trek Online is going in a new, “more casual” direction, a move that doesn’t seem to be sitting well with some of Perpetual’s employees, and one that drops monthly subscriptions for an in-game item buying model.
Little has actually been shown of Star Trek Online, but development resources were shifted from Gods & Heroes to the game and the developer’s MMO platform according to Executive Producer Chris McKibbin. Further details on the dev’s financial situation at the link.
Star Trek Online to Become “More Casual,” Developer Perpetual Acquired by New Ownership [Shacknews]
In an interview with Reuters, Harmonix CEO Alex Rigopulos reaches a point where he grows tired of repeating the same sales pitch over and over again, and busts out with something new. A tease. A tease designed not to make fun of the poor, faceless Reuters reporter, but to set our imaginations ablaze: We’re pretty optimistic about what this game is going to do. But our next big announcement, which is coming up fairly quickly, is a move to a whole other realm.
So…big announcement, coming quickly? Sounds exciting! And it’s another realm. What ever could it be? Rock Band: Rainbowland? Rock Band: Eternia? Our fingers are well and truly crossed. MTV’s “Rock Band” takes on “Guitar Hero” [Reuters]
To: Ash From: Crecente Re: Too Ill to Eat, Not Blog (Ban Hammer Fun)
Wow, so that was a fast first day. Being on the other side of the world from Denver, I did my morning posts around midnightish and set them to go live later in the day then I went to bed and woke up at 6:30 a.m. in time to start doing the afternoon posts. Confused? Me too. I meant to spend the day leisurely posting from a lounge chair near the pool in my in-laws backyard, but I tend to get lost in Kotaku and ended up sitting at the breakfast table most of the day.
I did remember to pop out on the porch to write this one. My mother-in-law feeds the local birds from this porch so often that they tend to hang out all day. Flocks of lorikeets, kookaburra, magpies, butcherbirds, Minor Birds, all fly in and out of the yard all day. If you don’t feed them they can get pretty loud and they expect their morning meal at 5 a.m…. sharp! On the bright side Tristan has been feeding the birds out of his hand and can even pet the wild kookaburra.
Till tomorrow… or is that today?
What you missed: Win $US 500 Sony: PS3 Sales Up Nearly 300 Percent Midway Confirms UTIII Is Coming In December* Xbox 360 Fall Update Coming Dec 4th, Adds Social Networking Puddy Explains Why Videogames Aren’t Funny Fahey And The Holograms Me and My Shadow
And by Xbox Live, I really mean “the internet”, the hateful underbelly outlet of many a lonely existence. The above clip, via GayGamer, recorded over the course of 11 nights of Halo 3 online gaming, was captured and edited by an Xbox Live gamer who went by the handle xxxGayBoyxxx. According to the YouTube details on the greatest hits compilation of tacky behavior, the openly gay gamer writes that the responses were unprovoked, but that “not everything in this video was said with hate.” The audio is, unsurprisingly, not safe for work, but is very illustrative of the maturity levels in public matches of many online games.
With a new Ghostbusters game in the works, plus hints of an EA-published G.I. Joe game based on the upcoming movie and a cruel tease of a new Knight Rider title by guest editor Ian Bogost, it would seem we’re on the verge of exhausting our 80s heroes. Enter Magnum P.I., the mustachioed, Ferrari 308 GTS-driving private dick who solved Hawaiian crimes amid the company of pretty ladies. He’s taking his U.S. Navy SEAL training and detective skills to mobile phones, unfortunately, courtesy of Ojom GmbH.
The game promises lady-wowing and crime-fighting, but reads more like a platformer that sees Thomas Magnum hopping about like a madman in search of coins and life-giving team rings. Looks good enough—for a casual title—but only serves to make my hunger for someone to snap up the rights to Automan and Manimal. I’ll daydream-design it while I read the press release.
