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 Kotaku reader/Gamestop employee Sean let us know today that his employer has begun the pre-ordering process for Konami’s PlayStation 3 system seller Metal Gear Solid 4, starting today. The retailer has targeted June 17 of 2008 as the game’s ship date, near the end of the second quarter release Konami and Kojima Productions promised us on Halloween. While Gamestop has been known to apply impossible release dates to products without a definitive date and Konami itself hasn’t officially announced such a specific timeframe, this one is looking largely legit.
Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots [Gamestop - thanks, Sean!]
It has been quite a year both in gaming and here at Kotaku. We’ve grown by leaps and/or bounds and grown both as a news gathering site and a community. Last week I posted a list of the most commented stories on Kotaku, today I bring you the most read stories on the site. Not surprisingly there are some parallels, even less surprisingly the number two spot was owned by two women playing Wii Sports Topless. Classy.
Just pinged Larry “Major Nelson” Hyrb to see what the status was of his baby, Xbox Live. The Xbox 360′s network has been suffering sporadic issues since the holidays and it seems that a solid solution continues to elude the team.
He told me a bit earlier today that they are all over the Live issues, “we have had all hands on deck.” He also pointed out that he’s now using Twitter to keep readers of his site up-to-date on the current status of repairs.
26 minutes ago: Even though things are working, the teams are still hard at work to ensure things stay that way! 2 hours ago: I think I need to take e to lunch today. 2 hours ago: BTW: Account Recovery is working much better now. Give it a try. 2 hours ago: No, installing ‘fatter pipes’ won’t have helped the issues we were having. 2 hours ago: Getting a lot of messages from people telling me LIVE Is working well for them. Great to hear. 2 hours ago: No, most of the staff is not away for the Holiday. They are right here, working on any issues.
Hopefully we’ll hear that the repairs and fixes have been shored up soon. It will be interesting to hear what actually caused the problems. I suspect the influx of new accounts over the holidays didn’t help.
Skyluss, a member of pro-gaming Team vBi, reported over the weekend that his Xbox Live account has been hacked… again. Apparently the hacker was a little envious of the Recon Armour Bungie had bestowed upon Skyluss and decided to take it for a spin him or herself.
The Halo 3 gamer writes in the vBi forums that he thinks this latest hack wasn’t a product of social hacking (i.e. sweet-talking a password out of a stupid customer support person) but a genuine security flaw in Microsoft’s Live service.
Skyluss says he’s changed the passwords on his account three times in the past month so he’s sure it’s not an issue of someone having his password. Whether it is a security flaw in the system or an issue with customer support the bottom line is that there is a problem, one that I hope Microsoft is on top of.
I emailed XBL Director Larry Hyrb to see if Skyluss high-profile account problems are being investigated, as the gamer was told after receiving a whole lot of run around and not a lot of answers. Hyrb told me that their security team has indeed launched an investigation and that he has been in touch with the gamer personally.
My Gift, My Curse [Team VBI, thanks Christopher]
Like Babe Ruth, I’m raising my controller in the air, calling the shot. (Granted, Babe Ruth called the homerun before it happened, but let’s not sweat the details). I’m going to go on record and say what we’re all thinking, but way too afraid to admit:
The Xbox 360 won 2007. The console might not have sold the most units or captured the attention of the mass media, but as a platform, it’s provided the most complete experience of the year while executing titles with the most successful track record.
The Most Games You Want To Play Let me make a little list for you: Bioshock, Mass Effect, Assassin’s Creed, Crackdown, Guitar Hero II & III, The Orange Box, Halo 3, Forza 2, Skate, Rock Band, COD4. Are all these Xbox 360 exclusive? No. But you can play them all on the Xbox 360 (along with a 2006 catalog that had some decent titles as well). And in the case of quite a few of these games, they are running better on Xbox 360 than other consoles. There’s simply more good stuff to play on the 360 than any other modern console and, for the most part, that content is running better on the 360.
2007 has been a crazy awesome year for gamers. While during years gone by we’ve all fallen prey to too much hype and not enough…what’s that word again…fun, the most unexpected part of 2007 was that it lived up to our unreasonably high expectations.
So hit the jump for our Frankenreview, victory lap 2007 edition. We pulled reviewers’ top rated games* from Game Rankings to relive some of our best moments from the year.
A New York man was arrested Friday after allegedly stalking and threatening to rape two Spokane girls he met while playing a Halo game on Xbox Live,
Joshua R. Stetar was arrested Friday in Spokane, Washington after the man drove 40 hours straight to the city and started texting and driving by the house of the 15-year-old girl and her sister, police said.
Police say Stetar met the girl in 2006 in “Halo” using Live and that he had sent packages and flowers to the parent’s home, but they were always returned. He also allegedly text messaged the girl hundreds of times and finally drove to the town.
Around 9:30 p.m. Friday night the suspect sent a text message to the victim saying he was driving by her house at that moment. In the message he even described his vehicle, a Gray Oldsmobile. The girl’s parents were outside the home and in fact saw the car driving past.
At 9:36 p.m. the victim received another text message from the suspect saying, “Tell the cops that I’m gonna rape you and your sister.”
The suspect had also mentioned that he was staying at a Days Inn in Spokane.
Police ended up picking up the suspect at a nearby Econolodge.
NYC man arrested after traveling to Spokane to stalk girls [KHQ, via Gaming Today]
If 2007 was anything, it was the year of the payoff. The hardware we invested our money into and the games we invested our hopes into finally returned with plenty of interest on the investments (OK, there was Transformers, Lair…look, this is a positive piece, ok?).
But even with plenty of hours worth of ’07 AAA gaming left to play, I can already feel a postpartumesque depression on the way. I remember when Assassin’s Creed was just an E3 demo hidden in the confines of insta-offices, and Mass Effect just a pile of screenshots saved in one of my “special time” folders.
So before I tear up over a mental montage of these games growing from infants to fine young men, I’m killing the sentimentality and returning to the lust/infatuation phase of gaming. What are you most looking forward to playing in 2008? (One answer apiece in the comments please…let’s keep this interesting. Oh, and if you are a Kotaku reader, consider this assignment mandatory.)
Me? Fallout 3. You?
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Angry UK shoppers are on the hunt for a Cardiff, South Wales after he failed to deliver a slew of Wii in time for Christmas, ic Wales reports.
It sounds like the customers were left high and dry after ordering some of the Nintendo consoles and a bunch of Playstation 2 games through a Cardiff-based internet site called Bizits.co.uk. This is the sort of thing that is bound to happen, I suspect, when people order one of the hot holiday items.
How do private sellers stack up for you guys? Has anyone here ordered video games or consoles through eBay or their ilk?
No sign of internet conman [ic Wales]
Soul Calibur Legends for the Wii is a truly awful video game. A taint on an otherwise excellent series that, much like the biological taint, should never have seen the light of day. The fact that I own it is a testament to my having picked up every good game that was released over the holiday season already and being forced to scrape the bottom of the barrel for something new. For those of you unfamiliar, it takes Soul Calibur characters, tacks on a boring story, and turns the whole thing into a room-by-room beat-em up. My nephew, who visited this weekend, didn’t quite get it as I tried to explain.
“So are there any new characters?” “Well there’s a guest character from the Tales series, but other than that not really.” “And can we fight against each other in two player?” “Well, not in the classic 1-on-1 sense.” “It isn’t a fighting game?” “Well no.” “Why would they even release it then?”
