Saturday, January 5, 2008
11:52PM Brian Crecente | Xbox Live Outage Watch 2008: Day 15 Xbox LIVE still seems up and down. Adding to the problems now are the fact that both Xbox.com and even Xbox Live Director Larry Hryb’s site MajorNelson.Com is down. Could this be the first step in an invasion? Probably not, but it’s almost as annoying. More »
Hot Flashes: Death Village
4:00PM Luke Plunkett | Too cheap to go buy any decent games this weekend? This should cover you. It’s called Death Village, and sees you tasked with guiding kind, dear old real estate agent Kevin from the entrance of a haunted room/house to its exit. Thing is, you can’t control him, just the environment. And the only way to move him is to scare the crap out of him. It’s both more polished and enjoyable than a flash game has any right to be, but then seeing as it’s from Nigoro, who brought you the fantastic Rose & Camellia, that shouldn’t be too considerable a surprise. DEATH VILLAGE [Nigoro, via IndieGames] More »
Take A Stroll Through Portal’s User-Generated Maps
3:00PM Luke Plunkett | For a game that’s captured the internet’s heart, we don’t hear much about Portal as a game. You know, the parts you play, rather than the tired cake jokes and endless hand-crafted companion cubes we’ve been subjected, and subject you, to. Which is why it’s a pleasant diversion from my regular Saturday morning routine of strong coffee and bad music videos to check out PC Zone’s guide to Portal’s best – and worst – user-created maps. Proof, if ever was needed, as to how smart the kids who put the real maps together are. Portal Maps Investigated [CVG] More »
Your Most-Played Xbox Live Games For 2007 Were…
2:30PM Kotaku US Edition | Microsoft’s Larry Hryb has thrown up some charts detailing last year’s most popular Xbox Live titles. Split over Xbox 360, Xbox Live Arcade and Xbox, you can see that while the consoles – which were ranked on the number of unique users – were largely surprise-free, with Halo 2 and Halo 3 sucking up the most man-hours, the most popular Xbox Live Arcade game – ranked according to sales - is a shocker. Your rose-tinted nostalgia has made a lot of people a lot of money, TMNT fans. Read on for the full charts. More »Brian 1: Sleep 0
2:11PM Kotaku US Edition | To: Flynn From: Crecente Re: Bad Taxi Drivers Totally Suck (And Should Quit) How weird that Ash is staying in the hotel in Korea that I lived in for a month or so when my family and I first moved to the country back in the early 80s. At least I’m pretty sure he is. I’m not sure, exactly, why but I’ve had some serious insomnia going on since yesterday. Last night I went to bed around midnight and then woke up about 2:45 a.m. or so and couldn’t get back to sleep. So I decided to come do some work in the loft… until 4 a.m. or so, at which point I went back to bed and struggled to try and catch some sleep until 7 a.m. or so. If that weren’t strange enough, I’ve been up all day without a yawn… or a drop of caffeine. And now at 8 p.m. I not only don’t feel sleepy, I feel energised. I dread the bed tonight. This reminds me a bit of a college when I went through a phase of not sleeping at all, for days. I stayed awake so long that I started hallucinating and was convinced that sleep was totally unnecessary and that being tired was just another form of withdrawal. It all ended with me passing out in my car… fortunately it was parked at the time. What you missed: Rumour: Bully Wii Dated for March Mad Catz To Make Wired, Wireless Rock Band Gear Meet the New GeForce Graphics Card Nintendo: Full DS Games Not Coming to Wii After All Do You Believe That MGS4 Will Be On Xbox 360 How to Spend $US 2,000 on Games in One Afternoon Uwe Boll on Larry King Live? PSP Skype Could Come This Month Microsoft Hit With Class Action Suit Over Xbox Live Outage More »Yum, More Rez HD Screens
2:00PM Luke Plunkett |Advance Wars: Days Of Ruin
1:30PM Luke Plunkett | It’s official: I’m now 100% behind the new art direction. I’m not hating on the old style, I’ve just…grown to accept and love the new designs for what they are. So when you consider I was already 100% behind any and all further Advance Wars DS games, you can see I’m in a mathematically-impossible position of support for this game. More »
Next-Gen Xbox Development Already Underway?
1:30PM Michael McWhertor | That’s what the latest issue of EGM says in its Quarterman rumors section, indicating that an unnamed “first party sequel” is already in development for whatever console Microsoft has planned after the Xbox 360. That could mean a next-gen—yes, that next-gen—Halo, Perfect Dark or Viva Pinata is just a few years off, as is the next step in the Xbox hardware cycle. Seems a bit early, doesn’t it, given that the 360 is only two years and change old? Given that the Xbox and Xbox 360 were born just four years apart, it wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility—these games do take quite a bit of time to cobble together—but we doubt that another short lifecycle on the current generation box would sit well with gamers. Microsoft Already Working on Game For Next Xbox? [1UP] More »
News
Sony, Nintendo & Konami Share Prices Take A Shot In The Ribs
1:00PM Luke Plunkett | Thanks to a wee tumble on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, shares in three of Japan’s biggest gaming companies took a fairly sizeable slide yesterday. Sony (and yes, we have to take the company as a whole here) saw their share prices drop 6.6%, Konami’s fell 2.7% while Nintendo’s also took a hit, seeing a 4.5% decrease. This was mostly due to continuing problems on the US stock market, where all three companies have a lot of their business tied up (particularly Nintendo, who love to dabble in foreign currency). Consider this a public service announcement for those who’ve rushed out and bought up Nintendo stocks in the past twelve months. Sony, Nintendo see shares slump [GI.biz] More »
