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 Konami’s Shingo Mukaitoge has cornered the Wii’s cute-but-ignored market with Elebits and Dewy’s Adventure. He also fancies that, after the lacklustre reception both games received in his homeland, he’s learned a thing or two about how the Japanese market works, believing it’s all a matter of trust and consistency: Well I’ve found that mysterious myself, as well, but the Japanese market tends to purchase games that already have previous versions, like franchise games, instead of original ones. Maybe that is one of the reasons. It’s not a good thing though…
Don’t lose too much sleep over it Shingo, pretty sure that’s how it works in all four corners of this ball of dirt humanity calls home. Konami’s Wii Wizard: An Interview With Shingo Mukaitoge [Gamasutra]
Worried about that Dragon Ball Z movie? You, and the rest of humanity. Even if Hong Kong superstar Chow Yun-Fat has joined the cast, we’re still skeptical. These onset Dragonball set images from Mexico City don’t really help. That’s Justin Chatwick (Tom Cruise’s kid from War of the Worlds) as Goku. He’s about to be hit by a car or something. Dunno, really. Does it ever matter at this point?
There’s a closer shot after the jump.
Got a 7.1 surround sound system at your place? No, didn’t think so. Let’s just imagine more than 0.3% of you do, though, and draw attention to the fact that Sierra’s upcoming title Prototype will be the first game to ever support the format at launch. What does this mean? As we already established, to 99.7% of you, squat. But for anyone who’s decided 8 speakers > 6 speakers, and then decided to go out and get yourself adequately set up, you’ll no doubt be chuffed! Prototype first to use new 7.1 surround sound [CVG]
CES isn’t the only show in Vega$. The 59th Annual Technology and Engineering Emmy Awards wrapped up earlier tonight at the Venetian Hotel. The tech Emmys are awarded to individuals, companies or organisations for developments which are improvements or “so innovative in nature that materially have affected the transmission, recording, or reception of television.” Last year, Sony snagged an Emmy for the Xross Media Bar and the DualShock, while Nintendo bagged one for the Dpad. John Carmack picked one up as well for the development of 3D software engines. This year? Hit the jump for those exciting results. (Hint: 2008 winners above.)
For all its faults, I’ve got a soft-spot in my heart for Assassin’s Creed. Mainly because, for everything it did spectacularly wrong, it did others spectacularly right. This is a perfect example. What this guard is doing is wrong. But his cheeky look around to make sure nobody’s watching is so, so right. [thanks MrPants!]
The iPhone is a smash hit. People who were never into high-end electronics are picking them up. Great news for Apple, crap news for the rest of the industry. Says EA mobile division VP Travis Boatman:
…it’s a replacement for someone who had a Razr before. They still want their content but there’s no distribution platform in place so there’s a negative impact on the industry… These devices are capable and powerful. They’ll be great in the long term but it will take some time as people adapt to devices.
Not only that, it will take developers time to adapt as well. Since Apple hasn’t let users download anything they want, the mobile game industry fears iPhone owners might be giving up on mobile gaming. We’re pretty sure though the iPhone has nothing to do with that. iPhone Hurt Mobile Gaming [PC World via Pocket Gamer][Pic]
Having grown used to tapping merrily away on my DS, I hate text-entry on a PSP. No doubt you hate text-entry on a PSP as well. Now, three years after the PSP first launched, Sony are coming around to the fact, and have pledged to do something about it. They’ve told GameSpot that they’re hard at work on an official keyboard for the the PSP, which should be out sometime towards the middle of 2009. No comment on what it would look like (that one above’s an abortive attempt by Logitech), but with the release so far off they’ve got plenty of time to sort that out. CES ’08: PSP GPS, Camera US-bound in ’08; keyboard revealed [GameSpot]
Treasure’s legendary shooter IKARUGA has recently appeared on Xbox Live’s Partner Net (the “insider’s” version of XBL). Previously, the 49MB game appeared on Partner Net, but it wouldn’t load. This time around, it’s downloadable and playable. The game will support both 16:9 and 16:10 widescreen. It’s appearance on Partner Net doesn’t mean it’s going to be out anytime soon. Fingers gently crossed that it be, however. Ikaruga Coming Soon? [Shmups Forum via Arcade Renaissance]
