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 What a way to start off 2008. Today, Nintendo announced that eagerly awaited Wii title Super Smash Bros. Brawl will be delayed until March 9th for North America and January 31st for Japan. The game was originally slated for a January 24th Japanese release and a February 10th North American one. Shouldn’t be a surprise! This comes after rumblings we reported that retailers were beginning to move back pre-orders for the game. On the game’s official US website, a note reads:
Due to delays in the completion of Super Smash Bros. Brawl, we’ve had to change the release date of the game to Sunday, March 9th.
I deeply apologise to the people who have looked forward to playing the game for so long and ask that you hold on just a little longer. Thank you for your patience.
Sources close to the company tell Kotaku that the game needs more polish. Too much dojo-ing and not enough developing, we guess. So please, no more blogging until this game is done, m’kay?
At the recent AVN (think CES, but with porn), game site GameDaily quizzed a host of adult video actress about video games. Knowledge varied. Take Jenna Haze, who quipped:
Do I like nerds? I am a nerd. I have shelves full of books at home about vampires and werewolves. And I always have my PSP with me. Right now I’m playing Jeanne D’Arc, which is just awesome. Also, I’ve got a PS3 and I’m dying for the new Final Fantasy to come out. See? I told you I was a total nerd.
Jeanne D’Arc? Hardcore. Other porn stars profess their love for Nathan from Uncharted, desire for a Ratchet and Clank threesome and disdain for Sonic’s sneakers. Out of all the things one could hate Sonic for, sneakers?! Porn Stars Love [GameDaily via Destructoid]
You’re sick of uninspired achievements, Microsoft are sick of them, Team Ninja are (probably) sick of them too. So they’re asking for the creative ones amongst you to come up with your own, and pass them along. No explicit mention is made of whether the winner/winners will actually have their suggestion included in the upcoming Ninja Gaiden II, but we’d be shocked to find that’s not what the competition’s trying to say. As for potential winners, we’re expecting ones focused on blood may go down well. That or boobs. Tired of Lame Achievements? Help Make Them for Ninja Gaiden 2 [Gamerscore]
Hey, the latest box office figures are in! Would you like to know how well Uwe Boll’s shit-tacular Dungeon Siege flick “In the Name of the King” did? I bet you do. It did terribly. Despite costing an estimated $US 60 million to produce, and opening on 1600 screens, between January 11-13 it took in only $US 3.3 million. Or, around $US 2000 per screen. Which is bad enough, but lets break it down some more. Assuming average ticket price was $US 8 and the average # daily screenings over the period was 4, that’s a measly is $US 166 per session. Or 20 people. Ouch. Commence flinging your stinging barbs, but know that, even after this, Herr Boll’s skin is probably too thick to puncture. We’re expecting ones focused on blood may go down well. That or boobs. Dungeon Siege movie in box office basement [GameSpot]
THQ, they’re a hungry crocodile. This is their story: after sitting silently at the bottom of the watering hole for hours, waiting, they finally saw it. Big Huge Games, treading gingerly down to the water’s edge, equal parts thirsty and wary. BHG took one sip of water…nothing. Two sips…nothing. Believing the coast was clear, they took a third. Which is when THQ struck, crashing out of the water, seizing the Rise of Nations and Catan devs in its vice-like jaws and dragging them swiftly beneath the bloody surface. THQ Acquires Rise of Nations, Catan Developer Big Huge Games [Gamasutra]
Nintendo have sent word that this Sunday (Jan 20), they’ll be holding a launch party for Advance Wars: Days of Ruin at the Nintendo World Store in NYC. It kicks off at 1pm and runs til 3pm. Worst case, you line up for a bit, you get a new Advance Wars. Best case, you’re one of the first 25 people in line and you get it for free! You know, for all the big AAA games that hit last year, I wasn’t half as excited about them as I am this. Above is my DS. At top, you can see it’s scarred, for life, by Advance Wars and it’s grids. At bottom, you can see why.
To: Ash From: Crecente Re: What The Hell Happened to Die Hard?
Having finally gotten all of the year’s traveling out of the way, last year’s, and looking forward to a longish stint in my house, I decided to spend the weekend cleaning and upgrading. I cleaned out my wife’s office, the lounge and our guest bedroom and then I decided to take my computer apart and fix a couple of issues I’ve had with it for quite sometime. I managed to get the Razer sound card working again, finally installed the AGEIA PhysX card and then moved a bunch of crap off my hard drives and onto portable drives.
Then I went downstairs and walked my son through the process of removing and replacing the Playstation 3′s hard drive with a 160GB model. That’s right Tristan actually did all of the work, I just helped him a bit with guidance. I can’t believe how easy it is to replace the thing. You just need to make sure you backup your data first and have the right sort of hard drive. I ended up wasting way too much time trying to figure out why I couldn’t get the PS3 to recognise the external drive before realising that it needed to be formated in FAT32, so annoying.
What you missed: Major Nelson’s Live Update is No More Live Updates Rumor: 2K9 College Hoops Canned, EA Seeks NCAA Deal Take-Two: College Hoops Canceled Seriously Everyone, Don’t Buy The 360′s HD DVD Add-on Kojima , THQ, Neversoft, NetDevil, Harmonix Invade Work and Play Along Came An AMD Spider
Xbox Live Status Watch: Day 24 Now that Microsoft has gone silent on Xbox Live issues, citing pending lawsuit ickiness, we’ll be looking at the service more closely to get a better handle on your (and our own) performance issues. It’s 7:40 PM on the west coast and Live has been behaving like a good little internet platform. Downloads from the store seem to be quick like a bunny, with matchmaking and online gaming smooth so far. As always, let us know if you’re still experiencing problems.
Midway aren’t doing so well right now. Their 2007 games lineup was 99% quality-free, and as we tread softly into 2008 we now learn two of their key executives have jumped ship. Thomas Powell, who was not only the company’s Vice President but also Chief Financial Officer and treasurer has resigned, as has Senior marketing VP Steve Allison. The reasons behind the resignations weren’t stated, but they do tie in neatly with something we heard last week: that last Thursday the axe was swung across the company, culminating in job losses at many of Midway’s offices, including around 20 staff from their Austin studio. Midway CFO And Senior Marketing VP Resign [Gamasutra]
Fred Savage and Nintendo Power Glove vehicle The Wizard has at least one uber die hard fan in Ain’t It Cool News’ Monki. The movie is due for a screening at the Alamo Drafthouse in Austin, Texas next month, with director Todd Holland joining stars Fred Savage and Luke Edwards for the showing. The director was recently interviewed by AICN to get a fanboy friendly inside look at the production of the movie, including some details on Nintendo’s involvement.
What may have seemed like a 90-minute commercial written by Nintendo suits may have actually been a different story. Seems that the Big N was at the movie studio’s beck and call, hopping to whenever the director needed Super Mario Bros. 3 footage or a backup Power Glove. Also, I didn’t know Tobey Maguire made an appearance!
You really do learn something new everyday. Unfortunately, today it’s about The Wizard.
Monki talks with Todd Holland, director of The Wizard! [AICN]
