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 Internet Gaming Entertainment (IGE) is a virtual property company that’s found itself in some hot water (or its founder has found himself in hot water, at least) – Debonneville v. Pierce was filed last summer in California alleging all sorts of shady business dealings on the part of the founder, Brock Pierce. This wouldn’t be interesting if documents relating to the suit hadn’t surfaced last week, which give an insider’s look at the world of RMT companies (and a lot of drama to boot). There have been countersuits filed, and everything is scheduled to go to trial in May of this year. In the meantime, you can’t make the contents of the original complaint up:
WiiDS.co.uk is reporting that cartoonist Luc Benard has announced that his surreal game, Eternity’s Child, will be available for WiiWare download sometime in Q2 of 2008. It will set you back 500 Wii points to get a peek in side the beautifully twisted mind of Mr. Benard and his wild cast of characters. More news from Mr. Benard on other projects are expected to come next week.
Vince D. Weller, lead designer of indie RPG Age of Decadence, is pissed. Really, really pissed. Rock, Paper, Shotgun posted several good interviews this week, but it was this impressively vitriolic entry that really caught my attention. Anger over poor reception of a turn based battle system, a discussion of RPG design history, and a few well-placed insults aimed at the Rock, Paper, Shotgun readership just for good measure – well, it makes for a fascinating read:
I’m a big fan of the “honest and blunt” approach. An internet reader has a right to visit a game site and read “Did Oblivion really suck or what?” or “Molyneux has gotta be on drugs!”, don’t you think? Instead every journalist pretends that Oblivion was a 10/10 brilliant masterpiece, that Molyneux isn’t a lying old kook, and that Dungeon Siege wasn’t a screensaver. Then Chris Taylor says that he’s making Space Siege even simpler and everyone nods in agreement: Right on, man! It’s about time someone makes a game for the amputees. BRA-VO!
You can practically hear him frothing at the mouth. He does have some interesting takes on things, though I think he could’ve toned it down a bit and had more success at getting his points across without leaving his audience with mouths gaping.
Against RPG Decadence: Vince D. Weller Interview [Rock, Paper, Shotgun]
Last weekend I told you about the Metal Gear Solid: Essential Collection and its availability for pre-order on PlayAsia. Now it seems the pre-order is coming stateside as Gamestop/EB Games now has a page for the collection as well. Listed at $US 29.99, it is a bit cheaper than the $US 34.90 that PlayAsia was charging and I imagine the shipping will be a similar 4 – 5 bucks depending on where you are. The collection includes the original Metal Gear Solid as well as the directors cut of Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance and Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence and will be available for the PS2.
Metal Gear Solid: Essential Collection [GameStop] [Thanks, A_Zombie]
Henry Jenkins, an MIT professor who was at the International Games and Learning Forum in Shanghai earlier this month, has some very interesting general and gaming-specific observations on his blog – perhaps most interesting of all were his thoughts on the issue of addiction, social obligations of game companies, the piracy issue and a lot more – his somewhat-lengthy roundup is a great little synopsis of what I imagine were some really fascinating discussions. The connection between the one child policy (and the attendant ‘little emperor’ syndrome) and fears about gaming addiction among Chinese youth is not one I’d really thought of before:
Infinity Ward has released the next in its line of patches for Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. Patch 1.5 addresses some issues involving scripting, the server browser and more. You can check out the entire list of fixes below but be sure to pay special attention to the note regarding 1.4 vs 1.5 servers. The link at the bottom will take you to a more detailed information page with links to the download sites. A 1.5 mod tools patch is also available.
Smash Bros. Mania has reached a fever pitch and people have divided into two camps: the ones that want to know everything and the ones who want to be surprised. This video is definitely for the former so those of you in the latter group may just want to scroll down to the past this.
GameVideos has put together an eight minute video that includes every final smash move from the Japanese version of SSBB. They’re all there from Donkey Kong’s bongo beating bash to Kirby’s cauldron of death. So, watch and enjoy or don’t watch secure in the knowledge that it will all be new to you when you unwrap that plastic.
