Monday, February 4, 2008
Waste Money On Wow? Waste It On This WoW Drink
11:30PM Luke Plunkett | You already spend too much money and time playing World of Warcraft. So you may as well go all-out and endanger your health while you’re at it. The Mana Energy Potion, an unlicensed “supplement” drink, looks like it’s designed to do two things. One is cash in on WoW and make some money. The other? Kill you. Despite coming in at only 40ml, just one Mana drink is the equivalent of two Red Bulls or four cups of coffee. Those worried about their daily Vitamin B12 intake will also be chuffed to know it contains 6667% of your recommended daily intake. [Mana Energy Potion] More »
Haruhi Suzumiya Gets Model Car
11:00PM Brian Ashcraft | Vroom vroom! Just on the heels of the Haruhi Suzumiya PS2 game, comes this: The Haruhi model Mazada RX-7. The car is an itasha (sticker-covered car) covered with Haruhi decals. Just on sale, the 1/24 scale model has already sold out at numerous Akihabara retailers. No surprises there! Selling Out [Akiba Blog] More »
New Introversion Game Will Spawn Cities Like A God
10:30PM Luke Plunkett | Subversion is the name of a work-in-progress from developers Introversion, who of course you know from Darwinia and Defcon. So it should, at the very least, be different. Certainly looks that way from the development reports coming out from the project, with lead programmer Chris Delay gushing over the game’s scalable city generator, which is not only able to custom-build its own cities – with around 70,000 buildings in them – but each individual building’s design as well. Understandably, Delay is excited: Subversion is undoubtedly the most ambitious game we’ve ever attempted to create – massive in scope and totally uncompromising in it’s requirements. But every day I work on it I’m even more convinced – this is the big one, Introversion Software’s Magnum Opus, and it’s going to be the best game we will ever make. Big words! Then again, I’m absolutely fascinated with the idea of just this city-builder, so if there’s a whole game to go on top of it, maybe they really are onto something big. It’s all in your head, Part 8 [Introversion, via Rock, Paper, Shotgun] More »
Tommy Lee Jones Plays with Maid
10:00PM Brian Ashcraft | In a series of Boss coffee ads, Tommy Lee Jones plays “Alien Jones” as he tromps around Japan, learning about life on Earth. In the latest spot, he’s landed in otaku ground zero, Akihabara, and learns the meaning of moe from a spoon-feeding maid. Paku Mune Ga Kyuun [Canned Dogs] More »
Gears 2 Info Coming This Week
9:30PM Luke Plunkett | Gears of War 2 will, in all likelihood, be shown off in some form at this month’s GDC, which runs February 18-22. Impatient types can skip the wait, however, and just pick up this month’s Gamepro magazine, which has the game featured not once, but twice on the cover. Now comes a cautionary note: don’t get too excited. As you can see from the cover frontage, this isn’t some 15-page blowout. Expect something more…brief. The mag hits newsstands on February 12, but should be arriving in subscriber’s mailboxes this week. GamePro to unleash a fury of Rainbow Six Vegas 2 news [GamePro] More »
Japan Gets Xbox 360 Arcade (Does It Care?)
9:00PM Brian Ashcraft | Japan is getting a “family friendly” Xbox 360 arcade model of its own. On March 6th, the stripped down console will drop in Japan for ¥27,800 ($US 261). The specs are the same (HDMI, wireless controller, 256MB storage card and the same pack of games). The only difference is that its US counterpart costs $US 279.99. Hey America, that’s what you get for buying 360s! More »
Max Payne Movie Starts Filming In March
8:30PM Luke Plunkett | Writer’s strike be damned! Beau Thorne & John Moore’s adaptation of Remedy’s Max Payne – which will star Mark Wahlberg – is good to go, with ProductionCharts.com stating the shoot will kick off on March 2 and is scheduled to wrap around May 9. Director Moore is best known for Behind Enemy Lines, while Thorne is best known for, well, jack squat. Say what you will about game adaptations and their *ahem* proven track-record, I’m reserving judgement on this one until I see it, because if they can ham it up and keep that stormy, noir feel of the thing intact, it’ll come out looking OK. Max Payne Filming Soon [IGN] More »
Xbox 360 Elite Turned into Halo 3 Laptop
8:00PM Brian Ashcraft | Modder Ben Heck (aka Bengamin J. Heckendorn) dazzles. He’s got the uncanny ability to take things, and turn them into other things. Pretty things, at that! Last spring, he crafted an Xbox 360 into a laptop. Now, he’s done the same with an Xbox 360 Elite. Nice trick, but we’ve seen it before. How about turning an Xbox 360 Elite into something else — like a stack of waffles? Official Site [Ben Heck via Engadget] More »
Animal Crossing Movie Fansubbed, Free
7:30PM Luke Plunkett | The Animal Crossing movie has so far only been released in Japan. And looks – as far as movies go – awful. As if Animal Crossing fans give two hoots! They’re only in it for the fangasm, and a fangasm is what they’re sure to get after watching this. Since the movie is Japan-only, and there’s no plans to release the movie outside of Japan, a team of fansubbers have translated the entire thing and put it up on YouTube. Worth a watch to get reacquainted with the breezy theme song, but if you plan on watching it after that – where it becomes you watching somebody else play Animal Crossing – there’s something very, very wrong with you. Animal Crossing Movie [Part 1, via Go Nintendo] More »
