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 An attempt to answer the eternal question: Does Princess Peach actually wear pink underoos?
Sony have announced that Go! Sports Skydiving, the latest in their line of cheap, first-party PSN titles, will be available in the US PlayStation Store tomorrow. Players use the Sixaxis’ motion controls to move your little guy about throughout their journey from sky to ground, performing tricks. Like a Tony Hawk game, then. But with no board. Or ground. It’ll also boast online play and leaderboards, including global rankings. Go! Skydiving From the Comfort of Your Sofa [PlayStation.Blog]
Capcom is on a roll, a money making roll. The Osaka-based publisher posted its third quarter financial results, which show a 4.8 percent rise over the previous year. The cause? Capcom says its games are doing quite well, especially Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles — which we mentioned earlier. The publisher took over US $US 484 million in the three month period that ended last December. Sales are up 4.8 percent! In summary: People are buying Capcom’s stuff, and Capcom is rich.
Scoring games using numbers? Sucks. It’s a total mess. So it’s probably with great pleasure that the 1UP team (including EGM and Games For Windows) have today announced that they’re done with numbers. For good. In their place will be a school-like grading system, with titles ranked between A+ and F. The changes will take place during March on 1UP, in the April issue of EGM and the April/May issue of GFW. Best part? 1UP will be trawling through their reviews archives and updating the scores for every game they’ve ever reviewed, replacing the numerical value with a letter. 1UP’s newly-promoted Editor-in-Chief, James Mielke, says: …it’ll more accurately convey how we feel about a game. I mean, we knew a 5 out of 10 meant ‘average’ to us, but no one else seemed to get the clue. So we’re changing things around so that anyone who’s gone to school will instantly know how we feel when they see our letter grade on a game review.
Smart move! Well done lads. Editor-in-Chief? E tu, Milky? [1UP]
Some of you have moved on, put down the big money and purchased a PS3. Hooray! But just because you are ready to move on doesn’t mean that Eat Sleep Play’s David Jaffe is. In fact, Jaffe still holds a special place for the PS2. He says:
If Sony came back and said we really want you to be our PS2 team, we’d probably say no because it’s probably not good for the health of our company. But it’s still pretty… I love the PlayStation 2. I’d love to keep working on it if the business factors were there. But they’re just not.
Bummer. Jaffe Talks Dev Plans [Multiplayer][Pic]
Beleaguered publisher Take-Two haven’t had the best few years. Indeed, things have got so bad for the company in these post-Hot Coffee days that the past year or so have seen a metric fuckton of rumours pop up suggesting the company will be swallowed up and bought out. As of today, none have come to pass, and they’re still flying solo. But the latest – that Viacom are interested in the company – holds a lot of water. For one, Viacom are looking at getting into the gaming business. Secondly, Take-Two’s big-selling properties are original IP, not licensed movie or sports stuff, so there’d be no problems with rival companies for rights. And finally, because Take-Two shareholders are becoming increasingly impatient as they wait for the company to reverse its fortunes. Viacom looking at Take Two Interactive? [Notable Calls, via GI.biz]
You’ve seen the ads. Here’s the review. YouTuber Ashens takes one for the team and imports a KenSingTon Sport Vii to point and laugh at. The shocker? It’s not as bad as you’d think. (It’s still pretty bad, though.)
Thanks, Kevin!
Nintendo Australia has announced release dates for Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn and Harvest Moon Magical Melody. According to the info, Harvest Moon is due on April 3, while Fire Emblem fans can expect the goods on April 10.
Yes, we’ve had to wait a while for Fire Emblem. But it’s here. Almost. It’s hard to imagine Japanese gamers have been playing it since February of last year. Let’s hope Nintendo is working hard on sorting out that whole “localisation” thing.
You can find links to the product pages below.
The latest Nintendo Power has, as its cover feature, the news that the latest Tales of Symphonia has been scheduled for a US release. It’s currently being localised, and will drop the “Knights of Ratatosk” subtitle in favour of “Dawn of the New World”. And…that’s about it. Nothing else new to report since we’ve already seen the thing, but hey, it’s nice to know American Wii owners will soon have the option of a meaty JRPG. No word on a US release date, but the Japanese version’s out in the spring, so it shouldn’t be too much later than that. Nintendo Power’s big reveal: Tales of Symphonia coming to the U.S. [Wii Fanboy]
