New Doom 3 For Xbox 360 And PlayStation 3 Supports Head-Mounted Displays 
Far Cry 3 And The Stranger In A Strange Land 
Why Robin Makes Batman Better 
Resistance: Burning Skies: The Kotaku Review 
Harley Quinn's Revenge Is Batman: Arkham City's Bad New Ending 
High Scores And Egos: There's Always A Bigger Doodle While Microsoft struck down its Xbox 360 HD DVD Player last week, Xbox Japan was still milling things over last we heard. But today, no more! As of today, Xbox Japan has decided to wash its hands of the HD DVD Player. Surprised? No one is! This just, you know, makes it all official and shit. Xbox 360 HD DVD プレーヤーの生産を終了いたします [Xbox Japan][Pic]
Metal Gear Solid 4, Killzone 2, whatever. They’re sideshows. Distractions. No, for Sony, the year’s biggest game on the PS3 might just be LittleBigPlanet, with an SCEE rep saying it’s “potentially our biggest Blu-ray release of 2008″. That announcement was partly to let us know Sony are just psyched about the game, but also to say they’re a lot more psyched about it than they were about Warhawk. “This isn’t a Warhawk or a Tekken: Dark Resurrection. This is a triple-A Blu-ray title”. There there, Warhawk. I’m sure he didn’t mean to be so…mean. LittleBigPlanet: Sony’s “Biggest” 08 Game [Eurogamer]
The idea of a Wii Bionic Commando port sounds nice and all. You could use the Wii-mote to swing around. Great! No wonder there’s an internet petition trying to make it happen. The cold, brutal reality is something else altogether — if not impossible. About that pie-in-the-sky petition, the game’s producer and money-hater Ben Judd says: I understand where they’re coming from. If we did a Wii version it would not be with one-to-one swinging… you couldn’t do [that]for more than 10 minutes.
Well, you could, but your arm would fall off. Sounds like the Wii port would be something like press a button, wait, do a waggle, press a button, wait, do a waggle. And the point of a Wii port is? BC Wii Chances [NSider 2]
Just when you thought Nintendo scarves had been played out, along comes this. Knitted by the delightful Etsy merchant and Nintendo fangirl Tanya (Beatboxtaun), it’s got Mike Tyson on one side looking like he’s had his fill of babies for the day, while on the other, Little Mac is looking a little worse for wear. Beautiful! Such beauty comes at a price, however: at 72-inches long and one-of-a-kind, you’ll be throwing down $US 175 for the privilege of wearing it around your scrawny neck, so impulse-shoppers might want to avoid hitting the link below if they haven’t paid their month’s rent yet. Mike Tysons Punch-Out Scarf – DIY [BeatboxTaun @ Etsy]
Minna no Joushiki Ryoku TV (Everyone’s Common Sense Power TV) has family members testing their common sense knowledge: Like, how to pick up chopsticks, using certain words or identifying things. In the commercial above, the game has family members saying each other’s birthdays. So the father has to guess his wife’s, which he has totally forgotten. Odd, because I thought it was common sense not to play games that involve divulging things like your wife’s birthday, your first date and when your anniversary is.
Devil May Cry’s always been a rather sexy series. Effeminate heroes, long red coats, exposed man-chests, you know how it goes. But a slutty series? No. Not until today, anyway. High-brow British men’s lifestyle magazine Front has subbed Dante and Nero from the game’s screens and replaced them with the demure, classily-named Vikki Blows. What will those marketing types think of next? Devil May Cry 4 [TVG]
Nintendo have gotten around to giving us all some new details on Pokemon Ranch (formerly Pokemon Farm), one of the first WiiWare games ever announced. Turns out anyone who wants to import their Pokemon from Diamond and Pearl onto their Wii can store up to 1000 of them in the “ranch”, and once there, “interact” with them via activities. Like…sitting around a campfire with them. Seriously. I don’t know about you, but prior to this update, I was a little concerned by this game. Now? That screenshot has me terrified. Pokemon Ranch [via Go Nintendo]
Tecmo’s Tomonobu Itagaki is so not fucking around. He’s a man of extremes, chugging black coffee and eating burnt steaks. He scoffs at quote-un-quote video game violence. That’s nothing. From the BBC piece: “Violence is not about cutting an enemy into pieces or seeing a lot of blood,” he [Itagaki]says. “That’s not what real violence is.” To emphasise his point, Itagaki reaches for a sheathed samurai sword mounted in his office, and holds it out in front of me.
“In the Japanese warrior tradition you would shame an opponent. A real sword expert would aim his slice at the first four fingers of his opponent’s sword hand. This would cost a warrior his livelihood and someone suffering this wound would normally commit suicide rather than live without their sword hand.
“That’s what I consider to be real violence,” he says… Fascinating! Just don’t ask Itagaki what he considers real breasts to be. Ninja Gaiden Piece [Telegraph via CVG]
Oz Gets Cheap Xbox 360 HD DVD Drives: Microsoft’s local presence has confirmed that the price reduction on the Xbox 360′s now-retired HD DVD drive includes Australia. The new cost is $49.95, which means we’ve been spared any US dollar shenanigans.
When PC owners want their games digitally delivered, they head to Valve’s Steam service. But Valve don’t just want your money for games. No, they want your money for music and movies as well, and will be stepping up their efforts during the year to start offering other forms of entertainment on the platform. Valve’s Doug Lombardi: …we’re also looking at other types of content like video and music. We’re definitely having those conversations and meetings, and we’re reaching out to folks with other types of digital entertainment. I think before the end of the year, you’ll probably see some pilot programs with other digital entertainment on Steam.
If, by the year 2029, you’re buying whitegoods, Manchester and car insurance via Steam, you can look back to today as the day it all began. Will Steam Add Movies, Music? [Tom's Games, via Shacknews]
