Friday, March 21, 2008
Mario Kart Classes Are Vehicle-Locked
11:00PM Luke Plunkett | Interesting little bit of Mario Kart Wii info to be found in Eurogamer’s glowing endorsement of the game: the game’s traditional classes – ie difficulty levels – have been locked for certain vehicles. Upon first picking the game up, 50cc will only let you use karts, while 100cc will only let you use bikes. 150cc lets you use both, but if you want to pick from all the games vehicles in the lower classes you’ll need to go and unlock the feature. Not necessarily a terrible move, just…a curious one. Mario Kart Wii [Eurogamer] More »
Acer’s “Games Machine” Explained
10:00PM Luke Plunkett | Here’s the deal with regards to Acer’s supposed “games machine”: they weren’t talking about a “games machine” at all. Company VP James T Wong was just misinterpreted! A compay red has since said: More »
News
Nintendo’s Stock Downgraded, Blame America
9:00PM Luke Plunkett | Nintendo might have been hot shit when it came to the sharemarket in 2006 and 2007, but these days, things are cooling down a little. Analysts KBC Securities Japan have downgraded Nintendo’s stock from “buy” to “hold”, while also predicting a 30% decrease in expected annual shareholder profits. This is all down to – whaddya know – “a tougher trading environment”, meaning that Nintendo’s reliance on American sales is hurting them thanks to the weakening American peso dollar. Nintendo’s Rating Cut at KBC on Slower-Growth Concern [Bloomberg] More »
Canada Fully Prepared For Seven-Hour War
8:30PM Luke Plunkett | Canada: ALWAYS VIGILANT. While the rest of the world marches blindly towards oblivion, those dwelling in the frosty north are digging in. Preparing. Readying themselves for the inevitable arrival of the Combine, and all the horrors our eventual alien overlords will bring. We’ve seen Toronto’s employment of Aperture Science tech already today, now see the town of Powell River in British Columbia. They’ve already begun work on creating lambda-badged safe zones (these are apparently all over town), should post-invasion Gordon Freeman ever be in the area and need to stop off for some ammo and health packs. How thoughtful! [thanks Stefan!] More »
PAL PlayStation Store Update
8:00PM Luke Plunkett | PAL PlayStation Store’s been updated, as per usual. The good news? There’s an honest-to-goodness PSN game up for download. Which is Pain. The bad news? Aside from that, the update’s its usual barren, no-Rock-Band-DLC self, with a bunch of Pain content padding out the list and helping obscure a woefully-expensive Stranglehold map pack, which clocks in at a whopping £10. As for the PSP store, there’s a Flatout demo and not much else if you’re at all interested. Full list of updates follows. More »20 More GTAIV Screens
7:00PM Luke Plunkett |
GT5 Prologue To Be Updated After Launch
6:00PM Luke Plunkett | When Gran Turismo 5 Prologue launches, it won’t let you create private races for just you and your buddies. Nor will it let you indulge in a spot of in-game voice chat. But don’t despair, because that stuff’s coming later, with these two features (and, most likely, more) to be added to the game in future updates. Certainly sets a new benchmark for those who think games these days are shipping unfinished, but then adding features late is better than never adding them at all. I guess. Ferrari F2007: GT5 Prologue’s “God Mode” [PlayStation.Blog] More »
Spring Cleaning Contest
5:00PM Brian Ashcraft | Spring cleaning! That’s right, I’m cleaning out my office. That means one thing: Finding stuff to give away to one of you. Above, there’s a couple Gearbox t-shirts, a PixelJunk one, a Bionic Commando one that producer Ben Judd actually refused to autograph. What else? There’s pack of The King of Fighters: Maximum Impact II playing cards and a SNK 300 piece jigsaw puzzle. All of these can be yours! I plan on starting a contest next week. Not sure what kind I’m going to do yet. But yeah, this is the prize. Oh, and one of those shirts, I’m pretty sure I’ve worn. Not sure which one. So whoever wins this loot, think of it as Russian roulette! More »
PAL WiiWare Launching In May As Well?
4:00PM Luke Plunkett | Maybe. Nintendo Europe & Australia are still keeping mum on the subject of an official launch date for WiiWare across the PAL regions, but take a look at this Wii Shop Channel update notification I just received on my Australian Wii. Says the WiiWare service is planned for May 2008. We know it’s not the same message as was sent to US owners, since it only said “Spring”, so PAL Land, do you dare to hope? More »
