Saturday, May 3, 2008
Another PAL Hanabi Festival: Gradius II & Cho Aniki To Hit VC
3:30PM Luke Plunkett | Last year Nintendo ran a little party for PAL customers called the “Hanabi Festival”. For a month, they put a bunch of Japanese games up on the Virtual Console, games that had never been available outside of Japan. It went down well! So well they’re running another one. This week, European and Australian Wii owners have been able to pick up Final Soldier, Columns III and Gradius II. In coming weeks? A lineup that includes Star Parodier, Puyo Puyo 2 and, amazingly (awesomely?), the original Cho Aniki. More »
How Many Hours Do You Game Each Day?
3:00PM Brian Ashcraft | Yep, yep. Talking time. It’s Friday night and that means the TUD Girafe is ready to listen. So let’s talk. We’ve got a feature here on Kotaku called “Tell Us Dammit” or “TUD.” How it works: We ask a question, you answer it. Simple and no strings attached! This isn’t some marketing survey or whatever. It’s an emotional investment in you. Yes, we’re interesting in knowing you, Kotaku reader person. You probably know fucktons about us — more than you even want to, we’re sure. But, hey, we’d like to know about you. That way you won’t be some faceless blob — and we might feel a tinge of guilt when we ban your arse. Or not, because really we’re incapable of human emotion. Today’s question: How many hours do you game a day? Shit man, with my schedule these days, I’m super lucky if I can get in between an half an hour or an hour a day. Been playing shmups like Mushihime-sama loads at my neighbourhood arcade. Really helps me relax. More »
Next Week, Europe Gets A Proper PS Store Update
2:30PM Luke Plunkett | Europeans are sick of crummy PlayStation Store updates, I’m sick of writing about them. So it’s lucky for the lot of us that next week, we get a temporary reprieve. To celebrate the PlayStation Day event being held in London on May 6, Sony have promised that next week the European store will be updated not once, but twice. The first round of content, including a Haze demo, will hit on May 6, with a second round (which includes a Race Driver: GRID demo) due on May 8. More »A Week In Comments
2:00PM Brian Ashcraft | Does Brain Age Actually Work? No, Apparently. Comment by Kuraudo Nominated by geekgrrl This is why there’s no class division in high school between the intelligent and the sporty. The Cake Goes to Portal’s Commentary Comment by BolognaFire Nominated by sethmad Imagine: BABIES – Commentary “A big issue we had with starting off development was deciding who our target audience would be.”
Happy 10th Birthday, Dual Shock
1:40PM Luke Plunkett | Ten years ago this week, the Dual Shock controller was first released. Sure, it wasn’t the first controller to feature rumble, nor was it the first to feature analogue sticks, but what it lacked in innovation it’s more than made up for in perseverance. After all, how many control pad designs make it to their second hardware generation, let alone – albeit belatedly – a third? DualShock’s 10th Anniversary [IGN] More »
News
Boom Blox To Go Multi-Plat? “Definite Possibility”
1:00PM Brian Ashcraft | Just because Steven Spielberg’s Boom Blox is a Wii game, doesn’t mean it’ll only be a Wii game. Sure, it’s got those Wii-specific controls, but Electronic Arts mentions that it is thinking about bringing it to other consoles. Says Amir Rahimi, the game’s senior producer: There’s definitely the potential to go to other consoles. Our mindset, our philosophy was that we didn’t want to taint our thinking by taking any other console into account. The way we saw it we wanted to make this the most authentic Wii experience that it could possibly be. So we didn’t think about the PC, DS, PS3 or Xbox 360. We’re still very much in the mindset of finishing this game. But once it’s over the sky’s the limit. There’s definitely the possibility of going to other consoles. Not that there’s anything wrong with that! Boom Blox Interview [Videogamer] More »
The Hundreds Do Rampage
12:40PM Michael McWhertor | California-centric label The Hundreds—which has established a rabid fanbase in its few years on the streetwear scene—riffs some Rampage with its Summer line-up. Fans of George, Lizzie and Ralph can now hang with the Fairfax and Rosewood crowd without fear of persecution. Further proof that $US 30 is not too much for a quality T-shirt! Digital Gravel has it now in three colourways, if you’re interested, but expect other boutique retailers to get their shipments soon. Rampage [Digital Gravel] More »
News
Rock Band Sells 3 Million Games, 10 Million Songs
12:20PM Luke Plunkett | Rock Band’s new in-game store was introduced for two reasons. One was to make things easier for you as a shopper. The other, more important (for MTV/Harmonix) reason was to make sure you just buy more damn songs. Which seems to have worked a treat, because Viacom have announced that ten million Rock Band songs have now been downloaded, up four million from March 20. Which was only a month-and-a-half ago! They also report that they’ve sold three million copies of the game itself, which when you consider the vast majority of those would have been bundle sales, is a number that must have the accounts types at Viacom, MTV and Harmonix tickled seven shades of pink. Rock Band Ships 3 Million; 10 Million Songs Downloaded [GameDaily] More »
News
IGN Editor Fires Back On Exclusive GTA IV Review Flak, Ethics Concerns
11:30AM Michael McWhertor | Variety’s Ben Fritz opined in his column The Cut Scene last week that the concept of an “exclusive” review, specifically the case of IGN’s Grand Theft Auto IV review, was something he found troublesome. His entry on the matter read that Fritz seemed less concerned with the 10 out of 10 score, but that IGN securing an exclusive review—as it often does with game announcements, media and interviews—was the thing ethically troubling. (We suggest you read Fritz’s original post, lest we misinterpret it in some sort of telephone game.) The reviewer in question, Hilary Goldstein, editor-in-chief at IGN’s Xbox 360 channel, talked to GameDaily about the GTA IV review mini-hubbub, chalking up Fritz’s concerns to a possible grudge. More »
