Three Words I Said To The Man I Defeated In Gears Of War That I'll Never Say Again 
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 Cinco de Mayo Means Double The Halo 3 XP For Some Reason. This weekend leads into the Mexican holiday that commemorates the victory of General Ignacio Zaragoza Seguín over French forces in the Battle of Puebla, giving everyone else an excuse to get mucho sloshed on Coronas and margaritas. It also, for some strange reason, means that Halo 3 players will gain twice the experience in game with “Fiesta” style rule sets. As Bungie.net states “Cinco De Mayo requires both the Heroic and Legendary map packs for participation.” Good times!
While we wait (and wait and wait) for Castle Crashers to make its Xbox Live Arcade appearance, we’ll have to settle for a simple, hirsute 2D throwback known as Castle Crashing The Beard. It pits the player against a manly beard of dedication attached to The Behemoth’s Tom Fulp, which is the best last name I’ve heard in years. Perfect for making the last ten minutes of your work day disappear.
Castle Crashing The Beard [Kongregate]
Game Republic’s Yoshiki Okamoto, a twenty year industry vet whose credits include Street Fighter II, Resident Evil and, more recently, Folklore, tells Gamasutra he fears the Japanese game industry may be in danger of suffering the same fate that befell Atari in the early ’80s. If you’re too young to remember, a glut of software for the Atari 2600 and its peers, the majority of which we’ll be nice enough to describe as liquid faeces written in assembler, flooded the market, resulting in a industry crushing crash.
Today’s problem? A glut of software—particularly “brain” games—for the Nintendo DS published by inexperienced companies looking to make a quick buck.
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World in Conflict is quite an unique take on PC strategy gaming, so I’m interested to see what World in Conflict: Soviet Assault will do for the Xbox 360 and PS3 (it’s also popping up on the PC). This video shows off some of the single player campaign missions from the Soviet point of view. Most of them have been added to the single player campaign included in last year’s release.
To: Bash From: Crecente Re: Using Two Computers At Once, So Awesome!
Tristan’s birthday is Saturday. He turns a whopping seven years old. Kinda creepy, that a child of mine can be that old. He’s getting a new bicycle from us, shhhh, don’t tell anyone. The grandparents have flown in for the occasion and there will be much eating of cake over the weekend. I doubt I’ll have a single second to spare for GTA IV, but we’re definitely going to fiddle with some Wii games.
Oh, I use two computers, one with two screens, while I’m working. It’s great. Elvis had four televisions in his home. It looks like he took a chainsaw to a wall and just stuck those big old cabinet TVs in the wall. So weird.
Have a good weekend.
What you missed: ESA Confirms Activision/Vivendi Departure ESRB Rates EarthBound For Wii VC Five Publishers Drop Out of E3 This Year, Some Blame ESA President Wild Earth: African Safari Review: A-Wiimoweh
newVideoPlayer("ferguson_gtaiv.flv", 475, 376,""); Conan O’Brien and The Late Show writers have already weighed in on the release of Grand Theft Auto IV. His competition, Craig Ferguson, takes a different angle, checking in with special correspondent Tim Meadows, who we’re glad is getting work. Highlights include racial tension, European immigration, venereal disease gags and the murder of innocents. Does the Late Late Show have that laughter piped in or does everyone else think Craig’s accent is as funny as I do?
Hear that? That’s the sound of hearts breaking.
Yesterday I posted more of a plea than a story, asking Tecmo not to F-up their return to the beloved football franchise Tecmo Bowl and it seems that most of you were with me. Heck, I even received a private email with assurances that things would remain F-up free. And for the most part, it seems that that is the case.
But Stephen Totilo IMed me this morning to point out what he’s found out about the upcoming game, most of which sounds great, some of which… OK one of which, is not so much.
What’s the fate of E3, and of the Entertainment Software Association? It’s worth examining in light of recent events. This morning we broke the news that two major publishers, Activision and Vivendi, have decided to take a pass on the event and exit the trade association, while other companies have withdrawn their E3 attendance as well. At the same time, the ESA appears to be facing stirrings of industry discontent with the ESA’s leadership, namely its current president, Mike Gallagher.
E3 is not the boon to publishers that it once was, says Penny Arcade’s director of business development Robert Khoo, who as the organiser of the PAX fan expo clearly has an interest, to say the least, in how things turn out.
“The reason that E3 imploded in recent years was because the publishers felt that it turned into this sort of pissing contest between them… where they were trying to figure out who could one-up each other,” Khoo said. “They all thought to themselves that it just wasn’t worth it.”
Reminder: Team Fortress 2 Free Weekend Underway. If you were planning on kicking some dust around this weekend, your gaming cupboard dry of thrills, remember that Team Fortress 2 is free all weekend. It’s got that fancy new Payload game type now, so if you don’t mind playing with ten thousand Medics starved for Steam achievements, fire it up. You can’t beat the (temporary) price. Details here.
With Ma and Pa McWhertor swooping in to LA this weekend, my attempts to get some Grand Theft Auto IV time in are most assuredly thwarted. I can’t have my mother hearing that kind of language, seeing her favourite son act like a callous criminal and enjoying every salacious second! Perhaps I’ll be able to squeeze in a bit of time with R-Type Command, scheduled to ship May 6 and arriving at Kotaku Towers West yesterday. The review is planned for an appearance next Friday, if you’re looking for an opinion on the PSP game.
Outside of some strategic Bydo empire dismantling, I’ll be playing “Entertain The Folks” with my weekend. How about you? What are you playing this weekend?
