Warning: so not news. That’s kiddie/teen sensation Hanna Montana. Aka Miley Cyrus. Aka girl who hates Guitar Hero on the Wii. Look at her go! HULK SMASH. Her publicist will no doubt try and pass this off to us – and Nintendo, and Activision – as a harmless act of artistic expression, all just a part of her latest video, but come on. Those eyes aren’t lying. And far be it for me to take her to task for it! Indeed, I find the whole thing strangely…cathartic.
Thanks to an expected deal with in-game ad company IGA Worldwide, Sony’s PS3 is apparently jet set to start getting dynamic in-game ads. Dynamic ads differ from static in-game ads in that it is possible for the ad companies to change the advertisements and get feedback like how long players look at in game ads. That data can then be used in planning future ad campaigns! According to Forbes, it’s believed that IGA competitor Double Fusion is also ironing out its own deal with Sony. The Xbox 360 already has dynamic in-game ads, so this supposed impending Sony deal seems rather logical, no?
Sony Set To Open Up To In-Game Ads [Forbes]
Former GameSpot reviewer Jeff Gerstmann is no stranger to controversy. His 8.9 scoring of The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess was met with unhappy campers, while his 6.0 Kane & Lynch review *might* have cost him his job. But does Gerstmann have any regrets? From MTV Multiplayer:
“I’m at a point where I rarely second guess what I think about a game upon finishing it,” Gerstmann told me. He said he’s long gotten over the doubt that could set in “when you are facing the raging fury of the Internet.” He used to get death threats about some of his scores. “Now that stuff just rolls off. It’s the ranting of insane people, which you could say about a lot of internet stuff.”
I’ve always thought that some people take personal offense to reviews. They are just opinions. Everyone’s got one.
The Art of Not Second Guessing [Multiplayer]
Tecmo has responded to Tomonobu Itagaki’s announcement. Interestingly, the statement’s second paragraph mentions Itagaki’s sexual harassment suit and that the company was investigating internally, but that Itagaki unilaterally wanted to push forward with the legal suit. The rest of the company’s statement points out that Itagaki has been paid annual bonuses. The completion bonus that Itagaki refers to was not agreed to by current management, but by the company’s previous administration. Tecmo calls the consolation damages Itagaki is seeking from the Tecmo president the result of his own “distortion.” What’s more, it reads:
Looks like it’s been lifted off the Japanese Nintendo Channel. And while it’s awfully long, it’s also awfully informative, taking the time to show you exactly how the game will control, and in the process answering any questions you probably have bout the thing. While it’s slightly disappointing the game’s controls don’t go far beyond Wii Baseball’s (in particular the pedestrian pitching), it’s a Nintendo game. On the Wii. So it’ll sell a million or two regardless.
[via Wii Folder]
In what’s turning out to be a regular occurrence, Mass Effect for PC is available now, a day before its official release. GameTraders Carillon has let us know it’s selling the title for $84.95 – a bit less than the $99.95 RRP – though I’m sure if you hunt around you’ll find the game in other shops too.
I’ve got my review copy sitting next to me on my couch, but I’m going to wait until the weekend to get into it. I’ve played the 360 version to completion, but I know the experience overall is going to be better on the PC. Heck, I was sold way back when Bioware announced there’d be shortcut keys for biotics!
This is still unconfirmed as we haven’t yet seen review scans, but word has it that Japanese magazine Famitsu is giving upcoming PS3 title Metal Gear Solid 4 a perfect 40/40. Famitsu has only done this seven times. Those other “perfect” 40/40 titles are The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Soulcalibur, Vagrant Story, The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, Nintendogs, Final Fantasy XII and Super Smash Bros. Brawl. This makes MGS4 the first PLAYSTATION 3 title to get the coveted 40/40 score.
New Famitsu [Wii@Everyday][Pic]
I love Carmack smack-talk. Or Carmack-talk, if I was to unsuccessfully attempt wittiness. Not only is it honest, but often prophetic. I’m not sure the following comment about Crysis will prove itself in the future, but it’s good to know the veteran coder still “has game”, as the twelve year-old who keeps kicking the crap out of my car would say:
But in terms of first-person shooters, if you look at something like Crysis and say that’s the height of what the PC market can manage, I don’t think that’s necessarily that exciting of a direction for the PC to be going in the future. With Quake Live, we hope that there’s an opportunity for people who’ve never played shooters to give this a try, and with that, the potential of actually growing the PC gaming market.
This is from an interview over at GamesRadar, where Carmack speaks about Quake Zero, the Quake III Arena-based shooter that will play straight from a web browser. The interview also mixes it up with a few general PC gaming questions, from which came the above nugget.
Is there too much of a “cutting edge” focus on PC games development? Should developers turn their efforts to casual markets and the other advantages of the personal computer? Have your say.
Carmack free Quake [GamesRadar, via Blue's News]
And for once, it’s a demo I’m genuinely looking forward to. No, really! I’ve still no idea how this is actually going to play. The PC version of Civ, I can see it in my sleep, but the nuts and bolts of a console version intrigue me. And a ton of other people, which is probably why 2K have announced that they’ll be releasing the demo on both PS3 and 360 this Thursday. The 360 version will roll out globally, while the PS3 one is North America-only for the moment.
Civ Revolution demo upends XBLA, PSN [GameSpot]
The PlayStation.Blog has a few more details on the PS3 version of BioShock as well as two new screens. From what the PlayStation.Blog hints at, this will be more than *just* a straight up PS3 port:
On top of that, because this is the first PS3 title from 2K Marin, 2K Australia and 2K Boston, we’ve also got another development partner with some outstanding PS3-specific coding chops helping out with the project — we can’t talk about what studio that is yet, but we look forward to revealing that in the future… The Boston team is the largest chunk of the BioShock team at the moment; many of them hard at work on some of the as-yet-unannounced components of the PS3 version. I can mention the work of one Boston team member, Ian Bond, who has been optimising and refactoring the physics simulation for the game to take the maximum advantage of the PS3 hardware.
It’ll be interesting to see what exactly these “unannounced components” are. Hit the jump for another PS3 BioShock screenie.
