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 Bionic Commando Rearmed is $US 5 more expensive on PC than it is on console! Oh, the outrage! The injustice of it all! The…oh, Capcom’s Ben Judd has an explanation (or, at least, a better one than this). Which is:
I can give you a song and dance about PC digital content being more expensive as a general rule… but nobody wants to hear that crap. I can say this: for the PC version we are planning on uploading some additional PC-only challenge rooms via a free patch so you will get more bang for your buck.
There you have it. More buck, yes, but also more bang.
BC Weekly Field Report: #10 [Capcom]
Thrilling non-scientific poll time! Online research site Oricon polled 1000 men and women about their favourite video game character. The results?
10. Squall Final Fantasy VIII 10. Yuna Final Fantasy X 10. Professor Layton Professor Layton series 8. Toad Mario Kart 8. Doraemon Doraemon series 7. Chocobo Final Fantasy series
Huh. I’d think of Doraemon as being more an anime character than a video game character, but whatever. There are Doraemon video games. (Trains, too, it seems.) Hit the jump for the rest!
4. Slime Dragon Quest series 4. Solid Snake MGS series 4. Pikachu Pokémon 3. Yoshi Mario series 2. Cloud Final Fantasy VII 1. Mario Mario series
The top three breakdown for men and women is rather interesting. For men, it was 1). Mario 2). Cloud and 3). Solid Snake. For women, it was 1). Mario, 2). Yoshi and 3). Cloud. Everyone loves Mario and Cloud!
好きなテレビゲームのキャラクター、1位は”マリオ” [Oricon Life via Alafista][Pic]
We were told those overpriced, overblown replica Lancer rifles from the Gears of War universe didn’t work! Well. We were lied to. Sort of. Because while they don’t actually shoot real bullets, and don’t actually feature working chainsaws with which to grind your enemies into chorizo fodder, they do do…something. And that something is simulate a working chainsaw, as the gun rumbles and makes a chainsaw noise. Does this justify the extortionate price tag? No. Does it explain why Dude Huge looks so damn excited every time he’s snapped holding one? Probably!
Gears gun replica selling “like hot cakes” [Eurogamer]
Japanese Olympic swimmer Kosuke Kitajima took gold for the men’s 100m breaststroke. He certainly trained very hard to reach the tip-top condition he’s in. Sure, he practiced hard, ate right and all that other stuff. But what else helped him achieve Olympic gold? Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games, says Kitajima! No, really. The swimmer explains:
See, Mario does the breaststroke. And thus, it’s perfect mental training for envisioning the actual Olympic hall.
Watch as Japanese game sales will spike and wanna-be swimmers include Mario and Sonic in their training regimen…
北島「Ｗｉｉ」で「金」予行演習 [Yomiuri Sports Thanks, Tak!][Pic]
Bungie got two things they’re good at. One is making games. Two is yanking chains. Latest example? This Halo teaser, masquerading as an acceptance speech for the Edge award Bungie picked up the other day. Watch Kotaku alumni Luke Smith dress up in blue Spartan armour and do some talking, then wonder aloud to your internet friends on what it could all mean. Current favourites amidst the speculative classes are that a Halo “world builder” is on its way, but don’t let that sway you if your theory is something grander.
[thanks everyone who sent this in!]
“Bullshots” are nothing new for gamers. Penny Arcade coined the term a few years to describe game screenshots that looked too good to be true — and are. Photoshopping and CG graphics are nothing new to the game world — hence gamers general suspicion about pretty and shiny things — but are finding use larger than game PR. Issues like governmental state PR.
Take the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics. Those 29 giant firework footprints that made their way to the Bird’s Nest National Stadium from Tiananmen Square were actually computer graphics. Apparently, the Beijing Organising Committee was worried it wouldn’t be possible to capture the fireworks over Beijing. According to The Oregonian reporter Jon Canzano:
As it stands, nobody has commented officially on the specifics of the next Batman game. Hell, nobody has officially acknowledged that the game even exists. That doesn’t mean we can’t hear about it unofficially, however. So, courtesy of someone who’s already played the game, let’s look over the first details on what you can expect from it, and how it’s shaping up.
Firstly, our source confirms Pandemic as the developers behind the title, though we pretty much knew that already. Secondly, a good portion of the game is set in a GTA-style rendition of Gotham City, which plays a lot like Spiderman 2 as Batman zips around (he even gets a grappling hook for swingy-swingy when not using the Batmobile) attending to crimes. And thirdly? As was first raised last week, it’s not in the best shape, perhaps explaining why the project has been kept in the *ahem* dark for so long.
While certain games are a licence for their publishers to, yes, print money – Halo, Mario and Final Fantasy come to mind – most aren’t. Most are lucky to capture your attention for a week or two before falling under the crushing tank treads of progress, as you lot clamour for the next thing, the next thing, the next thing. Indeed, so many games fall into that latter category that Chris Deering – who was once boss of SCEE, but is now just some guy – says 7 out of 10 games lose money. Which in reality explains why so many developers and publishers go bust, but in my most socialist of fantasies, would be the catalyst for gaming industry revenue sharing, where Nintendo and Activision would be forced to share their profits with Atari and Midway. You know, just to keep things even. And interesting. Gaming audience will hit 2.5bn by 2011, says Deering [Develop]
Back in early August at a Microsoft game exhibition in Taipei, Microsoft Taiwan’s Grace Chou apparently confirmed that an Asian Xbox 360 version of Final Fantasy XIII was getting released in Taiwan. According to Taiwanese site GNN Gamer, the Microsoft exec stated it hadn’t been decided which localised version (Japanese or English) would be launched for the Asian territories. This Asian version (which would conceivably be released in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Korea and Singapore) made Japanese Xbox 360 owners excited as it possibly meant they might be able to import FFXIII and play it on Japanese Xbox 360s.
When the whole Virtual Console thing was first announced, there was one game above all others I wanted to play again. Ducks Ahoy. Telling myself “come on, that’s never going to happen”, I settled on a backup choice. Bionic Commando. Looks like that’s never going to happen, either, as Capcom’s Ben Judd has told 1UP that Nintendo totally cock-blocked moves for the game to be released on the VC: We couldn’t get it approved for the Virtual Console…I can’t say why. I can just say that we tried to get it to work.
Say what you will about “new” Nintendo, there’s one area they’re just like the “old” Nintendo: they still can’t stand those damn Nazis.
