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 PC games, you have a friend in GameStop. The retailer is not quitting you, no sir-y. Even with fewer releases and the growing importance of digital distribution, GameStop senior VP Bob McKenzie says the company is hanging in there. GameStop.com offers digital downloads, for example! According to McKenzie:
The number of new titles we have on PC is down probably more than what I had anticipated it would be down. But I don’t see that as a threat or a signaling. We’re not backing away from it at all… But we’ve just realised, this is too important of a category, so we’ve put a lot of them up on the wall again where there’s stronger representation in our stores.
So don’t worry PC gaming, GameStop’s never gonna give you up, let you down, desert you, make you cry or say goodbye.
GameStop: PC Game Retail Sales, Diversity Decreasing Notably [Gamasutra via Shacknews]
Remember when you couldn’t drunkenly fall out of bed in the morning without landing on some kind of Second Life news? Things were getting pretty serious for a while there, to the point where a lot of reports started spinning around that millions and millions of people were “playing” the thing. Millions? Really? Hardly. New Linden Lab CEO Mark Kingdon has, in an interview with VentureBeat, laid out a new userbase disclosure model the company are working on for Second Life. They’re not counting registered users as “users” anymore, because while over 15 million people have signed up for the service, nowhere near that many actually use it. No, the number of “simultaneous users” is around 68,000. That’s it. 68,000. Sure, that’s the number logged on at once, not the total number of “active” users, but the total can’t be more than a couple hundred thousand. Chin up, Lord British, there’s hope for Tabula Rasa yet!
Q&A: Linden Lab CEO Mark Kingdon on Second Life’s latest evolution [VentureBeat]
Odin Sphere developer Vanillaware’s latest offering Kumatanchi features a Lolita-style bear-girl named Kuma-tan who puts on shows at the zoo with other Lolita-style critters that include a sexy cow, hot tiger and foxy bunny. Finally! A game that brings the sexy cow action with character designs from illustrator and Habanero-tan creator Shigatake. There are mini-games, picture taking and general creepiness as well.
Game is out later this month. Hit the jump for the promo trailer.
We’ll call this a rumour for consistency’s sake, but really, this is more like a “oh, we kinda expected this to happen” sort of thing. AddictGaming are reporting that, according to “a reliable source close to the Development Studio Turn 10″, the Forza developers have been handed the keys to the Project Gotham Racing franchise following the departure of Bizarre Creations from Microsoft’s stable. Evidence is thin to support the claim, but then, like we said, at this stage you’d need to show us evidence proving they weren’t developing PGR5 for us to take heed.
Rumor: Turn 10 To Develop Project Gotham 5, Announcement Soon [AddictGaming]
Star Trek Online looks great and all, but is it customizable? Is it, is it? Developer Cryptic answers away: It’s possible to customise character uniforms as well as your Bridge Officers’ race, gender, appearance and name — typical Cryptic stuff. Also possible to modify your ship. Click through the link below for more details.
Ask Cryptic (September 17, 2008) [Official Site]
In case you haven’t been following, Peter Moore’s “don’t whine about your time at Microsoft” NDA expired this week, and he’s been pouring his heart out over at The Guardian. It’s been fun stuff. Particularly the bits where he totally slags off Rare, saying that the industry had “passed Rare by” and that they “were not applicable in today’s market”. Ouch. Well, Microsoft are having none of it, Phil Spencer telling GI.biz “Rare is a great studio that continuously delivers high-quality, award-winning titles for the Xbox platform and will continue to do so in the future”. Which may or may not be true. Who knows. Spencer’s smart, however, to also remind Moore of Rare’s work on the 360′s new avatar system, which in a strange twist of fate may turn out to be the most important thing they ever do for the console.
Microsoft defends relevance of Rare to Xbox business [GI.biz]
Sony Compunter Entertainment is looking to India. Makes sense as the country has established itself in the animation industry, so gaming seems like a logical next stop. Says SCEE country manager for India Atindriya Bose:
The competence and the state of readiness of the Indian developers makes it imperative that India soon will emerge as a key development hub for many international games companies.
Sony has already signed 13 developers, including Indian devs, up to produce local and international content for the PlayStation platform.
SCEE: ‘India will emerge as key development hub for international companies’ [develop]
Bear with us. See, Criterion have gone all digital download crazy lately. First Burnout Paradise goes download-only over the PlayStation Network, then they go and release a big, free update over the same PlayStation Network. The former the kind of thing to stop you buying a game new from GameStop, the latter aimed – supposedly – at keeping you from trading your game in at GameStop. The new game thing, GameStop can’t be too happy about, but the latter – messing with the one thing the company relies upon to stay alive – that’s really going to piss them off, especially considering comments made to MTV by GameStop vice president of merchandising, Bob McKenzie.
Asked about the uneasy relationship between GameStop and publishers over digital distribution, Mckenzie replies:
Blizzcon 2008 is set to have 16 hours of coverage over two days on Main Event Pay-Per-View, available via Foxtel, Austar, or Optus. ‘Blizzcon 2008 Live’ will run 4am to 1pm on October 11-12, with repeat screening from 3pm to 12am both days. (That’s 9 hours each day, not 8. Must have a break somewhere.) Interviews, presentations, tournaments, and panels galore. Price will be $14.95 per day, which puts the total at about the same as any typical PPV for the whole two days.
At first look, it seemed like we’d also be getting access to a special treat in the form of the BlizzCon 2008 World of Warcraft in-game polar bear mount (with mounted, flag-waving murloc), but that has since disappeared from the Main Event description, so it seems that was an overzealous cut and paste from the DirecTV version of the broadcast.
More details after the jump. [Thanks to Aaron for the hot tip!]
More entries! Endless!! That’s Don’s entry right there, and hit the jump for J.’s. Here’s what’s going on: Create boxart for an imagery Tales game. That’s it! Send your entry to kotakucontestATgmailDOTcom. Contest ends this Friday at midnight Kotaku Time. Yes, KOTAKU TIME.
