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 Yesterday we gave you the cell-phone video of the two Duke Nukem Forever screens that can be found in the XBLA version of Duke Nukem 3D, which released last week. Well, now we’ve got the .jpgs, via Duke4.net. Get ready for some stripper arse in full size on the jump. There’s also a slightly less attractive three-glowing-eyed alien thing.
Only a Game has an interesting musing up on who’s winning — or potentially will win — the battle for the ‘hardcore’ market share. Nintendo is rather clearly running away with the so-called ‘casual’ market, but that still leaves room for Sony and Microsoft. Chris Bateman takes the opinion that Sony has managed to squander the biggest market lead in the history of gaming, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy sailing for Microsoft:
Chris Remo, in an op-ed on Penny Arcade, takes on the righteous indignation heaped on publishers — notably EA — over the use of DRM. The anger over DRM might be principled bitching, but the point is it’s still bitching. Writes Remo:
Though it’s not a popular view, in my mind a lot of gamers are overreacting—look how many people buy music through iTunes, whose DRM mechanics are hardly lenient. That’s not meant to be a judgment of right or wrong, it’s just an observation that may illustrate the gulf between a certain gamer segment and the larger audience that seems to be continually more frightened away by non-casual PC gaming; I would submit their flight isn’t based on activation limits.
The Cutter IT Journal is offering their latest issue — on the subject of the challenges of virtual worlds — for free (registration required); the issue includes articles on ‘real world’ applications of virtual worlds and the pitfalls and promises of such a presence. I’ve only had time to read the introduction and breeze quickly through the rest of the issue, but if you’re interested in the rise (?) of virtual worlds, it looks to have some interesting fodder:
Have we ever posted that surreal-arse Burger Time pic? God damn, I want this in black-light poster format. This illustrates Blog of Hilarity’s look at the 8 Worst Real Life Jobs of Video Gamers. Not sure what their standards are, as Paperboy‘s benefits of being a paperboy is, quite reasonably, “MILFs,” but Mario’s benefits for being a plumber is “feces, lots of feces.” What, is he coprophagic now?
The 8 Worst Real Life Jobs of Video Game Characters [Blog of Hilarity]
With a quickly expanding domestic games market, and more companies thinking of making the leap to Western markets, Asian companies are facing some serious issues in the next few years: competition to become gaming ‘hubs’ for foreign companies, how to localize for foreign markets (something Japanese companies have historically done well, but in other areas, companies are lagging), how to keep up with a big, demanding market. ZDNet took a look at a few of the issues currently facing Asian games companies. On the issue of dealing with Western companies looking to make an entrance into the Asian market, there was this to say:
Just a reminder that come Monday, Live goes dead for 24 hours. Meantime Microsoft is larding up the weekend with a bunch of Play & Win sweepstakes. We’ve already mentioned the GTA IV Live Weekend, but there’s also a raft of prizes being offered for Madden 09, NCAA 09, and NASCAR 09 — and, if I’m reading it right — if you go put some T-Mobile advertisement on your gamer picture and play Lego Batman, you can be entered to win some shit there, too. Then the power outrage strikes at 12:01 AM PDT Monday. This won’t deliver the new Xbox Live dashboard, it’s just “in preparation” for its arrival.
Calendar of Events — Play & Win [Xbox.com]
I can’t imagine there is much love lost between the former president of the Entertainment Software Association and soon to be former attorney Jack Thompson. While Thompson often publicly vilified Doug Lowenstein, once even calling him the Goebbels of the industry, Lowenstein always declined to respond.
When news of Thompson’s upcoming disbarment hit Kotaku, Lowenstein (who now works outside the industry) took the time to write me an email asking that I and other game journalists take this moment not to celebrate but to reflect on how culpable we were in helping create Thompson.
That letter for your consideration after the jump. Personally, I think that many (including Kotaku) over covered Thompson at times. But I also think it would be a disservice to completely ignore Thompson’s legal proceedings which, at times, did find a home in the mainstream media. We even tried, at times, to apply an investigative slant to his coverage.
Ignoring a problem, I think, does not usually make it go away.
Couple overnight tips point out this weird Rock Band 2 spot presently running, apparently, in the UK. First, Harmonix have given this young lass a full backal lobotomy and replaced the brain matter with a miniaturized band. No wonder she has such a placid look.
More important is the message “Rockband 2 out November, Rockband out now,” at 0:16 to 0:20. Price quoted is in pounds and Miss Moneypenny supplies the voiceover so, there’s no mistaking this is for the UK. The Rock Band forums are alive with Brit commenters taking this as gospel. Harmonix have offered no confirmation yet. So, we’ll call it a rumour for now, taking care to use our special friends’ spelling of the word, the notional agreement of collective nouns, and the word “advert.”
Rock Band 2 Ad UK [YouTube, thanks readers Craig and Jake]
The demise of Jack Thompson’s legal career eclipsed just about everything else that happened this week, and with good reason. The guy just had it coming. I’m not sure there’s any downfall more American than that of the self-appointed moral better. At least in the end, Thompson wasn’t caught smoking rock and playing Mortal Kombat with a toothless crack whore, so he didn’t go down a hypocrite. But he did go down. Sic semper dickclowns.
The week in originals, highlights here, more on the jump.
