Hollywood is bringing manga/anime Dragonball to the silver screen. Early peeks haven’t exactly been promising, leading a general feeling that the rot has already set in. Website Ain’t It Cool News was a sent a review from a reader who claims to have seen 95-100 minutes of the film, minus the credits, missing the score and lacking finished special effects. According to the reader, “Overall, I would give the movie a 6.5/10 simply because i was expecting disaster but it turned out better… I am glad it aint the disaster I thought it would be.” The reader even went on to call the movie “solid.” Not sure if this is a plant or not, but hit the jump for a breakdown of the movie’s positives and negatives. There are spoilers.
Like we told you last month, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe are putting together their own version of Qore. Presumably because European PlayStation owners haven’t suffered enough. The program will be called Official PlayStation Magazine HD, will of course be a premium (ie you pay for it) service, and will be distributed weekly over the various European PlayStation stores. A job listing for the program says that the show will feature “hi-def video, game demos and other content”, so basically, expect Qore, but with a much longer name.
Content Producer – Official PlayStation Magazine HD – Bath [Future, thanks Matt!]
The Unterhaltungssoftware Selbstkontrolle, or USK, are Germany’s classification board. And as you may already be aware, they’re a conservative bunch, banning games that even Australia let slide. But this, this is new. Witness Germany’s box art for Valve’s upcoming zombie co-op shooter, Left 4 Dead. Notice anything, uh, different?
As commenter Duncan raises, I understand there are serious worries that things look TOO good for gamers in the results of the Interactive Australia 2009 Report. But the report’s author, Jeffrey Brand, flagged the methodologies at the outset of today’s launch and also discussed during the presentation how earlier concerns of bias could now be laid to rest as the trends from past reports (2005 & 2007) to this are very similar and in fact increasingly favourable which would make sense.
That said, I think we will still have to worry about those politicians who decide based on emotional lobby efforts instead of hard statistical evidence. Numbers like these can’t help but look “wrong” if you still believe that games are simply toys for kids.
The money quote from Dr. Brand after the initial discussion of the methodology: “This is big audience research by any measure.”
A more detailed run down of the methods, samples and statistical foundations after the jump. Oh, and one more sweet stat… 68% of all respondents identified as playing computer or video games. That’s more the two in every three Australians.
UPDATE: Sample and methods details updated to reflect the much more detailed information supplied near the end of the report.
The Interactive Australia 2009 report on the state of gaming in Australian culture has been launched this morning, and the stats affirm what gamers already know — the stereotypes are complete rubbish. Here’s a quick sampler that busts some myths that tie closely into our ongoing effort to get Michael Atkinson to realise his position does not reflect the reality of the modern gaming landscape. We’ll try to drill a little deeper in coming days:
- Average age of gamers is now 30; average age of non-gamers is 40. - 88% of households now have a game device, not including mobiles. - 61% have MORE than one — consoles are now dominant. - 54% male, 46% female. The gender gap is disappearing fast. - Over half of all parents play games with their kids. - 63% of Australians still don’t know there is no R18+ for games. - 91% of ALL Australians are in favour of an R18+ classification. - 92% of parents are aware of the games their kids are playing.
Ten years of waiting come to an end Tuesday for fans of Fallout. The third installment of life in post-nuke America finally arrives on the big boy platforms. Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 also stops flapping its yap and comes to PC. Those with the Wii can play FIFA and PS3 gamers can grab SingStar’s second volume and karaoke-along. After that, it’s the usual parade of licensed stuff and single-platform who-dat? releases. Of note, Penny Arcade’s next episode is available for download on Wednesday, and Strong Bad’s latest installment arrives Monday for Wii and Friday for PC. As always, the entire list is on the jump, where you may brag to everyone what you’re playing/renting/disdaining for the coming week.
Well, that National Post thing went out the door a little early, so in return I give you a look at another story dated (echo chamber) FROM THE FUTURE … In tomorrow’s Austin American-Statesman is, or will be, a story by their gaming writer, Lilly Rockwell. She talked to Michael Gallagher, described as “one of the game industry’s top lobbyists” but not the president of the Entertainment Software Association. Curious. Anyhow, we’re familiar with the fact Texas is courting developers with incentives, and Gov. Rick Perry’s appearance at E3 says as much. But tucked in the story is this little nugget:
The latest issue of the Escapist deals with god games, most of which are quite grand in scale. John Carr, however, looks at the micro god game — in this case, SimAnt, Will Wright’s first foray into games decidedly small in scale — and declares its inspiration (childhood games of playing god with hapless insect) the ‘original god game.’ SimAnt is certainly one of the weirder little titles in Wright’s repertoire, but certainly an important title when looking at later games:
November 15th is National Gaming Day at your local library (apparently); they’re billing it as ” the largest, simultaneous national video game tournament ever held! Kids will be able to compete against players at other libraries and see their scores in real-time online while playing at their local library.” What’s pretty cute is the justification for holding such an event — the FAQ is a thing of beauty, including questions like “aren’t video games just a passing fad?”:
At last, LittleBigPlanet has been patched in North America, (v1.02) making it safe, harmless and inoffensive forever. Also, we keep getting flooded with tips about LBP’s servers being down. That’s on purpose. While the game is available for play, official word is that the servers come online the week of Oct. 27. That’s tomorrow at the earliest. Also, many of you have said the pre-order codes for DLC do not work. I don’t have the game, but maybe that’s related to the servers not being online yet. Sit tight, folks. It’s a hell of a game you can play offline for a couple of days. North American LittleBigPlanet Gets 1.02 Patch[PS3Fanboy]
