November, you say? Wonderful. See you then.

Mary Jane's Stranglehold experience left us with two burning questions. One, what's Stranglehold's multiplayer actually like? And second, where the hell were the tequila shots? The first, we got nothing. The second, we've got a lead. Seems GamesRadar's interns were let out of their cages for the night and proceeded to drink a little too much, proving firstly that interns need to be supervised at ALL TIMES, and secondly that poor writing doesn't necessarily triumph over poor grammar.
Lack of Multiplayer Causes Drunken Rampage [GamesRadar Forums]

Bathroom saves, nothing new! Dead Rising has 'em. Silent Hill has 'em. And now it looks like No More Heroes has water closet saves as well — with hot sitting on the throne action. Once again, leave it to game creator Goichi Suda to push the envelope further. Toilet saves are so the new black.

Thanks Thor!

Let it never be said Famitsu are not in touch with the people of Japan. With the word on the street. They canvassed gamers a little while back and asked them what they thought were the 10 biggest news stories of the past few months. The answers? An enjoyable blend of spices, the expected (Wii things), unexpected (Peter Moore, big in Japan?) and a rich, creamy aroma:

1. Wii Fit
2. New PSP model
3. Gameplay demo of Metal Gear Solid 4

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Buncha Microsoft and Bungie types have been spotted playing something called Halo 3 Epsilon. Cue the internets abuzz with rampant speculation as to what it could mean. What it could be. Well...maybe not so much speculation, as the grim sense of envy that comes from knowing these men are playing what has to be a release build of Halo 3.
[Thanks everyone!]

Word on the street was that Microsoft paid through the nose for GTA IV exclusive episodic content — to the tune of 50 million Americana bucks. What an investment! The game has now been delayed (due to rumoured PS3 programming probs) and won't make this Christmas. So you'd think that Microsoft would be pissed. Not so! Microsoft is so rich that the company doesn't care about silly things like selling games, right? Riiight. A Microsoft rep tell the NY Post's William Vitka that the delay will "allow gamers to focus on the other titles in this year's holiday lineup." But, glossy spin aside, Microsoft's gotta be annoyed. At the company's Xbox Holiday Press event earlier this week in New York, Vitka recalls this exchange he had:

So, I asked.

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The German equivalent of North America's ESRB, the Unterhaltungssoftware Selbstkontrolle, has issued some interesting new ratings on a trio of Konami titles due to be previewed at this month's Leipzig Games Convention. You may remember the USK revealing the name of the next World of Warcraft expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, issuing a rating on the then-officially untitled expansion pack. Today, the USK listed new ratings for three trailers scheduled to be shown at Leipzig: Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow, Silent Hill Orphan, and Metal Gear Solid 4—all, strangely enough, for the PC.

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We know Mario Galaxy is due for release on November 12 in the US. But what about everywhere else? What about Japan, when will they see it? What about Europe, will they get it at all? From the latest Famitsu, here's what Miyamoto had to say regarding the game's Japanese release date:

Now, we're making games with hopes of making a simultaneous worldwide release. But, as it's Japanese people making the game, and we're making it in Japanese...right? [laughs]

To: Ash and Flynn
From: Crecente
Re: My Face Friggin Hurts

We had our second Game Club discussion group meeting last night. The room filled up pretty quickly and people both took to a reader-run IRC and the site to keep abreast of the discussions about the indie game. It's hard from my perspective, so close to the centre of this thing, to figure out if it's working and if people like it. I'm a bit more worried about the first question than I am the second. I hope that the Game Club is getting people to think about video games, or at least this video game, differently than they have in the past. Not to say people haven't long had thoughtful discussions about things they find interesting, including video games, but my hope is that that will become more the norm than an oddity.

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Evangelical group Operation Straight Up (OSU) planned to ship copies of the PC real-time strategy game based on the Left Behind series of books, Left Behind: Eternal Forces, to U.S. troops stationed in Iraq. It appears those plans may have been changed, however, as the organisation may have pulled the controversial game from its so-called Freedom Packages.

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While the Gizmondo handheld device was almost immediately forgettable, the storied lives of its executives, especially notorious "Uppsula mafioso" Stefan Eriksson, have stayed with us much longer than the failed device. Today, the bizarre yarn of Eriksson's Ferrari Enzo crash in Malibu adds another thread. The mysterious "Dietrich", an otherwise unidentified German man whom Eriksson told police was driving the rare wrecked sports car, was finally arrested by police.

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Sierra today announced that they are working on a new title for the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 which they describe as a "new kind of open-world game, featuring a rich story line of conspiracy, deception and deadly shape shifting action."

The game is being developed by Radical Entertainment, the folks behind Crash of the Titans and Scarface, and tells the story Alex Mercer, a man haunted by his past, fighting a secret war in New York City. There's action, there's conspiracy, and there's that deadly shape-shifting action, which is auto-hot. Apparently this shape-shifting power will allow the lead character to morph into people he meets in the game and steal their skills or powers. Let's hope you get to play as that guy.

Hit the jump for the press release.

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The Entertainment Software Ratings Board may have left slip news on an upcoming PlayStation Network release with Konami's Castlevania Chronicles for the PLAYSTATION 3 and PSP recently rated by the organisation. Castlevania Chronicles, for those not intimately familiar with their Castlevania remakes, was a PlayStation release from 2001, bringing the Japanese Sharp X68000 game Akumajō Dracula to North America for the first time. Akumajō Dracula was actually a remake of the original 8-bit Castlevania for the Famicom/NES.

The U.S. version came late in the PlayStation's lifecycle and at a relatively high price for what was basically a remake of a remake...of a remake? It's confusing. Regardless of how many layers must be peeled away to get to the source, the game's addition to the PlayStation Network should give Belmont Clan fans a chance to take a crack at this old-school action-platformer.

It should also give Konami a chance to drum up more hype for its PSP release of another remake, Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles.

ESRB Game Ratings

GameTrailer just posted up the new trailer for Beautiful Katamari for the Xbox 360 and, according to the site, the PS3. Not that again. I'm glad to see that the game remains bizarre and mildly disturbing.

Don't forget. Our last meeting for the Mr. Robot edition of Game Club is next Thursday. This time around you'll need to complete the game, which really shouldn't take that much longer if you've been keeping up.

Feel free to make any suggestions about formatting for Game Club here. Our next meeting isn't till Thursday night so we have time. Also, if you missed the first or second meetings, you can still jump into the discussion over in the transcript we posted from the event.

First Discussion

If you're planning on attending this year's Penny Arcade Expo, you should probably hop on over to the site to check out the full schedule they just posted for the event that's kicking off later this month at the Washington State Convention and Trade Centre.

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We know, it's Friday night and you had plans. Well they can wait—at least fifteen minutes while you watch this 1UP preview of Mass Effect. There's a lot of new stuff here that will give you a better feeling for combat, character creation, and the universe of Mass Effect.

We'd recommend taking your time with this one. Crack a bottle of wine, take a rosewater bath, and be all good smelling for the experience. So yeah, just cancel your plans. There's a new Mass Effect video. They'll understand if they love you.

Mass Effect '1UP Exclusive Preview' [gamevideos]

It's official, everybody's favourite RTS that isn't really an RTS is hitting North America on September 18. The innovative strategy game will sell for $US50, or you can pay an extra $US10 for the Collector's Edition.

I played a bit of the game when it was in beta and I quite enjoyed it, though I think it would be a lot more fun if you were playing with a group of friends. That's mostly because in the game you take control of one type of unit and then have to rely on your team mates to provide support and such. I often played artillery and after hammering the enemy from a distance for most of the game found myself royally screwed when they came hunting for me and my team mates were nowhere to be found.

Hit the jump for the official press release.

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Wow! What a week of updates over at the Smash Bros. Dojo!! It was so thrilling, so spectacular, so packed with mind-scrambling megatons that it might warrant a third exclamation point!!! Actually, it was dry as dust, with five business days of C-level updates dragging down the site. Outside of Pit's fan-boner of an update, the rest is simply... *yawn* housekeeping. Here's the Dojo Dump!

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Yesterday and today saw this Kotaku associate editor playing a trio of this fall's bigger hits, including the one I'm able to chat about, Activision's Call of Duty 4: Modern Combat. This weekend I think I'll be sticking to older fare, as my recent purchase of Beyond Oasis for the Sega Genesis means I'll finally get my hands on this action-RPG classic. For what I'm playing beyond Beyond Oasis, I expect that Picross DS will consume to soak up most of my free time. It's all rather dull isn't it? Your input is far more exciting.

So, let's have it. What are you playing this weekend? To the comments with you!

But don't we all, or at least I assume we all would if we took the time to see the movie. I don't envy Wired's Chris Kohler at all, he was paid to watch Postal at it's premiere a, I can only imagine, giddy and constantly clapping Uwe Boll waiting in the wings.

Wired editor Chris Baker likened the experience to being in "Nam together" and Kohler described the movie as one laugh followed by 90 minutes of flat jokes, the whole thing punctuated by a "long, leisurely shot of a fully nude Foley scratching his reproductive organs." (He has two!!!)

Go to read Kohler's take on the whole odd experience because it is much funnier than I suspect Postal could ever be and to make up for the fact that the Chris' "went to the Castro so that Boll could beat not on our bodies, but on our very brains" for you, the reader.

Having A Boll: Scenes From the Postal Premiere [GameLife]

For those without a Wii, still at work or stuck on an alien planet with only Internet access, here's one of the new Metroid Prime 3: Corruption videos that's available on the Wii. Impressions: the game is super fast, and seems only made faster by the free-aiming (lock-on) that Crecente dug back at E3.

My mindset: let this be good for those of use who grew tired of Wii Sports after 10 minutes and haven't had much since.

Metroid Prime 3 Bridge Battle Gameplay [gametrailers]

According to Opposable Thumbs' reliable mole, many speculated points about Rock Band have been confirmed. First off, the source claims that the $US199 bundle price is legit and that the package, in all, weighs in at a hefty 20 pounds. Plus, they add that the recent rumours that the PS3 package will come with a wireless guitar while the 360 will come with a wired guitar are true. The mole adds that the only undecided factor at this time is the box art.

So while all this info is technically a "rumour," you can pretty safely start the flame wars and bitchfests. By the time Rock Band is actually released, you'll be all healed up and ready to play on your respective consoles.

Our mole speaks: final pricing and wireless controllers for Rock Band [opposablethumbs]

Now, we can finally see just what had McWhertor so hot and bothered at E3. I'm talking abut Zack and Wiki, not one of them, but both, in these two videos showing both the opening gameplay for the game and some "cut down" game play. OK, I get it, it was the lipstick... and that disturbing sawing motion play.

More after the jump.

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While Call of Duty 4 is slated for a November 5th release in the US, our friends in the UK had no firm date on when they could expect the PAL version. Many speculated that Europe would never see the game at all. (If that's not backlinked, it's only because I just fabricated the story to add some emphasis, a sense of drama, etc.)

A senior brand manager slipped the info during a recent press conference. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare will hit shelves on November 9th in Europe for PS3, Xbox 360 and PC. So much for new fun rumours.

PAL Call of Duty 4 dated [eurogamer]

Or, put in different numbers, only 17% of Xbox 360 games are FPSs. Annoyed by rantings of too many FPS titles (which I, myself, have been guilty of), FPS Source counted up 137 released Xbox 360 games and found that not even a quarter of titles are FPSs.

The two biggest genre hogs were Action/Action Adventure (at 26%) and Sports (also at 26%). So as far as I'm concerned, there's a new witch hunt on. Less sports games! Now if...uhh...everyone would stop buying so damn many year after year. Like any perceived imbalance in any consumer market, we need to quell demand before we can talk supply.

17% of most Xbox 360 titles are 'FPS/TPS' [via thexboxdomain]

In my few days of playing Everquest and few weeks of experiencing WoW, I was (quickly) disturbed by spawning enemies. The effect didn't just break the realism—it reminded me that, no, my time means nothing to the developer and, yes, killing these stupid [fill in stupid creature here] is just tedium until I level up high enough to kill [fill in another, slightly more powerful, stupid creature here]. That's why Tabula Rasa's take on enemy spawning is refreshing, as Gaming Nexus points out in their beta impressions:

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Good news, brick and mortar store shoppers! Because according to one photobucket philanthropist, the new HDMI-equipped Xbox 360 Premiums are clearly marked for your consumer discretion. As you can see in this side by side, the Premium's list is WAY longer than the Core's with the addition of HDMI.

Also, when the current "Falcon" chips are replaced with new, smaller, cooler "Zephyr" technology, that will be right on the box as well:

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Take-Two today announces the name change of highly recognisable and respected studio Irrational Games, rechristening the Boston and Canberra offices as 2K Boston and 2K Australia respectively. Why the hell take such a prominent name in the gaming industry and change it into a faceless clone?

"Irrational Games is widely recognised as one of the most innovative development studios in the world," said Christoph Hartmann, President of 2K. "Following their incredible efforts in bringing BioShock to life, we are proud to make the newly renamed Irrational Games studios a cornerstone of our game development family."

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Wow. I have a thing about PC case mods, I think they're cool as hell. So I'm always looking around for them, just because I like checking out the details and seeing how they were made. Call me a geek, but I sort of feel about modded PC cases the way car enthusiasts feel about rebuilt cars. I want to check out their guts, look at step-by-step pictures of how the thing was made.

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We see two possibilities here. Either:

a. Mario can transform into a Boo.
b. Mario is brutally devoured by ghosts who, in turn, steal his hat as a trophy.

We can only pray for the former. Hit the jump for another transformation.

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I am really liking what I am seeing coming out of Russian publisher Buka. First they reveal the human hunting game The Hunt, the very concept of which gives me chills, and now they unleash The Swarm, a 3rd person action adventure title that places you as a survivor of an alien invasion in post-apocalyptic Moscow. Start off as a normal human who slowly assimilates alien abilities and characteristics, becoming something entirely different and infinitely more dangerous. The game promises huge aliens and an eerily accurate modelling of Moscow in demolished form. With two intriguing game concepts announced in the span of a week, Buka looks to be coming out in a big way. They've definitely got my attention.

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The BBC recently got a chance to play through a small chunk of Killzone 2. It appears the level they got their hands on was the one shown at E3, and they were thoroughly impressed:

Sat down in front of a playable level it is immediately clear that Killzone 2 will be one of the most cinematic and immersive games ever produced on a console.

The raw processing power of the PlayStation 3 has been harnessed to create a level of detail seen only in a handful of games on high-end PCs.

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I love a good hack n' slash RPG, and I have always been deeply enthralled by ancient cultures and their mythologies, so Loki seems to be right down my alley. An epic adventure spanning Aztec, Egyptian, Greek and Norse mythologies with hundreds of monsters and character advancement that caps at level 200 sounds like pure bliss right about now. Due out on the 24th of this month, 93 Games, Ascaron and Cyanide Studio have just released a playable demo that allows you to play through 20 levels as the Norse Warrior, which they describe as "the toughest and most brutal character in the game" as he quests to defeat the legendary wolf Fenrir. The download weighs in at 991MB and promises hours that should give you an excellent idea of whether or not the game deserves your dollar. Hit the jump for a list of download locations!

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PS3 owners in the UK who bought Spyro 2: Gateway to Glimmer and MediEvil from the PlayStation Store found their purchases ruined by shoddy emulation. Earlier this week, the two titles as well as Crash Bandicoot 2 were removed from the store, and now Sony has informed customers via email that their money shall be returned in full to their PS wallets within the next seven days.

"You will be aware from the description of the product on PlayStation Store that some variation in functionality from the original PSone version is to be anticipated," the publisher wrote.

"However there appear to be more significant technical issues."

This is the official box art for Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Destruction. Not much more to add to that, other than: Man, those are some big ears.

A couple weeks back Hasbro worked a deal to buy back their casual game licences from Atari, leaving me wondering what big plans they had in store for their classic board game titles like Scrabble, Monopoly, and Yahtzee. Well now we know. Hasbro has now entered into a licensing agreement with EA, granting them the exclusive rights to develop titles based on several of the company's intellectual properties for consoles, mobile, handheld and PC platforms. Not limited to board games, the agreement also includes popular children's properties like Nerf, Tonka, and the Littlest Pet Shop.

"Our toy and game brands have been family-favourites for decades, and aligning ourselves with EA will result in broadening the reach of our brands through the 're-imagining' of these beloved entertainment icons in all key digital categories," said Brian Goldner, Hasbro's Chief Operating Officer.

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If anyone in Denver today witnesses a pirate with long, flowing hair rampaging through downtown wearing a loincloth and wielding a 2-handed sword, this would be the reason. Funcom announced today that Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures has slipped from the originally slated October release to March 25th of next year. Disappointing, but given the stated reason I can't say I blame them.

"We naturally regret that we have to push back 'Age of Conan'. However, after careful consideration, and analysis of recent Beta feedback, we believe that the new release date is in the best interest of the gamers, our company and our owners," said Trond Arne Aas, CEO of Funcom.

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Perhaps 6pm was a wee early to get things started. Maybe Midway didn't realise it was up against stiff competition - Uwe Boll's screening of Postal. Or journalists tipped off to the headliner's absence, the Stranglehold multiplayer hands-on session, couldn't be bothered to show up. The thirty or so attendees barely occupied the modestly-sized Mezzanine. An odd turn for a club that recently hosted Mos Def.

But Midway did try to throw a swank soiree (despite the club's eerie mood lighting). Twin bars and plenty of cocktail hosts per capita ensured drinks were circulating through the crowd. Servers would occasionally pushed lettuce wraps or Niman ranch burgers (i.e. hippy meat) upon the crowd. With the handful of game kiosks pushed to the perimeter, it was clear this was meant to be a social engagement.

It was disappointing that there wasn't much new to see. Midway was as surprised as we were at the foiled multiplayer debut. Apparently The Mezzanine failed to order a T1 line for the evening, a rather essential component. Midway was left with four Xbox 360 stations equipped with the E3 demo of BlackSite: Area 51, and about a dozen 360s and a few PCs sporting single player Stranglehold.

On to John Woo's actiony action game.

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