Too Bloody Hot
To: Simon
From: Luke
Hey Simon! Welcome to Kotaku Towers, and good luck on being our third, and final, guest editor. Between Keighley and Bogost that seat should be pretty warm by now. Toasty, even. If you need anything, air hockey table's on level 6, while you can find the boutique brewery on level 9, past Crecente's private barbershop.
Speaking of warm, it's hot here today. Too hot. While Australia's got a reputation as a hardy, rugged place, I am not a hardy, rugged man, and with my air conditioner broken I've wilted like a delicate flower. Which makes concentrating, let alone typing, difficult. So I'll stop doing both and have a good lie down.
Here's what you missed while Fahey was seeing to your bags:
• Jam Sessions causes youth delinquency.
11:40 PM on Mon Nov 19 2007
by Luke Plunkett
For those of you ready to clean house, have we got a day for you! Today is our favourite Kotakuday, Ban Monday. Our willingness to ban increases ten-fold as we clean up and clean out. We want to keep the comments section readable (AKA thin the herd), and we want you to help. Here's how it works: Send tipsATkotaku.com commenter pages for anyone you think should get the boot. Our ban threshold is going to be way lower (hello fanboy trolls!). Nothing is definite, but ban requests from longtime commenters will be given great authority with the hammer. So be sure to include your own commenting profile! Ban Monday ends in exactly 24 hours. Tuesday's comment section will be lighter, faster, better. Onwards!
You're almost at the breaking point when it comes to this new Ghostbusters game. Almost. Too many fluffy words in quick succession, not enough solid info, we know, we can tell. These screens should about do you, then. Least until we get either more news on what the game's actually like, or shots of just how old Bill Murray's going to look.
Interested, and able, in getting hold of a PS3 dev kit? Oh boy, is this your lucky day. Sony have just announced that the cost of such a unit has been cut by nearly 50% across all three territories, with Japanese kits now at ¥950,000, American at $US 10,250 and European consoles for €7500. Course saving a few thousand bucks means little/nothing to a big studio, but to the wee ones, that's a ton more cash to spend on essentials like whiteboard markers, nodoze and crummy pizzas.
One ending? Boring. Two? Thanks, but it's just not gonna cut it. Not with Fallout 3 boasting of not just two endings, but two, two, two and then some. Bethesda's Pete Hines has told CVG that depending on what you do during the game and how you do it, you can expect between 9-12 different endings to the game. That's a lot. Hopefully this move has been made with more than just replayability in mind. Because playing an RPG 9-12 times? Not. Fun.
Way I see it, there's two ways to curb Korea's rampant obsession with online gaming. One is to ban all players, destroy all computers and shoot those who don't tow the line. Which would be effective, but also a little drastic. Onto plan B, then: boot camp. The NY Times has an interesting article on the "Jump Up Internet Rescue School", a military-styled camp where kids addicted to online gaming can be sent to get acquainted with friendship, routine, the outdoors and hard (physical) work. Computers are banned, online contact is banned and phone contact's restricted to one hour per day. Does it work? Maybe! One participant/inmate, Lee Chang-hoon, says:
So there you are, playing through Assassin's Creed, which - faux sci-fi trappings or not - is set in the 12th century. Long time ago. Lot earlier than the invention of transforming children's toys. Or trucks. Which is why it's a little confusing to clamber up and see this intricately-carved wooden window/doorway thing. A little confusing, and a whole lot of awesome.
What's huge, scary and green?
As you can see above, it's obvious that they share similarities - the white/black duotone; the menacing stance; the even more menacing bladed weapon... you get the picture. Heck, you can see it.
It's been a banner several weeks for new games and this one is no different. No matter what your taste there is a little something for everyone. Mass effect, Rock Band and Uncharted: Drake's Fortune will be on my holiday play list as I sit in my parents rec room after ingesting too much food. What will you be playing post-turkey time?
Morning, sports fans.
NaturalMotion is currently working on a new next-gen football game called Backbreaker for next year. One of the features of the game will be the ability to assign your own colors, logos and names to your team's players. So, to show off the feature, the folks at NM threw together a little Kotaku team featuring our signature pink and green colours and our own Crecente as Quarterback. I don't know what's funnier, the pink uniforms or the thought of anyone on the Kotaku team (with the possible exception of Fahey and Luke) playing football.
One of our tipsters sent us a link to GamingSA's story on Digital Extremes' Dark Sector, which was being demoed at eGames. I'll be posting my own impressions this week, but I just wanted to address an error in the story.
There's a great piece up on Hawty McBloggy listing the top ten things said to female gamers on Xbox Live. The post may be a few months old, but its message still has resonance. I know a lot of girl gamers and upon reading over this list, saw many of the things they say they hear on a regular basis. "Are you playing on your brother's/boyfriend's account?", "Dude. Dude! Are you a girl? Will you be my friend? Dude, accept my friend request! Let's hook up!" and "Shouldn't you be playing Barbie Horse Adventures?" are just a few of the ever so clever quips these online idiots think are their best material. Writer BS Angel sums it up best:
If you're looking to give your PS3 a pleasing new theme and are too lazy to make one yourself, Playstation Universe has a veritable treasure trove of user created themes for you to download. Just launched yesterday, PSUs theme section is already quite robust with eight pages worth of various themes ranging from Silent Hill to Okami. So, if the Classy Pink theme isn't quite your thing you're sure to find something here to strike your fancy.
This Sunday's TRU ad reveals a big sale on Wii games. Buy two and get a third one free. For those of you that got that $US 25 gift crad with your purchase of Super Mario Galaxy, now is prime time to put that bad boy to good use. This sale is only good through Wednesday, so put some hustle in your muscle and get out there before all the goods are gone!
A website has launched for a new Wii RPG from Namco entitled Fragile. There is not much information available on it at the moment, but the site lists three dates: Nov. 22, 24 and 26. The 26th seems to be the date that the full site will open and hopefully give us more details on the title. As far as the other two dates are concerned, I'm not entirely sure, but I'm sure one of you out there will be able to translate for us in the comments.
Everyone is really excited about the big confirmation of the Ghostbusters game and we've even gotten to see some footage from it. But, apparently GameStop is so excited about it that they are already offering pre-orders. If you order it now you will get free overnight shipping on the game when it comes out... in a year. But you better hurry, the offer is only good for one more day!
A little less than a week to go and the Black Friday deals are rolling in. This one from KB Toys. According to their circular, they are offering Buy One Get One Free on their entire stock of video games. The offer excludes hardware and bundles with a limit of four fee games per customer. I find it a bit odd that there are no next-gen games in the photo, but the ad clearly states "entire stock." If there is a KB in your area, you might want to give a call or stop by this week to see what the selection is like before you head over there at 6am only to find yourself faced with some crappy GBA games.
