The deal is this: Nintendo customers in Europe have long had their own ghetto Club Nintendo. Every time they purchase and register a Nintendo product, they get star points. A lot like Japan's Club Nintendo, then, just without most of the cool stuff. Well, Nintendo Europe just made the process a lot more appealing: starting from today, you can trade star points for Wii points, which you can spend on all the Virtual Console games your heart desires. Feels strange saying this, but classy move, Nintendo Europe.
[Wii Points Card Shop]

Great news! A few months back, we heard that Paul W.S. Anderson was trying to rush the Castlevania movie into production, in order to beat the impending writers strike. Now, though, the writer's strike has hit, there's no end in sight to it, and as a result the film's been put on the shelf until the strike is over. Which is one very short step away from being canned altogether. Castlevania fans, get with the high-fiving.
[Filmwad, via Go Nintendo]

The S&P 500, the US stock market's second-biggest index of "large-cap" stocks, has a vacancy in its lineup. Dow Jones, who publish the Wall Street Journal, are on the verge of being bought out by News Corp, meaning somebody is going to need to take their place. Enter retail super-chain GameStop, who as soon as the News Corp/Dow Jones move is finalised are expected to be ushered into the big leagues. Bear their executive's Mediterranean villas and expensive cigars in mind, then, next time you get screwed on a trade-in.
[Gamesindustry.biz]

Two of the year's biggest hits go head to head. Will Portal's promise of cake win out over a dude who can shoot bees out of his arm? As the video above testifies, it was always going to be an uphill struggle for the cake against that kind of firepower.

While owners of Guitar Hero III on other formats are blissfully enjoying their new downloadable content, Wii owners have not. They've been left out! Hopefully not for much longer, though, as Red Octane have told Nintencast that they're hoping to have some DLC ready to go sometime early next year. No idea how they'd deliver it, where you'd have to store it or how you' pay for it, but then I guess that's the cause of the delay in the first place. On the off chance you're reading this, Nintendo, Wii Shop Channel purchases to an SD card would be brilliant, thanks.
[Nintencast, via Shacknews]

This week's European/Australian PS Store update is sad reading. Bring tissues. For while there's a Kane & Lynch demo, a MotorStorm DLC pack and the Folklore add-on, there's practically nothing else. No Guitar Hero DLC, for instance. No PS1 games. No PSN games. Just a bunch of rubbish themes. Disappointing, Sony. How long are you going to keep the PAL PS Store in the doghouse? Until we apologise for peeing on the rug? Well, Sony, I'll tell you, we never peed on your damn rug.

IGN think so! They got hold of a copy of the game from Japan, then proceeded to sit down, play it for six hours, and post impressions. Mistwalker/Gooch fans, you can either prepare for the worst or write this up to the fact it's a single preview based on six hours of playtime. The choice is yours:

In the six hours that I've played so far, Lost Odyssey has been a technical mess, with framerate problems in just about every cinema and on most maps, an animation system that looks like it was ported straight from a PS2 engine, and frequent, inconsistent load times accompanied by visual stuttering as new data loads in.

Hrm. Bear in mind this is a final, retail copy of the game, not a preview build. Then again, bear in mind that you could have said nearly all of that about Mass Effect, and people seem to be getting along with that game just fine.
Lost Odyssey Hands-On [IGN]

For all it's waggling and squawky missed-note benefits, the Wii version of Guitar Hero III has a little problem. Its sound only outputs in mono. Blergh. Owners of the game who either noticed or care enough to care can begin leaving the picket lines outside Activision HQ, however, with the company announcing that they'll be shipping out re-mastered discs in "early 2008" to any and all customers interested. And yes, before your indignant routines spark into life, this replacement disc will be 100% free.

[IGN]

It's an age-old question. "Will it blend"? And as is so often the age-old answer, "you bet your arse it will". While not as spectacular as some previous attempts, I think this is my favourite, as its mesmerising how the disc looks like its turning into fairy dust as it's spinning around in that industrial-strength blender. So pretty.
[thanks Jimbot!]

Nyko think we do, because they're releasing a wireless nunchuk controller and adaptor for the Wii Remote, which will be publicly unveiled at CES next month. It'll work by plugging a small receiver into the Wii Remote's nunchuk port, and the nunchuk itself will come with its own power button and status light. In terms of design they've just copied, literally, the shape and layout of Nintendo's version, the only changes being clear buttons and the aforementioned power button and light. Stuff like price and a release date will be announced at CES, so you can spend the intervening days asking yourself some tough questions, like why you can't just put up with a little strip of white cord instead of pining after yet another gimmick that'll need its batteries changed every week.

Nyko Reveals Wireless Wii Nunchuck [IGN]

Auran CEO Tony Hilliam has made a statement regarding the rumour that the company today planned to let a number of staff go, mainly in its QA department.

While Hilliam confirms that the Fury team will be reduced, it's more to do with creating an "agile" group of developers better able to address the needs of the game. Contrary to what the original Angry Gamer story led many to believe, the company is not going bust:

As I explained to the staff yesterday, whilst FURY has started off slower than expected, I still see a bright and long future ahead. However, that future will not include the full 60 man development team who have worked on FURY for the past year. The future will focus on a smaller, more agile core team of Fury developers. These are people who are incredibly passionate about the game and work until 4 in the morning to ensure they get things done.

It's actually fairly normal for a dev team to shrink after the release of a title. The difference here is that Auran is going to the trouble of finding ex-employees other opportunities instead of just casting them into the sea of joblessness.

The statement goes on to mention that Auran plans to outsource at least some of the content development for Fury to China, where it says it has had a lot of success already.

Finally, Hilliam says that Tantalus (who we're stilling waiting to hear from) is right now opening a new studio near Auran's base of operations up in Brisbane. The new studio, which will focus on Wii and DS titles, will employ a few ex-Auran folk.

Tony's full statement can be found after the jump.

read more »

You guys know that I have a problem when it comes to caffeine. One could say a very serious problem.

Really, I should be dead or, at the very least, comatose.

My choice of energy drink is V. I was under the impression it was manufactured by a New Zealand company, Frucor. Support the mother country and all that.

While it technically is made by Frucor, it hasn't been NZ-owned for a number of years now. In 2002, it was bought by Group Danone, a French company, and since then all my sparkling dollars have been funnelled to the land of croissants, berets and obnoxious body odour.

I've been disappointed by V lately, however, for an entirely different reason that has nothing to do with this deception. The last four bottles I've cracked open have all been sans carbonation.

And without the bubbles, the stuff tastes like arse water... if such a potent liquid exists.

Anyway, what's your favourite caffeinated drink? Red Bull? Buzz Monkey? A syringe of epinephrine? Let us know.

There's not much to dislike about Half-Life 2. With the exception of its sometimes dreary atmosphere and the deafening silence of empty vessel Gordon Freeman, it gets just about everything right. The screenwriting team at Valve should be commended for fashioning one of the few ongoing story lines in which I actually find myself invested, now nine years in the telling. But the team at Valve, I believe, deserves credit for one of Episode Two's most welcome features: the recap.

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Like any fracas between ex-lovers, the current showdown between former Guitar Hero pillowmates Red Octane (Guitar Hero III) and Harmonix (Rock Band) is an entertaining one. And that's just in the marketplace. When they literally start talking shit at each other, well, it's time to pull up a chair and grab a snack of your choosing. Red Octane's Charles Huang:

I don't think we're too interested in having their guitars work on our game, because they're having a lot of issues with their guitars. From our standpoint, to be quite honest, if you know a competitor's product has issues, there's not a whole lot of motivation to make these problematic controllers work with your game. Why would you want to cause yourself the headache?

He did not go there, did he? Oh, he so just went there.

Guitar, Interrupted [1UP]

Developer CCP has addressed the minor snafu that was causing Trinity, the latest update for its MMO EVE Online, to overwrite an important boot file required by Windows XP systems.

Here's the word from CCP:

Shortly after the deployment of the update, CCP became aware of an issue involving the Premium graphics content download whereby a small percentage of our users may have been affected and now need to make repairs to system files. We immediately set to work to identify the cause and resolve it. A new build is now available and is safe for all users to download and install.

If you've already gone and installed the patch, CCP has a page up with instructions on how to rectify the problem.

EVE Online Installer Fixed [Blue's News]

New York Mets shortstop Jose Reyes looks absolutely stunned at the realisation his photo is going to appear on next year's edition of 2K Sports Major League Baseball game. The MLB 2K8 cover star said, according to a press release, "This is the first time I have ever been on the cover of a video game." The visibly shaken spokesman was then calmed by friends and family, none of whom saw the cover appearance coming.

Major League Baseball 2K8 executive producer Ben Brinkman did his best to make the best of the situation, saying "Jose Reyes is a multi-talented player - a great baserunner, fielder and hitter, making him the perfect spokesperson for Major League Baseball 2K8." Despite the sensitive nature of the out of the blue endorsement, 2K Sports plan to go ahead with the game's Spring 2008 release, which should arrive on the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii, PlayStation 2 and PSP. A press release follows after this moment of silence.

read more »

To: Luke
From: Fahey
Re: Learning to Like Coffee (And Possibly Regret it)

I see how it is. Crecente was in transit all day today, though you still address your Night Note to him. Thanks a lot Ashcraft. From now on all my Day Notes are addressed to Luke, who is much more considerate despite being Australian. Maybe one day you'll earn back my trust.

So Luke! Luke Plunkett. How's things? How's Australia treating you? Is your beard doing well? I like that you can grow such a manly beard, unlike certain other Kotaku writers on your side of the planet. I just wanted to tell you that out of all of our nighttime Kotaku writers, you are hands-down my favourite. Next time we're all at an event together we should get together and get some tacos. Just you and me. Did you know they don't have good Mexican food in Japan? Someone once told me that, but I can't remember who. He probably doesn't deserve tacos anyway. I was totally going to mail him some, but that bird has flown. Speaking of birds that have flown...

What Luke and Not Ashcraft Missed:
Phantasy Star Comes To PSP, Tragically
More Street Fighter IV Details, Pics
EVE Online Trinity Update Kills XP
Grand Theft Auto IV Trailer III: "Move up, Ladies."
WoW Helps Boy Triumph Over Moose

Look, this clip, via Technabob and Arcade Heroes, is admittedly quite dull, due to poor editing and the fact that Christmas trees don't really do much of anything but emit light. Still, a Pac-Man themed ode to the Baby Jesus and the purchasing of Isotoner gloves is worth looking at, largely due to the quality. Those in and around the Madrid, Spain area can stop by the Nuevos Ministerios to have a gander for themselves.

Wedbush Morgan analyst always seems like such a mundane title when dealing with the master of video game precognisance that is Michael Pachter. Speaking with Shacknews, the Pachtman puts forth the possibility that Rockstar Games founders Sam and Dan Houser could very well slip from under Take-Two Interactive's wing once their contracts come up in February 2009, much like Bungie jumped from Microsoft. It all comes down to money.

"I don't think that this is an issue of dissatisfaction with Take-Two; rather, I think it is rational to believe that in the wake of the $US 850 million Pandemic/BioWare deal, high quality developers like Bungie and [Rockstar] North would look to test their market value"

How much do you think a company like Microsoft or Sony would be willing to pay to secure Rockstar's exclusive service? How much would you pay? What if we threw in the magic of Pancake Puffs?

Pachter: GTA Dev Rockstar North May Eventually 'Pull a Bungie,' Split from Take-Two [Shacknews]

Last week's hardware numbers from Media Create showed that the Wii was back on track to regaining first place in the console races, having suffered displacement from a cheaper, Shin Sangoku Musou 5-equipped PlayStation 3. Now that Wii Fit's arrived, Nintendo is back in the lead. For the period between November 26th and December 2nd, the company sold more than it has on a weekly basis since July. Thanks, Wii Fit!

• Nintendo DS Lite - 124,591
• Wii - 74,764
• PSP - 74,626
• PlayStation 3 - 37,092
• PlayStation 2 - 13,703
• Xbox 360 - 6,632

Media Create Weekly Sales

For those of you without PlayStation 3s, the weekly PlayStation Store update isn't really that exciting, especially if you're waiting for that PSP version of the Store to arrive. Fortunately, the PC version of the Store is alive and well, packed with new stuff to throw onto your Memory Stick. As you may know, this week welcomes Beats and Wild Arms to North American PSPs. A slew of content that's been available on the PS3 for some time now, also finds it way to handhelds. The full list of freshness follows.

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505 Games has proudly announced that everyone's favourite bundle of cooking mini-games has reached the 1 million mark in sales across Europe since it's release in September of 2006. If you had told me two years ago that a video game that centered around a besting a tiny Japanese woman with starz in her eyes (why'd they wanna go and put those there?) at cooking while she praises your work in horribly broken English would sell a million copies, I would probably be bringing that up right now and telling you how right you were.

"These fantastic results vindicate the hard work and dedication from everyone at 505 that has gone into making this our most successful franchise to date," commented Ian Howe, 505 Games' Managing Director. "We've set ourselves a lofty target, but now we're all keen to see how quickly we can get Cooking Mama 2 to one million!"

Of course the main credit needs to go to Japanese developer Office Create, but success is success. Way to go marketing team! Someone's getting a pizza party!

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If you're a fan of mud-spurting, flame-spitting funny cars, the kind of a truck enthusiast whose ears don't perk up unless their of the "monster" variety, you may want to keep tabs on the Monster Jam truck schedule. Oh, if you like Donkey Kong, you might want to pay attention extra hard. Nintendo let us know today that the Donkey Kong Monster Jam truck will make its first public appearance this weekend, at the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It will race against other trucks that are considered monstrous and could very well run over some things.

According to a press release we were handed, Nintendo VP George Harrison said "Donkey Kong has always been a force to be reckoned with. The new Donkey Kong truck lets us show off his rowdy behaviour to his fans, whether they have been playing his games for decades or just discovered them." Somehow, I just can't picture him saying this. It seems forced.

Monster Jam Online

The 2.3 update to Blizzard's frightfully popular MMO World of Warcraft might have brought with it a nasty case of the high pings.

While latency for the online RPG usually varies between 200-500ms for Australian players, the higher end of this spectrum has been getting more of a workout than usual, according to user reports over at Oz telecommunications and ISP news site Whirlpool.

Adelaide-based ISP Internode believes the problem lies with various changes Blizzard made to the protocols used by WoW to communicate between the client and server.

With Blizzard apparently lacking the motivation to address the problem, Internode has come up with its own solution, in the form of a proxy.

read more »

Brazilian gaming blog Blogeek says that they have some new, unreleased details on Street Fighter IV. Normally, these sorts of rumours would be dealt with a snort and a dismissal, but Blogeek's got the also unreleased screen shots to back it up. They're both similar to the screen via 1UP that was unleashed today, but happen to feature Ryu's counterpart, Ken Masters. That would either make Blogeek extremely adept with a PhotoShop stamp tool or lend weight to their credibility.

read more »

Those worried about the fate of Shadowrun, MechWarrior, and Crimson Skies following the closing of FASA Studios need not worry at all; the licenses for those properties have been securely in the hands of FASA, WizKids (HeroClix), and 42 Entertainment (ilovebees) founder Jordan Weisman. The announcement was made on the website of Weisman's latest venture, Smith & Tinker Inc. back in mid-October. The company's plans for the properties is still up in the air.

We're not quite ready to announce our plans for each property, but please be assured that our goal is to surprise and delight old fans, while welcoming new fans to these fantastic worlds.

Kotaku's own one-time guest editor Simon Carless of Gamasutra speculates that Jordan's fascination with transmedia and job postings on the website looking for people with Web 2.0 and online game expertise could point towards an MMO. A Shadowrun MMO? A MechWarrior MMO? Just typing the words gets me far more excited than I am allowed to reveal to you gentle, innocent readers.

Smith & Tinker's License Procurement Announcement [Smith & Tinker via Gamasutra]

Asking your girlfriend to join you in wedded bliss via the Halo 3 Forge tool is sweet and all, but it's cloyingly so to one who has zero faith in the institution of marriage. We're far more impressed by more egocentric endeavors, like spending the hours necessary to create a self-portrait in Forge, especially one that looks as challenging as the one above. The creator writes: "I was thinking that an image could be created if objects were placed in the foreground, middle ground and background and then viewed from a specific area that would converge the objects to make the image. If done correctly, the image would appear vertical and 3D as opposed to lying on the ground." Done correctly indeed!

Halo 3 Forge: Illusion Self Portrait [Flickr via Ozymandias]

The latest issue of Famitsu Weekly magazine reveals that Sega is planning to bring the Phantasy Star series—whose twenty year anniversary is just weeks away—to the PlayStation Portable. Now for the (potentially) bad news. Phantasy Star Portable won't be a classic return to form as Sega established with the original Sega Master System/Genesis titles. Instead, it will follow in the mould of Phantasy Star Universe, providing a single-player campaign and four player co-operative play over local wireless play.

*sigh* I'm putting my Mogic Cap back in the drawer again, waiting for a proper Phantasy Star V. Hell, I'll even take it on the Nintendo DS, Sega.

Sega Announces Phantasy Star Universe for PSP [1UP]

Overlord was a sleeper hit for Codemasters. Sure, it didn't score 10/10s or possess people to take off clothes and throw them the game's direction. But it had some nice RPG elements mixed with minion control, and a flavour all its own.

Codemasters has pumped out a patch for Overlord bringing the game to version 1.4. From the patch notes:

* Split Screen
Select the Split Screen option on the Main Menu to start a Split Screen match. You can choose from any of the Slaughter, Pillage and Co-op Survival maps and change Time and Score limit for each. Maps include a new free Survival map called Rocky Race.
You must have a second input device to play a Split Screen match. Player 1 will use Keyboard and Mouse and Player 2 will use a Gamepad.
Use the “Config” tool to change key and button settings.

* amBX™
OVERLORD PC Patch 1.4 is designed to support the amBX™ PC gaming peripheral. To ensure it is set up correctly:
- Run Start Menu -> Programs -> Codemasters -> Overlord -> Config
- Select the Video tab
- Select “amBX”
- Click “Save & Play”

Is this the first game to officially support Phillips' amBX? I have yet to see any other game declare its affiliation. I believe that split screen on PC is a rare treat as well in this era of online gaming.

Codemasters Downloads: Overlord Patch 1.4 [Codemasters]

Maths is fun.

You know what's even more fun? Completing our first survey ever in the history of everything. Well, I can't vouch for the "everything" part - I've only been walking the Earth for 23 (glorious) years, and 15 of those were spent wearing a nappy.

Don't ask.

The survey is packed with all sorts of questions, though they're designed mainly to find out what you like about Kotaku Australia, and what you feel could be improved.

If you make it to the end of the questionnaire, you'll go into the running for a $250 gift voucher. As we all know, spending money - like maths and surveys - is fun.

Five minutes of your time and a peek inside your noggin for a shot at $250? I reckon that's an okay deal.

Kotaku AU survey