To: Crecente
From: Ashcraft

WOAH. So. Very. Tired. Hope you had a nice three day weekend!

Yeah, well, lunch meat. Be glad you live in a country where they have it! I spent at least ten minutes in my super market very angry. Your typical Japanese super market has typically ham and roast ham and *maybe* salami. If you are lucky! Some of the fancier ones have sliced chicken. But that's about it.

Will have to search for some choice deli cuts. Really want to make/eat some proper sammiches.

What you missed last night
How many GTAIV fingers?
Age of Conan somewhat popular
Korea getting limited MGS4 bundle, too
Afrika might be real
Starcraft 2 Screens

The more I see of these Starcraft 2 screens, the more I'm convinced this is going to be the almost the exact same game I played ten years ago. Just with greener greens and purpler purples. And you know, for 99% of games, that would be a criticism. But for Starcraft? It gets a free pass.

Reader Robin writes:

Here you can find pictures and info of a Final Fantasy bar we hosted at Scrollbar in ITU of Copenhagen. We created some special cocktails for the event as well.

Robin and co. were able to pull their Final Fantasy and boozing knowledge together to create 15 FF themed drinks. Three most popular drinks? The Waltz on the Moon, the Summoner Yuna, and the Aerith.

Hit the jump for the recipes and pics:

Read More »

Video Games And Sex [Rock, Paper, Shotgun via Alice]

Stanford professor Allan Reiss published an article in the Journal of Psychiatric Research which states that women are not a driven as men in gaming. His research analysed MRI data that showed activity in brain's mesocorticolimbic centre, the area typically associated with reward and addiction, for both sexes. However! There was more acitviy in the male brain. According to Reiss:

These gender differences might help explain why males are more attracted to, and more likely to become "hooked" on, video games than females. I think it's fair to say that males tend to be more intrinsically territorial. It doesn't take a genius to figure out who historically are the conquerors and tyrants of our species.

Certainly, Reiss might have evidence in hard science, but it sure sounds like he's totally underestimating women. Lots of them are "hooked" on games! Some are tyrants, too!!

Games Are Guy Thing [Game Politics]

Voice actor Akio Ohtsuka is famous for, well, his voice. Ohtsuka has voiced Solid Snake from Metal Gear Solid, Black Jack from Black Jack and Batou from Ghost in the Shell. Impressive! So impressive that Ohtsuka will be appearing in a 192-page photobook so you can stare at pics of the man behind the voice and imagine him saying thins like "War has changed" in Japanese over and over again. The book will go for ¥3,885 ($US 37.54), and maybe, just maybe, Ohtsuka will wear various helmets and sunglasses.

Ohtsuka's Book [Ohtsuka via CANNED DOGS]

Question time. Gaffer zoukka has been staring at GTA IV's promo art a little too long. He's noticed something. Check the girly's fingers. He thinks there's six. Six isn't normal. I think there's five and some accidental linework on the part of the artist. Question is: what do you think?

Does she have six fingers (is thumb a finger?) or am I crazy? [zoukka @ NeoGAF]

Remember when Infogrames/Atari exec Phil Harrison said the company wouldn't be making another big-budge single player game? Sure ya do! Here, Harrison explains a bit better at what he was getting at: "I think the single-player, disconnected console game is probably in its dotage. Now, that doesn't mean that those games aren't relevant going forwards, but they will be enhanced by community features being embedded in them, or downloadable content becoming an inherent part of the experience, or some kind of user-generated content will be part of the experience. All of the things we see in other games, the things that we can point to in compelling games." Fair enough! Speaking of single player, has Phil Harrison made an easy transition to Infogrames from Sony? Says Harrison:

Read More »

Age of Conan may be Fahey's new best friend, but its found its way into more hearts than just his over the past week, with Funcom announcing today that 400,000 "gamers have entered Hyboria", which I'm going to suspect - though not assume - means 400,000 individual people, and not just 400,000 accounts. Healthy numbers! Though, as with all MMOs, how many they've got in six months could be the more telling figure.

Read More »

Koreans! That Special Limited Edition Metal Gear Solid 4 bundle? That's coming your way. The premium pack includes the 40GB, a DualShock 3, Metal Gear Solid 4 special edition and a special Blu-ray movie. This bundle sold out in Japan and was also offered in America for pre-order. While the number of bundles hasn't been confirmed, Kojima Productions associate producer Ryan Payton said, "We're not kidding around when we say 'limited edition'." Guess they had enough for Korea!
Thanks, Chris for the tip!

Preoders usually aren't necessary. Even if a game does sell out on opening day (which is rare), you're usually looking at no longer than 3-5 days til the resupplies start hitting. So save your money. You can wait. Oh, unless it's Fallout 3. Because if you preorder it at GameStop, then you'll get this fancy little soundtrack sampler. It may be a good listen, it may not be, who cares! It looks great.

Read More »

Interview with Uwe Boll [LoadingReadyRun Thanks everyone for sending this in!]

Ah, Afrika. Lions, savannah, misspelled (well, for me) continent names, it's all been a little interesting since first unveiled a few years back. It's also been terribly ambiguous. Really, we know nothing about this game. If it even is a game. What's it all about? Can we shoot the elephants? Can we ride the elephants? Who knows (though my money's on it being an animal sim...you ARE the elephant, etc). We'll hopefully know soon, though, as Sony wouldn't go putting a website for the game together without having something to tell us, would they?

Afrika [Official Site]

Square Enix's 2007 financial statement indicates that the company is going through a rough patch. How bad are things? Apparently, there has been an internal shakedown going on. According to several company insiders, things are getting heated. Word has it that a fierce meeting was held over a month ago where the Square Enix honcho threatened to start axing employees if they didn't (and we're paraphrasing) "stop making games that only they wanted to play." Wada is supposedly worried that the company's games have become more and more insular, alienating itself from the mainstream. Granted, this is purely a rumour, but there does seem to be a huge dichotomy within the company's products. You've got very, very casual Japan-only DS titles on one hand, then largely an endless stream of Final Fantasy spin-offs and remakes. Not exactly a balanced portfolio! Sure, Dragon Quest IX and Final Fantasy XIII are going to be huge, but neither game has a firm release date. Putting all your eggs in one basket, no? That, or painting oneself in a corner.

Let's take a break from Itagaki shooting his mouth off and get back to Ninja Gaiden II, eh? And we'll get back to it by checking out not one, not two, not even three, but four new videos for the game. Above, Mr. Hayabusa painting (a mysteriously drab-looking) Times Square red, with the other three after the jump.

Read More »

A milestone. In Japan, Sony Computer Entertainment has announced that a million PS3 users have signed up for PSN accounts since the PLAYSTATION Network went live in November 2006. Every month, approximately 400,000 players access the PSN's PLAYSTATION Store. To celebrate, Sony is giving away one thousand ¥1,000 PLAYSTATION Network Tickets for use in the PLAYSTATION Store. That's nice of Sony!

PSN A Million [Game Watch Impress]

Nothing says support your Japanese Olympic marathon runner like a giant robot! In Ise, Mie Prefecture, a 13-foot tall Gundam statue holding a banner that well-wishes Ise's own Mizuki Noguchi, the 2004 Olympic Marathon champ. Erected at the Takayanagi shopping centre in Ise, the Gundam encourages Noguchi to repeat her 2004 win this summer in Beijing. Nothing like some Olympic non-sequitur what-the-fuck!

Gundam Supporter [Mainichi]

Yes, the proper Sega Rally 3, for arcades. Shown off to the press in the UK over the weekend, after being tested under the dummy name "Super Challenge" for the past few months, it'll run on Sega's new Europa-R board, run at 60fps/720p, share much of the same assets as the recent Sega Rally Revo (nothing wrong with that) and comes with a car seat that's just downright classy. As a bonus, it's even got the desert track from the original Sega Rally. Exciting. It should be turning up in European arcades as you read this (having been developed by Sega's now-gone Racing Studio), with "the team hoping for international releases to follow".

Sega Rally 3: Hands-on impressions [Arcade Heroes, via DemonCleaner @ NeoGAF]

Move over Pirates of the Caribbean director Gore Verbinski. Rush Hour franchise helmer Brett Ratner wants to make movies based on video games, too! His interest seems piqued after working on a few ad-type spots for Activision's Guitar Hero. According to Ratner:

The games business is much more exciting than the movie business right now. I will be doing movies that come from video games.

Cue line about Hollywood unable to make good game movies.
Brett Ratner Bows Branding [Variety via Go Nintendo] [Pic]

To: Ashcraft
From: Ashcraft

Ah, yes, you just woke up. Sleep, isn't it WUNDERFUL?! Over the weekend, you and Mini-Bash took your buddy from high school to Shinsekai in Osaka, watched old men rock the cup sake at 10am and ate some seriously good kushikatsu. Last night before you slept, you downloaded a Heatmiser album. You should listen to it. Today, even!

What you missed last night
Game Boy from microwave hell
$US 600,000 Gundam painting
Square Enix lose money, need more greenbacks
Final Fantasy Agito XIII cancelled?
Gatorade, Windex compared. Talk of 3D action games

Above is a photo I took during last year's Game Connect Asia Pacific. It's about multi-threading, which is fascinating (and scary) as hell to a programmer, but a sleeping pill in slide form to the common person.

Yet, this is the type of presentation you can expect from the conference. It's not eGames. Or Go3. Or Atomic Live. For every Steve Fawkner chatting about casual and hardcore games or Martin Slater giving APIs a bum rap, there's your not-so-enthralling discussions on inverse kinematics and Z-buffering: The 3rd Dimension.

Having coded the odd program, edited a gaming tech magazine and now a gaming blog, there aren't many presentations at GCAP I don't get something out of, either professionally or personally.

But GCAP isn't the same event it once was. Over the last few years, it's become harder for me to justify the trip to Melbourne (Brisbane this year). Game Connect was once called AGDC, or the Australian Game Developers Conference. As AGDC, it was run by the Academy of Interactive Entertainment. I can't say much about the administration of the event, but as a journo and a hobby developer, there was a lot more content to sink my object-orientated fangs in to. The Game Developers Association of Australia is now in control (and has been for a couple of years), and I feel in its attempt to make an honest, for-the-industry event, some important details have been neglected. The debacle with speaker fees is one example.

I believe GCAP is in good hands now, but what the organisers need are suggestions. Ideas. Offers. It's an event that has to be taken seriously. So what I want to know is: If given the chance, would you attend a developer focused event such as Game Connect? And if so, what would you like to see there?

If you're after more information about GCAP, be sure to check out Kotaku AU for last year's coverage and the official website.

Game piracy is a big deal. Protection mechanisms have improved over the years, but the industry still suffers significant losses because of it. According to a 2005 report by the Interactive Entertainment Association of Australia, piracy costs local developers around $100 million per year. A scary number when you consider the industry only generated $136.9 million in income in 2007.

Atari founder Nolan Bushnell reckons Trusted Computing (TC) is the answer. A few days ago at a Wedbush Morgan security conference, Bushnell explained that Trusted Protection Module, or TPM, chips are currently being built into motherboards, and could be used to slow down, and even stop, piracy.

"What that says is that in the games business we will be able to encrypt with an absolutely verifiable private key in the encryption world - which is uncrackable by people on the internet and by giving away passwords - which will allow for a huge market to develop in some of the areas where piracy has been a real problem," he went on to say.

Read More »

The pre-launch days of Grand Theft Auto IV were interesting to say the least. Even more so for Australians and Kiwis who, much to their chagrin, discovered they'd be receiving a censored version of the game. NZ recently earned the right to make use of its R rating and sell the unmodified game, but Australia is still living with the consequences of its silly classification system.

We heard all sorts of stories about what was removed from our version - everything from guns and anuses, to stuff not involving guns and anuses. Regardless of what was real or not, Rockstar couldn't be bothered telling us exactly what to expect.

That's why we have people like reader Mick, who went to the trouble of comparing the Oz GTA IV with an uncut copy to find the differences. I can tell you, they'll definitely come as a surprise.

Read More »

Anyone up for an attempt at a 360 v PS3 graphics showdown? I'm out, had my fill of these by around 1994, but if you're curious, read on. GameSpot have attempted to settle which system has the better graphics by comparing a bunch of games, blending some screenshots together into a single image then providing some accompanying notes. One-eyed fanboys will no doubt find a way to convince themselves of their system's superiority, but cooler heads know that if you can pick up any differences - let alone major ones - from the tiny screens they've provided, best case, you're most likely a fibber. Worst case, a liar.

Graphics Comparison [GameSpot]

Motley Crue Single Sells More On 360 Than On iTunes
47,000 vs 10,000. I'd say those are much better numbers for the 360.

Square Enix Lose Money, Need More Greenbacks
Less focus on remakes, more on original IPs. It's hard, I know, but everyone needs a change of pace every once in a while.

A Game Boy From The Pits Of Microwave Hell
If Cthulhu and Nintendo had a baby, it'd look something like this.

Read More »

When you think Capcom, you think a couple of decades worth of good times. Street Fighter, Resident Evil, Mega Man...good times. But which of those series has brought us the best times? Who knows. That's a subjective question. One you could, however, try and answer by seeing how many people bought how many copies of a particular game. Or, hell, even the combined sales of an entire series. Click through to see which sold the most. And no. It's not Dino Crisis 2.

Read More »

Remember when Microsoft's Aaron Greenberg went berserk and bit Sony in the face? Sure you do! On Larry Hryb's podcast, Greenberg expressed what was going through his head:

I was basically expressing my frustration at a lot of specific things that they had promised over time... I think Sony has had a history of over-promising and under-delivering. [I was] just using actual facts of all the things that they had promised. I think I talked to some folks about this afterwards, but I think as an industry, we owe it to our customers to be straight with them. I think that some of the stuff we've talked about, while the reaction may not always be positive, we're going to tell you... People just want you to be straight with them. We know titles slip, we know things happen, and there's little we can do to control that, but if we promise something — I think as an industry — we need to start living up to our promises. As an organisation, i think Xbox has a pretty good track record of doing that.

Rock Band's late coming to Europe. And not just late. Late and expensive. Harmonix have tried explaining away the hefty price-tag before, but to no avail. Now they're trying again. Any luck this time around? You be the judge. Harmonix's Rob Kay:

We wanted to give people a choice, though. Splash £50 on the game and use any USB microphone to sing.

Rock Band dev defends price (again) [CVG]

I've spent a lot of time on Age of Conan this weekend, mainly because I am quitting smoking (4 days now) and it gives me something else to obsess over. I've met many new friends, though none of them are quite as cool as this guy here, who I met while exploring the Stygian desert landscapes.

What I like best about him is his no-nonsense approach to his work. He isn't a male poultry facilitator, or a rooster entitlement manager. He's the Cock Handler, and by gum he's proud of it.

I just wish that he could come with me on my adventure instead of being stuck in one place all the time, but he's happy there, and I'm happy out there killing hyenas. It's the natural order of things.

I'll never forget you, Cock Handler. You taught me so much.

The entries are starting to pour in! That's right, we've kicked off our make-Dragon-Balls-win-Dragon Ball Z Burst Limit. Reader iRockTheVote send the above image, writing:

Sorry for the bad quality all I had was a camera phone.

No. Sweat. Dude. Now that we got the inevitable egg entry out of the way, let's get the other inevitable entry out of the way. Reader NMN writes: "This Joke is as old as the dragonball series, and this is the perfect moment to use it. I know there is no chance to win this, but i want to share this with all gamers all over the world. Enter at your own risk......."

Read More »

You take a Game Boy, you throw it in the microwave, you can kiss your Game Boy goodbye. Maybe the microwave, too. But if you take your Game Boy then apply some Photoshoppery to it, make it look like its been thrown in the microwave, descended into hell then returned with a thirst for human flesh, well, then you've got this puppy. Truly frightening.

Photograph of my Microwaved Mutant Gameboy Advance [perfectlymadebirds@flickr]

At a Christie's auction in Hong Kong, Japanese artist Tenmyouya Hisashi 's traditional-meets-modern Gundam painting "RX-78-2 Kabuki-mono 2005 Version" went for HK$4.8 million (approx. $US 600,000). Says Hisashi about his work:

In Japan there are many "Gundam-Otaku's," and their adoration of Gundam is intense. Therefore, I did not want to change their image of Gundam. By changing Gundam's "mobile suit" to tattoos, I altered his body, and made him even more customised. I emphasised the very concept of the "mobile suit," and by setting Gundam against a background of gold leaf from traditional Japanese painting, I emphasised Gundam's samurai origins.

Hit the jump for another Hisashi work — this one inspired by a fighting game.

Read More »

OH. OH. So this is why Square-Enix boss Yoichi Wada said they needed to "go beyond traditional Square Enix". The company have released their FY2007 financial results, which not only show them losing money (with a 20% drop in profits), but losing a ton of Western market share in the process. The company's performance in the US should be of particular concern (Europe, it did OK), as it dropped like a rock, from 6.1 million games sold in FY2006 (during which FFXII was released) compared to only 3.7 million last year, while sales were up in Japan, from 7.2 million sold to 7.5 million. Guess Japan love them some remakes of games they've already played! And America, well, America notsomuch.

Unconfirmed! Apparently, Capcom is releasing Street Fighter IV this Summer on PS3, Xbox 360 and PC. Capcom accidentally announced this on a press site, states French site Jeuxvideo. Of course this multi-plat release would fall in line with how Capcom releases everything (PS3, Xbox 360 and PC). However, Jeuxvideo didn't provide a link to where this tidbit was discovered, so stay tuned.
Street Fighter 4 sur Playstation 3, Xbox 360 et... [Jeuxvideo via Big Download Blog via Xbox 360 Fanboy]