Did anything else happen in gaming last month other than Grand Theft Auto IV? Going over our original posts, it’s hard to believe otherwise.
But believe we will.
Firstly, Mario Kart Wii debuted, along with its rather pricey plastic wheel “controller”. Plans were made to bring a modified Dark Sector to our shores. Except those plans didn’t work out. We put together a list of options on how to fight for an R18+ rating for video games, and some dude’s girlfriend made us laugh while she tried to play Team Fortress 2.
As for GTA IV? *Deep breath* New Zealand got our edited version, confirmed by the NZ OFLC and a retailer; we got our hands on the Oz OFLC report; the street date was broken; Sony announced a PS3 bundle with the game; NZ was eligible for a Social Club comp, but Australia wasn’t; everyone shared details of where they were importing GTA IV from and finally, we heard rumour upon rumour regarding the removed content in our version of GTA IV.
And that, friends, was April.
How To Get Mario Kart Wii For $50
Rockstar Confirms GTA IV Region Locked?
GTA IV Australian Street Date Broken
Turn On Your Xbox 360 with Limited Edition GH III Wii Guitar
Australian Playstation 3 GTA IV Bundle Confirmed
Xbox Arcade + GTA IV + Halo 3 Bundle Coming to Australia May 2
Mario Kart Wii Delayed in New Zealand
New Zealand Eligible for Rockstar Competition, But Not Australia
Guess What We Didn’t Find in the OFLC Board Report For GTA IV?
New Zealand OFLC Confirms Its GTA IV Same As Australia’s
Rumour: Here’s What Rockstar Removed From Australian/NZ GTA IV
Retailer Confirms: NZ GTA IV Same As Australian Version
Tell Us Where You’ll Be Buying GTA IV
TrackWork: D&D Combat Tool For Initiatives, HP and More
Rockstar Speaks On Australia GTA IV Edits, R18+ Classification
The Australian Attempts Criticism of R18+ Classification for Video Games
R18+ Classification & Video Games: What You Can Do
GTA IV Bus Roams Sydney, Gangsters Strangely Absent
Girlfriend Plays Team Fortress 2 For The First Time, Apologises For Owning
Australia Will Get Toned Down Dark Sector, Based On Japanese Build
Mario Kart Wii Wheel Will Be $19.95 In Oz, Confirmed By Nintendo
Busy times for the last full week leading up to the GTA IV release. We had two pirated releases, a probe into gamers stupid enough to play them with Xbox Live enabled, and a desperate attempt out in Holland to get stores to sell it early. Nuh-uh. Nice try though. And no one stateside was able to convince their local Gamestop to slip a copy early. Someone will, though. Just wait.
Sweet Baby Jesus. I’m keeping this originals intro ridiculously short because the originals list is ridiculously long. Forty-one pieces of original reporting, mostly because we were at Midway Gamer’s Day and Namco Bandai Editor’s Day. The proverbial one legged man in an asskicking contest is the Maytag Man next to us. Because when we kick arse, we use both legs and both arms, and a headbutt or too. Scan the list for what you might have missed since we last did this.
That pesky R18+ rating issue! Why won’t it just go away? Probably because games are being discriminated against, adult gamers are being treated like children and the OFLC is being unnecessarily restricted.
But enough of that. We’ve made some headway – finally. Let’s look to the future now instead of the past, and start building on the progress we’ve made.
Before you do that, however, you might want to go back over the month just gone. Australia was a hot bed of gaming activity. Super Mario Bros. Brawl made its way to our shores via alternate routes, despite Nintendo remaining mum on an official release date. I got hammered and played poker at the Vegas 2 launch and Rockstar thought it’d be an awesome idea to charge $120 for GTA IV. You can buy a second-hand PS2 for that!
Official Xbox 360 Magazine parted ways with publisher Derwent Howard, but it made up for it with the launch of Ultimate Nintendo Magazine, which is a fair swap, if you ask me.
Kieren Perkins helped launch Wii Fit, Frontlines was briefly available on Steam before THQ whisked it away and three-way SLI showed itself to be, well, expensive.
Obviously, there was more that happened this month, but we’ll let you peruse it all at your own pace.
Free Online RPG EUO Celebrates 5th Birthday With Experience Bonanza
Be A Life Saver, Throw Beach Balls At People
Sub-Con Warrior 2.0: When Gaming Meets Theatre
What’s In The God of War: Chains of Olympus Box?
Rainbow Six Vegas 2 Oz Launch Party
Australia, Buy Super Smash Bros Brawl, $99.95 From GameTraders
How To Have Easter With Super Mario & Portal
You Want GTA IV Australia? That’ll Be $120, Thanks
Microsoft, Samsung Announce Asia Pacific Halo 3 Tournament, Includes Prizes Galore
Sidhe Talks About Sony’s PhyreEngine
Victorians Can Get Rock Band PS3 Too
Tantalus Looking For Talent, Industry Experience Not Necessary
Australia Gets Ultimate Nintendo Mag
Atari Steam Games? Not For Australia
Australian Wii Fit Launch, Now With Kieren Perkins
Derwent Howard, Future Split Confirmed
Derwent Howard To Lose Official Xbox 360 Magazine, Future To Enter Oz Market?
Civilization Revolution Xbox 360 Faceplate Has Famous People On It
Frontlines Gone From Steam For Oz Users, Shouldn’t Have Been There
