Saudi Arabia

In Real Life

Saudi Arabia’s First Gaming Expo Is Also A Giant Sausage Party

5:00AM November 28, 2011 | Owen Good

When Saudi Arabia gets into games news here, it’s usually for banning a game (which its citizens can readily obtain by other means), although it does have developers, who recently published an Uncharted clone. This weekend saw the nation’s first gaming exposition, too, although a visit to its main page advises “Attendance for males only.” More »


Mobile

Unearthed, The Saudi-Made Uncharted Knockoff, Is Available For Everything But The 360

7:30AM June 27, 2011 | Owen Good

Does this look familiar? Aside from the wooden animations, of course. This is Unearthed: The Trail of Ibn Battuta by Saudi Arabia-based Semaphore, and even this Uncharted copy won’t be playable on the Xbox 360. More »


News

Microsoft Saudi Arabia Dates Project Natal

7:30PM May 11, 2010 | Brian Ashcraft

In an interview with Saudi television, Microsoft marketing guy Syed Bilal Tariq has given a release date for Microsoft’s motion controller, Project Natal. More »


Uncategorized

How to Buy God of War 2 in Saudi Arabia

9:00AM August 10, 2008 | Owen Good

Our gamer friends in Saudi Arabia can’t buy titles like God of War 2. Not only are they banned for sale within the country, if you order it online you risk having it confiscated, and then you have to pay a fat fine (about $US 125.) No surprise that this kind of crackdown only breeds a black market for the goods in question, and reader Alaa A. shows us how some retailers get around things so he and others can get their Kratos on.

Alaa tells us that at Rashid mall in Khobar, he spied Chains of Olympus, the GOW version for the PSP. Wondering if that meant they also had GOW2 he inquired. Lo and behold, they did. And here’s the part where I want to imagine Alaa wearing a fedora and the clerk in an eyepatch, with a monkey perched on his shoulder, leading him into an anteroom while looking nervously over his shoulder. The guy handed Alaa a shrink-wrapped copy of Winning Eleven. When he opened it, inside was the God of War 2 disc, and the GoW cover neatly slid behind the Winning Eleven artwork.

“I got for around $US 25 and it’s an original copy”, Alaa said. “Makes me feel dirty for some reason though”.

Another pic below.

More »


Uncategorized

10:10PM May 7, 2008 | Luke Plunkett

Saudi Coffee Shop Sells Only Short Black Mesas – Spotted in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia by reader Faisal.

More »


Uncategorized

Sony Opens Four New PlayStation Stores

1:40AM November 9, 2007 | Mike Fahey

It is a day of great celebration in the countries of Greece, Poland, Saudi Arabia, and the Czech Republic, as Sony Computer Entertainment Europe launches for new iterations of the PlayStation Store for these poor, underprivileged areas. “When we launched PLAYSTATION®3 (PS3â„¢) in March, we promised that we would continue to improve the service throughout the SCEE territories and offer more stores to new regions as quickly as possible,” said Chris Stanton-Jones, VP of Distributor Markets for SCEE. “The launch of these four new stores highlights our commitment both to improving our offering and the importance of these increasingly dynamic markets.

I would have thought they’d have gotten to this sooner, seeing as Europe is the most important continent, but you can’t complain when four new countries get access to the most awesome rubber duckie game ever created. More »