The dudes over at GameSpot have posted an absolutely massive (133 minutes to be exact!) video of their privileged selves playing through multiple levels of the upcoming The Force Unleashed on all three consoles. As you might guess, a video that long is obviously full of spoilers (plus the GameSpot guys don’t really hold back in their conversation either). So if you think having plot points revealed to you before you actually get your hands on the game might cause you to get upset and damage a pet or some rather expensive electronics, don’t say I didn’t warn you. Even in that case, though, you can still selectively flip through the video to see some of the gameplay, which admittedly looks pretty darn awesome. Even the Wii version, which has considerably fewer graphical bells and whistles seems to look rather attractive. Because of the motion sensitive controls it seems like that version is a little more difficult to play (e.g. you have to make actual motions a la Twilight Princess to control your lightsaber vs. simply pounding a button), but presumably that means that it feels a little more realistic as well (hopefully in a good way). In either case, check out the video, its pretty sweet, and should certainly take your appetite from “wet” to “drool” in anticipation of the September 16th release.
… God NO, NOT really! Don’t tell me you actually bought that for a split second. Though I certainly can’t blame you for clicking through even though you fully suspected that this was complete bullshit. Not that she wasn’t a total knock-out in Transformers, but seriously, I just wanted to test out some advice I stumbled upon over at GameGrep. I mean sure, the headline said “How to get traffic for your terrible gaming EDITORIAL”, but I figured it should work for a blog post as well. So yes, I am officially acknowledging that this is a terrible blog post. In fact, I’ve wasted nearly a hundred words already and you haven’t learned a damn thing yet (unless you happened to have had no idea who Megan Fox was, in which case you are indebted to me for all eternity) and I gotta tell you - I don’t see a lot more brilliance coming in the next few paragraphs. In fact, I don’t even see any more paragraphs here at all. Get yourself checked out - you are seeing things.
As I’m sure most of you are aware by now, Microsoft not only confirmed the price drops for the Xbox 360 earlier this week, but they went into affect at major retailers across the country this morning.
The big update for this story, though, sheds some light on the one question mark we all held with regards to the price cut - the leftover 20 gig models. They were included in the drop, though that had escaped mention in many of the leaked ads, and will now be selling for $259 msrp until they are gone. (Some places still selling the Halo version - which is freakin sweet, by the way - have also dropped the price on that model, from $399 to $349, as seen here on Walmart.com.)
So, for those of you who had been waiting for the price drop to pick up your 360s, head on out and rejoice in the nation’s favorite pastime - spending money.
As we had previously reported, thanks to the good folks over at Wired’s Game|Life blog, and as Kotaku has pointed out here (among other posts), there has been more and more information leaking about the newest price cuts for the Xbox 360. It seems that as early as this coming weekend, the Arcade version will sell for $199, according to Walmart (as shown in the above scan of the ad starting this Sunday, September 7), and based on the other reports, the 60 GB Pro will retail for $299, with the 120 GB Elite rounding out the group at $399. So yes, Microsoft will in fact be the first to break the $200 price point - if only by pennies and with the crummy Arcade system, but hey, it’s still progress. If anyone bought a 360 recently, I hope you still have your receipts!
Also, no word yet on whether the price drop will affect any remaining 20 gig units, which are currently priced at $299 and would undoubtedly continue to sit there not selling were they to remain the same price as the 60 gig.
…because now is the time to pee your pants more than you’ve ever peed before - the good people at Bethesda have revealed 5 - count ‘em - FIVE new Fallout 3 videos at PAX today, and the other good people at GameTrailers.com have laid them out in one convenient spot for your viewing and re-viewing pleasure. Here is the first one to get your drool going; once you’ve moped up, go to the url below for the other 4:
Well, it’s official - there is absolutely nothing exciting going on in the world of gaming today. 45 minutes of pouring through recent headlines on 1up, n4g, gamegrep, kotaku and joystiq yields nothing but the usual boring drivel:
- Gears of War 2 and Fallout 3 and My Eyes Are Staring At The Back Of My Head And Getting Fucking Scared 4 are going to be playable at PAX this year.
- Some 18 year old idiot got his ass kicked by talking shit at a group of 30 dudes with brass knuckles.
- New exclusive screenshots of your granddaddy’s nose hairs are available for your viewing pleasure.
- Some big publisher moved a few bucks around in their bank account because that’s what they do every goddamn fucking Thursday.
- 65 really crappy games no one will ever buy except as a gift to their worst enemies are coming out next quarter.
- Spore is still not out, but here is one more bit in a line of 35,678 useless bits of information about it.
- The new Wii controller will not change the fact that most games for the console are pathetic, but at least it’s now responsive enough to double as an anal vibrator.
- Will Wright has actually been in a fucking coma for 3 years, but we are still holding the half-done source code over his lifeless body because we think the game is going to finish itself eventually.
An exciting world we live in, indeed. Thank god there are still some places that serve alcohol for lunch.
Don’t worry, you can let it out. This is definitely cause for a major “WTF?” moment.
According to the cool folks at 1up.com, via Official Xbox Magazine, rumors are circulating that Gearbox, the developers behind the Brothers in Arms series, are going to be responsible to taking Master Chief, Cortana, and the rest of the Halo universe into the NEXT next generation. Read the rest of this entry »
As a delighted owner of both the Wii and the robotic vacuum cleaner Roomba, I couldn’t help but “borrow” this news-bit, originally posted by the guys over at Kotaku. Here, a Japanese wiz-man (wiz-person?), Ron Tajima hooks up his Wii Fit Balance Board to his Roomba using a Bluetooth connection. The result? Vacuuming your floors by exercising, of course!
What would be even more cool, now, is to reverse the feedback to have the motions of the vacuuming Roomba transmit back to the Balance Board for a true balancing mini-game!
This 7-minute long (well, minus all the marketing junk at the end) trailer of the new Prince of Persia game has been circulating around the web today, fresh off the floor of the Leiptzig Game Show, one of the few remaining venues where they are still not ashamed to use sexy girls to promote love, peace, and video games.
German girls aside, the trailer is quite an enjoyable little piece of media. As an avid fan of the original Prince of Persia games, I can never quite pass up a chance to get a sneak peak at the next game, and this time was no different. A penny for my thoughts, you say? Why, sure. Well, first things first - I love the new art style. This, of course, is a highly personal thing, but for me it’s a great improvement over the previous look of the The Sands of Time et al - I never really bought into the whole “Dark Prince” thing, and this definitely improves on that color scheme.
The moves and acrobatics remain on the same track as before - wall-running and the like. Once again, not something that I was ever too crazy about - while all these moves are theoretically cool, they just stray a little too far from reality for me - even video game reality. It’s not parkour - because you can’t really do parkour in the mountains by simply pretending that tiny cracks can actually support your entire body weight even for a second - and it’s not classic platforming, because there is nothing classic about being able to slide down a 50 foot wall without so much as breaking a fingernail. It’s definitely cinematic, but my issue with it is that it’s too much so - you can’t stop at any point, take a breather, and enjoy the scenery - you have to keep executing crazy maneuvers until you reach that very occasional point when you are actually on solid ground.
The voice acting also definitely comes off as a little weird. The Prince and Elika sound like two teenagers having a relaxed conversation over milk shakes in a suburban diner - all the while they are scaling immense heights, performing head-turning acrobatics, and battling incredible beasts. I was half expecting one of them to come out with “So, you wanna catch a movie later?” at any moment.
Still, being a total graphics whore, the amazing art style might just lure me back for another try at this next iteration of an undying classic. It will definitely start out as a rental for me, though.
That’s what’s happening to Nintendo lately. First there was the lackluster E3 conference. Then word that their GameCube, Wavebird, and Classic controllers were found to be infringements of copyrighted patents. Now, new litigation is heading the way of the big N, this time from Hillcrest Laboratories, Inc., who claim that the Wii remote’s motion control and the interface used with the system were ideas invented by Hillcrest, not Nintendo’s developers.
