Microsoft

Weekly News We care About Wrap Up – 3.24.06

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PS3 to be region free.
Woohoo. Now I can buy RPGs I can’t play without getting the system modded. I expect this will increase the number of gamers who import titles from Japan, but also eat into sales of Western releases by a little, which is part of the reason console manufacturers always used region encoding.

GameStop makes huge profits.
Buying your competitors and selling used games as new really works.

Errrr
This pic of Representative Keeley is really a stronger argument against her position than anything I could write.

Jack Thompson and Delaware Representative try to brand violent games as obscene, thereby getting around that pesky First Amendment.
According to them games are not speech so they shouldn’t be protected. Since when did artistic expression need to be in the form of spoken words? Since stupid religious conservatives saw an issue that would make them rich and famous.

PS3 will come with a hard drive.
Last weeks jokes are taken back by 75%. →  Illiterates hate her! Click to read this one weird trick.

Weekly News We care About Wrap Up – 3.17.06

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OMG itz a remote control!11111

Miyamoto confirms the new Zelda will use the Revolution controller.
Though in what regard, we are still not sure. If it’s simply for mini games or something silly like that, many fans may pissed off. I think Nintendo painted themselves into a corner with this new Zelda game. They wanted to release it as a GC game but then there are no other big games coming out on that system… possibly ever. So instead of supporting their own dead system they decided to launch it with the Revolution. Making it a Rev launch title makes sense, but then Nintendo would just alienate more fans because the game was originally promised for the GC. So now they’re trying to dress it up like a Revolution title to sell the system. I predict the added controller functionality will suck, but I hope I’m wrong.

PS3 to launch worldwide in November. Games will be developed as if all users have a hard drive, which may or may not cost extra money for the consumer. →  Lamers so loved the world that they gave their only article, so that everyone who believes in reading won’t perish but will have eternal lives.

Review – Jade Empire

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Jade Empire
Developed by Bioware
Published by Microsoft
Released 4.12.05
Blue crap coming out of the hands is a serious medical condition.

Bioware is one of my favorite companies because I bow to the altar of Baldur’s Gate. I played both games in that series and both expansion packs. When I read the third installment was canceled I nearly wept. Knights of the Old Republic is a great game but I’m not really into Star Wars, Neverwinter Nights was good but there wasn’t enough focus on having a sweet party of adventurers. There will never be another Baldur’s Gate and I have to accept it (by mentioning it in every other article I write). First, an immediate comparison: Jade Empire is not as good as Baldur’s Gate. Ok, now I feel better and can begin the review.

The meat of gameplay in Jade Empire is fighting enemies, whether it be with a melee weapon, magic or just your fists and feet. →  Theme Postital

Capitalism in the video game market

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Uh huh huh
MTV’s sole contribution to the arts.

Recently I read a letter to a magazine that said a games quality can be determined by how well it sells. If we are to accept the generally accepted American view of capitalism, this should be true. But then why do terrible pop artists always dominate the charts, why does MTV exist, and why has no one murdered Bill O’Reilly? Clearly, there is some sort of flaw in the system.

While it would be fun to give a socialist lecture, I will stick to the video game market today. Why do good games not always sell? The first obvious reason is that games are expensive so the consumer cannot try all of them. A cheap product, like a pen or mayonnaise, can easily be purchased by most segments of society. In time, if a consumer wishes, a large number of competing pens can be bought and tried. Thus, it is possible the free market can “decide” on the better pen.

 →  Hey, hey, hey, it’s time to make some crazy reading!

Review – Super Mario Strikers

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Super Mario Strikers
Developed by Next Level games
Published by Nintendo
Released 12.5.05
Oh sweet Jesus.

Today’s review, along with (hopefully) a few more to follow, is the result of a complete immersion in the multiplayer games available on what has become the premier multiplayer system of this aging generation, the Nintendo Gamecube. No other system has the range or the number of quality multiplayer titles as the Gamecube, and no company has put as much emphasis on multiplayer gaming as Nintendo. It is possible this is as a result of the fact that Nintendo likely can not compete with the monoliths of Sony and Microsoft, relegating once powerful Nintendo to a niche market. Regardless of the reason, Nintendo has largely made multiplayer gaming its bread and butter, and the results have been very good. With that, we begin with the most recent entry in this genre, Mario Strikers.

Super Mario Strikers is another in a long list of Mario Sports games. →  Read more, before it’s too late!

A call for womanly arms

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Any group put together by a company, whether it be New Kids on the Block or the Frag Dolls, should be highly respected.

Despite the Microsoft announcement at last E3 that women were going to be brought into the fold and the introduction of higher fines for scantily clad booth babes, women are still on the fringes of gaming. Slowly we approach equality, moving through the same motions as any fight for equality in any area.

First, there are the radical few. Small groups of women band together, screaming out that they are better than the boys. Thus the Frag Dolls and other such groups are born.

Next, comes the insistence that women are different and need games catered to them. Thus Barbie gaming is born. Barbie Fashion Designer actually outsold Mortal Kombat back in 1996 and broke every previous CD ROM sale record. Grrl Gaming becomes a thing in the early part of this century and then dies as Mattel buys out most of the creative stuff for girls out there. →  Europa Universalis IV: Articles of War

Review – Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay

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Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay
Developed by Starbreeze
Published by VU Games
Released 6.1.04

The guy in the purple sock thing deserves to die for crimes against fashion.

I have seen neither Pitch Black nor the Chronicles of Riddick (I like being uninformed, it gives me a unique angle). I am not sure Vin Diesel doesn’t suck, and yes, I know he likes D&D. I also know I saw the Pacifier, though that was more strawberry margarita’s fault than his. Combining my hesitation about Mr. Diesel with my general apathy for FPS’s, and the fact that most games based on movies are secretly designed by Satan, I was not convinced the Chronicles of Riddick game would be anything more than god awful.

The first cut scene in the game did little to allay my fears. A poorly directed action scene is one of the last things you should see in a game about an action movie. Maybe Starbreeze were just taking a cue from the reportedly bad movie. →  The happiest post on Earth.

More Predictions, but these guys actually get paid for them

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Analyst Mike Wallace of UBS Securities is probably not a household name to even the nerdiest family. I doubt his parents remember who he is. They likely purged all memories of their son after reading one too many of his astounding stupid predictions about the video game market. I don’t know Mike Wallace, so I can’t say he is a bad guy, but if he doesn’t do anything besides come up with predictions and projections he changes every few months, he makes too much money.

Mike Wallace*
*Note that there is a slight chance this is a different Mike Wallace.

In a recent GameSpot news article, Wallace predicts that the Xbox 2 will maintain its lead over the other new generation systems. I personally think this is a bad prediction because 3rd parties sell systems and PS3 will likely still lead in that department, so I decided to look up some more of this dynamo’s prognostications.

Ah ha, look at what I found. →  Sid Meier’s Alpha Centarticle

And the future shall be as so

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Five Predictions for 2006 by Billy

1. Sony and Microsoft are going to duke it out again for the mainstream. While Nintendo is going to fall further into its niche market. However, there will still be several interesting things to look for:

Will the lead Microsoft is taking now really matter, with their dirty shortages trick? Will Sony’s whole root kit thing and failure to use good memory storage really hurt them and allow Microsoft to rule the domestic US game market? I have a feeling that if Sony doesn’t amend its ways and stop the nonsense many game companies will pull out and work more with the Xbox people in an attempt to not lose sales. This will especially be a big deal next holiday season when Xbox 360 and PS3 are going for each others throats. I have a hunch that Sony will do its best to save face and eventually come out slightly bruised but ok, leaving the death struggle for the NEXT generation of system warfare. →  Jesus: Readful Bio Monster

Working Designs meets their Designer

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“First of all, sorry for being incommunicado for such a long time. It’s been a busy time, as you’ll see.

There’s no easy way to say it, so I just will. Working Designs is gone. All the staff has been laid off and the office is closed and has been for some time. Yes, the website is still here, and I am going to do my best to keep it tucked away somewhere on the ‘net so it doesn’t become an illicit domain. (Of course, some of the haters may be of the mind that it’s been illicit all along, heh!).

The most frustrating part of all of this is that I know that our fanbase is still there. Growlanser Generations sold well, but of course not better than it would have sold as two separate titles. We just spent too much time fighting the good fight to even get it out, and other games approved.

Though almost finished and substantially improved from the Japanese release, Goemon is dead for the US, and that was really the final straw.

 →  Shadow of Read