Underground Gamer

Filed under: Mac, PC, Meta (about Joystiq)

The last week of November was all about giving at Big Download as we posted up a ton of holiday gift guides and started a contest that will net one of our readers a tricked out gaming PC rig. Let’s look at the highlights for the past week:

Exclusive features

• Holiday gift guides: We have tons of suggestions and opinions on buying games this season: How PC gaming saves you money; Big Download’s 2008 PC Gaming Holiday Gift Guide; Big Iron’s 2008 Holiday Wish List; Big Download’s 2008 Holiday Gift Card Guide For Future Games; 15 Indie Games For The Holidays; Black Friday 08 Virtual Bargain Bin
• Contest: Would you like to win a $2,499 gaming PC from iBuypower? Then check out our biggest contest yet for all the details.
• Reviews: We have our final verdict on Call of Duty: World at War and Penny Arcade Adventures Chapter 2
• Mac Monday: Our regular Mac game column takes a look at the 2D adventure game Aquaria.
• MODmonday: Our mod column takes a look at the Half-Life mod Action Half-Life
• Boot Disk: Our retro gaming column takes a look at the original Half-Life.
• Big Ideas: Our weekly look at game industry themes is all about the children.
• Freeware Friday: Our weekly look at free games takes a gander at the indie fighting game Toribash

Continue reading The Best of Big Download: November 24-30

The Best of Big Download: November 24-30 originally appeared on Joystiq on Sun, 30 Nov 2008 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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In the interest of getting some news to you in a slow cycle, let’s start Sunday with a chatter roundup. Here are three things that enough people are blabbing about in the video game blogosphere that I’m reasonably comfortable passing them along. These are other people’s rumors, and other people’s sources — I’ve tried to put a sniff test on ‘em. By itself I don’t think one makes much of a post, but three are good to chew over with your Reese’s Puffs this a.m. Enjoy.

• New Xbox 360 “Jasper” Console to have 256 MB of Flash Memory — Xbox 360 Fanboy is reporting this, but is it really a rumor? Dean Takahashi reported the 256MB figure as straight-up fact in his rundown of what the 360 will feature. Either way, that would allow the console to be shipped with the entire NXE on it, removing the need to connect the machine to XBL to download and install it.

• Disaster: Day of Crisis OTW to North America? — GoNintendo got screenshots of email from a reader talking to Nintendo customer support (grain of salt alert), in which the reader was told “I’m pleased to report that Disaster: Day of Crisis has been announced for North America, but no release date yet.” The comment was attributed to Dervin Camden, Nintendo of America Inc. Makes sense, and the last time we had someone’s tech support give up details about a title release, it was GTA IV for the PC and that turned out pretty well.

• Fable II OTW to PC? Joystiq goes with a rumor from a German-language site, quoting a “gut unterrichteter Quelle” (well-informed source) that Fable II will indeed be ported over to the PC. The rumor goes so far as to give a date: Feb. 15, 2009. Joystiq points out Fable’s PC release came a year after the original, so this might be a little early, but who knows. That was an original, this is a sequel that everyone expected to make nothing other than moolah galore, maybe they had the port in the works simultaneously.

Rumor: Jasper 360s Get 256MB Internal Storage[Xbox 360 Fanboy]
RUMOR — Disaster: Day of Crisis Getting a Chance in North America? [GoNintendo via GayGamer]
Rumor: Fable II Coming to PC in February [Joystiq via Blue's News]

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Filed under: Action

We usually don’t think twice about trusting the judgment of game designer Shinji Mikami — after all, he did create the Resident Evil series, and executive produced a few Capcom classics, such as Viewtiful Joe and Devil May Cry. However, we did a double-take when we saw a recent blurb from Mikami during an interview with Official PlayStation magazine; a blurb in which he reveals that, unlike many gamers, he “probably won’t play” the next installment in his brainchild franchise, Resident Evil 5.

Mikami, who’s been working under the Platinum Games label since the Great Clover Cleaving of 2006, said he knows he wouldn’t enjoy the Africa-centric thriller, explaining that, “it’s not going to be the game I would have made.” He went on to issue a threat to his former employers, stating, “if I see anything in Resident Evil 5 that isn’t done well, I’ll be angry!” We’d hate to see what the man behind some of the goriest games we’ve ever played does when he gets his dander up.

Resident Evil creator Mikami won’t play RE5 originally appeared on Joystiq on Sun, 30 Nov 2008 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you only got $20, or the gamer on your gift list already has everything, or if you want to give a less-than-serious gamer friend something cool without obligating them to 420 hours of Resistance 2, Examiner.com dug up 10 great game-themed T-shirts. For my money the big winnah of all of these is there at left. Two others also come from a Threadless.com BioShock contest. But “Achievement Unlocked: Left the House,” I think we all know someone who would rock that proudly and without irony on his or her chest. Then again, if you read my 360 Gift Guide and saw that I recommended Need for Speed: Undercover, you have every right to question my gift suggestions.

10 Best Game Shirts for the Holidays [Denver Video Game Examiner, via GamePolitics]

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Admit it. You’ve got an old GameCube from yesteryear laying around, and the slow economy (and fear for your life) is holding you back from running to your nearest brick-and-mortar to pick up a Classic Controller for your Wii. You know you want to play Super Mario 64 to work off that turkey, but you can’t justify laying out the cash.
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See some of what this dynamic FPS has in store for the DS. Watch Video

I’ll say this for Rockstar - they do like a controversy. Usually, though, they go in for cool controversies like sexy mini games or the sensationalised depiction of car crime and bullying.Lame kerfuffles about copy protection schemes just seem a bit off-message, somehow. C’mon chaps, you’ll not get many tabloid headlines with this nonsense!
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I’ll say this for Rockstar - they do like a controversy. Usually, though, they go in for cool controversies like sexy mini games or the sensationalised depiction of car crime and bullying.Lame kerfuffles about copy protection schemes just seem a bit off-message, somehow. C’mon chaps, you’ll not get many tabloid headlines with this nonsense!
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“We’re still reporting on Second Life, but only as part of our usual tech and media coverage,” a Reuters spokeswoman confirmed to The Register (via Game Politics). After only two years of activity, one of the world’s leading news services decided to end its virtual branch in the world of Second Life, and it may have taken a month-and-a-half for anyone to notice. The last entry on their site is dated September 30.

In 2006, many companies, including Coke and Nike, spent thousands of dollars developing an online presence in Second Life, only to find out later that they were severely jumping the gun. Most of the real world wasn’t ready for this virtual reality’s unintuitive menu and navigation system, despite its pioneering efforts in intellectual property ownership and commerce. Basically, the aforementioned companies became owners of “hip” and “stylized” ghost cyber-stores. With the infrequency of actual news to report, I’m surprised Reuters remained for this long. The occasional story on flying penises couldn’t have driven that much traffic.
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Valve has just released (via videogaming247) the achievement stats for their zombie shooter Left 4 Dead. In addition to “think[ing] people will find it interesting,” Valve says that with these statistics, they “expect to spot emergent problems earlier, and ultimately build better products and experiences as a result.”

As of writing, the stats for a few of the Achivements are as follows:

• Drag and Drop: Rescue a Survivor from a Smoker’s tongue before he takes damage. - 71.6%
• Blind Luck: You or another Survivor take no damage after being vomited on by a Boomer. - 66.1%
• Dead Stop: Punch a Hunter as he is pouncing. - 37.9%
• No-one Left Behind: Beat a campaign with all 4 Survivors - 35.6%
• Dead Giveaway: Heal a fellow Survivor when your own health is below 10. - 23.6%
• Akimbo Assassin: Survive an entire campaign using only pistols. - 4.3%
• Nothing Special: Survive a campaign with no Survivors taking damage from Special Infected. - 0.2%
• Lamb 2 Slaugher: As an Infected, incap a Survivor who has entered and left a safe room. - 0%
• Zombie Genocidest: Kill 53,595 Infected. - 0%

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In these tough economic times, buying used games and trading in old titles for store credit or cash have become common methods of saving a few hard-earned bucks. Speaking to Gamasutra, GameStop CEO Dan DeMatteo says limiting these options creates “a bone of contention with the consumer,” adding that each consumer believes a game purchase holds a “residual value” of $20, a figure revealed in a study conducted for a book on Micromania, a French videogame retailer recently acquired by GameStop.

DeMatteo was also quick to note that although they may not profit from it directly, the used game market supports videogame publishers as well as ocnsumers:

“Also, we will give out approximately $800 million in credits this year — trade-in credits that will go toward the purchase of new video games. The consumer, oftentimes and especially now, needs that residual value from those games as a trade-in to be able to afford a new video game.”

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Filed under: Nintendo Wii

Excite Truck wasn’t the most well-received or widely-purchased launch title for the Wii, though there was something charming about sending gargantuan automobiles bounding across rough terrain. However, we haven’t heard much from developer Monster Games since the title’s 2006 release. A recent article in a Minnesota-based blog titled Locally Grown shed some light on the company’s under the radar status — they’ve apparently been working on a top-secret Wii title for the past two years.

The title, which many speculate to be another racing game (as it appears to be the developer’s bread-and-butter genre), is nearly complete. However, don’t expect any information about the project to leak any time soon — the article explains that the cautious development team is so protective of the new title that they dim their computer screens when the bottled water delivery person visits. It’s a ritual they apparently developed after being forced to murder their first delivery person, who accidentally laid eyes on a single screenshot.

Excite Truck dev working on top-secret Wii title originally appeared on Joystiq on Sat, 29 Nov 2008 20:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: PC, Action

Don’t go burning your pre-order slips for the PC version of Grand Theft Auto IV in effigy just yet, dear readers — yes, according to an unnamed Rockstar staffer, the title will implement the oft-decried SecuROM to prevent piracy, however, its imposed limitations aren’t too severe. Speaking to IGN, the Rockstar rep explained that the GTA IV disc will need to be in the drive in order to play the game, and the title must be registered online upon installation. However, we won’t be seeing a repeat of the drama that recently plagued Spore — there’s no limit to the amount of times the game can be installed.

Obviously, these rules are different for those who acquire the game via digital distribution, as retail services such as Steam have their own install limits and anti-piracy measures. We suggest checking out the aforementioned IGN interview if you’re currently suffering from a DRM-related panic attack.

[Via Big Download]

PC version of GTA IV to include SecuROM, no install limit originally appeared on Joystiq on Sat, 29 Nov 2008 18:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Microsoft Xbox 360, RPGs

If you thought you’ve seen the last of The Last Remnant, Square’s recent East-meets-West RPG, you’ve got another thing coming — actually, you’ve got four things coming. Throughout December, Square will be releasing four downloadable expansions to the already expansive title. The first two will drop simultaneously on Dec. 1 for Gold Xbox Live members (Silver members will have to wait until Dec. — “Challenge Pack 1: Purgatory’s Sins” will add difficult new guild tasks to the game, while “The Key of Ancient Ruins” will… unlock some in-game Ancient Ruins.

On Dec. 22 (Dec. 29 for Silver members), Square will release “Challenge Pack 2: The Price of Lies”, which will bestow even tougher guild tasks upon the game’s more masochistic players. Finally, the “March to War” set, which unlocks three new battle formations and was rewarded to pre-orderers of the title, will be available for everyone to download Dec. 15. It will run players 100 — the other three expansions will be totally free.

The Last Remnant getting four DLC packs in December originally appeared on Joystiq on Sat, 29 Nov 2008 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A gamer’s fourth Xbox 360 red-ringed, and a veritable who’s-who of consoles turned out to pay their respects and show their anguish that so many are dying so young, and so senselessly.

Tiggerboy, who keeps a blog on the UK GameSpot, brought in all the hardware dignitaries to bid the 360 goodbye. You can see the 360 packaged in his foam coffin (aka the Peter Moore Catafalque), ready to to be ferried by the Boatman of the Dead Consoles (aka the UPS guy) on his way back to Microsoft, where his remains will become part of the circle of console life. There’s a gallery of the proceedings on the jump, including an astonishing, last-minute appearance by a disowned relative that will leave you heaving up great sobs.

Master Chief, a lifelong friend, gave a moving eulogy. In the crowd: Venerable PSOne up front, leaning on his cane, pale and wan, feeling every day of his 14 years of age and wondering how it has come to pass that he is burying the children of his friends. And behind him, the grand statesman NES, his gaming days long gone and his service limited to ceremonial functions such as these.

Even R.O.B., gaming’s great useless partner, like Andrew Ridgely or John Oates or Art Garfunkel, put aside his bitterness to come and pay his respects. Why, when I last heard of him, he was living in a Vermont cabin like J.D. Salinger, drinking heavily and refusing all requests for an interview. And in the back is the unmistakable PS3, dark and foreboding. Like World War I flying aces, there can still be honor and respect among blood enemies.

Then at the end, 360’s biological dad Xbox showed up, only deepening the regret and sadness felt by everyone. Cast aside and virtually estranged for the better part of two years, reduced to living in basements on the kindness of others, Xbox still loves his son unconditionally, forgiving all of his design flaws.

In pace requiescat, Xbox 360. “The candle that burns twice as bright — or hot — burns only half as long.”

The Funeral for my Xbox 360 [tiggerboy's Blog, Gamespot UK]

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