Late Night Consoling
An article in yesterday's Circuits section of the New York Times talks about the Clash Pads, a pair of controllers for PS2 by Gamester. These little guys let you torment the person you're playing against by doing such fun things as disabling buttons or taking over control completely. The article talks about these as being a fun sort of reciprocal gameplay, where each player can screw with the other, but it seems to me like the perfect use for these is as a total practical joke, where one player has no idea what the controllers are capable of. Think about it: how much fun would it be to be playing a fighting or racing game and suddenly make your opponent do random things? And don't even get me started on the implications for an FPS. Now obviously you could only do this once, because eventually the other guy's going to figure it out...but as an April Fool's gag? It sounds great to me. And I do love my April Fool's gags.
| Madden on Xbox Live? Okay, okay, settle down, there's nothing even remotely official yet, but the fact that we're hearing anything about this at all is a pretty big step. IGN Sports has conducted an interview with Chip Lange of EA Sports, who says that "I think it's clear that the grand slam home run is Madden playable online on all platforms" and as for Xbox Live specifically, he says they're still in talks with Microsoft, and that "we're hoping that we can figure out a solution so we can get there." |
| Max Payne GBA Revealed Also at IGN tonight is an exclusive hands-on first look at Max Payne for GBA. Considering that this game is due to be released next month, it's pretty amazing that we haven't heard anything about it yet, and the good news is that IGN walked away very impressed by what they saw. Here's the skinny: the game is played from an isometric perspective, and features the "bullet time" effect that has been the series' trademark since its inception. Even more impressive is the news that the game's cut-scenes feature over 30 minutes of digitized audio, which should make this handheld version feel a lot like its PC counterparts. Of course, can only hope that it'll be longer than those were (*cough*). |
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| True Crime Lawsuit Dropped No doubt realizing that he didn't invent the cliches that he claimed he did, crime author Robert Crais has dropped his lawsuit against Activision. Originally Crais had filed suit claiming that the game's main character was lifted out of his novels, and he had sought to prevent the game's release and receive monetary compensation from Activision. |
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| The Kids, They Like the Online Gaming Here are some pretty big numbers for online console gaming for you...this past weekend, which was the first since the release of Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3, had more than 83,000 players on Xbox Live, with a total of 6,731 playing Rainbow Six 3 simultaneously on Sunday alone. In other online gaming news, just days after its release, there were a whopping 22,000 simultaneous SOCOM II players earlier this week. Pretty impressive indeed. Hey Nintendo, are you listening? (Probably not). |
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| What All the Hip Gamers Will be Wearing this Season How fabulous is your GBA SP? If you're worried that your sleek GBA SP is clashing with your Luis Vuitton bag and Manolo Blahnik shoes, you'll be pleased to know that English leather design firm Mulberry has designed an ultra-sexy leather carrying case, which has already been seen in the hands of fashionistas at London's Fashion Week. It's not clear if there are any other colors besides platinum available, so take some advice from one person who works in the fashion district (fashion district, hell's kitchen...it's all the same thing) and don't attempt to pair this thing with one of the new Flame Red SPs. That would most certainly be a fashion faux pas, and lord knows us gamers have enough of those as is. |
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| Fix Your PS2 It's really not for the weak-hearted, but if you're brave enough and have been seeing disc read errors on your PS2, Ars Technica has posted a guide for fixing it yourself. The guide is well-documented, with lots of photos, but I still wouldn't attempt it unless you're really comfortable mucking around with the inside of your console. Thanks Slashdot Games for the tip. |
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| Silent Hill: "The Room"...? Computer and Video Games is reporting that Konami US has registered a copyright for something called Silent Hill: The Room. I don't know about you, but "The Room" doesn't fill me with a whole lot of terror, so hopefully this is just a misinterpretation on someone's part. |
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| Ghost Recon: Jungle Storm Delayed Sorry PS2 fans, Ubisoft announced today that they have bumped Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Jungle Storm into next year. The game will be released at some point in the first quarter of 2004. |
| Square Moving into Toy Business Yep, Square Enix is getting into the toy business, with a line of action figures based on the Final Fantasy series (VII through X specifically) that will be released in Japan early next year. There's a catch, unfortunately. Taking a cue from collectable card games like Pokemon, the only way to get a full set is to buy a whole bunch of them: the boxes will be unmarked, which means instead of getting that awesome Sepiroth figure you wanted, you could wind up with a pile of Lulu and Vivi figures. |
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| VU Games and Interplay Kiss and Make Up Good news for fans of Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance, VU Games and Interplay have settled their dispute, clearing the way for BG: Dark Alliance II and Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel to be released this year. |
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| PSP Sized Up The Magic Box has posted some images (lifted off the Japanese site Quiter) that compare the recently released concept images of the PSP to various other game systems, including both variants of the GBA. The released images didn't give much of a sense for the size of the device, so presumably they rely on previously-released stats for that. |
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| Project Gotham 2, Rebel Strike Interviews CVG has two interviews of note this evening: the first is with the executive producer at Bizarre Creations about their upcoming Xbox racer Project Gotham Racing 2, while the second talks with Julian Eggebrecht of Factor 5 about their GameCube title Star Wars Rebel Strike: Rogue Squadron III. |
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| Vultures, Vultures, Everywhere, Everywhere Team Xbox has posted a two part interview (part one, part two) with the developers at Grin, Inc, talking about their upcoming Xbox action game Vultures, which was pretty impressive looking when I saw it at E3 earlier this year. Give yourself +5 geek points if you can catch the reference in the headline. |
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| Mario Kart Hidden Characters Revealed Planet GameCube has a news item up with details about four hidden characters that can be unlocked in Mario Kart: Double Dash. As a spoiler warning, they're all concealed in white-on-white text, so if you want to see 'em, you'll need to highlight the hidden area. |
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| Medal of Honor Interview The fourth in IGN's series of Medal of Honor interviews is up tonight. This latest installment talks with Alex Reed, the producer of Medal of Honor: Rising Sun about the game's multiplayer features. |
| Misc. Media/Previews | |
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| IGN has a new trailer showing off Baten Kaitos, new footage from Pac-Man Vs and a hands-on with Mario Kart: Double Dash and GameInformer has new movies from Mario Kart: DD. |
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| GameSpot goes hands-on with Manhunt and has new shots from Fatal Frame 2: Crimson Butterfly, IGN has a new look at Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando, new media from Siren and a hands-on look at Sony's PSX ubersystem and SNK USA has posted new movies showing off Metal Slug 5. |
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| GameSpot has a new preview of Armed and Dangerous, new shots from Ninja Gaiden are up at GameInformer and LucasArts has launched their official Armed and Dangerous site. |
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| New shots from The Sims Bustin' Out are up at IGN, along with new shots from Sword of Mana. |
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| GameSpot has new trailers from Spy Hunter 2 (GC, PS2, Xbox) and Whiplash (PS2, Xbox), a new preview of Beyond Good & Evil (GC, PS2, Xbox) and new shots from the GC, PS2, Xbox and GBA versions of James Bond 007: Everything or Nothing. Elsewhere, IGN has new media from R: Racing Evolution (GC, PS2, Xbox) and GameSpy previews I-Ninja (GC, PS2, Xbox). |
