GameStop will now be offering year subscriptions to ridiculously boring magazines such as Cosmopolitan, Redbook, Good Housekeeping, and O Magazine. But wait, there’s more! I know you’re already rushing away from your computer to get your fill of sex tips, how to starve yourself, and how to please your man. Please contain yourselves for the rest of the article.

Mike Hogan, VP of Marketing for GameStop, ran at the mouth:

“Today’s moms are looking for ways to incorporate exercise into their lifestyle. Active video games are a terrific way to reach your fitness goals, and as an added bonus, they can be enjoyed with your whole family. [...] We know that getting in shape is one of the toughest New Year’s resolutions to stick with, especially for busy moms who often don’t have time to spare for exercise.”

Although that doesn’t make sense, because if busy moms don’t have time for exercise, why would they have time for a video game that asks you to exercise? Kind of retarded, but hey, that’s GameStop marketing for you! Stock up on video games and magazines that you, the busy mom, won’t even have time to use! Because that’s good for the industry, and fantastic news for gamers such as myself who couldn’t give a shit less about learning Japanese, cooking, or losing weight.

Sorry, I meant, SIGN ME UP! I am a woman so I must be interested! HOLY SHIT, I need to do Oprah proud and cook my man a big meal!

Why not offer a subscription to, I don’t know, Game Informer? Right, because that would make sense. Oy. Oh wait, that’s because this a marketing campaign obviously aimed toward women! Because I know, as an owner of two ovaries (count ‘em, two!), that the first game I want to pick up is some shovelware to tell me how to live my life. It’s very disconcerting to watch the “hardcore demographic” die a little more each day. I really didn’t believe that the casuals needed any more cajoling to purchase shitty games. I guess I was wrong.

Britain’s most irrelevant major newspaper The Telegraph has delivered a particularly mindless piece of anti videogame propaganda. The report concerns a disturbing announcement by Conservative MP John Bercow that the language skills of children can be dangerously underdeveloped. I’m no fan of the Tories but Mr Bercow definitely makes some important points. He includes excessive gaming and television viewing alongside a laundry list of societal ills which contribute to poor communication skills in children.

It’s a valid point, talk to the average British teenager and they can barely string a sentence together. As someone who works in a career advice centre specifically for young people, I’ve witnessed first hand how inarticulate much of today’s youth are. Mr Bercow has sensibly blamed these issues on a lack of sophisticated communication in childhood with decreased interaction between parents and children the main culprit.

What really grates about both the original article and the MCV report is the emphasis on gaming as a primary cause. At no point in either the Telegraph or MCV report does Mr Bercow exclusively blame entertainment media. However The Telegraph still felt it was necessary to add the following to it’s article,

Toddlers could be screened for speech problems after evidence that many are so addicted to television and video games that they are failing to learn basic communication skills.

Bercow never used the word addiction to describe children’s interaction with TV and Videogames in either The Telegraph or Daily Mail reports on the subject. Poverty, little parental contact and under-exposure to language were the main culprits. This is exactly the kind of propaganda that contributes to the idea that games are mind rotting sludge. The Telegraph should feel ashamed for publishing such nonsense.

Games, TV or any other medium will not rob children of their ability to articulate themselves. Just to repeat what has become a mantra of the gaming press - blame the parents. I’ve met plenty of intelligent and articulate people who’ve gamed since early childhood. If your kid can’t string a sentence together, unless they have a genuine handicap, it’s your own damn fault.

As if humanity needed another reason to hate MMORPGs, or more specifically the players. The MiddleTown Journal reported that on Monday, Dec. 29th, police arrested a 17-year-old boy for pretending to be suicidal. Officials stated that the boy was having an online conversation with a Blizzard Entertainment representative. When the boy wasn’t getting his way, he typed…

“[...]he was suicidal and that the game is the only thing he has to live for.”

The representative then called 911. Police and paramedics responded to the call where they discovered the child was only pulling a prank; the suicidal threat being his trump card to get what he wanted from the game. He was then arrested, handcuffed, and placed into a squad car. He is being charged with a first-degree misdemeanor and was soon released back to his father.

The boy is scheduled to be in court Tuesday, Jan. 6.  We can only hope the judge and jury are all World of Warcraft players so this whelp can get proper punishment like a few years doing nothing but Pick Up-Groups(PUGs).

Us Western rhythm gamers are relegated to hasty ports of Beatmania, Dance Dance Revolution, and guitar games with shitty FIRST FEMALE IN GUITAR HERO!! singers, but Japan’s got it made in the shade. While it’s expensive to import gems that I want to get my hands on, I can at least turn to YouTube to get my fix of Japanese rhythm game goodness. That, or asking some of the readers for a generous donation to visit Japan. Since that’s not going to happen, all I’ve got is the Internet and a bunch of videos. And the occasional homebrew.

One of the latest to make a splash is entitled Jubeat (pronounced “you-beat”), and it’s essentially a cube with 16 mini squares (making it a 4×4) comprising a main screen. You choose a song, and tap the squares in time to the music. Reminiscent of Elite Beat Agents/Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan, with a dash of Pop’n Music, this is an arcade smash that I’d kill to see in the States someday. However, because America is full of a bunch of grubby little teenagers who think that “Through the Fire and Flames” is the most difficult song on any rhythm game ever created (or that it’s even a good song), it’s unlikely we’ll see any arcade machines anytime soon. No, we’ll probably get a few more shitty Pump It Up Exceeds…if that.

Check out this video of the song “A Perfect Sky” from Bonnie Pink (J-Pop artist), as Jubeat’s demo song. No one’s actually playing it, but where the screens flash, that’s where your hands would be. Do want. Yes? Yes.

Pete Metzger from the Los Angeles Times has compiled a list of qualities from other games that, when combined into one, will make the perfect game.

• Portability of God of War: Chains of Olympus
• Control setup of Super Smash Bros. Brawl and Mario Sluggers
• Chess-like qualities of Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Vegas 2
• Puzzles of Professor Layton and the Curious Village
• Simplicity of Boom Blox
• Stunning cut-screens from Devil May Cry 4
• Fun of Lego Indiana Jones and Lego Batman
• White-knuckle racing excitement of GRID and Burnout Paradise
• Re-playability of Sid Meier’s Civilization Revolution
• Chills and thrills of Dead Space
• Overall wonder of Fallout 3
• Cuteness and creativity of Little Big Planet
• Complete Package of Resistance 2
• Button-mashing action of Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe
• Originality of Air Traffic Chaos
• Intense war games of Call of Duty: World at War
• Originality of Mirror’s Edge
• Bar-raising open worlds of Grand Theft Auto IV

Already I see flaws with this list. It lacks the idea of KISS. You know, that silly acronym for “Keep It Simple, Stupid”. They quote Dr. Frankenstein’s famous words, “It’s alive! It’s alive!” but really all I hear in my head is, “This game sucks.”

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Nothing says Christmas like a good lawsuit. At least that’s the ideology of Worlds.com, as they are suing NCSoft. You may have heard of NCSoft from MMORPGs such as City of Heroes, City of Villains, Tabula Rasa, Aion, Guild Wars, etc. Apparently every single game in NCSoft’s roster violates two patents Worlds.com filed for in 2000.

So what are these magical patents? Well, the first one is a scalable chat. You know how you can re-size/move your chat window? Yeah. Worlds.com owns a concept that nearly every MMORPG uses. The second patent involves System and Method for Enabling Users to Interact in a Virtual Space. Again, another patent that every single MMORPG uses. Each patent is rather broad, as if the patent was filed for the sole purpose of nailing other companies with a lawsuit. Thankfully video game companies are not evil and have no interest in money! Right?

Not too far from the malice of stupid lawsuits is politics. Newt Gingrich (former US House speaker who is flirting with presidential bid) is going to have some workshops in both the real and virtual world. By virtual world I mean the game Second Life. Second Life is a virtual world with roughly 9.5 million members in a 3-D environment. The game is basically “real” life; you can even buy virtual real estate with non-virtual cash. Newt Gingrich isn’t the first, however, to use Second Life to promote political campaigns. Hillary Clinton, Ron Paul, and John Edwards are just a few names tapping into this “resource.”

So what does this mean for gamers? Well, developers love money and politicians love to advertise themselves. Add them together and you get..

“/ooc Vote for SoandSo, Level 80 Deathknight LFG!!! TWinked! “

In the most recent (and disappointing) news about Sony’s Home program, reports of censorship are popping up all over the place. The outrage is at the words that Sony has chosen to put a block on. Words like “gay,” “bisexual,” and “lesbian” are apparently forbidden. This type of censorship almost borders on discrimination, adding negative connotations to homosexual relationships. I can understand that Sony might think the word “gay” might get abused, but bisexual? “Stop team killing, that’s so fucking bisexual!” Yeah, I’m sure people hear that all the time. Some of the other censored words include, “Christ,” “Jew,” and even “Hello” (because it has the word hell in it, apparently).

Sony’s response to the complaints of censorship leaves something to be desired:

Sony Computer Entertainment America spokesman Patrick Seybold said the company is working to improve Home on a daily basis and is incorporating user concerns and suggestions. He emphasized that while the virtual world is open to the public, it is still being tested and is a work in progress.

“The key message is it’s a beta and it’s evolving on a daily basis,” he said. “We’ve said early on that user behavior and feedback will shape where we go with Home.”

This is simply unacceptable, and most likely the reason that Sony downplayed the recent launch of Home. To me, this seems like an almost desperate move on the part of Sony after the disappointing Little Big Planet sales. LBP was supposed to be the game that motivated people to buy the PS3. While the game sold pretty well, it wasn’t even close to the blockbuster hit that Sony was hoping for. So to move more PS3 units, Sony had to do something–and releasing an incomplete version of Home seems to have been their solution.

Yes, every game or piece of software is going to have some unexpected bugs. But the launch of the closed beta should have served as a way of getting some of the major problems–such as censorship–out of the way before the full version was released. Some Home users are not exactly thrilled.

“It’s not enough to say it’s a beta,” said Kevin Johnson, a 52-year-old retired graphic artist who has been following the issue since he started as a private beta tester. “Sony is major company, and they should have had a good understanding of these issues long ago. And it was brought to their attention before the open beta was launched.”

It has become a disturbing recent trend in video games to promote a game (or in recent times, a user interface) by having “beta” launches. These are not true beta releases, since many people who play these beta releases never bother to report bugs at all. These beta releases are promotional tools, not development tools.

It is also ridiculous that Sony would have an open beta of a program where you could buy products. If this is indeed a beta version of Home as Sony claims, it is both unsafe and irresponsible of Sony to allow people to buy products through the program. A program that is still in the process of being de-bugged should not be used to store credit card information of any type. A few users have claimed that items they bought in Home have mysteriously disappeared from their virtual apartments.

Sony took a risk here by trying to launch an open beta, but I think their inattention to the feedback in the private beta might cause this move to backfire.

If you answered yes to the above questions then I have the fan-made side-scrolling sprite shooter for you.

The small home made game entitled Halo: Out With A Whimper has been developed by a group of hardcore Halo fans for no profit (Please god Microsoft, don’t sue). This little pixelated joy is actually quite a nifty time waster. Release notes (If you can call them that) posted on a popular Halo fan site’s message boards.

Hark ye all who shalt listen! Lend me your ears, for upon this day I give unto you all a gift!
It is my pleasure, my PRIVILEGE, to announce the first public demo for Halo: Out With A Whimper to be released outside of our forum.
Verily I display this proud work of blood, sweat, and pixels; proudly I thrust it forth from my breast into the waiting hands of- aw screw it.

Hey, this is a public demo for Halo: OWAW. It’s a sprite sidescroller set in the Halo universe (obviously). The game takes place on the UNSC colony world “Atlas” which is attacked by the Covenant. This demo includes the first level of campaign, multiplayer levels (no online play at the moment), and Forge. View the Readme for further information.

Granted, I wont be snapping my Halo 3 disk in half having seen perfection in Halo form, and nothing beats a good hour of desktop tower defense. The price is right and the gameplay is simple.

Download links for the demo, credits and more information can be found here.

When gamers hear the phrase “Prince of Persia”, they will most likely think a platforming game where a prince runs on walls and does acrobatic stunts. To non-gamers they’ll think literally a prince from Persia. At least that’s the meaning I’m getting from this article from the New York Times today.

Seth Schiesel is afraid that the newest rendition of Prince of Persia by Ubisoft isn’t being culturally responsible:

In fairness, the new Prince of Persia does not claim any historical or cultural authenticity; the game is set in a fantastic magical realm rather than in a rendition of any real place. But does that absolve the game of any responsibility? I think not.

With the Prince this time around who “talks and behaves like a 17-year-old American mall rat” and has a “fully Anglicized facial features and what looks like a tan he picked up on spring break” Schiesel fears that the game isn’t faithful to the Persian culture.

That’s all understandable but his closing paragraph raised some concerns in my mind:

Prince of Persia is a great game, but simply being a video game is no longer sufficient to earn a pass from being held to account for shaping the perceptions and attitudes of its players. Not anymore.

Schiesel brings up the point of Orientalism where the West has a certain depiction of the Eastern cultures. I’m quite surprised Schiesel said nothing about movies and television doing the same thing but within the same culture. What about old western movies or television dramas like “The OC”? Certainly there are people with a specific vision of Orange County because of the television show.

Besides, the concept of East and West can be really confusing sometimes.

Talking to 1up, Cameron Gunn from ReSolve Partners (the people handling Free Radical Design’s predicament) has confirmed the company has had to scale down drastically, as well as put itself on the market.

We made around 140 employees redundant yesterday, effective 31 December (the date up to which they had been paid). We’re still trading on with the remaining 40 or so employees, have advertised the business for sale and have received some strong interest.

With the current economic turbulence, all videogame companies have been finding further investment hard. Combined with the less that impressive performance of Haze and you get the company going bust. Hopefully, with their two rumored titles being worked on the company is worth enough to be bought by some of the “strong interest”.

Sadly, the company may be worth less than many people think. One of the rumors to come out with the first word of the redundancies was that their most anticipated game; Star Wars Battlefront III, was moved out of Free Radical Design and is now being developed by Rebellion.

It looks to me that PS3 still has a few tricks up its sleeve! According to Kotaku (via GameInformer) Blitz Games Studios confirmed that Sony “fully intends” to support stereoscopic 3D gaming and Blu-ray in 2009. Little work is needed to implement this since it will only need “a bios upgrade to work.” Blitz Games Studios had plans for the Xbox 360 but it looks like that fell through. Neil Schneider, President and CEO of Meant to be Seen, said “We are told that the ability to add this capability via bios may be unique to Sony PS3 versus the other console solutions.”
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Using a service called House Party (who keep a record of 100,000 people willing to be corporate whores “brand advocates”), Microsoft sent 1,000 women roofies “party packs” worth around $150 containing popcorn, Scene It? Box Office Smash, an Xbox remote control, 3 month’s of Xbox Live and 1,600 Xbox Live points.

And what did the willing brand advocates have to do to to earn this free stuff? As well as already having an Xbox 360 and Netflix, they just had to invite 10 of their friends round one night to “advocate” the “brand” at. As Danielle Jamil, one of the chosen brand advocates, said: “People trust their friends more than they trust an ad or a commercial.”

House Party charge around $120,000 for 1,000 of these parties, and each party should be for between 10 and 20 “friends” of the person taking part. Heather Snavely, Microsoft’s director of interactive entertainment business global platforms, gave Microsoft’s reasoning for all this.

We’ve sold 20 million consoles to date globally since we launched three years ago. In order to get to the next 20 million, we need to get a new audience of women and teens. We’re going after them in ways that are different than ways we’ve done before.

At what point are people’s friendships so shallow that the thought of free crap they don’t need is enough to basically whore them out? Oh, that reminds me; Sega sent me a free copy of Dinosaur King for the DS, you should go buy it.

Via: Edge

Christmas with my family is a little strange. My parents get up around 5 am, excitedly trying to pull my 24-year-old sister and me out of bed yelling “Santa was here!” Five hours later, we gather around the Christmas tree and my mom insists that we put on the cable channel with the burning Yule log. Why she wants to watch a looping video of flames on Christmas with cheesy music playing in the background, I have no idea.

But now you too can share in this confusing holiday tradition by buying the “Virtual Fireplace” off of Xbox Live. That’s right, for $5 you can have endless burning log fun! You can watch it burn and…well…that’s pretty much it. User SniperED007 has made what is undoubtedly the prettiest, most expensive screensaver currently available on the Xbox.

Among the many comments on Major Nelson’s blog, a few anonymous comments stood out as particularly enjoyable:

Nelson, how about fixing the HDMI and UPnP problems as a Christmas present?

I know it’s not your fault, but this is getting ridiculous. It’s been more than a month since the NXE was released and some people can’t play because of those problems.

When can I get Virtual Rotisserie Chicken?

There’s actually a few bugs with the fireplace. At times (which I believe you can make it happen right away by pressing the shoulder buttons and LT [I was pressing those buttons when it happened, so I don't know for sure]) the fire will actually be coming upsidedown from the chiminey rather than the firepit.

Also, the demo sucks because after a minute it bothers you about buying the “game”

I think the problem at the heart of this is the idea that XNA developers must price their games between 200 and 800 Microsoft points. In the comments section, many expressed that they would be interested in buying the “game” if it had been priced at a more reasonable 80 MS points. Others pointed out that similar apps like iYule.tv make this fireplace function available (not only for Apple devices but for Xbox 360 as well) for a similar price–with a percentage of the proceeds going to charity. It also boasts a score composed by the creator, a feature which is sorely lacking in the XNA version.

I’m sure it took SniperED007 a good amount of time to create this “community game,” however this seems like a pet project more than a polished game or program worthy of being sold. For $5, I would expect a little more…anything really. I have to raise an eyebrow at the supposed glitches in this bit of programming as well; it confuses me as to how such a glitch made it into the final product.

Considering the economy crisis the world is suffering through, not many are likely to buy this. Not that everyone can anyway–Xbox Live Community games are still only available in the U.S., Canada, United Kingdom, France, Italy, and Spain.

How many sentences do you need to write to be completely misinterpreted? Raph managed two. He wrote a small blog post quoting a post from a forum. The forum poster talks about how at a job interview, the interviewer was told not to hire WoW players.

As Koster points out in a later post, some people really do fail at checking the source. His actual post contains the following sentence “Spotted this on the f13 forums:”, then the quote, then “I think the funniest bit is all the MMOG players in the thread agreeing with the recruiter…”

So how did Softpedia Games Editor, Andrei Dobra, end up saying that;

Online gaming journalist Raph Koster has posted on his blog a statement he received from a job recruitment consultant accurately showing that even though some people cite the leadership experience gained from establishing a guild in WoW, employers tend to avoid such persons.

Then go on to use the quote, as if Koster had said it himself!? It’s a very impressive inability to read the source if ever I saw one.

David Reeves, president of SCEE was recently interviewed by the gaming industry site MCV. British readers in particular and PAL gamers in general will find a lot of interesting material in the article. As well as describing the games industry as a “whipping boy” for the mainstream media, Mr Reeves spoke about Sony’s business plan in detail.

Throughout the interview el presidente further reaffirmed Sony’s long term strategy for the PS3. In many ways an interesting technique, forgoing the immediate returns that MS’s low prices and Nintendo’s marketing have reaped. Disturbingly in comparison to the competition, the article further gives credence to the idea that Sony are living in the past. Repeated references to the performance of the PS2 and its expansion into new territories aren’t what European gamers are interested in. Although willing to admit that the PSP lags behind with its software library, Mr Reeves can’t bring himself to admit the same of the PS3. At one point he makes a veiled reference to recent third-party exclusives going multiplatform and states,

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