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AICN Games: Monki's Weekly Wrap Up!!
Greetings humans, Monki here with your weekly batch of all things video games.
We have a decent amount of material to look over this week including Apple's new iPhone (name still pending) and a follow up to last week's rant about the video game war.
If you hadn't heard yet from almost every media outlet out there, Apple Inc. (formerly Apple Computer Inc.) just launched the iPhone. Don't run out just yet, it'll be in stores in June. Why does this have any sort of impact on the gaming world you ask? Have you looked at the thing yet? A bigass screen with touch capabilities. It just SCREAMS out "put games on me!!"
I can imagine developers everywhere are thinking of ways to kiss Apple's ass to get in line to produce games for this thing. If I could just for one second talk to Apple, I'd say, "Hey Apple, please don't just push your games to EA, let some smaller hungrier developers put together some amazing stuff for your kickass new platform!"
But then again, I'm going to be lined up to purchase one come June. That is of course unless Apple makes the genius GENIUS move of releasing a 100 gig widescreen video iPod instead of tying to the phone only. Now that would be really kickass.
I guess one can only hope and pray.
Press Releases of the Week!
I'm a big fan of free stuff. My guess is you all like free stuff too. Right now you can pick up some free stuff for two kickass games. You can download some free Gears of War maps, and you can pick up a new Call of Duty 3 map via XBox Live Marketplace.
Santa Monica, CA - January 11, 2007 - Time to return to battle! Activision, Inc. announced today the release of a brand new Call of Duty 3 multiplayer Bonus Map, available for download free of charge in the Xbox Live Marketplace for the Xbox 360 video game and entertainment system from Microsoft. The Bonus Map, named "Champs," transports players to Port Royal de Champs, France, where they will experience even more intense Call of Duty warfare that's great for close-quarters combat and non-stop action. The map will be available starting today for Xbox Live Gold subscribers, and January 18th for Xbox Live Silver subscribers.
Additionally, gamers can go head-to-head directly with the developers at Treyarch. On January 18th, players can test their skills against the game creators themselves on the Xbox Live online entertainment network from 11am to 2pm PST. Visit www.callofduty.com for information regarding players and server info.
Continuing to expand upon the multiplayer battle locales, the Valor Map Pack is due out shortly as well, complete with five new maps for more relentless WWII action.
I remember as a kid wishing I could play against the developers of games like Street Fighter 2 and Mortal Kombat. How sweet would it be to play against Boone or Tobias in a round or three of Mortal Kombat 2? I bet Boone loves Scorpion. I don't know why, but he just looks like the kind of guy that would use Scorpion. Sub-Zero all the way for me.
Alright, this release isn't really 'video game' related, per se, but it is still incredibly kick-ass and it ended up in my mailbox this week. So, I'm going to post it because it think it is awesome.
RAHWAY, N.J., January 11, 2007 - The high-tech U.S. Army received a low-spec. yet much appreciated item this month when KIDdesigns, a leading manufacturer of children's toys located in Rahway, N.J. donated 33,000 cans of Silly String - or nearly 2,000 miles worth. The extremely lightweight foam string is currently used by soldiers in Iraq to detect tripwires for explosive devices. The foam is light enough to drape across and thus identify the often invisible tripwires without detonating the explosive.
"This really is a local story with global resonance as we had originally heard of a New Jersey woman who was collecting cans for use by her son in Iraq," said Evan Stein, KIDdesigns' vice president, Marketing Division. "One of our popular Kids Next Store toys uses Silly String and we knew we had extra cans in our warehouse. A few inquiring phone calls later, and the cans were on their way. If this string helps save even a single soldier from harm, than there is nothing silly about it."
Coincidentally, KIDdesigns' cans of Silly String were stored in an El Paso warehouse, which happens to be the home to Fort Bliss, the Army's largest U.S. installation. As a result, the cans have already been packaged up and are currently on their way to the soldiers in Iraq.
How freaking cool is that? 2,000 miles of silly string to fight the war. All politics aside you have to admit that is a pretty cool thing for KIDdesigns to do. I wonder if the cans will be spray painted camouflage.
Pretty Images of the Week!
After becoming a surprise hit for the DS, Cooking Mama is making it's way onto the Wii. I think this is a perfect use of the Wii's abilities as a system and the pictures pretty much go along with any thought you may have for a cooking game for the Wii.
I'm a big fan of these simple yet crazy-fun titles hitting the Wii. Lately I've been engrossed in the not-so-easy Trauma Center: Second Opinion. Damn that game is awesome. Nothing better than pulling glass out of someone's chest after having a few beers with friends. Just like real life!
Okay, this is awesome. At least, it looks awesome. The Godfather is coming to the Wii and you control your character down to every punch, every headbutt and every bullet fired. Check it out.
The question is, do I get to shoot a guy through his glasses while he is getting a massage?
Call of Action Part Two of the Week!
Readers in Utah and Massachusetts, listen up. It seems as though your politicians want to give a large chunk of your taxes to the ESA. Both states are considering video game bills. Bills that are incredibly similar to every other video game bill that has been blown away in court.
From GamePolitics.com, the Massachusetts bill is being drafted by Jack Thompson, author of the bill that was deemed unconstitutional in Louisiana, and the Utah bill will be making a second appearance on the floor of the legislature.
These bills, if they pass, will be deemed unconstitutional and your states will then have to pay the legal fees of the ESA in the ballpark of $500,000. That is coming out of your pocket.
Don't get me wrong, I don't think minors should be playing violent video games. It irks the hell out of me hearing 12 year olds on XBox Live playing Rainbow Six: Vegas with a bunch of sailor-mouthed idiots like me and my friends. But the problem with making it illegal to sell titles is the fear of developers altering their vision in order to garner a specific rating.
What would happen if it was illegal to sell a ticket to a 16 year old kid who wanted to see a rated R movie. (Don't get me wrong, I know 16 year old kids shouldn't see rated R movies, just follow along for the analogy.) Say for example, someone just doesn't bother checking an ID for one kid. That kid makes it into the theater, his mom later finds out, and the 18 year old selling tickets for $5.50 an hour is slapped with a $1,000 fine for BREAKING THE LAW.
Re-god-damn-diculous. There is already an established ratings board out there for video games. A rather picky one at that. (I've dealt with them in my 'real' job.) They do their part exactly how they should. I still think the problem comes down to the parents who make no attempt to keep an eye on their children. No child should be allowed to play Grand Theft Auto, that is just common sense. But to make it ILLEGAL? That is just the lack of common sense.
Again, my Utah and Massachusetts friends, contact your local congressman and tell them that you don't like burning your tax money.
Wrapped-Up Wrap-Up of the Week!
For the few of you who have emailed me about the games positions opening up, Quint is currently digging through them all weeding out the people who insist on using l33t sp34k and didn't send along pictures of their hot sisters. Once he is finished, I'll take a look at them and we'll confer on the final panel. And then the hazing process begins. Harry taught me this really painful thing you can do with a stalk of corn tha......I mean, we'll welcome you with open arms.
One bit of WTF for the week. I went to check out Sector Seven, the Transformers ARG possibly from the trailer, just to see if things had changed and damned if they had changed. Now in place of the desktop of some military guy when you type in the password 'takara83' you are redirected to a trailer for the upcoming movie "Norbit" staring Eddie Murphy. You know what that means...EDDIE MURPHY IS A TRANSFORMER! I wonder if Charlie Murphy is too.
So, that is all the weak sauce I have for you this week. I'm going to end on a happy note with a trailer for the BEST MOVIE EVER. Enjoy.
God I love that movie. Anyway, back up the tree I go!
-Monki
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+ Expand All
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Go see ROCKY BALBOA.
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for the Wii
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The Wizard! Woohoo ... a big, fat advertisement for Mario 3 and the Power Glove, which sucked a dong.
Nonetheless, the movie was awesomely inspriring as a child! Hell yeah. -
I'm so there!
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Wii gotta stop with the Wii puns. Wii should know better by now.
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Yo, the red head chick in the Wizard now is the lead singer of a band called Rilo Kiley...they rock and it doesn't hurt that she is freakin' hot as well....
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My g/f agrees as well....Jenny Lewis is fuckin' hot!
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Just add a dash of salt and a whole lot of this-will-be-boring-after-5-minues!
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That Apple was looking into game development, and they were getting cozy with Sony and Blu-Ray. The phone does look sexy, but I'm not feeling the iPod mp3/video craze... my PSP does all this perfectly AND plays games, pictures, internet, locationfree etc. But I might be hankering for a cool touchscreen phone... I like what I see! The question is... Can I still put my current Metal Gear Codec ringtone on it with my Solid Snake background wallpaper? I don't see why not!
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I'm all for video games being accepted as a form of entertainment that is as legitimate as movies, but c'mon. Any gamer who takes themselves at all seriously will never come to AICN for gaming news. It's just never going to be able to keep up with even small-time gaming blogs like Kotaku, Joystiq etc., 'cause they get updated way quicker than AICN ever does. Just give it up. I mean, yeah, you only really cover tiny tid-bits anyway, you're not trying to be some essential read, but still. Oh, and Apple can suck a cock, I'm not paying that much for a phone/mp3 player when I've got a phone and an mp3 player that cost half as much and do the job just as well. And mobile phone gaming? Please.
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What kind of gamer are you anyway, Monki? A pretend gamer. How about posting your GamerTag? Didn't think so. k1ntar0
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my gamertag is "s0n0fbatman666"
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Runs on the iPhone. So it won't be too hard to find games on it since there are dedicated Mac developers out there. Wether you'll get EA and other studios developing is another matter entirely. Not impossible but certainly unlikely. It'd be cool though.While i'd love one myself, i'll have to see what the uptake is on it first. I don't own an iPod 'cos everyone else it seems has one; i can see the phone being the same thing.
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games--let's get some Warcraft hating / loving going on in here, or also if you feel like it those other games on the periphery.
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look at it crooked. That's way too much electronics. I'd wait at least a year before getting one so they work out all the kinks.
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To get reviews and other stuff with an AICN flavor! Get Vern to review games. Get Harry to review stuff like he did for Curse of the Golden Flower. It's just got to be funny and give us a talkback... You can't beat the other games media out there... but nothing's stopping you from giving a unique AICN Games experience! It's why we come here...
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.aintitcoolgames.com
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The recap does not really recap anything at all does it? I find that this talkbalk section delves into videogames more than the recap!
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My money is on GoW. But Okami was a nice game.
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Sony cant get their stories straight. No party is saying that it is running at 60 fps and at 1080P, another Sony rep is saying 30 fps and 720P. I say if that game is solid, then who cares! But some people do!
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As BEAUTIUFL as that game was the combat was a DUD. I stopped playing after I spent 15 minutes fighting with my EYES SHUT and didn't take any damage.
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Scratched screen,limited cellular options,touch screen gimmicks...everybody was waiting for that other marvel of technology..what was it? Oh yeah..the PS3.
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I'll give Jobs one thing, he knows how to put on a show. He was showing off the full screen browsing abilites of the iPhone, but does any anyone seriously think that he can read the text off a tiny (still) LCD? The real kicker is the price, several hundred dollars plus a 3 year contact! I am not a Apple hater, in fact, I am wrting this on a Powerbook as we speak. However, we must do away with this fiction that everything that Apple produces is gold.
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Twilight Princess for me... But I am a major Zelda fanboy so it's to be expected, haha.
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The biggest stumbling block will be whether the battery can keep up... One of the unfortunate things about the PSP is that video and games eat up battery life.
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Turns out that Emmy award for Sony is not for the SIXAXIS, but to honor the DualShock 2!
For other news... initial stories about cancelled Konami games for PS3 and Wii turn out to be untrue.
Toshiba unveiled a 51GB triple layer HD-DVD. Meanwhile Ritek announces 10 layer technology that can be applied to both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray discs for up to 250 GB... now all they need is the laser diode to read those...
PSP sales have done impressively well ending out 2006 across the globe, but still out-trumped by DS-Lite.
The Pornography industry drops Blu-Ray in favor of HD-DVD because of manufacturing prices, as well Sony may be reluctant to let them use their format.
Porn sites are also coming up with interesting ways to court web browsers using the Wii-mote.
'Castlevania: Symphony on the Night' breaks the LIVE arcade file size limit for Xbox 360
Wal-Mart seems to be generating interest after a report about a woman purchasing an Xbox 360 only to find dirty socks and porn magazines in the box... this sounds similar to another incident about a porn DVD in an Xbox 360 game instead of the game itself...
News continues to generate about an HDMI IPTV enabled Xbox 360 codenamed 'Zephyer' that is rumoured to release towards the end of 2007.
Hideo Kojima seems to want to use a 50GB dual layered Blu-Ray disc for MGS4 citing HD visuals and surround sound as a reason.
For the guy that wanted to play Guitar Hero on the PS3, NYKO has apparently made a peripheral that will let you do so.
A woman seems to have died form over-hydration from participating in a radio station's 'Hold your Wee for a Wii' contest. Contestants had to drink tons of water... and whoever could hold off on urinating the longest, won a Nintendo Wii. She won, but alas... http://tinyurl.com/y6de2g
Rumors about Saints Row being ported to PS3.
New Final Fantasy XIII details emerge... Game is sounding and looking amazing!
http://tinyurl.com/ym89by
http://tinyurl.com/ygvtkj -
It's official, a Sony rep has already passed the info on to 1UP.COM. Motorstorm only runs at 30fps and in 720p. Which is a farcry from the bold statements which were touting 60fps and 1080p for all titles.http://tinyurl.com/yfgzs6 to confirm it
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Kojima wants the 50Gb dual layer disc for audio. That's feasable given the amount of space that audio can take up on a disc. You'd really have to be doing something else to use that space for texturing and given the screen shots, that's not the case.
2)The Zephyr is far from a rumour. It's a finised article which will be going into full scale production later this year. It was originally penned for a release late 2006 but was pushed back; hence the Japanese Lost Planet packs that quoted HDMI on the features.
3)UK Videogame retailers GAME Ltd have been told that people who purchase Crackdown in the UK will also be invited to participate in the Halo 3 beta so, if you're in England, go and pre-order your copy now before the news goes out. (This was passed on to me on the quiet so that's really news)
4)Contrary to popular opinion, World of Warcraft Burning Crusade is not a total sell out. I myself purchased 3 copies to sell on eBay because the mooks on there are paying up to £200, ($400), for it. So if you wanna make some extra cash, now's your chance.
5)CES Showcased the cross-platform multiplayer for Shadowrun. PC players were pitched against those on XBOX 360 so perhaps the argument Pads vs Keyboard/Mouse will finally be settled; i'm a Keyboard man personally.
6)On the cross compatability - a while ago it was reported that Bungie were releasing new maps for Halo 2 that were exclusive to people who play on 360; word is it's so they can play against the people who will be buying it on Vista; ie. Everyone who states the game sucks.
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http://tinyurl.com/y578kb
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however... My wife and I were laughing at the chick jiggling her boobies on the mobile ringtone ad last night and then the touch-sensitive possibilities hit me like a bolt of entrepeneurial lightning.
Darfur, the rez of the screen is 160ppi, which is about double your average screenrez and more than half again your average LCD. Besides which, did you actually watch that keynote? The 'pinch' zoom function (which is what made me think of the porno)? Also, it was a 2 year (which doesn't bother me but I can imagine it would some) contract not 3, and for what you get (using the other examples they did), it's a bit steep but nowhere near outrageous. It is a bit much if you think about it only as a phone or only an iPod though if that's what you meant. Still like others have said it's obviously an introductory model: no iChat, roughly the same capacity as a Nano. You just know they're going to continue the regular updates like they did with the old iPods (which are ironically about the same as mobile/cell updates). Still, anyone that thinks the interface isn't a generational leap above what's out there currently is kidding themselves though.
Johnno, I agree about the battery thing though. Probably another reason they didn't go with full video right off the bat. Oh and keeping things neck-and-neck, at the CES they also introduced a 4-layer 200 gig blu-ray writer. Where'd you see the 3-layer HD-DVD player? I missed that. They can't exactly use it for non-PC boxes at this point though.
My take on the iPod/phone thing is that it was inevitable that Apple had to do it in the next 6 months to a year or the Mobile giants would have phones out that would start to threaten the memory capacity and music capabilities of the iPod and soon thereafter make it redundant (Zune too for that matter). The apple interface though makes the joke keyboards and keypads of the phones look like stone tablets and that's Apple's advantage. I know that sounds like I'm a big old plant but it's just my opinion.
Boy Orions that's old as an AICN story ;) I love seeing the work-in-progress sculpts though.
Can anyone tell me why HD-DVD has only put out readers/players and NO writers/burners? Seems like suicide to me. But hey, porn is now on their side. What was Sony thinking? Seems like suicide to me. -
I'm assuming they've delayed the burners since the AACS for HD-DVD and Blu-Ray has been cracked allowing pirates to copy movies. I just guess that they don't want to have pirate copies floating around already, specifically when the number of Pirate discs could easily outnumber the original ones in no time.
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Although that only happened recently and I've heard nothing about burners even in development (not that I've gone looking but anyway). And wasn't there some weird thing with the crack that it was only the HD-DVD discs and only several of those? The way I understood it they only have to change the key and do firmware updates to the players but I'm sure the early adopters who bought those few discs are annoyed. Wish I could afford one of those humongous tellies they were showing at CES. I want to know more about the new plasma tech that stole SED's thunder, too.
Back on games, Lost Planet looks awesome. -
For anyone who's interested in that hacking news...
This is what thedigitalbits.com said:
Well, we've been doing a bit of research on the reported AACS crack this afternoon... and we've learned that there's good news and (just maybe) bad news. Our old friend Andy Patrizio sent over some links for further reading (thanks, Andy!), and it seems that the whole system hasn't been cracked... just a tiny part of it. According to tech blogger Chris Lanier, this all started because the current version of Cyberlink's PowerDVD player leaves the title keys for individual HD-DVD titles unprotected for a short time during the playback operation. A memory dump allows those keys to be revealed, and then the keys must be fed into the BackupHDDVD utility in order to allow those specific discs to be copied. Cyberlink is expected to release a patch/update which will end this vulnerability. The newly-updated software will likely use new device keys, and the old version's device key will likely be revoked, meaning that the old version of the software won't work anymore (after it receives the revocation orders, which would arrive on new HD-DVD movie software). So AACS itself hasn't been compromised - just the title keys to select titles. That's the good news.
Here's the bad news... those select titles (which so far include Warner's Full Metal Jacket, The Last Samurai and The Fugative, Paramount's Tomb Raider, and Universal's Apollo 13 and Van Helsing) could now be considered open and unprotected. The studios involved COULD decide to revoke the title keys on those specific unprotected HD-DVD discs, rendering them unplayable on all HD-DVD players, both software and hardware. Doing so would mean that those of you who already own the discs would have to work with the studios somehow to obtain replacement discs with new (and still valid and protected) title keys. The market is certainly small enough that the studios could do this without TOO much problem, though I don't imagine anyone involved would relish the hassle. We're making inquiries now to see what happens next and hopefully, we'll know more next week.
So basically, what we're likely about to witness is the AACS system demonstrating its own deliberately built-in ability to take a bullet and self-heal for the very first time in a real world situation. Fascinating. -
Is that even if PowerDVD gets a patch to fix the key dumping issue, there are ALOT of people out there who are clever enough to write their own little program to dump a key. Put it this way, if they can find it they will. Hackers have demonstrated their ability to find chinks in the armour of the most hardcore copy protection going. For the record, Microsofts own copy protection for XBOX 360 is STILL regarded as unbreakable; the ability to copy a game and play it back comes not from a software fault but a hardware fault in the case of the 360. There are also interesting rumours about PS3 floating around; games have already been dumped in Linux.All i'm saying is if someone is keen enough to do it, they'll do it.
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http://tinyurl.com/ybyp4aSeems it was shown at CES.
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Oh and I totally agree with you about this being honey to the hacker bees, I was just trying to clarify that the story we were talking about turned out not to be a 'crack' of the AACS.
I'm a bit stupid with techy stuff but I mean if folks decided to just annoy the crap out of studios with the key thing, the whole issue of updated keys and replacement discs alone would make the whole thing economically unfeasable, surely. Which reminds me, I gotta ring up and try to get replacement discs for my R1 Superman set. From Australia. D'oh! -
I happened to see some HD-DVD rips. Wether they were actually done with the key trick i don't know but, there they were.
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And I dunno about you but iTV or AppleTV or whatever seemed a bit underwhelming (I'm not a complete Apple sycophant). Only 720p? Whatever. The 360 (with a bigger drive) and the PS3 should get their acts together as regular HDD recorders, too.
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Acting innocent about the death of that woman. It's not like everyone hasn't heard stories about kids at raves taking Es and dying because they 'over-hydrated'. "We are awaiting information that will help explain how this tragic event occurred." they said. Yeah right. No I wasn't there but it sure seems pretty straightforward. Even if she hadn't died it's a pretty stupid (and ridiculously twee) idea for a competition and a pretty sure bet you're going to harm yourself internally sooner or later by doing it.
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Was Superman Returns..clocking in at a rediculous 31Gb.I took another look last night and lo and behold, theres about 5 apps been posted to back up HD-DVD. Jesus. They do things quick now.
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