Rumors of the demise of EGM and the sale of 1UP.com to various suitors have floated around the interwebs for awhile, but now, unfortunately, it has come to pass: 1UP.com has been officially bought out by UGO, resulting in a enormous rash of firings. Many other blogs have covered this event well, so instead of just copy-pasting their hard work for the sake of site-hits or content, I’ll merely link to three stories that I feel are most pertinent. Said links and my personal feelings on the 1UP “fallout” after the jump. Just a warning: it’s pretty long.
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Well, ok, second best. The best video game related trade I ever made was when I traded my cousin Will a bunch of beanie babies for his Dreamcast. I almost feel bad for swindling him so hard. But, this is about my second best trade ever, which was trading in Fable 2 straight up for Grand Theft Auto IV. Because, even though I made a 2-hour round-trip to get Fable 2 at midnight, stayed up ‘til 7 A.M. playing it, and let it consume my life for about two weeks, I have now come to loathe Fable 2. It has nothing to do with the game’s genre or any of the technical aspects of the game (its control scheme, meh graphics, HORRENDOUS load times, etc.); from a technical aspect I pretty much enjoyed the game. No, my main beef with Fable 2 is how it fails so utterly and completely at one of its highly promised intangible features: the ability to emotionally engage a player.

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tl;dr Viral marketing is a tricky business, and these guys aren’t good at it. If it weren’t for IGN and its claims, we’d never guess that this obscure video is supposed to advertise or relate to an upcoming Wii exclusive.

Should I be excited or shouldn’t I? I can’t tell from this film clip, which IGN says is supposed to advertise or at least relate to an upcoming exclusive Nintendo Wii title. Apparently, they got an anonymous e-Mail that made these claims, but if it weren’t for IGN’s hinting, we’d never guess.

If we take IGN’s word and assume that the clip does have some significance, then we can try and analyze it for any clue as to what kind of title’s coming out. There’s a brief but noticeable glimpse of a retro-style gaming screen in the art style of Geometry Wars, perhaps suggesting another casual title along the lines of Boom Blox or Wii Play. IGN did indeed say that one of the frames from the clip contains a glimpse of “the Wii title itself”.

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A few days ago, Major Nelson gave us word of a new tool that Xbox owners could use to regain licenses for their downloaded content such as Arcade games and add-ons. The Microsoft DRM has been a point of considerable debate, as users can only use their content on one registered console without being connected to the Internet. This was exacerbated by the fact that the Xbox 360 has a less-than-exemplary hardware reliability and so many users who had to get their consoles replaced (including myself) found the content that we had paid for crippled due to the games not being played on the console with which they were originally downloaded. Until this new DRM management tool was released, Xbox users had no way of transferring their licenses. Have I lost you?

Hit the jump for more details on what is possibly the most inept remedy I’ve ever seen.
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Speaking at the Paris Game Developers Conference, EA’s David McCarthy revealed that within the next year, EA Sports games will be bundled with peripherals. McCarthy said “I think you’ll see games using that Rock Band peripheral strategy from EA Sports, even within the next 12 months,” so long as the accessibility of a game isn’t compromised. McCarthy did not expand on whether or not the peripherals would reach all three major consoles, or even what specific games they are being developed for.

Regardless of the game, I think we can all agree that this console generation’s obsession with peripherals is getting a little out of hand. Whatever happened to picking up just a disc whenever we wanted a new game? Now I have to get an entirely new controller. The recently announced Guitar Hero 4 is supposed to have drums as well, and I sure as hell don’t need two drum sets.

This leads me into a greater argument about sports games as a whole. I feel that if you really want to play a sport, then go out and play it! There is some rationality to using a standard controller and playing online, but if someone is already swinging a virtual bat, that’s just one step away from actually playing baseball. Some may argue that music games such as Rock Band should follow the same guidelines, but learning the basics of an instrument is definitely more time-consuming than learning the basics of a sport. If you’ve ever had gym class, you should know how to play basketball.

Hey, EA, why not get to work on a new SSX instead?

[Via Gamesindustry.biz]

A new trailer for Guitar Hero: On Tour is out, and I have to say that it just plain sucks.

It’s not very well done and it just keeps on going, so it ends up being embarrassing for everyone involved.

I know this isn’t meant to be a serious trailer, but I don’t think it was supposed to be this bad either. They are trying to sell a game, after all. They could have went with the easiest option and just put some almost naked chicks in there somewhere, or they could have followed the Guitar Hero: World Tour approach and just showed people rocking out with a list of features, both of which would have ended up a lot better than some guy picking his DS and some dumbass singing about all the features. Especially when you have the kind of features that Guitar Hero: On Tour has.

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The above video (and the two following the jump) make it seem so easy to accomplish anything with the Dragon Ball Z KAMEHAMEHA! attack, from stapling, stamping, and talking on the phone in an office, to seducing women, to kicking people straight in the nuts. The videos made it seems like shouting (or whispering) “KAMEHAMEHA!” was the perfect addition to any task, so I decided to try the technique on my keyboard for writing this post. Unfortunately, this was all I managed to get:

slfd jlykbar0 k]ll fs; kvl,gabpwmt=, ekaslk[pav md,gjpp98576pvn f

Maybe I didn’t say it right or something.
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GameTrailers.com recently posted a video comparing GRID on the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360. The only problem - according to the above video (the original has been removed from GameTrailers), not only was the “PlayStation 3″ gameplay from a PS3, so was the “Xbox 360″ gameplay. Instead of comparing the visuals of the two consoles like a so-called comparison video is intended to do, they just took gameplay from one console and by their choice of settings and what they showed made it seem like two.

While it certainly makes you wonder about GameTrailer’s integrity and bias, it also puts the validity of their numerous other comparisons into question. People have always argued over console comparison videos, sometimes doubting them (usually when their console of choice didn’t come out on top), but that didn’t stop people from trusting that the footage was at least from the console it was labeled as.

We now have one instance where that wasn’t the case, so how many others were not what they claimed to be, or were doctored or arranged to make one console seem superior? GameTrailer’s comparisons have been used by so many to fuel the fires of fanboydom, and we may never know which ones were valid comparisons and which ones were fake or at least influenced. This could have been a one time lapse of judgement (or an unusually unrestrained exclamation of console preference), but whatever credibility these comparisons had in the first place, it’s been lost.

In a recent conference call, Activision gave out a handful of details on its upcoming franchises. The most interesting facts out of the pool of information were regarding the Tony Hawk series, as well as Call of Duty 5.

Actvision has FINALLY decided to not produce a Tony Hawk Pro Skater game this year, and to totally reinvent the franchise. This breaks the nine-year-long tradition of releasing a game every year, although there is a THPS game that is planned to release on the Nintendo DS later this year. Activision CEO, Mike Griffith, commented:

“We’re inventing Tony from the ground up. For competitive reasons we’re not going to talk about it today, but we’re very bullish on the kind of innovation it will bring, and it won’t be your father’s Tony Hawk.”

The conference call also spoke upon Call of Duty 5, giving us the only information we have about the game: it’s going to take place in “a new military theater.” Note, however, there is a rumor flying around CoD 5 saying it’s going to take place during World War II…again.

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Downloadable content for games is a sensitive subject. If handled correctly it can enrich and expand a game, opening up new options, or if it’s free it can be a reward to loyal fans. Then there’s the opposite, when it costs more than it should considering the content and is only a tool for game publishers to make some quick, easy money. Like when gamers were charged $2.50 just for some horse armor - or, in this case, ninja armor.

The current offender is Microsoft, who is planning on charging 200 Microsoft Points, or $2.50, for downloadable armor in Ninja Gaiden II. While ninjas are certainly more awesome than horses, it’s still a pretty high price to pay for “new and never before seen looks,” especially when that’s the kind of stuff that most games include free, right on the disc itself. Plus, since the game isn’t even out, this could easily be included as part of the game, but instead they’ve chosen to charge for it.

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