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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No, Mr. Glenn Beck, you’re the fucking loser.

The PAL version of Grand Theft Auto IV for Xbox 360 supposedly leaked earlier today, and has shown up on torrent sites across the internet as a 6471 MB (6.32 GB if you don’t like big numbers) file released by iCON. The NFO file warns not to connect to Xbox Live until the game is released to the masses (three full times in ALL CAPS, so you better heed the warning), and even encourages people to buy the game anyway since “R* deserves it.”

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Epic Games’ president, Mike Capps, reiterated what Epic has previously said in an interview with IGN, stating that Epic won’t ever be developing games for the Wii. It’s not about the success of the platform to him, but what can be done on it. When asked whether there would ever be a time when Epic would be forced to give in and create a game for the Wii, Capps said, “no, we go forward, not back. It makes more sense for us to invest in the next-generation tech.”

As for why he believes the Wii has become so popular, he says it’s like a virus that just keeps spreading:

It’s a virus where you buy it and you play it with your friends and they’re like, “Oh my God that’s so cool, I’m gonna go buy it.” So you stop playing it after two months, but they buy it and they stop playing it after two months but they’ve showed it to someone else who then go out and buy it and so on. Everyone I know bought one and nobody turns it on. Obviously there’s a class of people who really love it and enjoy it and are getting into the games but I’m still waiting for that one game that makes me play it.

Some in our forums have shared a similar sentiment regarding games for the Wii (at least this year), but others are very excited about the upcoming games for the system. It seems that in many cases it may just be personal taste.

Capps also talks about everything from Gears of War 2, Grand Theft Auto IV, and Unreal Tournament III to the comics, paying for weapons, and Wii Fit, so if you want to hear more of what he has to say make sure to read the rest of the interview.

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If the above picture (spotted on Digg) is to be believed, someone has gotten a copy of Grand Theft Auto IV ahead of its scheduled April 29 release. It was rumored that someone had a copy in March when a video showed the case and intro, but 1UP believed it was fake.

There is also more reliable proof someone has GTA IV already, since Powderblue Kes’ 360voice.com blog shows that he played it April 9 after 28 days with nothing played. As is usual when a game suddenly appears early, there are plenty of questions; did Powderblue Kes take a picture of his disc, or are there multiple copies out there? Did they (or he or she) get it for review, or because they work at Rockstar, or because a store sold it early, or by more nefarious means? How long until someone who has it leaks it to the internet? And how did the Xbox 360 pictured get that mustache?

A new study led by Dr John Charlton of the University of Bolton and Ian Danforth of Whitman College has been released by the The British Psychological Society, and it claims that video game addiction can lead to negative personality traits and those usually associated with Aspergers, a form of autism:

They found that the closer the players got to addiction the more likely they were to display negative personality traits. And that as players showed more signs of addiction they were increasingly characterised by three personality traits that would normally be associated with Aspergers, a variety of high functioning autism. These were neuroticism, and lack of extraversion and agreeableness.

They believe that these people are not classifiable as having Aspergers, but they display some of the traits because they find it easier to relate to the gaming systems, instead of real people. “Our research supports the idea that people who are heavily involved in game playing may be nearer to autistic spectrum disorders than people who have no interest in gaming,” says Dr Charlton.

Only 391 “computer game players” were questioned, 86 percent of them male. According to Telegraph.co.uk, three percent “missed meals and went without sleep to spend more time playing.”

However, 3 percent seems pretty low, and people will skip meals and sleep for almost anything (movies, television, book releases, porn, the list is a long one), so three percent of a small sampling doing so is not surprising at all. It seems like the researchers, and the Telegraph even more, are just trying to make this seem like a bigger deal than it really is.

[Via Press Release and Telegraph.co.uk]

After weeks of back and forth between the two software giants, it seems that a deal has finally been reached under which Take-Two will be absorbed into EA. Many were certain that this wouldn’t happen, due to Take-Two’s continual rejections of Electronic Arts’ offers.

It turns out, according to a source within Take-Two (who has asked to remain anonymous), that EA made an offer that, simply put, couldn’t be refused. Things are still being finalized, but information on what will be happening to Take-Two’s biggest franchises can be yours after the jump.
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For those of you who recall, you may remember a post back in October we did that covered Kotaku’s take on game reviews. It is a very good read and I highly recommend you run through it, beings that it’s one of the few places that have taken on the notion that gaming reviews nowadays frankly suck. But most importantly, if you look in the comments of our post, you will see that I mentioned I would touch on this subject myself once I got around to writing. And here we are.

Game reviews and ratings have always been a funny thing. At the individual level? Well if you give any one person internet access he/she will instantly spew pretentious as though they’re an editor for Pitchfork, with a handy bookmark to Dictionary.com and Microsoft Word open to check for synonyms. When the ability to publish some sort of art, whether it be writing, music, imagery, video, etc., becomes cheap and accessible enough for the masses to get a hold of, you can expect some low quality material. A case of “yeah, it’s great they can do it, but they shouldn’t.”

However, at the professional level, there isn’t any source out there that I can say I can trust with one grain of salt any more than the everyday blogger. The review and evaluation process from these sources, which are supposedly reputable, are typically inconsistent from title to title, lacking in a fair review based on full completion of the game, biased towards their advertiser’s preference, focused too much on technical individualities such as graphics/sound/online, or ‘aided’ by large yet completely meaningless scores.

Hit the jump for my take on these problems, and if I feel like posting them, solutions.

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Browsing on Digg today, I saw this video review I thought I’d share with you all. It’s highly informational, extremely entertaining, and completely dead on. This post is for you who people out there that didn’t exactly agree with my views on Turok being an absolute shitfest of a game.

Hail Yahtzee.