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.
Read more

The console wars, where the scarring battlefield of two or more different factions of gaming zealots identify themselves under a unified corporate banner in the hopes that their choice of gaming machinery will somehow be the one saving grace of their identity. I am a veteran of many of the original console wars, the worst one in my memory was the one that occurred between Sega and Nintendo back in the early 1990s when it was Super NES vs. Genesis for the “king of 16-bit” crown. It is only through the wisdom that I have gained in my 25 years of gaming that I know now how wrong these idiotic battles are.
Read more

D2C Games announced SPOGS Racers a few days back, and the press release went totally ignored. The release of this video, however, did get my attention. Not because I’m excited for SPOGS Racers, but because it looks incredibly horrible. The graphics look awful, the “personalization” looks like ass, and the generic rock music makes everything look 10 times worse. This is what WiiWare games should NOT be like.

Little Jimmy Smith is a good kid, he gets decent grades in school, does all of his chores when asked, eats all of his vegetables at dinner and is a generally a well likable 12 year old. This all changes the minute little Jimmy is allowed his nightly time on Xbox Live. For when little timid Jimmy becomes xXTeeBaggurXx all of that goes out the window. Little Jimmy is now a racist, sexist, deep throating mic abusing, singing, horrible human being that all of us hate to have on our teams. Most of these annoying attributes can be handled with a simple mute, but the one that I hate and wish I could kill people over the interweb for is…

Read more

There is only one thing that can stop all of the rampant fanboy-ism that is devouring the industry that I love, and I pray that I never see the day where it happens. The minute that it happens I will officially be done with video games…and that is if the industry evolves into having only a single home console. Who am I kidding, I’ll still be into video games when I’m old and gray no matter what. If interested in seeing my opinons on this and how we would see the death of the fanboy, click the jump below.

Read more

Today, football fans will either weep for continued loss of choice in what games they can play or are completely amped for the fact that the Madden series will continue to own the market for the next five years.

In a deal between the National Football League and Electronic Arts, the exclusive licensing for the NFL Rosters and Players has been extended to the year 2013. The licensing agreement is for all forms of console gaming including home, handheld, online, and even grants EA access to the NFL Network and NFL Films to “enrich its game experiences.”

This announcement comes on the heels of the 20th anniversary of the ungodly popular Madden franchise, which has grossed over 2 billion from retail sales…that’s $2,000,000,000! According to the tattoo-speckled Microsoft traitor Peter Moore, “For nearly two decades, EA Sports has been bringing sports fans closer to the great game of football through the breakthrough interactive experiences of our videogames.”

He then added, “Game quality is our top priority, and we’re committed to pushing our gameplay innovation, connecting football fans via rich online experiences and delivering the most visually stunning sports games on the market.” It seems to me that he forgot about the problems that the PS3 version had.

Regardless of this writer’s opinion of sports games, EA is going to sell millions upon millions of copies of each subsequent Madden games that will be coming out for the next 5 years. I’m going to go out on a limb here and list the titles of each of those games for you right now: Madden 2009, Madden 2010, Madden 2011, Madden 2012, Madden 2013. I only wish that it wasn’t an exclusive agreement, so that the NFL 2K series could make a comeback and offer some competition.

[Quotes Via GamesIndustry.biz]

FINALLY, EA has announced that they will be selling Rock Band drums and Rock Band guitars separately. The drum kit will be arriving in stores two days before Valentine’s, February 12th, for the price of $79.99, while the guitars are coming in April for $59.99. This marks the first time wireless guitars will be of use on the Xbox 360 version of Rock Band. There is no word on whether or not the company will be selling microphones yet.

Money-milking EA sure has put a steep price on their controllers, especially since the game bundle with a guitar, mic, and drum kit included, costs $169.99. If you do the math, or if you simply glance at the prices for the equipment, you’ll notice that this is a total ripoff. If you don’t already own the game, you’re better off buying the bundle. If you do and you’re looking for another instrument, I suggest using Ebay. These prices are just too bad.

Oh, woe is me! Woe is beside me! Here I was, all excited because Smash was coming in less than a month, and then THIS happens:

Why?!!!! It looks like Japan’s delay was a little less severe, pushing the game back one measly week. Ugh… this is just terrible. Oh well, I guess that I really would prefer to get a game that’s all shiny and polished than one that’s rushed, but still..!

Actually, upon further thought, I’ve decided that this game doesn’t really exist. The team that’s supposedly “developing” the game is really just making screenshots and posting them on the so-called “official” website. These horrible people are just going to keep pushing the game back a month, dangling their delicious carrot in front of us like the obedient horses that we are. Sakurai, you are one sadistic sonuvabitch.

While it may have been proven that most gamers don’t care about gaming’s right of free speech this doesn’t mean that our President shouldn’t. This is why, as a registered Democrat, Hilary Clinton has just lost my vote in the primary. She recently responded, late, to Common Sense Media’s survey on how the presidential candidates would deal with gaming rights. All her fellow democrats that responded said they would be fine with letting the industry regulate itself as they thought it was doing a good job and parental education was the place to focus their attention. Clinton, on the other hand, had this to say:

When I am president, I will work to protect children from inappropriate video game content.

Of course this shouldn’t come as a surprise as Clinton already introduced a bill that would regulate game sales two years ago which was oh-so benignly titled the Family Entertainment Protection Act. This is something to strongly consider when choosing who you vote for as changes like this will effect everyone, not just gamers. For the full run down on responses, which every gamer should read before voting, go here.

Honestly, I want to know what genius at Neversoft said “Hey, let’s release tracks for obscure European bands! Everyone will love it!” The above video showcases the song “Ernten Was Wir Säen” by Die Fantastischen Vier. I’m pretty sure I heard the singer say stuff about showers and Final Solutions a few times (Oh, I went there). Another song, “Antisocial”, by totally world-famous French band Trust is available after the jump, as well as a few other ‘goodies’.
Read more