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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The staff has been hard at work preparing to start recording what we like to call “The Mushroom Cloud,” MEGATONik’s new podcast dedicated to serious and not-so-serious discussion on facts that are important to gamers. We’re not talking about the latest sales figures or boring things that people in suits care about. The Mushroom Cloud will go that extra mile to give you the latest gaming news, thoughts, and enough not-safe-for-work jokes to land you in your office’s gender-sensitivity training for the rest of the week. We’re doing this for you, our readers, because we care.

We’re finishing up the details and preparing to record our first episode next week. Prepare yourself for a show that will take your questions and discuss with us live. Expect reviews, live games, and plenty of ridiculous humor that will leave you rofl-ing all over yourself. Nasty, huh?

We’ll be posting show notes and much more for the first episode in the middle of next week. Until then, let us know if you’ve got any ideas for topics, features, or live games. I promise that this podcast will be worth your time, or I’ll post embarrassing pictures of Cortez. You’ll be entertained either way.

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]

I am truly disturbed…

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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As the release of Grand Theft Auto IV nears, we’re seeing even more controversy involving the series and its violence. Both politicians and the media seem to blame the series for being one of the causes of violence in America, but this time, the complaint is coming from inside of a prison.

Inmate Jonathan Lee Riches filed a request for a restraining order on April 9, against Take-Two and Rockstar. The order was filed because the game apparently “put [him] in prison.” Riches was incarcerated for wire fraud.

In his claim (which can be seen above), Riches stated:

“Defendants contributed to Plaintiff committing identity theft. Defendant’s games show sex, drugs and violence which offends me. Defendants put me in prison. I face imminent danger from violent inmates who played Grand Theft Auto who will knock me out and take my gold Jesus cross.”

GameSpot seems to have also found out that Riches is suing Activision and Atari as well for making games that are a threat to his safety in prison.

Yahoo! News reported today that a little girl from Pa. was beaten to death by her mom’s boyfriend with a controller. While the report doesn’t specifically say what kind of controller it was, I’d place a bet that it’s a 360 one. The Wiimotes are too small and the Sixaxis is too light, I think. Yes, I know it’s in bad taste to speculate on such a thing, but I know that you’re all probably wondering the same exact thing. Anyway, the guy that did it is in jail and the mom has been charged with endangering her kid’s welfare.

Since I’m sure Thompson’s going to have a field day with this, I’d like to say that on behalf of the video game community that the fact that a controller was used as a weapon doesn’t necessarily have a correlation with what kind of games the guy played. Heck, when I play “Clue” and it turns out that Colonel Mustard killed Miss Scarlet with the lead pipe, I’m not likely to suspect every plumber I meet of being a murderer.

Ok, I’ve vented enough. Hit the jump for Yahoo’s original report.

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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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Oh Em Gee guys!!! Did you hear that Agetec, publisher of such games as Cookie and Cream and Magic Pengel, is bringing a game called LOL to the Nintendo DS this May? Like SRSLY? OMG LOL.

Agetec describes the gameplay as:

LOL is played by one of the players making a challenge in writing to the others. The crazier the challenge, the more fun everyone will have. The person who delivered the challenge chooses an appropriate time limit, and everyone has to answer the challenge on their touch screen however they see fit – with words, pictures, or whatever comes to mind. The host reveals the answers, and everyone votes on a winner who will then decide on the challenge for the next round. Always different and a blast to play every time, LOL will, as its name implies, make everyone laugh out loud.

… but it really just looks like Pictochat with Wi-fi play to me.

I think it’s worth mentioning that the game’s motto is “If the game is boring, then you are boring.” I swear I didn’t make that up.

Hit the jump for screens and the full press release.

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I’m aware that this is old news by now. So, why hasn’t it been posted about yet on MEGATONik? Because after I read about it yesterday… I fainted.

Really, just think about it: a game featuring an Italian plumber and his brother competing in Olympic events against a blue hedgehog and his “whore a franchise into the ground” friends has sold five million copies between the Wii and DS versions.

Isn’t that just completely ridiculous? Never before has our “WHY??” tag felt more appropriate to me.

[Via CVG]

Dearest Bungie:

I realize that this may or may not make me sound like a broken record, but Halo 3’s matchmaking system is broken. No, not simply flawed or a little borked but full-blown broken.

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Needless to say, Two Worlds doesn’t have a whole lot going for it. Being basically a failed Oblivion clone, there isn’t much that it can offer the western RPG crowd. Developer Reality Pump is looking to expand on its one strength, the inclusion of multiplayer, by offering two new multiplayer expansion packs soon. Among other things, the new expansions will open up new co-op missions, improved PvP modes, and introduce new weapons. Each expansion will offer 10 more hours of gameplay, with the first one being due out in March and the second sometime in April. If you’re brave enough to play through them, each pack will put you back the sum of 600 Microsoft Points, or $7.50. Hit the jump for the full press release and 4 high-res screen shots.

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Yesterday afternoon 27-year-old Steven Kazmierczak shot multiple people at Northern Illinois University, killing five, injuring many more, and finally committing suicide. It is a national tragedy, and just like with Virginia Tech Jack Thompson has decided to exploit it in his crusade against violent video games. With no indication whatsoever that gaming was involved or the shooter even played games, Jack Thompson appeared on Fox News as “someone who has studied campus shootings” to share his unfounded opinions on what was behind it. Based only his belief that violent games make people far more likely to do this kind of thing and “the attire” of the shooter, he thinks video games were connected. He says “you can rehearse these type of massacres on simulators which are called video games,” making it seem as if video games are nothing more than massacre simulators. He even manages to get a plug in for his book.

Until there is reasonable evidence that gaming was directly involved, and I doubt there will be, it’s nothing more than video game fear mongering and baseless assumptions.

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]