| Metroid Turns 25: Blog About Your Favorite Metroid Memories Posted: 06 Aug 2011 12:00 AM PDT  Today marks the 25-year anniversary of the very first Metroid game's release in Japan. It was on August 6, 1986 that it became available for the Famicom Disk System; it wouldn't be until a year later, during August of 1987, that it would come out for the Nintendo Entertainment System in North America. Metroid is significant for a number of reasons, from its multiple endings to its female protagonist to its nonlinear gameplay. The latter really set it apart from the competition with the ability to backtrack through areas you had already visited. It's a mechanic that's taken for granted nowadays and is very often used as an artificial way to extend a game's length. In 1986, it was a novel concept, as were the power-ups you collected throughout the game that allowed for new areas to be reached. |
| Bobby Kotick is Acting in Moneyball for Charity Posted: 05 Aug 2011 05:23 PM PDT
The news that Bobby Kotick would play a role, however small, in the upcoming Brad Pitt film Moneyball was shocking -- even more so than the fact that the movie actually looks good. He was spotted in a trailer released back in June, much to the bewilderment of gamers who know him only as the CEO of Activision Blizzard. So how did he end up there? That very question was asked by Reuters (via One of Swords), which found out Kotick is a friend of the film's director, Bennett Miller. The two were discussing the role of the Oakland Athletics owner before Kotick was asked to play the part himself. He agreed, but only if Miller would do something for the Call of Duty Endowment non-profit group. "We were having dinner and Bennett was talking about Moneyball and he asked me a little bit about an owner's psychology and what an owner would be like," Kotick said. "I started reading the script and I said, I really think the words don't capture how an owner would react to this part of the conversation." |
| Skyrim Presentation Sends Woman Into Labor, So She Stuck Around Until it Was Over Posted: 05 Aug 2011 04:58 PM PDT 
All sorts of crazy things can happen at QuakeCon, but going into labor probably isn't especially high on most attendees' to-do lists. Nevertheless, that's exactly what happened to one couple attending the show after getting engaged at the event last year. During a presentation on The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim earlier today, a pregnant woman went into labor, Game Informer reports. Rather than leaving immediately, she and her fiancé stuck around until it was over before heading to the hospital. It wasn't entirely because they had to see the whole thing, though that probably didn't hurt. "During the demo Todd Howard showed off the Frost Dragon. This is what started the whole thing, seeing this must have filled Stevi with so much excitement that it sent her into labor," said the new father, Chaz, in a message sent later to Game Informer. He explained that they decided to wait in case she wasn't actually in labor, meaning they "stayed for the rest of the demo because she is a trooper and LOVES Skyrim." |
| Support Somalian Hunger Relief by Playing Bad Company 2 Posted: 05 Aug 2011 04:30 PM PDT
There are many people throughout the world who could use your assistance. Among them are those in Somalia, a county on the eastern coast of Africa which continues to face a major food shortage, thanks in part to not receiving a sufficient amount of rain. It also doesn't help that the country is without a centralized government. A group of gamers are coming together to support Somalian hunger relief this weekend by playing Battlefield: Bad Company 2. Donations are being accepted from now until September 2 through GamersOutreach, a non-profit group that uses games to help various causes. $2,439.08 has been raised as of this writing from 120 contributors. A number of Bad Company 2 PC servers will be running with the name "Somalian Hunger Relief SHR" for a 24-hour period from August 6 at 9am GMT (that's 4am Eastern and 1am Pacific) until the same time on August 7. Every $500 that is donated will result in a raffle taking place for various items from Gunnar Optiks, Astro, and other companies. To be eligible, you simply need to donate during the event. |
| Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet Getting Co-Op DLC Posted: 05 Aug 2011 03:32 PM PDT 
Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet, the Metroidvania game released as a part of the Summer of Arcade this week, isn't missing a multiplayer mode: it has Lantern Run. It's a co-op mode that, for better or worse, is a good deal different from the single-player campaign that represents the bulk of the game. Developer Fuelcell Games has plans to change that by releasing new multiplayer content by way of DLC that is more like the core game. "I can't talk too much about it as we're still in the earlier stages," Fuelcell CEO Joe Olson told Eurogamer. "One of the things -- while we're really happy with how Lantern Run turned out -- we wanted to bring a co-op experience that's a little bit more like the core campaign experience. That's kind of our goal with the DLC." While the game has been largely praised -- it got a B+ from 1UP -- there have been complaints that it's too short. While there was a great deal of content cut from the game, Olson still feels the game is a "good value" and he thinks the issue stems from people rushing through the game. |
| Bethesda Wants a New Name for Minecraft Dev's Scrolls Posted: 05 Aug 2011 02:46 PM PDT 
Minecraft developer Mojang is working on a new game called Scrolls. It was announced earlier this year and I can't say that I'm aware of anyone who confused its name with that of The Elder Scrolls series, though that hasn't stopped Bethesda -- or at least its lawyers -- from threatening Mojang and demanding that it stop using the Scrolls name. In a blog post today, Mojang's Markus Persson recapped what's happened with the lawsuit and its trademarks. After trademarking Minecraft earlier this year, Mojang also filed for the name Scrolls. "We knew of no similarly named games, and we had even googled it to make sure," Persson says. "I'm not even sure if you CAN trademark individual words, like 'Scrolls,' but we sent in the application anyway." Bethesda inquired about the Scrolls trademark at one point, believing it to be in conflict with its existing trademark for "The Elder Scrolls." |
| Kim Jong-il Has a Team of MMO Hackers Sending Him Money Posted: 05 Aug 2011 01:20 PM PDT 
North Korea and its leader, Kim Jong-il, aren't exactly overflowing with money. As such, he does whatever he can to bring in money to continue the country's nuclear weapons program, among other things, going so far as selling weapons and drugs, counterfeiting, and so on. It's the latest of these attempts to make money, though, that is the most interesting of the bunch. Police in the capital of South Korea, Seoul, revealed today that a group of hackers have worked to breach online games like Lineage and Dungeon and Fighter (a F2P MMO published by Samsung) in an effort to allow unmanned computers to play them around the clock. The goal, the New York Times reports (via IGN), is to generate in-game currency and/or items which are then sold online. In under two years, the scam is said to have brought in $6 million, a portion of which is sent back to those in the North Korean capital city of Pyongyang. North Korea has reportedly trained an "army" of hackers and programmers, some of which were being tapped to create a "squad of 30 young video gaming experts." The hackers had to forward at least $500 to the Pyongyang government every month. |
| How Bethesda Hopes to Get $150 Out of You for Skyrim Posted: 05 Aug 2011 12:30 PM PDT 
It's unsurprising to see that The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim will ship later this year with a collector's edition. Like many of the high-end CEs we see nowadays, it'll carry a real premium price: $149.99. That's a lot of money to spend on any one game, but for diehard Elder Scrolls fans, it may be very hard to turn down. Alongside the standard edition of the game, the collector's edition will be released on November 11 (11/11/11, you see). As announced by Todd Howard at QuakeCon today, the package includes a special game case and several goodies. There's an official, 200-plus-page art book; a making-of DVD; and a statue of the dragon Alduin. The 12-inch statue was created by the IP Factory from what's said to be "high quality PVC." Judging from the picture above, you'll also get a map of the Skyrim province. The announcement states that it'll be available in "extremely limited quantities," so you may want to place a pre-order now if this is something you need to get. |
| Bastion Dated, Coming to PC on August 16 Posted: 05 Aug 2011 11:43 AM PDT 
Normally there's a much longer wait for games released as part of the Xbox 360's Summer of Arcade promotion to make their way to PC, but that's not the case with Bastion. Like From Dust, which is coming to Steam on August 17, Bastion will be available on Valve's digital distribution service in just over a week, on August 16. It was very well received on Xbox Live Arcade, and today's press release on the PC version notes it will sport high-resolution graphics and a new control scheme for PC (with support for gamepads and remappable controls). It'll carry the same $14.99 price tag on Steam that it did on XBLA, and is headed to other, non-Steam digital distribution services later in August. Bastion thankfully ships with no DRM but does support Steamworks features like cloud saves, Achievements, and leaderboards, which will only be available in the Steam version. |
| PSN Gets its Own Summer of Arcade-Style Program, PLAY Posted: 05 Aug 2011 11:14 AM PDT 
It's long been said that PlayStation Network games don't get the same sort of attention that Xbox Live Arcade games do, regardless of how good they are. Microsoft's Summer of Arcade promotion, going on now for the fourth year running, does a great job of heaping a tremendous amount of attention upon a select number of games -- it's no coincidence that last year's fivesome were among the top 15 best-selling Arcade games for 2010. So the question has been raised more than once why Sony hasn't implemented something like it. At long last, it's announced a very similar program to Summer of Arcade that kicks off later this month called PlayStation Network PLAY. Besides its annoying capitalization, this is planned as an annual event, and like this year's Summer of Arcade, it's offering a bonus game to those who pick up all four participating games. Each PLAY game purchased while the program is running will come with a free piece of downloadable content and, if you pre-order at least five days before release, an XMB theme. If you buy all four (and are 18 or older), you'll get a free copy of Payday: The Heist, which is planned for release on September 20 for $19.99. As an added bonus for PlayStation Plus members, each PLAY game can be purchased at 20% off. |
