9/08/2008

In the News - 9-8-2008

Mostly gaming news here. Not a gamer? Move along, nothing to see here. :)
Kotaku pimping coming up.

Official Wii Wi-Fi Router

They're calling it a Wifi Network Adapter. For...I don't know...people who are not smart enough to buy their own router and set up their own wireless network (or to get their ISP to do it for them)? Even though they're not that expensive, and they're really easy to set up in about 10 minutes? At least now you can get a router that matches your Wii (hooray?). Where the frak is my HDD?

DRM Angry Consumers Bombard Amazon

Will Wright's Spore is now officially on the shelves. Spore is protected with the ridiculously annoying Securom protection, which specifically limits the number of times you can install a game onto your computer (like 3 times or something). Not only does this NOT stop pirates (evidenced by a cracked copy of the game that was released online before the game even came out), but it hurts legitimate consumers. If you practice proper PC care, like I do, you probably re-format your computer at least once a year, if not twice (every 6-8 months is good). So eventually, if you chose to install the game each time you reformated, you would at some point be told that you can no longer install the game. Isn't that lovely? As a result, many angry gamers bombed Spore's review section on Amazon.com with poor scores.
Someone in the comment section (on Kotaku) stated that "cyber terrorism does not work," but I would like to point out that it DOES in fact work, even if it's not exactly classy. When psychologist and author Cooper Lawrence unfairly slammed Mass Effect on Fox News, gamers retaliated by posting bad reviews to her books on Amazon. Ms. Lawrence responded by actually bothering to look into the game, and apologized for her statements.

Nintendo not working on a hard drive

But is working on a "better solution," whatever that means. What could be better than giving us a frakking HDD already?

Harry Potter game pushed back

Just like the movie of the same name, EA's Half-Blood Prince video game will be pushed back to release next summer along side the film. Hooray. Gamers hope this means they will spend the extra time polishing up the game...but shouldn't get their hopes up.

Mercenaries 2 Starring Peter Stormare

Peter Stormare, voice actor for the Mercenaries character Mattias Nilsson (the fellow with the mohawk and tattoos), has sung the now famous Mercenaries "Oh No You Didn't" commercial song (which I posted about before). Stormare is a hilarious actor with a great voice. You may remember him from a recent VW ad campaign, where he acted as a ridiculous German fellow trying to connect to the "cool kids," by destroying their "pimped out" rides and replacing them with a VW GTI. You can see them over at youtube.

2 comments:

ArmoredFoe said...

Hey there Kris...well unfortunately for Mercenaries 2. I played thru it for about 5 hours and wasnt impressed at all. Horrible controls, horrible shooting system and crappy graphics (pre-rendered bitmapped buildings). At one point during my gaming I actually drove thru the bottom of the map where I fell into this continuous loop of...well falling. I then thought maybe if I exit the vehicle I'll be magically teleported back to my feet... I exited, the vehicle vanished now my character was on a loop. I proceeded to exit back to the main menu...instant freeze.

I mean hasnt pandemic took any notes on GTA 4. I actually had high hopes for Mercs 2 and was totally let down. Its a good thing they have a cool commercial becuase that about all they have going for them.

Kris said...

That's what I've noticed, based on reviews and people who have played it. Sounds like they should have spent less time planning their marketing campaign and more time working the kinks out of the game. It's still a good ad, although good ads don't always mean good games.