I love my PlayStation 3 — a lot more then I really should. My curvy, delicious, Japanese piece of hardware likes it when I set the lights low, turn the stereo up and play with her all night long. There’s something particularly special about her, see — she doesn’t get around much, and her milkshake doesn’t need to bring the all boys to the yard. It’s just me and her, and some great first-party software.
But, underneath her, on the lower shelf, sits my Xbox 360. The “other girl.” Her and I go way back, but she’s recently been sleeping around being a floozy with just about anyone. Everyone and anybody loves to play with her; she’s up for anything at anytime. The unique, soft sexy green stare she only gave me, has now become a death glare of perversity and filth. She’s now become “that girl.”
Busting through my door, with a green and white cape, Xbox 360’s Director of Product Management, Aaron Greenberg himself, greeted me with orchids and a box of delicious chocolates. Greenberg looked sad and upset; I haven’t returned his phone calls in weeks. I quickly ran for my microphone and camera, he was there to win me back, and I was listening.
When the World of Warcraft pet store gets its latest two pets added to it in the form of the Wind Rider Cub and the Gryphon Hatchling the game itself will also be getting its first plushies. The plushies are landing at the Blizzard Store on Monday for the price of $24.99 and come with the in-game pet equivalent and some fancy bags. They also come with a whole dump truck of cute and cuddly.
Tomopop has a full run down and plenty of images of the two plushies. As reviewer Rio McCarthy points out repeatedly, they’re some of the cutest things ever. She seems thoroughly impressed with them, so if you’re looking for a new toy to cuddle up with on those cold winter days when you’re power goes out and you can’t get on to your WoW account this could be just the ticket. They have to be more comfortable than that Dwarf statue with the sharp points you’ve been trying to hug each night.
If Jimi Hendrix’s stepsister is to be believed, it sounds like Green Day won’t be the only musicians getting its own Rock Band game this year.
Janie Hendrix — who controls the guitarist’s estate — says a Rock Band game featuring the late musician should be coming before the end of the year. The statement comes as part of an LA Times interview, where Hendrix talks to the paper about a recent Sony Music licensing deal for the guitarist’s music.
A digital Hendrix and his music appeared in Activision’s Guitar Hero: World Tour in 2008. A Rock Band game featuring Jimi Hendrix would presumably follow the model of The Beatles: Rock Band, which chronicled the career of the Fab Four.
The Xbox 360 Games on Demand train continues to roll, as Resident Evil 5 and Beautiful Katamari have hit the service in North America today. The seven gig Resident Evil 5 will run you $29.99, and $19.99 will get you all three gigs of Beautiful Katamari.
Resident Evil 5, while arguably not as good as the title that came before it, is a no-brainer for fans of actions games. When we reviewed the game last year, we urged readers to “buy it,” and that recommendation still stands. However, with the impending release of Resident Evil 5 Gold Edition (which will run you $49.99 at retail), you might want to just hold off.
Namco Bandai’s Beautiful Katamari is… well, it’s a Katamari game and, yes, it’s beautiful on the Xbox 360.
Let me ask — has anyone purchased these Games on Demand, or are you finding that they’re hitting the service so late you already own them by the time they’re available? Personally, I haven’t bought a single one. It’s not that I have anything against the distribution model; in fact, I’d rather be done with physical media sooner rather than later. But can we get some day-and-date releases on the service already? I need more reasons not to leave the house, so help me out, Microsoft.
I love Japan because they regularly tie up two of my loves: food and videogames. When they promote a game, they love to use food to do so. The Yakuza series of games is no stranger to food tie-ins, and this newest one for Yakuza 4 looks delicious.
Japanese restaurant chain Pronto appears in the world of Yakuza 4. Buy food there and recover health. On the flip side, in the real world, you can eat an original pasta dish inspired by the game. “Men’s Pasta” will be on sale at Pronto from March through the end of April.
Even cooler than some pasta meal is the platter itself. There will be 100 of these “Legendary Pasta Platters” awarded to customers that enter a drawing. The platter has the game’s logo on it, and a bad-ass dragon at the bottom of the dish.
“The richness of the technology is going to really enable experiences that never had existed before,” said Microsoft’s Aaron Greengerg to CVG at X10 last week. “And we’re not just speaking about what we’re doing this year, but I think two, three, four, five years from now as this evolves.”
That sounds promising. I like that Microsoft is not afraid to talk big about Natal. They’re not afraid to give it a 5 year lifespan already. We know next to nothing about it, but we will very soon, starting out at this year’s E3 and leading all the way up to the holiday 2010 release.
“Millions of consumers this Holiday will be able to experience Project Natal and this is just the beginning of something that will change the way consumers interact with entertainment and change way our publishing partners think about game development.”
Coming from Greenberg, it sounds less like a tease and more like a promise. Again, that’s something we can appreciate.
You have to love NECA. It’s been revealed that the creator of quality action figures is currently planning to craft figures based on Borderlands and Splinter Cell. This is all according to NECA’s Twitter account, where it promised “Borderlands, Splinter Cell and loads more to come.”
NECA makes some really hot stuff. From its game-based wares to its awesome Aliens figures, the company is responsible for some great looking toys. I’d be really interested to see how well Borderlands translates into an action figure, and you can sign me up for a Mordecai at the very least.
Despite being announced, it looks like Trine on the Xbox 360 won’t be happening. In a post via Frozenbye Interactive’s official message board, the studio’s Joel Kinnunen wrote that the project is “out of our hands but most likely won’t happen.” He added that the Frozenbyte collective might not comment on this matter “any further,” a comment that has us scratching our heads a bit.
The good news is that you’re reading this post on a PC, and if you bought this thing within the century, you should be able to handle Trine. Get to it. Even Anthony liked it, and that’s saying something — dude hates games. This is a fact.
If I were looking to bump my street cred, now would be a good time to do so. Ostensibly, this post should be about introducing you to the fifth of Robotube’s Bit Museum videos, a fascinating and charming look at Nintendo’s Game & Watch line of handhelds. But I could use this opportunity to spout off about how I’ve forgotten way more about videogame history than that shlub Jason Cirillo will ever know.
But, let’s be real. I was born in 1987 — Game & Watch was old news before my parents even met.
Anyway, back to me not knowing d*ck about the Game & Watch: it was a pretty interesting line of games in its own right, but seeing how Gunpei Yokoi’s ideas have proliferated — on literally every console Nintendo has ever made — is downright cool.
I’m most of you guys are either bored at work or snowed in or a nasty combination of both, so take some time to poke around Jason’s Vimeo channel — you’ll see all the past Bit Museum episodes, as well as the Peek Poke series. Jason’s a good host — hell, he’s more a curator of awesome things — and you might actually learn something.
I was at the local used game store yesterday and was eyeballing one of those silly Chinese all-in-one systems that have all the cartridge slots you’d ever need to play all your old games. It was $35. $35. Even then, I was pacing, weighing out my options, doing math in my head, and thinking about my unpaid bills. Finally I said to myself: f*ck it, that’s what emu…Virtual Console is for.
Some guy on eBay went all the way. No, went beyond. He paid $13,105 for a Nintendo Entertainment System and five games. Hey, I liked TMNT and Super Mario Bros 3 as much as the next guy, but I can waddle down to the earlier mentioned used game store and nab those and about 10 more for less than $20. To be fair, some were in their original packaging with manuals, like Stadium Events.
From the item eBay item description:
I HAVE HAD THIS STORED IN THE CLOSET FOR YEARS FOR MY KIDS TO PLAY BUT THE WAY THAT ELECTRONICS COME & GO AND CHANGE FROM ONE YEAR TO THE NEXT THEY WANTED ALL OF THE NEW HOT ITEMS OF THEIR OWN NOW AND NOW IT’S TIME TO GET RID OF THINGS THAT ARE NO LONGER BEING USED OR WANTED. THIS SYSTEM WORKED PERFECT WHEN I STORED IT BUT SOMEHOW OVER THE YEARS, WE HAVE MANAGED TO MISPLACE THE AC CORD & THE TELEVISION HOOK UP.
I hope you buy your kids some of the “NEW HOT ITEMS” with your earnings, sir. This seems fake or wrong, but there was actually 36 bids, and it was actually completed at $13,105. Who knows if the winner paid or not.
Oh, and I loved this: “MY ITEMS DO COME FROM A SMOKING HOME”
