Microsoft has announced that in the upcoming spring update, we will finally be able to use external storage to supplement our proprietary Xbox 360 hard drive. Huzzah!!…Right?…Guys?
The appropriate exclamatory interjection here would be more like, “huz”, or ”zah”, or “1.5 cheers for Microsoft.” But what have our overlords in the Pacific Northwest done to merit such unenthusiastic praise? I’ll tell you what, with the next set of words I type!
Essentially, we were told that an external hard drive (or USB Stick) will be automatically partitioned for use when inserted into one of the 360’s USB port. While everyone was busy hooting and hollering about how great it’s going to be to finally be able to save games and media onto an external drive, Microsoft whispered this crusty little nugget away from the microphone: “The system partition occupies 512 MB of space, and by default the consumer partition occupies the remainder of the device capacity, or 16 GB, whichever is smaller.”
What’s that you say? 16GBs is that maximum amount of space in the partition? What about the other 484GB in my 500GB drive? Oh, you can still use that to store all your monkey-slinging-pooh videos and Arrested Development .gif files, they just won’t be recognized by your Xbox. In the words of Moe Sizlak: “Whaaaaaaaaaa?”
The reason for all this “here you go, psych!” give-away/take-away madness is that Microsoft has essentially realized that their memory units, those gargantuan 512MB mammoths of storage, are worth less than a comb in Rothbart’s bathroom (yeah, I know, “he could use it to comb his Rothbeard”, just stay with me here). In acknowledging the failure of the memory units, they convince us they are doing us a favor by allowing our own USB devices to hold up to 16GB of data. Sure they are throwing us a bone, but it’s a rancid, cancerous bone from some leprous donkey that will crumble in our mouths as soon as we start licking for the marrow.
I guess I shouldn’t complain, because I will be able to double my current capacity with a $20 flash drive, but I certainly won’t be singing their praises either. I’ll save that for when Natal is released (for accurate interpretation of this last sentence, please see the name of our website).
Beginning May 25th, those of you who have your licenses revoked or are under house arrest will be able to terrorize the streets once again – virtually. The creators of the lovable sackboy bring you a new way to express your imagination and try to run people off the road in ModNation Racers, a PlayStation exclusive that nabbed people’s attention at last year’s E3.
ModNation Racers has the same premise as Little Big Planet’s “Play, Create, Share” theme, offering players the chance to collect a variety of goodies to make all sorts of karts and tracks. In an effort to add more anticipation to the existing hype, now with the preorder of the game at select stores, you get a bonus incentive that you can brag about to friends and strangers alike – before your ego is hurt when you see it for sale in the PlayStation store one month later.
If you feel the gods of Olympus have abandoned you too many times, you can venture into Gamestop to have access to Kratos and his Kart of Chaos. Amazon gives you Ratchet or Clank, while Best Steal Buy lets you have Nathan Drake and his Jungle Jeep.
Unlocking Chloe for some backseat loving will be revealed at a later time.
Each pre-order also brings a Mystery Mod and Kart package. My sources predict the mystery package lets you recreate Tawny Kitaen’s car hood dancing – Whitesnake anyone?
Wow, that was a fast six months! Looks like it’s another round of body odor, bad cosplay, and possibly even another bout of Nerd Flu. Thank god…I start getting the shakes if I don’t get a enema full of “video game convention” every so often.
Come join myself, Shanghai Six, the Big Blu Bomber Frawlz, and some of your fellow SG forum lurkers up in Boston town for PAX East! Head over to the pre-PAX East forum thread to chat it up!
On Friday, March 27th, 7:00 PM after the main floor of the convention shuts down, we will be circling the wagons over at McGreevy’s Irish Pub and Sports Bar (911 Boylston Street), directly behind the Hynes Convention Center. Leave it to Boston; can’t swing a dead cat without hitting an “Irish pub”, but seeing as the Dropkick Murphys just played there for St. Patrick’s Day, I think it’s a pretty solid bet.
When you get there, seeing as we don’t have a room reserved (we couldn’t get an accurate head count), make sure you identify yourself as a true “Sarcastic Gamer” to the rest of the crowd by yelling out “Veiny black dildos” at the door. Okay, maybe not, but I’ll pay for a drink of the crazy sod who does that. We can sit around, talk about the show floor craziness, listen to Frawlz tell dick and fart jokes, while I eat my weight in bad bar nachos.
And of course, if the plan goes all to hell? Two words: strip club.
Popular rumor has it Bobby Kotick fiddled while Activision burned around him.
Just as the Romans had their vomitoriums and Christian-slaughtering lions, America has its reality shows and its 500 pound adults, so too Activision has its Guitar Hero and Modern Warfare…and so too, will this empire eventually destroy itself. I’d say the day after Modern Warfare 3 releases, you may want to contact your stockbroker and sell all your Activision shares before those NPD numbers come back.
If you haven’t been paying attention to gaming news lately, Activision has been pulling some mighty big boners in the hopes of wringing dollars out of game franchises. Instead of cultivating long-term products, they have shown they will happily rip the innards the golden goose in hopes of pulling a few misshapen golden eggs out now, as opposed to being patient.
Let’s take a look, shall we?:
Between 2008-2009, Activision published no fewer than fifteen individual SKUs with the words “Hero” in them, including such “memorable” hits such as Band Hero, and Guitar Hero: Van Halen, a game so universally panned that Activision had trouble giving away free copies of the game with the purchase of Guitar Hero V.
Then, expensive game bundles like Tony Hawk Ride and DJ Hero were considered failures (well, DJ Hero sold decently), and yet both games are getting a sequel. Not because either game warrants a sequel, but apparently Activision feels like they can bilk these dipsticks into buying another helping of crap software because they now have the peripheral and nothing else to play it with.
Bobby Kotick seemed like a human being during the speech he made during the DICE event last month, softly speaking in a self-deprecating way to the crowd in his happy little sweater vest as if to say, “You see, I’m not a bad guy after all”. All the while, the mechanisms were in place and grinding away in the background, leading to the overthrow of the Modern Warfare Infinity Ward’s CEOs and the emplacement of Sledgehammer Games to create Modern Warfare 3 in an “action adventure genre”? Hey, I’m all for seeing Ghost get more screen time, but…wha?
Activision looks like they are planning to pump out another three Modern Warfare titles in the next 12-18 months, and if you think you’re going to have a repeat of the madness that overtook the globe on 11/10/09 when Modern Warfare 2 dropped, think again. You will fool everyone with that first one, but the “quality vs. quantity” firehose your shoving into everyone’s face…come on, 3 games X $60 a pop? Modern Warfare or not, only the truly die hard or going to buy all three, and unless you plan on cutting the budget for each game you push out in thirds, Activision is going to be hemorrhaging money next year.
Don’t even get me started about the overpriced map pack they’re pushing out next week. Of course, the MW2 legion is going to scurry out and buy it, but again, that trick is only going to work a few times. Activision has shown they are not afraid to run an idea into the ground to turn a quick buck, so how many map packs are we going to see? Two more? Three? All overpriced re-skins of old MW1 maps? Why not?
The major problem is that Activision’s future lineup is particularly bleak. Sure, they’ve got some Modern Warfare 2 cred they can rest on, and Blizzard is going to start pushing out the next games in their Diablo and Starcraft series. But like some silicon vampire, Activision has sucked the Guitar Hero brand dry, to the point where even they realize they are going to be unable to get any more greenbacks from them unless they scale back. The only major releases for 2010 that Activision has lined up right now are Blur, Singularity, and Treyarch’s stab at Call of Duty 7 (Nazi ZOMBIES), along with a smattering of Hero games. Unless of course, you think Shrek: Forever After or Cabela’s Monster Buck Hunter are really going to take off.
So, about two years from now, when Bobby Kotick is being asked to commit seppuku with a dull fork by investors after Activision’s earning call when all the money is gone, you can look back on this article and say, “Gee, Shanghai, you should have a game analysis show just like Michael Pachter does!”
SG Buddy Sean Hollister tipped us on a developing story over on Nintendo Gal. Apparently, the FREE demo for Monster Hunter Tri (Wii) will only be given to those who put $5.00 towards a preorder. (INSERT OBLIGATORY COMMENT ABOUT DEMOS BEING INTENDED TO ALLOW A GAMER TO EVALUATE A GAME BEFORE MAKING A PURCHASING DECISION AND THE IDIOCY OF CHARGING FOR ONE HERE)
While Capcom and Gamestop aren’t returning emails, a bunch of good old fashioned detective work by the NG community turned up some pretty convincing evidence of a nationwide scandal that, if proven, could upend the enormous amount of trust that gamers have come to place in the Gamestop organization.
Sorry, I’ll pay $5.00 for a demo about the same time I fork over $15.00 for 3 new maps in MW2. Seems like game execs and retailers alike have all been over-sampling the Greedy Punch.
It really seems to be quite popular to hate on Activision and Infinity Ward nowadays. Honestly, I have no idea why. I mean, it’s not like the CEO acts like a complete jackass to his customers’ faces or that they decide to jack up the price because millions of lemmings would gladly give their bank information if asked.
Now, it really is nothing when gamers make fun of developers and publishers. We tend to do that a lot when anything doesn’t go our way.
When otherdevelopers and publishers join in on the fun? Well, that’s pretty awesome.
However, when those aforementioned developers and publishers are in direct competition with your target of scorn? Now that, my friends, is pure win.
I believe I’ve wasted enough of your time. Here’s a classy PSA put together by our friends over at Dice and EA.
Bioware announced yesterday the first paid DLC for the hyper-popular Mass Effect 2. In other, equally exciting news, I rewrote a 1996 philosophy paper from my freshman year in college to include 3 more paragraphs. Is happiness an intrinsic reality, or is it simply a mammalian construct we invented to assuage our fears about the banality of our existence? Head into the “My Documents-There’s No Cure For Crappy Writing” folder on my PC in the basement to find out.
The galaxy’s most enigmatic thief Kasumi has enemies everywhere, but only a few could put a face to her name. Not much is known about her, other than Cerberus has contracted her to assist Commander Shepard in the mission to save mankind. In exchange, she requires help with a dangerous heist to infiltrate the vault of a deadly criminal known as Donovan Hook. Kasumi is master of stealth and eluding her enemies, her unique skills and technical expertise will be a valuable assets to Cerberus and Commander Shepard.
How awesome! Another squad mate to recruit with their attendant loyalty quest shrieking my name from my journal (in case your sarcasm receptors are fried, I’m being the name of our website).
Now, in the interest of full disclosure, I have not finished Mass Effect 2 yet. This is due to two facts:
1) I am time-poor. I have a wife, 2.5 children (well, maybe more like 2.9 – only three weeks left!), and 1.5 full time jobs, so my gaming time is more limited than Tiger Woods’ cell phone plan. Get it? Because he’s a sex addict…and he used his cell phone to…no? OK.
2) I have diagnosed VGOCD (Video Games Obsessive Compulsive Disorder). I am incapable of playing through a game without collecting all the cog-tags, completing all the challenges, and getting 9 fireworks at the end of each level.
In my Mass Effect 2 campaign, into which I have poured 22 precious hours of my gaming time, I have 2 more loyalty quests to finish before I get back to the main quest-line; Tali and Jacob. The last thing I need is another mission in my journal, jutting out like a neglected hemorrhoid begging for medicated cream and bed-rest.
In a world where the 24-hour news cycle has become too lengthy for any of us to pay attention to, can we really be bothered to revisit a game we (everyone but me) finished last month?! I submit to you, both of you that are still reading, that the answer is NO! Because we hate things that didn’t come out yesterday.
Modern Warfare 2 was the best thing to ever happen to shooters, now it’s unplayable.
Lady Gaga was the hottest thing to hit the airwaves since Hall & Oates, now she’s as boring as mining a planet for Element Zero.
Sex was fun the first few times, but now…OK, forget it, bad example.
My point is, can this DLC really be successful? Sure it adds 90 minutes of gameplay, and gives Shepard’s squad some more power, but to paraphrase Adam Sandler in The Wedding Singer, “This DLC would have been worth it 5 WEEKS AGO!!!”
Oh, and this won’t be available until next month, according to Bioware’s website. By then, nobody (neither of you) will even remember that I wrote this article, so what does it even matter anyway? Do my words even really mean anything to anyone?
Think it’s all about video games at GDC in San Fransisco this year? Think again. Weird gadgets and contraptions are the name of the game at GDC and 2010 is no different. Jeff Hanna caught one particularly unlucky conference-goer find out the hard way that Virtual Reality, is still a far way off…
Check back later in the week for more GDC Coverage!
Sometimes, Big Daddy protective duties extend to comforting Little Sisters when they buy rip-off DLC.
Hello there. Did you buy Bioshock 2? I bet you did, because it’s a great game. I’ve not played very much of it myself, but what I played was very good.
Did you buy the Sinclair Solutions DLC pack when it was released on your online marketplace of choice? You did? Did you not think that download was suspiciously tiny when you bought it? That’s because, as 2K themselves confirmed, the Sinclair Solutions pack is already on your Bioshock 2 disc, fresh from the shelves of your local retailer of choice.
Congratulations, you’ve just paid money for things you technically already paid for when you walked out the shop.
BUT IT’S OKAY. 2K have totally justified it. Have a read of this:
“The way our engine and game structure works is that people need to have the exact same content for people to play together. One of the challenges with post-launch content for MP is that it can split the player base, and we want to avoid that whenever possible. For this content, creating the DLC package the way we did allowed for us to not split the player base — so whether you purchase the new content or not, you can still play with your friends.
I know some of you have strong beliefs about DLC, and I’m not here to sway your opinion or convince you to buy our stuff – if you like what we’re offering, I hope you get it and enjoy it. If it’s not your speed, enjoy BioShock 2 as we released it.”
“Splitting the player base”? 2K’s reasoning is that because this downloadable content (that’s not really downloadable, but whatever) is on the disc, every player is entitled to it…as long as they buy it. This is how regular, genuinely downloadable downloadable content works too – every player can have it if they buy it. So the player base is split regardless.
I think 2K should invest in teaching their spokesfolks (new term, coined right there) the benefits of internal monologue; if they said to themselves that putting the DLC on the disc doesn’t split the player base, I have a feeling they’d have gone away to think of some better excuses before opening their traps.
