Ho Ho Ho Merry Christmas Xbots!

Boy was Micro-Claus good to us last year huh?  Seems that while the holiday season of 2007 was fantastic for Microsoft they might have underestimated the load placed on their servers by all of the new Xbox Live subscribers, leading to outages that continued well into 2008.  But that’s okay, because nothing says sorry like a thoughtful gift, right?  Wrong. (more…)

False alarm, European SG readers. You won’t be receiving this article any later than anybody else in the world; everybody will receive it at the same time. It’s alright.

The thing is, in 2008, a lot of games didn’t receive the same treatment, which is a huge shame. Find out why this is #33 in our Top Gaming Moments of 2008 after the jump!

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Despite any games that actually utilize the device, Wii enthusiasts from Tokyo to Oshkosh lined up for days to try and be one of the first to own Nintendo’s brand new Wii peripheral, the Wii Severed-Goat-Head.  When the doors opened this morning at a Best Buy in Miami, the excited crowd turned violent as several people were hurt in a human stampede.

“I got my Wii Severed Goat’s Head,” said one man, holding the bloody head up for all to see.  “I’m putting it on eBay today!”

Incredible details after the jump! (more…)

A lot of fantastic video games are coming this fall, among them Far Cry 2.  As a confessed map editor freak-of-nature with the last Far Cry, I can in all seriousness tell you that after seeing what Far Cry 2’s map editor looks like, I am going to lose sleep, get in big trouble with Wifey, and set a bad example for my kids when this game drops this Fall.

Just watch… (video and more after the jump.) (more…)

Here’s another post fresh from the Sarcastic Gamer Community Blogs, this time from PillowFort. If you fancy getting onto the front page of Sarcastic Gamer, head on over to the forums, sign up for an account and get writing in your own personal blog. If it’s funny, written well enough, or just plain awesome, it might end up right here. Good job, PillowFort!

Given that there aren’t new releases until late August (Castle Crashers) or even later September (Force, Fallout) I’ve decided to approach creation of these posts a little differently and have them be not so much about current events, but take a more Dickensian route (and by that I mean the ghosts of Christmas past and future, not poverty, exploitation and subtle Anti-Semitism).

So! Today I think we’ll have a cheeky bit of a look at the future of games, or more accurately my own vision of the future of games and not necessarily the “real” vision of the future of games because we already know how that goes (Protip: Gritty grey and brown realism with lightbloom effects).

Check it out, after the jump.

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One side effect of shows like E3 is you get video game coverage from some of the least likely places you’d ever expect to find it. Media like, Popular Mechanics… Popular Mechanics, yeah, the same people that put out the magazine you read a couple times a year while you’re waiting to be seen by the doctor or dentist are reporting on their top 10 new games from E3. I usually get a kick out of how horribly “off” these kinds of lists end up being when coming from non-gaming sources, and to some (smaller than expected) degree, this is no exception. (more…)

Due to my internet being down I spent most of the weekend trekking around my neighbourhood with a laptop trying to find an unsecured wireless signal. However, when I wasn’t standing on a street corner looking very suspicious, I also had a chance to have a break from Xbox Live and sink some time into my one week old Wii.

What can I say? After getting some extended time with the little, box, this Nintendo fanboy learned one thing:

Nintendo made some stupid design choices.

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This week has been a great for fans of Harmonix’s “Rock Band” platform.

On Monday, it was revealed that “Rock Band 2″ would be released in September for the Xbox 360 and later this year for the Playstation 3, Wii and Playstation 2.

Tuesday’s episode of X-Play aired a screenshot that was apparently taken from the “Rock Band 2″ in-game set list (9 new tracks revealed). A second list of leaked songs hit the Internet Wednesday, when a user on the ScoreHero forums, who claimed to have played the highly-anticipated sequel, posted 11 additional songs.

The full list of songs can be found here.

Alex Rigopulos, the CEO of Harmonix, recently spoke with CNN about the upcoming sequel to one of 2007’s best games.

Hit the jump to find out what he had to say. (more…)

Yesterday, Game Politics ran a very interesting article about how the NYPD may begin training it’s officers using video games. The article also said that lots of companies are beginning to make the move to simulation-based training. I’m going to save a few companies a ton of dough right now on custom development, if they can solve my amazing puzzle. Jump now and step up to the challenge. (more…)

People have been piling on Soul Calibur IV for months. Many fans of the franchise seem agitated that Namco decided to include popular Star Wars characters in the next installment of the franchise. Gamers seem especially vexed by Yoda’s inclusion. Some have compared him to Gon, the pint-sized dinosaur from Tekken 3, who was difficult to hit due to his small stature.

A recent post over at Kotaku detailed the release date and box art for the Japanese version of the game. Two of the guest characters, Darth Vader and Yoda, will be prominently featured on the cover when the game releases in Japan on July 31. This seemed to be too much for the author, who declared the Soul Calibur franchise dead.

Find out why this was a gross overreaction, after the jump. (more…)

To sooth the gamer ego is to guide the unnatural flow of adrenaline, intensified with graphical thrills, engaging plot, and intricate detail. Satisfaction is the result of achievement, and the titles that grasp this general concept are more likely to be successful. Developing this feeling of gratification is artificial at root, but can feel organic if executed correctly. The primary objective of developers should always be to create an environment with vicarious effects.

In the desperate game of life, the survival of the fittest has played its role in determining, in a simpler sense, the winner and loser. Other organisms tend to… (more…)

Sources: SunAge. Vertex 4 & LightHouse Interactive

Every year, we see games coming out with steadily increasing budgets. We see expensive ad campaigns and all the bells and whistles that were once the sole province of other big media entities like feature films and television. When you check gaming news sites and magazines, the big budget titles and companies always get front page love over their lower budget peers. This is not necessarily a good thing. A bigger budget does not always mean a better game.

Titles like Kane & Lynch, Empire Earth 3 and others had relatively large budgets, but produced sub standard products. This year (or the end of ‘07 depending where you live) developer Vertex 4 unveiled a semi-indie title that showcases just how good a game can be without costing millions of dollars. I’m talking about SunAge, a new RTS published by LightHouse Interactive, that delivers a straight upper-cut (and hopefully reality check) to its big budget older brothers.

Check out why this title is so special and why the little guys still deserve respect after the jump! (more…)

Probably not the headline you expected to see at the top spot in our countdown huh?

Too bad, so sad.

Like it or not, the casual gamer became one of the most important target audiences to game makers in 2007. (more…)