NewsTim Schafer: Brutal Legend Skipping PC “Right Now”
Posted 07/04/09 at 01:07:37 AM by Nathan Grayson
Sometimes, crying is ok – like when a loved one dies or it’s your party. Bawling like a little girl, though? Well, that’s only permitted when Tim Schafer’s involved. Typically, of course, Mr. Schafer’s games turn on the waterworks by sending players into fits of laughter thunderous enough to awake even your newly deceased loved one. But now, he’s finally got us blubbering out of sincere grief. Why? Because Brutal Legend is a console exclusive.
Eurogamer asked Schafer why he’d make such a glaring omission, to which he replied:
“Well it's really an action game, that when you play it you'll see that it was meant to be on a console."
However, all hope isn’t lost just yet. While a PC version may not be in development at the moment, Schafer neither confirmed nor denied the possibility of such a port in the future.
“We are really focused on the Xbox 360 and PS3 version right now,” he said.
Pray to the rock gods, people. It’s all we can do at this point. And if you think that’s sacrilege, well, look at it this way: The normal gods didn’t give you Brutal Legend on the PC. What have you got to lose?
ColumnsThe Game Boy: Who Invited the Bald Space Marine to Book Club? 
Posted 07/02/09 at 12:10:48 PM by Nathan Grayson
Last week was just full of surprises. (RIP, all.) Thankfully, though, one shining, heroic force swooped in to save the world from snowballing into complete unpredictability. That final bastion of normalcy – that conqueror of chaos -- was, of course, Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen.
The film – which starred explosions, Shia Labeouf, and explosions (but unfortunately, not Shia Labeouf exploding) – defiantly dodged negative reviews, negative word of mouth, and a near-negative Metacritic score to gross $112,000,000 in its opening weekend. Yep – nothing like a vapid, needless summer blockbuster to restore your faith in the world by destroying your faith in humanity. The movie’s success, though? Not surprising in the least. It’s a loud, action-packed film with more carnage than meaningful dialog. It’s simple, easily digested cheese. People eat that stuff up.
But then, no one expected Transformers to tug at our heartstrings and revolutionize storytelling as we know it. That’d just be silly; I mean, it’s a movie about robots fighting. Clearly, all eyes here are focused on the action – no time to roll them at the plot.
So then, how come we often expect tear-jerking, thought-provoking tales from big-budget videogames with premises nearly as dramatically inhospitable as Transformers? Why do we expect triple-A videogames – which, at this point, are quickly sneaking into movie territory in terms of development costs – to mold angry men, gunfire, and shrapnel into spellbinding tales when our prior buying tastes (see, for instance: Transformers) have shown that all we want is a loose thread to hold the action together? Especially when other story genres (you know, anything that's not action) lend themselves far better to interesting plots, untethered by the need for a five-minute shootout every six minutes?
Transform and roll past the break for more.
NewsBattlefield Heroes Salutes Michael Jackson with Free Costumes
Posted 07/02/09 at 01:51:34 AM by Nathan Grayson
We’re sure that, at some point in your life, you saw that part in Michael Jackson’s “Smooth Criminal” video where he dances while killing some guy with a friggin’ gun and thought, “Gee whiz, I wish I could be that cool!” Well, you can’t. It’s actually impossible. We checked. However, EA’s free-to-play online shooter Battlefield Heroes may now be your best chance at looking the part with the addition of two Michael Jackson-themed outfits.
If you’re a goodie two-shoes, the aforementioned Smooth Criminal Suit of Ultimate Snazz is up for grabs, and if you play as a bad guy, Jackson’s black suit from – what else – “Bad” is yours for the taking. Both are free for everyone, making this the only situation in which being an ostentatiously dressed Michael Jackson in the middle of a warzone won’t make you stand out. Also, thanks to EA’s charitable action, “Bad” and “Smooth Criminal” will probably be stuck in your head for a decent portion of the rest of your life.
Both outfits are available at the Battlefield Heroes website. We can’t think of anything else to say because “Smooth Criminal” has now taken up permanent (and every loud) residence in our craniums. Comment about… something. Or whatever.
NewsFalse Alarm: Gold Farming Still Legal in China
Posted 07/02/09 at 12:23:44 AM by Nathan Grayson
Earlier this week, we (along with every other tech/gaming site on the Internet) reported that the Chinese government had put the kibosh on gold farming once and for all – something that, to many, sounded like a dream come true. Well wake up, because reality has decided to toss a cold bucket of water on your spam-free fantasy land. Richard Heeks of the University of Manchester explained:
“This is a government restriction on the use of the quasi-Paypal-like currencies (mainly QQ coins) that are used extensively in China to pay for virtual game stuff. As announced they can now only be used to pay for virtual stuff, and you can’t buy real things with them as game companies were allowing to happen, nor can you gamble.”
“This therefore is not about what gold farming clients do: use real money to buy these virtual currencies; it’s the mirror image. And it’s not about the major trade in gold farming such as World of Warcraft, which relates to other types of virtual currency.”
So there you have it. Rumors of gold farming’s death were greatly exaggerated. Shame, too because BUY GOLD BUY GOLD BUY GOLD AT WWW.AREYOUBUYINGGOLDYET.COM, YOUR SOURCE FOR GOLD THAT YOU CAN BUY.
ColumnsGame Theory: Grassroots Gaming
Posted 07/01/09 at 09:33:01 AM by Thomas McDonald
PC gaming began on mainframes and research computers. It moved to personal computers when independent developers put their games on floppy disks, sealed them in Ziploc bags with Xeroxed art, and sold them in hobby stores. If it is going to have a future that is not yoked to console design paradigms, we are going to have to recapture those roots and start paying closer attention to the small developers who are designing with us, and not 14-year-old console gamers, as their primary market.
Continue reading after the jump!
NewsUp is Down, Left is Right, Horde is Alliance: Faction Changes Coming Soon to WoW 
Posted 06/30/09 at 03:27:29 AM by Nathan Grayson
Tired of seeing dingy ol’ Orgrimmar day in and day out? Unable to play nice with your buddies in the Alliance? Recently perform the biggest guild heist in recorded history and need to flee the country and start a new life to get The Law off your tail? Well, looks like the planets have aligned in your favor, because faction changes are no longer just a pipe dream (or, in some cases, nightmare) for WoW players.
"The basic idea is that players will be able to use the service to transform an existing character into a roughly equivalent character of the opposing faction on the same realm," Blizzard wrote. "There's still much work to do and many details to iron out."
“As with all of the features and services we offer, we intend to incorporate the faction-change service in a way that won’t disrupt the gameplay experience on the realms, and there will be some rules involved with when and how the service can be used.”
Perhaps, then, this service will finally dispel the thick, foggy stereotypes that cling to both factions, uniting players by allowing them to take a stroll in one another’s chainmail greaves. Horde and Alliance will meet in grocery stores, eye each other’s respective Mtn Dew bottles, and – instead of engaging in low-budget CG combat – meet with a warm embrace. The CG budget will then be spent on one of those studio audiences that goes “D’aaaaaawwww.”
Or, if the service is badly implemented, Horde and Alliance will unite in one giant, 12-million-strong wail of disdain for Blizzard. So either way, the two supposedly disparate sides are about to get a lot closer together.
NewsChinese Government Outlaws Gold Farming
Posted 06/30/09 at 12:28:38 AM by Nathan Grayson
It’s the end of an era. Gold farming -– the oh-so-reviled practice that even tops Communism and depressing thoughts about Guns N’ Roses on some people’s lists of “Things Immediately Associated with China” -– has been dealt a potentially fatal blow.
As of June 29, trading virtual currency for real goods or services is illegal in China. In other words, closing your eyes and chucking a bit of real-life coin into games like WoW won’t land you in a Scrooge McDuck-esque pool of in-game gold; it’ll land you in prison.
The Chinese government justified the ban saying that, by drawing this line between real and virtual currency, it hopes to crack down on “gambling and other illegal online activities.” It is important to note, however, that in-game gear apparently isn’t considered currency, so corralling and selling virtual items to those willing to spend hard-earned cash on a videogame (yet not willing to play said videogame) may still be legal.
A 2008 study conducted by Richard Heeks at Manchester University found that 80% to 85% of gold farmers are located in China. Obviously, then, this ban is a pretty huge deal. Granted, we’re talking about the guys and gals who managed to -– in the face of pressure from game companies -- continue peddling their services by spelling out ads through rows upon rows of meticulously organized in-game corpses, so we doubt China’s gold farming population will go down without a fight.
ColumnsGame Theory: Why Scary Isn't Scary Anymore
Posted 06/27/09 at 01:00:09 PM by Thomas McDonald
Ringu, the movie that kicked off the Japanese horror craze, scared me as much the third time I saw it as it did the first. It’s a moody, unsettling movie that still packs a punch and its signal image of Sadako, a creepy little girl with long dark hair and ashen skin, quickly entered the visual vernacular.
Monolith did a fair job of exploiting elements of J-Horror to create a genuinely creepy FPS experience with FEAR (2005). The developer understood that Ringu was successful because a) it used atmospheric, psychological horror to produce unease, and b) relied on fleeting images of horror, glimpsed as if in passing. This, coupled with the relative freshness of J-Horror and its stock images, made FEAR one of the few truly frightening PC games in recent memory.
Continue reading after the jump!
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