Way back in ‘82, Arnold Schwarzenegger starred as Conan in the film Conan the Barbarian where violence is obviously portrayed. Not only that, He did a continious streak of “violent” movies following it like Conan the Destroyer, The Terminator, Commando, Predator, Eraser, etc.

Now, he fights violent video games by signing California’s video game law. He even appealed to the courts when it was declared as unconstitutional.

To appease this obvious irony, Schwarzenegger’s spokesman Aaron Mclear addressed the issue by saying that Schwarzenegger has “no association with this game.” Mclear didn’t discuss anything about the governor’s feelings about porting the film into a game.

W-h J: I don’t really see anything wrong here even if it’s quite ironic. It’s the past and people change. Maybe Schwarzengger realized this when he became a governor so he decided to sign the video game legislation law. I’m not siding with him or anything, but being an actor and politician is way too different.

Though we can’t change the fact that it’s quite ironic.

(Source: GamePolitics)

The Hello Kitty Xbox was so rare a lot of gamers never knew it existed. However, it’s real and gaming gossip and news site Kotaku recently found one in almost mint condition. 

With only 500 units made, the Hello Kitty Xbox makes a good collector’s item for Hello Kitty fans.  Back when it was released, the console was only available at a specific retailer in Singapore.  Finding that store wasn’t enough to get it, you also had to purchase a specific (US)$5000 TV to get this special Xbox.  Talk about exclusivity!

The console came with a crystal finish controller and a copy of Hello Kitty Mission Rescue.  The console itself is painted with Hello Kitty and her friends on top.

The Hello Kitty Xbox is probably one of the most difficult to acquire Xboxes ever.  If you are a collector, this should definitely be in your wishlist!

[Source: Kotaku, GamerHistory]

Yes, and it might come sooner than we think.

First, let me speak bluntly: Most of the games that were ported to the silver screen were a fiasco. With the recent bludgeoning Hitman got from film critics, the poorly made storyline Resident Evil: Apocalypse had, and the Street Fighter the Movie live action that was wrong in every way (with all due respect to Van Damme but that movie was way wrong), I’d say the success of making movies out of games are 1 out of 5.

(Please, please, pleeeeease Castlevania, be a good movie.)

Anyway, aside from the script of God of War being finished, there’s a new blog post by the game’s creator David Jaffe that leads to a possible coming soon news on the movie:

“…had a good lunch with the producer of the GOD OF WAR movie a few weeks ago. Some big news COULD be coming on that front soon but nothing set in stone yet. But yeah, the project is still alive! And looking strong! BUT the funny part is, I was just sitting there kind of gushing over movies, what to go see, what was coming out, etc. Just being a fanboy. And he- the producer of the GOW flick and many other movies, including this summer’s GET SMART, which looks really funny- was just so nonchalant about the whole thing. I mean, it’s clear he loves the movies but it’s also clear that- to him- it’s a great job, but it’s still just a job.”

W-h J: I hope a director along the lines of Steven Speilberg or Jerry Bruckheimer will handle this project. I can see a good road for the Prince of Persia movie with Bruckheimer handling it and I really hope they’ll make God of War, the game that revolutionized action games, a respectable movie.

Just a thought: Can Rick Moranis pull off Kratos? XD

(Source: 1up)

In the spirit of Christmas, the guys at NCSoft have decided to give their players some early gifts.  From December 7 until December 17, players will be able to explore the new areas of the Eye of the North expansion for free for up to five hours.  The level requirements to play in the expansion will also be lowered from level 20 to level 10.  All the players need to do to avail of this trial is to enter a special key provided on the Guild Wars site.

If you are below the max level, you will automatically receive a “Journey to the North” buff that will give your character attributes equal to that of a level 20 while you are in the expansion’s areas.

Players who have already purchased the expansion will not be left out from this ten-day event.  All of the players will also receive xp and loot bonuses including triple experience for all of the players of Eye of the North, double gold and experience for those playing the expansion in hard mode and double chance to receive rare items from chests.  There are also some special holiday items such as Hunter’s Ale and Honeycombs to be found from all creatures.

[Source: Guild Wars Official Site]

Nope. It’s official.

Rumors have been around with gaming sites lately that Sega might be making a “Dreamcast 2″ after performing legal action by filing a new application to secure the rights of the ”Dreamcast” label. This started when Trademork, a trademark tracking site, started the ball rolling and many joined the bandwagon.

But this comes to an end right now after an official statement.

“Although I think all gamers would like to see a new Dreamcast (including myself), this looks to be more wishful thinking in the rumor mill.” said a representative from Sega.

If anyone could remember, President of Sega of America Peter Moore discussed things back in 2001 why Sega gave up their plans on the hardware section. Not only did it fail to have a substantial amount of sales in the market even though it had popular titles like Soul Calibur and NFL 2K, it was completely obliterated when PlayStation 2 came out.

“With the hardware game becoming increasingly competitive–especially for companies like Sega, whose pockets are not as deep as our competitors–we’ve chosen to place our bets on our software, our heritage, and our proven track record.” Moore said during that time.

W-h J: I like how Sega thinks. Even though the Dreamcast had a lot of potential during that time, they pulled back in the hardware business when they knew they we’re losing. Focusing in the software business for now is definitely not a bad idea and in the future, if they see they’ll be competetive again in selling hardware, then why not? Adaptation is one of the key factors on how a company survives.

(Source: GameSpot)

Rock on dude!

It has come to Activision’s attention that many of their consumers weren’t satisfied playing Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock because of it’s lack of enjoyment in terms of audio quality. Despite the game box’s statement that it supports Dolby Pro Logic II, many noticed that it wasn’t outputting stero sound. Because of that, owners stormed Activion’s official Guitar Hero message board to express their complaint.

And it worked. Activion’s attention was caught and they responded immediately to the matter by releasing an official statement.

“We recently became aware that some consumers have not been able to enjoy the full audio output in the Nintendo Wii version of Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock. We are currently working with Nintendo and are planning to issue an improved audio experience in future versions of the game. We expect to have remastered discs available by early 2008 and we will be offering consumers replacement discs at no cost once they become available.”

Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock has already sold more than 286,000 copies in the U.S. alone.

W-h J: I admire companies like this. Like EA giving out free games because of the faulty controllers with Rockband, Activision did the right thing by addressing this serious matter. After all, the game’s life depends direly on the sound quality of the game.

(Source: GameSpot)

The Wii is selling good.  So good in fact, that they are now becoming rare finds on store shelves.  The holiday crush isn’t making it better for the console shortage.  Because of this, Nintendo is thinking about pulling its television advertisements for the Wii in the UK.

According to Nintendo, holding back its advertisements until 2008 would be a “responsible” move for them.  They might plan to use these advertising slots to promote the DS instead.

Nintendo is able to supply 1.8 million units every month globally.  But according to them, the demand has been “unprecedented and higher than they could ever have anticipated”.

To further elaborate, they said:

We are doing everything possible to supply continued levels of stock and meet demand as quickly as possible.  As we are keen to act responsibly we are potentially looking at moving some advertising on some products into early 2008.

In the meantime, retailers are barely keeping up with the demand, and online stores are now setup to update their shoppers when stocks will become available.  It seems that some of those who have the Wii in their Christmas wish-list may find themselves disappointed due to the limited supply.

[Source: BBC]

Imagine an MMO patch that could brick your operating system. Dang, that must be strongest spell you could ever have. (Spell cost: 150, effect: Brick operating system)

What’s sad is that the spell didn’t hit the right targets. This morning, players who downloaded the patch for the MMO game “EVE Online” were infuriated to find out that instead of updating their game, it instead bricked PCs that were using Windows XP as their OS.

Alllegedly, it seems that the problem lies within the programming error of the patch installer. And sadly, the culprit is an incorrectly placed backslash (\) in the program’s install path that overwrites a PC’s Windows boot.ini file.

For now, here’s how the EVE online support page addressed the problem:

“If you have Windows AND upgraded EVE Online: Trinity Classic before 4 A.M. GMT to Premium using the content upgrade path then you MUST read this before doing anything else.

1. PLEASE DO NOT REBOOT YOUR COMPUTER

2. Check the root directory of your hard drive and see if you have a boot.ini file. Boot.ini file is normally hidden so you need to click Tools : Folder Options : View and select “Show hidden files and folders” and uncheck “Hide protected operating system files” to be able to see it. You can also check for the presence of this file by clicking Start : Control Panel : System : Advanced : Startup and Recovery : Settings (third button down). Windows will alert you if the boot.ini file is missing.

3. If boot.ini is still there then you are not affected and do not have to take any further steps.

4. If boot.ini is NOT there then please click here”

W-h J: As of now, I believe the downloadable patch is safe to download. But imagine the hassle you have to go through if you’ve been affected. Fixing this problem is not easy especially if you’re not really familiar with the technicalities of a P.C.  As a piece of advice, it’s probably safer not to download ASAP the patches that were just uploaded in MMO sites.  As for the programmers, please (x3) don’t forget to quadruple-check the stuff you’re giving to your players.  Imagine the damage if it was a virus instead.

(Source: 1up)

Amidst conspiracy theories and widespread rumors casting doubts over their objectivity and commitment to delivering unbiased news and reviews, Gamespot is seeking to shed light on the controversial firing of their editorial director, Jeff Gerstmann. 

In their latest podcast of The Hotspot, and a special report on Spot On, the management of Gamespot answers many questions in the minds of their readers and other news sites (ours included) regarding the incident.  However, they leave one and maybe the most important question of all unanswered: “Why was Jeff fired?”  They instead cited legal reasons as an excuse for not releasing the information.

They also clarified the reasons behind the removal of the video review from their site.  According to them, the video was below their standards in the first place.  In the podcast, Alex Navarro, Ryan Davis, Ricardo Torres, and Ryan Macdonald commented that the video audio was poor and the gameplay videos featured in the review did not represent the game well since they were all taken from only the first level of the game. 

Gamespot also admits to editing the text review, stating the reason behind was to make the negative review fit the “fair” 6.0 score it received and to add more information on the multiplayer content of the game.

In the end its up to the readers to judge whether or not to buy the story posted by Gamespot.  I wish Jeff himself would share more information although I think that is unlikely in the near future.  What effects can this possibly have on Gamespot?  Hard to say.  I could imagine that this fiasco is actually generating more hits and therefore more revenue for Gamespot and I am pretty sure the suits at CNET would be capitalizing on this. 

It is a well known fact by now that there are a fair amount of cases where Rock Band shipped out with broken guitars, and Electronic Arts has been working double time to replace then through its support site.  However, the demand has been really high, and the production is barely keeping up causing delays to some of the shipments.

EA knows that the longer the delays go, the unhappier their customers get.  In order to address this problem, EA has decided to give their customers who are still waiting for replacement guitars a free game.  In an email they are sending to the affected parties, EA stated:

After reviewing our records, we see that your recent request for a replacement guitar has been subject to an unacceptably long delay due to a late shipment from our manufacturer.

By the time you receive this, your replacement guitar should be on its way to you. However, the Rock Band team is committed to providing a world-class customer experience and we do not believe we have met this commitment in connection with your request. As a token of our appreciation for your patience and understanding, we will be offering you a FREE EA game. Details will follow shortly.

We are sorry if your first experience with Rock Band has not met your expectations. We hope our gift will show you how committed we are to your satisfaction.

Pooch: This is a good move by EA only if this mystery game is a fairly recent one and not some old beat-up title.  If would be more insulting than placating if it were.  If they do this right, we will know that EA values its customers, and is willing to make sacrifices just to keep their customers satisfied. 

[Source: 1up]