Misc. Geekery – AC/DC + Microsoft Office = PROFIT!

by Link
(He once made Samus Aran out of text and shifts in opacity.)

Long story short here folks. Popular rock band AC/DC released a new music video in it’s newest format yet .xls! Yes, you heard me right. Step aside MKV and h264 and all you other fancy pants hi-def codecs. HERE COMES MICROSOFT EXCEL!!!!

Download

ACDC.xls

More Details @ http://www.acdcrocks.com/excel/

Misc. Gaming – A petition To Get the heads of the three big Console Co’s to Play Video Games Against Each other (Look out Healing touch Here comes high traffic)

by Rayjay
(Be like Atari and Intellevision?)

VS

VS

VS

GET READY………………………………………………………………………… FIGHT!

To Sign The Petition Click Here

Trial and Error – Switchball

By MrMean

(Tries not to make jokes about balls)

By request I am going to look at the demo for the game Switchball. Switchball can be found on the Xbox Live Marketplace. It is one of the 144 Xbox Live Arcade games. You can also get the game for PC. Switchball was developed by Atomic Elbow and was published by Sierra Online.

Under the Knife: Gears of War

By Kaiserhawk

(Ya mean queers or war miright?)

With the release of Gears of War 2 later on in the year, and Cliff Bleszinski (Previously Cliffy B) promising the sequel to be “Bigger, Better, and more Badass” I decided to pop the disk for Gears of War back into my 360 to play through. While some criticize Gears for it’s lack of storytelling or accuse if of being overhyped, I felt that it made up for it in terms of gameplay, visuals and immersion.

The main protagonist in Gears is incarcerated war hero, Marcus Fenix. Marcus was imprisoned years prior to the games start when he abandoned his post to try save his fathers life from the onslaught of the Locus horde and was charged with dereliction of duty and thrown in prison. However the desperate circumstances forces the Human government the Coalition of Governments (or C.O.G for short) have called for him to be reinstated back into active Duty. If you are playing the story through co-op mode then the second player will take charge of Dom Santiago who is Marcus’s best friend and is the one who frees him from prison in the games starting sequence.

This Weeks Xbox live arcade game is…

By Kaiserhawk

(This is for you Luffay)

…Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, Episode One. Yup it’s Penny Arcades game.

This week, you can take control of Gabe and Tycho from Penny Arcade in “Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, Episode One,” Yes, this mouthful of a game will be coming to Xbox LIVE Arcade on Wednesday.

Guide your own customized character through the bizarre, 1920′s world of New Arcadia.Use strange and unusual weapons to fight off weird monsters as you work your way through the crazed world.

“Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, Episode One,” can be yours for 1600 Microsoft Points and is rated M for Mature.

What?! 1600 Points?! Yes you read correctly. Hopefully it’ll be worth it. Sadly I’ll be passing on this one at this point. I can’t afford it this month but I’ll get it next month and then I’ll review it then.

So this wednesday enjoy what has to be the most expensive Arcade title on Xbox Live.

This Weeks Xbox Live Arcade game is…

By Kaiserhawk

(Patiently awaiting his copy of Soulstorm)

This week, you can download “Rocketmen: Axis of Evil” from Xbox LIVE Arcade. Rocketmen is an RPG style shooter arcade game that has fully customizable characters. Play alone or with up to 3 friends in co-op either on the same machine or over LIVE.

“Rocketmen: Axis of Evil” can be yours for 800 Microsoft Points

More info availible here http://games.teamxbox.com/xbox-360/1704/Rocketmen-Axis-of-Evil/

The Rant: Fighting Games Need to Change

by Link (Dr. Salvador will be an assist trophy.)

The Problem:

This is in response to something somebody said to me in response to me bitching about Yoda & Vader. He said I was expecting too much out of Soul Calibur/Fighting Games. Well, I don’t see why people AREN’T expecting too much out of this genre. It needs to get with the times. Arcade style fighting games are great, when you’re in an Arcade! Crushing an AI isn’t anything spectacular to get excited about, and so you’re pretty much purchasing a fighting game in order to play it multiplayer. Before the dawn of wi-fi you were pretty much required to find a friend IRL to play fighting games against. Some people had these friends who enjoyed fighting games, other people didn’t, or other people eventually were so good at the fighting games that their friends didn’t want to play them anymore.

Anywho… what I’m trying to get at here is the following:

Fighting games have so much potential that hasn’t been tapped. They have decent plots and amazing stories when you get deep down into it. However, most of what we’ve seen up until now is a character bio in a manual and then a few screenshots of the character’s ending after you defeat the final boss/opponent. So, you look at me and you say “Hey Link, fighting games don’t need a plot, they just need to be fun.” So, I say to you “Look at the FPS genre and look at how it improved. Bioshock, Half-Life 2, Doom 3, etc.” Nowadays do you think people would settle for a generic shooter that said “Okay, so you’re this guy, and you’re in a first person view, and you have a gun, and there are aliens, kill the aliens.” and that was the entire game? Oh wait… that’s Halo. ::dodges the incoming tomatoes:: But, seriously, even Halo has a plot and a franchise of books and movies planned around it, it has depth if you look for it.

So, what’s the solution to this supposed problem with the fighting genre? Story Modes with… STORY. I want character specific cutscenes before and after my battles, maybe even during them! I want branching plots/choices for each character. I want a cool spin-off game that DOESN’T suck. I want a sweet extra mode built into the fighting game that has some sort depth.

Now, a lot of this currently exists, and I’ll try and give a few examples of what I mean, and how these are all steps in the right direction for fighting games.

Microsoft says “Back Off”

By Hass MD
(The HealingTouch Funnoodle of Knowledge)

From our friends at OXM.co.uk

“For the most part, we’ve crossed off games that people want to play,” Penello explains. “There’s always going to be a notable exception here or there.” There are some notable exceptions yet to make the backwards compatibility list such as Otogi, Beyond Good & Evil and Oddworld: Stranger’s Wrath but Penello says not to hold your breath in anticipation for these being made compatible.

“I know with the Xbox Originals there are still things happening there,” he says. “But in terms of a lot of engineering work around bringing out new titles, I think they’re winding that down.”

The Rant: ‘Special’ Characters in Fighting Games

By Link (He’s going to flip out.)

————————————

Okay… I’m sure you all know what straw broke this camel’s back. If you don’t, I find your lack of… nah, I’m not going to butcher the quote, just look at these horrible pictures:

Yep, there be Luke’s father. Just hanging out and combating Taki and Voldo. All in a days work in the Star Wars universe. Except, y’know… SOUL CALIBUR HAVING NOTHING TO DO WITH STAR WARS! Not that I have a huge issue with Soul Calibur or Star Wars, but… WHY is there a need to merge the worlds? Oh, and for those not in the know, this little explanation is for you. Darth Vader is on the PS3, presumably because the system is black, and Yoda is on the 360 version presumably because one of it’s dominant colors is green. I mean that much makes sense, but I guess Namco struck up some sort of deal with Lucas Arts, the same way they did in day’s past with McFarlane and Nintendo.