Oh no! Boobess!

Pandemic’s upcoming tour-de-force, The Saboteur, has recently been granted an “M 17+” rating by the ESRB. This should come as no surprise, being that a large portion of the game is set in a brothel in 1940s, Nazi-occupied Paris.

Screenshots for the upcoming title were revealed recently, and they’re quite suggestive. This has caused a minor stir, but in our interactions with Pandemic, they have been up front about the mature nature of the game from the very beginning. There will be nudity, there will be gratuitous violence, and there will be revenge. (more…)

It seems to be a bad month for the integrity of game journalism.  One week ago we wrote about what an embargo date is, how they work in theory and what happens when they’re broken.  In that case nothing happened and sites that broke the embargo were essentially “rewarded” when the publisher lifted the embargo prematurely and legitimized the practice.  We didn’t like it then, because it screws other journalists and publications who choose to play fair and honor embargo dates.

Not more than a week later,  it is happening again. Microsoft specified that the embargo for the very popular Halo 3: ODST would be lifted on Saturday 20th at 12:01 AM EST.  If this sounds specific to you, that’s because it is–it gives every site a fair chance to publish at the same time and let readers evaluate who’s review is worth listening to before deciding whether or not to buy the game.

For Halo 3: ODST, the site GoGamingGiant published nearly twelve hours early.  While not the absolute first site to break the embargo, their review quickly got linked and picked up a major amount of traffic from the popular gaming aggregator News4Gamers. (more…)

One time, her and I were so close...

“I AM THE GOD QUEEN!,” I shouted gaily, my voice ringing across the green plains in front of me, echoing back to the mountains and beyond. I raised my hand in a fist, clenched triumphantly, claiming the land before me as my own, ready to explore all the hidden treasures it had to offer, when–

“Jackie, stop being ridiculous and heal the tank!,” my guild leader’s voice crackled from Ventrilo over my headset, pulling me back to the group. I quickly turned back towards our tank (another guild leader, no less) and popped off a few heals. One of our guild jokes was that I was the “God Queen of Norrath,” or as one guildie referred to me, “The Drag Queen of Norrath.” God Queen is actually where I got my current name from–the Gnome Queen. I used to sign onto the accounts of my friends occasionally and proclaim in guild chat that I had taken over their characters with my godly powers.

At that point in the game, which was Everquest 2, I was a 70 level character, and I had a great guild. I was a feisty little gnome druid, and as such, could find a group or raid whenever I wanted (healers were always in demand). I had decent gear, a large house in game, and I loved playing. That’s when I walked away from the game almost entirely… (more…)

Yesterday my roommate and partner in crime, Lincoln, busted out his Starcraft box (again). This time, however, he uses Windows 7 as his desktop OS.

He was dubious, and sure enough, the 11-year-old game didn’t work correctly. It did launch, but the colors were all whacked out and the graphics were glitched in random places, rendering the whole mess unplayable.

He tried the built-in Windows XP Virtual Machine, but that wouldn’t play it because the XP VM can’t change screen modes. Back to the drawing board.

After some searching and some experimentation, he came to the following three-step fix:

1. Right click the Starcraft icon -> Properties -> Compatibility tab
2. Check ALL the Settings, but do NOT check Compatibility Mode
3. When you are ready to play, right click your desktop and click “Screen Resolution”. Leave this window open. Now launch Starcraft!

For whatever reason, this admittedly odd fix solves the color issue. The most important bit: leave the Screen Res window open while you play and you’re golden.

We just received a PDF of the decision report from Australia’s OFLC regarding their decision to refuse classification for Valve’s Left 4 Dead 2.

The game contains violence that is high in impact and is therefore unsuitable for persons aged under 18 years to play.

The game contains realistic, frenetic and unrelenting violence which is inflicted upon “the Infected” who are living humans infected with a rabies-like virus that causes them to act violently. The player can choose from a variety of weapons including pistols, shotguns, machine guns and sniper rifles. However, it is the use of the “melee” weapons such as the crowbar, axe, chainsaw and Samurai sword which inflict the most damage. These close in attacks cause copious amounts of blood spray and splatter, decapitations and limb dismemberment as well as locational damage where contact is made to the enemy which may reveal skeletal bits and gore. Projectile shots to infected humans can cause abdominal wounds which can reveal innards or even cause intestines to spill from the wounds.

The Infected attack the player in an unrelenting fashion, with numerous foe attacking the player at one time. The use of the “melee” weapons can wipe out several Infected in one blow which cause the above mentioned blood and gore effects. The player kills a very large amount of enemy characters to proceed through the game. Whilst no post mortem damage can be inflicted, piles of bodies lay about the environment.

The interactive nature of the game increases the overall impact of the frequent and intense depictions of violence. This coupled with the graphic depictions of blood and gore combine to create a playing impact which is high.

A minority of the Board is of the opinion that the violence is strong in playing impact and therefore warrants an MA 15+ classification with the consumer advice of strong violence.

Decision:

This game is Refused Classification.

There you have it. While some members of the board feel that the game warrants an MA 15+ classification, the majority feel that adults can’t handle the high impact of  things like “piles of bodies” and the revelation of innards or even intestines.

Being an adult gamer in Australia is apparently becoming more and more difficult.

Move up!

Recently I reported that the 1.5 patch was on the horizon for Battlefield 2 and was bringing with it almost 2 gigabytes worth of content. The patch has since been released, and I’ve spent some time revisiting the game that I loved four years ago. Itching to play the game again, a huge question lingered in my mind: how much had the battlefield changed since my last login?

Upon launching and logging in, the first thing I did was to check out my old stats that once made me so proud. The statistics betrayed the passage of time since my last login: June 19, 2006. Over three years ago. That was a lifetime ago. I had just finished my junior year in college, I didn’t know what Crysis was, I still played FPS with arrow keys, I had never attended SIGGRAPH or E3, and I didn’t even know that Icrontic existed. I spent some time reliving the moments that earned me awards like the Gold Star, Sniper proficiency, and airborne medals. After I took off the nostalgia goggles, I adjusted controls and video settings and found a battle, Strike at Karkand. (more…)

Let me give you a quick rundown of the way the game review business is supposed to work: A game publisher or their PR company contacts review sites (like us) and says “Hey guys, we’ve got this game coming out in a month. Here is an advanced copy for you to review. Spend some time with the game, write your review, and publish it on the 15th of next month.” That date is called the embargo date, and it ensures fairness; all review sites can publish it on that day and may the best man win. The publishers win because on launch day, there’s lots of buzz about their game, consumers are seeing the name on all their favorite sites, and there is an excitement on launch day generated by the glut of reviews published simultaneously.

But what happens if a reviewer says “screw your embargo date” and publishes their review whenever they feel like it? It’s a major suckerpunch to their peers: sites get a great deal of traffic from aggregators such as Reddit, News4Gamers, Digg, and so forth, and “first to press” is live-or-die for most small sites like ours. Think about it: the first one on Reddit is the only one that people will read. Therefore, when a reviewer screws the system and jumps the gun days early, the rest of us may as well forget it; we will not benefit from a fair chance at the traffic rush that posting on aggregators can bring.

That traffic rush can result in real revenue; therefore, when a peer review site breaks embargo dates, they are actually harming the revenue stream of sites who choose to play by the rules.

Recently, we had received a review copy of a game from a major publisher, and the embargo date was September 15th. Standard operating procedure, right? No problem. Our reviewer downloaded the review copy, and got to work playing it and writing his review.

Today, however, I received a disturbing email from the publisher:

Wow - seems this title had everyone eager to press the “GO” button. While we will not make a habit out of allowing the breaking of embargos, we prefer to see the positive in all this attention and to make it fair, I’ll revoke the review embargo effective immediately. Anyone wishing to post their review from today onwards may do so. If you have any questions or concerns, don’t hesitate to get in touch.

Okay wait: To be fair? So, let me get this straight: A bunch of sites broke embargo, and to be fair, the publisher will revoke the embargo date, and we can publish whenever we’d like?

Imagine getting this letter in your kid’s backpack:

Apparently a bunch of  hungry ruffians are eager to get to the Twinkies in the school cafeteria. While we normally don’t allow kids to bumrush the dessert counter, we prefer to see the positive in all this attention. To make it fair, any kid who can shove their way to the front of the lunch line gets their hands on the Twinkies while supplies last!

I mean, seriously? So let me get this straight: Those of us who adhere to the rules get punished by getting to be (very) late to the dinner table, while the sites who broke the spirit of the embargo get to get away with it? The publisher’s reaction is essentially “Well, do whatever the hell you want, we don’t care! More publicity for us!”

What’s in it for us? Do we take the moral high ground? Do we continue to follow the rules in the spirit of fair competition? Does this set us apart from the sites who don’t give a shit?

Just getting into fighting games?  Perhaps you’ve been playing for years and finally want to learn to play on a stick.  Either way, a joystick can be an investment, and each player should customize their stick to their own styles.

An easy one-size-fits-all solution can be to buy the MadCatz SE stick and swap out the parts.  With this video, learn how to mod the MadCatz SE Fightstick into a pro joystick with Sanwa parts in 10 easy minutes.

I purchased my Sanwa parts at LizardLick.  You’ll need the JLF-TP-8YT-SK joystick and 8 OBSF-30 Pushbuttons to properly do this mod.

Ed note: Our staffers don’t always agree on matters of the dollar, and we’re totally not above taking that fight out to the flagpole at 3:00. Today it’s on like Donkey Kong as Matt Jancaitis has a bone to pick with Cliff Forster’s “Forget the console…” op-ed published on Monday.

When you have to throw an arbitrary $400 price tag onto the cost of a 360 just to make your numbers work out, it kind of feels good to be a part of the console gaming world, doesn’t it?

My good friend Cliff based his argument that the PC is a better gaming value by — and I’m not making this up — adding a $400 price tag to the 360’s cost because “[e]veryone needs a computer.” Yessir, whether you want one or not, you’re getting a computer out of this deal. Ever a salesman, my friend Cliff is.

(more…)

What to do?

Flashback to 2003: I was enjoying TechTV one afternoon; Call for Help with Leo Laporte to be exact.  A caller asks Leo, “I want to purchase a PC for gaming but I am on a tight budget,  what can you suggest?”  Leo slowly walked towards the camera, covered the side of his mouth, as if he did not want the other geeks in the room to hear what he had to say, and whispered: “psssst….  Just buy the Xbox”.

He went on to talk about how much he loved the new Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, and how gamers just couldn’t argue with the value Xbox provided dollar for dollar, and how buying a gaming PC at the time provided an awful value proposition compared to the reasonably powerful Xbox.

At that point in 2003, Leo Laporte could not have been more right.  If budget was a limiting factor shopping for gaming entertainment, the Xbox provided a far greater value than a game PC at that point because gamer grade PC components were still very expensive relative to the Xbox hardware which only set you back $179 at that point in time.  In 2003 the graphics card alone, probably being a 9800 pro or 5800 ultra would cost nearly $400 alone, more than double the cost of the entire console.  An  Athlon XP 2700+ chip, which would have been a decent choice for a gaming rig at the time, that would have run $300+ alone.  In total, in 2003 if someone wanted to build a respectable gaming PC, it was going to total at least $1,500 just for the rig, mouse and keyboard.

Flash forward to 2009:  the price of high quality PC components have taken a steep drop.  We are seeing PC games that scale much better with existing hardware while still providing a visual experience that is superior to what the current HD consoles can offer,  and so now upgrades, while perhaps occasionally desirable, are not required as frequently as they were to keep up with the changes in hardware and software technology.  It is a great time to be a PC gamer. (more…)

Custom MGS shoes

While Icrontic was at E3 this past June, I was taking photos for the Shoes of E3 article. As I was photographing a particular pair of pink polka-dot heels, the girl’s boyfriend mentioned that he had custom-painted a pair of Castle Crashers-themed heels. His name is Jacob Patterson, and I recently had a chance to interview him about video game-themed shoes.

Jacob is an art history student at UCLA. I asked him how an art history major gets into nitty-gritty design work. He let me in on a dark little secret: Since it was so competitive, he felt that there was no way to get into UCLA design school. “I chose art history because nobody wants to do it,” he chuckled.

But why choose shoes as his canvas instead of traditional medium?

Jacob answers, “In high school everyone was obsessed with shoes, so I started looking into Hypebeast and Customsnkr.” He found a lot of things he wanted to try out, but could never find any explanation of how the shoes were done, or detailed step-by-step instructions.

Another obstacle was the expense of the medium. Shoes can be $100 a pair, after all. It’s not exactly easy for a high school kid, on high school income, to get into something like this. After some false starts, however, he made a video documenting the process. “I put it on YouTube,” he explains, “and got featured for ‘Best Christmas present ever’.”

That’s when the floodgates opened. (more…)

Recently in videogaming we have seen the terrible decline of the Expansion Pack and the triumphant rise of Downloadable Content. Downloadable Content (DLC) is a fairly new phenomenon and like most newcomers to the industry is still walking on unsure footing with wobbly legs. We’re going to take a look at a couple working models of how game studios are adding/altering their major titles after they hit the shelves and hard drives.

We’ll take a closer look at the most recent Fallout 3 DLC pack “Point Lookout”, Empire: Total War’s unit expander “Elite Units of the West”, and finally jump through the warp to the 41^st Millennium and see what is what with Imperium Man in Dawn of War II’s mega-patch “There Is Only War”.

(more…)