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Reservoir Dogs Game Banned in Australia
Posted by Matt Haselton Categories: Politics, Release Dates, Third Person Shooters,
With roughly a month before its release, Eidos Interactive’s upcoming adaption of the 1992 film Reservoir Dogs has been effectively banned from The Land Down Under.
The Office of Film and Literature Classification has refused to give the game a rating, claiming the graphic violence in the game places it outside the realm of “MA15+,” the government’s most mature classification.
Since Oz stores aren’t permitted to sell unrated games, and Atari has announced it has no intention to release an edited version, it looks like Reservoir Dogs will be sitting with the likes of Manhunt, Grand Theft Auto III, and Leisure Suit Larry at the “banned Down Under” party.
In a release from the Ratings Board, the game’s depictions of gangland interrogation are cited as a principal reason for the ban, namely the “‘series of so-called signature torture moves…such as repeated pistol whipping the side of the head with blood spray evident, burning the eyes of a hostage with a cigar until they scream and die,’ and ‘cutting the fingers off a hostage with blood bursts as the victim screams in pain.’”
Curiously, the board voiced no objections to the humiliating dye-job slapped onto the Harvey Keitel model.
Read More 
| Games Industry
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Prey Gone Gold
Posted by Matt Haselton Categories: First Person Shooters, PC, Release Dates, Xbox 360,
One week after 3D Realms’ George Broussard posted “I smell gold” on the company’s forum, it’s official: Prey discs are being gold mastered. In the official press release, 3D Realms confirms the game will be in North American stores on July 11 and in Europe three days later. The buzz is good, the demo is a hoot, and Prey should, in the words of 3D Realms CEO Scott Miller, “be a major hit for gamers worldwide.”
On a tangential note, I had to smile when I read Human Head developer talk about Prey as the “cumulation of nearly five years work.” To clarify, Human Head may have been working on the game for half-a-decade, but Prey was first announced back in 1995, and I remember reading a preview in a 1996 PC Gamer. Just for giggles, I dug up an online copy of that article here, which highlights such features as “very smooth animation without the need for a 3D accelerator card,” “3D, polygon-based enemies,” and most exciting of all, an “early 1997” release date.
Read More | Take2 Interactive
Midway Games signed a deal with the Cartoon Network that will bring “The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy” from television to the video game screen. Due to be released in time for Halloween, the game allows players to “wreck things and beat up stuff.” The creator of the cartoon series, animator Maxwell Atoms, is quite pleased with the resulting game. “Who could ask for anything more?” said Atoms, who also wrote dialogue for the game. In order to keep the game in-sync with the show, the same actors voice each of the characters in both. Developmental agreements for “Ed, Edd n Eddy” and “Dexter’s Laboratory,” two other animated series, were also reached between the Cartoon Network and Midway Games.
Liquid Cool Your Xbox 360 And Have Fun Voiding Your Warranty
Posted by Michael Cardiff Categories: Corporate News, Mods/Hacks, Release Dates, Xbox 360,
Koolance, a producer of cooling kits for PCs, has announced today that they’ll be producing the “Xbox 360 Complete Cooling Kit”. The kit includes tubing, processor heat-sink attachments for both the CPU and GPU, and a fan system / temperature read-out that will nearly triple the height of your Xbox 360. And if that’s not enough for you, the kit will only set you back about $395 US.
This might be every Xbox modder’s wet dream—although the slight benefits reaped from cooler-running processors doesn’t quite seem worth the price tag. And if you’re considering this kit for overheating issues, well then for $400 you might as well buy yourself a second Xbox 360, and just use that whenever your original Xbox 360 is in for repairs. <rant> Plus it seems like quite a steep price for fixing overheating problems that 1) should have been eliminated by Microsoft before release and 2) should be fixed for free if they’re hindering your playing experience. </rant> For now, we’ll place this mod firmly in the “just for show” category.
Read More | TeamXbox.com
Genesis Games For PSP Available this November
Posted by Michael Cardiff Categories: PSP, Release Dates, Retro,
Genesis fans rejoice! Not only will you be able to play all the classic Genesis games on your Wii, but you’ll be able to take the retro lovin’ with you as well. SEGA has announced that a variety of titles, including faves such as Altered Beast, Phantasy Star, and Golden Axe will be making their way to the PSP this November. The UMD will include about 28 games, 3 of which have to be unlocked. A full list isn’t available yet, but we’ll be expecting one closer to launch time. Price, also, is unknown as of this time.
Unless you can sync all of the Genesis games you purchase via Virtual Console from your Wii to your DS, this will be one of the only ways to play Genesis classics on-the-go. (excluding buying a GP2X and finding some old roms of course!). It sounds like a great deal for us retro fans.
Read More | joystiq.com
Saints Row Demo Drops August 1st
Posted by Josh Smith Categories: Release Dates, Xbox 360, Xbox Live, Xbox Live Marketplace,
THQ has announced that a playable demo of their new GTA-like game, Saints Row, will be available on Xbox Live on August 1st. Saints Row will be available for purchase on August 29th exclusively for the Xbox 360. This demo release date looks doable, unlike the recently delayed PREY demo for several reasons. The demo will be included in the Official Xbox Magazine which means a much larger lead time is needed to get it into the magazine. THQ will also be offering a demo on June 24th in Anaheim California which could easily be the same one we will see on Live August 1st. THQ has more info and screenshots on the Saints Row official site.
Read More | Saints Row Official Site
Happy 15th, Sonic the Hedgehog!
Posted by Michael Cardiff Categories: Corporate News, Nintendo DS, PlayStation 3, PSP, Release Dates, Wii, Xbox 360,
Sonic the Hedgehog, SEGA mascot and one-time rival of Mario, will be celebrating his 15th birthday today. Whether or not you love the little blue blaze, you have to admire Sonic’s contribution to the gaming world in terms of encouraging fast graphics processing and simple, intuitive play mechanics. To milk
celebrate the event, SEGA will be releasing 4 new Sonic-based games this year, including Sonic for the PS3 and Xbox 360 as well as Sonic Wildfire for the Wii, Sonic Rivals for the PSP, and a “special edition” of Sonic the Hedgehog for the GBA.
Sonic’s career has certainly gone a bit downhill in recent years - from the heyday of Sonic the Hedgehog for the Genesis and Sonic Adventure for the Dreamcast to the less-favorably-received current-gen Shadow the Hedgehog and Sonic Riders. Perhaps someday soon we can look forward to a New Super Mario Bros.-esque 3-D/2-D hybrid that will return the little fur ball to his former glory.
Read More | BusinessWire.com
Sony’s Blu-Ray Player Slips, Again
Posted by Michael Cardiff Categories: Hardware, PlayStation 3, Release Dates,
Most of the time, the release date for a new DVD player wouldn’t make it into gaming news. But when that DVD player is Sony’s BDP-S1 and when the revised release date is now late October, scant weeks before the Playstation 3 releases, people in the gaming world start to take notice. The move appears to signal a tactical shift by Sony to position the PS3 as the device that will put Blu-Ray in consumer’s living rooms, with the BDP-S1 at $999.95 possibly filling the video-phile niche market.
If consumers see a compelling reason to go with Blu-Ray, then the PS3 could put Sony in a very nice position in the upcoming format wars. But if consumers aren’t ready to shell out extra cash for hi-def movies, either Blu-Ray or HD DVD, then the PS3 might just be an expensive next-gen console with the equivalent of a built-in BetaMax drive.
Read More | GamesIndustry.biz
Opera DS Release Date: July 24 In Japan
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Corporate News, Internet, Nintendo DS, Release Dates,
Opera Software, fresh from announcing their Opera 9 browser for personal computers, announced today that the Opera Browser would be available on July 24th for Japanese users. The pricing was previously announced to be 3,800 Yen, or roughly $33. Since DS titles have no region lock, gamers should expect to be able to import this from places like Lik-Sang or NCSX.com. The memory expansion cartridge included with the browser was not addressed—two versions of this cartridge have been shown, one for the DS and one for the DS Lite, and it is unclear whether there will actually be two SKUs released when this hits the market. It will be interesting to compare this with the custom PSP browser; the DS would have the edge in vertical resolution, assuming the user is in dual-screen browsing mode, but offers only about 2/3 the pixels horizontally. The stylus input should be much easier to handle than selection via the analog pad on the PSP, and depending on how much memory is available in the RAM expansion, more pages might be able to cached in memory. Given that the DS has much less main memory than the PSP, the expansion cart will be critical to the operation of the Opera on the DS. Feedback was generally good at E3, and, of course, Japanese users and importers will find out come late July.
Mercury Titles Announced for Nintendo Wii
Posted by Josh Smith Categories: Nintendo, Release Dates, Strategy, Wii,
In a move sure to excite Wii owners to be, Ignition Entertainment has updated their release list to include two Mercury titles for the Wii. Previously Mercury was a Sony exclusive, and a great asset to the PSP catalog. The first installment, Mercury Meltdown, will be released in November followed shortly after by Mercury Type R, before the end of Q4. The Mercury series includes hours of stimulating puzzles in which you move a blob of mercury around an environment through various gates and around obstacles. The movement of your blob is controlled by tilting the platform that the blob is on, making the Wii-mote a natural choice. This is a strong launch title for the Nintendo Wii and signals more support by third party developers.
Read More | Cubed3.com
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