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Ice Cream Game Pirate

William Agnew from South Lanarkshire was sentenced at Hamilton Sheriff Court after admitting to the offences. 4,000 DVDs, CDs and games (PlayStation, Xbox and PC) were seized during a raid on the man’s business premises. The goods, if sold new, are estimated to be worth in the region of £100,000.

Selling pirated material from his ice cream truck? At least you can’t blame the guy for not being creative - I wouldn’t be surprised if we soon discover he plays a lot of the Twisted Metal games.


Read More | Pro-G


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Activision Profits More bad news for the industry. Activision has reported that net income fell 30% for the holiday quarter despite record revenue. As we’ve reported, game sales were down for the end of the year because a lot of gamers decided to hold back on purchases so that they’d be able to afford a next-generation machine once it comes out or becomes available. Of course, this slump isn’t a new thing by any means, as this transition period is part of what defines our industry.


Read More | GameDaily


Football Manager 2006An upcoming SEGA title, Football Manager 2006, will require the 360 HDD to play. If you take a look at the link, you’ll notice that the game is actually European football - soccer to those of us stateside. So while it looks like the title isn’t official for the U.S. market, I’d still expect it to come out here. At any rate, the HDD-required goes against what Microsoft previously said when the company announced it’s dual SKU strategy. If you can recall, Microsoft explicitly said that you wouldn’t need a hard drive to play any games. Whoops.


Read More | GamersReports


Dreamcast Xbox Live ArcadeAccording to a Microsoft insider, you can expect to see upwards of 50 Dreamcast games show up on XBLA within the next couple years. The insider also suggests that a group of games will be released at a time and will retail for $10 each.

While this is just a rumor, we’re buying it. It makes a lot of sense, and we could definitely picture Microsoft and SEGA working something out. Now we’re just waiting for Crazy Taxi…


Read More | Xbox 360 News


Crystal Quest

For those of you who wait with baited breath for new games to spend your Microsoft Points on, Crystal Quest has just been released on the Xbox Live Arcade. This was a game originally played on the Mac, but that was many moons ago. The pleasure of downloading Crystal Quest will cost you 400 points.


Read More | Major Nelson


Description As we previously reported, Kojima - the creator of the Metal Gear series - recently began podcasting. The good news is that the podcast is available now, for download, in english. It’s conveniently located on his blog, which has also been translated. If you’re curious as to what the game creator’s been thinking, now’s your chance to find out.


Read More | GameDaily


EA Profits Gamasutra reports that EA’s profits dropped 31% for its fiscal third quarter, ending December 31st 2005. This news isn’t much of a surprise though mainly because 2005 ended with news of lowered sales throughout the industry. Best Buy reported lowered game sales, Activision dropped sales forecasts, Microsoft wasn’t able to get as many 360s out in stores as it hoped, and so on.

In addition to EA’s profit drop, it announced on February 1st that it would cut about 5% of its world-wide workforce. Hopefully though the industry will pick up at the end of this year or in 2007 as the new consoles continue to release and become more readily available.


Read More | Gamasutra


Worst GamesHonestly, is there anything Wikipedia doesn’t have? Thanks to a tip from AFK Gamer, I stumbled upon a Wikipedia page entitled “List of video games considered the worst ever”. In addition to just having a simple list of “the worst games,” the editors included categories of the worst games along with examples of bad game design.

If you’re in game design - or hoping on getting into it - this page is a must-see. Of course, video game fans everywhere will get a kick out of the list.

Oh, and no ‘bad game list’ wouldn’t be complete without the presence of Shaq Fu.

Shaq Fu (1994, multiplatform) is widely considered to be a terrible game due to its poor Hit-Detection system and was seen to be a vain marketing vehicle for Shaquille O’Neal. [30]

Oh Shaquille! At least Kazaam wasn’t as bad, and I certainly don’t disapprove of his Nestle Crunch endorsements. Make the jump to see what else made the list.


Read More | Wikipedia


State of Emergency 2

Maybe I shouldn’t be posting this, but State of Emergency has gone gold. The game isn’t even Rockstar’s anymore but I still have an extremely bad taste in my mouth from the first title. It was a huge disappointment and was definitely overrated by the media. But hey, maybe you’re willing to give the new publisher, SouthPeak Interactive a chance.

Taking place four years after the events of the first game, the story follows returning character Spanky MacNeil as he and the rest of the Freedom Movement wage war against “The Corporation” and its oppressive dictatorship. Many new game-play elements such as a reputation system, gang control, interrogation, driving and flying vehicles add to the fun. Gamers can also bang out in 1-4 man multiplayer modes such as Last Man Standing and Battle modes.

Hopefully you’ve got enough of a backlog of quality games from the holidays that you’re not even considering getting this one. I’m willing to bet that SOE2 won’t be overrated - the media’s hopefully learned from its mistake. SOE2 is due out on Valentine’s Day, February 14th.


Read More | IGN


DescriptionWith all the attention console gaming hass been getting lately, it’s easy to forget about the PC side of the industry. NDP recently released its list of the top ten selling PC games between January 15th and 21st. It follows.

1. World Of Warcraft—VU Games

2. The Sims 2—Electronic Arts

3. Age of Empires III—Microsoft

4. Civilization IV—2K Games

5. Zoo Tycoon 2—Microsoft

6. Call Of Duty 2—Activision

7. Battlefield 2—Electronic Arts

8. The Sims 2 Nightlife—Electronic Arts

9. Battlefield 2 Special Forces—Electronic Arts

10. Guild Wars—NCsoft

While I haven’t been into PC gaming lately, the list has a lot of familiar names. In fact, I’d bet that the list hasn’t seen many newcomers in a little while. WoW has been strong and won’t be dropping anytime soon - and the same goes for The Sims 2.


Read More | GameDaily


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