I've been quite busy for the past couple of days on a certain something for all you console and handheld gamers. Call it a little tribute to two decades of gaming. It's still in the works (man, I've still got a ways to go), and we might be able to get it up tomorrow, so let's get this QuickPeek done pronto! Huzzah!
Time to ease back and grab your cup o' joe for another breather. It's been quite a wild week following the wake of the E3 convention, and even until now, the gaming industry doesn't show any signs of slowing down. Before it zooms past however, we better catch up with what's been going on!
What do we have in this issue of QuickPeek? Rumored PSP-3000 washing up the Internet, new video game laws washing up in courtroom briefcases, and dead baby penguins washing up in Rio de Janeiro.
We hear news of Patapon 2, Valhalla Knights 2, and just in case you missed it, some concrete info on who's directing the God of War movie! And yes, Kratos won't have any Bolls. My, my, that sounds uncomfy.
Dark AleX website administrator Alek dropped by to explain stuff for the homebrew scene this week. See, there's been some problems with TA-088 models trying to run Pandora, time Machine, and Despertar del Cementerio - Alek finally addresses the issue. Meanwhile, new updates have come in for TrueFlow, PSP Filer, and Basilisk II PSP Port, among others. For homebrew games, we got some newer versions for CSPSP and Wolfenstein 3D.
Link: The PSP Weekend Warrior: The PSP-3000, redundant lawmaking, and the God of War movie
Link: The PSP Homebrew Weekend Warrior: breaking the TA-088 code, microblogging on the go, and handheld FPS titles
Link: The PS3 Weekend Warrior: In the aftermath of E3 2008
It's all about XBL with new content coming in: the XBL version of Portal gets more content than its sibling counterparts, demos for Facebreakers, Madden 09, and talks of free short films on XBLVM!
Link: The Xbox 360 Weekend Warrior: Post-E3 qualms, videogame legislation, and black people (working on RE5)
Heigh-ho, Wiibrewers! Have you heard yet? Nintendo's replied to Bushing about the exploit he found. Hmm. Wonder what that's all about... In other news, we get a slew of sweet, sweet programs and games again: an UNO homebrew game, the DragonMedia Player app, some FTPii and Wii Web Server updates - and straight from Bushing: the Xyzzy Wiibrew program to help devs retrieve some encryption keys.
Link: The Wii Weekend Warrior: a new Wii Channel, finding a storage solution, and sweeping the console war
Link:The Wiibrew Weekend Warrior: Nintendo responds to bushing, wicked dev tools, and a debate over piracy
Link: The DS Weekend Warrior: more bang in the form of numbers, Dragon Balls, and exploding chargers
The PC Warrior isn't up yet, but from what I hear, there's been some confusion over the "FF13 on PC" issue as well as some juicy bits on the "GTA4 on PC" rumor. You can expect more of these once the PC Warrior goes live.
Lots of updates on the Wrath of the Lich King front. It's looking quite an expansion worthy of following up on The Burning Crusade. Confirmed for Lich King: faster leveling up between 60-70 being permanent, new agility mechanics, pet tweaks, and a whole slew of other features. Age of Conan's bringing more patches too, but other than that, we also hear of what future patches might introduce.
Link: The MMORPG Weekend Warrior: pre-patch notes, Mythos on hold, Hellgate's new management
Link: The WoW Weekend Warrior: New agility mechanics, compact pets, and new talent calculators
Link: The Age of Conan Weekend Warrior: feat training price reset, future patch focus, and more
The world's getting ready for the Olympics - heck, even the Moon wants join in on with the fun! With a Total Solar Eclipse, that is! Down here on Earth, penguins and mice seem to be making waves too... sorta.
Link: The Science Weekend Warrior: of Phoenix-scaled vibrations, mice and men, and a troubled species
Link: The Apple Weekend Warrior: iPhone Pwnage, more Apple success stories, and a new firmware
Comment of the Week: By your powers combined... I am CAPTAIN OBVIOUS!
We have two winners this week! A rare sight indeed, but we allow ourselves certain liberties from time to time too. Besides, these guys' comments are a bit related - some may even say they're two sides of the very same coin, with both of them, however, still complementing each other like one solid and very much intertwined concept.
In an article where Pachter discusses the E3 event being extinct in the coming years, lmxloco and Sinborn gave some valid points. lmxloco gets props for the simple fact that he's got humor enough to paraphrase our own article's title back at Pachter (no offense to Mr. Pachter, though - let's not get carried away here). But Sinborn does bring us back to Earth with very sound reasoning.
Question: is stating the obvious bad now? And if everyone agrees that someone is stating the obvious, then doesn't that mean that the person who points out that that other person is stating the obvious is stating the obvious himself? Confused? Situation!
Pachter: Blah blah blah obvious obvious blah...
Person A thinks: He's stating the obvious!
Person B thinks: Thank you Captain Obvious!
Person C says: He's stating the obvious! Oh man. That's what everyone thinks!
Person A and B think: Thank you Person C, for stating the obvious.
If you think about it, Michael Pachter is voicing our own thoughts and relaying them to the industry... which eventually make them get a move on to certain things like new SKUs and features.
I was discussing this with Isaac C., who had this to say too: "For me, I think it's his job to state the obvious to people who aren't part of the core gaming population, and don't have a grasp of the comings and goings of the industry."
Without us (the vox populi), there won't be a Michael Pachter. Without a Michael Pachter... well, things might take a while to get by.
Anyways, enough rhetorics. On to the comments!
Link: Pachter: E3 to become extinct soon
