GamesRadar meets Associated Press - and looks good
GamesRadar regulars also reading "legitmate" news sites - you know, the ones that don't know jack squat about games and can't seem to decide whether games are turning us all into murderers or rapists - might have noticed a familiar face in recent, Wii-related news stories. Well, familiar to us, at least. GamesRadar's own Nintendo Editor Brett Elston is the man shown playing Wii in stories likethis one, peculiar hairstyle and all.
You'd think a guy playing Wii two months before the console's actual release would be smiling instead of frowning, but Brett, playing the Wii-make of Atlus' medical-themed DS hit Trauma Center, takes his suturing very seriously. And the photog was a douche bag.
Blu-Ray vs HD = who cares?
According to anarticlein New Scientist (by way of our partner site, NextGen), some smart scientist/engineer guys at Warner have created a disc that would be HD-DVD and Blu-Ray on one side (two separate layers), and regular, old DVD on the flip side.
This would, of course, solve the problem of whether you should buy an HD or Blu-Ray player, and although the individual discs might be more expensive to make, it would be cheaper than manufacturing, distributing, and tracking three versions of each film (one HD-DVD, one DVD, one Blu-Ray). Stores pressed for shelf space would love it, as would we. But the business of dividing royalties among the inventors of all three formats could be a nightmare of red tape, which probably means this format will never see the light of day.
Interesting to note is that a hybrid format has been proposed before, but was tossed aside because industry decision-makers decided it would take too long to merge HD-DVD and Blu-Ray. Guess they underestimated how long it would take to get either format up and running.
Ubisoft shows hand for holiday
Despite the fact that we're still being inundated by Rayman Raving Rabbids videos, Ubisoft has offered up evidence that it is indeed making other games this year as well. According to today's press release, "Ubisoft's third quarter lineup" which is actually October-December to us normal humans, is shaping up to look like this:
Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Double Agent
Rayman Raving Rabbids
Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas
Far Cry Vengeance
Brothers in Arms D-Day
Blazing Angels Squadrons of WWII
Prince of Persia Rival Swords
Petz
Red Steel
Dark Messiah of Might and Magic
GT Pro Series
Open Season
Star Wars Lethal Alliance
Monster 4X4 World Circuit
Interesting to this list is the fact that we had to strip out a huge number of trademark and copyright symbols, and also that there were no colons in any of the official spellings. If we had to make the call right now, we'd say the Clancy games, Red Steel and Brothers in Arms are going to be the big must-plays in this lineup, but we're not opposed to loving Rayman, Dark Messiah, or even the Star Wars portable game as well.
Study shows not all gamers are as smart as you
If they were, they would read a few game reviews so they knew if a game sucked or not before plunking down their hard-earned benjamins. But according to the study outlined inthis article (again from our companion site Next Gen), you can't look at a game's review scores and predict how well it's going to sell. People, it seems, tend not to let bad scores scare them away from crap games, any more than they let good scores point them toward a gem.
We could have told them that. How else would you explain that 50 Cent: Bulletproof moved over a million units, while Psychonauts sat on the shelf like it was topped with a dollop of turdcream? Licensed games are especially immune to bad reviews - Enter the Matrix, anyone? That game wasn't even finished, let alone good.
However, because we can still point you toward the good stuff, like Katamari Damacy and (we hope) Loco Roco, we're still here. Just remember: just as every group of friends has one jerk, every posse of gamershas oneperson dumb enough to buy Bomberman Act: Zero becausehe or shelikes the series, but hasn't read (or even worse, read and then ignored) ourreview. And if you haven't yet read it, that person might be you.
