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We play a lot of rhythm games at Joystiq HQ. Not because we like them, mind you, but because they're part of our strict training regimen for our competitive show choir squad, the Joystiq Jumpin' Junebugs. It's a little known fact that every video game blog has such a team, as required by the Digital Communications Act of 2006, and every year, we meet at an undisclosed location to compete for a year's worth of unspoken superiority. We all take it pretty seriously -- we really shouldn't be telling you this, but a certain GameSpot editorial director was recently let go after skipping two consecutive choreography rehearsals.
Jared Rea, GameTap blogger and Joystiq retiree (not to mention former Junebug captain), recently compiled the top ten rhythm games of all time. While we're pleased as punch to see newcomer Rock Band taking the number one spot, the unceremonious exclusion of Gitaroo Man from the list is unforgivable. We'd sit and sulk if we had time, but there's an exhibition match against the Kotaku Flying Pompadours this Wednesday, and we've yet to perfect the harmony on "We Built This City."
Don't forget -- the Spike TV Video Game Awards airs tonight at 9 p.m. EST. If you're a faithful Joystiq reader, you already know which games won awards -- but don't let that take the wind out of your sails! You still haven't seen the exclusive performance by the Fighters of Foo, the comedy stylings of Patton Oswalt, or the trollopery of MySpace vixen Tila Tequila.
Okay, we know that two hours of mainstream culture mixed with ceaseless product placements and a gaggle of celebrities who have no idea what they're talking about isn't everyone's idea of the perfect Sunday night. If that's the case, tune in to Spike TV tonight at 9 p.m. EST for the two hours hate.
You know it's a bad sign when the trailer for a game only uses six seconds of gameplay footage. To be fair, what did you expect? When we first heard the idea of Guitar Hero on a cell phone, we scoffed so hard that we needed to sit down. You may feel just like Hendrix as you shred on your touch-tone pad, but something tells us if we saw anyone actually playing this in public, it would look like they were trying to disarm a tiny cellular bomb.
If you're in the mood for an thought-provoking read this Sunday afternoon, you should check out a recent article on Games Radar which dissects Portal's "feminist critique of the FPS genre." The essay describes how the game purposefully avoids many of the masculine trends with which shooters are often imbued -- for instance, the game's use of an anti-sensational female protagonist, or the way the game dispatches the game's cuboid male lead.
Spoiler alert: Unavoidably, the essay takes a Freudian look at the key gameplay mechanic of the game, comparing a portal to a vajayjay. If you'd like to preserve your innocent opinion of the game, you might actually want to steer clear of this particular article. Fortunately, we're firm believers in the "sometimes a banana is just a banana" school of thought, lest we be subject to disturbing imagery next time we go traipsing through the Aperture Science building.
Ah, Canada. Our northern big brother has spawned some of our favorite musical groups of all time; Rush, Moxy Früvous, and, of course, Loverboy. Why, then, do Canadians seem to be getting the shaft over their release date for Rock Band? We would think it would be more popular than the NHL 2K series and Metric System Hero combined.
We reported (and MTV confirmed) about a month ago that Rock Band had been delayed until Dec. 17 in Canada, possibly due to sales regulations that required them to include English and French-Canadian text on the box and instructions, and also because of the shipping issues associated with moving a large number of boxes that are the size of a small car.
However, residents of America's Frosted Hat may be getting the game even later according to Best Buy Canada and Future Shop, who have a release date of Dec. 28 posted for the game. Even though French-Canadian is an ancient, dead language, we're pretty sure it's not taking them a month and a half just to translate an instruction booklet. We'll make sure and keep you updated when a final, final Canadian release date for the game is confirmed.
With the popularity of Shatner and Mr. Tureaud's commercials for World of Warcraft, Blizzard has brought it's celebrity advertising game to a global scale. In a TV spot for France, Jean Claude Van Damme talks about his mage, and, though our French is a little spotty, we're pretty sure he complains about having to respec after patch 2.0.1. After the jump, Spanish comedian Guillermo Toledo talks about how rolled paladin, and how he gets all the cyber-tail in Azeroth. Poor guy.
Yes, we know most of you won't be able to understand both of these commercials, but before the monolingual horde comes to tear us limb from limb, know that there's nearly 10 million subscribers to WoW, and a nice portion of them live in non-English-speaking areas of the world. Plus, you don't have to know the Spanish language to know that Willy Toledo says "paladin" much, much sexier than you or we could ever hope to.
Have you or someone you love been egregiously injured either physically or emotionally by Bungie Studios, whose mega-blockbuster Halo 3 displayed at an upscaled output of 640p, despite being advertised as displaying in full, 720p HD? Do feel like you've been cheated out of 80 pixels that you paid good money for? Has it been a while since you sued McDonalds for selling you hot coffee that you proceeded to pour on your genitalia?
You may be entitled to recover some of the precious funds you spent on the game, according to Class Action Connect, a site that allows possible plaintiffs to find class action attorneys to represent them for a number of different class action suits. It's like MySpace for lawyers! Just click the new lawsuit link, titled "Possible False Advertising: Halo 3 Is Not Native High Definition," and reap the rewards of our country's justice system.
After we successfully get an 80 pixel refund from Bungie, we'll being going on a suing spree of developers who didn't include things they promised would be in their games. Peter Molyneux, you might as well go ahead and start liquidating your assets.
Treyarch, the development team behind Spider-Man 3 and Call of Duty 3, recently put up a job listing for a Call of Duty level designer, presumably for the fifth game in the series (which Treyarch is reportedly working on). However, a bit of text in the listing may reveal the direction which Treyarch is taking Call of Duty 5 -- and from the looks of things, that direction is backwards.
The listing says that applicants would be well-served by being "a fan of World War II shooters," causing some to believe that the game will take place during the WWII era. We've seen less logical rumors come through the mill, but we still can't help but scoff at this gossip. Who would want to play a game based on WWII? What's a war game without AC-130 gunships and guided anti-tank missiles? We'll tell you - it's boring. We'll take futuristic weaponry over rich cultural heritage any day of the week.
Director Suda 51 established one cold hard fact with his 2005 sleeper hit, Killer 7: every living person is composed of chunks of blood that explode jubilantly, like a blood piñata, when that person is killed. Though it contradicts the professional opinions of most anatomists, we are stringent supporters of the bloodsplosion ideology -- which is why we were so disturbed by recent gameplay footage for the European version of Suda's No More Heroes.
Click the jump and watch as the game discards the stylish, bloody effects of Killer 7, replacing them with ... what are those? Coins? Vanilla Wafers? Whatever they are, they definitely aren't blood. We know blood when we see it -- because when we see it, we shout "yeah" and give each other high-fives.
It's pretty clear that the Wii version of Activision's rockstar simulator is the ugly stepsister of the Guitar Hero III family (aside from the PS2 version, but who plays those things anymore) -- it's got no downloadable content, requires friend codes for online play, is sans Grim Ripper, and to top it all off, it only transmits sound monaurally. However, Activision is not neglecting its rockers of the tiny white box, as it has announced that it will be offering remastered game discs early 2008, and will also enable DLC for the system sometime next year.
The new, stereo-enabled discs will be free of charge through Activision, though they haven't announced exactly when they'd be available, or how they would be shipped out. Also, we're not exactly certain how DLC will work on the system (our Wii's system memory is already bogged down by VC gems like Donkey Kong Jr. Math and Urban Champion), but RedOctane is reportedly working feverishly with Nintendo to figure out a method of getting new songs on the Wii. Apparently, trying to wish them onto the system hasn't been working out very well.
Read - Guitar Hero III Wii DLC Expected Next Year Read - Fix Coming For Wii's Guitar Hero III Mono Problem
While their enormous press release ironed out all of the technical details behind the Activision/Vivendi Games merger which occurred earlier today, there are still a number of questions left unanswered by the two companies. How is control over the new company going to be distributed? Will you be developing games together? What was the main reason for the merger? Will Activision now use a new logo and brand name? Where you get them jeans?
Basing his analysis on the tone of the press release, and on recent movements in the video game industry, Simon Carless over at GameSetWatch addresses some of those outstanding questions. Apparently, Activision is going to be in charge of running the business, Electronic Arts has cause for concern, and Blizzard has more money than a number of countries, including Grenada, Tonga, and the Solomon Islands. Thanks, Wikipedia!
The recent news of the birth of Activision Blizzard, a merger between Activision and Vivendi Games, has sent a number of forum goers into a panic concerning the status of their beloved games from the two companies. Particularly on the World of Warcraft forums, many are concerned that Activision will litter their pristine fantasy world with in-game advertisements for Axe Body Spray and Red Bull.
Fear not, citizens of Azeroth, you won't be looting Happy Meals off of trash mobs any time soon, according to a post from Blizzard on the WoW forums. According to big blue -- "there will be no changes in the way Blizzard operates." They report that there will be no changes to their games, their logo, their staff, their offices, their development teams, their annual company-wide potato sack race -- nothing. However, they do give a clearer image as to how they fit into the merger -- Blizzard Entertainment will now officially operate as a division of Activision Blizzard.
We hope to learn the main goals of the merger during tomorrow morning's investor conference call, but it would be wise of Activision to follow Blizzard's lead in this matter, and ensure the fans of their franchises that the games they have come to know and love will not be negatively affected by the new parent company. So help us God, if they do anything to jeopardize Cabela's Deer Hunt: 2008 Season, well... we just don't know what we'd do.
Who is Henry Jenkins, you might ask? You should be ashamed for not knowing. Henry Jenkins is a gentleman and a scholar. He's a professor of Comparative Media Studies at MIT, and is a widely renowned expert on the effects of video games on the people who play them. He's also an interviewee in Spencer Halpin's Moral Kombat, a new documentary about the debates surrounding violent video games, which Jenkins heralds as "perhaps the most important film ever made about video games."
Yes, we know there was quite a bit of backlash to the film's trailer which popped up early this year due to it's anti-violent game stance and, you know, its blaming of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on video games. But according to a recent blog entry on Jenkins' personal site, the film is much more balanced than the trailer makes it out to be.
The film apparently gave a number of big names on both sides of the debate (Jack Thompson, Jason Della Rocca, Joseph Lieberman, and American McGee, to name a few) ample time to discuss their opinions in a relatively laid-back setting -- a jarringly different environment from the media circus-style debates that we've become rather accustomed to. This is the major strength of the film, according to Jenkins -- "we are all served by getting a taste of the complexity with which these matters get discussed behind closed doors within the gaming world."
Read - Why You Should See Spencer Halpin's Moral Kombat (Part One) Read - Why You Should See Spencer Halpin's Moral Kombat (Part Two)
We reported last weekend about the epidemic of defective guitar peripherals being packaged with Harmonix/EA's latest rhythm game/fame simulator, Rock Band; luckily, the Rock Band team quickly recognized the magnitude of the issue and took immediate action to fix it. Those with an injured periph can go to the Rock Band warranty website and order a new guitar free of charge, as long as they ship their busted axe back when the new guitar comes in 3 - 5 business days. However, EA's apologetic measures didn't stop there.
According to a number of emails we've received today, the Rock Band team has contacted a number of people who sent in requests for new guitars to tell them that while their new peripherals are on their way, they were slightly behind schedule due to a late shipment from the manufacturer. As a result, they'll be offering a free EA game to those affected by the slight shipping delay.
Since we're so used to shipping our things off to companies and expecting nothing so much as a "sorry, buddy," in return, this warms the pits of our black hearts. However, it's alarming that they didn't specify which game from their rather extensive catalog they'd be sending. If their new guitars show up with a copy of Shaq Fu in tow, it might do more harm than good.
File this under "straight out of left field" -- Activision, the publishing powerhouse behind the Call of Duty and Tony Hawk series; and Vivendi Games, owner of Blizzard Entertainment, which you probably don't need us to tell you is behind the Warcraft and Starcraft series, are coming together to form "the world's most profitable games business," cleverly named Activision Blizzard.
The reports we've read so far seem to confuse the matter of Vivendi's role in the merger, and who will be "wearing the pants" in the relationship, so to speak. As we understand it, Vivendi and Activision will be the ones who are merging, despite Blizzard's name being in the company's new moniker. Vivendi will own approximately 52% of the ownership stake in Activision Blizzard, though Activision's current CEO, Bobby Kotick, will take the chief executive position in the new company.
Jean-Bernard Lévy, Vivendi's chief executive, expressed his excitement about the supercollision -- "We look forward to being an active and supportive majority stockholder in a company that is poised to lead the worldwide interactive entertainment industry in the years ahead."
We'll be sure to keep you updated as soon as we get a clearer understanding of the details of the merger. No doubt the internet will be abuzz with industry analysts chiming in about the ramifications of this huge business deal. We predict to see elves on skateboards by first quarter 2008, but we'll leave the conjecture up to the big dogs.
Update - 6:00PM EST: Worried about WoW? Blizzard wants to brush your hair and tell you everything is going to be alright. Also, the Vivendi Games/Activision management team will hold an investor conference call tomorrow at 8:30 in the morning, EST. We'll make sure to keep you updated on the full details of the merged company's future plans, should they arise during the meeting.
