Apple iPad (WiFi) Release April 3rd! March 5, 2010
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For people who know me, know that I never go anywhere without my iPhone 3g. This thing has been the perfect device that I’ve needed for the last fifteen years. It’s small enough to fit in my pocket, and gives me constant connection to the internet when I’m not home. It’s also the only thing that makes family reunions bearable.
Apple will be releasing it’s “next big thing”* and logical successor the iPad on April 3rd, 2010. The iPad will be able to run all iPhone and iPod Touch applications, but features no calling ability or camera. It also has a larger, higher resolution screen (at 1024×768), a faster processor, and will support WiFi.
It also will have full support for iTunes for organizing your audio and video files.
Preorders for the WiFi version of iPad will start March 11th, a 3g version (which does not have calling ability) will be released later in April.
*next big thing not guranteed
Portal 2 To Have Co-op Play March 5, 2010
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Gamestop has already put up a product page for Portal 2, indicating that there will be an Xbox360 and PC version, but also that there will be singleplayer and multiplayer cooperative play.
I do remember shortly after Portal was released, an interview with the Portal team had hinted that Portal 2 would feature cooperative play. Gamestop could be running with that same interview in mind, or they could have inside information from Valve.
Portal 2 Announced! March 5, 2010
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Valve has officially announced a sequel to their 2007 game Portal, released as a part of The Orange Box.
The press release itself appears to be a coded message, with specific letters underlined. This could be a furthering of the Portal ARG that has been going on this past week.
Portal won many awards in 2007, and was considered to be one of the only games of that year that Zero Punctuation had nothing to say about, which is considered to be the highest honor that could be awarded to a game.
Portal 2 is expected for a holiday release 2010.
Editorial: What’s With Japanese People and Toliets? March 5, 2010
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It’s Friday, and I guess there would not be a better day to release editorials than this one. Some of the best great editorials got released on Fridays, PlanetFargo being my favorite.
With the recent Kotaku article on Japan, it got me thinking I should brush off an Editorial I wrote some time ago following a playthrough I did of No More Heroes. Enjoy, and feel free to comment.
I guess the title is pretty self explanatory. But let me phrase this question better with this amount of background.
Normally we in the United States are against using toilets or bathroom humor. I remember when taking a video class we were forbidden from doing anything involving a bathroom or toilet. However it seems that Japanese game developers take pride in their crappers (I mean Crappiers) as these serve in some Japanese games as basically hubs with which to build an entire game mechanic around, particularly the save game system.
Normally a user goes to a menu and selects save game. This wasn’t good enough for the Japanese. No, they don’t believe in having menu functions for other than stat and progress displays. No, they want you to have the save game mechanic built into the game play.
Hideo Kojima built the save mechanic into the codec radio system to solve the design problem of working into gameplay without bringing the player out of the gaming experience in Metal Gear Solid. It was not the best solution, but it worked fine. Later on, in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots he decided it was better to take my advice and just have a save game option in the menu, probably Ryan Payton’s doing. This worked much better and you were allowed infinite saves until your memory ran out.
But then came the fantastic Dead Rising. The only place in the game you could save was the toilets, so keep bathroom locations in the mall in your head at all times, and oddly enough bathrooms were the one place zombies didn’t congregate in! Must be due to some unholy zombie belief. I’m not kidding. If you haven’t played the game let me explain it to you. You MUST go into a designated bathroom area which look exactly like mall bathrooms look, select any stall (doesn’t matter if it’s a male or female bathroom, although female bathrooms do not have stand up stalls), and activate it. That brings up the save game menu, where you are allowed to override the one save the game gives you, and after that you may choose to quit the game.
Now onto No More Heroes, the game I’ve been playing non-stop for the last three days. (I’m about thirteen hours in and ranked number three). The only acceptable save spot is again a toilet. In fact the female protagonist (your handler) informs you before each boss battle to go to take a pee. In the hub world of Santa Destroy, you may only save from your motel room bathroom, but in each boss battle area, there is usually a port-a-potty conveniently located before the boss. By using the toilet it brings up the save screen. You’re allowed 4 save spots, generous compared to Dead Rising. Hope you found all the collectable cards before you saved, but if you think you’re off by one and it’s the rank III boss battle, the last card is in the battle area where you’ll easily spend 10 minutes looking for it.
So now that you’ve got it all down, my question again is what’s with Japanese people and toilets? Did anyone think this was actually a good idea? I’m sure Suda 51 of No More Heroes did, as it was used in his game, and I’m sure that the Dead Rising director did as well.
However this does save one problem. Everyone’s always offended anytime someone brings the bathroom up in the United States. It’s hard to descriptively say, “I need to use the bathroom” and be considered polite. Some kids like to say, “I have to pee pee” or the more offensive, “I have to go poopie.” Others have used more slang terms to be less offensive like, “I have to pay the water bill,” or, “I have to drop my kids off at the pool.” But in most cases nobody gets what that actually means.
So thank you Japan, because now I can just inform everyone when my call of nature arrives, “I’m going to save my game.”
Quakecon 2010 Announced! March 5, 2010
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Shacknews has reported that one of the longest running fan friendly gaming conventions will be from August 12th to August 15th this year. According to teases from last year, Rage and Doom 4, two games that haven’t been reported on in a while, are expected to make appearances at the show.
There was some concern since id Software is no longer operating independantly if this convention would continue. Quakecon originally was entirely fan created, but at some point id took it over and for some years it’s rivaled E3 with the announcments that’s come out of it. It has continued to be a mecca for id fans for years, and from the looks of it, that will continue.
Unfortunatly I have never been to a Quakecon before. It seems a common occurance that all major gaming conventions would happen anywhere but wherever I lived. If I do get to go to this year’s Quakecon I will be sure to report on everything I see.
Playstation Store Updated, Heavy Rain Codes Still Not Working March 5, 2010
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Well looks like those who chose to preorder Heavy Rain will have to wait for their free DLC episode just a little longer.
In the US retailers such as Amazon.com and GameStop offered customers who preordered the highly anticipated PS3 game Heavy Rain a code for the game’s first downloadable episode. The episode, called “The Taxidermist” was announced to be downlodable on the day of the game’s release. However, before the game’s release date several retailers announced there would be a short delay in the content until the fourth of March. Codes were bundled with the game when people picked their Preorders up from GameStop but weren’t working at launch. It was expected that the codes would go live around the time Amazon planned to email codes to their customers, some time on the fourth.
Amazon did email their codes as promised. Several users on the Heavy Rain US forum have confirmed that. The weekly Playstation Store has updated within the last few minutes (Sony only updates their store content on Thursdays). However none of the codes either through GameStop or Amazon will work yet. A Sony forum member said he called Sony to inquire, where he was told the content was on their servers, but the codes needed some time to be fully authorized, which could take a day.
Sony has not officially commented on if the DLC content has been delayed again.
UPDATE: The codes are reportedly working now at around 10:30PM EST.
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