I hate when witches come to Earth

In a new title debuted at TGS, company SNK will be releasing a quite naughty DS game.

Titled Doki Doki Majo Saiban (Angry Angry Witch Judgement), the game revolves around witches hiding on Earth, and the player needs to figure out who is a witch. Consider it modern day DS revival of a good old fashioned witch hunt, only with boobies.

See, in the old days they just burned anyone who they thought might be a witch, whereas in our enlightened current times we realize that that is completely ridiculous. You can't possibly tell if a witch is a witch without using a regimented list of fondle options on your Nintendo DS.See above image for some of the fondle tools at your disposal. When looking at this anime chick my assumption is that she's a witch, I mean... look at that hair, that's not normal, hair like that can only be achieved by consorting with dark gods and naked sexual blood rites.... Which is why my hair looks just like that.

More info on the game at blog channel and at dengekionline.

\\drew

An electronically wired money flow to Jesus

Thanks to a creative christian Pastor Marty Baker, of the evangelical Stevens Creek Community Church in Augusta, GA, parishioners no longer have to worry about having cash while at church to fill the donation plate. Now they can simply insert their debit cards directly into an ATM like machine at the church and have it electronically added to their church's holy coffers.

“It’s truly like an ATM for Jesus,” Baker said.

The important thing to know about this is that the Bakers are making money off of this, from percentages of money donated and monthly fees for other churches using their machinery. Likewise a card-processing company makes 1.9% of each transaction made by the machines.

Holy hell, yes, puns galore. Can you honestly believe this? Personally I'm not a religious man, nor do I agree with the idea behind tithing in general. Why does God need money? Can't he just *bamf* money into existence if he needs to pay for a cover charge at his local strip club?

Likewise, I've always felt like money had to get skimmed out of those plates by the pastors/priests/reverends etc... Little Suzy needs braces, taketh from the Lord, he would understand! Sure this is less likely from priests as they cannot have families, but I just assume their skimmed money goes to paying off parents whose children they've molested.

Full Article Here on Pandagon

Shortly after reading this a friend sent me this link.

This is why I stray away from organized religion as a whole. Yes religion can be a good thing, yes it helps millions of people world wide. But religion has been one of the single largest reasons behind mankind killing eachother.

These people in the video are raising a militia of radical monodominant children and have the will and potentially the power to force their beliefs on the rest of the country.

I'd hate to see a holy war in the US, it'd be a lot like Dead Rising, only instead of zombies it would be Becky from next door with a Pro-Life shirt and a cross painted on her face. Well, Becky is just as susceptible to a close range shotgun blast as Mr. Richardson turned brain eating undead from across the street is, so I'm not too afraid.

Seriously though people, this is the backwards type of thinking that holds back progress and ultimately freedoms. Sure, have religion, but keep it to yourselves. The US is a melting pot of beliefs, and I'll be damned if some bible hugger is going to tell me to shape up or ship out.

\\drew

Assassin's Creed Gameplay

New Assassin's Creed gameplay at X06.



Now, I originally wasn't hyped by this game at all, but after seeing this I'm slowly jumping on the bandwagon. Only time will tell if the overall game is worth it, but right now I'm willing to toss my money down on this.

I especially like the dynamic world chunks which allowed the player to create an obstacle behind them. Also, the combat has a fairly badass flair to it.

\\drew

Evil Dead: The Musical

By now it's become trendy in our generation to respect (see: dorkish admiration) the now cult legendary works of Bruce Campbell (see: Evil Dead, Army of Darkness, Bubba Ho-Tep, etc..) .

But now there is a new homage to the greatness that is the quirky and frightening surreal Evil Dead series.

Evil Dead: The Musical... yes, that's right. Our favorite one-handed eviscerator of evil Ash is being further immortalized in musical form thanks to this new Off-Broadway show.

The show begins October 2nd at New York NY's New World Stages with tickets ranging in price from $26-$66 depending on whether or not you want to sit in the "splatter zone" or not.

S..P..L..A..T..T..E..R.. Z..O..N..E..

That is amazing, it will be like seeing Gwar, only, instead of Gwar there will be Ash, and instead of musical instruments it will be chainsaws. Other than that I expect the performances to be very closely related.

As an aside to any fanboys out there, will will unfortunately not have the luck of experiencing first hand the acting expertise *cough* of our beloved Bruce Campbell, as our shot-gun toting hero will be played by Ryan Ward, a seemingly experienced Ash role-player.

"See this? This... is my boomstick! The 12-gauge double-barreled Remington. S-Mart's top of the line. You can find this in the sporting goods department. That's right, this sweet baby was made in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Retails for about $109.95. It's got a walnut stock, cobalt blue steel, and a hair trigger."

Check it out, and support your local killer of evil-type things, I'll see you there.

\\drew

Tokyo Game Show 2006

Check out this glam-shoot for the new Onechanbara:Vortex video game at this year's TGS.



See, E3 hadn't hit this point yet and they still pitched it. Another reason why I think Japan is ahead of the curve on ripping money away from unsuspecting basement dwelling geeks.

As a side note, the game being shown here is an action game where you (some sultry vixen) fight zombies. You can customize clothing and all that jazz on your character similar to how you could is DOA Volleyball. The actual action is... somewhat lacking. But if you're just looking to have a sexy sprite dish out some psuedo-beats to evil then you may like it.

\\drew

PS3 Titles Missing Online Play

Sega gas announced that the upcoming PS3 title Virtua Tennis will not feature online play. This is coming shortly after Activision revealing that Tony Hawk Project 8 will also lack this key feature.

This seems to be troubling news for the as of now ill-fated next gen system. We're living in an age of mass communication, digital cable, world wide web, and MMO's. To be at the cutting edge of the video gaming market a company needs to embrace this, multiplayer is the current industry trend and where the support and money is from consumers.

Personally, I don't see the joy in playing a single player tennis game. Most tennis games aren't interesting enough to hold my attention for more than a few hours, atleast if I could play non-AI it would give some level of replayability.

Likewise, this is a really big boost for Microsoft, who already won the online crowd with their XBOX live iteration 1. They are coming into the next gen war with a heads up and little competition chasing them.

\\drew

Sony Slaps US in the Junk

There was a pun somewhere in the header for this post.

During an interview with Gamespot, Sony guy Kaz Hirai stated, "There are no plans right now to adjust the pricing for the US market".

Take it us. I don't really even know what to say about this other than wow Sony, you've admitted defeat in Japan and now you want to dredge the souls out of us in the US to recoup costs huh? Classy.

\\drew

PS3 Japan sees drop in price

During the opening day of the Tokyo Game Show Sony Computer Entertainment President Ken Kutaragi delivered a speech which revealed a reduction in the price for the 20GB version of the PS3.

The price, originally 62,790 yen (EUR 421 / GBP 283), will now be reduced to 49,980 yen (EUR 335 / GBP 225), roughly $426 USD.

In addition they also revealed that the 20GB version will now come with an HDMI port, most likely due to the uproar at the seemingly key feature of the system.

No word yet if the system will debut at the reduced cost here in the US.

\\drew

Wii Twilight Princess to be mirrored

With the upcoming release of the Nintendo Wii, and the dual SKU launch title The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Nintendo has released an interesting bit of information.

At E3 this year Nintendo showed off the new Zelda game, and players seemed to eat it up, but it's original incarnation did not use the internal gyros of the Wii for what everyone assumed it would be used for, namely, sword swinging. After watching throngs of people try to attack with a sword swing Nintendo decided to return to the drawing board and add this functionality to the game.

There was one slight hitch though. The standard player is right handed, whereas our beloved elfin hero is a southpaw. Feeling that this would be too confusing and disorienting for the player Nintendo decided to make him a righty... well, kind of. Seeing as how the whole game was based off of Link's dominant left hand, changing this would incorporate too much work so instead they chose to mirror the whole game.

That's right, you know how you were supposed to take a left out of Hyrule Castle? Well now it's a right. Unless of course you're playing the Game Cube version, which will not be flipped.

This is a pretty crazy idea, though I commend Nintendo for letting the players really feel like Link. If I have a gyro controller I want to swing and attack things, and no I can.

Gamespot take on the new controls

\\drew

Kotaku delivers a scary view of the future

So I was bumping over to Kotaku this morning when I saw this picture in the "Only in Japan" section of the site.

Damn, this is absolutely appalling. This fine young fellow is apparently plugging a store to anime and gaming geeks in Akihabara Japan. Now, call me a traditionalist, but if a company wants me to go to their store they should do it the old fashion way, with girls in maid outfits obviously.

Kotaku writer Michael Mcwhertor says that my preferred method of retail dissemination is a dime a dozen and that people over there become disensitized to the glory of it. The day I can't look at a 17 year old asian girl dressed up like a nurse and think, "booya! time to shop for video games", is the day I realize it's time to end it all.

Full Kotaku article here

\\drew

Rocket Day!

Today, seeing as how I plan on two articles revolving around rockets is now officially rocket day here at IT.

Our first topic for discussion is this most odd of inventions. Well not odd so much as exceedingly dangerous and very capable of murdering someone. Yes that's right, it's a bicycle with a stern mounted rocket of fiery doom. The bike has numerous buttons and such to control the output of the model rocket's thrust.

Is it just me or does this seem like a really easy way to die? Maybe I'm just a wuss but I always feared wiping out while going down a hill on my normal bike. Well take that speed and double it a bunch and you have this bike's speed.

Also, I'm not sure worried about the speed so much as the whole placing my butt ontop of a canister full of explosive material that I am willingly lighting on fire.

Seems like a bad idea to me...

Youtube had a video featuring this speedy bike:


Ok, now for the second rocket related article of the day.

Square-Enix has released their newest DS RPG entitle Rocket Slime! The full title, "Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime" came out the 19th of this month and has been met with large amounts of praise despite the orginal fears that the game was too "kiddy" for most of Square's audience.

In the game you control a rather unlikely hero, the lovable blue slime who often is debuted as your first random encounter enemy in the Dragon Quest series.

Rocket Slime deals with you, a humble slime named Rocket, trying to save his town after being attacked by Plob Monsters. The game is one part Zelda and one part Mecha-Combat, as the standard world events feel reminiscent of Legend of Zelda while the major fights incorporate large scale fortress-like mech's duking it out.

So if you can get past the somewhat childish visuals of the game there is a lot of fun to be had here. It certainly has more depth than most people have expected.








\\drew

GDC '07 to take the place of E3

With the demise of E3's status of largest video game exposition some other conference had to fill the gravitational void to suck in all those loaded gamers who needed the excitement. We now have word on which conference decided to pony up and take the reigns though it was not the one I was expecting.

GDC (Game Developers Conference) is heading into its 20th year as a primary meeting place for developers to discuss the current trends of the industry and all sorts of other workshops. This is basically what E3 used to be. Now they are claiming to be doubling their size to accomodate the E3 crowd as well.

"While it remains our primary goal to serve the game development community and ensure that the session-based half of GDC remains unchanged, we also believe it is time to dramatically upgrade the range of expo opportunities" said Jamil Moledina, executive director of the GDC.

Now, perhaps I'm just jaded and want this to fail, or maybe I just believe in the cyclic nature of time in that it repeats itself, but I'm guessing this is going to be the death of GDC as it becomes overbloated just like the prior iterations of E3 were.

I will laugh however if E3 becomes the new GDC (a respected conference within the industry for panels and discourse between companies) and GDC in turn will become the crowd opiate as the salivating gamer generation blows their hard earned money for a chance to see what's exciting and new.

Hopefully I'm wrong, but I highly doubt it.

Game industry article here

\\drew

One Badass cake

So, little does my girlfriend know, but when I get married, my cake is going to resemble this.
Best... wedding cake... ever!

More pics here

\\drew

Milk the Cow!

Rayman Wii, this crap worries me. You know, like why the "cow" has horns, and they are not milking milk, they are milking "cow juice" according to the guy.

Heaven help us that this is what we are to expect from first gen Wii games...

*shivver*

\\drew

Rumor mongering about Gamestop

Even after the release date for the Wii was announced, big profile video game dealers have yet to allow reservations on the new system.

A new poster has surfaced on the web basically saying that a customer will be able to reserve a Wii or a PS3 by trading in $50 gamebucks worth of used games. This in turn is requiring that customers are actually spending an extra $100ish on the systems as the amount of games required for that much gamebucks is fairly large.

The kicker here as that this doesn't even guarantee a system at launch, it merely gives you a spot on a list, so when they get to your number you can get a system.

Currently this is only confirmed in Guam and Hawaii, hopefully this doesn't hit US shores because this blatantly ass-holery of this company makes my blood boil. How full of themselves are they? I won't even touch on how their policy for trading in games is sticking it to the gaming industry, but now they are attempting to violate the anuses of their customers as well.

I'll be calling the local Gamestop today to see if the system is reservable and if so by what means. In turn I'll update here and let everyone know.

\\drew

Great Japanese Vending Machines!

I recently found this site with all sorts of images of Japanese vending machines. Some of these are great, I'm particularly fond of "designer condoms" and "fried food".

How many times have I've been in a subway and think to myself, "gee, I wish my penis was clad in designer jimmy hats and I was currently eating fried chicken."

See, this is one of the many reasons Japan is leaps and bounds better than the US, we have the chance of living this Candyland of joy but we refuse! Why!? I don't understand!

Oh, and don't forget about the used panties vending machine. People always assume I'm lying when I said they exist, but they are more than just a cooky designer's pipe dream, they are very real, and very very used. Now I find the idea behind this hilarious, and while I would personally never buy them (see: it's creepy), I say rock on for young girls bringing in enough money to fuel their anime and cigarette habits.

Full article here

\\drew

Digitally remastering a classic

Thanks to a fellow employee and faithful Trekie I caught wind of this new development in the land of Klingons and sexy blue space vixens.

Apparently to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Star Trek they will be releasing the original show again, only in a digitally remastered form, showing the original episodes in High Definition with newly orchaestrated music (though using the original compositions of the songs).

It's like a dork's wet dream.

They are slightly updating all sections of the show, including trying to toss some modern day pizazz into some of the old special effects, but not obscuring the previous ones as to not insight the most heated and angry blog/forum spamming the internet has ever seen.

While I was always more of a Star Wars guy myself (see: pre-lucas shitting on the world... aka Star Wars Episode 1-3) I can see where the appeal in this is. There is the nostalgic feel one gets while watching a show that brought the mysteries of the universe to them as a child that cannot be overlooked. Assuming that they do a good job this is possibly a way for newer generations (see: upper middle-class emo children who are the "depths of all sorrows") to once again relive truly epic and timeless tales.

I could now digress into a heated debate with the readers over who the better captain was, Kirk or Picard *cough* Picard *cough* but I don't feel like hearing a rant about the finese of the Kirk drop kick. So I will simply say we should agree to disagree and vote for Scott Bakula (see: Enterprise) I mean come on, the guy played Sam Beckett in Quantum Leap, how cool is that?

Full article after the jump.

\\drew

Pretty cool animation for those Little-Gamers

This is some pretty neat stuff, though I may be partial as I enjoy watching ninjas getting murdered.

\\drew

Rev up those importing fingers!

According to Nintendo the Wii will not be region specific like so many other systems, thus allowing for people to import games without fear of it not working on their system.

They will allow for the developers to determine if they want to regionally encode the games they are making, so unless the dev's feel like being mean yay!

Time to export all sorts of Japanese zaniness!

Unfortunately Nintendo also released the information that the Wii will no longer support DVD playback. The reasoning behind this was that Nintendo didn't want to increase the costs for the players.

So while I can't rely on the Wii to play my DVD's it does just about everything else I want in a video game system. Namely, play cool new exciting games, and play my old favorites, as well as imported games that fit a niche audience that I fall into that everyone else in the US does not.

\\drew

Wii Release Finally Confirmed.

Thanks to the recent Nintendo Media Event we now have an official release date and price for the Wii.

The newest Nintendo console will be hitting American shores and shelves on November 19th with the budget price tag of $250 and come bundled with a copy of the game Wii Sports.

There is a purported 25 titles for release in the US while Japan is scheduled to only see 16. This is quite interesting, especially when you add the fact that we will be getting the console itself about two weeks prior to them (their release is December 2nd).

They have also established the pricing for the downloadable classic games (downloadable via WiiConnect24). NES games will sell for 500 Yen (3 euro / GBP 2), SNES - 800 Yen (5 euro / GBP 4) and N64 - 1000 Yen (7 euro / GBP 5).

The games will be paid for via either credit card or pre-paid points cards.

The classic controller being released (used to play NES and SNES games) will be bundled early on with a purchase of a 5000 pre-paid points card.

All I can say after this is booya, I'm going to reserve my copy today. And if you know what's good for you you'll do the same. :p

\\drew

Dragon Quest Board Game

I should preface this article with the fact that we will never see this pretty slick game on our shores because we are the lesser loved video game culture by God.

The 20th anniversary of the classic RPG franchise Dragon Quest is quickly approaching and Square is diving full force into promotionary items to calm the masses and feed their addiction.

This new board game plays out something similar to Battleship, with both sides having treasure chests, blocks, monsters, the princess and the hero.

If anyone has a rule set for the game send it to me! I'm curious to see how the game flows as I will be scowering the web to find a copy prior to ordering it from Amazon.jp

More pictures after the jump

\\drew

Mahjong gets saucy

So I was playing my favorite matching small tiles game last night when I thought to myself... gee, you know what would make this game even better? Poly rendered boobies!

And it turns out that is it my lucky day! Thanks to D3, a Japanese publisher, I can play Mahjong with DoA style anime girls in bikinis.

The game, called something along the lines of Dokodemo Gal Mahjong revolves around gambling and playing the classic tile game. Between heated matches of the game you can customize the girls' costumes and have them engage in "service time" where they perform all sorts of tasks, ranging from the limbo to sweeping the deck of a boat. I mean, why not?

Christ those Japanese are wily, I love it. I would buy this game simply because it's the bastardized child of two seemingly unrelated things.

More images here

\\drew

New news on PS3 shipments

Previously I wrote concerning the number of PS3's to be present at launch. Well now Sony has stepped forwards with the rest of the information the consumer needs. Namely, how many 60gig versions and how many 20gig short bus versions there will be.

According to Sony 80 percent of the shipped systems will be the 60gig version leaving only 20 percent for the cheap-o versions.

This is actually a smart move on Sony's part, perhaps one of the smartest they've made in a long time. While I still don't believe the system will sell well, they are atleast realizing that if people are willing to buy the system despite the huge investment they are willing to get the trumped up version.

If I decide to be poor because of a game system I might as well spend the extra money and get a good game system, not some hacked down shell of a good system.

Well done Sony, I'll give you a thumbs up for this one. Now to see whether or not they actually get the systems shipped :p

\\drew

Patriot Day!

Ok, so today is official Patriot Day, in remembrance of those that died in the September 11th attacks of the World Trade Center.

This was a horrible event, and it will scar out society for countless generations, but I can't seem to rally behind the newly appointed name as it just doesn't seem to make sense.

Other holidays, like Columbus Day, make sense, because we're all "booya! Columbus found our home, thanks guy!" (ignoring the fact that he didn't)

This one just doesn't fit.

Patriot -
1. a person who loves, supports, and defends his or her country and its interests with devotion.
2. a person who regards himself or herself as a defender, esp. of individual rights, against presumed interference by the federal government.

The old name for this day was National Day of Prayer and Remembrance for the Victims of the Terrorist Attacks on September 11, 2001.

Ok, this name was too long, I get that, I just typed it and already forgot the name. I can see allocating a smaller vernacular phrase that still maintains the meaning like, "OMG a plane! Day" or "Our towers got F'ed in the A' Day".

All joking aside, I don't feel that the term "Patriot" should be used in reference to a day when we were blind-sided by a group of individuals who despise us. Likewise, the name chosen seems as though it could fit to the other side. The bad guys could call it this as well. That in itself should be a reason to never call it Patriot Day, but maybe I'm just weird.

Perhaps a better alternative should have been to name it something with more solemn connotations like "Remembrance Day", and not something that makes the day sound like a new spin on "Flag Day" and "Independence Day".

My two cents

\\drew

WoW gets a Newsweek note

Recently World of Warcraft hit the news thanks to an article by Newsweek reporter Steven Levey. His article revolves around the genre as a whole and how it has bounded into the lime light in numerous countries.

I think that my favorite sections come at the bottom of the article. First is a quote from Blizzard COO Paul Sams who says, "We are an incredibly profitable company." You can say that again Paul, judging by the boasted 7 million players worldwide and the $15 a month fee I'd say you're not scrounging for dinner at the local Cali soup kitchen.

Past this there is a quote from a random adult female professor.

"Ninety percent of what I do is never finished—parenting, teaching, doing the laundry," says Elizabeth Lawley (Level 60, Troll Priest), a Rochester, N.Y., college professor. "In WOW, I can cross things off a list—I've finished a quest, I've reached a new level."

The fact that the game appeals to such a wide audience is truly a feat in itself. It's very rare that you can play a video game with a 14 year old adolescent, still struggling to grow a beard and oxy-cleaning his face daily, and a 55 year old college professor taking a break between teaching Elizabethan Lit and Modern English Writers.

It's a crazy world we live in, but somehow WoW has managed to forge an unholy bridge. Well done.

Full Article Here

\\drew

PS3 EU commercial

It's interesting when the new PS3 commercials seem so much like the original PS2 iterations. As a coworker of mine Benny pointed out, replace the words "real time interaction" with "emotion" and you're left with the old commercials.

http://www.playsyde.com/stream_3001_en.html

Dubbed with the catch phrase "This is Living" Sony tries to convince the consumer that the PS3 will mimic reality more so than any of the other systems. Well, ignoring the fact that I'm an avid gamer, I will honestly say that gaming isn't living, it's taking a break from living. But maybe that's just me. Those 3 hours I wasted playing WoW yesterday? Yeah, I didn't paint a picture, didn't write a poem, didn't feed my dog, didn't touch my girlfriend. Those are all examples of "living" to me. Sitting down for a 40 man raid of a mythical Troll hideout is fantasy, and the world is passing by in the meantime.

\\drew

Great new toy ideas from Japan!

For those collectors of anime PVS figurines out there you can thank you lucky stars, namely Sega, as your dreams have finally come true.

The good people at Sega have listened to your rather pathetic cries and have created a new PVS figure with squishy breasts! Yes, that's right, no longer will the whole figure be made of hard and uncaring plastic. Now their silicate breasts will be soft to the touch, making all dorks everywhere get a little stiff in their britches.

Now virgins everywhere can pretend like they have a girlfriend and know what boobs feel like... wow... this is kinda scary. Now this is coming from me, a guy who's secure enough to say that anime girls are hot. Yes, I'm attracted to cartoons, I'm ok with this. Now would I feel up a 9 inch plastic figure? Hell no, that's the kind of thing that leads to being 40 and living in your parents' basement with 200gigs of asian pornography on your computer. Now I'm already half way to that, so I better not touch plastic boobies or I'm doomed to move back in with the parents.

As a side note, I'm curious why the toys are Rei Ayanami and Misato Katsuragi and strangely they leave out Asuka. It must be because she's the least endowed of the primary characters.

Full Article Here

\\drew

Loco Roco kinda?

So I'm not sure how this equates to Loco Roco being the happiest game on Earth, but it really reminds me of an episode of Barney and Friends.

Yeah, I've got nothing, I just feel kind of cold inside. Maybe I'll just forget about this video and play Loco Roco anyways. That may be for the best.

\\drew

Wii shipments reconfirmed

After Sony's explaination yesterday that they will be limitting their release of the PS3 around the world to only 2 million as opposed to 4 this year, Nintendo piped up to reconfirm the fact that they will be shipping 6 million.

Zing

\\drew

Three giants come together to form Voltron

Ok, well maybe not Voltron, but something equally as humongous. For those that haven't heard, Todd McFarlane, R.A. Salvatore, and Curt Shilling have come together to form Green Monster Games, a new video game studio based out of Boston MA.

Their plan is to develop a next gen MMO experience unlike any other. Same old spiel I know. The big thing here is that they are planning on splitting 50 percent of the company's profits with its employees. This is not as new of an idea as it would seem, multiple companies have claimed they would do this in the past, but to date no major companies have actually followed through with this for very long.

Todd McFarlane, best known for his work as creator of the Spawn comic series will be acting Art Lead. Salvatore, aka the creator of that Drizzt character, will be Creative Director, and Shilling, the pitcher for the Boston Red Sox and avid MMO player (see: EverQuest) is rounding out the trinity as President.

This is a fairly big meeting of creative bigwigs here, well, minus Shilling, but hey I can't knock him too much since he's the poster child of what gamers are typically not. Namely, rich, successful athletes. But again, he's shown that not all video game players are basement dwelling lurkers. So thumbs up Shilling, you've got my vote.

Personally this would be a great chance to work for some truly creative minds, though in part I feel bad for the lead design on their first project as I can't see these three very creative and opinionated individuals giving someone on the outside much leeway in the grand scheme of things, but maybe I'm wrong.

\\drew

PS3 Euro release pushed to March 2007

Sony held a press conference and announced that their new console will not be hitting the shores of Europe until March 2007 in an attempt to recoup numbers available in Japan and the US.

This is because they have had to cut back their original estimate of 4 million systems by the end of 2006 to only 2 million. Ouch.

Likewise, at release (November 17 US, November 11 Japan) Sony will only be shipping 400,000 to the US and 100,000 to Japan, leaving 1.5 million units unaccounted for coming into the last 2 months of the year.

I don't know how this one's going to work out, but I think shortages mean money, so I may try and get my grubby little hands on one and sell it on Ebay for some ridiculous price just like that $1300 XBOX 360 I saw go during the first week of that system's launch.

\\drew

PS3 will not ship with HDMI cables

The 60GB version of the PS3 coming out this fall will be HDMI cableless... yes, that's right.

Sony has been banking on the fact that their system is going to be visually stunning, despite the fact that the budget 20GB version lacks HDMI at all. But now, consumers who pick up the paycheck version of the console will be sad to find that they'll need to drive back out to Best Buy to grab (undoubtedly $20) new cables.

According to the official website "HDMI cable not included. Additional equipment may be required to use the HDMI connector."

For $600 this system better be able to eat my ass... and also perform every key system feature I expect directly out of the box. But apparently it's like a newborn baby, young, innocent, expensive, and requires additional cables to function properly. Yeah, so I don't know how the cables thing applies to babies, but I bet it does.... somehow.

As a cheery note, the PS2 price is being lowered in both Japan and Europe, so maybe us in the US will see a price drop on it. Buy the PS2 this Christmas, pick up Disgaea 2 and throw the extra $450 you would have spent on the PS3, the $20 for the HDMI cables and the $60 for a game into the toilet while tazering yourself in the grundle... Trust me, it's better this way, you'll thank me later.

\\drew

Crocodile Hunter gets off'ed by a fish

Media entitled "Crocodile Hunter" and animal guru Steve Irwin died this morning while snorkling at the Batt Reef, a 9 mile section of the Great Barrier Reef.

Apparently when bad weather canned his previous plans of filming sections for a new show of his called "Ocean's Deadliest" he decided to do some more child friendly recording and swam up on the wrong manta ray. While above it, the ray lashed out and plucked the life for the sorry sod with one quick barb prick to the chest.

Ok ok ok, let's slow down for a moment... This dude wrestles crocodiles! He's fucking insane! And he just goes out for some leisure swimming and gets f'ed in the a? So apparently he wasn't a bad ass at all, and crocodiles turn out to be wusses.

A fish... guy gets killed by a fish? I'm so depressed, I knew he would die young, but I was hoping for a climactic battle between him, 4 crocodiles, a python, and a ninja.

Full CNN article after the jump

\\drew

Possible Wii info finally revealed

September 14 is a date to mark on your calendars as Nintendo will be holding a press conference in NYC which will include hands on testing of the Wii. Word on the street is that Nintendo will finally be giving the product cost and release date at said event.

So basically this means I'll be sitting at Gamestop waiting to reserve it as soon as the date is dropped :p

*crosses fingers*

\\drew