Poor Jimi, he must be twisting and puffing in his grave right about now, to see what became of his musical legacy. As it turns out on CBC News (via Eurogamer), two of his songs - "The Wind Cries Mary" and a live version of "Purple Haze" - will be playable in the upcoming Guitar Hero: World Tour game, when it's released this autumn. And more will be added through downloads at a later time.

On the other hand, it was about time! Having several Guitar Hero games without the legendary Jimi Hendrix was a bit of a paradox. Even though, as EG points out, a cover of "Spanish Castle Magic" was previously featured in the series' first installment, and Guitar Hero III also had an avatar which looked a lot like him. Now, at last, he's officially denigrated.


Hey Joe, where you goin' with that Guitar Hero peripheral in your hand

Tired of chasing around little sisters on your old, rusty, and filled with God knows what bodily fluids keyboard? Fear no more, friends, for both PSM and Electronic Gaming Monthly combined (they are a sort of Captain Planet) will feature cover stories in their next issue, regarding the fact that Bioshock, the game that put “pedo” into “pedophile” (except Japanese visual novels, of course), is paying a visit to Sony’s next-gen console.

So, what will this version bring new to the table? I guess, nothing much. Some graphical improvements here and there, tweaks, blah blah, but I expect nothing groundbreaking. Just the fact that you will mindlessly steer through Rupture via a gamepad, not a keyboard. Fascinating. According to EGM, we should see this new Bioshock out on the store shelves somewhere around the 2008’s holiday season.

Personally, I’m pretty curious, as always when it comes to ports, about the controls. Really.

As I have stated before, along side good ol’ Uwe Boll, Jack Thompson is one of my favorite characters related to the gaming industry. He is a fascinating man, with strong, yet terribly unnatural beliefs, who still thinks, after years of practice, that all the world spins around his misconceptions. Well, too bad for him, it seems.

Game Politics, a website that also loves Jack Thompson almost as much as we do, tells us the story of a Florida Judge who decided to… recommend Mr. Thompson as guilty for no less than 27 counts of misconduct. In other words, if the Florida Supreme Court is sane enough to say yes, Jack is screwed. Initially, there were 31 such counts, most of them (21, to be more precise) are related to his infamous epic-fail crusade against Rockstar and Grand Theft Auto, while others hint at his (again failed) attempt to “convict” Bully of being a major suck-ass game.

I guess it all started with that kid who went rampage and Starfire-critted two police officers and one dispacher, an indeed sad event followed by a lawsuit, in which Thompson represented the victims’ families. The kid was playing, amongst other games, GTA, and Jack quickly assumed that this here title, and only this, is the sole unquestionable reason for the murders.

We are passionately awaiting to see the results of such great events. Hell, we should probably start to write a script for a Jack Thompson-inspired soap opera - until then, we’ll leave him in his medicine’s care.

As we like to say, when we are actually sober and NOT disregarding other people’s opinions, “tastes may vary”. And they may vary a lot. Styles vary, also. Big time. So I tend to find it a bit strange when two big bad ass producers, like Bethesda Softworks, and the younger, much fresher, not yet infested with the “my idea is better than yours” syndrome, Splash Damage, decide to join forces, in an attempt to… well, to do some stuff. What stuff, we have yet to discover. They probably don’t have a clue about it, either.

It’s useless to mention what Bethesda is famous for, but I will restate what it will be Infamous for. Fallout 3. The game that, according to my awesome Nostradamic predictions, will suck so much ass that even the greatest ass sucker in the world will have to bow down and let others do his job. As for Splash Splashidy Splashie, their recent title, Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, along side with their very deep friendship with id Studios, says it all.

They obviously intend to do some serious business regarding the gaming industry, but the actual details regarding their future project will not be revealed as soon as it may seem. Let’s just hope for something big, something nasty, and for the love of God, please, no more Oblivion crap. Fallout 3: Oblivion Copycat is enough to fail for ten years to come, already.

Arigatou, 1UP.

As of today, the new president of Sony Computer Entertainment's Worldwide Studios (SCE WWS) is Shuhei Yoshida. "Who?!", you might ask for various reasons, and I wouldn't blame you. For various reasons. Luckily, for all of us ignorants who haven't been following Sony's constant leadership changes over the past couple of years up close and personal, they provided us with a quick bio of Yoshida-san, which we're generously copy-pasting below.

"Yoshida joined SCEI in 1993, and was one of the initial members in establishing the PlayStation business. He was appointed Producer of the Product Development Department in April 1996, and joined Sony Computer Entertainment America Inc. as Vice President of Product Development in April 2000, where he held various positions in product development, producing many global best selling franchise titles. In February 2007, Yoshida was promoted to Senior Vice President, US Studios, SCE WWS."

Commenting on the appointment, the group's CEO and president Kaz "Riiidge Racer" Hirai said that "SCE WWS will accelerate the software development for the PlayStation 3 and PSP platforms and vigorously expand the gaming market", under the leadership of Yoshida. Yeah, like, ganbatte!


Habemus President!

The salesmen from Sony Computer Entertainment are over-pleased with themselves, for their impressive achievement of having shipped over 50 million games from the Gran Turismo "racing and car-life simulator" franchise. And because they obviously did all the hard work themselves, they're barely mentioning the series' developing studio - Polyphony Digital - just once in their pompous communique.

The series began in late 1997, so the 50 million shipments, spread over a 10 years (and 4 months) timeframe, would average to nearly 5 million Gran Turismo games shipped every year; and presumably a very solid percentage of that sold, too. It would be interesting to see a similar figure from EA's Need for Speed franchise. Wanna bet which one would come on top?

For old times' sake, here's a list of all the Gran Turismo games and "prologues" released over the years:

Gran Turismo - December 23, 1997
Gran Turismo 2 - December 11, 1999
Gran Turismo 3 A-spec - April 28, 2001
Gran Turismo Concept 2001 TOKYO - January 1, 2002
Gran Turismo 4 Prologue - December 4, 2003
Gran Turismo 4 - December 28, 2004
Gran Turismo 5 Prologue - December 13, 2007

Oh, and a big-big personal thanks from Gran Turismo producer Kazunori Yamauchi, to all the fans out there. I've only been one for a year or so (since the NFS series is going nowhere fast), and I don't have a single shred of regret for switching over to Sony's team.

"I would really like to thank all the fans who have supported the Gran Turismo series over the years, for all their passion and love of the game. We’d like to continue making every effort to create cutting edge, high quality games, so that we don’t disappoint anyone’s expectations."

Old news are best served with a bit of catch-up, and so we return to some of the stories we missed a few days ago due to excessive WoW'ing *cough* various reasons. Having successfully tackled the sci-fi and fantasy RPG sub-genres (and post-apocalyptic, if we think about their good ol' days at Black Isle), the dudes from Obsidian Entertainment (KotOR 2, NWN 2) are finally trying their hand at their first original IP. They call it Alpha Protocol, "a thrilling new espionage role-playing game set in the modern world", which CEO Feargus Urquhart also says will blend "Obsidian's knack for intricate stories, engrossing characters, and significant character advancement with fast-paced modern combat". (...)

 Continue reading 'Alpha Protocol Is Obsidian's New Spy RPG'...

I can almost hear Stephane Grappelli's jazzy violin already...

- The 360+ MB Crysis patch 1.2 is finally up for download. But it has issues. And also some dedicated (albeit beta) nVidia drivers.

- "We have no plans to have in-game advertising in StarCraft II", says Blizzard via Blizzplanet. Well, they have no plans for announcing the next Diablo game today, either. But that doesn't mean it's not there...

- Dark Sector has just gone Gold, and is now ready for releasing in North America this March 25 on the PS3 and Xbox 360.

- Capcom dismisses Resi 5 date rumours, the ones placing the release of Resident Evil 5 in October 2008 (just before Gears of War 2). So it might only come out in early 2009.

- Huxley, that MMOFPS nearly gone vaporware, was featured this week in an IGN preview saying that Webzen plans to release the PC version by the end of 2008, followed about six months later by the Xbox 360 version (which will take place 50 years later, but will still have "cross-platform interaction" with the PC version, oddly enough).

- Each game from the Orange Box package - Portal, Team Fortress 2, and Half-Life 2: Episode One + Two - will be available as separate PC titles at retail on April 9, as confirmed by Valve on Joystick. Too little too late.

- Europa Universalis III: In Nomine announced for this summer (or some time before it). It's like an expansion for another expansion, since it will require the Napoleon's Ambition add-on, and the idea for it was born on Paradox' forums. Sounds... promising...

- Various WiiWare games were announced lately, but the vast majority of them look like pure, double-distilled shit. One exception is LostWinds (which we covered last month), and another one will hopefully be Lit - a 3D horror action-puzzler coming from WayForward (Contra 4, Shantae), which I found out about on Gamasutra.

- The U.S. Air Force wants 300... Spartans? Moonkins? Nope, PlayStation 3 consoles. Awoo! Awoo! Awoo! They're supposedly "conducting a technology assessment of certain cell processors", and the PS3 is perfect for playing while on-duty their top-secret research.

A noteworthy announcement just came in from Codemasters. Together with developer Blue Omega Entertainment, they offer the first details and screenshots for a third-person action-shooter called Damnation (apparently based on a former UT 2004 total convertion mod of the same name). It will be the first in a planned franchise that will make its debut on the PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in late 2008.

They are billing it as a "shooter gone vertical", seemingly due to its huge, open environments, each covering miles of distance and thousands of vertical feet. "These massive streaming landscapes will form the battlegrounds for a post-industrial conflict between humanity and an unstoppable arms dealer hell-bent on total world domination", the story goes. Visually inspired by iconic elements of American history (not America again!), Damnation also promises to feature frenetic combat, daredevil acrobatics and high-octane vehicle-based stunts ("from motorbikes capable of launching across seemingly infinite chasms, to huge, armour-piercing marvels that will induce mayhem with every huge shell"), with up to 3 hours of actual gameplay... per level! But no, I have no idea how many levels there will be.

More details after the screenshots.

 (...)

 Continue reading 'Damnation 'Shooter Gone Vertical' Announced'...