ZIZZY’s blog

While gaming may not be one of the Mac’s strengths, it’s about to get two very important games - according to Mark Rein, vice president of Epic Games, Gears of War and Unreal Tournament 3 are coming to Macs. You can see the video where it’s revealed on GameTrailers.com, or watch the important part which I’ve embedded above.

Gears of War had been an Xbox 360 exclusive until recently when it was announced for PC - and now Apple, one of Microsoft’s biggest competitors, will have it too. While details may be sparse, and there are plenty of questions (Will it include the extra content? When will it be available? What will the requirements be?) just the fact that one of Microsoft’s biggest games is coming to the Mac is a pretty big deal.

[Via TUAW]

The Church of England is threatening Sony because a cathedral was used in the “ultra-violent computer game” Resistance: Fall of Man without their consent.

Resistance: Fall of Man, which has sold more than one million copies, sees a virtual shoot-out between rival gunman with hundreds killed during a gun battle inside the cathedral in an orgy of blood

Church leaders see this as a “desecration” of Manchester Cathedral, and think Sony’s use of it is “sick.” They aren’t just complaining though, they are threatening legal action if their demands are not met:

The Church say Sony did not ask for permission to use the cathedral and has demanded an apology and the removal of the game from shop shelves - otherwise legal action will be considered.

So far Sony has only ignored them, but they’ll have to deal with it eventually. Personally I think the Church is making a big deal out of nothing, and so this is one of the few times where I’m actually siding with Sony.

Bungie’s latest Weekly Update talks about everything from changes after the beta to custom Forza Motorsport 2 cars. However, the part I found most interesting was the final details on the various packages Halo 3 will be available in. When Halo 3 releases on September 25th, there will be the two Editions besides the standard one - and here are the details on everything you’ll be getting depending on which one you buy:

Read the rest of this entry »

David Doak, the co-founder of Free Radical, says that Haze won’t hold anything back as far as cursing and berating the player go:

I don’t think you will see in any other game points in the narrative, in cut-scenes or cinematic gameplay moments, where people are calling you a pussy - telling you that you’re not with the program, that you’re a liability to the team

Basically, they’re taking the online gaming experience of people shouting an endless stream of curse words, insults, and complaints that you aren’t doing good enough and injecting it into the single-player. In Haze, you don’t get a moment of silence no matter what you’re doing. At least it won’t be seven year olds who don’t even know what the words mean, right?

Early this morning a multitude of new information was revealed about Halo 3 due to an article in Gamepro. The user who found it included plenty of pictures, but unfortunately they were very low resolution and not great quality.

However, more have now been posted, and this time they are full scans, and are much higher quality. Halo 3 is shaping up to be a very good game, and every new bit of information makes it look even more awesome.

Here they are, 14 glorious pictures of the biggest game this year (click them for high resolution):

Read the rest of this entry »

A user by the name of Go32111 has gotten the newest Gamepro (Issue 226, July 07), and it is full of information on Halo 3. Fortunately, he posted it all for everyone to see. There is plenty of information on weapons, vehicles, maps, and customization, and even some that was until now unrevealed.

First, the weapons:

Magnum - The Magnum is much improved since Halo 2, dishing out slower, more punishing shots. But it’s still not back to Halo 1 strength, as the clip currently carries just eight rounds and you can’t zoom in. Still a nice, precise choice for dual-wield combos.

Energy Sword - The infamous Sword gets two tweaks aimed at balancing its overwhelming power. One change is a brief weapon-switch delay. The second adjustment is more controversial: the Energy Sword now has an ammo meter that depletes with each attack, which keeps players from hoarding it indefinitely.

While those weapons certainly aren’t new, they have changed and will be very different in their new forms. Vehicles is where it really starts to get interesting though:

Read the rest of this entry »

Details have been scarce on Epic’s next project, Unreal Tournament 3 - but the newest issue of the Official Xbox Magazine contains some very interesting new details on the Xbox 360 version. Gears of War had what was in my opinion some of the best online co-op ever, and Epic looks to raise the bar again by having 4 player online co-op and 2 player split-screen in Unreal Tournament 3’s single-player. There will also be plenty of vehicles (something Gears was severely lacking), with 18 total and 5 turrets.

While it is made by the same developers of Gears of War, it’s still a very different game. The art director for both games, Jerry O’Flaherty, says that “Gears is a more confined game. UT is about big, huge distances. The speed of UT is so quick; it’s not a walking environment, it’s a running or flying environment,” while lead designer Steven Polge kept it short and concise saying only that “it’s Gears on crack. Cover is for wimps!”

Read the rest of this entry »

The Sims is a very boring game. What could possibly be less entertaining than doing all the mundane actions of everyday life, with the only reward being a bigger virtual house or a nicer virtual piece of furniture? For some reason I can’t begin to comprehend, the Sims is still the best selling PC game ever. And it’s about to get a lot worse.

Not to be outdone by anyone, the geniuses at 20th Century Fox have decided they want to create the worst video game movie ever and so have purchased the rights to make a live-action Sims film.

I’m not sure how they expect to translate such a dull game into a movie. I’m no movie executive, but I honestly can’t see how a two hour movie of people peeing, eating, and buying furniture is going to make any money at all.

Seriously, this is the worst idea for a video game movie ever, possibly even the worst idea for any movie ever. What the fuck is Fox thinking?

There has been plenty of new info in the last few days on Ubisoft’s upcoming RTS, EndWar. However, it’s the newest bit that seems (at least to me) most interesting and intriguing. EndWar will have more than just a name in common with some of Tom Clancy’s most popular games - the main groups will be featured in it. It makes sense that the very best would be involved in the next World War, and “the different elements of the Tom Clancy universe can come together in different roles.” From the elite soldiers in Ghost Recon to the members of Rainbow Six to the Third Echelon from Splinter Cell, people from all over Tom Clancy’s games will be there to fight in World War III. Micheal de Plater, creative director at Ubisoft, has the details:

The Ghosts…actually appear as elite forces in EndWar’s armies. Some of the members of Team Rainbow, the European guys, also end up as military commanders and Third Echelon brings the intel. So it’s really an over-arching story that sees many different genres and points of view come together for World War III.

This could really be awesome. While the gameplay will obviously be very different from previous Tom Clancy games, having bits of the story and setting from others will make this game really interesting. It’s the closest thing to a combination of everything Tom Clancy has done so far, and as more information trickles out it is looking like it’s going to be a very good game.

What do you do if you’re developing a game and it’s not getting enough attention? Most would feverishly promote it, or have a contest, or send out information like videos and screens. Not Free Radical though. They chose to skip all those steps and go straight to the approach that guarantees gamer’s attention - insult a bigger game. Not just any game though, since everyone is excited about Halo 3 they decided now was the opportune time to strike. Haze scriptwriter Rob Yescombe explains, revealing that next-gen is not about game play, graphics, entertainment, or anything like that, but instead about age:

While Halo is brilliant, you’re a teenager - the next-gen is about becoming more mature…in Haze you become an adult

Not content to just stop after that display of Adultism, he adds on some more Halo-hate:

It’s about what’s happening in the world today - it’s ludicrous, and how can you make something that doesn’t reflect that? Well, you could bury your head in the sand and make Halo 3, but the fact of the matter is there are more important things at stake

Read the rest of this entry »

So far this week there has been plenty for Halo fans, with Halo 3 taking the spotlight. However, it is not the only game, and its less known and sometimes ignored sibling Halo Wars was feeling left out. Not content to let Halo 3 have all the fun, Halo Wars wanted attention. So while everyone was waiting for the Halo 3 beta, an update was posted in the Halo Wars forums:

Read the rest of this entry »

One of the most anticipated games ever has now been given an official release date. While until now we’ve only had the beta to count down to (7 hours to go…), we now have a much more important and exciting date to fantasize about. September 25th, 2007 - the day Halo 3 is released (or for those of you in Europe, an entire, painfully long day later).

Stores will be over run, riots will break out, guns will be drawn, chaos will ensue, records will be broken, and the PS3 will continue to fail. Millions of gamers across the country will collectively cream their pants - if they haven’t already just thinking about it (I am not ashamed to admit that I have). Don’t bother changing your pants now, because this is just the beginning - you’ll be going through many pairs when the beta begins tomorrow. I’m going to go and imagine that I’m having sex with the Halo 3 logo, but if you can resist temptation hit the jump for the full press release.

Read the rest of this entry »

If you want to stream anything from your PC to your Xbox 360, there are a number of options - unless you’re using a Mac, in which case Connect360 is the only simple option. However, the newest 360 dashboard update disabled Connect360.

Luckily, it didn’t take long for Nullriver, the company who makes the app, to fix it - and add on some nice new features while they’re at it. It’s now been updated to version 3.0, and added support for H.264 and MPEG4 video streaming to the 360, along with Podcast streaming from iTunes.

With this update here are all the formats you can stream using Connect360: Pictures (from iPhoto): JPEG, RAW, GIF, PNG, BMP and TIFF. Music (from iTunes): MP3, AAC, WAV, AIFF and Apple Lossless. Video: WMV+WMA, H.264 and MPEG4. If you’ve got an Xbox 360 and a Mac, this is a must have. Forget AppleTV, this is the way to stream all your porn right to your TV.

There are a lot of things that can tear married couples apart. Drinking, having sex with anyone besides each other, arguments, the list goes on. While many people who have marriage problems just deal with them, they have to draw the line somewhere. There are some things that are just too much. For example, taking your husbands precious Wii and hurling it into a lake. Breaking it would have been bad enough, but throwing it completely into the water? That abominable act is exactly what a man recently had to endure. He details his wife’s insanity in an e-mail received by Kotaku yesterday:

Buying a Wii was a big deal for me. Seeing those 250 hard earned dollars and some change go flying from her hand and into the water was painful. We would probably be together right now if she had not thrown my beloved Wii… but alas, you cant talk a crazy woman out of an idea of such magnitude.

She’s lucky she is still alive after committing such an act. Her husband decided to go easy on her though, and is merely seeking divorce:

Anyways, divorce is imminent. I’m talking to a lawyer tomorrow to get the process started. I’m not divorcing her just because of the Wii throwing. That was just the rather large straw that broke this dromedary’s back.

Now, without a wife, all that is left for him to do is play with his Wii alone. Pun definitely intended.

You may have played NewsBreaker before, where you destroy blocks and attempt to catch the falling news stories from MSNBC.com. Now, this game is coming to movie theaters where the audience will work together to play it. And as if a few loud, annoying movie goers who stand up in front of you, can’t seem to sit still, and generally disrupt your peaceful theater experience wasn’t bad enough, now the entire audience will be participating. The press release (found after the jump) explains:

“NewsBreaker Live combines live msnbc.com RSS newsfeeds, the movement of the audience as a human joystick, and the big screen as a game board to bust audiences out of their pre-movie doldrums with an interactive game that delivers real-time news headlines to kick start the moviegoing experience”

The audience will move as one to control the game and break the blocks, using “groundbreaking motion-sensor technology” they call “CrowdGaming.” The news headlines they try and catch will come in real-time from MSNBC.com, so not only are you trying to get points, but to “accumulate knowledge.”

While this does sound like it could be more interesting then the usual stream of repetitive advertisements and useless movie trivia (along with annoying songs in the background) that plasters most screens before the movie, it sounds like the kind of idea that might not actually work as well as it appears on paper (or in this case, on your screen). Even if the game actually picks up the crowd’s movements accurately, there will be groups of people who choose to play the much more entertaining game of ruining everyone’s fun by moving in the wrong direction and failing to catch anything.

[Via Kotaku]

Read the rest of this entry »