Category: Gaming

Any gaming post.

50 worst game names ever

You see them, and you wonder WTF the marketing folks were thinking. For example:

wild_woody.jpg#45 – Wild Woody – Wild Woody was also the the star of this game, a bright yellow No. 2 pencil that threw sticks of dynamite. Welcome to the mascot graveyard.


and

princess_tomato.gif#43 – Princess Tomato in Salad Kingdom – And then pretty much just skip the salad course, because this vegetable-themed adventure game had no meat. On the other hand, you gotta see the melons on that tomato.


Just a small taste of all the horrible goodness that is bad gaming naming.  Some more possibly unintentional p0rn names made the list for the games.
[tags]Worse games names, Bad names for games[/tags]

Burning Crusade delayed

News to exactly zero of the people who have ever waited on a game from Blizzard to ship is this release that World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade has been delayed until January 2007. Over the past 17,000 years, Blizzard has shipped, I believe all of NO games on time. I could be wrong about that, but if any have shipped on time, the number is a sufficiently small percentage of their releases to be considered a statistical sampling anomoly and not an actual indication that Blizzard can ship games at a date in the vicinity of the announced ship dates.

Blizzard Entertainment(r) today announced that the release date for World of Warcraft(r): The Burning Crusade(tm), the highly anticipated expansion for World of Warcraft, will be in January 2007. By adding a few extra weeks to the development cycle beyond its original target date, Blizzard will be able to extend the closed beta test and further refine the new content that will ship with the game.

Oh, and throw in a couple of TMs or Registered trade mark, or some other fancy legal symbols up there in my post. I’m sure someone somewhere might think for just a moment that my posting about the company Blizzard, which has produced mediocre console games, excellent PC games, and a number of vaporware titles over the past 20 or so years, will somehow be mistaken as talk for the company Blizzard which I own or some crap like that. Likewise for the game title – it ain’t my game, so throw in some official looking legalese markers of some sort there. Bleh.

[tags]Oh surprise – Blizzard delays a product launch, Burning Crusade delayed[/tags]

PS3 gets FCC approval

Well, the PS3 has received FCC approval. This means all that stands between you and a PS3 on launch day is, well, having the $2500 it will take to buy one off ebay, since I’m sure you’re not one of the lucky (fewer than) 500,000 in the US who got a pre-order in on time AND who will actually get their pre-ordered product on release day. But at least there isn’t a regulatory issue holding up the product now. (via Kotaku)

[tags]PS3 gets FCC approval, PS3 meets US electronics safety requirements – gets approval for release[/tags]

Next gen console analysis from a normal (-ish) gamer

I don’t have a lot to add to this. Head to Dubious Quality and read what Bill says about the next-generation console shoot-out (that would be XBox360 vs PS3 vs Wii). His is probably the smartest analysis of what will happen I’ve seen. He could be wrong, but given how well he understands the entire gaming industry, I’d place higher odds on his being right than any other analyst or business I’ve read yet.

Okay, let me get this straight. The Wii is going to sell barely more than half the units of the other two consoles even though it’s significantly cheaper and offers an entirely unique control scheme which will encourage developers to be more creative. Oh, and the development costs are much lower.

WTF?

[tags]A look at the next-gen console wars through 2010[/tags]

More PS3 woes? Sixaxis controller not well-received

The folks over at IGN got their hands on the Playstation 3 and came away with this impression:

Compared to Microsoft’s uber-comfortable Xbox 360 pad, the SIXAXIS feels cheap, plasticky, uncomfortable and disconcertingly light – almost as if it’s going to fly out of your hands during those more extreme gaming moments.

More worrying still, the newly-designed lower L and R shoulder triggers feel more like they belong on an early controller prototype than the near-final model. Replicating the 360 pad, rather than being simple shoulder-mounted buttons, the triggers are now hinged horizontally along the controller, with pressure forcing them inward along the bottom – like triggers then, really.

So given the troubles we’ve heard about all year with the PlayStation 3 – the pricing issues, the Blu-Ray delays, the early inventory shortcomings, and so on – does Sony really need more negative press on this console? I’m still hoping for a sudden burst of awesome for something PS3 related. The more competitors in the console arena, the better the systems and games for us gamers. I suppose we’ll see come November when these start selling for real. (via Kotaku)

[tags]PlayStation 3 controller woes, A hands-on impression of the PS3 controller, Sixaxis controller worries[/tags]

Direct X 9.0L is Direct X 10 for WinXP?

Well, that’s the news I’m getting from The Inquirer.  And I’ve found things there to be right so often that I pretty much take them as true.

WE MANAGED TO glean a few facts about the upcoming DirectX 9.0 L we told you about here.

DirectX 9.0 L is simply a renamed and refurbished DirectX 10 for Windows XP. It will make DirectX 10 games to work on Windows XP.

And games such as the upcoming Crysis won’t work on the existing DirectX 9.0 c. they need a DirectX 9.0 L

Slightly more to the article (but nothing that matters) if you care to head over and read it all.

[tags]Direct X 10 for WinXP[/tags]

Nintendo reveals possibly final bit of Wii puzzle

WTF? The latest feature Nintendo is revealing for the Wii is Mii? Yes, Nintendo is letting the world know that on the Wii, you can now have Mii, and each Mii is specific to each me, for each channel. In other words – custom avatars.

After months of secrecy, Nintendo unveiled the Wii’s remaining features at a series of press events around the world last month. In addition to the much-rumored prices and release dates, the system’s last secret was revealed to be the Wii Channels system. Key amongst the various channels is the ability to create your own virtual avatar in teh Mii channel, and play that character in titles like Wii Sports.

But hey, you can have a custom avatar in each Mii channel, so when you are playing Super-Party-Combat-Fight-Game-Mario 8, you can look different than when you are playing Ninja-Fighting-Robot-Pirate-Monkey-Puzzle-Stealthfest 3. And yes, I totally made those games up. I want a Wii, stupid name be damned. And Nintendo does some hella fine games, honestly. I think the Wii is going to do quite well over it’s lifetime. But touting avatars which can vary per channel seems a bit questionable as a great big super-secret feature to me.

[tags]Nintendo Wii to feature Mii, Wii avatars variable across channels[/tags]

Play Midway arcade classics online

Play some of Midway’s old arcade games online via Shockwave.  Ten games are available, such as Tapper and Spyhunter.  Also available is Sinistar, often considered one of the hardest arcade games out (up there with Ghosts ‘n Goblins, I believe).

[tags]Play Midway arcade classics online, Shockwave versions of Midway arcade classics available online[/tags]

PlayStation 1 emulator for the PSP

(via Engadget)

What’s a hacker going to do with a new gadget? The thing to do now-a-days seems to be either try to get Linux to run on it or get an emulator to run on it. In the case of the PSP, a hacker going by the name Yoshihiro has released a beta of PSX-P, a PlayStation 1 emulator for the PSP. There’s even a YouTube video showing off the emulator. So the hacking community has apparently beaten Sony to the punch on releasing a PS1 emulator for the PSP.

Now for the bad news on this. Some research on the released binary have shown that PSX-P is based on the PCSX emulator, which has been released under the GNU General Public License (GPL). While this means the software can be used for a derivative work like PSX-P, it also means that PSX-P cannot legally be released without also making the source code available as well. Furthermore, PSX-P also contains code from P.E.Op.S. and SDL, two other GPLed software packages. This means that you might have trouble finding the PSX-P binary until source is released, as many people in the emulator community believe strongly in the GPL and will not provide software based on GPL code until the source for the derivative software is also provided.

Additionally, the emulator currently only runs about 10 frames per second. So more tuning and tweaking will be necessary to get this to at least 30 FPS, with even higher framerates desireable to allow for more complex games which might otherwise slow down too much to be playable. And finally, you’ll need to track down SCPH1001.BIN, the PS1 BIOS, in order to use the emulator. To actually play a game, once you have the BIOS you will need to rip your PS1 CD to an ISO image to put on a memory stick.

So there are some obstacles to using this emulator, assuming you can track it down. But if you get it, you can be the first geek on your block playing all the cool PS1 titles on your PSP.

[tags]PlayStation 1 emulator for PSP, Play your PS1 games on your PSP[/tags]