L.A. Noire coming to the 360 on three discs

Original NXTGamer.com article
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May 6th, 2011 at 4:01 pm
The age of the Xbox 360 hardware is beginning to show, as reports from Rockstar tell us that the Xbox 360 version of L.A. Noire will come on three discs while the PS3 version will come on a single Blu-ray.

A representative of Rockstar told Kotaku:

“L.A. Noire was always going to be a massive game, from the size and detail of the world to the length of the cases, and of course, the sheer amount of MotionScan data required for the faces of over 400 actors in-game,” said Rockstar’s Jeronimo Barrera “To tell the story and make the game we wanted to make, we knew that it was going to take an entire single layer Blu-ray disc and three Xbox discs.”

“Since the game is built around the concept of progressing through individual cases from desk to desk, players on Xbox will find disc-swapping is hassle-free. In fact, players will only need to swap discs twice at natural breaks between cases without interrupting the flow of the game.”

This really does highlight the biggest difference between the Xbox 360 and PS3: Storage space.  Perhaps the new disc format Microsoft are testing just now will go some way to resolving issues like this but, with this game coming in at around 25gb and games growing in size all the time, it seems unlikely.

PSN back soon, but for how long?

Original NXTGamer.com article
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May 6th, 2011 at 3:29 pm
PSN users worldwide may be about to have their patience rewarded, however Sony are wary of further attacks to the service.

Sony have indicated that PSN is in the final stages of testing before coming back online, apparently rebuilt, although they have given no specific date for the service to return.

Sony stated:

"Today our global network and security teams at Sony Network Entertainment and Sony Computer Entertainment began the final stages of internal testing of the new system, an important step towards restoring PlayStation Network and Qriocity services,"

"As previously mentioned, we’ve been working around the clock to rebuild the network and enhance protections of your personal data. It’s our top priority to ensure your data is safe when you begin using the services again.

"We understand that many of you are eager to again enjoy the PlayStation Network and Qriocity entertainment services that you love, so we wanted you to be aware of this milestone and our progress. We will provide additional updates as soon as we can."

Soon after came the worrying news relayed by CNET that chatter on the IRC channel used by hackers suggested that another attack is planned on PSN this weekend.

Hopefully Sony's "rebuilt" service will be a little bit more resilient to these attacks than it has been over the past couple of months.

Mass Effect 3 delayed until early 2012

Original NXTGamer.com article
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May 5th, 2011 at 11:28 am
The much awaited culmination of the Mass Effect franchise, Mass Effect 3, has been pushed back to early 2012.  The delay was released via a post on the Bioware message board and Facebook page.

The team stated:

Mass Effect 3 will be released in the first three months of 2012. The development team is laser focused on making sure Mass Effect 3 is the biggest, boldest and best game in the series, ensuring that it exceeds everyone’s expectations.” – Casey Hudson, Executive Producer Mass Effect series

This is unfortunate news as I'm sure most gamers are very much looking forward to Mass Effect 3, but it sounds like it's for polish as opposed to "business reasons" (looking at you, Gears of War 3).  This will surely free up some time for us to play through the slew of new games that will make their 2011 release dates this year.  Use this time wisely, but keep your eye on the horizon!

In the mean-time click here to check out our review of the most recent Mass Effect 2 DLC 'Arrival', which bridges the gap between Mass Effect 2 and 3.

Source: Giant Bomb

4oD and ITV player coming to Xbox Live?

Original NXTGamer.com article
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May 3rd, 2011 at 3:23 pm

If Broadcast’s “unnamed insider” (via Tech Radar) is to believed, Microsoft will be changing it’s tone soon and allowing both ITV player and 4oD services to grace XBOX Live.

As it stands Sky Player is the only current way to watch TV programmes on the Xbox 360, providing both live TV and On Demand programmes and films via a monthly subscription.

“It is taking a progressive view and opening up the platform to a number of people,” said the “unnamed insider”.

“Broadcasters are interested in securing a presence on Xbox because they have all seen how well Sky has done from the distribution deal. And there has been an internal shift to making it easier for them to get onto the platform.”

Last year the BBC attempted to bring the BBC iPlayer service to XBOX Live but the deal never went through due to Microsoft’s insistence that the service would be for Xbox Live Gold members exclusively.

These services have been on the PS3 for a while now, excluding Sky Player.

Pokemon Video Games Championship Series 2011 details released

Original NXTGamer.com article
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April 28th, 2011 at 1:01 pm

Calling all Pokemon enthusiasts, The Pokemon Company have announced the dates and details of this years Pokemon Video Game Championship which will exclusively feature the recently released Pokemon Black and Pokemon White games.

Kicking off in Birmingham on June 4th, the Pokemon Video Game Championships will make it’s way across Europe stopping in Spain, France, Germany and, for the first time, Italy before heading over to the U.S.  In Europe this year the competition brings an increased number of competitor slots, alongside a new system of age division and revised age brackets.  Age divisions now separate into three age categories, Junior (born in 2000 or later), Senior (1996, 1997, 1998, 1999) and Masters (1995 or earlier) with competitor slots increased to 256 for Junior and Senior divisions and 512 for the Masters division all based on a first come, first served basis.

The top eight finalists in each division from each of the five European locations will earn guaranteed competitor slots at the 2011 Pokémon World Championships.

European dates and locations for the 2011 Pokemon Video Game Championships:

June 4^th, Birmingham, United Kingdom—National Exhibition Centre, Hall 8

June 11^th, Rome, Italy—Fiera Roma, Hall 12, Ingresso Nord

June 18^th, Madrid, Spain—IFEMA, Hall 1, Feria de Madrid

June 25^th, Paris, France—Espace Grande Arche, Parvis de La Défense

July 2^nd, Cologne, Germany—EXPO XXI Köln GmbH, Gladbacher Wall 5

Once the Pokemon Video Game Championship Series is done with Europe it will move to Seattle on the 14th before making its way through 5 more major cities across the country.  In each city the top 16 players from each division will have earned invitations to compete at the 2011 Pokemon U.S. National Championships between July 8th and July 10th in Indianapolis, Indiana.  These players will then battle to secure a top eight finish over the weekend to receive a guaranteed competitor slot in the 2011 Pokemon World Championships.

As well as invitations to the World Championships in San Diego, top players in Europe and in the U.S. will receive travel allowances, special medals and Pokémon prizes.

U.S. dates and locations for the 2011 Pokemon Video Game Championships:

May 14^th, Seattle, WA—Washington State Convention Center, Hall 4B

May 21^st, San Jose, CA—San Jose Convention Center, Exhibit Hall 2

May 28^th, Dallas, TX—Arlington Convention Center, Grand Hall

June 4^th, Atlanta, GA—Gwinnett Center, Hall A and B

June 11^th, Washington, D.C.—Dulles Expo Center, South Hall

June 18^th, Newark, NJ—Meadowlands Exposition Center

2011 Pokémon World Championships:

August 12^th–14^th, San Diego, CA*—Hilton San Diego Bayfront

For more information on the 2011 Pokemon Video Game Championships click here for the official website:www.pokemon.co.uk/vgc.

Indie Reviews [26/11/10]

The Deep Cave

In Lim- I mean The Deep Cave, you play as a small boy in a bleak world consisting of platforming and...well... More platforming. Lured into this cave by a bright light, the main character Pi believes there is some sort of power at the bottom of the cave. This narrative is fed to the player through fourth wall breaking dialogue between Pi and the the supposed player (although I'm almost certain I don't talk like that). The caveat of The Deep Cave is punishing difficulty. In the first 6 levels I died around 55 times, and I know that because it tells you how many times you've died when you die. It's an aspect that makes it glaringly obvious that the whole point in The Deep Cave is hairpulling, shirt-rending difficulty and brings up memories of VVVVVV or Super Meat Boy. The music is good though, if not somewhat ill-fitting in places and the platforming is nice and precise. 80msp.

BlurBall

If you still enjoy the odd game of Pong you may be interested in Blur Ball. What Blur Ball essentially is, is Pong with more balls, neon visuals, varied maps or Arenas, and the ability to choose the shape of your paddle.
It's a really fun game, but unfortunately while it has AI, it doesn't have online multiplayer. 80msp.

Space Police on Superhighway 9

Space Police on SuperHighway 9 is like a mixture of Road Fighter and the racing section from Chrono Trigger. You speed up Highway 9 dodging civilian cars in pursuit of criminal cars, which you then ram until they die. These cars can also damage you depending on where you ram them. It's quite a fun little game, nice and simple. 80msp.

Monsters Elect

This is a top-down shooter much in the vein of Loaded/Reloaded. You aim with the right analogue stick and move with the left. The controls are unconventional to the point where I had to look at the control hint screen before I knew how to shoot (by pressing in the right stick).
The writing would probably be funny to a twelve year old bit it just grated on me. Not bad for the asking price, but you could do alot better. 80msp.

Table Soccer X

If you've ever played Table Football, or Foosball, you'll know what to do. This is an exact virtual recreation of a Football Table, with the struts you spin and push/pull to control your players assigned to the analogue sticks. It's enough fun and there is decent AI but without online multiplayer you'll need to have a willing friend to get the best out of this. 240msp.

Jetpack Man

Jetpack Man would be more aptly named Jet Pac-Man, or Pac-Fish. Essentially a Pacman clone (incase you didn't guess from that) where you play as a fish escaping from various dangers, which depend on what stage you're on.
In between stages there are Bible verses (don't ask me why) always to do with fish...If you can't afford Pacman Championship Edition DX then give this a shot. 80msp.

A Game You Can't BEAT

It's true that I can't beat this game but then again I wouldn't want to. You select one of three balls, you then roll through the environment toward the right of the screen and the only thing you need to do is jump over obstacles.
Of course it's a little bit more complicated than that, if you collide with anything you need to start over again. 80msp.

Valet Parking

An interesting little title. Valet Parking sets you out in the role of a a Valet, parking peoples cars for them. Cars will appear on the right side of the screen, you will then need to park them. After a while the owner will want their car back (they're handily wearing a top that's the same colour as the car), so you drive their car to the exit. Rinse, repeat. You have a stamina bar and Hunger bar, and you need to take rest breaks and lunch breaks to refill them. 80msp.

Super Janitoroid

Quite an ambitious game, Super Janitoroid tasks you with cleaning up monsters from the environment.
One of the most striking features, is that almost everything is rendered using photographs which gives the game an almost scrapbook charm. It's a shame the frame rate is heavily inconsistent. 80msp.

They just don't get it...

Be Advised: This article may contain spoilers. Specifically for recent release COD: Black Ops.


It seems like every other day some parent is shouting about violence in video games and how disgraceful it is that their child plays such things. I’ve always wondered what has tricked these parents into forgetting that they’re in charge of their own kids. If you don’t want your child to play it; take it away, or don’t buy it in the first place. Often in GAME or a Gamestation I’ve witnessed elderly grandparents and young hip parents alike agreeing to buy their kids games like Modern Warfare 2 and Gears of War. This used to enrage me and I’d just assume that these people were stupid, hated their children, or were just bad parents.

Recently I’ve come to realise that they just don’t know, and that it’s just too hard to say no without a good reason to back it up. For example I doubt very much that any non-gaming parents will know about ‘No Russian’ or the gruesome chainsaw action in Gears of War. Will they have witnessed Ice Cube being beaten brutally to death in Black Ops? If this really is the reason then we need to show them exactly what they’re allowing small (and big) children to see and do.



The roots of gaming are in the ridiculous. When I was a child all the games I played were about running to the right until you beat the level, occasionally jumping on enemies to get them out of your way. In those days the High Score was king and the story of a game was borderline non-existent, they didn’t have the cinematic qualities of modern titles. Back then games were about competition and wiling away the hours doing basically nothing except having fun. Games are different now; nowadays games are more of an art form than ever what with having the ability to convey a powerful story. I can say that I’ve never been moved by a film as much as I have by a game. Some would say you can’t really call them games any more as they’ve evolved past that, but I still prefer ‘game’ over ‘interactive Experience’. My point is that the older generation still think gaming is as simplistic and harmless as it was in the days of Sonic the Hedgehog and Super Mario World, and it really isn’t.

Last night while playing through Call of Duty: Black Ops, as I smashed a window and pushed broken glass into a man’s mouth to interrogate him, I had a thought. While, as an adult, I can rationalise this action (e.g. this man has information that will save millions of lives but he won’t give it to me) a child will have a much harder time in doing that. I know a few kids whose parents let them play this stuff and one of them asked me if I’d reached “That airport level in Modern Warfare 2”. So I said yes, and he proceeded to tell me how much fun he was having mowing down Russian civilians, how great it was that they weren’t shooting back.

This shocked me to some degree; when I played through ‘No Russian’ I felt like a horrendous and evil person the whole way through. I fired at most two bullets, to put two ailing civilians out of their misery, before the riot police showed up and even then I tried consciously to hit them in the legs. It was readily apparent to me that I had become the bad guy. With whatever good reasoning I had contributed to such an act (albeit virtually) of slaughter and boy did those genius’s at Infinity Ward get me good.

It’s been shown over and over that kids learn what ‘normal’ behaviour is by what they see in others. It’s a documented fact that children who grow up in abusive environments are more likely to be abusive when they grow up and so on. This will sound as if I’m saying that violent games teach children to be violent, but that’s not the case. I think they do desensitise children to a point, and that they effect what is perceived as normal behaviour but the negative behaviour patterns still need to be there for a child to turn bad. Like with the glass chomping scene a mentioned, an adult will understand fully what’s happening in this situation whereas a child will see a man having glass pushed into his mouth and just see it for what it is; a man having glass forced in to his mouth.



Whether we like it or not we are constantly being bombarded by messages, and lifestyles, and advertisement and all of it gets in at some level. When I was a child my Mum was very strict with me and I’m happy about that. I’m GLAD that she held me back from seeing/playing things that weren’t right for me. I wasn’t happy about it at the time, but I fully appreciate that she did the right thing.

Parents are in charge of their children, children are the responsibility of their parents'. How they grow and develop is almost entirely in their parents' hands. Remember that just because all the other kids are doing it doesn’t make it a good idea, the hard decision is usually the right one.

Next time your child is bothering you to buy them a game, or a DVD, or a comic, remember to take in what exactly it is they want you to buy for them. Decide for yourself whether you think it’s right for your child keeping in mind Age Ratings are there for a good reason. It’s in your child’s best interest for you to show an interest in their growth. Just for the love of God stop buying this stuff for them:

This is probably one of those undercover controversial subjects, anything to do with parenting often is. So I thought it would be a good move to express not only my own views but also the views of others, including parents, on this subject.

When asked "Why do parents buy violent video games for their kids?"

Dan Bendon (Parent)

Because they don't understand or don't care. Both are inexcusable as a parent.

Laura Rich (Parent)

Maybe they do understand and don't think the games are bad for their kids.

Sources:
Social Developement in children - Kids Developement.co.uk
The Impact of Videogames on Children - Palo Alto Medical Foundation