^That's true. (what Robio said about free online play going away).

Listening to the hotspot podcast, Tom McShea said he has an excellent weekend but can't talk about any of it (but can next week).  Later on he bemoaned Wii Party and then got really excited about Mario Galaxy 2 (then quickly shut up).  So I think we can expect a high score on that one.

Ravenprose said:

Used game sales a bigger problem for the industry than piracy

“Arguably the bigger problem on consoles now is the trading in of games.  I understand why players do this, games are expensive and after a few weeks of playing you’ve either beaten it, or got bored of it so trading it back in to help pay for the next seems sensible when people are short of cash.  So while retail may be announcing a reasonable season, the money going back up the chain is a fraction of what it was only a few years ago.  This is a much bigger problem than piracy on the main consoles.” - Blitz Games Studios co-founder Andrew Oliver

Suck it up.

Ravenprose said:

Pachter weighs in on EA's 'Online Pass' approach to used games

"I think it's brilliant, and don't think that it's intended to "battle" used sales.  The concept is simple:  as gamers migrate to heavier online play as a part of the experience, the publisher needs to be compensated.  If the gamer is the original purchaser, the publisher gets paid when the user buys the game; if the gamer is a second-hand purchaser, the publisher currently does not get paid.  With Online Pass, EA is ensuring that second-hand purchasers will pay something for the maintenance of the server network and for access to premium content, since they extend the costs of providing these services.  Yes, I think it will become the norm at the major publishers, and think that EA is charging too little... - Wedbush Morgan analyst, Michael Pachter

It's not battling used sales. But it is a measure to make money from second hand sales?

Foolz said:

How was Blood on the Sand and Harvery Birdman?

 Blood on the Sand was a solid 8.  It was well executed, over-the-top in places, great soundtrack and some unique elements.  Okay, one unique element, and that was a crazy scoring system like The Club had.  Downside was lack of variety in settings.  I played the PS3 version.

Birdman is essentially a Western version (comedy wise) of Phoenix Wright.  Except for being easier than a usual entry in the Ace Attorney series it was identical.  I had no knowledge of the source material and enjoyed it none-the-less.  I played the PSP version, I understand the Wii version is no different.

Updating now.

Wow at this:

Gamecentral review of the day

Alan Wake

Review by David Jenkins - Remedy Entertainment haven't made a game since Max Payne 2 in 2003 and they didn't announce this until 2005.

It's not too hard then to imagine where the idea of a novelist going on holiday to escape from a bout of writer's block might have come from.

What is hard to envisage though is how a game this simplistic could have taken anyone five years to make.

The game starts with Alan and his wife arriving in a small U.S. town clearly meant to be reminiscent of Twin Peaks.

After picking up the keys to their cabin from what looks like the old woman out of Silent Hill, Mrs Wake gets abducted and Alan finds out the island the cabin was on sunk 40 years ago.

All of this though is preceded by a dream sequence in which the game's basic mechanics are explained.

The problem with the dream tutorial (apart from it looking exactly like the rest of the game and not like a dream at all) is that the basic combat introduced doesn't change one iota right up until the end of the game.

All the bad guys are possessed humans who can't stand bright light, so to beat them you shine a torch at them to burn off the excess "dark presence".

At this point you can just shoot them.

The only enemies that aren't possessed townsfolk are the odd flock of birds and a small line in demonically possessed furniture and vehicles.

You can use flares and flashbangs to take out whole groups, and shotguns and a limited use flare gun are introduced later, but essentially your abilities are carved in stone from the start.

To make matters worse the setting is almost exclusively dark woodland.

The combat is perfectly entertaining but the complete lack of any sort of genuine variety is perverse.

The game was originally implied to feature an open world environment, but this is no longer the case. Although you do occasionally get to ride in a car for some short sequences.

The graphics are okay, but there's lots of pop-in and the facial animation (for which a patch is incoming) is poor.

Obviously the story is meant to compensate for all this but all it comes down to is a simple tale of yet another incompetent ancient evil.

For a game based on a novelist the writing is worryingly hackneyed and despite an ever present narrator the voiceovers are run of the mill.

The script never embarrasses itself but the characters are thinly sketched cliches that you never care about.

Despite its lack of substance we never resented the game - perhaps because on Normal it's so easy to breeze through.

You're always told exactly where to go and what to do, often with narrator help like: "The Viking ship looked huge and powerful, almost like a battering ram". This in a small barn whose only useable object is a switch that clearly controls the battering-ram-to-be.

You won't need GameFAQs for this one.

Far too easy and repetitive to be scary and too ineffectual and predictable to be treated as a serious narrative, in the end this is simply Max Payne with a torch (but no bullet time).

The only worry is the thought that the episodic structure has been used purely to promote downloadable content.

The chances of anyone hanging onto the game for more than the weekend it takes to beat it seem slim, however.

IN SHORT: For a game five years in the making this is a disappointingly trivial and repetitive actioner.

PROS: Decent atmosphere and effective, if inconsistent, visuals. Fun combat and the pacing never slows too much.

CONS: Repetitive almost from the first instant with no variety in gameplay or enemies. Basic dialogue and plot.

SCORE: 6/10 Out: 14/5 (UK)

gamingeek said:

Also you guys read this from yesterday?

Suda51 & Mikami game is 'half complete', due out next year

"It absolutely still exists. It has been named, which I can't reveal yet. But they are still absolutely working on it - they're probably about halfway through the game. How would I describe it? I mean, if you follow Suda at all, you won't be surprised to hear it's mad genius in the horror genre. And hopefully we can continue to build on his reputation such that his games get appreciated by more and more people. I think sometimes when sometimes when someone gets a reputation for developing games that are a little bit out there, the interest in their specific games is smaller than it should be - it gets labelled as 'niche'. His designs are really, really creative and he thinks differently. In this world of making games we need more people who think differently." - EA Partners boss David DeMartini

 Yeah, didn't get my hopes up yet.  I'll wait for the date.

In other news, I thought this was a good theory thrown out by Tom McShea today.

He says that Rare/ Nintendo should have held Perfect Dark to the launch of the GameCube.

This would have resulted in a game much like the one recently re-released on XBLA coming out at launch on the GC (instead we got what? Luigi's Mansion and a Wave runner game).  He thinks that the build up in hype for the next game from the Goldeneye folks would have given Nintendo a boost in sales and skewed their image away from being perceived as a "kiddie" console.

It also would have served the game better and given an answer to Halo (his theory, not mine).

I don't know if it is a good enough game to have changed the course of gaming history because when I played it on the N64 I quit after 30 minutes because it was so damn choppy, but then I guess that makes his point that it should have been held for the GC.

In any case, it's at the end of the Hotspot podcast if you want to hear it explained properly.

aspro said:

gamingeek said:

Yeah, didn't get my hopes up yet.  I'll wait for the date.

In other news, I thought this was a good theory thrown out by Tom McShea today.

He says that Rare/ Nintendo should have held Perfect Dark to the launch of the GameCube.

This would have resulted in a game much like the one recently re-released on XBLA coming out at launch on the GC (instead we got what? Luigi's Mansion and a Wave runner game).  He thinks that the build up in hype for the next game from the Goldeneye folks would have given Nintendo a boost in sales and skewed their image away from being perceived as a "kiddie" console.

It also would have served the game better and given an answer to Halo (his theory, not mine).

I don't know if it is a good enough game to have changed the course of gaming history because when I played it on the N64 I quit after 30 minutes because it was so damn choppy, but then I guess that makes his point that it should have been held for the GC.

In any case, it's at the end of the Hotspot podcast if you want to hear it explained properly.

Meh, it was great on N64. Rare should have just made a decent sequel on cube instead of Starfox Adventures.