E3 2009
We’re off to LA, this Sunday we’ll be arriving in the lovely congested and smog-filled city known as Los Angeles. We’ll start updating then, check back here for all of our E3 coverage.
Posted By: Cory Jacobs
Valve, we luvz you again!
There are few moments in my life where I feel my words have mattered. Coming home today and booting up for what was sure to be another night of painful grinding in TF2, I encountered one of these such moments…
Continue reading…
Posted By: Cory
Guess What's Not Coming to E3… EVERYTHING!
So it’s come to my attention that the Golgotron Empire is pretty much the only interesting thing coming to E3 this year. I have this horrible vision of Alon, Josh, and myself wandering, hand-in-hand, through the dark corridors of the Staples Center searching for that lone Korean RTS to have braved the swine flu. Losing Dead Rising 2 this year was a huge blow for me, and then Jaffe deciding to shove his head up his ass and not show his new game *cough, cough* Twisted Metal… I’m kind of thinking E3 is going to be a huge let down yet again.
We’re still a good two years from any significant hardware announcements so software’s all we’ve got. I was anticipating a rather strong lineup of sequels, to pad the obviously weak list of new franchises coming out. But it seems the developers have other things in mind. The closer we get to leaving, the less hyped I’m finding myself. Sure, we’re still going to get blasted and challenge Olivia Munn to a naked tricycle race, but who’s not going to be doing that. Unlike Rich, for me, E3 has always been about the glitz, the glamor, and the hype. Rumors are fun. So much of my day is spent antagonizing over the mechanics and pitfalls of a game or the industry, that it’s nice every once in a while to kick back and just enjoy getting caught up in the moment. Just to remember how fun games can be. E3 has generally been that release for me, and right now, I’m just not feeling it. Here’s a list of things that aren’t coming, and at least a few things that I’m a little stoked to see:
The “Swine Flu” list! :
Dead Rising 2
Twisted Metal
PS3 Slim (Sorry Rich, it’s real ‘ight!)
Atari
The “New” Kingdom Hearts game
Still Slated to Show!:
Lost Planet 2 (… WHAT? I LOVED THE MULTIPLAYER ON LP!!! You wanna fight?)
Borderlands (cell-shaded, post-apocalyptic, sand-box, three hyphenated words ftw)
God of War 3
Whatever the fuck Kojima’s doing…
Half-Life 2: Episode 3 / Portal 2 (Maybe ??? Preez?)
Sony’s new phone (OOoooo PRETTY…)
Anything can happen, and I hope I get there and am completely blown away. Obviously there’s a lot more coming, and probably a lot of things I’m pumped for and am forgetting… So, we’ll keep you guys posted. Remember to check back all week as we get some things done in the “City of Angels”.
Posted By: Cory
Lions and Tigers and Bears OH MY!
330 res MS warr LF 3s or 5s pst need points tonight.
If you could understand the last sentence, you need help. Yesterday, while perusing through the amazing gaming blogosphere, I noticed many sites had pictures of some bears. Since I couldn’t really give two shits about stupid digital bears, I skipped those posts and searched out anything that involved cleavage. Or any part of the breast in general. Anyway, you don’t need to know about my usual surfing habits. Today someone messaged me about those stupid bears, I still had no clue what they were talking about so I put on my investigation cap and went to work. As it turns out, Blizzard is coming out with new bear models for Tauren and Night Elf druid peoples. And I’m not even kidding.
So, who the fuck cares? I didn’t know there were a ton of complaints about the bear models in WoW. The game isn’t really known for its graphics in the first place. Well, apparently a lot of people care because there is a fucking 62 page forum posting about it on the official WoW forums. Let’s read some excellent posts from it:
I teared up when I saw this. Thank you so much.
The blue bear gave me a rubbery one.
- Yassita
I don’t think he’s kidding either, hardcore WoW players can only achieve erections when thinking about Wow. It’s a known fact, WoW is Viagra to them.
Hi Nethaera,
Thank you very much for your recent posts highlighting the upcoming changes coming to druid forms. Firstly, I am very pleased and excited as this has been long overdue. I really want to thank the team behind these changes for their decision and work in creating the new look.
You have no idea how I have yearned for these changes and can now, finally, enjoy being a druid. Our ‘forms’ are an integral part of what defines us and of late we have often been described as ‘ugly.’ We are ‘shapeshifters, keepers of the world and “masters of nature.”‘
I’m not sure if you have time, but I have a question in regards to the design of the forms, it would appear that the team are staying true to the original style of the forms, e.g. Dire Bear has had a touch up but ultimately still looks in line with its original style. Is that the approach Blizzard is taking for the other forms as well? That doesn’t bother me too much, though I can see some problems developing for perhaps Cat and the infamous Owl. Unfortunately, Moonkin form is very ugly and the ‘proton poultry’ is in desperate need of a diet, it’s just way too fat.
Can we expect changes to Travel and Aquatic form down the track or have they not even been considered?
Also, swift flight form was a master piece, the style and look, and still currently looks amazing in Wrath of the Lich King. The last thing I had to say was I think a lot of people wanted some way of reflecting their progression with gear through their forms, e.g. armour – bear getting bigger/stronger looking, tree with added glow- extra foliage, flowers, moonkin with special coloured feathers, glowing aura, and cat form- more ripped and muscular. Hopefully this can be implemented for those that want it and also perhaps interfacing an option to ‘hide gear on form’ for those that want to keep their bear, cat, tree and owl looking unchanged.
Finally, thank you again for the decision to improve our look; it is very ‘REFRESHING’
Kind Regards
Gezzenegger
I’ll be honest, I didn’t even read this fucking one. I can guess two things, he talks about stupid bears and he’s complaining about something or another. YOU WROTE ALL THAT ABOUT FUCKING BEAR MODELS, I want to stab him through the internet.
I’m not “wow’d”, that’s for sure. I appreciate that they took the time to put in some new colors for feral and might eventually make some color changes for resto/balance, but for the amount of work they made it seem they were doing, I was expecting some higher res models.
It’s like you’re talking about how all you want for your birthday is a big stack of waffles with bananas and walnuts and whipped cream. Your bf spends the whole year saying “oh you’re gonna LOVE what I’m making for you for your birthday. It’s just gonna floor you.”
You start thinking, “omg maybe this year he’ll propose to me and I’ll get breakfast in bed with the waffles i want and a mimosa and maybe a foot rub too!” The truth is, you’d be happy with a card and an “i took the trash out and did the dishes. i love you, happy birthday, but you would at least really like the waffle.
Now, all this time you are imaginging your waffle breakfast in bed, and it’s more wonderful in your head each day as it gets closer to your b-day. In the morning you wake up, wait in bed for a little, and then venture out to find that the amazing birthday breakfast is a few pancakes dyed with food coloring, served on last nights dirty dishes, with a keystone light left over from the weekend.
So yeah, nice effort on the bears, it’s an upgrade thanks, but does this mean that for each tier of content we’re just going to get a few new colors to choose from?
- Aramel
Okay this one is written by a chick so I actually read through it. She talkes about waffles and getting foot rubs, only to discover she was served colored pancakes. I guess it makes sense if you’re a chick who plays WoW; WoW chicks are 80% crazier than normal chicks. This is a scientific fact, and we all know how crazy normal chicks are on a daily basis. I mean they’re fucking insane. Just talk to one. Oh that’s right you won’t because you’re playing WoW. What a vicious cycle.
What I really love is when I read a post BASHING the update to the bear models! You’ll always find these people in Official Forums, mouthbreaters who hate all change and feel it necessary to point out how everything old is better. The game is half a decade old, you’re lucky they updated the stupid bears in the first place. Not enough colors? Mad that the bear will match your hair? Shoot yourself, you complain too much about things that do not matter AT ALL. Did you hear that California held up Prop 8 in court? Have you even heard of Prop 8? What’s the name of the Supreme Court Judge Obama just nominated? Did you know GM is going bankrupt?
You could argue that video games in general are trivial in comparison to those topics, but we’re not even talking about video games. We’re talking about the models of bears in WoW. If you read that they updated the bears and your reaction is anything but, “meh”, you need serious fucking help.
Posted By: Cory Jacobs
May 27, 2009 
0 Comments
Review: Kitten Jump – iPhone
Today we’re looking at ‘Kitten Jump’, the ultimate feline platformer available for the iPhone (or iTouch if you’re not so cool). First off, if you’re reading this and you don’t have an iPhone, fuck off. I’m glad we got that out of the way.
Kitten Jump is a simple game, you jump on clouds in order to increase your score whilst moving towards the heavens. For each cloud that you jump on you gain a point, while jumping on butterflies doubles your score. The clouds also start moving horizontally and get smaller the higher you go, so the game requires quite the dexterous thumb. Also, by thumb I mean your goddamn thumb and not your stupid index finger; people who play with their index finger or the accelerometer are douches. I’m sorry, I didn’t make the rules, that’s just how they are.
Let’s go over the categories you see in every game review:
Playability: a million.
Sound: I’ve never heard it, I give it a 10.
Graphics: I like ‘em, half a billion for that.
Re-Playability: Don’t be an asshole.
Overall Score:
That’s 7 floating cat head cursors for those not in the know. Also I forgot to mention all these scores are based on a scale of 1-6.3.
So now I would like to show you some screenshots and describe what is going on. Yes I ended that sentence with a preposition, and I’m not changing it.
Here we have the opening screen. While you do have the choice of turning the sound off, you are only allowed to use ‘finger control’ as your control method. We went over this, don’t be a douche. Also notice the fantastic graphics, our feline friend is in front of the sun riding a motherfucking cloud. On a side note, it also looks like the cat is about to give some lucky bloke a BJ, which is very disturbing.
Now we’re in the game, the menacing clouds drop slowly to the surface while the awesome intro text tells you what’s up. We now get to view the in-game graphics which are just as fucking awesome as the title screen. Look at those clouds, the rainbow, the fucking sun. At this point you realize you’re about to rape some clouds.
I am now in the process of raping clouds. The cat might look a bit blurry, but that’s because it’s moving so goddamn fast. Also note that I fall down after every screenshot, it’s a bit hard to take screenshots and play the game at the same time.
Oh shit, I’m about to totally rape that butterfly. DOUBLE POINTS SON. Also note that I am 33 stories into the air.
Look how tiny those clouds got, I’M SO HIGH I’M ABOVE A HOT AIR BALLOON AND THE SUN. This game is extreme.
Beat my top score. Go ahead, I’ll wait. So what’s up with you lately? Jumping on clouds? Oh what’s that, you can’t? Thought so.
When this game first came out I got it for free because I am a master of the App Store, now it costs $1.99. But get this, HALF OF THAT GOES TO THE MEOW FOUNDATION. Yes, I was as suprised as you are right now that there is a Meow Foundation, but that shit is legit. I’m pretty sure they do something with cats. Anyway, if you want to check it out go here.
Posted By: Cory Jacobs
CoD 4 Hits 13 Million Xbox LIVE Users: I Call Shenanigans
Recently it was “announced” that Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare has reached 13 million unique users on Xbox 360. As you might of gleamed title, I call shenanigans. Community manager of Infinity Ward Robert Bowling (a.k.a. fourzerotwo) was on the Major Nelson podcast talking about Modern Warfare 2 and a little bit about CoD 4. The two were talking about multiplayer and success of CoD 4 and Bowling mentioned that they have reached 13 million users on the Xbox 360, here is the full quote:
The thing we learned about the most, probably, is how much focus goes into multiplayer. I mean Call of Duty 4 on Xbox LIVE just exploded. I mean right now we’re at 13 million unique users on 360, and that’s insane.
Really Bowling, 13 million users seems way off no matter what angle I look at it from. At least clarify things: I don’t know if he means actual Gold memberships that actually play online, LIVE accounts that have played the game at all, or even Silver accounts playing single player.
First off, as of CES earlier this year, it was reported that there were 17 million active Xbox LIVE accounts and that is including Silver memberships. Let’s be nice and say they have 20 million users today, and let’s be even nicer and say that half of those are Gold accounts. That brings us to 10 million Gold accounts, though the real number is probably closer to 6-7 million. Even if every single person with a Gold account has played CoD 4 online, it still doesn’t add up to the 13 million that Bowling stated. I think we can safely assume the 13 million has to include silver memberships in the mix.
Secondly, let us look at sales of the game itself. Estimates show game sales at around 7.5 million units for the Xbox 360 version. Unless you don’t know any fucking math, 7.5 million is a lot less than 13 million. I can think of three ways to end up with more people having played a game than were copies sold: videogame rentals, borrowing from a friend, or a roommates sharing one copy amongst multiple gamertags. I have no way of calculating the number of people who have played the game through these methods, but does it really equal the missing 5.5 million people?
The only way that the 13 million is anywhere close to believable is if we use cumulative numbers since release of all Gold and Silver members that have played the game either online or single player, and include people who have rented, borrowed, or used their roommate’s copy at some point. Only then does the 13 millions seems slightly feasible, with the emphasis on slightly.
Everything else aside, my greatest grievance with the magic 13 million number is how it’s being covered by the rest of the intrawebs. The magical number is being spoken as gospel by various sites out there on the ‘net, and one even had the stones to compare it to Wow for godsakes. So, to all of the videogame news sites and blogs that just feed the PR machine without pointing out the blatant bullshit, fuck you.
Posted By: NamelessTed
Pre-E3 Rumors – I Hate Them
Every year when E3 rolls around crazy rumors start going around like wildfire on the internet, and it’s really fucking annoying. I will be the first person to tell you that I love the hype surrounding a game, but the super secretive shitty rumors that are created the few weeks before E3 are just stupid.
Anybody that thought the ZuneX pictures were real for a second are morons. That thing is just a 1st Generation Zune mirrored to make the screen bigger, and then they put xbox controller buttons and the fucking PS3 d-pad on the thing. I suck at photoshop and I could do that shit.
Then there was the leaked images of the PS3 Slim. It is obviously just some Chinese company trying to make a fake PS3 just like they do with everything else. Even entertaining the idea that there will be a slim PS3 at this point is absurd. They won’t come out with a smaller model until the regular HUGE PS3 is down to $200 or less. Also consider that the Engadget Japanese office received a Cease and Desist order from a personal gmail account, which just adds to the ridiculousness of it all. People need to think for one second before they believe this kind of bullshit. If anybody was going to be coming out with a smaller form factor console it would be Microsoft, and even that is extremely unlikely.
Also, if any sort of screenshot or video is released and it doesn’t come directly from the publisher or the developer, be skeptical. I know the Project Trico looks great and all, but none of that video looks to be gameplay and the kid looks like he is straight out of a PS2 game [Editor note: Rich is alone on this one]. I’m not saying that it is a fake video, it seems pretty legit, I am saying people need to stop believing everything that they see.
Joystiq put together a little bingo card for E3 predictions for Microsoft, and it sounds like they will be putting together more cards for Sony and Nintendo as well. Some of the predictions specified are legitimate and reasonable to make, I would assume that between Crackdown 2 and Forza 3 at least one of them will be shown, if not both. If Mass Effect 2 doesn’t get shown off it would be a huge disappointment, but announcing an Xbox Slim or a Blu-ray drive is even less likely than announcing MGS4 on 360.
There isn’t much time until we find out which rumors are right and which are wrong. E3 is less than a week away, unfortunately I won’t be attending but Golgotron will be represented by Alon, Josh, and Cory next week. For those of you in the same boat as me, you should head over to GameTrailers.com as they will be streaming the major press conferences the first couple of days, and I am sure they will have plenty of video to watch as it becomes available. I am hoping that Josh takes a bunch of booth babe pictures for us to post for your viewing pleasure next week.
Also, GameFork can go blow a herd of goats.
[update]
Joystiq just published a new article with their Sony bingo board here.
Posted By: NamelessTed
