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As if the existence of a game that mixes traditional Japanese Taiko drumming with modern pop songs on a Playstation 2 weren’t bad enough, the game’s plastic drum and drumsticks are apparently child killers. Check out item number one from the mammoth warning label on the back of the box:
Do not allow children to put the drum sticks in their mouth or bite them. Do not allow children to poke their eyes with the stick or hurt themselves otherwise.
Taiko Drum Master [Namco]
Maybe making SS Nazi guard action figures isn’t such a good idea, even if they are based on characters from a computer game. Just a few weeks ago Plan B Toys staunchly defended their decision to market the dolls based on the Nazi Totenkopf from Call of Duty. My favorite quote:
“That division was involved in some terrible things but wasn’t everyone during World War Two? It’s just history.”
After that idiotic statement, the toy company decided to cut their losses and pull the mini-Nazis from store shelves.
US toy company discontinues Nazi SS guard action figure [The Jerusalem Post]
Since I’ve got a backlog of 30-plus games sliding off my desk, I figure some reviews are in order. Not your typical takes-forever-to-read-and-imparts-all-the-gritty-details reviews, mind you. Hell no. These babies will be pint-sized at most, and I’m calling ‘em Haiku Reviews. They won’t always be literal haikus, but I reserve the right to rock the 5-7-5 format as I please. Look for the debut tomorrow morning,when I provide a joyously short-winded look at Metroid Prime 2.
Filed under PSP
Electronic Art’s Need for Speed Underground 2 has gone gold for all consoles and will be shipping Nov. 15. Heck, it’s not just golden, it’s in my house. I just got a pre-release copy of it like 10 minutes ago. I’ll try to take a quick spin through the game’s 125 miles of different neighborhoods tonight and give you a quick impression tomorrow.
Gold: Need for Speed Underground [Gamers Hell]
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Filed under PC
Always look a gift hack in the mouth. A program is making the rounds on the Internet which promises to unlock preloaded versions of Half-Life 2 and let you play it early. Instead, the hack steals your log-on details and password and shoots it off to the little shit that released this trojan on the world. I’m thinking there must be a moral to this story, but I’ll let you figure it out.
Half-Life 2 unlocker warning [PC Boomtown]
Filed under PC
Billboard Magazine named City of Heroes the PC Console Game of the Year and Multiplayer Game of the Year at this year’s Digital Entertainment Awards. The hero-infested massively multiplayer online game by NCsoft beat out a slew of top notch contenders. Among the list of losers are Prince of Persia, Somcom II: Navy Seals, and Unreal Tournament 2004. The awards shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who actually played the game. After all, it allowed a sea of Clark Kents to hop into the tights of their favorite heroific creations for $15 a month.
Digital Entertainment Conference and Awards
Filed under Xbox
I’ve got some more details on tonight’s Halo 2 release festivities, because I know you can’t live 30 minutes without updates on the Xbox shooter. More than 7,000 stores are planning Midnight Madness events around the country, with Toys “R” Us Times Square hosting the largest hootenanny. Technically, the events won’t qualify as hootenannies, since there won’t be any folk-singing and/or line-dancing. But, damnit, I’m gonna use that word.
Halo 2 Plans to Sell Out by Midnight [Xbox Advanced]
Long lost in the shadows of games that don’t suck, edutainment giant CMY Multimedia has decided to fight back. The company is best known for their line of endearingly horrible educational games that feature pictures of colorful wizards and non-descript children. In an effort to suck all of the fun out of gaming, CMY is hosting a “Day of Non-Violent Games” or — as I like to call it — a “Day of Crap” on Nov. 20 in Irvine, Calif.
Day of Non-Violent Games [Dream Station]
Filed under PC
Geeks of the world unite, EverQuest II has shipped. The sequel to Sony’s massively multiplayer online mega-hit already has 100,000 pre-orders in the bag. They also have hordes of robe-wearing, uber-geeks lining the hallways of the nation’s malls in anticipation of getting busy with a comely lass or buxom elf.
Ships Ahoy – Everquest II [Blue’s News]
Filed under Xbox
The ass-kissing has officially started. A slew of Halo 2 reviews are up and about, with the overwhelming majority saying that Bungie’s latest shooter is a perfect 10. Never mind that all of the reviews found some faults, it’s perfect damnit! Those Halo-haters over at Gamespot gave it a mere 9.4. Hey G-spot, don’t hate the game, hate the playas.
Has Halo 2 lived up to the massive hype? [Evil Avatar]
I was just thinking that there aren’t nearly enough bad movies out there. Watching The Incredibles, Hero and Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow in the space of a few months has me taking good film-making for granted. It’s important to sprinkle some crap like in with the spectacular, and Capcom is apparently looking to fill that role. So far they have lined up three good games they want made into bad movies. On the flopside — I mean flipside — they hope to turn some good movies into bad games.
Capcom plans further moves into movie business [Games Industry]
Filed under Crime
The latest Grand Theft Auto has managed to tick off a whole new segment of society. While Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas still has a high killing-cops-and-Hos factor, it’s now dressed up in the mono-colored, oversized clothes of street gang culture. Cops, counselors and “gangologists” are worried that the game is going to attract teens to street gangs. What we need to do is get kids to play more Sims 2, so they can become uptight, over-controlling suburbanite assholes.
Game mocks real tragedy, gang experts say [MSNBC]
