Today marks the 5th anniversary of the release of the manliest console ever released, the Microsoft Xbox. It was so incredibly manly, it launched with a manly giant controller, came in all black (the manliest color), and shooter called Halo. The manliness of this game was diminished upon the release of the sequel 3 years later, when online play revealed the vast majority of players to be terribly immature pre-teens with a penchant for inappropriate language.
Blah Blah Blah started on Apple, Blah Blah Blah Xbox Live, Blah Blah Blah Halo 3. There, now you know the history.

Anyway, here is the important news: Bungie.net has announced a Halo 2 will get 2 new mulitplayer maps in the spring, available exclusively through Xbox Live Marketplace on Xbox 360. Now might be the time to upgrade, kids. I’m going to go out on a limb that they’re both maps that will show up in Halo 3 as well, as the idea of them building new maps 2 and a half years after the game’s release and so soon before the sequel borders on lunacy unless they were going for both.

Additionally, a PUBLIC BETA has been announced for Halo 3 Multiplayer. Why in the world would they do this? The complaints about Halo 2 were mostly fanboy whining. I certainly hope that comments don’t derail weapon balance and its instead used to test features rather than gameplay.

EGM’s 3 week Halo 3 Blowout is nearly over. I still haven’t gotten my subscriber copy. What gives Ziff-Davis Publishing? Mail it NOW.

thanks Max Con!

Update! 1up has posted a large screen gallery of hi res captures from the EGM issue. Halo 3 Mutiplayer screens.

When the X-Box 360 had problems playing original X-Box games it was somewhat expected. It was announced a good while before launch and the reason was because the hardware was so different. Up until this weekend Sony’s claim was that backwards compatibility would be supported for PlayStation and PS2 games. Now that it’s released in Japan we see that that’s not true at all.

According to this BBC article a Japanese newspaper has claimed that 200 games don’t play properly on the new system. Though Sony has acknowledged the problem and first stated it on their web site the day of the Japanese release of the system, they aren’t giving a number of how many games are affected.

As usual promises are made to add compatibility for problematic games through patches available online. This is all so familiar.

Sony now has the following statement listed on their description of the PS3’s features:

NOTE
Some PlayStation 2 or PlayStation format software titles may perform differently on this system than they do on PlayStation 2 or PlayStation systems, or may not perform properly on this system. PS3 does not support a vibration controller.

Gamers can go to this page on Sony’s official site to check to see what games don’t work. Unfortunately it’s all in Japanese so good luck in making much sense of it. Search for nothing to get a list of all games. The right colum shows if the game works or not. In fairness it took me a while browsing through that list to find a game with a reported problem but if you narrow your search down to include only PlayStation 1 games you’ll notice that problems are a lot more common. Use this to translate.

It still remains to be seen if Nintendo shares the curse of the current generation of game systems but given their track record of backwards compatibility in their handhelds I’m not terribly worried.

Available for only a limited time at the iTunes store, you can get a new short video starring Jack Black and Kyle Gass. Its more or less a commercial for the new Tenacious D album, but its pretty funny. Apparently a much longer version will be available after the album is released.

Click here launch iTunes and download.

Tenacious D – The Pick of Destiny will be released tomorrow!

Last year’s X-Box 360 shortage caused a ridiculous amount of overpriced systems selling on ebay within the first week of the system’s launch. After about a week the auction closing prices settled down to about 10% over the sticker price. So what does the world learn from this? Absolutely nothing apparently.

Check out these completed auctions for a $1,995,00 Wii and even worse a $14,900.00 PS3. These aren’t even auctions for systems now. They’re pre-orders to be shipped this weekend when the systems are launched. Sure they include a few launch titles but those are terribly unlikely to sell out in the first couple of days. One only needs to do a quick ebay search for Wii or PS3 to see the ongoing auctions and ebay users can click on the “completed items” box on the left to see what these auctions finished at.

Sure the PS3 will have less systems at launch than the X-Box 360 but with it’s heafty price tag it will also sell that many less systems. Is making sure you get a system on launch day really more important than say… a car? Paying more than a couple of dollars over sticker price for the Wii is terribly ignorant seeing as the sytem is likely to be able to fill demand into December. You can pay 2000$ on ebay or you know… you can pay 250$ in a store next week. I personally walked into a Toys ‘R Us on a random Sunday afternoon in Septemeber and pre-ordered my Wii which I’m told is almost certain to be in 9am launch day according to the expected number of systems they’ll be getting. That’s a net savings of $1750 US!

Never underestimate the power of human stupidity. Keep checking ebay to see just how much higher these people are willing to pay for these systems before the price drops back to MSRP.

Ever since Lucasfilm decided to post the The Phantom Menace trailer online 8 years ago, movie trailers have been a staple of the web surfers diet. With that in mind, we launch a regular columm showcasing movie trailers. We may not see all these movies, we probably won’t even like most we see, but trailers are a nice way to kill two and a half minutes.

First up, Fanboys. This also harkens back to the Episode One days, with a tale loosely based on the true geek plot to steal a print of the film.

Balls Of Fury stars Christopher Walken as a Ping Pong champion and criminal king pin.

The Simpsons Movie. The series itself has been getting progressively harder to watch over the years, and this movie looks no better. Perhaps if they’d brought in the genius writing of season 4, we might have something. Alas, Late Night with Conan O’Brien is more like how the Simpsons used to be than how they are today.

… and just for fun, Office Space: Recut

Via Engadget, heres a look at the controller for an upcoming game for Nintendo Wii called “Streetcar GO!” which of course puts you in the shoes of a shinkansen driver.

The above photo is of course a mock-up, but that doesn’t make the premise any less ridiculous. I thought the proprietary controllers for games like Steel Battalion and DK Bongos were whacked!

Those who wish to virtually manipulate a bullet train can do so in February. Read all about it in broken english.

An absolutely amazing rough cut of the Spider-Man 3 trailer has leaked to the web. Many shots are identical to the released one, and theres quite a bit of rough CG and even story boards and green screen in place of final footage.

But the end… oh, the end is where the money is. I guess Sony didn’t want to play their hand just yet, so this trailer is going offline as fast as it went on, but here it is until then:

[Read the rest of this entry…]

Back in September, I posted this video about a secret song hidden in many Nintendo games. The reception was very positive, and now I return to you with two new findings: one from Pikmin 2, and one from Virtual Boy Warioland. I also endeavor to inform on more games where you might want to look.

Credit goes to Nick Barba for finding the song in Virtual Boy Warioland, and to George Morgan for Pikmin 2.