Nintendo Announces 2D Mario Game For 3DS. Wait, What?
As Nintendo was briefing it’s lackluster financial results yesterday, president Satoru Iwata quickly announced a brand spanking new Mario title! The untitled game, which is supposed to be in 2D, will be released for the 3DS sometime next year. So let me get this straight. Nintendo is milking the Mario franchise (again) in 2D for an already failing 3D handheld gaming device? And they’re wondering why money’s going down the drain (cue pipe-entrance SFX).
Is Zynga Really Ripping Off Tiny Tower? REALLY?
In case you hadn’t heard, developer Nimblebit sent out an e-mail comparing their game Tiny Tower to Zynga’s new Dream Heights game for iOS. From the shots alone, they look virtually identical in terms of presentation and gameplay (although I have to hand Zynga credit for not going with Tiny Tower’s chunky 8-bit art direction) leading to quite a bit of heat under Zynga’s tushie with accusations of outright plagiarism. Despite the newly invested confidence in Zynga’s stock, the company has had a list of issues following its IPO, so the claims aren’t helping things. But when I first heard about this story, I immediately thought the opposite: Nimblebit ripped off Zynga to make Tiny Tower.
Virgin Gaming Hits The One Million Users Mark
While we know Keith isn’t too happy with Virgin right now, we are kind of excited to announce that their gaming site, which allows players to play for cash and prizes, has hit the milestone of 1 million users.
Why is this such a good thing? Because it means that gaming is becoming more and more mainstream and competitive gaming is taking off in a big way. This makes us happy!
EA’s Origin Service To Add Games From 11 More Publishers
Electronic Arts‘ digital distribution service “Origin” is going to expand its base and begin offering downloads from such publishers as Trion Worlds and Robot Entertainment as well as smaller publishing houses such as CD PROJEKT RED, Freebird Games, Recoil Games, Autumn Games, 1C Company, inXile entertainment, Paradox Interactive, Core Learning Ltd. and N3V.
This move, announced today, will significantly expand their list of over 100 current titles.
Rocksteady’s Next Game Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? Maybe.
Rumor has it that Rocksteady, the developer who redefined Batman and stealth gaming, is working on a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle game. If that didn’t give you goose bumps, the dirty rumors after the break will.
Rob Riggle Joins Call of Duty to Promote the Elite Service
You know when you are trying to sell something to 20 somethings you want to have catchy advertising and Call of Duty is doing that. They are trying to push the Elite service as much as they can, doing so they hired Rob Riggle, actor, corespondent and former Lieutenant Colonel of the US Marines. Read the rest of this article…
Alan Wake Finally Coming To PC, Are You Still Interested?
For those who still haven’t experienced Alan Wake – and it’s been out for two years on the Xbox 360, so why not? – you’ll finally have the opportunity to kick it up a notch on your PC. The game will certainly look prettier on a nice home computer (as if it had issues with that before), the problem is the actual playing of the game. While the story and presentation were fantastic, as soon as you needed to flick sticks around and mash buttons, the experience became much less enjoyable. In fact, I kind of dreaded actually playing the game after a big cutscene.
Microsoft, Why Are You Still Using Microsoft Points?
We all know about Microsoft Points. They’re the annoying currency system that Microsoft uses in their Xbox Live Marketplace, Games for Windows and Zune stores. If you’ve ever bought a song on Zune or a game over Xbox Live, you’ve used Microsoft points.
What I don’t know is why Microsoft continues to force us to use them.
Disabled Gamers Award Star Wars: The Old Republic “Game of the Year” Honors
Despite Nick’s hate of SWTOR and Keith’s hate for MMO’s in general (and the fact that they both obviously suffer from some form of mental disability for the fact that they don’t LOVE this game), the disabled gaming community has given it a huge honor by awarding it with their game of the year title, stating:
Every year there are two or three highly anticipated games released with massive hype and record-setting expectations. Most times these games fall completely flat when it comes to game accessibility, but this year one game set itself apart by including a fair amount of accessibility at launch while still meeting the public’s expectations for an amazing game.
Star Wars: The Old Republic Sales “Below Expectations”, I Cancel My Account, Cats And Dogs Now Living Together
Twenty-nine days ago, I started my Star Wars: The Old Republic account. Last Night I cancelled it. I had put two days into the game and despite Rob’s enthusiasm and Sam playing it like it was a full-time job, I simply could not get over its overly-obvious MMO trappings to keep playing. It’s just too similar to other games, namely World of Warcraft, to keep investing time in. It wasn’t the first MMO I’d given up on, it certainly won’t be the last.
