Gaming Blog

Bankruptcy seems to have caught on as a fad in these testing times. Continuing the trend of course is Midway. Owner of the Mortal Kombat franchise, the company has already filed for bankruptcy. Another trend that the gaming company is trying to continue is that of paying huge bonuses to executives in key positions; ostensibly to retain their valued (?) services. And hence the statement that Ed Boon’s service is “critical to maximizing the value of one of the Debtors’ primary assets.” ‘Primary asset’ is obviously a reference to Mortal Kombat, of which Mr. Boon is a co-creator. Midway has asked the bankruptcy court that a “key designer” (a.k.a. Ed Boon) ought to be paid a bonus for retaining his services. And that by the way would amount to $900,000 for the sales of “Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe” in Q4 2008 and Q1 2009, and another $105,000 for revenue from the “MK” franchise in those two quarters. Compare Boon’s million with $325,000 payable to 110 employees under the “design team bonus plan” for the same period and you’ll get some perspective. Before disapproving of the entire scheme though consider the fact that Midway’s filings also claim that a new game in the franchise is planned for the last quarter of ‘09. Perhaps the payoff is justified after all. Yeah right!

Via: Kotaku

So both have an ‘i’, but that’s it as far as the rivalry between Nintendo’s DSi and Apple’s iPhone is concerned. Or so says Satoru Iwata, president of Nintendo. Several industry voices cried in unison when the third iteration of the DS was released with camera et al. And the focus everywhere was on a possible rivalry between the DS and established cell phones; iPhone included. Iwata, however, denies that DSi is in competition against either iPhone or iPod Touch. He’s been quoted as saying:

It seems some people have the impression that we want to compete with cell phones or the iPod, that putting cameras or music players in our devices is out of character for us.

Street Fighter 4 may have been one of the best game releases in 2009 but Street Fighter’s second movie adaptation is hell bound to suffer its predecessor’s fate. Second live action adaptation of Street Fighter, dubbed as “Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li” has failed to attract fans of the franchisee and has been bashed by critiques all around the world.

Street Fighter put up a dismal opening week by earning just $4.7 million, which is among the worst that game adaptations have seen so far. Kristin Kreuk starrer movie revolves around Chun-Li’s revenge on Bison (played by Neal McDonough), who had captured her father when she was young. Other character’s appearing in the film are Bison’s childhood firend and Chun-Li’s aide Gen (Robin Shou), Interpol cop Charlie Nash (Chris Klein) and a detective played by Moon Bloodgood. I bet that no one was expecting this to be an Oscar material, but fans were at least hoping for a decent action movie that was fun to watch (which, by the way, it definitely isn’t). The The Legend of Chun-Li has found its worst critic in IGN which awarded it just 1.5 stars out of 5, claiming that the previous movie was more enjoyable and that:

There’s better staged and more enjoyable brawls between Peter and the Chicken on Family Guy.

Via: reuters
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Curse videogames all you want but an Olympian will always disagree. Tyrone Robinson is preparing hard to be a part of British Taekwondo team at the London 2012 Olympics, and Street Fighter IV is an important part of his training routine these days. And perhaps most importantly, his gaming action is being backed by several sports psychologists. Tyrone Robinson has won a European Championship Bronze Medal in Taekwondo and plays the game at the end of his training session everyday. He does so in order to speed up his reflexes and improve his mental fight planning. The 22-year-old says:

It’s a good way to relax at the end of a hard day’s training and great to have a tournament with friends.

Remember Space Invaders? Even if you don’t remember the original one – released way back in 1978 – chances are, you’d have come across at least one of the iterations since then. Now courtesy Taito Corp. the arcade classic has made it to the iPhone 3G and iPod Touch. The action shooter game will be pitting your space ship against an army of aliens, asking you to accumulate points all the while. As an upgradation for the iPhone, the game has been enhanced with touchscreen controls and motion sensing. Of course several of the original tricks, including the “Nagoya Attack”, have been retained.

Ever since Killzone 2 was announced at E3 in 2005 PS3 owners and game lovers have been awaiting its release. ‘Killzone’ was released for the first time on PlayStation 2 and was followed by ‘Killzone: Liberation’ for PlayStation Portable. It seems like four years of hype has finally done some good as in just a week’s time Killzone 2 has become the third fastest selling PS3 game after Grand Theft Auto 4 and Metal Gear Solid 4. According to a report by VGChartz, Killzone 2 has managed to sell more than 750,000 copies in its very first week. Though it was released on February 25 in the EU, but it’s noteworthy that Killzone 2 was released in UK and North America only on February 27 and it is yet to be released in Japan. PS3 sales have not shot up because of Killzone 2’s showing, but retailers have reported a “modest increase” in PS3 sales. Expect things to pick up on the hardware front in coming few weeks as Killzone 2 takes its toll.

Via: vgchartz

The battle lines are drawn; only the battle this time around is with the insatiable thirst that inevitably accompanies a session of the World of Warcraft. To quench this thirst nothing short of the ‘official’ would do. So without further ado I bring to you the World of Warcraft steins (a.k.a. beer mugs). Your wine (or beer) would, without any doubt, taste much better when sipped from one of these chic steins. Haul a couple of these to a gaming parlor and see how easily alliances can be forged. These mugs have been created in fine-grain stoneware and handcrafted by stein artisans of Ceramarte. Standing tall at 10”, each one of these weighs about 3 lbs. The Epic Collection steins are made to order and needless to say are limited edition. Coming with a certificate of authenticity, these steins are quite the deal. Horde or Alliance, you may choose either, or both. However, the newest baby on the block the “Lich King” seems to me the sweetest. Pricing and shipping details here.

Via: Play-gadgets

Okay, we’ve seen a lot of mods that transform age-old controllers and make them compatible with PCs. Does that mean we are getting tired of spotting the same thing over and over again? Hell no! As a matter of fact, being clumsy with electronics as we are, we love to see the ancient controllers being made compatible with PCs and put up on online shelves. Etsy apparently knows our weakness and has put up two modded controllers for sale. Retro NES controller and Sega Genesis controller (both used) are up for grabs, hacked and endowed with USB compatibility. Compatible with Mac and PC, they’ve even been tested on Linux. Your preferences apart, NES controller seems better among the two as it comes with a handy trick. Press a series of buttons in a row and the controller readily becomes a mouse (or functions as such anyway). There are currently four of these retro devices on site – three Genesis and one NES. These are going for $35 each and $33 respectively. Jump to see the hacked Genesis controller.

Game away till your thumbs become numb but you know that juice will eventually run out. And then it is back to hooking controllers to PS3 till you can game again. That demands a solution and Sony promptly delivers it by bringing AC charging for PS3 controllers. The latest peripherals announced by Sony Computer Entertainment Japan consist of a wireless keyboard (CECHZK1JP) for the PlayStation 3 and AC Adapter USB supported (CECHZA1 J). It is the latter, of course, that I’ve found most admirable. CECHZA 1J plugs into a regular AC socket and has two USB ports to feed power to DUALSHOCK and Sixaxis controller or even PS3’s wireless headset. This means one does not have to leave the console on for charging controllers. The device will hit stores at a price of ¥2,800 (£17), which is by no means prohibitive. CECHZA 1J is supposed to go on sale in Japan on 18 December and will hopefully move to the rest of the world thereafter.

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Source: techradar

Mobile gaming is getting bigger by the minute. And the quest to add phone-like utilities to a portable gaming device (or maybe even vice versa) is going full throttle. Mostly directed at PSP, we have seen several of these phone concepts over last year or so. Right on cue is this concept gaming-phone from Sony Ericsson. Tagged rather imaginatively as ‘Game Terminator’ the design follows your usual wide-screen trend. The phone-cum-console looks very sleek in its renderings and the touch-screen adds to its allure. The Game Terminator also brings home camera (hopefully a powerful one considering this one’s from SE) and game controls. I usually have my reservations about such bulky albeit combination-devices, but this is cool enough to consider shelling out for. Only question, when would it be realized, if indeed it would be realized at all?

Source: Cellphonebeat