I did my part to support UMD movies by buying 25 copies of this classic story about a girl who wakes up a slut.

UMD movies failing
Is it possible Sony somehow is responsible for a failed format? Of course it is, they love failing, and I love to see their new formats fail. This is a good sign for those of us who want game systems to focus on playing games. To read more complaining, read this.

Blizzard sued by some guy who wants to sell Warcraft guides on the internet
This is a very interesting and possibly important lawsuit. The guy suing Blizzard sold his guides on eBay until Blizzard complained and they were taken down. They say he is trying to make money off of their good will and recognition they’ve built with their games, whatever that means. The plaintiff (‘s lawyer) says that if his guides are illegal, despite not violating copyright law, then every guide to Windows, Word, Excel, etc is illegal, including the ones sold in book stores.

Now I generally dislike the pursuit of money (that’s why I have a bad job, it builds character), it seems that Blizzard is annoyed because they aren’t in on it. If they do an official guide with Brady or whomever, then Blizzard will be in direct competition with this regular guy’s guides. They don’t want some schmoe cutting into their potential profit, which sounds like a business issue, not a legal issue.

360 sets sales record in Australia
I will just list what systems have done extremely well in Australia: 360, PSP, Sega Master System. This is an insult or compliment, depending on your perspective.

First party Revolution games will not cost more than $50
First of all, look at the news link and notice GameSpot’s typo. Their headline actually reads that the games will cost less than $50. I was initially very excited, thinking they’d go for 40 or 45. Apparently a writer just failed third grade math.

Anyway, this is a good sign, but not too unexpected. The reasons we’ve heard for the price increase tend to focus on next generation graphics. Since the 360 and PS3 will push 46 bajillion polygons a picosecond, and they each have 300 trillion terabytes of RAM, creating a single character model will cost developers 80,000 dollars. Or something like that. But the Revolution’s angle of having crappy graphics should cut down on these expenses. I guess they could’ve gone for the “it takes a miracle to design a game with the wand controller, and divine intervention isn’t cheap” angle.

Preliminary concept art for the new Castlevania.

Sony gets fashion designers to make PSP cases
As if this will stop the massive beating the PSP is getting in Japan. Last week, the PSP sold around 44 thousand units while the combined DS sales neared 160 thousand. Nintendo made good games and is now trying to make their handheld cool. Sony made a cool system but is still concentrating on making it sexy. At some point they really should worry about making some games for the PSP.

New DS Castlevania
Woot. Long live 2d, but I’m still worried it will be less satisfying than Dawn of Sorrow, which was less satisfying than Symphony of the Night. Since all DS games need a subtitle with the initials DS (much like how every game on the SNES was “Super” something, like, say, Super Castlevania) they’ll need to come up with something catchy but ominous. I recommend Castlevania: Donkey of Satan.

Sony finally discontinues the PS1
An 11 year lifespan? Holy shit, that’s almost as long as Dreamcast’s 3 year run. If the PS1 was actually still selling this whole time, how can Sony not conquer the world?

GTA murder suit against Take 2 and Walmart to continue
The defense tried but failed to have the suit thrown out of court. The prosecutors say GTA contributed to a guy killing police officers.

It’s all quite paradoxical to me. Good liberals will defend the first amendment vehemently, and good conservatives will preach individual responsibility endlessly. So then who exactly is doing the prosecuting? Mostly pansy PC liberals and religious “let’s burn me some books” conservatives would be my wager. It’s not a coincidence that Hilary Clinton is friends with the PMRC and Jack Thompson practices law solely for Jesus.

Revolution hardware specs possibly revealed
System to suck ass. Just kidding, but don’t expect it to compete on a visual level with the other two. Growing up with 8 bit games gives you a different perspective from growing up with the Playstation. To me, graphics are already amazing on the current gen systems. Also, looking back makes you realize how important good artistic design is and how it can overcome hardware limitations. SNES Square games look amazing even today because they are so well designed, and Skies of Arcadia still takes my breath away. And there is nothing that replaces good gameplay. The PSP can be a more powerful system all it wants, the DS is still what you buy if you want good games.

Sega, don't remake Panzer Dragoon Saga. No one likes it and if they did they can buy it at the easily affordable price of $250.

People trust the Sony brand
What? I must not be on earth any more. Or no one else has actually bought a Sony product. I have broken discmen, broken cd players and multiple broken PS1s. Not to mention all of the dead formats Sony created. You can trust the technology, but they tend to make their high technology out of cheap products that break often.

More terrible remakes from Sega
Sega seems to lust for fans to give up on their favorite franchises and forget their most loved series. In case anyone still felt any affinity for Panzer Dragoon, Sega is remaking it, and no doubt very poorly. Their remake line is targeted directly at no one because they refuse to give the games a drastic overhaul, but also will not leave them be. The result is games that look like they’re for the PS1, appealing neither to gamers who want cutting edge games nor retro gamers who cherish the originals. Kudos, Sega.