With the recent comments from THQ’s Cory Ledesma and comic and news posts on Penny Arcade, the discussion on multiple publishers’ decisions to charge an extra fee for multiplayer to people buying used copies of their games has elevated from minor bickering on forums and in comments to a full fledged gaming cultural debate. Developers are saying that pre-owned game sales hurt them, and they have a point: They don’t receive anything from used games sales. But the problems with their arguments are in tone and logic.

First, the way some developers are addressing used game sales makes it sound like any gamer buying used copies is, as one email posted to the front page of Penny Arcade said, “some kind of delinquent.” Game companies: the people buying pre-owned games aren’t your enemies, they are your potential customers. Attacking them makes it cool to not buy your games new. Like with anti-piracy measures, announcing how tough it will be to pirate a game only serves as a challenge to the pirates to get it done faster. Complaining that people aren’t paying full price for your games, especially in today’s economy, doesn’t exactly make you the most sympathetic figure. It makes you look like a dick.

Second, there seems to be some misconception among developers that each used game sale is money out of their pocket. I would honestly be surprised if even half of the people buying used copies of these games would pick up the new copy instead if the cheaper option wasn’t available. And if they’re worried about first week or first month sales, the only reasons there even is a pre-owned copy of the game available for resale are:

1. Someone bought it at full price and hated it.

2. The game is only ten hours long with no replay value and the gamer in question would rather have the $15 in store credit than your game he just paid $65 for (after tax).

3. A meth-head stole it from Wal-mart

Which brings me around to my point: what makes game developers so special? Cars, real estate, DVDs, CDs, books, clothing and really just about everything else has a resale market. The only three things I could think of that don’t fall under this basic economic model are food, condoms and diapers and what you guys and gals do isn’t nearly as important as any of those three.

One developer whose -mail was published as part of the debate on Penny Arcade‘s front page brought up the used car analogy in defense of the new charges, saying that the wear and tear on a used car was a similar penalty. I completely disagree. If we are going to use cars as the example than the charge for multiplayer access would be like removing the back seat and windows. The car (game) still works, kind of, but a major component and selling point of it in the first place is now missing.

Another part of the car analogy that applies to games is that of resale value to the consumer. The only way most people can afford to buy a new car or house is by selling their previous one. The collapse of housing resale values (due to a glut of foreclosed properties and questionable lending practices) is what lead the recession we’re currently in. Our economy relies on the option to sell or trade possessions off to offset future purchases. Hell, some publishers, like Atlus and NIS, even benefit from this because they have such small print runs of many of their games they sell out quickly. Between fans wanting to make sure they have a copy and speculators hoping to see their $50 turn into $80 in a few months, it’s hard to find a copy of many of their games within a few weeks. Because the resale value is so high, gamers make sure to track down a copy early.

Should everyone buy new games, at full price, the day the games comes out? Sure, and in the magical fairy land where everyone can afford to do this I encourage the ideal. But I can’t, so I don’t. I wait months or even years to pick up games because even $20 is out of the question a lot of the time. By then there aren’t new copies of some games readily available. Plus, the upcoming multiplayer charges wouldn’t be a deterrent because by the time I get my hands on most games the multiplayer community is dead and buried, often even having had its servers shut down.

While I completely understand developers’ aversion to GameStop’s practices, what about gamers who use sites like Goozex or GameTZ? Are they opposed to us working out trades amongst ourselves? I guess it just boils down to developers complaining that this isn’t a perfect world, and the gamers refusing to wax philosophic on things that will never be.

Ever played a video game and found something terminally wrong with it? Perhaps you’ve found something wrong with all video games? You may not be alone - You’re Doing It Wrong is the name of a column from the mind of contributor Harry, who feels it just to let the internet know of his video game grievances. After all, the games we love could be better…

I like Blur; it’s a fiery and ambitious racer akin to Mario Kart on acid but with the aim or reciprocating Forza Motorsport‘s realistic graphics. The game has beautiful presentation, a career mode something other racing games should aspire to have and a weapon play system possibly even better than Wipeout. Bizarre Creations, who developed multiple Formula One titles, a street racer for the Dreamcast and my favourite racing series, Project Gotham Racing, do indeed garner a reputation that precedes them.

The Bizarre development team have clearly put their hearts and souls into Blur to produce the quality I amongst other gamers have come to expect from them. However, sitting down to play the game’s offline mode I’ve been left with a question to raise. Something is plaguing my enjoyment of the game and my overall receptiveness of its qualities: why is Blur so hard?

My developer crush on Bizarre Creations almost left this question unanswered as I battled with Blur to try and see if the list of positives would mask the crushing negative. Alas, they have not and after a lengthy spell of racing I still have the same problem I had when I first put the game into gear.

The first time I experienced Blur was during the beta, when I clocked about three hours online. The first thing I noticed was the neon presentation style of the game and its menu system, which immediately set off a warning bell in my head: I wanted Blur to be a real-world Wipeout and the aesthetic suggested Midnight Club meets Need for Speed. I had faith in Bizarre though so I ventured forth into a race with other people around the world, in the hopes that the game would prove me wrong.

It did: what I was given was an adrenalin-fueled, pacy and spirited arcade racer with explosions galore. Needless to say my gaming palette was to be satisfied. It was… until I hit the first corner. Fighting for control, I felt like I was trying to drift an articulated lorry around the bend – my 360 controller’s analogue stick was feeling the full force of my thumb as I waggled & pushed incessantly to gain control. I had played the Split/Second demo before Blur and I was beginning to think that I should try not to adopt the same drifting style I was employing in Black Rock’s racer.

Perhaps I approached the game wrong: Project Gotham Racing was a blur between arcade racing and racing simulation, combining kudos and arcade-style game modes with real-world vehicles, settings and graphics. While the spirit of Blur is clearly more arcade than simulation, the cars and level settings at least are anything but. Perhaps the simulation aspects of Blur stretch as far as the actual driving mechanics which if true would require far more discipline and a definitive, Forza driving line. I have attempted to recreate driving lines without drifting but it seems futile because the game is clearly more arcade-based and driving with etiquette when you have electro torpedoes doesn’t make much sense.

On reflection, it seems I need to adopt a drift technique for racing in Blur. Therein lies the problem though because keeping your car under control whilst drifting in a game like Split/Second was doable but in Blur this isn’t so. You really have to be able to drift effectively if you want to both avoid oncoming fire & maintain your race position. Much like Burnout: Paradise, DiRT 2 and interestingly Project Gotham Racing 4, if you can master drifting around corners you’ll find yourself better off when you fly out the bend. I’ve had no particular problem with cornering on any of the games I’ve listed, or indeed on any racing game I’ve played (that’s a fairly big list, might I add).

With Blur though? Well, I’m giving my controllers’ analogue sticks a real bruising. I currently am in possession of Blur on the PlayStation 3 and I’m pretty sure my left analogue stick will snap off soon; the build quality of the PS3′s non-Dualshock controller is less sufficient than the standard 360 controller and my analogue stick is creaking every time it’s touched. In a racing game I should be able to, after a couple of races at most, have control over my car in a corner. I’ve competed in about fifty races and fifty retries in my time with Blur and I’m no closer to taking a corner controlled.

Maybe it’s a difficulty issue? That question strikes a nerve, because what Bizarre have done with regards to that is nigh on unforgivable.

I believe that no racing game should have a difficulty setting. I feel that a racer should have one singular difficulty that is balanced for both casual and core gamers alike. This is something of an ask I realise, as it is very difficult to provide a singular difficulty that caters to all. Progressive difficulty, going at times hand-in-hand with boss races, is something I offer as an alternative. Split/Second is a winner in my books when it comes to difficulty because it has an excellent balance that has you choosing the right car for the right type of race, where you are racing opponents who can be faster than you but are tactical and may not exert pace in favour of power-playing. It provides ‘elite’ races at the end of each episode where you race the best challengers. The icing on the cake is that these aren’t even always the hardest events; some of the survival of the fittest or time attack-style events provide a greater challenge.

What’s vital then is being able to take a corner effectively in order to win against skilled opponents. Quite literally, a split/second is all that can separate first from second as I’ve found out after being at both ends of the proverbial stick come the finish. Blur has more racers in events than the likes of Split/Second and Mario Kart which inherently brings more blows to you and them. The tracks are wider and longer to compensate and this makes the corners wider and longer (an Achilles Heel…).

Trying to overcome nineteen opponents who can all match my speed whilst avoiding weapon fire and backlashes from hit opponents makes cornering difficult before you’ve reached a turn, never mind while you’re taking one. It’s absolutely vital that Blur has approachable cornering so I can take a corner effectively in the midst of sometimes hectic battle. Hell, maybe I want to be tactical in a corner and dare to try a sliding takedown, a la Burnout meets Wipeout. Unfortunately, I can do neither because Blur does not provide the ability for me to turn even the loosest of corners effectively. I’m losing valuable seconds which as mentioned before are vital.

The opponents around me all take corners rather effortlessly: I’ve wondered whether I am doing it wrong and have experimented with several different ways of tackling corners, all to no avail. In my first couple of races online, I was winning: everyone around me was having as much difficulty turning as I was and I was just the fastest at bouncing off the sides. In my first couple of races split-screen with friends I wasn’t winning everything but all of us were not taking corners skilfully and I was driving a stupidly fast Ford van.

Offline in the Career mode was completely different: I was restarting numerous times to try and win the races and complete the side challenges. After the second race I was already six ranks better because I had racked up so many points: I was restarting to try and gain a seemingly unattainable first place. The track designs weren’t helping my plight: at times I was bouncing around so much I was approaching some corners with no wheels on the track.

I stumbled across the game’s difficulty setting during a restarting of a race. The option to change difficulty was at the bottom of the screen in small font, only available after I pressed retry. I hadn’t noticed it before and this was after about two hours into the Career mode.

Without trying to be sound immodest, I am a decent gamer, particularly when it comes to racing games. I know my way around a track and I had an expectation that I would be able to jump into Blur and be able to put my skills to use. I couldn’t and finding the difficulty setting by accident, I was inclined to decrease the difficulty to accommodate for my frequent dropping of time in corners.

I have a lot of pride as a long-term gamer though, so I’ve stuck with the Medium setting. I would like to switch up to Hard so I can be prepared for a later venture into the Online portion of the game where I’ll inevitably face opponents tougher than the AI. That’s not going to happen though, because if I switch to Hard I won’t stand a chance. I’ve won some races on Medium but I’ve struggled to do so and with my extensive racing game experience and my even more extensive videogame experience I shouldn’t be struggling so early on in a game.

I can’t forgive Bizarre for not making clear the difficulty setting but that is overshadowed by the greater cardinal development sin: what hope do I have of competing online or indeed completing the career mode when I can’t even take a corner? For a game like Blur and a developer like Bizarre, I’ve been let down by one glaring fault that has perhaps ruined what is an excellent game otherwise.

If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s measured and balanced commentary. In that spirit I thought I’d bring my own angry, spiteful, embittered opinions to bear on Microsoft’s yearly infomercial. I’ll be following up with an equally dispiriting burst of rage at Sony and Nintendo once their coked up drones have taken the stage and talked at us about their plans for world domination. For now, I’ll stick with Microsoft.

Microsoft’s press conference got off to a flying start as they announced the re-release of three of their greatest hits. Yes ladies and gentlemen, or just gentlemen if we’re being honest about Microsoft’s core demographic, the holy triumvirate of Fable, Gears and Halo will be assaulting audiences over the coming months. Finding out that Microsoft would be bringing me the same old shit with added tits and particle effects was a truly revelatory experience. Just to show that they didn’t forget about the huge wad of cash they stuffed down Kojima’s throat, they showed off a re-skinned version of Devil May Cry starring everyone’s least favourite Metal Gear Solid character.  We can only hope they’ll bless us with a dating sim starring Otacon to make sure that the Metal Gear brand is as diluted as humanly possible.

Once the cursory glance at actual videogames was over, MS moved swiftly on to ramming their motion control add-on down our throats. Kinect will detect movement, voice commands and the sound of 10 million wal-mart customers saying, “hmmmm, kinda pricey, maybe we should just stick with the Wii”. Words like “nauseating” and “repugnant” swirled around my mind as a cavalcade of multi-ethnic douchebags frantically waved their arms in front of the audience. By far the most vomit inducing scene came during the Kinetanimals demonstration. I could live with watching a kid pet a virtual tiger. Watching her giggle as the virtual tiger pretended to lick her had me reaching for a bucket. That isn’t child-like joy you’re witnessing, that’s stage school and the unfulfilled dreams of her dangerously demanding parents. I’d feel sorry for her if I didn’t think she earned more money from that sickening display than I do from a year’s hard work.

Other delights included a dumbed down version of Forza 3 that, for the first time, allows players to simulate overtaking a family hatchback on a motorway in a Ferrari. Finally we can all know what it’s like to be an asshole executive. Sources have revealed to me that a coke-snorting minigame will be included free of charge. Harass your underpaid and uninterested secretary this fall, exclusively on Xbox 360.

Once the barrage of bouncing, grinning, pod people had come to an end MS brought out the big guns. For the first time they showed off a slightly revised version of their current console. It may have taken them close to five years but they’ve now reached feature parity with every other console and handheld of this generation by including wireless connectivity. Not wanting to rest on those laurels, they also revealed that they won’t be ripping off consumers by raising the price of their console. In emulation of the most successful console in gaming history, the Sega Saturn, they promised that it would be in stores by the end of the week.

Then, just to top everything off, they bribed the attendant games press with a free console live on air. They may not have an original idea to their name but God dammit, Microsoft have some balls. Never has the childish M$ nickname been so deserved.  Watching the gaping idiots whoop and holler at the thought of free shit filled me with joy. Occasionally I wonder if I have all the necessary skills to be a professional games writer. Turns out a complete lack of any dignity or professional ethics will get you pretty far in this industry.

Image: Wikimedia

In a frantic search for breasts, far too many gaming sites have decided to publish on their websites pictures of women in underwear, with some strenuous and barely repeatable link to, shock horror, videogames. Just another day in the videogame press though, right? Except each has cited the Daily Sport as their source for this Watergate-level story.

But do you think any of them actually know what type of publication the Daily Sport is? Look on Wikipedia. It is, bluntly, a porn sheet. It prints headlines with the word ‘œsnatch’ in them and features naked women in the front pages of their ‘œnewspaper’. It is, as Kotaku themselves put it, a “smut rag”. So smutty they just had to reprint it all.

Now either these popular gaming bloggers are fucking idiots and cannot check that their sources are porn mags, or they simply don’t care and are happy to publish them anyway. Each circumstance makes them look on similar standing as the Daily Sport. Which I’m sure you’ll agree is an utterly fantastic place to be.

But fuck them for a moment. If they want to wallow around in their own filth, let’s let them. How does this make gamers look? For years gamers have been portrayed as fapping nerds with no social skills, an image that we’ve all tried to dispel because it’s just not true. But imagine an outsider coming in and looking at the top 10 gaming blogs. What would they see? Tits, innuendo and self-loving writers and commenters filling the pages of these sites, and some even have the audacity to call themselves journalists.

What does that say about gamers? The average gamer is in his thirties, but if you read these sites you’d expect them all to be horny 12 year olds; writers included. Why do publications, and the people who read them, continue to add to that stereotype that we all hate? Oh right! Because women are attractive and we’re all just led solely by our dicks.

But who cares, right? They publish porn because it gets hits and makes them money, a lot more money than Nukezilla makes. So it’s fine! You can publish porn, source from a porn mag and all sit there masturbating to yourselves and roll around in your hard earned cash. Fuck it, it’s only videogames!

In the latest newsletter from 2K Games are some details about the new Bioshock 2 DLC  (released May 11th) on Xbox Live and PSN: The Rapture Metro Pack.

According to the newsletter, the new content includes six new maps, the ability to rank up to level 50, Rebirth feature which allows you to rank all the way down to level one for a special new mask, and three new achievements/trophies. The Xbox Live Marketplace page also advertises it as including the Kill ‘Em Kindly expansion (melee only matches with the golf club). This new mode would seem like a nice little addition to the DLC, if it wasn’t offered free as a stand-alone download.

So for all you thrifty gamers out there, let’s just take a minute to compare what you get with the Rapture Metro Pack (800 silly bucks/$9.99) to the previously released Sinclair Solutions Tester Pack (400 space monies/$4.99).

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Early in my career I was employed by a firm that sold counselling and therapy services to corporations to supplement extended benefits plans for their employees. In my role as an Account Manager I was responsible for maintaining the relationship with the corporate client as well as renegotiating contracts with said organizations. One day after I was in the job for about a year, the President of the firm called the Account Managers into his very tastefully decorated corner office with floor to ceiling windows and a panoramic view of the city. He was visibly agitated, and went on to brief us on how we were going to have to renegotiate existing contracts to include significant cost increases for all of our corporate clients.

We were flabbergasted to say the least. Marketing had been instructing us to highlight the relatively low costs associated with our services when compared to productivity loss from mental health issues. Basically we now had to approach clients we had known for a while and say, ‘œoooops, we messed up with our pricing formulas and now you need to pay us more.’

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I thought the Boy Scouts was the official name for a group of children who climb up trees, camp out in the forest and cut wood with pen knives. Apparently now researching videogames is a Boy Scout qualification too. To earn yourself recognition for knowing about videogames, a child in the Boy Scouts has to know things every gamer knows and do things every gamer does.

To earn a belt loop badge, a child has to explain why the ratings system is important in videogaming, involve videogaming in their daily activities and learn to play a videogame under supervision from their parents. Getting an academic pin for videogaming is tougher if you’re an idiot because you have to do insanely difficult things such as “create a plan to buy a videogame”, “install a gaming system” and “play an appropriate videogame with a friend for an hour”.

I’m a little bit baffled as to how patronising this is, not only because the Boy Scouts group presume that children don’t know how to play videogames but also because they seem to think that children have to be rewarded now for understanding videogaming, as if it’s some sort of barren isolated area of society that you have to research and learn about early to understand why it exists.

The worst thing about this though? This suggests that children can play videogames for analysis and understanding, but not for personal leisure. This suggests that videogaming has to be approached like a sleeping dog that’s stolen your favourite toy. This suggests that videogaming is not a good thing, it’s just a weird pastime that children should merely experience because it exists.

Please, I implore you to correct me if I’m wrong so I don’t feel so annoyed by what I perceive to be ignorance.

Shadow of the Colossus looks like it may soon be dealt a final blow with the sword of profit by writer Justin Marks. In a conversation about 3D in films with the LA Times he said:

If you don’t have an action tentpole that can conceivably be thought of in 3-D, you may as well make small indie movies because the studios aren’t going to be that interested.

By triangulating our knowledge of logic, syntax and Hollywood we can estimate that what he’s saying is “We’re going to 3D the shit out of this b*tch” followed by a slow sideways grinding movement, rubbing of the thumbs and forefingers, and rapid flicking of the tongue. You may think I’m being too harsh on the aspiring young writer, but bear in mind, this is the man who wrote Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li and described it as ‘œa gritty, realistic character piece’ and ‘œa very different game-to-movie adaptation’.

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I’ve been involved with the Gamers of OSU for the last five years, four of those as an officer, three as president. Yesterday, I helped host what was in all likelihood my last LAN party as an officer due to my upcoming graduation. It’s a weird feeling. It’s something I love doing, but something that is a frustrating endeavor that barely pays off 7 times out of 10.

I’ve seen LANs of 30 people, and LANs of 3 people. I walked into the scene in the aftermath of World of Warcraft‘s decimation of not just our group, but organized LANs everywhere. I kept thinking that the next big FPS would turn things around, and a dozen ‘œnext big things” later the scene is still on life support. Hell, we wouldn’t be able to keep going if OSU didn’t let us use some of its facilities for free.

But as I’m reflecting on this occasion I have some thoughts from a half decade of experience:

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If you didn’t know, I recently started playing World of Warcraft again. “BOOOO, HISSSSS” you might say, but I enjoy my time in Azeroth quite a bit. The friends that I’ve made and kept (people from High School that have moved away) are some of the longest relationships that I’ve had online, and the bond is only made greater by this incredibly deep game.

That said, there’s something that completely baffled me the first time I logged in in over a year and a half last December: The Gearscore add-on. This nifty little interface plugin takes each of your items that you have equipped, counts up all of the stat and set piece bonuses, and puts one little number in the tooltip that shows on your screen when you mouse over you or anyone else’s character in game. It’s a neat little metric for trying to get pick-up groups together for endgame instances, but other than that, it’s the biggest measure of ego that I’ve ever experienced in any online game.

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The announcement of a Warhawk tournament this week by the Playstation Blog has been met with a mixed reception in the community. Sony has been heavily promoting their Spring sales, and the recent price drop of the excellent third-person shooter from Incognito has prompted SCE to re-energize the game’s following anew with a tournament. However, concerns around fairness, actual possibility of winning, and the value of tournament prizes are raging through the Warhawk forums.

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Let me get one thing clear right off the bat: I have nothing against monetization of social games. In fact, I’ve long been a supporter of micro-transactions and “freemium” content as a business model, especially in Facebook games. As a developer and a journalist, however, I am always disappointed when I see poorly thought out games being used as a front to whore out a business model. This is all too common the story with Facebook games, and Platinum Life is no exception.

Heatwave Interactive‘s Platinum Life advertises itself as “the first social music game to hit Facebook featuring real stars. Become a player in the hip-hop universe as you make the transition from unsigned musician to superstar celebrity, encountering some of the music industry’s brightest stars along the way, including Ludacris, Omarion, DJ Holiday, DJ Skee, Shontelle and other artists from Universal Music Group.”

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A lot of people like rugby union. Maybe not as many as those who like football, baseball, basketball or monster trucks but there are many out in the wide world who live and breathe heterosexual men jumping on top of each other and throwing each other to the ground for 80 minutes.

I myself am not one of those people but I do like the sport. There’s a ferocious and electric atmosphere on the rugby pitch that is very rarely matched in any sport outside of ice hockey. Thirty men throwing an egg-shaped ball around may not sound very interesting but the same could be said for football which is 22 men kicking a round ball around. In all seriousness I think that sometimes rugby is actually a better sport than football as it is a greater exhibition of sporting athleticism, and the level of technical skill is probably more complex too.

There are hundreds of sports in the world though so me trying to convince you that rugby union is one of, if not the best sport in existence is a lost cause. However, I’m writing this from a videogame perspective trying to convince you that what was started shouldn’t be stopped: don’t stop making rugby union games.

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With all the drama and rumours floating around about this whole Infinity Ward/Activision story I’ve found one my my pet peeves is flaring up again; journalists basing entire articles on completely anonymous sources. It’s one of the basics of journalism that (and I’m paraphrasing) it’s not news until somebody puts their name on the line. The problem with anonymous tips is that they could be fabricated, biased and can’t be backed up.

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Dead or Alive: Paradise is a game with women it. They wear skimpy clothes, look suggestively at you and seemingly spend their entire day jumping slowly in front of you. The PSP title has the tag line “Paradise in the palm of your hand”, and features lush beaches, sports and oh yeah, women in bikinis. Women that you can take pictures of in various poses and flirt with, with the ultimate reward being a video of them half naked giggling. Just like in real life, right?

Yoshinori Ueda, the director of Dead Or Alive: Paradise has said that this game is not degrading towards women and in fact is about ‘œthe beauty of their bodies’.

Ueda said: “We’re certainly not trying to degrade women. They have beautiful bodies. We’re trying to show off the beauty of their bodies but we’re not trying to be degrading about it – we’re trying to show that they are beautiful characters.” It’s against Negative Gamer policy to use internet clichés as header images, but I think you’ll agree a facepalm is well deserved here.

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I admit, this is probably not a big deal and almost certainly not something a lot of people have a problem with. However, it is bothering me and has been since I found it. Microsoft seem to have no shame in whoring for all they are worth. My recent purchase of the BioShock 2 Special Edition has only reinforced this for a couple of reasons.

Firstly, Microsoft are charging for the Xbox 360 theme whilst the Playstation theme is totally free. I understand they are different things made for different systems, but is the Microsoft version really that superior? Perhaps this falls into the “Microsoft demand developers charge for everything, developers have no spine” category of DLC. From my perspective, it gives a very clear message.

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Still frothing at the mouth from the destruction of all things PC sacred that was Modern Warfare 2, I was looking forward to 2010 as a bit of a redeeming year for PC gaming. Bioshock 2 in particular had my attention. I was looking forward to the multiplayer aspect of it; the simultaneous use of plasmids and weapons in sounded like a refreshing experience after the binge of mediocre shooters that was 2009. That was, of course, until I heard that BioShock 2 was to make use of Games for Windows Live and SecuROM.

‘œAbandon all hope, ye who enter here.’ Those familiar with the Divine Comedy will recognize this as the last line of the famous inscription on the entrance to hell. PC gamers will recognize this as the inscription on the back of every ‘œGames for Windows’ box.

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Unless you’ve never played Mass Effect (or are like Wardrox and didn’t care for the first game enough to finish a single playthrough) today is a very special day for you. Bioware has released their “final” promotional video for Mass Effect 2 going into the release date of next week. This isn’t a puny character reveal, dev diary or a cinematic trailer; this is the BIG ONE!

Dubbed “Launch Trailer” by the game development gods in Edmonton, the latest video has me convinced that Mass Effect has surpassed Star Wars in sheer awesomeness. There’s a rousing soundtrack, stirring dialogue and lots of outer-space explosions.

There are spoilers abound in the video, but if you can get over the need to see everything with fresh eyes on day one, you’ll see they’re going to put the player through an emotional roller coaster by the end of the story. You can check out the video here, direct from the source or download it in 720p, which I highly recommend.

I’m clearly mad with excitement over Mass Effect 2, but by Friday of next week I’ll post my final thoughts on the game. Don’t expect a review, but I will put myself to the task of eating crow if the game doesn’t live up to my lofty expectations. Check out the YouTube version below if you can’t be arsed to visit Bioware’s site and see some predictions from yours truly…uhhhhh…MASS EFFECT!

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And so my steadily growing bitter disappointment at the hollowed out corpse of BioShock begins. Amazon are letting you preorder the BioShock 2 Special Edition. This version comes with loads of awesome stuff like a $10 discount and a skin for your PS3 Home character. That is unless you already preordered the game from a different outlet in which case 2K decided you shouldn’t get that.

To be clear, my anger here is one of principal. I paid $100 to GameStop for the PS3 version of the Special Edition. How is it the (singular) Special Edition if I could have waited, spent less money and got a different Special Edition that comes with more stuff!?

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As something of an early Christmas present to myself I bought Uncharted 2. It arrive a few hours ago and I’ve been Nathan-Drakeing it around since. I am disappointed to say the least. The mountains of hype accompanying this title and my discovery of its pseudo-incompatibility with 480p has left me more than a little annoyed to have spent so much money on it.

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I, like many people at this time of year, am currently spending time with my family. Obviously, as I have a mild addiction problem with the internet I’m on my laptop a fair amount of the time. I’m always wanting to keep myself up to date as well as being on the lookout for news relevant to your interest.

All on this means I am frequently checking out numerous blogs from my laptop, with family members of all ages walking around and often inquiring as to what I’m doing. When I load up, for example, The ‘Tak and right there on the front page -on a page a family member sees me looking at- is “Konami Game Inspires Schoolgirl Massage Parlor”; or a cleavage shot from a new screen of Borderlands; or “Erotic Game Comments On Erotic Game Controversy”; or a scantly clad Anime figurine; or a cleavage shot from Dante’s Inferno; or a comparison article of arses, I’m going to feel like a tit. Pardon the pun.

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We recently reported on the latest Modern Warfare 2 glitch that gives every player that comes in contact with an ‘œinfected’ user unlimited ammunition. You may have also noticed getting chucked into private matches when selecting matchmaking, where you can catch this ‘œvirus’. Obviously this is a big error, but Infinity Ward has waded in claiming a fix is on the way.

A well known videogame blog has picked up on the story and has jumped firmly on the alarmist bandwagon like it’s nobody’s business. The headline boldly reads ‘œModern Warfare gets an AIDS-like virus on Xbox Live’, which I’m sure you’ll agree, is suitably subtle. It then features such grossly inappropriate statements as:

[The glitch will] “infect” your profile and turn you into the game equivalent of an HIV carrier.

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You know what I learned this Black Friday (my first whilst being in the US)? Steam, Valve’s highly praised digital distribution platform, hates foreigners.

I have a UK steam account with several games on. This account is linked to my UK PayPal account which I have used every time I’ve bought a game via Steam. Upon loading the Steam application I downloaded and installed whilst in the UK, it displayed the US store. Oooh, Black Friday deals! Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic for $2.49? Yes please!

‘œYour billing address doesn’t look like it matches up with your current country’

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I’m sick of it. You people make ME look bad. I am a narcissistic arsehole god amongst men, thus this angers me mightily. Let me explain…

I returned home recently from the London Eurogamer Expo, and as is commonplace with the kids this day and age; many photos of me were ‘tagged’ on Facebook. This 21st century identity parade led only to grief on my behalf as my archaic peers queried me about my adventures and my reasons for being there.

Gaming is not an acceptable hobby here quite yet. Writing about them on one of them scary website things is frowned upon. Gallivanting off to strange cities with weird internet people is grounds for excommunication. Due to this annoying concept, I get more and more angry not only at these people, but at you. Yes you, reader.

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Imagine it, you sit down and unwrap your fresh copy of Splinter Cell Conviction, put it into your machine and ready yourself for a roller coaster ride of espionage, violence and, err, deodorants? Negative Gamer’s Jeff “Analoge” recently reported on the news that Splinter Cell Conviction will feature increased in-game advertising with “heat maps” that show advertisers where players frequent the most on a level. Ubisoft’s Jeffrey Dickstein was quoted to have said that while players are smashing people’s faces against walls, they could be thinking: “is this the new Degree deodorant I should buy?” Yep, he actually said that.

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