Famitsu, the popular Japanese gaming mag, gave Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker full marks in a review. This score is reserved for only the very best games (understandably) and apparently is seen as quite an achievement in some circles. Where this gets a bit iffy is in the fact that Famitsu magazine is actually in the game (along with Doritos and Mountain Dew) and the mag’s former editor-in-chief, who’s currently the president of the company that owns Famitsu, appears in a bunch of the game’s adverts.

These facts weren’t included in Famtisu‘s review, which is quarter of a page long. No gaming magazine to my knowledge (and most sites) disclose simple facts like where they got or played their games, let alone if they are in the ads, but apparently this is a big deal. Big enough to warrant an article on Kotaku titled “Do Not Trust This Magazine’s Review Scores”.

In the article Brian Ashcraft wastes no time is painting Famitsu as a shady bunch. “Some would say that Famitsu has sold its soul long, long ago. The publication always has exclusives and game reveals before anyone else, arousing the suspicions of some.” He continues by bringing up damning “rumors” about how the publishers write Famitsu‘s game announcements. Apparently the lack of disclosure on the part of the mag “destroys any illusion of impartial reviews. Forever.”

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The world of video games was left reeling yesterday as a woman from a town in a country was found to have played a video game with her shirt off.

Due to possible copyright infringement, we are unable to post an image of the woman's breasts.

An unnamed source who is close to the woman in question but not really told the Daily Star “I’ve already watched the video on YouTube like 40 times.”

The ‘Tak have posted multiple articles about the story in an attempt to let as many people know as possible that the woman had breasts that weren’t as good as Bayonetta’s and the woman was sexy in a good light.

The Daily Mail was quick to post an article on their website, probably stating something along the lines of “this is exactly why our children are so messed up.”

“Breasts kill people,” Paul Dacre, the editor of the Daily Mail may have commented.

“The sooner we get rid of breasts and other suggestive body parts off the streets, the sooner our children will stop desecrating our society.”

“This shirtless woman is clearly addicted to polluting the minds of young children.”

“I’m eating a bagel,” An unnamed source at The ‘Tak told us..

The woman has now reportedly sold her life story to the Daily Star for an estimated £550,000 and an iPod Touch.

An iPad game of the saga is currently in development for release next month.

Source: Let Me Google That For You

In a shocking move today, right-wing tabloid The Daily Star announced its acquisition of the video games blog The ‘Tak.

Examples of future 'Tak content

The move is hoped to pair up The ‘Tak‘s fapping teenage boy audience and The Daily Star‘s pornographer Richard Desmond.

It is estimated to be worth in the realms of  $6 billion.

The ‘Tak will now feature seemingly unrelated stories about women having orgasms and pole dancing on its front page.

The ‘Tak maintains that it will remain faithful to its roots and will attempt to link the pornography to video games in the weakest manner possible.

The ‘Tak isn’t the only gaming blog to employ Daily Star-like tactics to attract readers, however it has been the prime candidate for a take over by the newspaper.

There’s no word as of yet if The ‘Tak will be featured in The Daily Star however.

Sources on the inside say the deal will happen once The ‘Tak‘s misogyny quota increases by another 3000%.

The source said that this change would be happening over the next few weeks, with evidence to it already apparent.

Dear Gavin/Half Left,

I just had a thought. Actually, I had the thought on the cruise but have only now remembered it after hearing your sweet, sweet tones when we recorded the podcast. How about we copy Kotaku‘s “notes” thing? You know, where they write each other public messages?

Obviously we would need to come up with a new name so we don’t look like petty idea thieves, but I’m sure thesaurus.com can help us there. I used to slag off their letters when I didn’t read The ‘Tak very often, but in the past few months I’ve started to like them more and more. I think it lets the writers not just chat about non-game related happenings in their life, but also it lets their personality out of the bag somewhat. I think it could also be super fun.

Anyway, so far my ideas for the name include:

• Message in a bottle
• Get a load of this (as used above)
• Not-note
• N-Memo
• Bulletin/For immediate release (we write the letters in the style of  press releases)

Those ideas are a bit shit, but oh well.

Lots of love,

Snuggle-muffin

P.S. No homo.

Images released by Square Enix several days ago reportedly showed like for like gameplay screens from the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions of upcoming, role-playing super hit Final Fantasy XIII. While Kotaku at first jested that “every shot looks identical, save for the display of the buttons on the role-playing game’s interface”, later probing found the superlatory allegation to be quite true. Each pair of images really were duplicates, with interface crudely pasted over the top.

An official Valentine’s Day statement was released by Square Enix:

Unfortunately we did mistakenly include screenshots taken for pre-production (non-promotional use only) in our latest release of assets. Screenshots from the final game intended for the press kit will be released shortly. As shown in our recent demo tour and Microsoft’s X10 event, there is no material difference between the two consoles.

As is always found in cross platform development (and evidenced extensively by Digital Foundry‘s excellent Face Off series), the idea of true platform parity is largely a myth. Whether Square Enix’s mistake aimed to deliberately mislead is of course impossible to say, but it seems cynically convenient that images released with comparison as their specific aim would turn out to be copy / paste bullshots.

“We don’t feel there is a need to enhance the X360 [version]” tweeted Sonia Im, Square Enix’s North American spokeswoman. “We are looking into how the #FFXIII altered screens ended up in our presskit …  this was obviously not intentional.”

Via: Kotaku

Be warned, this video contains graphs. Then again, it also contains a dozen roses so it’s all good.

Websites that totally deserve it I might add. Game Politics is reporting that  Erik Estavillo (who referred to himself as “the famous gamer who was suing all the console companies” when trying to get in contact with GameInformer‘s Adam McNamarar, who he refers to as an “asshole”, “jerk” and a “dick”) is trying to take action against a load of websites which he says are guilty of liable.

Those shamed and damned websites we should now all hate include IGN (who employ a woman he calls on his website “Jessica Blojob”) , Joystiq, Kotaku, GayGamer, FOX and depechemode.com (who banned him from their forum, thus breaking his freedom of speech).

Estavillo says these websites “are full of intended insults”. Most of which related to the numerous times he has filed what some (not us) have called “frivolous and stupid” lawsuits. Like the time he tried to sue Sony after they banned him from the PlayStation Network citing his verbal conduct. He is asking for $10,000 in damages per article that’s been written.

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I’m not even sure I can put words together with this one, but alas, for you I will continue. Kotaku, or more commonly known as The ‘˜Tak has hired a porn star to write about picking up girls at a LAN party.

The article features Raven Alexis who is a professional pornographer. Her site, which I’m not linking to, features pictures or her performing sexually explicit acts and pictures of her fully naked. And she is writing on The ‘˜Tak. Seriously.

The article gives you several ways to talk to girls, because you’re a stereotype gamer who can’t put a few words together in front of a girl without ejaculating in your trousers. It features such gems of advice as:

Offer her some of your energy drinks or pizza. There is nothing more romantic than offering a girl a nice, refreshing taste of your Bawls…or Red Bull.

Or:

Plant a fake virus on your friend’s computer, and then come to the “rescue” very loudly and triumphantly as she looks on.

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Kotaku recently ran an article about the touchy issue of review days; where publishers pay for journalists to stay at a hotel, give them all the food they could want and let them play their game in time for publication. The writer mentions the fact that he was recently invited and attended a review day for Activison’s Modern Warfare 2.

These review events are designed to give reviewers a chance to play through the game as the ‘œdevelopers intended’, with huge TVs, 5.1 surround sound and a, err: ‘œswimming pool and hot tub’. It talks about how a increasingly large amount of writers attend these review days with game publishers not sending out review copies, in favour of using these events to show-off their games.

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A few weeks ago, Gamasutra news director Leigh Alexander wrote at length about Activision’s CEO Bobby Kotick, who she believes to be the industry’s newest punching bag. After the comments he made in September’s Deutsche Bank Securities Technology Conference in San Francisco such as his intentions ‘œto take all the fun out of making video games,’ it’s not hard to see why. Alexander asks a question that others thought not to ask: Should we really hate Bobby Kotick, who wishes to ‘œexploit’ IP for their sequels, and therefore capital investment, potential?

Why yes, we should.

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Kotaku, one of the web’s most popular sources of videogame news, has today announced it will be re-branding as The ‘Tak.

Starting life as The Young Gentleman’s Card Games And Titillation Weekly Chronicle in 1912, the blog formally known as Kotaku is no stranger to change. During World War Two when the paper was run by Charles Foster Kane it moved from broadsheet to the smaller Berliner size to save paper, moving again to the tabloid size in 1954.

After slumping sales during the 1960s the tabloid changed hands several times before settling with Groupe Le Monde who moved The Chronicle to a daily format in a bid to get the news to people before they knew they wanted it.

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Continuing the rampant speculation surrounding the Left 4 Dead 2 PC demo, Kotaku have posted an article suggesting that sound files entitled “zombiedog_attack” are linked to an unannounced zombie in the upcoming shooter.

Hilariously it turns out that the three sound files are just sound effects for the hunter from the original Left 4 Dead. The post was quickly updated once it was realised that this isn’t news, but then as I was writing this, the article has been pulled. Obviously there’s a lesson to be learned here: don’t use sound files found in a demo as a basis for rumours and don’t publish it onto a widely read Internet blog.

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Most of the episodes from this week’s round-up are particularly bad episodes from otherwise good shows. As a result, expect some harsh words to follow. Remember, our criticism stems from an appreciation and respect for the hard work each group invests in the production of their podcast. If our remarks sting ever-so-slightly, keep in mind it’s all in good fun.

If it’s a perfect podcast you’re patiently perusing for, patently free from pejoratives or prejudices of any kind, please perambulate your way to the NGCast (which can conveniently be found on our very own site). We promise to provide you with a podcast that’s pervasive with previews and postmortems, devoid of any perfunctory protestations.

Also, journalism.

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After many failed attempts, somebody has finally found something that could cause a bit of a racial stink in Scribblenauts. It turns out if you use the little known, but derogatory black male referencing phrase ‘œsambo’, you are given a water melon.

Only it’s not that simple, or racist. The phrase actually refers to the Spanish name of a plant also known as a ‘œfig leaved gourd‘, ‘œchiverre’ or my personal favourite ‘œshark fin melon’ (which are all in the Scribblenauts dictionary). So there you have it, a silly oversight and everything is sorted. Only it isn’t, because journalism and controversy.

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In a vein attempt to keep this video a bit shorter than previous ones I picked just one main thing to talk about this week. I then proceeded to not think my thoughts through carefully enough, and the result is the slightly poorly worded video you see below.

Essentially; I want NG to promote a higher standard of gaming press among other things. However, as we are not a generic videogame site, doing so is tricky. I also have many, many plans for where NG is heading. If you have any ideas about that yourself, what you want the site to be, then please do let me know.

No, I don’t want to go to Hooters. Yes, I secretly do want to fire a gun. And yes, I do regret my agreement with Brandon. As well as probably illegal weapon related deals going down on this week’s show the usual gang chat about;

• Gandy likes exploding
• Microsoft and Activision like to charge you money
• We fail to think of a competition that’s not about drawing a half-man half-tank

If you can think of any nice words, do please put them into coherent sentences in public places, we like that.

MP3, iTunes (review us here), PodFeed, Podcast.com, Digital Podcast, Any other RSS

So, the economy is dragging you down? Not getting those page views you need to do all the good that you do? Why not post some porn up!? Sure, it makes you look like your trolling for hits (because you are) and sure it lowers the tone, class and reputation of your site. But tits are hits are money. And we all like money.

Sites I like do it, sites I’ve worked for do it, sites I think are rubbish do it. Everybody does it. This makes it totaly fine and aceptable that Kotaku posted not one, not two, but 36 individual, “sexy” pictures. These were sent in from a “reader” who is taking part in the “take a picture of you surrounded by red stuff to win a game” competition. Not to be confused with the “get your tits and arse out so the 14 year old male commenters can have a fap” competition.

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I gathered up all the data I could carry from the major gaming sites over a 48 hour period. Why? So I can find out for my own personal amusement what the average breakdown in content is for the news I read every day.

I am well aware that I’m not a learned statistician and I’m also well aware than 48 hours really isn’t a long enough time period to fairly judge any site on. It is however enough to satisfy my curiosity. Please don’t take any of this as hard solid fact.

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PETA are organizing a little PvP action in World of Warcraft to raise a bit of awareness to the problems surrounding seal deaths. Because PETA often do dumb things around gaming, most readers of the reports of this action didn’t actually bother to read the words on the page, instead just spewing classic gamer bile.

To clarify; PETA are doing something fun in WoW. Something that isn’t extreme and, in my humble opinion, is actually a great way to spread their cause in an exciting, cool way. Below are some reactions from people that make me want to chew the keys out my keyboard.

These are all from my one true love, Destructoid, because that’s the first place I found this. As the day goes on I expect the other blogs to pick up on the story, and all their readers to blindly, and in a moment of hilarity, call for everybody to eat meat too:

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Remember that research from a few weeks ago that linked videogames to having shitty relationships? The one where I actually found and read the research, and found it also linked playing violent games to having more sex and watching porn?

Kotaku doesn’t. Even though they had a brief interview with the research’s main author and one of their readers. The first time they linked to the report, they commented on the link between violence and violent games. Here is an extract from the article:

Put on your tinfoil hats boys and girls, it’s time for another study that proves something about video games and the people who play them.

A new study shows that regular gamers are more likely to drink alcohol or use drugs than others, and that gaming deteriorates relationships and that the people who play them to suffer low self-esteem issues.

Oh, did I mention that the study was done by four professors at Brigham Young University by researching the habits of 800 students through an online survey?

Why should that matter?

BYU is a private university owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints which requires that their students adhere to a strict honor code which mandates behavior in line with Mormon teachings. That means no extra-marital sex, or use of drugs, alcohol, tobacco, tea or coffee.

Where this gets interesting and relevant again is with an article posted this morning on Kotaku. The article claims there is some new research out linking porn usage to violent games. Who knew?

Journal of Youth and Adolescence is publishing a study that examined gaming and internet use among college undergrads. Hello Captain Obvious!

Lead by Laura M. Padilla-Walker, an associate professor at the School of Family Life at Brigham Young University, the study surveyed 500 female and 313 male undergraduate college students in the U.S about ideas of self-worth, social acceptance and relationships.

Laura M. Padilla-Walker, that name sounds familiar. As it should, as she was also the lead author for the first piece of research. Because, in fact, it’s the same.

To end this tale of humorously ill-researched blogging, Brian Ashcraft finishes the more recent article with his rather good put-down: “Maybe they drink alcohol, too. Do a study on that!”

From the research paper in question: “Furthermore, violent video game use by men was linked to more drinking behaviors” also “Interestingly, women who played video games or violent video games also tended to engage in more drinking behaviors …”

Thanks to the Anonymous Tipster for the info.

[Editor's Note - it has come to my attention that this post is very similar to one posted yesterday on Kotaku. This is pure coincidence.]

Contrary to popular belief, gamers are actually the coolest people alive. If a gamer were to go to speakers corner in Hyde Park to and get up on their soapbox and educate the masses as to the optimum WoW raid group and the bullet patterns on ikaruga, all the women in the area would instantly go moist. It’s true I’ve seen this happen.

With this in mind I thought it might be a nice idea to pass on some ideas and thoughts on how to have a lovely game-centric party.

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Just another weekly update from me. Things I talk about:

• I played some games. Here is the IGN review of Battle of Giants: Dinosaurs I got distracted by. (Also, here is the IGN review of Barbie Horse Adventures: Riding Camp)
• This is the forum thread that got viewed by literally BILLIONS of people.
• A couple of our writers got busy IRL. I wish them all the very best and do hope they keep popping back to let us all know how they’re getting along with jobs, babies and other such real-worldly happenings. Incidentally, this post (roughly) explains how YOU could write stuff for NG.
• The incident on TechCrunch I was talking about in regard to videos in comments is here. The video in Update 4 explains it all.
• I’m likely to be a bit busy until February, but once my free time opens up I can get cracking on the new site design (with added logo!), upgrading the site to WordPress 2.7 and writing more reviews and features.

That’s basically anything that needs links linked too. As I said in the video; if you have any feedback or anything in particular you would like to chat about, just let me know.

[Any similarity between this post and one from earlier today on Kotaku is purely coincidental]

Why, hello there. It’s that time again, time to remind seasoned vets and newcomers alike how to comment right here on Negative Gamer. Things to keep in mind:

We banned a guy. Once. One time I did it. And that’s not all! We once argued back to somebody in a comment. (I bet they felt like such an ass!)

We also reward stellar commenters with virtual, meaningless praise (because smart people appreciate that), and commenters can reward each other with virtual blow-jobs and hooker nominations. Swell.

Why do we do this? Well… Have you visited other sites? I haven’t, and I’m so far up my own arse, I don’t really understand what’s going on. Not everyone who reads NG comments, and some of those individuals perhaps, just perhaps, would like to read intelligent, insightful remarks from smart people, not dribble from dummies you complete fucking morons. Who the fuck do you think you are coming on MY site with your retarded “opinions” anyway!? Everybody knows the only people on the internet are 12 year old social rejects.

I’m the only smart one here, and I am sat so high up on this big-ass throne of journalism, you snivelling peasants cant even see me.

You may now act grateful.

[Cameron Sampson has been working as a producer and journalist within the videogame industry for more than 6 years. He's written for both online and print media and more recently has become fed up with the whole thing after trying to start his own magazine. In this guest article, he talks about his experiences with the world of gaming journalism and its accompanying PR machine - Ed]

This past year, or few years for that matter has been telling for video game journalism. One thing is clear; we are not journalists.

On the totem pole of credibility, video game journalists are the bottom feeders, since the never-ending cycle revolves around pleasing publishers. Those that dare to oppose the cycle are either “burned” or blacklisted. However, perhaps a few have made a better situation out of it.

Jeff Gerstmann got the pink slip from CNET for Eidos pulling ads in response to his negative review on Kane and Lynch. Gerstmann gained his own audience from that incident and created Giant Bomb.

Dan Hsu caught Tecmo’s attention when an executive referred to the former EGM editor as a “stinky shoe” in response to his report on Tecmo’s practice with inviting press to hostess bars. While silly, it doesn’t seem so bad right? Well, there’s that rumor of Tecmo issuing a permanent ban on Hsu still open. Hsu, already the vocal advocate for journalism ethics, is instant ratings (or hits) for the gaming blogs. He seems to be doing well post-EGM, with his freelance and E3 correspondent gig with G4.

Let us not forget the all-time classic, Kotaku versus Sony fiasco, where Kotaku exposed their ban to the public, leaving Sony to promptly patch things up. I still say that Crecente or Bashcraft owe Sony one of their standard notes full of thank yous. That incident clearly put them over the top amongst the gaming blogosphere.

While there are other incidents, allow me to divulge my own experiences. I requested a Q&A for a Square Enix game, only to have one of their PR edit my interview questions for “better terminology.” I guess they didn’t fancy my writing style. However, Square Enix will have to settle for consolation while Sega went for the prize of ultimate screw job.

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[Note - you may not get the reference, best not to ask tbh]

It’s cold. I like videogame shops.

Some people don’t read online reviews of games. Some people don’t even recognise me! A lot of people don’t give a shit. Lots of people play games though.

Many people have heard pop songs by Rihanna, so why don’t lots of people know about Fallout 3? The Wii sold more than Rihanna’s album by 2 to 1!

People who like videogame websites, like videogame culture. Often, we don’t realise there are loads of people who don’t.

Some people like all music, some people like specific types and some people don’t care. I don’t care about music much, and I disagreed with a review I found. Some music writers are crap… or I don’t understand them, so I’ll not bother.

This is just like videogame reviews. Most people don’t understand words like “gameplay”. A review would be good if it said “you will like this”.

Some people think videogames are just toys. We are so lonely. Nobody understands.