Good news / bad news
Our moles burrowed deep inside the twisted infrastructure of Splinter Cell: Double Agent publisher Ubisoft have discovered that the PC version is a virtually identical copy of the game on Xbox 360. This is great news for lovers of tense, neck-snapping action, since we're hopelessly addicted to Sam Fisher's next-gen turn on Microsoft's white monolith. The bad news: the PC version is delayed until October 31. Trick or treat, Sam?
Halo no-go?
Movie blog Cinematical has put upan in-depth lookat the issues behind the Halo movie - or, rather, its near-demise. Turns out that the two movie studios behind the production, Fox and Universal, are less than enthusiastic about ponying up the production dollars... and have parted ways with the project. According to the report, Peter Jackson's agent is still gung-ho on the film, but the harsh realities of Hollywood rear their ugly heads here: the chosen director, Neil Blomkamp,is a newbie, having only worked on commercials and short films (check out his white-hotAlive in Joburg.) That may not be enough to get this one off the ground. Particularly after Doomstunk up the box officeand made the studios fear shooter-to-movie adaptations.
Say "hi" to the adman again
So we've been reporting on this Battlefield 2142 in-game ads thing for a few days now. Today, EA - sensing that the hate was reaching the boiling point all over the web - sent out some clarifications.
- BF2142 "does not access any files which are not directly related to the game." It doesn't scan your hard drive looking for goodies, in other words.
- BF2142 "delivers ads by region" by figuring out where you live from your computer's IP address. But EA doesn't keep that info.
- BF2142 records what ads you look at and how long you look at them, but the information is merely used to "help advertisers qualify the reach" of their ads.
Of course, they didn't release any info on why the idea of in-game billboard ads isn't a completely stupid idea. Or why you should be forced to sit through ads in a full-priced game. But we doubt they have an answer to those.
If you need to catch up on the back story, just check ourfirst storyand itsfollow-up.
You achieve nothing
360 gamers don't just fight it out on Xbox Live - they battle indirectly through Achievements. These points, which you earn for accomplishing different things in games, drive gamers to spend more time playing 360 games... and to bicker over Gamerscore. Will PS3 have something similar? Uh... maybe.Game|Lifewas able to uncover, yesterday, that the PS3 will not have a similar system - at least not globally. Different games may offer Achievement-like competition within them, but good luck tracking someone's value as a human being via one simple number. Sony's Jack Tretton does have a point when he says, "It's very difficult to draw analogies [between] your success on SOCOM and your success on Madden. Madden players care about peoples' success on Madden." It should be interesting to see what systems the companies come up with - particularly in multiplatform games that are hitting the PS3 and 360 at the same time.
New screens
Crysis (PC)
Resistance: Fall of Man (PS3)
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories (PSP)
flOw (PS3)
Lair (PS3)
Criminal Crackdown (PS3)
Blast Factor (PS3)
Battlefield 2142 (PC)
Zendoku (DS,PSP)
Pokemon Diamond / Pearl (DS)
Fight Night Round 3 (PS3)
Call of Duty 3 (PS3)
Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning (PC)
Death, Jr. 2: Root of Evil (PSP)
Mobile Suit Gundam: Crossfire (PS3)
New videos
Resistance: Fall of Man (PS3)
Hellgate: London (PC)
Lair (PS3)
flOw (PS3)
NBA 07 (PS3)
Formula One 06 (PS3)
Mobile Suit Gundam: Crossfire (PS3)
MotorStorm (PS3)
Rush (PSP)
Vanguard: Saga of Heroes (PC)
Sid Meier's Railroads! (PC)
Pokemon Diamond / Pearl (DS)
Devil May Cry 4 (PS3)
Call of Duty 3 (PS3)
Criminal Crackdown (PS3)
Tiger Woods 07 (PS3)
October 20, 2006
