Dan Choi
Articles by Dan Choi
Desperate Housewives to despair on PCs
If all goes according to plan, fans of the desperate housewives on Wisteria Lane will be able to live out their soap opera dreams on their PCs before the TV show's canceled.Disney (which owns the ABC television network that distributes Desperate Housewives in the States) has set its Buena Vista Games division to publish a PC-based adaptation of the sudsy Sunday-night staple this fall.While negotiations are underway to secure additional cast members to represent themselves in-game (they've only gotten the deceased housewife narrator on-board so far), we hope this license works out better than the recent video game adaptations such as 24: The Game, Alias, and Dark Angel (where the DA game actually came out after the show was canceled). The screenshots revealed seem to display more suburban architecture than gameplay, but the game will involve taking on the role of a new neighboring housewife. It has not been disclosed, however, whether you can take prisoners in your basement as of yet.[Thanks, riffgod, bandersnatch, Nick, & GunForHire; via Yahoo! & the BBC]See also: Mark Green discusses 24: The Game Metacritic metascore for 24: The Game (on the PS2): 61 out of 100 Metacritic metascore for Alias (on the PC): 55 out of 100 Metacritic metascore for Dark Angel (on the PS2): 48 out of 100
Walt Mossberg gets his brain (DS) trained
They've sold Brain Age in Japan by the millions, used it to demonstrate disruptive market strategies (in multiple keynotes), and now the folks at Nintendo have dropped their brain-sharpening baby into the hands of Walter S. Mossberg.Mossberg, the powerful Wall Street Journal tech writer, has wielded quite a bit of influence in the gadget world, even giving praise (with strong reservations) to the PSP and Xbox 360 when each of those platforms launched. But what does he have to say about Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day (for the DS)?Walt actually likes the game... with a caveat, of course: his ability to knock down his purported brain age down to 20 (the youngest possible) in the course of a day "didn't inspire confidence in the program's scientific accuracy." But at least it was fun. And even if that creepy Kawashima head isn't fully localized yet ("the setting sun sure does put spots in my eyes"), at least the older mainstream--okay, Engadget--crowd will get some exposure to this supposedly beneficial game through this coverage.[Thanks, Michael; image from the Radio And Internet Newsletter (RAIN)]See also: GDC: The Nintendo keynote blow by blow [free Brain Age for all!] Japanese doctors recommend Brain Training for seniors Walt Mossberg on the 360 PSP: Wall Street Journal gives us its impressions
God of War 2 GDC video leaked online
No one was supposed to be recording at the time, but it appears that the trailer for God of War 2 (from Phil Harrison's keynote at GDC) has managed to find its way onto the intarwebs and into our hearts.There you can observe good ol' Kratos jabbin' and choppin' and doin' his thing with his mythological Greek friends. Of course, if you haven't played (or finished) the first God of War game, be aware that a minor spoiler is revealed early on by the trailer's narrator. (Didn't see that one coming, didja?)But, yeah... who do we have to thank for breaking Sony's embargo on this footage? Apparently some guy named "Element" who helps out at playsyde.com. Will Sony act against YouTube for hosting such a video? We'll have to see now, won't we? Whatever the case, an official direct-feed version would certainly be appreciated if it can be managed.[Thanks, David; via digg]See also: Playsyde cam-footage post thanking "the great Element" for this clip Sony confirms God of War 2 worldwide Q1 2007 Unreal Engine 3 and other PS3 tech demos from GDC floor [no GoW?] GDC: The PS3 keynote blow by blow [a few GoW 2 details]
Rumor: Capcom Studio 8 (Maximo) shut down
If the word of a former Capcom employee can be believed, it looks as if the publisher's shut down Capcom Studio 8, its U.S. development house, leaving 20 people out of a job.Studio 8 was best known for its Maximo remakes for the PS2--Maximo: Ghosts to Glory and Maximo vs. Army of Zin. Unfortunately, a poor performance with its latest retro retread, Final Fight: Streetwise, has apparently done the studio in with the higher-ups.According to GameSpot, this means the end of the Maximo series (and obviously the end of the Streetwise one). A Capcom rep only had this to say in response: "Capcom does not comment on day-to-day operations." If this story's true, we hope those kids can find a new employer, possibly at the Game Developers Conference that's currently taking place in CA.See also: Final Fight Streetwise interview Final Fight: Streetwise looking for a little respect FF:S loses respect with metascores in the 40s (for the PS2 and Xbox) BioWare opens Austin studio for new MMO [so bring resumes to GDC]
VG Voters send Senate 20K notes; survey up
New members to the Video Game Voters Network received an e-mail this morning letting them know that nearly 20,000 messages were sent to U.S. Senators from concerned gamers in just over a week's time.What were basically sent were form letters, addressed to the appropriate Senators, telling them not to restrict video games, and concluding with the gaming voter's name and address at the end. It looks like the more effective mailing of handwritten letters will be left up to the concerned citizens themselves.Also noted in the e-mail was a survey meant to "help [them] better target and personalize the action alerts [they] send to you." While it's up to you whether you want to share your demographic information and gaming-blog contributions with a political network (even a game-oriented one), it would probably help refine the organization's strategy in who to approach for help and how. The full letter this blogger received follows.See also: Video Game Voters Network: 10,000 strong in first week VGVN's "Contact Congress/Your Senators!" page [with form letter]
Unreal Engine 3 and other PS3 tech demos from GDC floor
Sony may have prevented pics of God of War 2, MotorStorm, and Resistance: Fall of Man from being taken during Phil Harrison's keynote speech yesterday, but they did let folks take video footage of the other PS3 tech demos on the GDC floor.So here you have not only the "Lots of Ducks" tech demo all the way from last year's E3 presentation, but you've also got a user-manipulated look at Unreal Engine 3 (which will purportedly power Unreal Tournament 2007 on PS3 next year), a performance-analysis app that flips a face around, and the underwater fish demo also seen during Phil's address.Of course, there's only so much nudging around of heavy barrels with the Unreal engine that you can take without wondering what juicy UT tidbits will turn up at E3 2006. What's nice, though, is if you're sick and tired of seeing more rubber duckies in Sony's bathtub, you can watch for them in that fishy underwater video resting at the bottom of the sea. Wow, those ducks went down... permanently! Just remember that these technical demos are not representative of final playable games. (Darn.)See also: GDC: The PS3 keynote blow by blow [Chris gets his "wrist slapped"] An in-depth look at Unreal Tournament 2007 Sony confirms God of War 2 worldwide Q1 2007 Engadget & Joystiq's live coverage of Sony's PlayStation 3 launch
Chris Grant co-host on Gaming Steve podcast
Joystiq's very own Christopher Grant is not only posting from the 2006 Game Developers Conference, he's also starring in a podcast.Okay, so technically he's just co-hosting an episode of an ongoing podcast with Gaming Steve, but you can't miss this opportunity to hear Chris's laid-back, sweetly smooth voice. (There are reports that Chris also sounds somewhat like a stoner, but we wouldn't be able to tell you what those kind of people sound like anyway, so what can we say?)As for the podcast itself, Chris and Steve go into the events of the last day, enthusiastically sharing about Microsoft's bloggers breakfast with Peter Moore (inset), Phil Harrison's PS3 keynote, what the new Battlestar Galactica might have to do with games, and everything else that they saw in San Jose. And, hey, maybe if we're lucky, we'll get another guest Joystiqer co-hosting with Steve today. More from GDC as we get it...See also: Direct download link for the podcast in question [55 minute-long MP3] Gaming Steve's "Day 3" report on GDC 2006 [where we got the pic] Joystiq @ GDC: In the beginning... [w/a little bloggers breakfast info] GDC: The PS3 keynote blow by blow
Region-free PS3, free online multiplayer confirmed
During a Q&A session with media over lunch after yesterday's GDC keynote, Sony's Phil Harrison confirmed that PS3 software will be region free and that multiplayer gaming will also be free.While we'd heard rumblings of the region-free set-up for games back in early November, we hadn't heard any official confirmation outside of Australia until just the other day. Importers (as well as online gamers) should be quite pleased with the development, though this move likely won't follow for Blu-ray movie discs. It's good to see the region-free status of PSP games spread to the PS3's.If online multiplayer is included as part of Sony's free basic service (known internally as the "PlayStation Network Platform"), then what would constitute Sony's premium service besides the typical content downloads for games? Subscriptions for movie and/or music services, perhaps? And going back to the region-encoding news, it's heartening for our friends on the Continent to hear Phil's following statement: "It's possible for developers to put all the TV formats - PAL, NTSC, HDTV, and so on - on the disc." Can Sony bring the world together with games?[Thanks, DarkFlash; image taken from Final Fantasy Odyssey]See also: Free basic service on "PlayStation Network Platform" GDC: The PS3 keynote blow by blow ["P(S)NP" just an internal name] PS3 region encoding unlikely? [from Sony Computer Ent. Australia] PS3 to share region encoding on Blu-ray [for the U.S. and Japan?]
Windows Vista delayed until 2007... taking Halo 2 with it?
Microsoft's announced that Windows Vista will be delayed until January of next year for most consumers. Some businesses will get an early crack at the OS this November, however.Other than Vista's touted advantages for gamers (and its enormous technical requirements), we care about a delay because certain games may not release, run, or run "optimally" with anything less than Vista, including Halo 2 for the PC, MS Flight Simulator X, and CryTek's Crysis ("the first DirectX 10-enabled game" for the new OS).Of course, release plans, optimizations, and compatibilities could change from here till the end of 2006, but Microsoft will probably try to support its upcoming OS upgrade with as many titles as it can in the coming year. Vista was supposed to spark a new renaissance in PC gaming after its long and drawn-out development grind. At least corporate testers will get to check out the new version of Minesweeper before Christmas.
Rumor: Revolution to be renamed this Thursday
According to CVG, there's "a strong whisper that the Revolution's real name will finally be confirmed this week" at GDC.Satoru Iwata's disruptive GDC keynote, scheduled for Thursday at 10:30 AM PT (1:30 PM ET) to 11:30 AM PT, would be the perfect opportunity to reveal the new name for Nintendo's next console.The other rumor--regarding a highly unlikely June launch for the machine still code-named Revolution--was a lot less believable. Then again, this week's events could simply confirm that the Big N's going with its hardware code name for the Rev as it did for the DS. Questions, questions... hopefully we'll have some answers this Thursday.[Via Gamecloud]See also: Joystiq @ GDC: In the beginning... [a few upcoming GDC highlights] Revolution's real name and final form to be revealed in May Revolution still just a "codename?" Nintendo overhauls the DS [but keeps the code name]
Battlefield 2142 officially confirmed
Well, it looks like it's official... sorta. The BF2142 Team has updated EA's Battlefield 2 site with a note today confirming the ongoing development of Battlefield 2142 ("scheduled for release this Autumn"). The "official" corporate press release will arrive sometime later this week. So there you have it. And for those of you who were wondering what's up with patches for BF2 right now, "the DICE Canada studio will be hard at work on a 1.3 update... as well as the Armoured Fury Booster Pack," leaving DICE Stockholm free to focus on building the franchise's future. [Thanks, A2000 and Iced_Eagle] See also: Battlefield 2142 allegedly confirmed by PC Gamer [with video trailer] Battlefield 2142 scans of PC Gamer cover story leaked
Random encounters with Final Fantasy parody videos
Western Square fans have been waiting a long time for the next canonical (read: Roman-numeral-bearing, non-MMO, non-X-2) Final Fantasy release--five years if we're not mistaken--and they've apparently taken to creating live-action videos of the game to make the wait easier.
Battlefield 2142 scans of PC Gamer cover story leaked
The Battlefield 2142 hoopla is starting to look more and more real as scans of the PC Gamer issue in question have surfaced online with BF 2142 featured as the magazine's May cover story. Digg contributor Iced_Eagle has pointed us to an 8.5MB archive of images from the mag, with 9 pages concerned with 2142 and 2 pages having to do with Half-Life 2: Episode 1. If you're interested in knowing "where your unstoppable 20-foot Mech is," then you'd best get to that reading online or off ASAP. For those still skeptical of any gaming news outlet coming out with such a story in the general vicinity of April Fools' Day, keep in mind that the game appears to not only be the magazine's cover story, but that its coverage also fills up all those pages of print mentioned earlier. EGM merely dedicated a single page with a brief line in the table of contents to its Apple iGame prank this year, so this would seem like a lot of effort on PC Gamer or some extremely dedicated Photoshopper's part to fool the gaming public. Will this fall prove to be the point when the BF franchise finally frags in the future? At this point, it would certainly seem so. Read on for further details about the game; the cover pic links to the scans.
Battlefield 2142 allegedly confirmed by PC Gamer [Update1]
According to digg, this video trailer from the May 2006 issue of PC Gamer confirms the existence of Battlefield 2142 and its pending release this fall.Feel free to watch those warring mechs, but we'll hold off judgment until we hear the official word from EA/DICE. Do you believe a future ice age will precipitate a global war over arable land? You've been warned.[Update: Scans of the mag have surfaced online. Thanks, Iced_Eagle!]See also: Battlefield 2142 hinted at by Digital Illusions producer EA gobbles up the rest of Battlefield developer DICE [Thanks, Shaved Moose and Einhanderkiller; via digg]
EA gobbles up the rest of Battlefield developer DICE
According to GamesIndustry.biz, "DICE's board of directors has unanimously agreed on a joint merger plan" with Battlefield publisher EA.If all goes well, Digital Illusions CE will become fully owned by the largest 3rd-party publisher in the world when stockholders meet and vote on the measure May 24th. EA already owns two-thirds of the company's shares.Like any large company, EA has bought smaller competitors like Criterion and important industry players like Jamdat to buy its way into new markets and franchises, so this is nothing new. We simply wish DICE the best in the future (with hopefully few future layoffs because of this deal).
Goodbye, Katamari?
If Namco's Japanese web site is to be believed, yesterday marked the end of the road for the King of All Cosmos and Katamari Damacy. As noted earlier this week, the official Katamari web site was counting down until its online closing on the 17th. Unfortunately, the site now tells us that "the team behind both the original game and its sequel, We Love Katamari, has dissolved, and that no sequels have been planned" (according to Gamasutra). Not all is lost, however, as Professor Katamari (a likely reference to series creator Keita Takahashi) "is currently working on a new game design" with a new team where you unfortunately do not roll things up nor "get bigger." Me and My Katamari for the PSP would appear to be the final version of the game to appear at this point, though we hold out a faint hope that a fantastically rendered "clump of souls" will eventually find its way to next-generation consoles. Until then, catch you later, Prince. [Via Slashdot] See also: Katamari Kountdown: new title on the way? Katamari PSP gold, could mark series' finale
Rumor: Yuji Naka set to leave Sega
Yuji Naka, the original programmer behind Sonic the Hedgehog and arguably the most influential man at Sega (next to Yu Suzuki, of course), is rumored to be leaving Sega.Citing sources "close to Sega," Next Generation claims that the influential leader "is planning to set up his own studio." If true, this action would mirror those of other game industry greats such as Tetsuya Mizuguchi (who founded Q Entertainment) and Hironobu Sakaguchi (who started Mistwalker).Unfortunately, this kind of rumor is difficult to confirm as you don't know for sure whether someone's leaving a developer until he's actually gone. With all the organizational changes at the company, however (especially since Sammy bought Sega), such a move wouldn't be too surprising. We just hope the next-gen sequels to Sonic are in good hands.See also: Next-gen Sonic to be "re-invented" for PS3 and Xbox 360 Rumor: Sonic coming to Revolution DS: Sakaguchi & Co. working on new RPG Lumines sales top gold status
12-hour Oblivion marathon starts on Monday
It looks like GameSpot's taking a page from Joystiq's gaming book by trying a 12-hour marathon with a retail copy of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion for the 360 this Monday.There will even be a live video feed of executive editor Greg Kasavin "driving" the game, but that will only be available to GameSpot subscribers. (Booo!) The event's currently scheduled for Monday, March 20, 6:00 PM-Tuesday, March 21, 6:00 AM PT.Greg'll be "offering commentary about the experience as it transpires" via the picture-in-picture feed, but he won't be taking part in the concurrent subscriber chat room planned so as "to avoid any outside influences on his time spent evaluating the game." Well, good luck, Greg, and make sure to stay hydrated... 'cuz it's gonna be a long night.See also: Oblivion release imminent -- March 20 (it's official) 48-hour Xbox 360 marathon begins… now! Super-frustrating boss fight in Kameo Joystiq's massive Xbox 360 launch weekend blowout: the aftermath
A postmortem on Accordion Hero (with a little info on Guitar Hero, too)
Just in case you missed the Guitar Hero parody Accordion Hero reported here on Joystiq a week or two back, Gamasutra has now posted a tongue-in-cheek postmortem on the squeezebox simulator. It's cheeky.You'll learn not only "that accordion players get all the girls" (with female players, of course, getting all the guys), but you'll also get a handle on some detailed developer data such as the number of accordions broken during development (none) and the number set on fire during the same period of time (twenty-three).
Actress talks to gamer about WoW dedication
The guys at LiquidGeneration went a step beyond stalking an actress and actually scored an interview with the WoW-playing USPS ad girl.Felicia Day is best known in TV circles as the potential slayer "Vi" during the final season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but she also found a bit of notoriety as "Angie," the USPS-usin' woman for a Postal Service ad campaign. All we're interested in, of course, is her love of Ultima VII, Link (over Mario and Undead Warlocks), and 5 man Strat runs for her Level 60 Gnome Warlock.Maybe it's not the greatest revelation since Dave Chappelle showed some knowledge of the MMO, but many male gamers still manage to find a way of expressing shock that a beautiful woman (especially one who's found a measure of success in Hollywood) enjoys an online raid or two. We're just glad that an actress is willing to be upfront about her love of games--even she sometimes uses it to avoid talking about bad auditions.[Thanks, James]