Edward Ho

PC Gaming By Edward Ho

World of Warcraft launches, players angry

Today gamers who were prepared to start grinding in World of Warcraft were greeted with queues of over 600 people just to log in. Gamers are reportedly waiting hours for a taste of the game. The problem has much to do with the popularity of the PvP servers on the first day of the launch. Other problems such as disconnects and game crashes have added to their wounds. This brings back painful memories of the Ultima Online launch... 7 years ago.

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Gaming By Edward Ho

NCSoft and BioWare win at Billboard awards

Game awards are kind of like our next door neighbor; sometimes they are in touch reality and sometimes they aren't. Billboard's attempt didn't draw our ire, although giving the "Best Use of Sound" award to True Crime: Streets of LA was questionable during a year we learned to command squads by voice. The well executed City of Heroes took top honors as well as the multiplayer award. Developer of the Year went to BioWare Corp largely for their efforts with KOTOR and expansions on the Neverwinter Nights franchise.

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PC Gaming By Edward Ho

400,000 people played Guild Wars last weekend

We took advantage of the Guild Wars preview event last weekend to take a look around at the state of the game. Apparently, over 400,000 other players were on during the weekend, which makes the performance we experienced that much more remarkable. The game itself is like an MMO hack-n-slash RPG with many quests designed for teams of players. In a game like WoW, quests frequently will find multiple parties camping spawn points in order to complete the quest. Guild Wars solves the issue by spawning an isolated instance of quests for each group producing a consistent experience. Grouping for a quest takes place in a holding area that notes the recommended group size. This prevents lone players from rushing into an area designed for large groups of players and getting killed, which seems to happen a lot to a certain friendless Joystiq blogger. More details about the upcoming beta weekends at the game's site.

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PC Gaming By Edward Ho

World of Warcraft ships Nov. 23

Blizzard has announced World of Warcraft will hit stores on Nov. 23 in North America, Australia, and New Zealand. Gamers can choose between the regular version and a special Collector's Edition which among other things will give you an exclusive in-game pet. Both versions will include the first month free and subscriptions will vary in price between $12.99 and $14.99 depending on the payment plan chosen. While we think this is a little expensive, we really find the quest driven nature of advancement they have chosen extremely addictive and enjoyable. The Collector's Edition will also include a 10-day guest pass so you can get someone else hooked on the drug.

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PC Gaming By Edward Ho

Doom 3 for Mac

Aspyr Media and id Software now have a Mac version of Doom 3 available for pre-order. Yes, we know none of you use Apple computers, but this would be a good gift for your fruity Mac-loving friend. Doom 3 just gets everyone into the holiday spirit with a nice "Welcome to HELL!"

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Gaming By Edward Ho

Win Gamefly rentals from McDonald's

We know you like heart stopping food and video games so we consider this more of a public service announcement than anything else. Check in at your local Big Mac vendor for their Monopoly game pieces and enter online to try to get a one year subscription to GameFly. We think a year of game rentals is worth whatever damage those burgers would cause.

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Gaming By Edward Ho

Mad Catz to release first game

Accessory manufacturer Mad Catz Interactive has decided to create a dance game to go along with their dance pads. MC Groovz Dance Craze will be the first dance game Nintendo GameCube and should hit stores in time for the holiday season. If you insist on some exercise with your gaming, this game might be for you. MC Groovz Dance Craze will go for about $50 (dance pad included) and will feature music from Jewel, Jessica Simpson, and various club tracks.

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Gaming By Edward Ho

Exercise while gaming?

We don't think there is anything wrong with exercising; it's something for people who can't play games very well. Now there is a product for crazies that want to get exercise while they play shooters. We are quite sure that the designers of the product are well intentioned, but this is just ridiculous, one could even say it's stupid. The FP Gamerunner looks like a treadmill with a scooter's handle bar attached to it and can be used to play any FPS. Apparently, you twist the handle bar to aim vertically and to strafe you continue walking forward while pushing a button. Just thinking about walking forward to go sideways is making us nauseous.

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Gaming By Edward Ho

A real Lord of the Rings RPG has shipped

We've come to expect nothing from games tied to movie franchises so we feel a little out of sorts to be excited about Lord of the Rings: The Third Age. The game is a full featured RPG that allows free roaming play, the ability to complete quests for either side of the war, and renders all items on your character. We are also pleased that we won't be playing as any member of the Fellowship. Hobbits are great, but playing a game as a three foot tall, peace loving character with no fighting abilities just isn't our idea of fantasy. EA has promised a lot with this game, if they fail to deliver, we'll be forced to never buy another movie tie-in again.

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PC Gaming By Edward Ho

Act of War beta test signup

For our RTS fans, Atari is still taking a few more registrations for beta testing Act of War: Direct Action. The beta for this near future RTS should feature a full tech tree as they attempt to balance out the sides. If getting to play multiplayer games about war for free is your thing, then you'll want to head over to the registration site and use the code "AOW-PRE". Also you should make sure you have at least a P4 2.2GHz, 512Mb RAM, and a pretty solid video card (128Mb) so that you can zoom around the battlefield smoothly. The beta test starts this week, so get your registration in immediately. Thanks Ken

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Computing

Computing By Edward Ho

1066 MHz system bus now available for rich gamers

The 'Extreme' speed platform was announced today by Intel which includes the new 925XE Express chipset capable of an astounding 1066MHz system bus speed. An Extreme Edition of the Pentium 4 running at 3.46 GHz is also being released to go along with it. Both of these are allegedly targeted at us, the hardcore gamers. Someone seems to have forgotten to mention to Intel that the only gamers that can afford a $999 processor are the inept rich guys down the street who we repeatedly frag.

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Nintendo

Nintendo By Edward Ho

Nintendo wins against piraters

Nintendo has scored a temporary restraining order against companies importing and selling devices with bootleg copies of classic NES games. The devices sold as "Superjoy", "Powerjoy", and "Power Player" come preloaded with approximately 85 games some of which are original 8-bit NES games. These plug-n-play devices which are manufactured in China were being peddled from kiosks in malls and online. Many of the games featured are currently enjoying a revival on the GBA SP.

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PC Gaming By Edward Ho

Star Wars Galaxies machinima worth a look

We're big fans of machinima and unconventional behavior in MMOs, so when we saw the winner of this year's Star Wars Galaxies Fan Film Fest, something just resonated with us. Anything that involves gamers deciding to pass on living their 'real' lives to spend hours in a game not even playing is just something that we can't help but encourage. Go forth good gamer, watch it then make more movies for us to enjoy... [via Boing Boing]

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PC Gaming By Edward Ho

Guild Wars screenshots for your afternoon

When we saw these screenshots we just had to everyone go check them out. Click through and take a look at what could be the best looking MMO. These were taken in game from the preview we mentioned ealier. [thanks Kamalot]

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Gaming By Edward Ho

Gizmondo shipping today in UK

Just in case anyone missed the news about Gizmondo last month. Here's a reminder that it's shipping today in the UK. Of particular interest is the use of Nvidia's GoForce 4500 chipset and the inclusion of a GPS locator. We also like the use of standard PDA/Phone technologies like Bluetooth, SD, and GPRS. What we don't like is having only a handful of launch titles of questionable quality. We already have enough hardware sitting around that has been abandoned by manufacturers and developers alike. [thanks to Justin Nolan]

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Gaming By Edward Ho

Pariah trailer is up

It's Friday afternoon and we still have several hours left to go before we escape. If you are in the same boat you can check out the first Pariah trailer we mentioned here. We aren't experts about film or film trailers, but we didn't get the "emotional" response Mojo was suppossed to be able to deliver. Overall the game isn't looking too unique, but we did like seeing bodies and vehicles flying through the air.

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PC Gaming By Edward Ho

Guild Wars preview starts today

If you aren't stuck at work like us, then head on over and grab your copy of the Guild Wars client. We love demos, especially open previews for MMOs. So far this latest offering from NCSoft is looking great, but everyone can decide for themselves this weekend as the preview will last until the end of October.

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PC Gaming By Edward Ho

World of Warcraft closed beta ending

Sad news went out to beta testers last night, the WoW closed beta is ending today at 3pm PDT. The rest of the world can rejoice in their pain as it means that Blizzard is one step closer to finishing their drug for us. After taking down the servers, they will prepare them for a massive stress test and then the players will be allowed back in. All this means that the open beta is just around the corner.

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Xbox

Xbox By Edward Ho

Gamer suing Microsoft for bad Xbox drives

Yesterday, Sean Burke filed a suit in Los Angeles alleging that his Xbox stopped reading and playing games after less than a year of normal use. The suit is looking to represent all Xbox owners who have had similar problems and is seeking compensation. Microsoft hasn't responded yet, but we'll keep you updated. Any readers have an experience with bad drives in their Xbox? UPDATE: So far I've only gotten a generic response from Microsoft's Molly O'Donnell saying they have been aware of the suit and have been looking into it. I'll keep putting whatever I get from them in the comments thread.

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Nintendo

Nintendo By Edward Ho

Nintendo apologizes to Suicide Girls

Nintendo has now apologized after claiming that SuicideGirls.com was infringing on their rights because a user's profile included references to Metroid and Zelda. They go on to offer the site creator and offending user a game system and game of their choice. Follow the link for the full text of their response. [via Boing Boing]

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By Edward Ho

Second Life bits

Seems like Second Lifers don't like being studied by anthropology students and it has raised questions about the ethics of recording your interactions in MMOs. Gosh, we wonder what researchers would say about our psychotic break in Ultima Online... oops, forget we said that. We really have no idea why anyone would be *cough* embarrassed about their behavior in a MMO. In related news, Linden Lab, the creators of Second Life, has announced securing 8 million in additional financing. [via Boing Boing] [funding news via GamaSutra]

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Gaming By Edward Ho

NFS:Underground 2 to feature exclusive Doors remix

A version of The Door's 'Riders on the Storm' has been remixed by Snoop Dogg and will only be available as part of NFS:Underground 2. Today a full track list was announced and several new songs will be available with the game from Unwritten Law, Capone, Helmut, and Felix da Housecat. All of this is fine with us as long as we can hear the sweet sound of NOS coursing through our engines. mmm... nos... NFS ships Nov. 15

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PlayStation

PlayStation By Edward Ho

SOCOM II throwdown in San Francisco

Sony is hosting the SOCOM II World Championships this Saturday at the Metreon in San Francisco. It looks like it's going to be an eight on eight battle between Korea and America using both classic maps and new maps. This will also be the debut of maps that are downloadable content for the 5 people in the US that bought PS2 hard drives. We wonder if Zipper Interactive ever heard of the Xbox.

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Gaming By Edward Ho

Station Players: Where everybody knows your player name…

Sony has announced the feature list and pricing for Station Players, a new service initially for Everquest 2 players. The name implies that they will be expanding the service across other MMOs in the future. A handful of free features like a Guild site and access to your character data through the website will be accompanied by premium features at $2.99/mo to satisfy more hard-core players. All of these appear to be designed to decrease the barriers between a human's time in the real world and in the game world. Now when players are out of the game, they'll still have access to detailed character info, guild accomplishments, and screenshots. Perhaps the most interesting feature is the dynamic item database where players will be able to see the latest crack, I mean items, that have been discovered in game.

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PC Gaming By Edward Ho

Jump to Lightspeed ships

The day has finally come where Star Wars Galaxies players finally get starships. The resulting combination of space combat and RPG is something we've desired for years. We would have posted this up earlier but we were busy trying to figure out if it our X-Wing vs. Tie Fighter skills were transferable. They aren't, or at least not for us. Hit up the main site to see if the available ships will satisfy your fantasies.

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