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Slay a festive goat to win game-time and prizes in AoC
In keeping with the macabre nature of the Conan world, you won't be helping orphans for Age of Conan's seasonal event. Nope. No delivering festive cookies to elves or spreading holiday love. Just hunting down mountain goats. Nothing says Christmas in Hyboria like a freshly slain and skinned goat carcass for that special someone. The problem in this particular case is that these "holiday" goats are in short supply -- extremely short supply in fact, as there will only be one special goat per server. All the bragging rights (and prizes) go to one lucky person per server who manages to track it down.There will be a hefty portion of luck involved in winning your server's event, but Funcom is also providing clues to the goat's whereabouts in the form of riddles on the official site. The events will take place on different days across the servers, and the goats won't be in the same place either. Now we've got to admit that we were a bit slow to catch this (we'll blame the spirit of the holidays for making us lazy) and some servers have already had their riddles posted and goats killed. However, if your server hasn't had the event yet, then it will be either be on later today, or the 29th, the 30th, or the 31st of December. Each server's winner will receive a pack of prizes (the same as the Season give-away pack) and two months of free game-time. Happy hunting!
New Mines of Moria screens depict the Redhorn Lodes
If the immensity of the new underground zones featured in the Mines of Moria expansion hasn't sunk in just yet, the newest set of screens should help clear any fog of uncertainty. While no exciting new mobs or strange-yet-endearing goat mounts seem to have popped up in these screens, there's still plenty to gawk at auspiciously.One image features a rather large set of stairs that would cause even Rocky Balboa to faint if he tried to run up them in a triumphant montage finisher. So the images may not be packed with high action like our exclusive video, but if you use your imagination they can entertain for minutes on end. You may even waste a whole quarter of an hour with them, especially if you're into Dwarven architecture. And after you're done with that, go check out our exclusive screenshot tour of the expansion! Catch the new screens >> %Gallery-18340%
Mines of Moria's cat (goat?) is out of the bag
Ever since the first expansion for Lord of the Rings Online was announced, most fans have been wondering what kind of mount would be willing to traverse the immensity of Moria's underground networks. It certainly wasn't going to be horses, as eventually stated by Turbine itself. New screens from the Mines of Moria beta have surfaced showing a tester purchasing and riding around on what appears to be some kind of goat -- or ram.While the image and concept of the goat is subsequent to change -- it being a beta and all -- we have to say that we're big fans of Turbine's choice. Horses were nice and all, but give us a goat/ram any day. We're looking forward to getting our goat on later this year when Mines of Moria finally ships.[via MMeOw]
Please do not milk the Robot Goat
Gamblers at the Edogawa Kyotei boat races in Tokyo must now face the threat of robots in addition to their fateful vice. No, it's not meant as a deterrent, this Rocky Mountain robo-goat was installed as a way to help control litter. A ticket held to the beast's sensor-laden mouth initiates robotic mastication at a rate of about 500 losing tickets per day. You know, when not feeding on the sweet succulent bits of unattended children.
Adgadget: Goat of war
Looking back at the decapitated goat scandal that was Sony's press event for God of War II, which hit British tabloids and gaming news last month, the freshly slaughtered skin may have been the least offensive part.If you frequented any gaming sites in the last few weeks, chances are you saw more pixilated pictures of flesh than you would have in a commercial for Girls Gone Wild. Unfortunately, not all the skin was of the girl variety – most of the pixilated flesh belonged to a freshly slaughtered goat that made an appearance at an event held in Greece to promote the recent launch of the game God of War II. Among the festivities back in March, guests were challenged invited to win a PS3 by reaching into what looked like the most pathetic pit of snakes and eat a traditional Greek dish fashioned after goat intestines while topless women paraded around the joint. The goat had been purchased from a butcher prior to the event and though a spokesperson claimed the goat had not been slaughtered for the event, many were left skeptical considering goats aren't typically decapitated in such a manner. A video of the event surfaced, complete with commentary and cliché flame graphics.
SCEE apologizes for GoW II party
As many of you have heard, Dailymail.co.uk posted an article last Sunday about a Greek press event for God of War II that was held two months ago. While press events for major games is not unusual, the nature of this one was a little ... controversial.The controversy came from a photo of the party in this month's Official PlayStation Magazine, in which you can see what appears to be a freshly slaughtered goat and a half-naked girl sitting next to it (and some kind of barbarian guy standing behind it).The article also made a number of other claims, significantly increasing the gross-out factor of the story. I won't bother rehashing them now, because everybody already knows them. The reason we didn't run an article about this when it was first released is that we strongly suspected that there were some major pieces of the puzzle missing that we weren't hearing. Not that Sony hasn't made a number of PR stumbles in the past, but Dailymail's synopsis of the party made it sound like an orgy of blood and gore more suitable to the Marques De Sade than a videogame launch party.Turns out, it wasn't quite as it was portrayed. Go ahead and click the continued link to see the cold, hard facts.
PETA talks God of War goat
PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) posted in their blog today about the Sony goat incident from the weekend. With quite a bit of temperance for PETA, they apparently got the memo of the aftermath, and didn't make an official public statement (i.e. press release to the planet). Two points to PETA for knowing who Jack Thompson is and saying they've "always sided with the video game industry against the Jack Thompsons of this world who are out to make a name for themselves by blaming gamers for all of society's problems." Of course they close the post by saying, "Sony is evidently recalling the entire 80,000 print run of the PlayStation magazine in which this story featured, though it's frankly a bit late for the victim of the stunt at this stage." Come on, it's PETA, they gotta say that.Joystiq spoke with Daphna Nachminovitch, Director of Domestic Animal and Wildlife Rescue & Information at PETA, and she told us that they received several dozen emails and phone calls about the incident over the weekend as the story broke. She says that the reason PETA didn't make a public statement is because the public was already well aware of the incident and clearly found it objectionable. Nachminovitch says, "It was something so frivolous and idiotic. I think they misread their audience because we've received a lot of statements and it doesn't look like the stunt was helpful to the audience they were trying to promote to for the game ... I know with Sony's reputation it was surprising to see something with this magnitude. Looking at the website [for the game] I don't see the connection. I don't understand how this would appeal to the people who would want this video game."Nachminovitch was glad to see that Sony made a statement so quickly and hopes that they don't do something like this again in the future. She also noticed that there were topless women at the party and jokes, "Shouldn't that have been enough? There's no need to display an animal like that for an audience when topless women are walking around, I'm sure the audience found that far more appealing."
Sony explains God of War's dead goat antics
"Slaughter: Horror at Sony's depraved promotion stunt with decapitated goat" is the sort of headline that sells newspapers -- the UK's Daily Mail in particular(NSFW). Starting with an evocative first word and ending with outright animal cruelty, it's a snappy summation of an event that was probably rife with sexual debauchery, devil worship and inappropriate hobnobbery! And that isn't even a word! Indeed, how could other papers even compete with their silly "facts" and less sensational headlines like "Promotion: Butcher-obtained goat displayed in dramatization while journalists drink soup from china bowls!" Well, we suppose that one is a little bit on the long side.Then again, so is the story revolving around Sony's European God of War II event. It seems somewhere between the Daily Mail's spin and the Official PlayStation Magazine's (now recalled) retelling of the Greek-themed costume party, things... goat a little out of hand. Sony's senior director of corporate communications, Dave Karakker, told Joystiq that the reporter responsible for the OPSM article didn't even bother to attend the event. The basis of his article was the invitational pamphlet, "which employed a degree of hyperbole in order to encourage attendance."Furthermore, the infamous goat was thoroughly dead upon arrival. It was procured from a qualified butcher, was returned after the event and was never allowed to be touched by journalists (no kidding around). The goat was filled with "a meat soup, made to a traditional Greek recipe and served to attendees in china bowls direct from the caterers," leaving claims of "offal" as someone likely mishearing a complaint about the actual taste of the dish. No soup came directly from the goat. "We recognise that the use of a dead goat was in poor taste and fell below the high standards of conduct we set ourselves. We are conducting an enquiry to establish the circumstances behind the event in order to ensure this does not happen again. We also apologise to anyone offended by the article in the OPSM (subscription copies were sent out ahead of street date)." It was undeniably tacky, but hardly the "Phil Harrison bites the head off a chimp and mows down the audience using a Tommy Gun" debacle you may have envisioned before. (They're saving that one for The Getaway 3.)
Harvest Moon: Attack of the Cows
Tired of being explolited as mascots for Marvelous Interactive's always-adorable farming sim series, the Harvest Moon cows have revolted, surrounding their cruel master to put her out to pasture once and for all. They finally secured the goats' loyalty, the final component of their master plan.That's the only possible explanation for the events transpiring in the above screenshot. Anything else, like that maybe she's feeding them or just talking to the cows, is so farfetched as to be unbelievable. Harvest Moon may be cute, but it's totally edgy.
Cool Herders converging on the DS
When Alten8 commits to a system, they don't mess around. The company is currently working on ten titles for the DS, and recently they announced that the first will be Cool Herders, a revamped version of the party game for the Sega Dreamcast. As you might have guessed, Cool Herders is all about collecting sheep, even if it means you have to steal them from your friends. It's hard out there for a shepherd ....
Japanese hardware sales, 23 October - 29 October: Borat edition
Hello, I am for reporting of sales games in Japanese land. As you see, DS Lite sells one hundred fifty thousand units, this is very same as my sister on the street corner....very nice.In glorious Kazakhstan, there is different types of game ... people are doing Surfing, Guess Which Side Of Goat Is This, Find The Asbestos, are the much fun having in my country.I write Nintendo, maybe they make Guess Which Side of Goat for new system Wii ... would sell very nice, yes?- DS Lite: 158,681 41,740 (35.69%) - PSP: 25,908 5,637 (27.81%) - PS2: 21,832 548 (2.45%) - GBA SP: 1,858563 (23.25%) - Xbox 360: 1,565 278 (21.60%) - Game Boy Micro: 1,351 309 (18.61%) - Gamecube: 644 6 (0.94%) - DS Phat: 114 16 (12.31%) - GBA: 15 22 (59.46%) - Xbox: 7 1 (16.67%)[Source: Media Create]P of S: Go see my moviefilm!
Go to concert, play with the Wii
As gamers, you're probably only concerned with music composed by Nobuo Uematsu or Michiru Yamane, when in fact there is a whole world of alternatives, good alternatives out there. So do yourself a bit of good, go out into that wide world (watch out for bears) and discover things for yourself. Oh, and while you're out there, why not attend a concert and play with the Wii. Some of the bands playing in the Nintendo Fusion Tour 2006 are Hawthorne Heights, Relient K, Emery, and The Plain White T's. There's no mention as to what capacity the Wii's presence will be in at the show, but something is better than nothing, eh? For those who did not get to try the console at the yearly Electronic Entertainment Expo, this is a good chance to give it a spin before it launches. [Via Codename Revolution]
