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Activision hands out 'free' Black Ops gear for female Xbox Live Avatars
Due to an error on Activision's part, any female Xbox Live Avatar can be outfitted in some Call of Duty: Black Ops virtual gear free of charge. Having only printed codes for male Avatar gear inside of the Hardened and Prestige edition packages, the publisher had to quickly create two universal codes for female gear, allowing any account with a female Avatar to nab the two outfits -- with the right codes. Thankfully, a CAG user has shared these codes with the rest of the world. (Those bears would be so proud!) By inputting the code GYVF8-PF7RY-28D7V-VGWV8-CFGRM into your Xbox (or online), you can snag the "SR 71 Flight Suit"; while inputting R76BQ-CR3MF-G2TTF-9G36R-BQWJD will net you a "Woods Outfit." The duds aren't available through the Marketplace otherwise, so sorry ladies, you can't try them on first -- but, hey, beggars can't be choosers! [Thanks, David from Berkeley]
Hudson announces 'Oops!' -- another minigame collection for Wii
Oops! Prank Party may sound like a belated April Fools' joke but, tragically, it most certainly is not. Because the Wii needs another minigame collection, Hudson answers the call this June with Oops!. This cornucopia of cheap to produce content consists of 100 "brain-teasing, puzzle-solving, reflex-testing" challenges. Failure in the game results in your individually designed avatar putting on "embarrassing costumes" or submitting to "pranks." The "light-hearted and hilarious" costumes include a monkey suit and cardboard pants. How charming! We'd actually mock this game, but considering how phenomenal Just Dance sales are, the joke's on us. %Gallery-90098%
Gears of War 3 announced by ... your Xbox
We actually hadn't heard that Gears of War 3 was announced -- wasn't Cliff Bleszinski's big reveal bumped to Monday? -- but thanks to the marvels of modern technology and inattentive switch flippers, our Xbox 360 has brought us up to speed. The menu item (shown above) in the Xbox Spotlight channel doesn't lead to any further information, but does seem to confirm that "the epic story concludes April 2011." [Update: It's gone now.] Oh no, all our GoW trilogies are coming to an end! [Thanks, Daryl]
Google Nexus One support page goes live, quickly dies again
Wondering how to activate your shiny new Nexus One? Curious how to get started with the thing, or how to use the 3D gallery? Oh, wait, you don't have yours yet? Oops. Google seems to have posted its support page for the phone a little early, a little site that went live for just a few minutes -- just long enough for us to click through a little, read that Terms of Service that was leaked to us last week, and watch a few videos. The first one that came up is actually the walkthrough for Android 2.0, curiously, but the other videos showed 3D photo gallery and some other goodies. Now they show nothing, though, having been set private and the pages removed. Surely they'll be up again soon, with the device getting announced tomorrow, and while we're still not sure exactly when you'll be able to get your own, you're always welcome to enjoy our hands-on impressions. Update: Jakob wrote in to let us know that there's another support page still alive -- but barely. It just shows some funky characters, a nearly empty dropbox, and a very nice Nexus One logo. [Thanks, Joe]
Age of Conan's anniversary hiccup
In what some are calling "their biggest debacle since launch," Funcom's anniversary bash for Age of Conan (EU) experienced a hiccup this past weekend, and unfortunately, it wasn't alcohol-related. A combination of miscommunication and technical glitches left hundreds, if not thousands, of party-goers in poor spirits.Funcom's initial announcement invited players to take part in "small festivities" outside Conan's castle at a particular time and urged them to bring along celebratory fireworks obtained with a "/claim" command. Due to some time zone confusion, many players showed up over an hour early. When the event didn't even kick off when it was supposed to, the forums lit up with agitated players.The Senior Community Manager, Tarib, showed up and explained that the festivities were actually intended to be player-driven rather than a scripted or GM-led world event. This did not sit well with many in the community who pointed to the event promotion, which led them to believe otherwise. Tarib apologized for the miscommunication and also stated that technical issues prevented certain merchants from showing up in certain instances. He later called off the North American event of the same name.Funcom is now running an Easter egg hunt where fans can search through their favorite community sites in search of special silver and golden King seals. The prizes are quite good, including: free lifetime subscriptions, monthly and multi-month subscriptions, in-game items, and custom forum avatars.
Oops! Unfinished Merchants of Brooklyn hits Steam
The stylized violence of Paleo Entertainment's debut FPS effort, the CryEngine 2-based Merchants of Brooklyn, hit Steam yesterday with plenty of blood, guts -- and bugs. Lots and lots of bugs, like the kind you'd find by cracking open a Brooklyn sewer drain. That's because the version of the game delivered by the service was actually an early alpha build. Ouch.It naturally didn't take long for Steam's forums to boil over with the rage of purchasers who felt they'd just been had by the Merchants. Paleo later fessed up via its forums, saying that, "Unfortunately, the incorrect version went up on Steam. The Alpha version was released initially, this has been corrected." But has it?Giant Bomb reports that, after taking Paleo's advice and letting the "correct" version download, the game was still rife with glitches. We've contacted the publisher, but our request for comment has yet to be returned.[Update: We heard back from Paleo Entertainment's reps, who sent along the following statement on the mix-up: "There was an official statement that confirmed an incorrect, a.k.a. early build, was initially released but was quickly rectified. Paleo apologized for the inconvenience but took swift matters to work with Valve to get the correct version up so there should be no issues. The Paleo team are very proud of their first product, and are committed to sharing more content (features) and correcting any issues that arise."][Via Shacknews]
Rumor: British talk show host lending voice to Fable 3
British talk show gadabout Jonathan Ross let slip on his Twitter feed that he's lending his voice to none other than Fable 3. Writes Ross, "Goodnight all. Must go to bed. Got asked to do voice in Fable 3 tonight. Subarashi. Oyasuminasia. Woss out." Now, it goes without saying that a follow-up to Joystiq's favorite game of 2008 will someday be made, but it seems far too early to be recording voices already. Still, could this latest remark mean that the sequel is further along than we dare hoped? Microsoft has offered no comment. However, Ross' following tweets read like mild psychosis mixed with a panic attack; Molyneux and his goon squad are not to be trifled with.
The Queue: I believe I can fly
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider's daily Q&A column where the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft.So I made an oopsie yesterday. A rookie mistake! I referenced a picture that I used in The Queue a couple of days ago, and also showed off a picture of the character it may have been referencing. Only I used the same file name for both, so the original picture turned into the second picture. I'm pretty pro, I know. It's been fixed though, so if you want to see what the heck I'm talking about, check out Sunday's edition and then yesterday's edition and you will understand! Now, on with the show.Tim asked...I heard that there are new DK only facial features coming in the next patch. Will existing DK's get a chance to redo their toons or does Blizzard actually expect us to cough up $15?
Blizzard misspells "Arthus" in Wrath's box
In the product catalog that comes with Wrath of the Lich King, Blizzard misspells Arthas as "Arthus" on page six. It's pictured above for those of you not digging through your stuff to grab the catalog and see for yourself.I'm not going to criticize the folks at Blizzard for making a spelling mistake. God only knows that I've made a number of them myself. But usually I do them without an editor or reviewer. But that's just me. I don't know enough about the situation at Blizzard to really comment otherwise.None the less there it is, and you're free to make whatever assumptions you may make about it.Thanks to Knuxx and Taeous for the picture and tip.
Rumor: Wrath of the Lich King closed beta to start on July 3rd
July 3rd, 2008. This will either be a blessed day for a lot of us WoW addicted folk, or one of some major disappointment. According to the German site allvatar, they spoke with Blizzard's German assistant community manager Gnorog. He reportedly said that the community managers now had permission to announce the Wrath of the Lich King closed beta as starting on July 3rd.Now before you go and tell your friends and family what really is important to you (because lets be honest, WotLK beta > 4th of July, right?) you need to consider that this is nothing more than a big ol' rumor.This information came from Gnorog when he was at the World Wide Invitational in Paris this past weekend. I know that Gnorog exists and is a German community manager, but I can't confirm that he was at the WWI (although I'm sure he would have been). We get a good amount of beta and release rumors every day here at WoW Insider, and half the time they refer to people that aren't even real. So this rumor gets +10 for referring to a real person.
GoDaddy invades WoW Armory
In one of the most bizarre things I've seen happen to the World of Warcraft in my three years playing, the WoW Armory site today is pointing to a generic GoDaddy.com domain parking page. The screenshot above was taken at 1:08 p.m. CST on March 2nd, 2008. WoW Insider has received numerous reports of this. It seems to be a DNS related issue. The domain name wowarmory.com expires today, and it appears as if a registrant has grabbed the wowarmory.com domain name as soon as it expired.DNS entries for blizzard.com and worldofwarcraft.com point to cerf.net, while the DNS servers for wowarmory.com are currently pointing to domaincontrol.com. While some of you might be seeing wowarmory.com work correctly, others are not. The ISPs of people who are seeing it work have not had their DNS records updated yet, however within the next 48 hours they will see wowarmoy.com go down as well; unless Blizzard fixes this before then (I am sure they are already aware, or becoming aware of it).Stay tuned to WoW Insider for the latest on this story.Thanks to Matthew Rossi and his wife for contributing to the technical sleuthing in this post.Updated 2:34 p.m. EST: You can access the armory using a sub-domain of worldofwarcraft.com by going to http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/Updated 3:03 p.m. EST: http://www.wowarmory.com/ is now working again. It looks like Blizzard really jumped on the issue and fixed it.
Oops: Tesco accidentally sells 360s for 33
"One Xbox 360, please.""Very good, sir. That will be £33."This is the conversation we imagined ourselves having with a Tesco employee on our imaginary trip to jolly old England. It could have happened too, as Tesco recently (and accidentally) listed a killer Xbox 360 bundle for the low, low price of £33.24 (~$70 US). The offer included an Xbox 360 with wireless controller, Viva Piñata, and Forza Motorsport 2. It was, in short, a hell of a deal. From the looks of things, someone neglected to add a zero to the bundle's price, which should have been ten times larger.As one might expect, the mistake has since been rectified, though not before customers managed to place orders at the discounted price. One customer had payment accepted for thirty-nine orders, though they have yet to be delivered. Apparently it is illegal for a company to change the price of a product once payment has already been accepted. The Tesco website, however, states that if a mistake in price is made, the company is not obliged to abide by the mistaken price so long as the customer is contacted prior to the item being shipped. We get the feeling there will be lots of disappointed bargain hunters out there.
Slippery or not? The great iPhone slipperiness debate
Is the iPhone slippery? Will it drop out of your hands during use, crashing to the floor below and destroying your expensive purchase? That's the question raised over on Digg, which linked up this story about slippery iPhones. The story quotes Alexandrous Roussos, who wrote "the material used on the device's case makes it feel even more slippery than the iPod and will probably require the purchase of a protective skin or case so as to avoid unintentionally dropping it". Immediately the blogosphere split into two factions, debating whether the iPhone was in fact slippery or not. MyiPhone's Chris Barr writes that according to Brian Lam, an actual iPhone holder and toucher, the iPhone is not slippery at all. Wired reports that the iPhone might slip out of your hand. Me? If I get an iPhone, I'm buying a case for it--just like I bought one for my iPod and my cell phone.
Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam now on Sony Wii
Tony Hawk's presence is so strong in the gaming world that he even has titles available for imaginary consoles! Tucked away in the lower right corner of TonyHawk.com is an image promoting the latest game, Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam. It's available for -- brace yourself -- Sony Wii. We're sure this is an innocent slip-up and not a portent of the future to come. Or are the folks behind Tony's website doing tarot card readings on the side?For the record, Downhill Jam is available for Nintendo's Wii, DS and Game Boy Advance. A PS2 version is in the works and will be released later this year.[Thanks, Stephen]
It lives! The post-rinse cycle iPod
What happens when an iPod Nano meets a washing machine? Nothing good. Late last month, a writer over at the Seattlest left her iPod in her bike shorts. Which her husband kindly washed for her. Oops. Since bike clothes aren't thrown in the drier, the Nano was at least spared a tumble-dry on high heat, a small mercy. The battery, however, was drained. After connecting the Nano to a USB power source, she was able to recharge the battery and (yay!) found all her music and playlists still onboard. The buttons were initially a little sluggish, according to her follow-up report, but other than the Menu button they've recovered nicely for her training rides. The moral of this story? Check your pockets after you train and don't wash your iPod. The ending might not be as happy as this one.
Cake text printer doesn't speak Italian, pens errors instead
While we doubt we've seen every single computing error that could possibly occur, there's definitely been a fair amount to surface, and while this story may not take the proverbial cake, it's good for a hearty chuckle if nothing else. Apparently, a certain Aunt Elsa was supposed to receive a custom baked (and messaged) cake from Wegmans Grocery to celebrate her birthday, and as the part-English, part-Italian message was emailed into Wegmans presumably automated printing machine, a bit of miscommunication ensued. Sure, it makes sense that the machine might not have been ready (or programmed) to handle languages outside of English, but surely someone actually looked at this thing before sending it out, right? Nevertheless, Aunt Elsa was graced with a cake that just barely got the whole "birthday" message across, and we presume even the supportEmptyParas tasted mighty sweet going down.[Via BoingBoing]
Wii-related injury roundup
It didn't take too long for the first Wii-related injury to surface, and it was even shorter before Wiimotes folks starting breaking things with their wild flinging antics, but when your product spurns the creation of an entire website devoted to users getting banged up when misusing the controller, now that's an accomplishment. Of course, it's probably safe to assume that at least half these Wiinjuries are nothing more than backyard boo-boos that folks translated into Wiincidents to get their 15 minutes of fame, but regardless, when Nintendo sends out emails and offers beefier Wiimote straps to those having problems, at least some of this stuff has to be legitimate. First up is a high-heel-wearing dame who apparently dislocated her knee while going for the smash in Wii Tennis, but the remedy to this happening again should really be quite apparent. Next we've got a rowdy customer service guru who actually swung the Wii-bat so hard, it purportedly snapped something within his arm. Lastly, we've got a Agassi wannabe who didn't exactly pay attention to the overhead (glass) light fixture before serving an ace, and now he's reportedly got the bloodshed (and repair bills) to show for it. The moral of the story is that the Wiimote can be a potent weapon and injury liaison if not used properly, but hey, we can't deny the humor in folks taking themselves out when going FTW.Read - Dislocated Knee, via JoystiqRead - Broken ArmRead - Sliced HandRead - More Examples of Wiimote carelessness
