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Samsung Sway, Motorola Rapture get dates and prices on Verizon
A reasonably attractive pair of phones that have been in the wings for a while now on Verizon are finally hitting next week -- October 6, to be exact. The Motorola VU30 Rapture is the first of the pair, a glossy flip set to do battle with Sprint's VE20 featuring a 2-megapixel camera, touch-sensitive external display (Verizon calls it "vanishing"), GPS, and EV-DO for $179.99 on a two-year contract or $299.99 with no Hancock required. Next, we have the Samsung u650 Sway, a silvery slider coming in at 0.47 inches thick and a feature list eerily reminiscent of the VU30's, right down to the 2-megapixel cam -- though EV-DO is strangely missing, as far as we can tell. Where they got the name "Sway" for a slider, though, is beyond us. Look for this one to run $119.99 on a two-year, $239.99 contract-free.%Gallery-33132%
Fun facts about Motorola's VU30 for Verizon emerge
Far be it from Verizon to get left out of Motorola's RAZR-ish evolution recently observed in Sprint's VE20, the VU30 Rapture (no relation to the LG Vu -- trust us) should be hitting Big Red next month according to the latest data we've got on hand. The wait's always excruciating, we know, but phoneArena's picked up a few juicy bits of the user's manual for us all to chew on in the meanwhile. Looking over the documentation, it really is striking to see just how much the VU30 shares in common with its Sprint contemporary: a touch-sensitive external display for music controls, 2-megapixel camera, EV-DO, and a curvy shape that somehow manages to evoke the RAZRs of old without prompting us to gouge our eyes out, for example.
Verizon gets Motorola VU30 next month, Nokia 7205 not until December?
So we don't think Verizon really intended to leak any handset release dates via a slide about Mobile Email launches on various devices -- but alas, they did. At present, the Moto VU30 is scheduled for a September 9 date with destiny, and it seems that its name has changed from "Utopia" to "Rapture" somewhere along the way. Further out, the LG VX8360 (which we're guessing will be an update for the forgettable VX8350) gets real in October -- and unfortunately, that shiny, hot mess of CDMA technology from Nokia, the 7205, appears to be shelved all the way back to December. There's also a u440 "Cleo" from Samsung in there somewhere, too, though no launch window is listed. Anyway, sorry for the interruption, Verizon; please, continue fascinating us with your stories about mobile email.
Spiritual Guidance: Utgarde Keep and the Nexus as Discipline
Every Sunday (usually), Spiritual Guidance will offer practical insight for priests of the holy profession. Your host is now Matt Low, the grand poobah of World of Matticus and a founder of PlusHeal, a new healing community for all restorative classes. Matt scored a beta key and busied himself speccing and respeccing his Priest multiple times and decided to test the new talents in a healing party environment. After getting a beta key, I was absolutely excited with all the Priest changes and additions made. Several of the other WoW Insider bloggers wanted to get into Utgarde Keep and the Nexus in order to experience both places. The objective was to try out our new toys, of course. The party composition determined the talents I picked up. All in all, it I had a blast tearing through both instances and learned more about the new Discipline talents intimately.
Priests in Wrath: Analysis of Alpha talents
I would like to take a moment to talk about the leaked Priest spells and talents from the Wrath friends and family alpha. We have decided not to keep this information on the site for legal reasons, but there are many other places on the internet to find it, such as this wiki (which, by the way, seems to have been semi-locked to prevent recurrences of Tuesday night's rampant vandalization). Note that these are alpha leaks (for those not conversant with software testing, alpha comes before beta, and beta comes before release), and most of these talents and spells will change before Wrath goes live. Some of them will probably not be recognizably the same, or even there at all. Nevertheless, it's certainly something to talk about in a game that, in my opinion, has had far too little change over the past couple of years.
The Daily Grind: Are MMOs the future of gaming?
Raph Koster certainly thinks so. He feels that single-player gaming is a phase we all went through, and that online, interconnected gaming is simply the next evolutionary step -- or, possibly, a return to form. 'People always play games together. All of you learned to play games with each other,' he said, citing a reason for shared gaming's return to prominence. The problem is, however, that MMOs don't exactly scratch the same itch that single-player games do, and ironically, that's an itch engendered by the mere existence of single-player games, a kind of weird self-fulfilling prophecy. We learned to like single-player games because we were offered single-player games. So how does this affect the MMO experience? With a sophisticated enough platform, there's no reason to think that a fully-immersive single-player experience couldn't exist cheek-by-jowl with an MMO experience. People talk about soloing, but that's just a concession, a way around the issue. What if, for example, while playing Bioshock, you arrived at endgame and left Rapture, only to discover a world filled with other players who've gone through the same experience? Is the future of gaming synthesis, rather than exchanging one form of gameplay for another?
The Digital Continuum: Bioshock MMO
A torrent of happy thoughts burst forward from my brain at the rumor of a possible Bioshock MMO; Would it be good? When would it be set? Where would it even be set, Rapture, or some other previously unknown location? What kind of gameplay would it employ?These questions -- and many more like them -- are all great and also quite valid. This is why I couldn't help myself from exploring the possibilities of what such a game could deliver to us as players -- except with a particular twist. Being that Andrew Ryan was so very influential in both the world of Rapture as well as our own, this entire look into a Bioshock MMO has been written in the spirit of Mr. Ryan.With a fan-base as strong as the Big Daddies themselves, Bioshock could create quite the tsunami if it went massively multiplayer. Simply click on the picture above to find out the how and why.%Gallery-19327%
Big Daddy VGA costume now on eBay
If you somehow missed Spike's Video Game Awards ... er, let's try that again. If you somehow watched Spike's Video Game Awards, then you no doubt saw Nathan Sharratt's impressive home-made Big Daddy costume. He was actually invited to the event by 2K Boston after his BioShock homage Halloween costume pictures got significant attention from these here intertubes. Anyway, Sharratt is selling his Big Daddy costume on eBay, may the capitalism commence!The bidding began at $999 and is how much the costume cost to make according to Sharratt. He says he's getting rid of Big Daddy because his apartment is the "size of a shoe box" and hopes someone out there will give the costume a "good, loving, nerdy home." We're kinda wondering why 2K Boston doesn't just buy the thing. The only thing missing from the BioShock launch party was a Big Daddy walking around. This way they'll have a costume all set for the BioShock 2 launch party (assuming the game takes place in Rapture).Update: Opening bid price was lowered to $799 this morning.
BioShock music list posted by Major Nelson
Still can't get the background tunes form BioShock out of your head? Well Major Nelson, courtesy of BioShock's Ken Levine, has posted the track list for the game (found after the break). As those who have played BioShock know, the music is as much a part of the game as anything else. And considering we'll never be able to listen to The Waltz of the Flowers from The Nutcracker again without imagining the Sander Cohen masterpiece fight, the team at 2K Boston obviously did a great job in their musical selection for scenes within the game. Not since the use of Bach in Gyruss can we distinctly recall a classical piece being so memorably tied with a video game. We're curious to see what musical selections 2K Boston will make for our return to Rapture. All we really want is some scene in BioShock 2 of Big Daddies dancing to David Bowie's Magic Dance from Labyrinth. Can't remember it? You'll find that after the break too.
Rumor: More BioShock plasmids ready to unlock
A poster on the 2K forums has stirred up a little Splicer's nest exposing what appears to be new hidden plasmids for BioShock. Showing a bunch of code from the PC version of BioShock -- and we know how reliable that can be -- he points to new plasmids waiting to be unlocked in "PlasmidPack1" at a later date. Four of the plasmids listed are Machine Buster, Vending Expert, Sonic Boom, Eve Saver, along with a bunch of other plasmid content.Joystiq spoke with 2K and they delivered one of those delicious open-ended quotes that beg for wild speculation. 2K says, "Since 2K Games hasn't announced any downloadable content at this time, we have no comment." Where's Ken Levine for us to get a straight answer? Don't make us use the magic words 2K, if we want answers about more plasmids we know exactly the precise words to use! It'd be nice to get more plasmids (for free) as a little bonus down the road, but we'll be happy if those plasmids get saved for BioShock 2 and cut out just that small amount of time in development.[Via X3F]
BioShock designers talk a lot on Bonus Round *spoilers*
We're going to place the video after the break of Bonus Round's Geoff Keighley interviewing two of the main designers behind BioShock. Although the video doesn't contain massive spoilers, for those looking to keep the game fresh, or are just starting to play it on this long holiday weekend in the US, we do recommend watching it at a later date. Those of you already done learning the secrets of Rapture in this chapter of the BioShock saga, we'll discuss more and have the video after the break. Would you kindly finish the game people ... we can't hold off talking about it openly for much longer -- there's stuff we need to discuss.
Big Daddy's final look for BioShock limited edition
As we prepare to enter BioShock's city of Rapture on Aug. 21, we now get to view the final version of the Big Daddy figurine which will be bundled with the limited edition version of the game. The figurine looks pretty cool and the limited edition is only $10 more ($69.99) than the normal game -- seems totally worth it for the six-inch hand-painted resin statue.It's neat to see the evolution of the figurine. The prototype looked good, but this looks like something we'd really like to have keeping watch over our Xbox 360. Now we just need a little sister hugging his leg. [Thanks Jubby]%Gallery-3418%
BioShock drowns us with gameplay montage
It's time to finally get a solid look at some footage for Bioshock, and they're gonna do it in a montage. We get a good look at the hybrid-Art Deco design in motion, the Big Daddy and, best of all, the creepy underwater atmosphere. They certainly have been taking their time getting this game out, but at least we got a limited edition box out of the deal. Now we just need to wait until the end of August for the game to finally release.
Bioshock loves Threadless tshirt contest
If you aren't familiar with Threadless, let us give you a quick introduction. Threadless is a website where artists create tshirt designs, submit their work, then the community votes on their favorites. Every week the best of the best get printed on tshirts, are sold to the masses, and the artists get paid for their work. But they also run themed contests where artists have to create a design that reflects a certain idea, thought, or phrase. And look what we have here, a brand new contest featuring our baby Bioshock. The theme for the contest is "Descent into Rapture" and all designs have to reflect that phrase, but the contest only started on March 1st so both the submissions and quality are lacking. At the end of the contest the best submission will be printed and we'll get a Bioshock related tshirt! So far we love KDLIG's "Dead Sucker" submission, but are looking forward to what the amazingly talented folks over there have to offer. Be sure to check the entries page regularly and vote for the best design ... and it better be good!
