July 9, 2007 – StuffWeLike

A farewell to arms, RIP Logitech MX1000

Three years ago, around the time I got my gaming quality computer, I bought a mouse. It was a wireless mouse, made by Logitech. The first laser mouse to exist in the world commercially, the MX1000. It served me well. Nice shape, long battery life, great design, good weight, and very few problems. However, as with all things, one must move on. My good old mouse has started to deteriorate. All of the labels are warn or missing completely, the feet are entirely gone, the charger barely works anymore, and the plastic layers are fading. So now I must bid farewell to my trusty rechargable Logitech mouse for another.

In a few days I will, if my eBay seller can get his Paypal up and running eventually, have a brand new(see factory refurbished) Logitech(go with what you know and the companies you trust) MX Revolution. Rest In Peace my trusty mouse, you have served me well.

Legendary: The Box

Gamecock is one busy cock these days! They’ve just announced a new game called Legendary: The Box. No this isn’t a puzzle game. FPS baby!

It’s coming out in Spring 2008 for PC and next-gen systems.

“Like most developers, we’ve always had a dream game that we’ve secretly been working on,” said Craig Allen, CEO of Spark Unlimited. “We’ve made a name for ourselves with World War II first-person shooters, but Legendary: The Box is our labor of love. It’s a thrill to work with Gamecock; they want to see the game completed exactly as we envision it.”
“If there is one genre that needs a shot in the arm, it’s the
first-person shooter,” said Harry Miller, Head of Development of Gamecock Media Group. “Spark’s Legendary: The Box is going to be a classic, in terms of story, game-play and technology. I’m inspired by where they’re taking the genre.”

Legendary: The Box tells the story of Charles Deckard, an art thief who is duped into stealing Pandora’s Box. When he opens the box, he releases hordes of beasts thought to be fictional – such as werewolves and gryphons – into an unprepared modern world. A full scale war between man
and myth begins, and it is quickly complicated by the actions of powerful secret societies. As the person responsible for releasing this terror, Deckard’s unwittingly become the only person capable of containing it once more and saving civilization from being destroyed by the terrifying creatures of the box.

Sweet-looking screens thumbnailed below:

Dark Knight, Anthony Michael Hall’s character revealed? (POSSIBLE SPOILERS)

An interesting little tidbit from Batman-On-Film Chicago filming spy:

“Anthony Michael Hall is not someone created for the film (like ‘Rachel Dawes’). His character is from the comic books and is rather well known. I know you don’t do spoilers, so let’s just say he seems to be good, but is really bad, or it could be the other way around — it’s quite the ‘mystery.’ The fans will definately [sic] get a kick out of his appearance in the film!”

Sounds like Vernon Field, a character from “The Long Halloween” series of Batman comics. Here’s a short description of the character from Wikipedia.

“Vernon appears to be meek, unassuming and harmless-looking. In reality, however, he is cunning and extremely corrupt, a tool of Gotham City’s gangsters.”

In “The Long Halloween”, Field was indirectly responsible for the creation of Two-Face, supplying an associate with a disguised bottle of acid, which is sprayed in Harvey Dent’s face during a court testimony, mutilating Dent and triggering his downward spiral into a psychotic killer. Say, “Hello,” to Internet Sherlock!

[Props Feldman!] [Via IGN]

Sony makes nice with the church, sort of

Some of you may remember the mess between Sony and the Church of England in June. A particular scene in Resistance: Fall of Man featured a photo-realistic representation of Manchester Cathedral in northwest England. There a bloody firefight ensued in which the player slaughtered hordes of of alien scumbags, and the Church was all in a tizzy because they found it disrespectful to use a church for a bloody gun battle at all, but particularly one located in an area with a serious gun problem, as they claim Manchester does.

Sony finally apologized in the Friday edition of The Manchester Evening News after a month or so of playing it tough. In the apology they state that they met with church leaders and acknowledged that the game had caused offense.

“It was never our intention to offend anyone in the making of this game, and we would like to apologize unreservedly to them for causing that offense, and to all parts of the wider community who we might also have offended,” -Sony Computer Entertainment Europe President David A. Reeves

Reeves also promised Manchester Cathedral in particular would never be used in future Sony games.

Sony refused to comment on the Church’s outstanding demands, which included having the game pulled from store shelves, and some dollar bills donated the the Church’s education department, which educates against gun violence in Manchester. However, Sony released a seperate statement.

“We now consider the matter closed, and will not be making any further comment.”

Sounds like that’s all she wrote to me.

While it’s always heartwarming for things like this to be resolved with a sincere apology, like all things that happen around E3 you have to question Sony’s timing. They’re slashing PS3 prices by $100 dollars today, and although they say it’s because they’ve corrected production issues that were driving up their costs, we all know it’s because they can’t move the things. This apology is clearly a disingenuous attempt to expand their potential customer base because they can no longer afford the hard nosed stance of an entertainment superpower. In other words, “What a bunch of jerks.”

[Via CNN.com]