Weekly games: Now with Demos!

Balls of Fury
Who needs Halo 3 when you can try out Crash Bandicoot’s newest adventure? Sure, you’ll probably rush out to buy it and stand in line at midnight for hours…oh, its out already? Well, no matter. Balls of Fury is worth the wait. I know. You’ll see.

Here’s a list of all the latest demos for your stay-at-home consoles, because hey, we all know what games are coming out. But just in case you aren’t sure, here’s some of those too.

PS3

  • Sega Rally Revo
  • Folklore
  • FIFA Soccer 08
  • The Simpsons Game (Demo)
  • Bladestorm (Demo)

Xbox 360

  • FIFA Soccer 08
  • Half Life 2: Orange Box
  • Sega Rally Revo
  • Looney Tunes: Acme Arsenal (Game & Demo)
  • Thrilleville: Off the Rails (Demo)
  • Bee Game (Demo)
  • Bladestorm (Demo)

Wii

  • Balls of Fury
  • Donkey Kong Barrel Blast
  • Looney Tunes: Acme Arsenal
  • FIFA Soccer 08
  • Guilty Gear XX Accent Core
  • Bleach: Shattered Blade
  • Rock & Roll Adventures

PS2

  • Looney Tunes: Acme Arsenal
  • FIFA Soccer 08
  • Mountain Bike Adrenaline

PSP

  • Star Wars Battlefront: Renegade Squadron
  • Juiced 2: Hot Import Nights
  • Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions
  • FIFA Soccer 08
  • Crash of the Titans
  • Sega Rally Revo
  • Spiderman 3

Nintendo DS

  • Backyard Hockey
  • Flipper Critters
  • FIFA Soccer 08
  • Bleach: Blade of Fate
  • Looney Tunes: Duck Amuck
  • Touch Detective 2 1/2
  • Power Play Pool
  • Cocoto Cart Racing

That’s everything. Couldn’t tell whether there were going to be more Looney Tunes or FIFA to type out, but now it’s quite clear. Ahh, the miracle of capitalism. And don’t forget that the Crysis Beta, for those of you who believe there’s a glimmer of hope of running it, can get that too. Yet in my heart, any game with the…well, balls, to be called Balls of Fury is a winner. Even if it plays like a loser.

Don’t edit Wikipedia at Work

Wikipedia

Don’t edit Wikipedia at work, unless you want to get fired. When you’re a fanboy that works at a boring job, you’ve got to find ways to entertain yourself, but spending hours editing Wiki articles is not the way to go about finding that glimer of fun in your job.

Japan’s Agricultural Ministry reprimanded six officials who did just that. They let their geekdom for Gundam and other cartoon robot stories get in their way. In total they made 408 entries since 2003 on the ministries computers.

Companies have the right to monitor everything you do using their equipment! Usually it says this in your job’s contract.

Wikipedia is a great resource, but remember children work is work so just do it and get out of the office as quickly as possible.

[Source: Yahoo]

New PS3 model

Reported as a rumor earlier this week, Sony has now made it official that a new PS3 unit is on its way, at least in European territories. It sports a 40GB harddrive and lacks 2 USB ports, PS2 backwards compatibility, and does not have a multi-memory unit card port. This new unit will be released on October 10, 2007 at the price of €399 ($565).

It appears that Sony is phasing out the 60GB PS3 Starter Pack units as it will only remain in stock as long as it lasts. They lowered those prices to €499.

All of this has been made to please investors that have been hammered by Sony’s lack of PS3 sales. Their belief is that price is what has halted the PS3 from selling out – But as we all know it’s the games that count and the PS3 doesn’t have them (yet).

Sony Playstation 3

Gears of War movie following Halo movie into nothingness?

Marcus from Gears of War

Not long ago, we learnt that CliffyB was ecstatic about the upcoming Gears of War movie, supposedly under production at New Line Cinema. Well, he was talking rather furiously about it, but looks like even a gaming god can’t help a movie when budget strikes back. The much-talked about Halo movie was probably the first “AAA” video game movie to fall into the bottomless pit of doom. Is Gears of War hurtling towards the same?

Len Wiseman was initially supposed to direct the Gears of War movie, but IESB.net reports some startling news. Wiseman has decided to get his butt out of the Escape from New York remake he was to direct, and is still attached to the Gears of War movie. But things aren’t as smooth as they seem. Even with a director attached, New Line is concerned about the “ballooning” budget of the film, that Cliffy had boasted about earlier.

“Len Wiseman is still on the project currently, but it doesn’t look good, due to the budget concerns the studio has, New Line will most likely not be moving forward on this film.”

Hot damn, the certainty in those words is a point worth noted. Will Gears of War followed the much-compared-to Halo movie and slip into Development Hell? We can only hope it doesn’t (or can we?).

Bungie officially splits from Microsoft, Halo still owned by Redmond

Bungie Freedom

Well, what do you know? Turns out one rumour ended up being real. Bungie has split from big daddy Microsoft and is on its way to become an independent republic company. Of course, Microsoft won’t let one of its slaves off that easy.

It still maintains an equity interest in Bungie and “at the same time continuing its long-standing publishing agreement between Microsoft Game Studios and Bungie for the Microsoft-owned “Halo” intellectual property as well as other future properties developed by Bungie”, whatever the hell that means.

Harold Ryan, speaking from Bungie’s fortress said that their relationship with Microsoft went pretty well and that they will concentrate their next titles on Microsoft® platforms. To cut a long story short, Bungie’s next games will be for the Xbox 360 (and whatever other consoles Microsoft spits out). This means that Bungie is still hugging Microsoft and will probably not let go for quite a while.

Shane Kim, corporate VP at Microsoft Game Studios, said that Microsoft appreciates the work their little slave has done for them and that they will further the Halo franchise with more collaborations, one notable name being Peter Jackson. Of course, no movie specifics were announced. As you can guess, Microsoft talked more about the franchise Bungie created for them rather than Bungie itself.

We hope Bungie evolves to make more kickass games, and we sure as hell hope they move on to something new and original and stop making more armoured-guy-kills-aliens games, please. Thanks.