Despite the fact that the latest installment to the Mortal Kombat series was banned from release in Australia due to the fact that it was denied classification, Australia’s next door neighbor New Zealand isn’t quite as blood shy. The countries rating board which is called the Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC) has released their rating today and has given the supposedly “hyper-violent” Mortal Kombat an R18 rating.
What this means is that Mortal Kombat will be getting a release on store shelves all over New Zealand and will be restricted from purchase to everyone under 18 years old. Australian fans of the game have been very upset, especially Matt, since news of the game being banned was released and even Warner Brothers is set to appeal the ban. New Zealand will be getting the game on April 21st while those of us in the United States will have it on shelves by April 19th.
Today Microsoft announced that it has sold more than 10 Million Kinect Sensor units and over 10 Million Kinect games in the period since it’s release. This equates to an average of 133,333 units sold per day.
The Guiness association with their renown record keeping skills have declared the Kinect ‘The fastest selling consumer electronics device’ which can be seen in their latest edition of Guiness World Records Gamer Edition 2011. Gaz Deaves of the Guiness World Records shares his thoughts below –
“The sales figures here speak for themselves,” said Gaz Deaves, Gaming Editor for Guinness World Records. “According to independent research, no other consumer electronics device sold faster within a 60-day time span, which is an incredible achievement considering the strength of the sector.”
David Mclean, director of Xbox Australia and New Zealand, responds glee-fully –
“We are thrilled by the success of Kinect to date and I am really proud that we have been recognised in the Guinness World Records,” said David McLean, Director of Xbox, Australia and New Zealand. “Kinect has revolutionised entertainment and these numbers tell us that all over the world, including Australia and New Zealand, people are embracing that revolution.”
In the coming months come even more Kinect controlled games:
Avatar Kinect; Which brings your Avatars to to the Kinect in a social way. Features a new kind of facial recognition feature that allows your Avatar to copy the facial expressions of it’s player.
Body and Brain Connection; created by Dr. Ryuta Kawahima (Brain Age on the DS), the game allows players to excercise their bodies and mind in fun challenges presented within the game.
Michael Jackson: The Experience; ““Michael Jackson The Experience” is the ultimate interactive game that enables players to be the star of the show, with no controllers required.”
The Gun Stringer; take control of a marionette that uses guns and is undead. Sounds awesome.
Kung-Fu Panda 2; Players take control of Po the Panda and utitlise full body Kung-Fu moves in order to defeat enemies.
Carnival Games In Action; players who have played any of the previous carnival games games know all about how this one would work. You use your body to do carnival-y stuff.
Sesame Street, Once Upon a Monster; players travel and assist the Sesame Street cast around a storybook called ‘Once upon a monster’.
Well well, would you look at us approaching the big 007. It seems crazy to me too, but nevertheless, Phil, Matt, Dustin, Link and Travis bring you this week’s heaping spoonful of awesome. Plus, we managed to stop Matt from talking about Mortal Kombat… mostly anyways. Achievement unlocked! (insert bling sound here)
Look out for a review of Double Dragon on the iPhone and reviews of Pokemon Black & White. We also touch on the de Blob 2 and we have news of a Wolverine anime. In addition, we have some very good news about Catherine and we get very excited about Nintendo. There is just something about them… 😉 Enjoy! If you have any questions or suggestions send us an email over at [email protected].
Arenanet, the studio behind the highly regarded ‘Guild Wars’, share news on the new crafting system implemented in their latest offering; Guild Wars 2.
Like with most MMORPGs, the game features a system that has players buying, selling and trading goods and materials in order to create equipment for personal use and/or gain. In Guild Wars 2, all players are able to gather materials from foes, nodes, the environment and existing items. Though, not all players can craft every item. In this game, players can only have up to two crafting professions per character, which the developers say is to maintain player interaction and trade.
To gather materials there are a few methods available to players. These are –
Salvaging kits— Available from merchants, salvaging kits allow you to salvage crafting materials out of old or unwanted items.
Looting—You have a chance of finding appropriate crafting materials like hides or trophies when you loot slain enemies.
Harvesting—Ore veins, plants, and trees can be found around the world and harvested for materials.
Each crafting profession makes a different kind of set of items. These vary from armour to weaponry and even into foods. The professions are noted below –
Weaponsmith – Weaponsmiths craft melee weapons, such as swords, axes and hammers.
Huntsman – Huntsmen craft ranged weapons like bows and pistol, as well as torches and warhorns.
Artificer– Artificers craft magical weapons such as staves and scepters
Armorsmith – Armorsmiths craft heavy armor pieces.
Leatherworker – Leatherworkers craft medium armor pieces.
Tailor – Tailors craft light armor pieces.
Jewelcrafter – Jewelcrafters craft jewelry, such as rings and necklaces.
Cook – Cooks can prepare food which characters can eat for temporary combat buffs.
What makes Guild Wars 2 different in it’s crafting, compared to most major MMO titles, is the way the crafting is done. Players have to be in a radius around a crafting station which pertains to their profession, for example; a blacksmith would use an Anvil. When you use a crafting station, you are presented with an interface that allows you to combine a number of items in your inventory in order to produce a new item. What also differs from most existing MMORPGs is that you do not require a recipe to craft an item, and if you successfully craft an unknown item, it will be added to your discovered recipes. Though, there are some recipes that cannot be found in this method.
On March 15, 2011, all people who love Halo can get even more Reach. If you just can’t wait, then have a look at the new behind the scenes trailer for the Defiant Map Pack. Featuring interviews and previews of Condemned, Highlands and Unearthed, it will surely satiate your desires for the time being. These 3 map packs will support competitive multi-player, and “for the first time, a brand new Firefight level.” Plus, the DLC comes with 150 new Achievement points.
If you have not yet bought Halo Reach, you can download the full game on March 15 via Games on Demand.
If your not writhing on the floor yet, then stay tuned because on March 14, the guys behind Red vs. Blue will launch a video that they have created in collaboration with 343 Industries. Check out Halo Waypoint on the date specified above to catch the “exciting walk through, laced with explosive gameplay and RvB’s trademark humorous commentary.”
I would normally create some Fire related joke at this point, but my lawyer says that it would create a bad public image if I did; so i will just get straight to this week’s Windows Phone 7 release.
Burn It All! ($2.99/£2.49)
Team up with your cousins in a fiery adventure to get your grandpa Volcano the fresh air he needs to stay blazing. One flame at a time, torch your way through Earth to the surface. All sorts of odd stuff has been scattered along your way to feed your natural urge to BURN IT AAAAAAALLLL!!! The cousins are three small rocks who convey fire. You play one of them at a time:
1- Fill up with flames at the source, 2- drag your finger to your designated target, 3- set fire to it. 4- Repeat until satisfied! 5- Each screen is a floor – reach the top to succeed.
Seems simple? It is… but I haven’t told you about each cousin’s abilities, the materials and parasites, the water and gas, the Badabombs, the Key-zards, the “Single Player Cooperation”, the time loops… (Oops, I’ve said too much already… seriously, let’s not spoil it… yeah, sorry…) Get those worries off your chest with this cool and refreshing game. If you’re in the topscore business, take on the world through each of the… how many already?… many, many floors separating you from fresh air. Come heat up your fingers and Burn It All!
Another cool video by the same creator that brought us the “Law Abiding Engineer” video. This time it is Team Fortress 2 characters entering the Dark Knight Trailer.
Check it out below and be sure to give the creator his props. The audio is a bit low, but get a headset plugged in and it becomes manageable.
Rockstar Games has today released a brand new in-depth gameplay video “Investigation and Interrogation” which highlights your two crucial detective skills, investigating and interrogating. The video is comprised entirely out of in-game footage and shows how players will search crime scenes, search for possible clues, question witnesses and suspects in order to solve a case, as well as the consequences of failing to do so. This is all part of Rockstar Games unique approach to L.A Noire storytelling and gameplay which aims to create an immersive world for players to truly feel like a detective in Los Angeles in the 1940s.
L.A. Noire is set to be released on May 20 in Australia for the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3
Sony has announced that PlayStation Plus members will have the ability to use an online storage system to store their PS3 game save files in. This means that you will be able to play your save games from anywhere with an internet connection and your own PlayStation Account logged in to a friend’s PS3. As part of the $50 a year membership you will be able to store 150 MB or 1,000 save files whichever one is reached first.
In the future games will have the option to save directly into the PSN “cloud” instead of asking to save to your HDD which sounds like a new feature in theory but if the loss of internet occurs for whatever reason then you are sitting there with no access to your saved file. Players can use the feature to also back up their saves in an effort to make sure that nothing is lost if the worst should happen to their PS3. There has currently been no word of this feature becoming available for normal users and it most likely will not which gives PlayStation Plus a new feature to tempt PS3 owners into spending their money.
Atlus’ Catherine was met with much chagrin when players found the game too difficult to make it past the first few stages but with the patch released now it adds a brand new difficulty to the list, super easy mode. The patch is currently only available on the PS3 with a 360 patch coming in the future due to issues with Microsoft. There have been a few changes made to the game besides the addition of super easy mode according to Andriasang.
When the player picks up a pillow in the dream world it would normally provide Vincent one extra retry on easy mode. With this latest update any pillow that the player picks up will instead give three retries on easy, two retries on normal and only one retry on hard. There is also an exploit that has already been found which allows players to grab a pillow near a checkpoint, die, and restart from that checkpoint to grab another pillow and stock up on lives.
The super easy difficulty gives players something called the “drink assist” mode where players can hold the select/back button down and cause a certain drink to appear in front of them. This will cause Vincent to be able to jump three blocks at once instead of the normal one which means that Vincent will be able to move up the tower ridiculously easy with the use of this drink.
If you wouldn’t like to have the patch’s effects take place in your game then you can press both the joysticks down at the same time and it will disable the patch and provide the same difficult game that some fans may enjoy. There has been no word from Atlus’ USA branch as to whether or not this difficulty patch will be pre-applied to U.S. versions of the game or if it too will be a feature added after release.
