Russian hackers Memento have finally done away with the DOS command line version of their hack for the PS2 memory card Memor 32 and have released a windows interface version. This software will allow you to turn the standard Memor 32 memory card into a fully featured mod chip device within a few seconds. The Memor 32 is available to buy from Divineo.de / Divineo.fr / Divineo.es and Divineo.it.
Last week, Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello announced in a quarterly earnings conference call that the publisher would be weathering a round of layoffs and studio closures. At the time, the only operation confirmed for closure was the EA Chertsey studio in the UK. Today, If Its Games has obtained an internal EA memo stating that EA Chicago is also being closed.
EA Chicago is best known for its work on the Def Jam and Fight Night franchises. It had been working on a new licensed Marvel fighting game, as well as a second fighting game based on a new intellectual property. The Fight Night series has already been moved to an EA Sports studio, and an EA representative said that announcements would be made regarding EA Chicago’s other projects in the future.
The memo, sent by EA Games president Frank Gibeau, states that EA will announce the closure today, and calls it “the toughest decision I’ve made in my career–one that in no way reflects on the talent and dedication of the people who work there.” Gibeau singled out studio general manager Kudo Tsunoda as one of the best creative minds in the industry, and said that many of the affected employees will be offered jobs at other EA locations, with those leaving the company receiving severance and outplacement assistance.
“We’re willing to take risks, make long-term investments, and to support teams and individuals between launches,” Gibeau said. “But each team is responsible for staying on a reasonable path to profitability. Sticking to that strategy is what gives us the financial resources and flexibility to take risks on new projects.
“Unfortunately, EA Chicago hasn’t been able to meet that standard. The location has grown dramatically in the past three years while revenue from the games developed there has not. The number of employees has grown from 49 in 2004 to 146 people currently in the new facility in downtown Chicago. As it stands, EA Chicago has no expectation of hitting our profitability targets until FY2011 or later.”
Gibeau stressed again that the company was willing to take risks and make long-term investments, but added every game must “be committed to delivering a reasonable expectation of profitability” if the company’s corporate philosophy is going to work.
“It’s a performance commitment that binds us together and ensures we have the resources we need to invest back into our people and creative output,” Gibeau said.
This holiday season’s rhythm game rumble will see original Guitar Hero publisher RedOctane competing against original Guitar Hero developer Harmonix at the behest of their new parent companies, as Activision’s Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock and MTV Games’ Rock Band vie for headliner status.
With Guitar Hero III released in North American stores late last month and Rock Band not set to arrive until November 20, simExchange analyst Jesse Divnich today summarized the prediction market’s expectations for each title’s performance.
The simExchange allows users to invest fake money in games and consoles based upon their sales expectations compared to a market expectation that is based on other users’ investments. Talented prognosticators are rewarded with more money to put back into the market, which means their analysis is given more weight in determining what the market expectation for each game will be.
According to the simExchange’s numbers and Divnich’s analysis, the Xbox 360 version of Guitar Hero III will trounce Rock Band for Microsoft’s console, which has seen its stock drop in recent weeks. Divnich noted that the simExchange had been projecting Rock Band for the Xbox 360 to sell as many as 250,000 copies in the US during the month of November, nearly on par with the 287,000 sales first-month sales figure expected of Guitar Hero III for the 360.
However, when news broke that individual Rock Band instruments would not be available at launch, forcing consumers to either buy the game on its own or with every instrument in a $169.99 bundle, simExchange users began lowballing their estimates. Since then, the market expectation of first-month sales for the Xbox 360 edition of Rock Band has fallen to 150,000. Lifetime sales of Guitar Hero III are also expected to beat those of Rock Band, with the Xbox 360 versions of each pegged to move and 2.23 million and 880,000, respectively.
As for other platforms, the simExchange lists a cross-section of titles based on demand from its userbase, and as a result had no data for Rock Band on the PlayStation 3 or the PlayStation 2. On the other hand, the market is currently expecting Guitar Hero III to sell lifetime totals of 1.76 million copies on the Wii, 2.11 million on the PS2, and 799,000 on the PS3. Divnich said the performance expected of the Wii edition is particularly impressive, noting that Wii editions of multiplatform titles–especially those from American publishers–have met with little success.
Yesterday, Activision released its quarterly financial figures and discussed the early success of Guitar Hero III. While it didn’t talk about the number of copies each version sold, it did say that the title accounted for more than $115 million in first-week sales on all platforms.
In March, Sony Computer Entertainment America held a lavish launch party in San Francisco for God of War II. In the course of the celebrations, Cory Barlog, the game’s outspoken director, dropped some none-too-subtle hints that the series would be coming to the PlayStation 3 along with force feedback.
“If we were to do a God of War III on the PS3,” Barlog told the enthusiastic crowd. “We’re excited about the potential–maybe, no commitment, no announcement or anything like that–to maybe have [God of War hero] Kratos in 1080p with the Sixaxis and vibration. Vibration is coming back to the PS3, that’s pretty cool, huh?”
At the time of Barlog’s outburst, SCEA reps would comment on neither a rumble-enabled Sixaxis nor God of War III coming to the PS3. Now, less than two months after the Dual Shock 3 was unveiled at the 2007 Tokyo Game Show, Sony has officially confirmed that God of War III is indeed in development exclusively for the PS3 at SCEA’s Santa Monica studio. It provided no further details on the game.
Unfortunately, the God of War III announcement was tempered by some bittersweet news. SCEA has confirmed Barlog himself no longer works at the company’s Santa Monica studio. “We are grateful for his work and creative vision for the critically acclaimed God of War franchise,” the company said in a brief statement in which it expressed faith in the remaining members of the GOWIII and God of War: Chains of Olympus teams.
Barlog’s departure remains shrouded in mystery. So far, he has shared no information about his future plans on his personal blog, where he last posted in mid-October. His exit comes just under four months after God of War series creative director,
David Jaffe announced he was leaving SCEA’s employ after 14 years. Jaffe maintains close ties with Sony, and his indie studio Eat Sleep Play’s first project is a PS2 port of the PSP game Twisted Metal: Head On.
Before any album can go platinum, it has to first go gold. Harmonix and MTV Games today announced that their maiden collaboration, Rock Band for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, has “gone gold,” or entered final production and manufacturing on its way to meeting its scheduled November 20 release date.
Arriving in stores just before Thanksgiving, the instrument-driven rhythm game will be available on its own for $59.99, or as part of a special-edition bundle that includes a guitar, drums, and microphone for $169.99. The Xbox 360 version of the bundle will come with a wired guitar and a USB hub, while the PS3 edition includes a wireless guitar that will also work with the forthcoming PlayStation 2 version of Rock Band (set for release December 18). Individual instruments and a wireless Xbox 360 guitar will be made available sometime after the game’s release, though controllers for the rival Guitar Hero franchise will also work with the game.
While going gold is usually the end of the development team’s heavy lifting, Harmonix has promised weekly additions to the Rock Band setlist in the form of downloadable content. Among the confirmed offerings are The Who’s Who’s Next and 18 tracks from The Grateful Dead.
For more on Rock Band, check out If Its Games’s latest preview.
Last month, Electronic Arts stunned the game industry by announcing it was purchasing BioWare/Pandemic. When it was created in November 2005 by the union of Canadian role-playing developer BioWare and Californian action-game studio Pandemic, the so-called superdeveloper looked set to buck the traditional developer-publisher relationship by tapping into $300 million from venture capital firm Elevation Partners.
However, when Elevation board member John Riccitiello became EA’s CEO, he upped the ante by offering $860 million to buy BioWare/Pandemic outright. The deal would see the Redwood City, California-based publisher pay $620 million in cash to the stockholders of VG Holding Corp., the Elevation-backed holding company that owns BioWare/Pandemic.
In addition, the publisher plans to issue an additional $155 million in equity to unidentified VG Holding employees, as well as assume $50 million in outstanding VG stock options. It also will lend VG $35 million to fund BioWare/Pandemic’s transition to becoming wholly owned subsidiaries of EA–though the studios will retain their names and current locations.
Though many EA detractors decried the deal, the only official hoop it had to jump through was landing approval from the Federal Trade Commission. Today, the Thomson Financial news service reported that the US government body has given its blessing to the BioWare/Pandemic even before the 30-day period required by federal law expired. Now, barring a stockholder revolt, nothing stands in the way of the acquisition being finalized in January 2008.
Though it drew a mixed reaction from analysts, the buyout of BioWare/Pandemic bolsters the largest third-party publisher’s lineup with some marquee franchises. EA will own the Full Spectrum Warrior, Saboteur, and Mercenaries series and collect royalties on the Destroy All Humans! and Star Wars Battlefront games Pandemic developed.
The deal also makes EA a major player in the RPG market, adding Jade Empire and the forthcoming Mass Effect and Dragon Age to its trophy case. The deal will also have EA overseeing BioWare’s partnership with LucasArts on an unnamed project–which is rumored to be a massively multiplayer online RPG based on the Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic games.
When MTV bought Harmonix for $175 million in September 2006, many feared for the future of the Guitar Hero franchise. They shouldn’t have. Today, Activision reported that Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock minted over $100 million in North American retail sales in the seven days after it went on sale on October 28.
“It is, by far, the most successful launch in Activision history,” said Activision CEO Bobby Kotick of the well-reviewed game, which was internally developed by Neversoft and released for the PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Wii. (PC and Macintosh version are due out later this month.)
Indeed, Guitar Hero III’s seven-day sales were nearly one-third of Activision’s revenue for its entire second fiscal quarter. Today the Santa Monica, California-based publisher reported that it took in $317.7 million in net revenue from July 1-September 30, an increase of 69 percent over the same period in 2006. Despite the record-setting figure, net Q2 income was just $700,000. That gave investors no per-share return, but was a marked improvement over the $24.3 million the company lost during the same quarter in the prior year.
Though striking, the discrepancy between Activision’s high earnings and low profit has a reasonable explanation. Sales were stoked by the launch of the tepidly reviewed movie tie-in Transformers and strong sales of the Guitar Hero franchise, including the debut of Guitar Hero: Rocks the 80s. However, income from sales was apparently gobbled up by Activision’s late September purchase of Bizarre Creations, developer of the acclaimed Project Gotham Racing series.
The Guitar Hero III launch–which Kotick touted as “one of the biggest in entertainment history” to analysts in a postreport conference call–caused Activision to revise earnings projections for the October-December period. The company now expects $1.05 billion during its fiscal third quarter, thanks to the aforementioned rhythm game and this week’s launch of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (PC, PS3, 360, DS). For the full fiscal year ending March 31, 2008, the company now predicts it will take in roughly $2.07 billion in net revenue.
Speaking with analysts after the call, Activision executives revealed that the company would be continuing its relationship with Shrek maker DreamWorks Animation by making a game based on the 2008 animated film Monsters versus Aliens. The game will arrive on unspecified platforms during the publisher’s 2009 fiscal year alongside two new superhero games which have yet to be announced. Activision executives also told analysts that the company is “looking at a number of new vectors to take the Guitar Hero franchise for next fiscal year,” and said it will increase the number of original recordings used in the series.
With the massive number of new gamers shipping this holiday, you’d think GameStop would be content to sit on its laurels. In many locales, the biggest nationwide games retailer is one of few–if not the only–stores with an extensive selection of games for all platforms. Were that not enough, GameStop’s stock has more than doubled in value over the past year, thanks to a burgeoning US game market which topped $1.3 billion in sales in September.
With everything going GameStop’s way, why has the retailer gone on the offensive with a new, multimillion dollar ad push in print, online, and on television? Titled “Power to the Players”–which is also the company’s new tagline–the marketing push is the first nationwide coordinated campaign since GameStop acquired archrival Electronic Boutique in 2005. Indeed, it is the megaretailer’s first national campaign ever, and seems designed to blunt the increasing number of chains beginning to sell games. Recently, both Radio Shack and 7-Eleven used the Halo 3 launch to kick off their own game efforts, joining such other nationwide chains as Best Buy, Circuit City, Target, and Wal-Mart.
How is GameStop staving off the competition? Recently vice president of marketing Tom De Napoli, sat down with If Its Games to discuss his company’s new ad onslaught. He also shared his thoughts on how the new $399 PlayStation 3 and $279 Xbox 360 Arcade will shake up the crowded holiday shopping season.
IIG: So this is your first big media push since you took over EB Games. Why now?
Tom De Napoli: The timing is right, since just we finished the integration with our EB Games. Over 95 percent of our stores now have been rebranded. We’re all under one roof. We just finished a brand exploration that really provided for us the essence of who is GameStop. What is our DNA? And now it’s time to take that and tell it to the world. So really, “Power to the Players” is our rallying cry. It’s who we are, it’s what we stand for. It’s not just an ad campaign.
IIG: What effect did the Halo 3 launch have on your business? How many copies did GameStop sell?
TDN: We haven’t talked about specific numbers yet. But remember one thing: Our sales associates are gamers themselves. So it becomes a celebration of sorts. This gaming phenomena has really become the new rock and roll. It’s a very, very hot space where we, as a company, find ourselves right in the middle. I mean, we’ll open 500 stores this year.
IIG: Yeah? Impressive! But now RadioShack and even 7-11 are selling games. What is GameStop doing specifically to fend off competition from other, non-game-centric retailers?
TDN: Quite frankly, focus. What we do, again it goes back to that, that’s all we do, 24/7. Our associates are experts. We focus on what our core competencies are. And those core competences really revolve around expertise. We are the authority in the category from a retail perspective. We own one of the top gaming e-commerce sites in the business. We have GameStop TV. That’s another asset that we bring. And then there’s our used and trade business. You’ve got a game like Halo 3. People will want it. Or a new console that comes out like the Wii. Used and trade becomes a way for them to generate the currency to go and buy that new, that new, the latest newest thing.
IIG: I noticed when I preordered Halo 3 you bumped up the trade-in value by as much as 20 percent. Is the trade-in value you typically offer so low that you can do that and still make a profit selling used games?
TDN: Again, it goes back to us focusing on the customer and knowing what their wants and needs are, where we can tweak the model a bit and reward or help. We want our customers to be able to be immersed in the newest games and the latest buzz. We want to help create that buzz. So it’s not really that our margins are that deep in those areas. It’s just that we’re running a business and we have to, where we can find a way, to give back to our customers.
IIG: What’s your take on the upcoming holiday shopping season?
TDN: We see that there is a bit of a shift in terms of demographics, and we want to be responsive to that. We see the casual and the gift-giver becoming more prevalent in this space, and certainly at this time of the year. One of the things that we’re doing is we’re adding a section within our store that’s really about music games. We’re putting up music kiosks since obviously Guitar Hero III is going to be a biggie. EA’s Rock Band is going to be a biggie. So you’ve got those things and these titles [and] we want to make sure that we bring them front and center.
Our core and avid players know what we’re about. But casual folks, the newbies, they’re coming in many times because they want to get the gift right. And they want to go to the gaming experts. So we want to take [that], and make sure that our stores are merchandised in a way to make that easy for them.
The other thing is we’ve got a family-friendly focus because gaming has become the new board games. We’re going to have a section in our store for seniors and some of the wellness-type things–like Brain Age, for instance–and some of the children’s titles. Some of these shifts are really seismic. I mean, 45 percent of the population now in terms of gamers is female. That’s a huge shift from a few years back.
IIG: Oh, absolutely. Now you mentioned Rock Band and Guitar Hero. Those games come in pretty big boxes, especially Rock Band. Are you having difficulty rearranging your stores around these larger items?
TDN: We’ve gotten out in front of it in terms of with our fall relay. We knew this was coming. We also see that the…just in terms of this genre of the gaming business it’s just exploding right now. So we, again, as we look at space within our stores and our merchant team is very savvy about allocating square footage to certain sections. We look at that by linear foot, we found a way to solve for it.
IIG: What kind of effect do you expect the new, cheaper PS3 to have on your business?
TDN: I think having a $399 price point definitely helps to migrate certain folks off a certain platform into a more broader experience. So I think it’s smart. With us, we’re certainly not looking to shift console market share. But we are looking to continue to bring in the new experiences to our customers. So I think it helps to do that. The other thing is, what’s going to be available on the PS3? I wouldn’t say its catalog is robust yet. But it’s certainly grown. I think that’s the other piece that Sony needs to put in place.
IIG: Are you concerned about its lack of backward compatibility with PlayStation 2 games, given that GameStop makes much of its profit off of used titles?
TDN: I think at the end of the day, this is really a transition step for somebody who might be migrating off one console. Where they ultimately would like to be is on the PS3, but they need a stepping stone in between. That said, I don’t think in the whole that [the lack of PS2 BC] is really going to have a big effect on our used trade business. I mean, it’s a pretty robust business. There’s a lot of life in the PS2 platform for Sony.
IIG: Now one other thing I want to talk to you about is the Wii. Obviously this has been a huge phenomenon. But it’s still impossible to find. Even Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime said that the Wii shortage will continue through next year. What’s your reaction to that? I mean, does it frustrate you guys?
TDN: Right now, Reggie has a problem that I guess we’d all like to have. They’ve got a couple of really hot SKUs. I mean obviously, Wii has been a huge success for them. And I’ll tell you, their DS platform has been a huge success for them. Their library is very robust. There’s certainly a lot of demand being generated right there, and it’s a pent-up demand.
But anytime you’ve got a worldwide launch like they’ve had, they’re trying to get their production under control. They’re doing a good job of communicating to us in terms of the retail community, I think, of what they can expect when in real time. But it’s going to have to catch up with itself. And I think in the end of the day that enthusiasm is good. Our concern is to make sure that we’re getting our fair share of the allocation so that we’re taking care of our customers.
IIG: And do you feel like you are?
TDN: Yeah. We feel like we are. But we are encouraging people to shop with us early because it’s going to be on everyone’s wish list. Definitely shop early, if that is the item.
IIG: What’s your take on the Xbox 360 Arcade? Microsoft’s Robbie Bach is touting it as an alternative to the Wii. Do you see it as people that’s coming into the store, seeing the Wii is sold out, and saying, “OK, I’ll guess I’ll get that”?
TDN: I think the Nintendo Wii versus the Xbox 360, at its core you still have a console versus a console. They’re very different. Certainly, the Nintendo Wii has really got around the old stereotype notion of the video game guy sitting in there doing his own thing. When you go to the Wii it’s just a different experience. It’s not a sedentary experience. It’s off the couches. It really plays into that social gaming aspect where you’ll walk into people’s house and it’s a Christmas party and people are up and playing. So I think they complement each other. I don’t think it’s an either/or game.
What we’re seeing is a lot of folks are talking about all the broadening of the category with the Wii and DS. But we’re also seeing a lot of core and avid gamers that are buying the Wii as a second console in the house and then experiencing that kind of gaming community with their parents or their friends.
So I don’t think it’s a win-lose proposition. Microsoft’s stepping up with, with this Arcade and they’re giving a more value-added experience to the consumers. [It’s] good for everybody.
IIG: Now this is an exceptionally crowded holiday season.
TDN: It is.
IIG: Though it’s getting less crowded every day! How are you handling all these, like the shipping schedules, these delays?
TDN: Well, we’ve been in this business for some time. We are very nimble in the way we’re able to react. When Grand Theft Auto IV moved out to Q2 2008 it was not foreseen.
But there’s enough right now in the queue that’s coming out during the holiday. Just look at the titles. Guitar Hero III is going to be huge–it’s the first time it’s going to be available on the Wii. Rock Band is going to do good, and I think it’s going to do probably better in the first quarter. Call of Duty 4 is going to be great, and Halo 3 is going to have a big holiday.
So there is not a loss of titles in the pipeline, and software sales are going to be robust. I think hardware sales are going do well–we’ll sell all we get. And then with the gift card season, I think we’ll see a lot of traction into January and February of next year with that.
IIG: I mean, do you think that publishers put too much emphasis on the holiday season? I mean, a lot of these publishers are basically cannibalizing their own the sales by releasing all these great games at the same time.
TDN: I think we all know the old retail notion of you want to fish when the fish are swimming. It’s as simple as that. And when you look at the percentage of retail sales that are done in the fourth quarter, it’s a lot, so.
IIG: Now I know a lot of companies, like Netflix–I’ll use them as an example–whose business model is being threatened by digital distribution being on the horizon have their stock value drop. However, digitally distributed games are already here, but GameStop’s stock is going through the roof. Why do you think that is?
TDN: Well I can’t speak for Netflix and what their business model is doing or not.
IIG: Of course.
TDN: But what I can tell you about for us. You know we, we have been a company that’s been built as a series of roll-ups. We were Etcetera, we were Babbage’s, we were FuncoLand, we were EB Games. So what we’ve been able to do now is put a roof over all this, and now say, define it as, who are we? What are we? We’ve done that. The brand architecture is now done. We’re running a national branding campaign that consists of print, network [TV], and cable [TV]. That puts us in a position where we’re focused.
Then you look at digital distribution–it’s on the horizon, sure. But you know what? Brick and mortar isn’t going away. And when you look at this category and where it is in the life cycle, it’s just getting started. When you have that intangible product that we have, meaning the service aspect of the knowledge, expertise, advice, selection, convenience, the parade model that’s all about currency for new games. That’s something that I don’t think the digital download models are going to.
IIG: But I mean are you making any kind of preparations for it? You don’t see it as a big competitor a couple years down the road?
TDN: We certainly see it as a channel that is going to become more prevalent in our business. We are also looking at some things internally that we’re working on to complement our current channel offerings. So it’s something we’re very aware of, and something that we’ll continue to gauge how far out the technology is, where our customers are in terms of adopting that technology, and where we want to live in that space.
IIG: Now, you mentioned your rebranding is complete. So all stores have been rebranded GameStop now? There’s no more EB Games outlets anywhere?
TDN: In all but maybe–I’m guessing–5 percent of our stores. So 95 percent of the chain has been rebranded. The ones that aren’t are only because there’s a lease requirement or a lease restriction that says you can’t put the new sign up yet.
We didn’t want to launch this new brand campaign until we had the lion’s share of our stores rebranded. It’s a very rare occasion where you’ll see an EB Games sign still up. And even when we look at our international model, it’s really, it’s moving that way too, with the exception of Canada.
IIG: Why Canada?
TDN: We’re still evaluating our mind share and our identity with EB Games and the Canadian market. It’s just before you do move that way want to make sure that you really understand what your top mind awareness is and your brand equity is, before you want to make your shift. So we’re still doing some due diligence.
IIG: Now I don’t know if you’ve been following the Manhunt 2 controversy, but I just wanted to clarifying something. Am I correct in understanding it’s GameStop’s policy to never stock AO games, not even if it’s a high-profile one?
TDN: That is our policy. We do not stock AO games.
IIG: So what’s your take on all these various game laws which would mandate you display M-rated games in a different section, like adult magazines?
TDN: Well, so far you the states have tried to regulate it, without much success. It’s certainly something that’s out there. It’s going to be something that we need to look at state by state, municipality by municipality. But right now it seems like the best guidepost is the ESRB guidelines, making sure that we’re a good partner there. And that’s what we’re doing.
We did a campaign earlier this year that was all about the ESRB guidelines. Last year, the ESRB came together with five retailers including us, and we did a commitment to parents and our take on it was a Respect the Ratings campaign. We created a Web site, respecttheratings.com, that’s basically Gaming 101 for parents.
We are protecting the youth, in addition to a whole public education component that we are working with the ESRB on. There was a huge push last November, and a second push with [ESRB president] Pat Vance and our company president [Steve Morgan] this November, especially around the holiday time, to let parents know it is the natural time to be aware of games and game ratings.
The other thing that we did, too, is a little bit of self-compliance. We’ve implemented a secret shopper program, where we’re making sure that we’ve got the compliance in terms of checking for ID for each and every store. And we’ve sent a real strong message that it’s a zero tolerance. We actually have terminated employees for the violations. We do stick to what we say when it comes to game ratings.
The following video clip shows UK presenter Time Lovejoy having a play with In2Games\’ motion sensing controller for the PS2. Lovejoy is accompanied by a female presenter who seems to be struggling to read off of her own cards about the product.
Lordhex is back again with the 100% fully nonfiltered gore mode for the retail copy of Manhunt 2 on the PS2. Now this hack means there is absolutely no redness, no negative flashing, no blur and no grainy camera efects just crystal clear unfiltered gory murder sequences. The version of the hack he released is currently compatible with Action Replay cheat devices only. Be sure to check it out here. Spread the word and DIGG THIS!!!
Yet another hacker has stopped by the MaxConsole froums to post codes in order to uncensor the retail version of Manhunt 2 on the PS2 in conjunction with a cheat device, in his case the Action Replay. However, he leaves a message that an even MORE uncensored version will be coming soon, and we\’re guessing that would mean removing the blur and red filters. Read more here.
According to a UK trade publication, Sony will release a new compact PS2 system in the US at a price of $99 in the new year, which is a $30 reduction on its current selling price. The new version features a built in power supply, but as expected Sony has refused to comment on the respective report.
The Manhunt 2 saga has officially come to a peaceful resolution. Yesterday, Take-Two confirmed reports that some of the revisions made to secure an M-for-Mature rating for its horror actioner were reversible using a hacked PlayStation Portable. Today, though, the Entertainment Software Rating Board announced that it will stand by the M rating it issued to the revised Manhunt 2.
“We have investigated the matter and concluded that unauthorized versions of the game have been released on the Internet along with instructions on how to modify the code to remove the special effects,” read the statement issued by the ESRB. “Once numerous changes to the game’s code have been made and other unauthorized software programs have been downloaded to the hardware device which circumvent security controls that prevent unauthorized games from being played on that hardware, a player can view unobscured versions of certain violent acts in the game. Contrary to some reports, however, we do not believe these modifications fully restore the product to the version that originally received an AO rating, nor is this a matter of unlocking content.”
As noted by Take-Two in its defense yesterday, the ESRB said that the content was fully disclosed as being present at the time of being granted an M-for-Mature rating. The ESRB also delineated the difference between the unobscured violence mod and the notorious Hot Coffee mod to Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, which was accessible through similar means.
“Our rule clarification following Hot Coffee required that pertinent content that is programmed to be locked out but which exists in an unmodified, fully rendered form on game discs must either be removed or disclosed to ESRB during the rating process,” said the rating board. “In the case of Manhunt 2, the scenes in question were playable (not locked-out), programmed to include the blur effect, and fully disclosed to the ESRB.”
The ESRB also noted that whereas the Hot Coffee mod was easily accessible to all PC gamers, unauthorized hardware and software was necessary to view the AO-rated violence in Manhunt 2. Addressing this difference, ESRB president Patricia Vance said, “Parents need to be vigilant about monitoring what their children are downloading on the Internet and ensure that they are not making unauthorized and oftentimes illegal modifications to software and hardware that remove the controls the industry has so diligently put in place for their own protection.”
Looney Tunes: Acme Arsenal is a third-person action romp that blatantly borrows a number of concepts from Sony’s Ratchet & Clank series. In a nutshell, you work your way through large 3D environments and lay waste to the enemies you encounter using the characters’ comical kung fu attacks or the different Acme-inspired weapons that are available within each area. If you disregard the fact that gun violence is very out of character for the Looney Tunes gang, then the game’s biggest problem is that it tries to copy Ratchet & Clank but doesn’t actually come anywhere close to delivering the same amount of fun or variety that the typical Ratchet & Clank game does. The action is boring, and the presentation is half-hearted and almost devoid of humor. Furthermore, thanks to the sloppy programming, the simple act of playing the game often feels like an exercise in frustration.
In Acme Arsenal, the Looney Tunes gang has guns and knows how to use them.
According to the story, a mysterious mad scientist has invented a time machine and sent his robot goons back in time to eliminate the Looney Tunes characters’ ancestors, which would erase Bugs Bunny, Elmer Fudd, and the rest of the Looney gang from existence. Luckily, Bugs Bunny catches wind of the plan and rallies the other toons, who decide to travel back in time to set things right. The main mode is mission-based. In it, you run and jump your way through 3D environments that are liberally populated with robotic adversaries. To dispatch these bad guys, you can get in close and smack them with your melee attacks, or you can blast them from a distance with the different weapons you’ve picked up. If you play alone, you can swap between the two characters involved in the mission simply by tapping a button. However, if you connect a second controller, you and a friend can control the characters individually and play through each mission cooperatively. There’s also a stand-alone battle mode, which lets you and your friends fight it out in multiple arenas to see who is the top toon.
You’d think doling out violence with your favorite cartoon characters would be fun. Unfortunately, every level employs the same boring mix of gap jumping and switch hunting, and the combat mainly involves mindlessly mashing the buttons to perform the same melee combinations against the same half-dozen robots that are recycled thousands of times throughout the game. You can collect vials of a substance called illudium to make your character stronger, but that doesn’t add any new attacks to your repertoire. Likewise, the weapons don’t do much to alleviate the monotony brought on by all that sameness. They’re effective at getting rid of enemies in a hurry, but, out of the 15 different guns you can pick up, the only ones that aren’t generic blasters are the flamethrower, the freeze gun, and the extend-o-fist. You also don’t get to run wild with them as often as you’d like. Few enemies carry them. Instead, you usually have to bide your time until you come across a vending machine, which will sell you one for an astronomical number of gold pieces. However, the joke’s on you, because the 20 or 30 shots in that gun probably won’t last beyond the next cluster of enemies.
The presentation feels similarly phoned-in. Sure, the characters look like they’re supposed to, and the toon-shaded backgrounds look appropriate, but there’s not much to see with regard to different animations or environmental details. Once you’ve seen Bugs Bunny slam his guitar down and have observed the embers being cast out of the fire pits, you’ve seen everything this game has to offer. During the missions, the only real hints of Looney Tunes attitude you’ll notice are the repetitive one-liners that the characters utter when they’re trading blows with the enemy. The prerecorded scenes that are shown between missions do show the characters interacting with one another, but the gags are nowhere near as funny as anything you’d see in an actual Looney Tunes or Merry Melodies cartoon. Even on a technical level, the presentation fails. The muddy textures and simplistic terrain features are at least four years behind the curve compared to other PlayStation 2 games. Except for an increase in sharpness, the Xbox 360 and Wii versions of the game don’t look any better.
In fact, the only noteworthy enhancement the Xbox 360 version of the game offers over its PS2 and Wii counterparts is the ability to play through the story cooperatively with another person over Xbox Live. That’s not much of a bonus, considering how lifeless the whole experience is. It’s also rather silly that the battle mode in the Xbox 360 version is limited to local split-screen play only, considering that the Xbox Live service is perfectly capable of handling four players and the tiny arenas that the game dishes out.
It’s like the developers quickly slapped together a crummy, generic action game, and then tacked on the Looney Tunes license.
On top of everything else, the developers did a poor job of nailing down the controls, hit detection, and camera. Shaking the Wii remote to deliver jabs and spin attacks takes a while to get used to, but, generally speaking, the controls in all three versions simply entail repeatedly tapping the buttons to jump, perform melee combos, and use weapons. If only playing the game really was just that simple. First of all, aiming weapons is a pain, because the lock-on function has a tendency to latch onto boxes just as often as an enemy. Secondly, the characters move like they have oil on their feet. They slide all over the place! Combine that with the exaggerated follow-throughs on most attacks and you’ll frequently find yourself slipping off of ledges for no good reason. It also doesn’t help that you’ll occasionally take a swing at an enemy only to pass right through them, basically flinging yourself right off of the platform.
Above all, the most frustrating thing is how the camera tends to move at the worst possible moment. It’s bad enough that it never seems to pick a good angle in the first place, but you’ll frequently find yourself in the middle of a jump between two platforms when the camera decides to point at something other than the platform you’re trying to land on. Health refills and checkpoints are plentiful, and you can continue as much as you like, so at least the shoddy programming doesn’t mean the game can’t be beaten. Nevertheless, you’ll have to endure lots of cheap deaths during the roughly eight hours it takes to clear all of the missions contained within the game’s 10 chapters.
Don’t bother with Looney Tunes: Acme Arsenal, not even for kids who you think won’t know any better. It isn’t fun, it certainly isn’t funny, and the game’s sketchier aspects are liable to fluster anyone who plays it.
A game hacker has posted some raw code up which can be used on cheat devices such as Gameshark/Xploder and Codebreaker in order to uncensor Manhunt 2 on the PS2 without the need for any modding. So long as you have one of the cheat devices and a legal Manhunt 2 copy, you too can unlock all the gore. With the penetration that such devices have in the PS2 market, one can only imagine just how many tens thousands of hands (or even lots more) the uncensored version of the game will get into. Read more here (post #161).
