Sony’s been becoming quite versed in the promomentary — documentaries meant solely to promote a certain product. Considering the incredible moves Logan can pull off in Logan’s Shadow, that’s certainly not a bad thing. After a brief introduction to Rucka’s work, see how Logan can take out his enemies by using blind fire and grappling. We can describe it, but seeing it actually unfold in front of your eyes is another thing.
This latest Syphon Filter title received a 9.0 from PSP Fanboy, and comes highly recommended.
In their continuing series on correct pronunciation — hopefully, you still remember how to say Fils-Aime — MTV’s Multiplayer blog has posted a brief recording with Ninja Gaiden creator Tomonobu Itagaki. In the video posted above, you’ll learn how to correctly pronounce Ninja Gaiden (of course, we always said it right, Itagaki-san), Helena, and Itagaki’s name itself. While we appreciate the public service announcement, we think Itagaki’s time might be better spent doing some Ninja Gaiden anger management counseling. Game be frustrating, yo.
Soon-to-be CEO of merged mega-publisher Activision Blizzard, Activision head Bobby Kotick mused on latent cash cows at the Morgan Stanley Technology Conference in Dana Point, California. Kotick clearly senses the possibility of transforming his million-dollar franchises into billion-dollar franchises. MMOrph them! “[What] would be the natural evolution of a property like Call of Duty into a massively multiplayer environment — how do you monetize that?” wondered Kotick. That is the question, Bobby. Lucky for you, you can just sit back and let the WoW think tank (a.k.a. your $1b investment) do the answering … *fingers crossed*.
Reader Zarja of Trollbane sends us this lovely shot of the sun setting over Razorfen Kraul in the Barrens. Zarja took this shot while speeding by on a windrider and tells us, “I love doing aerial shots, as it’s sheer luck to catch just the right view as you’re speeding by.”
Do you have a unique shot of Azeroth or Outland that you’d like to show off to the rest of the world? Tell us about it by e-mailing a copy to aroundazeroth@wowinsider.com, with as much or as little detail as you’d like to share with the world!
Crysis developer and PC gaming evangelist Crytek may soon fly the flag of multiplatform solidarity, as company president Cevat Yerli revealed in a recent interview that the studio will no longer create games exclusively for the PC due to poor sales and game piracy that he says is “encompassing Crysis.”
The comments were made as part of an interview with Croatian magazine PC Play, during which Yerli stated that “I believe that’s the core problem of PC gaming, piracy … It was a big lesson for us and I believe we won’t have PC exclusives as we did with Crysis in future.” He added that while the company will continue to create games for the PC, these titles will not be released solely for that platform.
Of course, this brings into question not only the oft-rumored PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 ports of Crysis, but also the game’s planned trilogy of sequels. While Yerli wasn’t asked as to the fate of subsequent games in the Crysis canon, he did comment that bringing Crysis “as we have seen” to consoles would be “impossible,” and that the game would have to be “largely changed” to be brought to either the PlayStation 3 of Xbox 360. We continue to dream of playing the game from the comfort of our couch, though Yerli’s remarks that the company’s focus “is not linked to bring Crysis to consoles” has a single high-def tear running down our cheek.
After having been off the radar a bit since it’s announcement, the hype train for The Force Unleashed is finally leaving the station. Though it’s destinations do see to be a rather strange: the latest being a three page article at, of all places, Vanity Fair’s website. In the article, the ostensibly mainstream writer is actually rather friendly to the game, praising the team, the technology and more. Unfortunately, if you’ve been following the game at all then there isn’t really much news here.
The real news for us followers is host of new screens from the game, exclusive to Vanity Fair. Though they are quite small, they do give an idea of the visual fidelity that the team is shooting for this summer, as well as the first look at few characters outside of concept art (Shaak Ti, and your protocol droid). There is a video up as well, which while slow to get going and rather short, is still full of eight kinds of awesome. The article itself has some nice tidbits even if you have been following the game (such as the confirmation that you will play as Darth Vader for at least a bit of the game) and is a good read, but it’s Vanity Fair, they’re not going to be dropping any megatons with this one. Still, it’s nice to see videogames moving toward the mainstream in even a small way.
We’ve returned yet again to sweep the leg and bring you the best podcast that no money can buy. This week, we’re talking Metal Gear Solid 4, European Rock Band pricing, Strong Bad’s Cool Game for Attractive People, Microsoft’s motion controller and so much, much more.
We also give away aviator sunglasses, gloves and a pimp cup. No, but really, we do. (Oh, and thanks to Randall Smith of the the JPAG for the picture.)
Get the podcast: [iTunes] Subscribe to the Joystiq Podcast directly in iTunes (MP3) [RSS] Add the Joystiq Podcast feed to your RSS aggregator [Digg] Like the show? Digg it. [MP3] Download the MP3 directly
Hosts: Chris Grant, Ludwig Kietzmann and Justin McElroy
Now that guild banks are incoming to the game, what’s missing from our little virtual economy system? Taxes! That’s what Noplat suggests, anyway– he says that now that guilds have a place to store up their own central banks, the next step is to require payments from guild members for various guild running costs.
I’m not quite sure I agree– most guilds don’t require anything like this. The biggest costs I can think of simply involve raiding repairs, and not only is not every member of every guild involved with raiding, but repair costs aren’t that big a deal anyway, especially with daily quests throwing out money for just a few minutes’ work. There may be costs coming in the game (guild housing would obviously require a lot of money, and we still haven’t been told how siege weapons might work in guild battlegrounds– will we have to buy those?), but at this point, we don’t really need guild taxes or membership fees.
The closest thing my guild ever did to a membership tax is that they ask everyone to pay a few g to any engineer that drops a repair bot during a raid (to cover those costs), but considering how the new instances are set up, I haven’t seen a repair bot need to be dropped for a long time anyway. Does your guild need enough money to require membership fees or taxes? And if so, for what? Potions?
After playing a few hours of his pre-release copy of Ninja Gaiden II(come one Microsoft, where’s our love?), Godfree of Gamertag Radio found a shiny Xbox Easter egg. Hidden behind some wood paneling is what looks to be the prototype for the original Xbox, the shiny metallic box that never came into existence and was instead replaced by the big black Xbox we’ve all come to know and love. And seeing that we were unsuccessful in our attempt to Google for an image of the original Xbox prototype, we’ll award +5 fanboy points to anyone who can find and link to a legit shiny Xbox image. Go! Go! Go! Thanks for the imageDBoyFlex. You get +5 points!
I’m still not sure what to make of this, but according to a number of very upset hunters on the official forums, Blizzard has handed a permanent ban to a player known as Megatf, said to be the best arena hunter in the world. His Armory does in fact show him as being #2 in his battlegroup (Reckoning) for 2’s, #1 for 3’s, and #1 for 5’s, so even if he wasn’t the best in the world, the guy knew a thing or two about PvP. The ban is popularly attributed to Megatf’s having posted criticism of how Blizzard has handled the Hunter crisis in arena. It’s certainly tough to argue that hunters are doing well; they are the only class that is underperforming in all three brackets, even by Blizzard’s standards and months after the introduction of an MS-debuff to Aimed Shot.
A player called Macrospamftw (yeah, I laughed) insists it’s because Megatf was posting content and links that contained keyloggers, which sounds a lot more plausible than mere criticism (let’s face it, if CM’s banned people for that, the official forums would be a ghost town). But the player Guinevere counters by saying there were no links in the banned posts. Poking around a little more resulted in additional details: Megatf often posted while tipsy and was prone to foul language. That’s certainly more than enough for a forum ban, but a permanent one?
Megatf does seem to have vanished from the forums completely. Not only are the threads in question gone, but according to the hunters, Megatf’s popular post on Hunter PvP has also disappeared. Do any of our readers know what’s going on?
Now that 
I’m still not sure what to make of this, but according to a number of very upset hunters on the official forums, Blizzard has handed a permanent ban to a player known as 
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