I haven’t been excited about a madden game coming out for years, probably since the first one or two I got on the original xbox.  I played 2k10 on the wii, and it’s obviously not the ultra high end versions available for xbox 360 and ps3 but it’s still fun to play.  The control is pretty interesting, the way they use the remote and so forth.  I’ll probably give the new one a try when it comes out.

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????Another premium MMORPG is testing the free-to-play waters. Soon Sony Online Entertainment will be launching a service called “EverQuest II Extended” (EQ2X) that allows you to enjoy EQ2 without paying for a subscription.

“What does ‘free-to-play’ mean? It means that you can download the game and play all of it (except the most recent expansion) all the way up to level 80,” said senior produce Dave Georgeson on the game’s forums. “Your character is restricted in a bunch of different ways (limited class selection, limited races, limited coin, etc.) and to unlock those features fully, you’ll need to subscribe to Gold level membership. Which, coincidentally, is $15/month. Sound familiar?”

EQ2X also features a “more robust” marketplace than the regular EQ2. You can spend real money there to unlock additional classes and races or buy items for your character. Georgeson is careful to point out, though, that the best items can still only be acquired through questing and tradeskills.

For all of your questions about the service, check out the official FAQ.

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For a little bit now I’ve had a passing interest in God of War III.  I like the simplicity of hack and slash games with just a little bit of a puzzle to figure out.  I don’t like a difficult puzzle…mainly hack and slash.  This latest incarnation of GoW looks pretty sweet.

I’m not going to fully review the game…as I haven’t played it I’d be just regurgitating what others have said.  I’m liking the brutality of it, along with the rawness and the “sex scene”.  I like the idea of a game targeted at the mature audience, as opposed to the wii where almost everything seems to be targeted for kids.

This game is really pushing me towards picking up a ps3…but then I’d need an HD T.V….etc.  And in the end, I wouldn’t play it all that much.  It’s an impulse buy…but it would be fun for a couple of hours.  I am also interested in Dante’s Inferno…but that’s the same hack and slash type game.

In the end, I doubt I’ll buy a PS3 for quite awhile, if ever…but some of these games look pretty sweet.

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I like the idea of selling used games, many hard core gamers power through a game then are done with it.  Very few games are worth playing over and over again, and as the article points out, selling the game provides a way for the high end gamers to keep buying new games.  Slowing that down might slow down the sale of new games…but I’m sure EA has done a cost/benefit analysis on all this and the risk is acceptable.

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It’s not exactly news that John Riccietello, EA’s CEO, is fighting with used game retailers.

Recently, he implemented project “Ten Dollar” which offers free DLC for players who purchase a game new – all in an attempt to combat the increasing used game market which, as I detail further down, deprives publishers of income on used game sales while adding to costs associated with maintaing servers, providing title updates, etc that improve the long term experience offered by a game.

Essentially, project “Ten Dollar” add value to a brand new game while keeping it at $60, but at the same time devaluing a $55 used version of the same product.  In project ‘Ten Dollar’ EA includes in the packaging of new, unopened game, a redeemable code that unlocks considerable game content (such as the Cerebus Network in Mass Effect 2).

Of course, when a game is returned to the retailer and traded in, that redeemable code has already been used.  Anyone who then buys this used game will have to pay $10 for the same content, thus pushing the overall investment to $65… this serves to remind the consumer that, yes, $55 really was a terribly gratuitous price point to begin with. EA’s hope is that this will deter gamers from buying the $55 used version of thier game, and instead buy the new one, thus maintaining their revenue stream.

Now, unsurprisingly, a number of used-game retailers have fired back against EA, and Sony (they’re doing it too, albeit in a more tactless fashion, by completely locking out multiplayer without a redeemable code).

Speaking with GamesIndustry.biz, Don McCabe of Chipsworld suggests that EA is harming the most important part of the equation:

“The person you’re pissing off the most is the consumer.  This affects [them] directly – they pay the same amount of money and yet the resale value is much reduced. From a retailer’s point of view, they’ll just readjust [the price] bearing in mind you have to buy the voucher.”

Marc Day, CEO of SwapGame, brings up another good point:  What about folks that just don’t have the money to drop of $60 titles?

“EA’s Project Ten Dollar move is aiming to stifle pre-owned games sales, but what they don’t factor in is the damage this could have for them in relation to new sales.  At SwapGame, the majority of customers who trade in for cash or credit do so to acquire new games they could otherwise not afford. Through trading in, we aim to help the customer make gaming more affordable, providing them with a way to buy new games.”

This is a fair point, and yet it isn’t.  EA’s move isn’t to hamper moderately impoverished gamers’ ability to enjoy games.  These particular gamers wouldn’t be paying $55 for a game in the first place.  EA is simply trying to retain its revenue stream in a market that is being unscrupulously siphoned by somewhat unfair price-gougers.

It might not sound like a big deal to us but to EA – it represents millions in lost revenue. Not to mention, the used game model, while convenient, it’s extremely unbalanced providing massive funds to used game retailers at both the customer and publisher’s expense.

If you have either traded in or bought a used game from Gamestop over the last few years, no doubt you came away from the experience feeling somewhat violated.

Indeed, trading in games you no longer play as collateral against a game you do want seems like a prudent financial win-win for all involved. That is until you realize the game you bought for $60 from the very same store not 3 weeks ago will now net you a paltry $23.

Add to this the shock you discover upon seeing the very same game back on the shelf later that day at the bamboozling price of $55.

We’ve all been there, haven’t we?  Not one of us feels this practice is remotely fair. Furthermore, it seems to exploit the more desperate and cash-strapped of us solely in the interest of thickening the wallets of red-nosed, gin-swilling, fat cat, retail executives that light their Cuban cigars with $100 bills.

The reality is of course not as dramatic.  The used game model is neither demonic nor saintly, but somewhere in-between.

The practice of buying low and reselling high is the basic fundamental component of any money making organism.  This practice in itself is not unfair, it’s just business.  On the other hand, Gamestop’s corporate guidelines of buying unnecessarily low and reselling exceedingly high is a coup of the highest order – at least in this man’s opinion.

It isn’t just us gamers getting the business-end, either.  As I mentioned, the game developers and publishers themselves don’t see a single penny from resales. Is that fair?  You might think so, but it really isn’t.  One game owned should equal one game purchased, and that purchase must exist within the financial ecosystem that funded it, otherwise game companies go broke, and you’re back to playing with action figures.

If, for example, EA sells 2 millions units of a multiplayer game, that’s 2 million players.  Luckily, they’ve factored in a percentage of the profits from game sales to pay for and maintain online servers for players to run around in.  But since half of the players returned ther games to Gamestop, who then resold the game several times over with no kickback to EA, EA has a much larger user base to support for multiplayer, but a disproportionately low amount of money with which to do so.

Ultimately, it’s going to be awhile before the consoles move entirely to the digital download model – so we’ve got plenty of time to watch this battle rage on.

Where do you stand?  Are you a proponent of Gamestop’s used game trade-in system?  Or are you backing EA on this one?

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I fired it up quickly initially and was surprised it didn’t prompt me to connect the nun-chuck.  I played an exhibition fight and it was less than exceptional.  The control was just like the old NES controlling…while the graphics were cool (I’ve accepted that wii graphics are not designed to be life like, so I can move on to appreciating the cartoon nature), the game over all was less than stellar.  I was just playing it for a few min to see what it was like…then I logged off.  I came back a couple days later and checked into the options a little bit before I started playing.  I found a spot where it lets you adjust the control scheme…it had a setting in there for the nun-chuck..ah ha!  I attached it and sure enough it switched right over to that control scheme without me changing anything.  A quick look through the control scheme to see how to move around…and I was off and running.

This game is by far the most fun I’ve had with any of the games I’ve tried yet.  Even with the cartoonish nature of the characters, it feels like you are beating their ass.  You can’t help but throw a punch…a real punch as hard as you can while trying to move little mac through these monsters.  The controllers are held one in each hand and the control is pretty much what you expect.  You use the joy stick to bob and move Mac, you throw punches by…throwing punches.  You go to the body by just throwing the punch.  There are multiple ways to throw a punch to the face, but the easiest for me was to push up on the joy stick and throw punches.  An uppercut is thrown by hitting C (or Z?) and throwing a punch.

I haven’t gotten very far through this game, but what little I did play was a god damn blast.  It was also a really good work out.  I’m sure you could play by throwing lighter punches or not getting quite as in to the game…but that wouldn’t be as fun.  If you’ve ever looked at the old punch out or are interested in boxing at all…this game is a must have.

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I was spoiled by the xbox’s multimedia software XBMC.  This software is fantastically designed.  The interface works spectacularly with the controller, it plays video and audio across the network with little to no configuration…I just can’t say enough about it.  I bought my original xbox for 120 bucks, paid 50ish bucks for the mod and I had the 120gig hard drive I put in to it.  For under 200 bucks I got a very basic home theater PC, that looks like it belongs in my living room.  To build something comparable I would be looking at 300 at the very least and it would look like a hunk of shit sitting next to my entertainment center.  It just amazes me how versatile this device is after it’s modded.

The original xbox I modded burned up on me a couple years ago…I’m really not sure what happened but it died and wouldn’t power on.  A buddy at work had one he sold me for 50 bucks, I picked up a solder-less mod for 25 bucks and I was rockin it out again.  I was almost in a panic being without the box for a few days.  We watch quite a few videos across the network, and it would be such a pain to have to use a computer for that.

Enter the Wii, I had been holding off on modding the Wii because I read some stuff about it being a bit hit and miss and a little difficult.  Beyond that, I really didn’t see any advantage to it.  I wasn’t interesting in pirating games, and I have the xbox for my htpc needs.  I had been reading some stuff about the wii being able to play DVDs after being modded and some media center functions…so I thought I would give it a go and see how it works out.  I would like to replace the xbox in the living room and put it in the garage.

I had tried a few different soft mods on the console with no luck.  I found a detailed walk through for my version of the firmware, it was laid out so well I think my daughter would be able to follow it.  The mods went fine…and it’s up and running.  This morning I installed some mplayer software.  My first go around was less than spectacular.  It is no were near as functional as the xbmc.  Even if the smb files mounted fine it still wouldn’t be as user friendly as xbmc is.

We’ll see I guess…I got time to experiment.

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My mother asked me about which one to get her (DSi or DS lite).  I told her it really didn’t matter too much, and as she was looking there was little difference between the two as far as price is concerned.  My mother had bought a DS lite for the old man to mess with while he was waiting for his appointments at the hospital, so she decided to get the monster a DSi.  What point is there in having two of the same thing? was her reasoning.  I picked up “New Super Mario Brothers” for her to play on it.

The kid was thrilled with it and started messing with it right away.  The differences between the DSi and the Lite are kind of remarkable really.  There is a camera on the DSi that looks like it can take around 400ish pictures on internal memory alone.  I am assuming you can use the SD card slot to hold more pix, but I haven’t tested that yet.  The picture quality is OK, somewhere between a cell phone and a mid range digital camera.  What is handy with this device is that after you have the picture on the DSi you can use the software on there to manipulate the picture.  You can write graffiti, put different cartoony designs, distort the picture and several other things that I haven’t looked at.  The camera function and it’s associated software took up as much time as the game did for the kid.

The DSi also has a wireless function that I haven’t tested at all.  In fact when I got home after looking at the settings, I shut it off on the game system to save battery life.  The stock encryption it supports is WEP.  My wireless at the house is setup for WPA2.  I read online that the DSi will do WPA2 if the game is setup for it…but by default it cannot.  I assumed the device had some kind of browser included…but I haven’t looked at this.  There is also the Nintendo store that you can access…but again, haven’t checked it out.

If you do some research online in to this device you inevitably come across the “hacking” options available.  The DSi is hacked by buying an R4i card from whatever retailer for around 40 bucks.  You will need an SD Micro card as well.  Some of the R4i’s come with one…some don’t.  You download the firmware for the R4 and just copy it over to the card using a standard SD card reader.  After it’s on the card, you insert the SD card into the R4i and plug it into the DSi just like a regular game cartridge.  The DS has a menu across the bottom very similar to the Wii, where you scroll left or right and choose which function you want to perform.  After you put in the hacked card, you will see an option to launch the card’s software.  After that’s done the card takes over operating the DS and you can do various things….

There are some home brew applications available for the DS.  You can run a media player that will allow you to listen to mp3 files and so forth.  There is some kind of illustrator package for editing things and there is also a day planner similar to a PDA.  I’m sure a little looking on the net would yield even more home brew apps that would be helpful and fun.

It is very easy to bootleg DS games using the R4i.  The games are downloaded in an nds file that is relatively small.  You copy it to the SD Micro card and fire it up on the DS.  What is handy about the r4i card is that you can carry many games with you on the same card.  You won’t have to lug around piles of cartridges and potentially lose them.  That is a big concern of mine when you give a kid something like this.  It’s very easy to lose those games…and at 25-40 bucks a pop it can get spendy.  It would be nice if the game could download onto the hand held and be played from there.  Put some kind of copy notice, linking type drm deal on there or something…I dunno.

How many people hack a game console only to play with home brew applications and not download games?  Outside of an Xbox (which is an amazing piece of hardware for it’s cost when hacked) I can’t think of anything that isn’t hacked to play stolen games.  It’s very important to remember that downloading and playing a game without paying for it is stealing.  You should always pay for content you want to support.  I’m all for people downloading a game to try it out, but once you decide you like it you should pay for it.  If you don’t buy the game, or “vote for it” with your dollars there is no way for the makers to build the next game that might be as good.  I always buy DVD’s that I want them to make more of, I buy games that I think are good enough to support.  I bootlegged Hellgate London when it came out and played it for many hours.  The game was so good I went out and bought it so they would maybe make more of them or whatever.  I’ve bought the different versions of diablo.  I bought Ninja Gaiden for the xbox because I really liked the game….and I financed a new wing for Sony Online Entertainment with my EQ dollars.  I’m not sure what it is about being able to download content that makes people so inclined to do it.  Most people wouldn’t walk in to wal-mart and walk out with a DVD under their coat, but put that same movie online for a “free” download and people won’t hesitate to do it.  Maybe it’s presumed to be a faceless crime…who knows.

The bottom line is you should pay for content that you want them to make more of.

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The developers behind the XBMC project have announced the official release of version 9.11, codenamed Camelot, a major update that includes an improved user interface theme and a number of new features.

XBMC is a cross-platform media center application that is distributed under an open source license. Originally designed to run on Microsoft’s Xbox gaming console in 2003, the program has evolved to run on conventional desktop computers and has attracted a considerable audience of users and developers. Although it lacks DVR capabilities, it supports a broad assortment of media playback and library management features.

I use XBMC as the primary media playback software on my Ubuntu-based HTPC. I updated to version 9.11 from the XBMC PPA and conducted extensive hands-on testing of the new release. I have found it to be a nice incremental improvement over its predecessor. It looks great, performs well, and generally boosts the quality of the user experience. I still favor it over alternatives like Boxee, but Boxee still has the lead in some areas—particularly Web video integration.

One of the most visible changes in XBMC 9.11 is the new default theme, called Confluence. It incorporates elements from a number of popular existing skins but still manages to deliver a unique and distinctive look and feel. It’s a lot more polished than PM3.HD, the previous default theme.

When I reviewed XBMC 9.04 in May, I remarked that the cross-style playback control felt somewhat cumbersome. It has been replaced in the new theme with a more conventional horizontal array of controls that slides down from the top. In general, this new design seems less cumbersome and distracting. The playback timeline slides in from the bottom of the screen, where it is shown in a small bubble. It’s not as wide as it is in PM3.HD, but it’s brightly colored and still relatively easy to see. The menu system and navigational elements all look nicer but have roughly the same behavior.

XBMC home screen

A video with timeline and playback controls

The file navigation interface

The improved XBMC control panel

XBMC 9.11 has improved support for various multimedia codecs thanks to an updated version of the FFmpeg audio and video decoding library. It has gained support for RTMP video streams, making it possible to handle certain kinds of streaming Flash video. Networked multimedia features got a boost from the introduction of DLNA compliance and some minor improvements to UPnP support. The “scrapers” that are used to automatically obtain movie and television show metadata have been improved significantly in the new version.

On the Windows platform, XBMC will now use DirectX instead of OpenGL for rendering video content and the user interface. The DirectX rendering backend has been available for a while and was used for the Xbox version, but is only just now becoming the default for the Windows release. This is a win for performance.

Now that the release is out, the developers are going to start aggressively integrating new features and preparing for the next version.

“It’s been quite a while in the making (and maybe a bit late), but Camelot has arrived for Windows, OSX, Linux, and XBMC Live, and just in time for the holidays,” the developers wrote in a statement. “It’s now open season for us to start looking forward and begin merging in all those new features that have been brewing. Enjoy our latest offering as we get back to work!”

For a more complete list of new features and improvements, check out the official release notes. You can download version 9.11 from the XBMC website.

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