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Gaming has hit a bit of a slump in terms of design and innovation. Endless sequels plague the release calendar, and will kill the industry. This isn't the first time that something like this has happened, but I welcome the fallout and eventual recovery that will come.
The skateboarding days of Tony Hawk may be history. Rumors are circulating that Activision is about to cancel the franchise, especially coming off the poor performance of Tony hawk: Shred.
"Target, Toys R Us and Best Buy are all offering deals this week meant to get shoppers to make multiple purchases. Meanwhile, K-Mart is offering a hot deal on Mafia II releasing this week and a similar deal on Red Dead Redemption."
"Activision just continues finding new ways to go from the popular publisher that stayed the course and rose to number one, to being the big jerk that is too big for their own britches as my grandpa would say. Since becoming the number publisher, Activision has done everything possible to piss off gamers."
All Age Gaming's Phong Nguyen bring's us the 33rd AAG "The Week That Was". This week he discusses the Playstation "Move", a possible slim 360, the 360's external hard drive support, PS3 shortages due to the release of God Of War 3 and more.
In recent years, the music genre has really boomed, with gamers seeing the creation of such innovative titles as Guitar Hero and Rock Band. Now though, the sector has become stagnant. Read on to find out the thoughts of Joey Esposito on the matter of what he describes as being "Maddenitis".
"Well, here we are, it’s the last day of Christmas and the final instalment of Electronic Theatre’s special festive The Twelve Games of Christmas series. Every day for the twelve days of Christmas we have been looking back at each consecutive month of 2009 and revisiting the very best releases that that month had to offer. Today is the turn of December 2009, and being most recent, features games that will still be at the top of the sales charts now. If you are lost for videogaming material the..."
This week only Best Buy is having a sale on variety of Nintendo Wii games that utilize Wii Balance Board. List of games on sale include EA Sports Active, Gold's Gym Cardio Workout, Jillian Michaelas Fitness Ultimatum 2010 and many more.
"With every passing year players all over the world are subjected to games both good and bad. To be brutally honest, people love a loser far more than a winner because we get some amount of twisted enjoyment out of seething our hatred upon something we know is a piece of complete and utter crap. So for the year 2009, I offer up to you the top 20 video games that made me scream in anger, roll my eyes with annoyance, and curse at the sky with dismay. I have a feeling that at least one of these r..."
"The days of button-combo skateboarding games are over. Tony Hawk games have always been a series that appeals to people who aren’t the biggest skateboarding fans but the increasingly difficult button combos of the most recent games have begun to weed out all the casual fans of the series. With the success of EA’s SKATE, Activision needed to do something in order to bring back some respect to the Tony Hawk series. What we see today with Tony Hawk: Ride was their reaction and it might have bee..."
On The Bender this week, we have lot of random topics covered. We start out with a tiny bit of Modern Warfare talk, we get into what is going on with some of these "Game of the Year" lists, and somehow we end up talking about bible/God themed games. Listen live/stream with iTunes on this link. Download the mp3 directly here. And if you have Zune, we are also up here
"Christmas will have come and gone in January, but doesn’t mean you can stop spending money! The Spawn Kill cast minus a couple of us — that’s Molotov Cupcake, Tigresa, K-Tuck, The Herp, and Snarkasaur — discusses the cornucopia of games being released Q1 of 2010 and various subjects that coincide with the games coming out as well as our subsequently drained bank accounts. Also on the agenda as usual is what we’ve been playing as well as a couple short news snippets."
"As I stood there watching Tony Hawk launch his all-new skateboarding game in New York City yesterday I began to see why the team created this completely new experience for fans. Tony Hawk is no longer the twenty-something X-Games champion that he once was, he has aged and is married with a precious little daughter; his times of ruling the skateboarding world are over, at least in terms of actual skating. That’s why the development team created Tony Hawk: Ride, an all-new take on the multi-mil..."
The Kartel talks with the president of Robomodo, Josh Tsui about Tony Hawk: Ride, the company's latest project. Find out about the new skateboarding peripheral and future plans for the company.
The Kartel has an exclusive interview with Tony Hawk, where he shares insight into how the game Tony Hawk: Ride came about, and the bold new direction the series is taking. It's become clear that the game is no longer targeted at the core gaming market.
"I skated the demo track three times to get a feel for the game. From my own observation, and watching other people give it a go, I’ll warn anyone with a confined playing area that this title isn’t going to be for them. Even with the rather strong-gripping carpet underneath, players had a tendency to be shuffled ever so slowly backwards, which is something you can’t really correct while in the middle of the game. Understandably, as with most balance games, you’ve also got to have a fair amo..."
Activision is pulling out all the stops to promote their new Tony Hawk game. How Holly Madison fits into all of this remains a mystery, but she does demonstrate that it is possible to play the game wearing high heels, though it's still not something that seems to be recommended.
"The much anticipated peripheral version of Tony Hawk will be coming out in a month and sometimes the media tends to over look the Wii version of big titles like Tony Hawk: Ride. Activision certainly isn’t doing that and they recently revealed that you will be able to use your Mii character in the Wii version of the game and you’ll be able to play as the Mii characters of your favorite pro skaters. Check out the new screenshots and trailer highlighting some of the Wii exclusive content."
"First, as it works now, it’s a team effort. Everyone on the team has input into the game design. The best ideas tend to survive and the ideas from upper management also tend to survive, even if they aren’t the best ideas. Everyone from the President, to marketing, to focus testers, engineers, artists and designers throw ideas into the pot and its difficult to keep track of and make sure the game is as good as it can be without pissing off others."
It looks like Activision did a number on some gamers and got there panties all in a bunch. To retaliate, many gamers over the internet are considering a boycott of Activision products. Some have started an online petition while others plan on pirating MW2. But as we all know, an online petition wont do much, there only hope is a successful boycott.
James Walker has had it. This goes past Bobby Kotick's recent dropping Sony support threats. This has been a long time coming. Someone needs to call Bobby out on the things he is doing with what was a company we all could at the very least say used to be "better than EA"
Speaking to The Times, Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick yet again expressed his desire for Sony to cut the price of the PlayStation 3 console, but this time went one step further. Kotick threatened that the publisher, the largest third party video game company, may have to pull its support for both Sony platforms, the PS3 and PSP, if a price cut for the PS3 doesn't happen and sales continue to lag.
Said Kotick:
quote Bobby Kotick, Activison Blizzard CEO
"I'm getting concerned about ...
"At approximately 6:28pm GMT this evening, Microsoft kick-started this year’s Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) with their invitation-only Press Conference, highlighting the forthcoming year of Xbox 360 events. Electronic Theatre now brings you the full rundown of the event, with an insightful analysis of how each revelation will affect you, and the way you play games."
This is a must download of The Bender this week. We preview EVERYTHING that will happen and E3 (and even things that might not happen). The show runs a little longer than usual and we cut the news down to a minimal as we all get excited for our trip to E3! Grab the MP3 by clicking here or load us up in iTunes by clicking here
The new Tony Hawk game is set to reinvent the skateboarding games much like Skate did, but with an actual motion sensing skateboard. But with such a cool peripheral, it comes with a price. The game plus the skateboard will most likely be set at 120 dollars. And it is required that you have it as you won't be able to play the game without it.