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Pluvius (734915)

Journal of Pluvius (734915)

Wii Launch Party a Disappointment

Saturday November 18 2006, @08:24PM
Nintendo
To promote the upcoming launch of the Wii, Nintendo held an event called 'Wii.Play' last night with various celebrities and industry representatives attending. Among these was Netjak critic and Atlus employee Clayton 'Alkaiser' Chan, who wrote a report on the proceedings. How did things go? Well...

The place is dead. Super dead. I think the only time I've seen a dance floor this un-utilized is the time I went 'clubbing' in Vancouver, and there were literally 12 people in the entire place who weren't me, and they all came as a group. ... Nobody gave a crap about the Wii. At the beginning of the party, the PR guy and I wondered whether or not we were able to play the games, because only the people Nintendo hired were playing them.

The quick hands-on previews of the available games aren't exactly flattering, either.

Left Behind RTS Due Out Tomorrow

Tuesday November 07 2006, @01:30PM
Real Time Strategy (Games)
Video games based on Christianity have always been less than stellar, but Left Behind: Eternal Forces, a real-time strategy game inspired by the infamous Left Behind series of novels detailing the story of Earth following the Rapture, is hoping to change that perception. The game, due out on November 7 according to its website, charges the player with control over the Tribulation Force which must convert the remnants of the world's population and fight against the minions of the Antichrist. Wired reporter Clive Thompson gets a hands-on look at the game and judges it positively. From the preview: 'Each of your team members has a "spirit" ranking. If you let them get too fatigued or hurt, their spirit drops into "neutral" territory and you lose them. You can sway enemies to your side by unleashing your "spirit warriors" or Christian-rock singers, whose joyful noises raise the spirit of anyone near them. (You can even convert evil forces if you're persuasive enough. Of course, the Antichrist has his own evil heavy-metal musicians who work precisely the opposite effect.)'

Something Awful Bemoans Video-Game Journalism

Sunday January 01 2006, @05:05PM
The Media

As a foil to all of the yearly 'Top 10' lists being created by the gaming media as well as the rise of New Games Journalism, Zack Parsons of the comedy website Something Awful has posted the first part of his list of the five worst gaming articles of 2005. Added bonus: The Escapist, "worst new gaming magazine of 2005," as Awful Link of the Day. From the article: 'Roger Ebert doesn't go to the set of "King Kong" and get the vapors over dolly shots. Leonard Maltin didn't ride a trained seal around the ocean during the filming of "Into the Blue" and start hooting "I smell Oscarrrrr!" over a bullhorn. Even cover articles full of huge pictures and adjective-laden text in Entertainment Weekly don't dare to claim that the movie is going to be great. Why does the gaming press think it's acceptable to prematurely ejaculate all over every major developer's upcoming games?'

Kentucky Students Create Katamari-Playing Machine

Friday October 07 2005, @10:22PM
It's funny.  Laugh.

IGN reports that three University of Kentucky students have found a way to automate the infamous rose-collecting quest in We Love Katamari by designing a device so ingenius that it could only be named "THE MACHINE" (capital letters required). The task in question requires players to collect a million roses with the katamari, something which normally means many weeks of tedium, but THE MACHINE managed to do it in roughly a hundred hours of near-continuous gameplay without causing the two PlayStation 2 consoles to explode. From the article: "At least according to Hickey, acquiring 1,000,000 roses just plays a new song that doesn't appear in the sound library and also swaps out We Love Katamari's loading screens with rose screens. That's terribly uninteresting. 'Basically the King just laughs at you and says it was pointless.'"

Sony Ad Infuriates Catholics

Sunday October 02 2005, @02:42AM
Sony
According to Reuters, a recent ad placed by Sony in Italian periodicals has raised the eyebrows of certain national Catholic groups, leading to Sony apologizing and stopping the campaign. The ad, celebrating the tenth anniversary of the PlayStation in Europe, featured a young man wearing a crown of thorns, where some of the thorns were shaped like the distinctive symbols of the PlayStation controller's face buttons. The caption for the ad states, "Ten years of passion." This is a reference to the Christian Passion, when a crown of thorns was placed on Jesus Christ's head before His crucifixion. From the article: "'This time they've gone too far,' said Antonio Sciortino, editor of Famiglia Cristiana (Christian Family), a mass-circulation Catholic weekly. 'If this had concerned Islam there would have been a really strong reaction.'"