Peoww News
Peter Molyneux’s 22Cans boutique dev have revealed their newest game. It’s a Kickstarter project for a god game (just fancy that!) called Godus. In typical Molyneux fashion it boasts he invented the god game genre. At the time of writing it stands at just over £17,000, though we can’t help but hope it falls well short of it’s £450,000 target. Though if Tim Schafer can manage to finance his bilge, 22Cans may well manage it too. Ian
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Continual purveyor of lies, hyperbole and disappointment, Peter Molyneux, has unveiled his latest creation to the world courtesy of his current dev-team 22 Cans.
Titled Curiousity – What’s Inside The Cube, it consists of a nebulous cube with multiple layers made up of millions of tiny little cubes that have to be tapped individually by players around the world, in order to make them disappear. The next layer isn’t available to tap away at until all the cubes in the current layer have gone. At the time of writing, two out of six faces on the cube are clear with vestigial shadows remaining on the other four. No-one knows what is inside (or maybe they do, we literally can’t be bothered to check – Ed).
We’re waiting for the next layer to arrive so we can tap out obscenities as is our want. Or maybe try for another montrous effigy of a z-grade celebrity, front runner being Afroman (12 J’s of X-Mas).
Curiosity is available for free on the iThing and Android. Ian
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Famitsu reports that Sony’s newest console has sold 321,407 units in its first two days after release in Japan. In comparison to the 371,326 units sold over the same period when the 3DS launched, this holds up reasonably well. Of course, the 3DS has gone on to be a riproaring success hasn’t it?
In a genius move sure to alienate existing PSP owners, they’ve made the Vita use an entirely new memory card format that’s priced to fleece the market as only Sony know how. Uh, good luck with that guys.
We’d have linked to a translation on Google but as you can see the translation has messed up the numbers somewhat. Will it sell 32.1 million units over its entire lifespan? We somehow doubt it. Ian
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Word reaches us of CD Projekt going after German Bittorrrent downloaders of their medieval bastard-em-up The Witcher 2. They’re demanding €911 (£775) per violation to avoid further legal action. A conservative estimate by company co-founder Marcin Iwinski puts 4.5 million pirates as having downloaded the game, which even at the lower PC pricepoint is a fair chunk of revenue. The Polish dev have been an advocate of DRM free PC games so you could hardly blame them if they implemented restrictions on their next release.
In other news, casual gaming giant Zynga have made $1 billion from an initial public offering at $10 per share. Proof that is money in Facebook gaming after all. Though how long it takes until that bubble bursts or they’re bought by EA remains to be seen. Ian
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Depending on your viewpoint, esteemed long standing journal/overpriced glossy pretentious tossrag Edge have awarded Zelda: Skyward Sword their most recent 10. It joins such notable alumni as the two Mario Galaxies, The Orange Box, Zelda: Ocarina of Time & Bayonetta. The last is slightly dubious admittedly, but their scoring system does reward the exceptional. This is all well and good, but it’s on the wrong damn format since Wii is about as relevant to our gaming these days as the Top 40 is to our musical tastes. At least until Tom Waits & Die Antwoord start getting number ones. Expect a review sometime if any of our guys still own a Wii.
In other Nintendo news, the Kyoto giant have announced losses of 70.3 billion yen* (£579m) for the six months prior to September. No doubt this is due in no small part to the spectacular failure that is the 3DS (by Nintendo’s standards at least). Worryingly the key demographic they seem to be aiming for this Christmas is the sub-12 year old Twilight obsessed Saturdays fan. Sales for the Wii have plateaued too, since everyone and their grandmother already owns one by now. If you believe the hype, even Harry Redknapp likes a bit of Mario Kart Wii, though he’d probably shill chocolate coated crack if they paid him enough money. Ian
*we're so classy, we steal from the BBC!
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You may have tried PSV Eindhoven at Eurogamer, just as we did. You may have even pre-ordered one. At any rate, Sony have announced that their all-singing-all-dancing handheld will be released on February 22nd 2012 at a frankly extortionate €299 / €249 for the 3G / Wi-fi only models respectively. That’s £261 and £218 in proper money, so no doubt £269 and £229 over here.
Yes, it might be technically impressive, but we can’t help feel that it’s a teeny bit expensive. The high price may be due to local VAT & the weak Euro, but still seems a bit inflated. After all, We could buy a bottle of gin for each of our forum regulars and still have change for a 3DS at that price.
In unrelated news, EA have released a patch for FIFA 2012 (our review here) that fixes, amongst other things, the egregious ability to control just your keeper in online games and let the AI handle your outfield players. This can only be good news as in our experience, FIFA online versus randoms is hateful enough as it is. Ian
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Or more accurately, the case of the EA account hacking tossbags.
This is more of a public service announcement than anything. Word reaches us of an exploit where people having their XBox Live accounts hacked and stored credit card information being used to buy lots of MS points and subsequently EA Ultimate Team DLC for FIFA 2011. The weak link seems to the EA account end.
Although if they have access there’s nothing to stop them buying any DLC, not just FIFA stuff.
If your password is “12345” then we advise you check your Xbox Live billing page ASAP to check for any unusual activity. Ian
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Microsoft have bought indie developer Twisted Pixel, who brought us XBLA games The Maw, ‘Splosion Man and Missus as well as Comic Jumper. They’ve recently released Kinect title The Gunstringer but we can’t garner any sort of enthusiasm for that nonsense.
No doubt they’ll continue to do much the same thing in a similar vein to Lionhead & Rare post-assimilation, but an (admittedly talented) XBLA dev is hardly on the magnitude of Bungie is it now?
In other news, Sony have announced yet another security breach. Granted it’s on a much smaller scale than the 75m accounts potentially compromised earlier in the year, but it’s yet another reason why we’re loathe to input any sensitive information on to a Sony console or website. Besides the online component being largely blaverage. And the games leaving us cold for the most part. Ian
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Perusing a list of forthcoming 360 release dates it transpires that among the usual suspects, THQ have pencilled in a European release for previously unavailable outside the US 360 title, You Don’t Know Jack. We guess the achievements will be the same, although where we’ll stand with this one remains to be seen.
This is great news because the original UK version from back when Windows 95 was still installed on your PC, featured the sublime voice talents of Paul Kaye AKA Mike Strutter AKA Dennis Pennis in fantastically sneering sarcastic form. It was possibly the most fun three people could have around a keyboard without needing to wipe it down afterwards.
Hopefully THQ have managed to secure his voice talents again as he’s not been particularly visible since that film in which he played a hard partying DJ that goes deaf. It’s All Gone Pete Tong, that’s it. In the event they’ve not managed to lock him in a soundproof booth for a recording session, might we suggest Rich Hall, Doug Stanhope or another comedian we like. Just not David Mitchell or Robert Webb. Ta.
In other news, the Windows7 Phone team have announced the forthcoming ability to control what marketplace content you’re watching on your 360 via your W7 phone. Good idea there lads, especially when the media remote does the trick just as well and costs the fraction of one of your handsets. Ian
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Electronic Arts Europe’s head Jens Uwe Intat (sounds like a character from Dune) has stressed that the relationship between EA and Valve hasn’t been damaged. The perceived bone of contention being the upstart rival Origin digital content delivery system to Valve’s longstanding Steam.
In this gamesindustry.biz article , he said he sees no reason for the existing boxed retail distribution arrangement to not continue. The way we see it, EA have filled a bag full of dogshit, set it on fire and when they’re rumbled before ringing Valve’s doorbell, have tried to act like nothing’s happened.
How can the very fact they’ve pulled various products from Steam and subsequently hosted them on Origin not have damaged the relationship between the two companies? EA citing patching issues is just bullshit of the highest order. You managed just fine before Origin came out, how come it’s a problem now?
Anyway, all the name Origin serves to evoke in this correspondent’s psyche is the halcyon days of Ultima Underworld, Wing Commander and System Shock back in the early ’90s. Ian