Fort Gay

At PEOWW we think bummingz should be mandatory so it’s with some annoyance that we read that Microsoft are up to their old tricks with another homophobic banning.  A while back one of the fine chaps on BeeX, Richard Gaywood, famously got banned for having Richard Gaywood as his gamertag.

Well, Microsoft – the company that provide the online service most likely to get you called a ‘fag’ by idiotic Americans – have now banned a gamer for having his hometown, Fort Gay, as his location on Xbox Live.

We’re on high alert as we all live in Cockhorror, Feltchville.

Gabe's not happy.

Valve boss Gabe Newell has spoken out over Xbox Live’s failings declaring the service a “train wreck.”  He had hoped the service would evolve to support easier, and more frequent, updates as well as giving publishers more opportunities to provide free content.

He’s now touting the PS3 as the better service which is definitely something for Microsoft to consider.   Unfortunately even Valve cannot get Microsoft to stop being dicks about such things so don’t expect things on Live to get any better for while.  Still at least you get Twitter and that emo-haired bloke on there, right?

Bollocks.

This can’t be good.

Zenimax, the parent company of Bethesda, have been busy filing a trademark for the movie version of Oblivion.  Now this has happened before with Fallout and nothing came of it but we thought we’d give you a heads up.  If it’s going to happen, it won’t be for a while so fire up you copy and remember it the way it’s supposed to be, ie before they cast Ray Liotta or someone in the lead role.

The next big franchise to hit the screens is going to be Warcraft which presumably will involve fat people getting orders barked at them by Europeans.  If that tanks, then maybe Oblivion won’t happen.  So DON’T GO AND WATCH IT.

Woke up this morning. Had a big chin.

Konami’s batshit mental survival horror series is set to return with Silent Hill 8 (working title).  The game starts in a prison transport vehicle that crashes leaving the game’s protagonist, Murphy Pendleton (LOL), thumbing for a lift.  A lift in a car straight from…. THE TWILIGHT ZONE.  Or Silent Hill or whatever.

According to Konami, Murphy (it’s you!) will battle terrifying monsters while solving brain-bending puzzles.  I’m sure actual prison is scarier than Silent Hill.  At least in Silent Hill you won’t have to toss the salad for a headless zombie thing that prefers syrup.

The game promises an ‘all new thought provoking storyline’ (read: more Japanese mentalist bollocks that makes no sense whatsoever).  Anyway, 2011.  Not that you actually care.

We are this interested.

Other sites, the sort that look far too deeply into this sort of thing, have noticed that Gearbox have trademarked Borderworlds which, presumably, is a sequel to the much-loved and then much-hated RPG shooter Borderlands.

The name suggests an increase in scope which can only mean more tedious fetch quests and more fucking DLC.  We’ll be waiting for the GOTY edition, thanks.

Oil!!!!

Oh my God!  Oh my God!  We can finally get excited about gaming again.  One of the great franchises is returning!  Yep, in amongst the tedium of PAX, this gem has been spotted and we’re so excited, that we might just cry.  Out of our genitals.

Clue: it’s not Halo, Call of Duty or Gears.

Click here for excitement.

Plain zero! Etc.

If you’re a bloke and you did any significant gaming in the 90s, then there’s a good chance that you liked Mortal Kombat at some point (read: at some point before it went 3D).

Well, Warner Bros (who now own all of the old Midway IPs) have just released a trailer for Mortal Kombat 2010 (there is no 2010 in the title but we don’t want to confuse anyone).  As expected it shows all your favourite characters in strictly non-gameplay footage.  So that’s not great.  Neither is the soundtrack which has been provided by post-nu-metal ear-botherers Disturbed (if there’s a worse singer in metal we’ve yet to hear them).

Despite all that, we’re still excited.  Capcom proved with Street Fighter IV that these games can come back and still have an impact and, if they fix the uppercut move, maybe Mortal Kombat can impress in 2010.

Anyway, here’s the trailer.

Let his death be a particularly unpleasant and humiliating one.

As fans of Daniel Craig’s Bond, we’re all a bit dismayed at whatever it is that’s stopping the new film being made.  That said, our favourite games company ever, Actingthecuntivision, have stepped in with Bloodstone which features Daniel Craig, Judy Dench and anyone else important and is written by a bonafide Bond writer, Bruce Feirstein.

Games based on Bond have had something of a chequered past but we’re hopeful that this one will be worthwhile (until Activision fucking kill it with DLC).

Anyway, here’s a nifty looking trailer.

James Bond – Bloodstone

Colin will probably be at his pad because he's frightfully groovy.

This is good news.  Microsoft have finally realised that the d-pad on their 360 controllers is marginally worse than Hitler.  They are working on a new pad that allows you to change the height of the d-pad with a quick twist, making such things as hadukens and whatever possible.

They (some R&D prick) say “The Xbox 360 Wireless Controller with Play & Charge Kit – with Transforming D-pad will be available worldwide beginning early 2011.”

That’s a mouthful.  Not quite as clumsy as the PSP Slim & Lite but still pretty awful.  Still, if it’ll up our scores on Pac-Man: CE then we’re all over this.

Game Room bringing its A-game.

As huge fans of retro, PEOWW was eagerly awaiting the Xbox Live Game Room.  The idea of playing our fave coin-op ROMs over Xbox Live with online challenges, highscore tracking and achievements had us harder than Super Contra.

Unfortunately after their first week of releases (a mix of terrible arcade games, Intellivision filth and pointless fucking Atari 2600 roms) we knew that Game Room was doomed.  The occasional pathologically argumentative retro forum shut-in idiot might have claimed differently, but anyone with any nous knew we weren’t going to be getting anything good on there for a long, long time.  If ever.  Our dreams of challenging other Peowwsters to high score challenges on Bomb Jack were in ashes.

Well, the team that brought us this traversty – Krome Studios – are finding that their careers are also in ashes with the closure of their Adelaide office and several layoffs.  They still had time to give us Atari 2600 versions (read: abortions) of Checkers and Pinball this week though.  So that’s something.