Squid of Man

Crisis averted.

Granted, they've acted as more of a quality control agent than a censorship board of late (bless you, sirs for canning Getting Up), but at the end of the day the OFLC can still be a right bunch of cunts when they get a bit of media affrontage behind them.

So it's comforting to know we'll be getting an unedited, uncensored version of the PS2s swansong on these shores.

Melbourne's two big gaming expos, the eGames & Entertainment Expo (Nov 17-19) & the Game1 Electronic Gaming Expo and Tournament (Nov 4-5 in Melbourne, and also Dec 2-3 in Sydney) have confirmed that the Wii will be there, in the flesh, and playable.

Does this hint at an Australian release date? Fuck knows. But if they're going to have demo units in stores in October (maybe) and then have them playable at expos in November, it's a safe bet the console will hit stores in one of those months.

Not really news, I know. But it's a slow week, and it's Wii-related, so...yeah.

[via The Age]

A few weeks back, some people went into a bit of a shit-spin about retailers taking down their PS3 posters for a couple of days. Aussie-Nintendo led the charge, coming right out and suggesting supply shortages would result in delays aplenty.

Steve Wilson, Managing Director of EB Games Australia, restored some order last week, and the continued presence of PS3 promo posters in EB with NOVEMBER 17 in big letters only serve to strengthen his position.

So the safe money is on the PS3 arriving down under, on time. But here's the kicker: with Sony only shipping 2,000,000 units worldwide during the launch window, we won't get many; the Official Squid of Man Prediction is that Australia won't see more than 10,000 PS3s until 2007 ticks over.

Why? We're a speck of dust on the global gaming market. Microsoft knew it was more important to focus on Japan, Europe and the US for the 360's launch, and couldn't waste units on a peripheral market, which Australia most certainly is. Which is why the 360's "global" launch was Nov/Dec 2005, while ours was March 2006. Thing is, they still ended up short (Japan excepted, obviously), and then pissed us off royally by delaying our local launch by nearly five months.

So Sony are going to one-up Microsoft by launching globally. Proper globally. They'll have units in every major and second-rate market on November 17, and will make a big song and dance about it. Thing is, the fundamental business of demand and priority hasn't changed squat. Japan, Europe and the US will still take precedence, and they'll get 99% of the available consoles before Christmas.

We'll get a handful of consoles just so Sony can say they launched in Australia, and then we won't see shit until 2007. They'll be able to say we made the global launch, and they'll still be saving most of the consoles for the markets that really matter.

Personally, I couldn't give a flying fuck. At AUD $1000 (or thereabouts) and with no decent first-party games until well into 2007, the PS3 doesn't even trouble the darkest recesses of my Christmas wish-list.

Buit i'm all about community service, and I know there are those of you out there who yearn in the dead of night for Warhawk's cold, poorly-controlled embrace. And it's for you, just for you, that I am saying this. Don't bother pre-ordering it. For the amount of consoles we'll see in 2006, you'd have needed to have thrown a tenner down on a PS3 in 2004 to be high enough on the list to get yourself one.

Take that $10, look at it, move it around between your fingers for a few seconds....then....go buy some ciggies or a nice lunch or something.

The demo for Just Cause is now available on Australian Xbox Live servers. It takes place on a tiny island offshoot of the main game's sprawling landmass, and lets you pull off most of the shit you'll be able to try out in the real game. There's also a few missions to get stuck into as well.

I must say, I don't want to get all giddy off a demo, but this game looks mighty promising.

Oh man.

And I thought i'd used up all my HL2 excitement up at the end of Episode 1.

What they are doing to that Source engine defies belief. What they've done to those big outdoors levels leaves me breathless. My heart is thumping just watching that buggy sequence.

That big 360 "compendium" edition of all things Half-Life 2 cannot come soon enough.

So the Nintendo keynote at Leipzig has come and gone, and we've got both jack and shit to show for it.

Disappointing, yes, but hardly surprising. Other than the slightly cocky "Wii Prove Our Promise" title, Nintendo themselves never promised that a damn thing was going to be revealed regarding either release date or pricing.

We brought that expectation on ourselves with a deadly concoction of rampant fanboyism and dodgy logic. So we have nobody to blame but ourselves.

Still, it does sting a bit knowing we have a few weeks left to wait until the Wii becomes a real, bonafide SKU and not some phantom spectre on the Nintendo release schedule. I had hoped to use this space to confirm an Australian release date. Instead, all I've got is this:

Europe is getting a pink DS Lite in October. I'd presume that means here as well.

Perfect timing, now it'll match my PS2.

The Australian newspaper today published overall sales figures for all consoles and handhelds of the "last generation" (and a couple of "current" ones as well). The figures include all units sold from the console's launch until July 2006.

Playstation 2 ..................... 1,809,000
Game Boy Advance ............. 857,000
Xbox................................. 835,000
Nintendo DS ...................... 286,000
Playstation Portable ............ 181,000
Gamecube ......................... 161,000
Xbox 360 ........................... 80,000

Some of these things are surprising. Some are not.

The GBA was an absolute killer. It has almost zero awareness outside of primary-school kids and Nintendo fanboys, and it comes in at #2. I guess you should never underestimate a child's ability to get whatever the fuck they want. Especially when it plays 9 different shades of Pokemon.

The Cube's performance was also surprising. Surprisingly dismal. 161,000 consoles shifted is a damning statement on you as gamers, Australia.

The PS2, with nearly 2,000,000 sold, obviously dominates. Singstar is a vile disease that seems to have struck this nation with particular savagery. The performance of the PSP dulls Sony's dominance slightly, however. People who buy things solely to impress train commuters with are a limited customer base, it seems.

And Microsoft; take a bow. Australia has by far the highest uptake of the Xbox in the world. Which should hardly be surprising, considering it's penchant for games about shooting, driving and sports.

You've got to be fucking kidding me.

I don't get it.

A large gaming expo is announced, the first of it's kind in Australia. It's open for the public, has industry conferences, tons of demos and announcements and should be the best thing that's happened to Australian gamers ever.

Then they go and fuck it all up by staging it in Perth.

Who is going to go to Perth? Gamers aren't going to fly there to attend a conference. Kid's parents can't afford it. Students can't afford it. Adults just won't be arsed.

It's just such a waste. Australia gets a chance to show the industry that we have the support and passion to make an event like this really work, and...they go and hold it in the least accessible place possible for 95% of the population.

Gamers of Perth, congratulations. I'm sure you'll love it. Send us a postcard and tell us what it's like, because sadly you'll be the only ones there.

What do I normally think when I see somebody walking down the street wearing a gaming t-shirt?

The amount of love that goes into these things is amazing. The double-stitched bottom gives them a nice fit, the tags are all Mario power-up blocks and the shirts even come in replica Japanese Famicom game boxes.

WAY OF THE RODENT
HEAPS cheaper, and with broader inspirations than the big N. The "fashion wing" of the WotR indy mag do a bang-up job of crafting simple shirts based on the bestest bits from the bestest games. I picked up their Ico shirt last year and it was suitably satisfied with it that not only did I wear it, I wore it repeatedly. Nice felt transfers, too. None of this "screen printing" business.

They're a bit more hit-and-miss than KoG, with some designs that are quite shit ("Never Mind the Blocks?" ungh), but they hit just as often, and are nearly half the price of a KoG shirt. Total cost including shipping works out to around AUD$35, which I'd say was entirely reasonable for a fucking Phoenix Wright t-shirt.

That's right. The greatest. Fuck all the plumbers, Hylians and anyone called Gordon; this game is called Ninja Loves Pirate. And features.....ninjas. And pirates. And robots. And zombies.

Holy.

Shit.

Add in the fact it's done ala early-90s side-scrolling beat 'em ups and I could spend another 800 pages telling you how this is the embodiment of everything I hold dear. But I don't have to. Because it's probably the embodiment of everything you hold dear as well.

DOWNLOAD THE DEMO!!! NOW!!!!

Mondo Generator AND Brant Bjork doing Allen's Wrench? Jesus Christ. My pants can barely take the strain.

Mad props to Aussie mags that snag exclusive interviews like this one.

The lads at Hyper sat down recently with Ubisoft to see if Red Steel had gotten any better since it's decidedly average (read: shithouse) showing at this year's E3.

Going by their word, it seems it has. Highlights of the interview include assurances the game will push the Unreal engine to it's absolute limits, and that your hand and arm movements will not trigger pre-mapped animations; with only a few exceptions, your movements will be accurately reflected on-screen.

You can read the full interview after the jump.

THAT much. Co-op has never looked so downright dreamy.

Lego Star Wars II hits these antipodean shores on September 13, on pretty much every platform barring the N-Gage.

These have Photoshop written all over them. But, in the interests of fairness and that fact the AICN folk are going absolutely apeshit over them, here are two apparent "concept renders" of Optimus Prime from the upcoming Michael Bay film/disaster.

Obviously, Prime's elbow is going to play a big part in the movie, so i'm glad we got to see it first. It's not the kind of thing I want to go into the theatre not knowing what to expect.

It's also good to see the upper and lower halves of his face. Obviously he is taken hostage by Islamic extremists and held captive for the majority of the film, so with his eyes covered for two and a half hours it's nice to see so much work went into his antennas/ aerials /cybertronian hairpiece.

I call fake. Mainly because the top image is so damn obscure, and also because a render like this wouldn't have eyes conveniently obstructed.

In a rare bout of optimism, however, at least he's (primarily) red, and the half of his face we've seen looks somewhat faithful.

This will be of particular interest to the three of you out there who are still using your PSPs for...well, games.

Gamespot are reporting that Gamestop (ungh, most stupid sentence of the week) in the US have an EA "retro" anthology listed for release in October. While it sadly does not include Chuck Yeager, it still looks pretty fuckin sweet.

The titles included are:

B.O.B. -- 1993 -- SNES and Genesis
Budokan -- 1990 -- Genesis
Desert Strike -- 1993 -- SNES and Genesis
Jungle Strike -- 1993 -- SNES and Genesis
Haunting Starring Polterguy -- 1993 -- Genesis
Mutant League Football -- 1993 -- Genesis
Road Rash -- 1992 -- Genesis, later on 3DO
Road Rash II -- 1993 -- Genesis
Road Rash III -- 1995 -- Genesis
Syndicate -- 1995 -- SNES, 3DO, Jaguar
Ultima: The Black Gate -- 1994 -- SNES
Virtual Pinball -- 1993 -- Genesis
Wing Commander -- 1993 -- SNES
Wing Commander: The Secret Missions -- 1993 -- SNES

Wing Commander? Two Strike games? Syndicate? Ultima? It almost seems too good to be true. And, of course, it may well be, since EA have said both jack and shit about it, rendering this news naught but a rumour for now.

You have to wonder how many will fork over the cash for this, though, considering they're all old games that can...you know...be easily emulated. For free.

Edan and Mr. Lif performing Lif's "Get Wise 91" from the Emergency Rations EP. First time they ever performed it live. Please. Watch this.

If the rumours are to be believed, then yeah, 'fraid so. Apparantly there's some tussle over the rights to the original book and some rubbish mini-series being shown on the sci-fi channel in the US, so Tales From Earthsea is not going to hit Western theatres until 2009.

I'll allow you a moment to let the gravity of that news sink in.

On a brighter note, Hayao has said he's "full of fight" and believes he "cannot be beaten by his son", and has begun work on his next feature film. If that means a return to more epic story-telling along the lines of Nausicaa and Mononoke, then sign me up.

[In case you missed it, details on the life-and-death blood fued between Hayao and Goro Miyazaki can be found on the excellent nausicaa.net.]

Only a month to go. From September 14, Aussie Xbox 360 users will be able to stroll into any major retailer and pay cold, hard cash for some Microsoft points, forgoing the need to fuck around with a credit card over Xbox Live.

This is wonderful news.

For $25.00 you'll get 1500 points to spend. In games-for-points terms, Streetfighter II will cost you 400, so you'll be able to pick up 2-3 arcade games and still have enough change leftover to correct that embarrassing or just plain shit typo in your gamertag.

I know. I didn't believe it at first either. I was wandering around in a consumerist daze last week, and saw giant Wii posters all over EB Games in The Galeries.

Then, while enduring the hellish torments of a drive to Canberra, I heard a radio DJ in Wollongong interviewing Mario. For realz. He was asking him about the Wii, Twlight Princess and Mario Galaxy, and Mario was answering him. Which was slightly odd, but entirely awesome.

Subsequent days have seen Wii advertisements in kids magazines, department stores and Toys R'Us.

It seems Nintendo Australia are actively marketing the Wii. Expect a falling sky to follow suit any day now.

If word on the "street" is to be believed, then yes, it is.

September 21, $199.95. If this were true, it would continue Nintendo's unrelenting policy of punishing early adopters of hardware with later editions in superior colour schemes.

No official word yet from Nintendo Australia, but then, that's hardly surprising.

Check this shit out.

This thing hasn't been made yet, so take all of this with a healthy grain of salt, but the makers of the DS-X are making some bold, and juicy, claims. I could list them in brief, but they're very techy and boring, so as a service to you I shall present you with their gist.

Plug and play Nintendo DS emulation/storage. No fucking around with flash cards or any other nonsense. Just good old fashioned drop n' drag, and you're finally playing those old Lucasarts adventure games during your morning commute.

This is the most awesomest news in quite some time.

[Thanks Engadget]

There are three comic book stores in Sydney City. And only one Squid of Man. Time for a showdown.

It's Kings Comics vs Comic Kingdom vs Kinokuniya.

Kings: The shiniest and prettiest of the three. Very clean, up-to-date stock and a nice browsing atmosphere. Pity they're so damn expensive. Toy section is also rubbish. There's lots of them; just none you want to buy unless you're one of those big-titty-lovin anime fucks.

Comic Kingdom: I normally like old, smelly, dusty specialist stores. For some reason I feel that lends them a certain air of legitimacy, of realness. Not here. Comic Kingdom is just old, smelly and dusty. The downstairs area is just a junk yard. Upstairs has some nice back-issues on offer, but can't match the other two for price or range. Toy selection is quite poor.

Kinokuniya: Not a comic store, I know. But they sell comics. Well, trades - no single issues. But they sell a lot of trades, and they sell them for insanely cheap prices. Always getting new stock in, and the discount card is the icing on the cake. Only serious gripe is the layout - it's all spines-out and is very cramped, making browsing very difficult, especially during busy times. And again, toy selection is crap.

Official Squid of Mantm verdict? Kinokuniya is the winner on points. I know they don't sell single issues, but I haven't bought single issues since I was about 11, and their range and price are just unbeatable. Kings comes a close second, falling down only on their lofty prices. And Comic Kingdom...well, it's just happy making up the numbers.

Special mention goes to Hobbyco off Pitt Street Mall, which is the only decent toy retailer in the entire city area.

Well fuck me if this isn't the single most alarming thing i've read about EA in a loooooong time. Dubious Quality have bothered to actually read some of Xbox Live's fine print, and have uncovered what can only be described as some shocking facts. [cue Naomi Robson head-nod]

Seems every time you play an EA game over Xbox Live, Microsoft provide your account information to EA. This is one of the deals brokered between the two so that EA games could be made available over the service. Sounds harmless enough, until you consider and/or remember just what exactly is in your user details.

Full name. Gender. Address. E-mail address. Phone numbers. Date of Birth. Credit Card Information.

Holy shit. That's not a "Privacy Policy". If I had a team of lawyers I'd have them investigate whether this was even legal, but in their absence the official Squid of Man prediction is that it probably is - but shouldn't be. EA don't need any of that information, and i'm not cool giving it to them, because it would be for one purpose and one purpose only: pure evil.

So that's how it's going to work. Well...it's not as simple as I thought it would be...but then again, saying that I can't see how it could be any simpler. It's nice you don't have to get up to open the tray door...but since you have to get up to put the disc in anyways...ungh.

The drive was demoed to some industry types yesterday in the US, and is apparantly coming along nicely. The 360 itself handles most of the load as far as...well, however DVD players work with software and compression and encryption and whatnot, so it's going to be small, and it's going to be cheap. Both of which are good news.

Still no word on a release date or price for Aus, but it should be before Christmas, and my money's on a sub-$300 price-tag.

And now for something completely unexpected.

Gamespot are reporting that Yoichi Wada, President of Square Enix, has hinted the company are seriously considering entering the hardware market.

"The strategy behind Nintendo and the iPod, to create a new environment based on hardware, is completely valid. But, this is impossible if you don't have experience making hardware. This is one of the reasons Square Enix will collaborate with Taito, a company that produces physical hardware. In our talks with Taito, ideas for an actual physical product have come up. In any case, we will be releasing some 'thing.'"

So all signs point to Square Enix and Taito launching their own console. Is there room for a fourth console? Maybe. Sure as shit not in the West, but in Japan, where eating babies and mass suicide appears more popular than the Xbox brand, maybe there is. And it'd sell, what with Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest behind it, and those being the only non-DS games anyone there ever buys any more.

Interesting stuff, if it ever proves to be more than speculative horse shit.

PS - Here's an interesting piece on Taito's previous attempt at launching a console. Downloadable, pre-paid content in 1992? Shit, I'd never even heard of this thing. Awesome.

Word has reached me that demo units of the Wii are on their way to Australian shores towards the end of October. This will be excellent news should it be true; alas, Vooks.net are claiming only "independant" and "reliable" sources are at the heart of this "information". So we cannot trust a fucking word they say.

Still, it's nice to dream, isn't it? And who knows...they might even be right.

The Squid of Man is not a fan of Gamerankings. The Squid....is not alone.

Enter Metafuture. Once a run-of-the-mill gaming blog, it has woven itself an elaborately cynical cocoon, nestled gently within it's silky confines and is preparing to emerge as...a raw collection of statistic and graphs.

Stats and graphs do not normally get this Squid all moist and sticky. My aquatic habitat performs that downright necessary function for me. But when their sole purpose is to lay bare the farcical review scores of major gaming websites and magazines? That's when it gets interesting.

We all know a 9.0 from IGN is as valuable as a shit sandwich in an ice cream store. But up until now, their lies and incompetence have yet to be laid bare by cold, hard science. This Metafuture project is going to change that. They're going to map every score given to every console and PC game aross a variety of sites/magazines, then rank that source according to the average scores they dish out.

For example, if your reviews normally fall within the 75-95% range, you'll be given less credibility than a source whose averages run between 30-90%. So a 7 in Edge may well end up being worth "more" than a 9 from IGN, as they will most likely be proven to bullshit their readers on a far less regular basis than the lie-mongers at IGN.

It's still a work in progress at the moment, but is still worth checking out.

[thanks GameLife]

Nintendo of America have this morning confirmed that there will be no Space World (or similar) event taking place this year. Not terribly exciting news, I grant you, but then consider that there are no Nintendo speakers at this year's TGS, and that Nintendo have the keynote address at the Leipzig conference later this month.

So...2+2=4. Leipzig on August 23 is thus confirmed as the place and time we get the final information on the Wii. Launch date, launch titles, final specs and perhaps most importantly, pricing. The address is titled "Wii Prove our Promise", so I expect nothing less than a whole ton of cool shit. New game announcements (aside from the Super Mario Strikers sequel leaked this morning), more in-depth demos, more info on Zelda, Mario Galaxy and Metroid and...that should do. For now.

It's all starting to feel decidedly "real". The only thing that could fuck this all up would be a late Australian release date......

There are two things of note here.

1) The demo is inexplicably unavailable in Australia. So you'll need to dummy-up a UK or US Xbox Live Silver membership to get it.

2) It is the shit.

It looks like everything you hoped, and dreamed, this game would be. Yes, it's a demo, and yes, that means there's still plenty of places in which they could fuck this up, but on the strength of this it looks really, really nice.

It hits these antipodean shores sometime in September. I'll consult the great holocron and have a firm AUS release date up once it's announced. Oh, and in case you were wondering, no, it's not region-free, so don't bother importing from the US.

The chaps at Joystiq have been wined and dined by Microsoft over the past couple of days, and in the process were shown a lot of demos of the first batch of (hopefully) must-have games for the 360.

That news in of itself is not very exciting. The following is. Rumours of a Dead Rising demo on Xbix Live have been swimming around for a few days now, so they straight-up asked Microsoft when we'd be seeing one.

The response?

"Next week, probably, but maybe earlier."

Fucking awesome.

Gears of War, Pro Evo, etc all look nice, but one game made me get off my arse and buy a 360, and Dead Rising was it. So it's a week at most until I find out whether that $750 could have been better spent on...better things.

Ubisoft really like the looks of the Wii. Like, really like it. They've announced they have seven titles currently in development for the system. Seven. I remember the last time this happened to a Nintendo system. Thanks Capcom.

The number is impressive; the games perhaps less so.

- Red Steel. Still looks a bit ho-hum. You remember in Alien Resurrection, how they find that room with all the failed Ripley's in it, all fucked up and broken? Yeah. Red Steel is looking like it'll be one of those. But for the Wii.

- Rayman Raving Rabbids. Has had some very, very funny trailers. And Michael Ancel is apparantly so hot right now. Why? Well, Beyond Good and Evil was awesome, but are people forgetting that King Kong was shit? And that we're talking about Rayman, perhaps the shittest and least enjoyable "big" platformer of the past ten years.

- Far Cry. Hmm. See Red Steel. But in the jungle. And God only knows how the Wii is going to handle the same jungle most mid-range PCs still can't do justice to.

- Blazing Angels. A port of the Xbox game. Yawn.

- Monster 4x4. A big truck racing game. Somebody please tell Ubisoft Nintendo are already making Excite Truck. The Nintendo fanboy ranks aren't going to buy one truck racer, let alone two. Maybe it was a typo. It sounds more like a budget PS2 game.

- Open Season. An adventure game. So slightly promising. And, ironically, based on a Sony movie.

- GT Pro Series. A new "racing IP". Yeah. You know what? Again, the care factor is very, very low.

I'd have rather seen one great game than seven average-to-shite ones. Of course, I haven't played any of these games. So I could be talking complete shit. But if Monster 4x4 takes the Wii by storm i'll eat whatever hat you can find and put in front of me.

The official Squid of Mantm verdict?

Underwhelming.

Looks very nice. Now has a comic "randomiser", which is cool for new folks. And best of all, now has a merch section. Signed prints (yes please) as well as the promise of t-shirts in the near future.

Do us all a favour and go visit the Perry Bible Fellowship.

Oh man.

When you see it written down, it looks awesome. Nintendo, Sega, Hudson, all dumping their best 80's and 90's games on the Virtual Console for download..it's a smorgasboard.

But when you actually see, all at once, how many games we're going to be re-visiting? I don't know about you, but I shit myself. For realz. Just seeing all these guys in one place, on one poster...if I had seen this when I was 12 I would have killed myself, because life would only have gone downhill from there.

Open it up and bask in it's glory.

And on the third day, it is risen. And really shouldn't have bothered.

So the ESA have come out and said E3 is not dead. No, not at all, it's..."more intimate". Right.

Doug Lowenstein, Mr. E3, just finished announcing that E3 2007 will be a "more intimate program, including higher quality, more personal dialogue with the worldwide media, developers, retailers and other key industry audiences."

Why more "intimate"? Because, "E3Expo 2007 will not feature the large trade show environment of previous years."

So...it's going to be all the closed-doors, NDA-secured, backroom shit we never get to hear about, and everything we DID get to hear about is no more. Well....forgive me if I am not shuddering with delight.

They can spin this as an "evolution" all they want, but for all intents, E3 is dead. Done. Thanks for the memories.

A "senior industry source", who conveniently does not wish to be named, says EA have been in meetings with the ESA, the event organisers, for a while now in an effort to drive the price of attendance down.

Gamesindustry says this is no surprise, with these comments only supporting conversations between senior EA staff at this year's show, where there was the suggestion key projects and announcements were being withheld because E3 "is no longer the correct venue for that type of unveiling."

GI are also reporting that other publishers have expressed similar doubts, saying they'd rather place more emphasis on retail shows in an effort to woo back an increasingly disenchanted retail sector.

Now that we have names and reasons popping up behind the planned move, E3 as we know it is gone. Even if it survives these kicks to the teeth, it will be...well, a slimmed-down trade show. E3 was E3 because it was the epicentre of the gaming universe. If companies are going to hold back products from the showroom floor, or withdraw from the show altogether, it may as well fade away quietly into the night, because without the "romance" of being the single show where all the cool shit was revealed, it's just another trade show.

A final confirmation on the state of the show has been delayed, and is expected in another 24 hours. I imagine some of you will picture Kiefer Sutherland racing against the clock in an attempt to somehow save the show from it's imminent demise.