This is basically an archive of all of the kills that Jack Bauer has made during all five seasons of 24. It includes the episode/hour, person that is being killed, video footage of the kill, and the method of death. Awesome stuff. I recommend kill thirty in season two for how cool it looked and kill six in season five for the unconventional method of death.
Take a trip down memory lane. Do you remember what your first games were?
The News
Sony likes to throw caution to the wind
In an interview that GameSpot posted on August 18, Kaz Hirai, Sony Computer Entertainment of America's president, stated the following when asked whether or not the PS3 was already being manufactured -
We haven't started manufacturing yet. Some of our ops guys were actually just in China, and also in Japan just reviewing the [production] lines and everything else. But they are, again, preparing as we speak to get the manufacturing going. We've not announced and we haven't set really a specific date to say, "As of this day we're going to start manufacturing."
I'm convinced that Sony is just building demand by purposely releasing small numbers at launch. It might work, right? RIGHT?
A badly designed Xbox 360 joystick will hit the market soon
Mad Catz will be releasing their Xbox Live Arcade Retro Stick for the Xbox 360 some time in October. The stick will come bundled with several Live Arcade games. A list of the games that will be packaged with the joystick has yet to be released.
I've had the misfortune of playing with several Mad Catz accessories over the past few years and none of them has ever felt right to me. The d-pad and buttons that are used are usually stiff and unresponsive. In fact, on the whole, their products always felt cheaply made. All one has to do is look at the picture of this accessory and he or she can tell that it is going to disappoint anyone that buys it.
Since no company seems to be interested in releasing a decent controller/joystick for the 360 (except for Hori), I will devote a good chunk of next week's column to showing you how to get arcade controls onto your 360.
California Games are making a return
According to GameSpot, System 3 has gotten the rights to the Epyx library. Their first releases will be remakes of Impossible Mission in January and California Games in May. Both games will be made for the PSP and DS. Mark Kale, System 3's founder, indicated that the games will not be in 2D -
"You gotta keep the gameplay mechanics the same or else it ceases to be the original game and you're only using the game brand to sell games," commented Cale. "It ceases to be Impossible Mission or California Games or what have you."
I never played Impossible Mission but I do remember playing California Games when I was younger (some time in the early 80s). While those titles and the Epyx name automatically spark interest in me, I am pretty sure that 90% of the gamers these days know nothing about them. I hope they do well as I do remember enjoying California Games and Winter Games a lot during my pre-NES days.
Japanese software sales for the week of August 7-13
The lack of news has caused me to resort to pulling out Japanese software sales numbers -
1 New Super Mario Bros (NDS, Nintendo) - 117,706 [2,731,934] units
2 Tamagotchi no Puchi Puchi Omisecchi Gohi-Kini (NDS, Namco Bandai) - 66,564 [334,875] units
3 Melty Blood: Act Cadenza (PS2, Ecole) - 64,980 units
4 Kahashima Ryuuta Kyouju Kanshuu: Motto Nouo Kitaeru Otona DS Training (NDS, Nintendo) - 59,585 [2,985,432] units
5 Shaberu! DS Oryouri Navi (NDS, Nintendo) - 57,257 [290,960] units
6 Oide yo Doubutsu no Mori [Animal Crossing: Wild World] (NDS, Nintendo) - 44,201 [3,077,295] units
7 Kawashima Ryuuta Kyouju Kanshuu: Nou wo Kitaeru Otona no DS Training (NDS, Nintendo) - 38,954 [2,688,146] units
8 SD Gundam G Generation Portable (PSP, Namco Bandai) - 36,592 [192,227] units
9 Jissen Pachi-Slot Hisshouhou! Hokuto no Ken SE (PS2, Sega) - 33,951 [116,507] units
10 Kirarin Revolution: Kira Kira Idol Audition (NDS, Konami) - 33,332 units
How does a game that has already sold more than two and a half million units sell more in a week than its two closest competitors combined? Its like asking Mr. Owl how many licks it takes to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop - "the world may never know." On another note, I predict that all two PS2 games and the single PSP game will disappear from the charts next week. That seems to be the trend these days for PS2 and PSP games in Japan.
This Week's Desktop Wallpaper
Due to the sheer lack of news this week, I've decided to fill in some space with even more wallpaper options.
Since Madden comes out this year, I figured that I should have a Madden-related picture gracing my desktop. This particular work of art is called "Nemesis 1- Logan vs. Madden." It was created by bugonisx2 at deviantArt. Most of you already know how this picture came about. If you don't, take a look at the artist's comments -
Gaming geeks would remember a year ago when Electronic Arts got permission to use Marvel characters in a fighting game. EA came up with its own characters to throw in as well and it eventually became the not so critically acclaimed Marvel Nemesis: Rise of the Imperfects. But if you're a nerd like me, you probably wondered what would happen if EA did what Capcom did when it had the marvel license before it: take already established characters of its own and pit them against marvel heroes in a series of over the top battles that have no business happening in the first place!
A new Tenchu game came out for the DS this week so I thought that a Tenchu related picture would be nice. This one is called "Tenchu Fanart: Tenchu RFD SD." It was done by DRa90NBoi at deviantArt. Here are the artist's comments -
'Tenchu: Return from Darkness' (XBox) now Super Deformed! Gift for all you 'Tenchu' fans out there!
...
For those who don't know, characters are as follows (from left to right, top to bottom--I apologize if they are aligned wrong, heheh.): Ganda, Tesshu, Tenrai, Jinnai, Maihime and Dr. Kimaira, Tajima, Kagura, Enemy ninja, Tatsumaru, Mifuyu, Onikage, Rin (She's not on RFD, but she falls somewhere before that storyline), Semimaru (The ninja dog!), Rikimaru, Ayame, Kiku (-hime)
I found this while looking at torokun's other projects. This is the same person that did the awesome Samus Aran Open Hatch piece that I gave a link to a few weeks back. This one is called Super Street Fighter Bros. I like everything but Chun-Li's freakishly muscular legs. Here are the artist's comments -
Two most influencial games of the 80's and 90's combined!!!
It becomes rather silly... Doesn't it?
i still had lots of fun doing it.
I tried to make it look like vibrant kids cartoony style... But, I think serious painterly style would have been fun too...
I mentioned this in my second news report but, since it comes out this week, I thought that I'd remind you that The Wizard will be available on DVD this week. You know you want to see it again!
According to xbox.com Texas Hold 'em will be free on Xbox Live between Wednesday, 1 AM PST and Friday, 1 AM PST. This deal will be available to both Xbox Live Silver and Gold members. After the 48 hour period, the game will be available at its regular price of 800 Microsoft Points.
Its free. Get it! Even if you don't feel like playing it right now, you might want to down the line.
I would only recommend this to those that are super hardcore into the anime. If you are going to get it, you might as well get it while it's cheap.
Links
411 video game section links
I was thinking about linking all of the 411 news reports but then I found out that Vincent Chiucchi already did it in his news report. He saved me about thirty minutes of hair pulling. Of course, read his news report. Then scroll to the bottom and check out the links to all the recent columns and articles at 411 Games.
Normally, I wouldn't bother to link the Fact or Fiction section. However, since we had 2 last week, I wanted to make sure that everyone had a chance to read BOTH of them since there were some excellent responses from both groups of participants.
That is it. I'm done for the week. I'll be back next week with my guide to creating and using arcade-quality joysticks on current and next gen systems in addition to the news.
