The upcoming release of Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar is getting all the Lord of the Rings fans out of their caves and into the open. The game has been in beta since September and has been getting a lot of attention for being a good-looking MMO and the sheer amount of things to do in the game. And it is even being called a MMO to rival WoW, but who can predict that. A feature of the game that was genuine was the marriage feature in the game and allowed different players to be married. But, controversy arose quickly with questions like gay marriage and marriage between races.
Well the people at Turbine, the publisher of the game, were worried about these and the feature. The were debating the final build of the game including the marriage feature. Questions like this were asked: Would restrictions be considered prejudice on part of Turbine? Can we put these kind of restrictions on marriage? But, finally after a debate the execute producer of the game decided to pull the feature completely. Leaving no one in Middle-Earth to be married at least, legally.
Well people have been getting a little rooty about this because of the obvious discrimination against gay gamers, which is a increasing demographic in video games. With over 12 million people playing MMORPG’s and their goal to be completely immersed in the world, the removal of this feature takes away the feeling of immersion because it shows the restrictions that the developers put on the people. I don’t really understand why they would not include this feature because it allows for realism in the game. But, their could have been legal issues and some protests from within the company. It remains to be seen if they will effect the popularity of the game
Today in a surprise move the popular community website Fark.com has been totally redesigned. Rather tham a more traditional interface fark now employs a liberal selection of javascripty elements. While modernization is good the site seems to be running rather slow and in my opinion, is horribly ugly. Luckily some of the annoying and useless adds/menus have been removed from the left side. All i can say is see for your self: www.fark.com
Well, remember when Ubisoft’s mysterious website was discovered with all those post-apocalyptic messages and stuff. Well, I think Ubisoft has just annouced what game that was for. The game is called End War and is based in the midst of WWIII and is a stargedy game. Yes, a stragedy game and is said to be on “next-gen” consoles, which is suppose to be the big three, but really a stragedy game for the Wii? The game is scheduled for next fiscal year (late 2007/2008) and promises to be a great and fun looking game, making it a adequate addition to Tom Clancy games. Their will be more information in EGM in their June issue, so be ready to check that out.
Gamestop does usually rip you off on selling used stuff, but I think they are being pretty generous right now. As confirmed by GameStop managers, you can trade in your Xbox 360 (Core or Premium) for $200 and $250, respectively. Which, is not that bad in my book for a console that has been out for one and a half years. They are also giving you $50 dollars for your old Xbox’s, which is not much, but I’d still do it because I don’t use it at all. But, say you have a premium and you trade it in for $250 and put that towards the Elite. Now, the Elite would cost $230 in cash and that is not bad because the harddrive alone costs $180 and then, you get the nice looking black and HDMI. So, what I’m saying in this is not a bad deal and if you were thinking about getting a Elite, you should do it while this offer is still good. Also, GameStop managers have been saying that when you trade-in your 360, it does not have to go towards purchasing a Elite.-Ali Shah
Pictures VIA[GamingTalkHQ]
MyXbox is a great service that Microsoft supply’s to all of it’s Xbox Live Gold Subscribers. It enables you to access the world of Xbox Live from your home computer by sending text messages and view acheivements. This is a really good service and I was trying to access it today, but it was down. I’m just telling you guys so you dont waste your time or anything.
Everyone was very excited for Red Octane’s hit Guitar Hero 2. The game was sure to be great and fun especially because of the snazzy looking guitar for the 360. But, something happened, and the whammy bar was broken on 2 model numbers of the Guitar. There were a large number of complaints about this and then some homebrew fixes, but finally Red Octane came through with a patch. This patch was suppose to finally let all the people with broken whammy bars, finally rock out. Sadly, this did not happen as planned.
On the Red Octane forums and on the Xbox forums people have been complaining about their Xbox 360’s freezing and getting the RLOD(Red Lights of Death). The common factor in these is that Guitar Hero 2 update. Everyone is freaking out and the only known fix for this is to RMA to Microsoft, which they seem pretty linent about right now. The update also seems to be breaking systems whose whammy bars weren’t broken. The forum posts are actually really sad and these people seem like their lives have been ripped away from them.
But, the warning here is wait to update your systems, unless you want a broken 360. You should also check out the forums here.
Their have been a huge amount of rumors about the Zune 2.0. Many people believe that it will feature gaming, go on the internet, and possibly even be able to deliver a baby, but im just speculating. But, Yahoo! recently posted a article about Medis Technologies, manufacturers of fuel-cell technology making rechargers for Microsoft.
For those who don’t know about fuel-cell’s, they are batteries that create an electrical current from a chemical reaction such as methanol or in this case alkaline. They recharge by just adding this chemical back in, which could be messy, but I’m sure we can manage. However, the probelem with these is that they are still very big and would not practically be used in cellphones, or MP3 players like the Zune.
So you may ask why their is even a point to this article, well these chargers could be used to replenish batteries while away from a electrical socket for a charge. Medis commented that the chargers were to be used for a product that Microsoft would be released, and this statement is what leads into the Zune. This kinda product for the Zune would be really cool, but still not the edge against the iPod. Being able to charge your Zune anywhere you wanted to is a prospect that I’m not against. The sad thing is that this could also be used for PDA’s and not have anything to do with the Zune. Oh, the world of rumors.
DoubleClick is a huge online advertising company, and naturally when they announced that they would be putting themselves up for sale, many large companies pounced on the opportunity. Many believe that Microsoft would be the ones to buy it with a rumored 1.2 billion dollar deal for the company last that I heard. Microsoft is in a constant battle with Google for online advertising and DoubleClick would have given Microsoft a big edge in the battle. But, I guess Google realized Microsoft’s stragedy and made a $3.1 billion all-cash deal for DoubleClick. Now Microsoft is faced with making their own advertising company or buying another(probably smaller) company to help their fight against Google. But, 3.1 billion dollars for Google. This deal even overshadows Google’s massive deal with YouTube, which was sold for 1.6 billion dollars. Now Google has access to some of DoubleClick’s customers like MTV and Sports Illustrated and DoubleClick will also hopefully bring in revenue for Google and so continues Google’s domination of basically the web.
Well as everyone thought IslandOfRhodes.com was the suck because it seemingly only contained developer diaries for the game God of War. But, sure enough people have seem to have found another countdown within IslandOfRhodes.com. Well, I’m sure everyone wants to know how to see this themselves and Darksidez at the GameFaqs.com forums knows has posted how to. You have to spell Kratos in the Greek letters hidden in the “proceed” page, when you first get to the site. Darksidez has posted the locations of these letters.
Kappa (under iota, middle right)
Rho (upper left corner)
Alpha (bottom right, left of soldier’s waist)
Theta (under upsilon)
Omega (upper right)
Sigma (bottom right, by soldier’s foot)
For those who need more help, I made this image for you:
Now, when you get through we that you are lead to this slider puzzle things, that we all loved as kids. You shift the pieces around to make an image. This is a randomly generated image from a selection, so dont expect any hints on this one and you are only given 300 seconds do it. After this page you get a page, which tells you how to unlock the HD mode in the game, which is to hold down L1+L2+L3(the thumbstick button) and square and circle down before the SCEA Legal screen comes up. If down right, this will result in a purple SCEA screen and the ability to play in 480p. I’m sure that will make some happy and then if you hit ”You Seek An Audience With The Fates” again, a countdown comes up and the plot thickens. Many believe this to be the countdown for God of War 3. No one really knows and everyone is really excited.
Nintendo has now released a update for the Wii. You may notice this because the Wii disc drive should be glowing all blue and happy. The important part about this update is that the full-featured Internet Channel has now gone live. The channel is available for download in the Wii-Ware section of the store and features some features that include:
Parental Controls
Improved zooming and scrolling
An improved zoomed font
Shortened startup times
Quicker access to “favorites”
An ability to hide the toolbar
The channel will be free until June 2007, so make sure you go get it and maybe even get Super Paper Mario for the Wii
Halo 3 is one of the most anticipated games of all time, up there with Half-Life 2. And many people were excited when the annoucement of the Multiplayer beta came to light. Their were three ways to get in: buy Crackdown, which included an invitation, get invited by applying, or play Halo 2 online for 3 hours February 3rd. Now, basically all the invites are out and everyone is eager to get playing. And now Bungie releases some details. The important ones are that the update will begin May 16th at 12:00 AM PDT and through June 6th at 11:59 P.M. PDT. The multiplayer maps will feature three maps Valhalla, High Ground and Snowbound. These maps have been graphically improved, but the update stresses that this is still a beta and not the finally graphics. The multiplayer beta will also feature some new game types and can only be used in matchmaking. The Spiker, the Spartan Laser, and the Brute Sticking grenade are some of the new weapons that you will get to try out. New vehicles will also be inserted and the “mysterious” x button functionality will also be revealed. So everyone get excited and watch this video, “Is Quisnam Protero Damno!”.
has appealed the district court ruling against their new networked DVR. The RS-DVR would allow Cablevision IO subscribers to record and watch content on a DVR located in Cablevision offices. The main opposition are the media companies that were distressed that their copyright material would be violated by streaming it back to viewers in their homes. “The deployment and use of the RS-DVR would constitute a “public performance of plaintiffs’ copyrighted works” said Judge Denny Chin. Cablevision said it would seek an appeal to the second court circuit. “We continue to believe strongly that [the] remote-storage DVR is permissible under current copyright law and offers significant benefits to consumers, including lower costs and faster deployment of this popular technology to our digital cable customers,” said Cablevision Chief Operating Officer Tom Rutledge. The broadcasting companies are concerned that this service would evolve in to an “on-demand” service like Cablevision’s current IO package. However, Cablevision assured that the content would have to be chosen to be recorded by the customer before it aired, just like a conventional DVR. The DVR would also have limited storage space. The main argument is the location of the hard drive. In this case, the DVRs would be stored at Cablevision offices making Cablevision responsible for protecting the copyrights of the broadcasted material. HD support has not been confirmed, but this service has been very controversial among channel broadcasters.
Either you heard of the Guitar Hero II X-Plorer defect, or you cried yourself to sleep over your non-responsive whammy bar. This post is a mini repair guide to get yourself back rocking in no time. This is for part numbers 95065 and 95055, although, other whammy bars outside these part #’s have been reported faulty. Check your X-Plorer’s box for your part #.
1). Remove the 11 black screws on the white body with a #1 or #2 phillips screwdriver. Keep the controller upside down. (Below)
Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars, is the newest installment in this classic RTS series. For the first time since EA bought the license the series is returning to its roots. Rather than a modern day RTS like Generals, Tiberium Wars is a direct sequel to Tiberian Sun. Importantly returning is the games namesake Tiberium, a mysterious crystalline substance which infects animals and land. Also back are the cheesy FMV cutscenes the series is famous for, however now they are in HD and feature some well known actors. Acting talent includes Battlestar Galactica’s Tricia Helfer and Grace Park, Star Wars’ Billy Dee Williams (He played Lando Calrissian) along with House’s Jennifer Morrison and SG-1 regular and voice of Sam Fisher; Michael Ironside. Dont worry fans, even with better known actors the dialog and costumes are just as campy.
Listen for a full review on the next Revenge of the Podcast!
-Will Bertelsen
Apple announced Monday that it had sold 100 million IPods, Apples ever popular portable digital media player, making the IPod the fastest selling music player in history. When Sony released the Walkman in 1979, it took them almost 14 years to sell 100 million. And don’t even think about the Zune, Microsoft’s latest forcast puts them at 1 million by the end of June 2007.
AMD released an entry in their knowledge base acknowledging compatibility issues with several key applications. Currently, they offer no solution. Heres the full list.
* AIGLX
* Beryl
* Compiz
* MythTV
* TV TIME
* Linux 8.19 Driver and higher
* openSUSE
* SUSE LINUX Enterprise Desktop (SLED)
* SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server (SLES)
* Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation (RHEL-WS)
* Red Hat Enterprise Linux Advanced Server (RHEL-AS)
* Red Hat Enterprise Linux Enterprise Server (RHEL-ES)
-Elias Tsang
Nevermind what this post used to say, the podcast will be live on talkshoe as planned tonight at 7:00 pm EST. Here is the talkcast ID: 24733, and if you would like to call in to ask questions or give your opinions, the number will be 724-444-7444.
Oh and PS: Looks like Annex is coming today after all. Look for the update at 7pm Eastern today! I would write more about this but as I said, I’m very jetlagged.
Well, their has been much controversy regarding this update for Gears of War. The major update news about this update is a new gametype that will be added called “Annex“. Annex is a King of the Hill type of game, that features respawning and different zones, which you can capture. The controversy of this arises, when the announcement for this game type was pulled from Epic’s website and Epic announced that Microsoft did not want to release the details for this update and their is no confirmed date for release. But, 1UP did get a preview of the game and said that the update would come out this week. Check out the video after the jump.
Intel has been releasing many things this week, but the fastest is the Core 2 Extreme which runs at 2.93GHz. This is the fastest of any of the Core 2’s and even the fastest processor they have announced since the Xeon Server chip in November. The chip is targeted towards gamers and digital designers and focuses on multi-threaded applications. This is a use in some games that are beginning to come that divide large tasks into several parallel parts. This processor is ultimately very fast with 8MB cache and 1066 FSB, but is it worth the $1,199 price point. Not really in my standards, it is double of the of the model underneath it QX6700 which is only $530, and this processor only offers a 300MHz upgrade in power. And with the lack of multi-threaded games on the market, there is really no justification unless you just have a lot of money, in that case I say go for it.
With GameSpot spilling the beans on the Spring Update yesterday a little early, Microsoft has officially released a press release detailing the update to the Xbox 360 Dashboard. The update will feature about 1,600 updates, fixes, and glitches. Many will not even be noticeable or worthwhile to talk about, but the forerunner feature of this update is the integration of Windows Live Messenger in the 360. The update will feature chatting with up to 6 people at a time in the Windows Live Messenger group, which has about 20 million active users. I really don’t use Windows Live Messenger, so what am I suppose to do? Well, you can open up chats with anyone on your friend’s list instead of always having reply conversation, you can be in this chat, just like a Instant Messenger client. This feature will be available while playing games, watching movies, listening to music, or just chilling in the dashboard. The Windows Live Client will also be expanded to show you which one of your friend’s have gamertags and overall enrich your experience on both levels. The update will be launched the week of May 7th and with this chat, you can now plug in USB keyboards to the 360(probably only certain types). And the keyboard attachement accessory has also bee officially annouced for a summer release date. The update will also feature other noticeable things like:
Their is expansion of background downloading functionality, which will incorporate low-power background downloading and then when all downloads are done the Xbox 360 will turn off.
Their will now be a Marketplace blade, which will be independent from themes, but essentially put everything from the Marketplace in a central location.
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feature. The were debating the final build of the game including the marriage feature. Questions like this were asked: Would restrictions be considered prejudice on part of Turbine? Can we put these kind of restrictions on marriage? But, finally after a debate the execute producer of the game decided to pull the feature completely. Leaving no one in Middle-Earth to be married at least, legally.
(2 votes, average: 4.5 out of 5)
Their have been a huge amount of rumors about the Zune 2.0. Many people believe that it will feature gaming, go on the internet, and possibly even be able to deliver a baby, but im just speculating. But, 
DoubleClick is a huge online advertising company, and naturally when they announced that they would be putting themselves up for sale, many large companies pounced on the opportunity. Many believe that Microsoft would be the ones to buy it with a rumored 1.2 billion dollar deal for the company last that I heard. Microsoft is in a constant battle with Google for online advertising and DoubleClick would have given Microsoft a big edge in the battle. But, I guess Google realized Microsoft’s stragedy and made a $3.1 billion all-cash deal for DoubleClick. Now Microsoft is faced with making their own advertising company or buying another(probably smaller) company to help their fight against Google. But, 3.1 billion dollars for Google. This deal even overshadows Google’s massive deal with YouTube, which was sold for 1.6 billion dollars. Now Google has access to some of DoubleClick’s customers like MTV and Sports Illustrated and DoubleClick will also hopefully bring in revenue for Google and so continues Google’s domination of basically the web.
Nintendo has now released a update for the Wii. You may notice this because the Wii disc drive should be glowing all blue and happy. The important part about this update is that the full-featured Internet Channel has now gone live. The channel is available for download in the Wii-Ware section of the store and features some features that include:
has appealed the district court ruling against their new networked DVR. The RS-DVR would allow Cablevision IO subscribers to record and watch content on a DVR located in Cablevision offices. The main opposition are the media companies that were distressed that their copyright material would be violated by streaming it back to viewers in their homes. “The deployment and use of the RS-DVR would constitute a “public performance of plaintiffs’ copyrighted works” said Judge Denny Chin. Cablevision said it would seek an appeal to the second court circuit. “We continue to believe strongly that [the] remote-storage DVR is permissible under current copyright law and offers significant benefits to consumers, including lower costs and faster deployment of this popular technology to our digital cable customers,” said Cablevision Chief Operating Officer Tom Rutledge. The broadcasting companies are concerned that this service would evolve in to an “on-demand” service like Cablevision’s current IO package. However, Cablevision assured that the content would have to be chosen to be recorded by the customer before it aired, just like a conventional DVR. The DVR would also have limited storage space. The main argument is the location of the hard drive. In this case, the DVRs would be stored at Cablevision offices making Cablevision responsible for protecting the copyrights of the broadcasted material. HD support has not been confirmed, but this service has been very controversial among channel broadcasters.
Apple announced Monday that it had sold 100 million IPods, Apples ever popular portable digital media player, making the IPod the fastest selling music player in history. When Sony released the Walkman in 1979, it took them almost 14 years to sell 100 million. And don’t even think about the Zune, Microsoft’s latest forcast puts them at 1 million by the end of June 2007.
Intel has been releasing many things this week, but the fastest is the Core 2 Extreme which runs at 2.93GHz. This is the fastest of any of the Core 2’s and even the fastest processor they have announced since the Xeon Server chip in November. The chip is targeted towards gamers and digital designers and focuses on multi-threaded applications. This is a use in some games that are beginning to come that divide large tasks into several parallel parts. This processor is ultimately very fast with 8MB cache and 1066 FSB, but is it worth the $1,199 price point. Not really in my standards, it is double of the of the model underneath it QX6700 which is only $530, and this processor only offers a 300MHz upgrade in power. And with the lack of multi-threaded games on the market, there is really no justification unless you just have a lot of money, in that case I say go for it.
