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FIDGIT ARCHIVE FOR June 2008
Here's something you don't hear every day which will give you a taste of what to expect in Civilization Revolutions for the Xbox 360, Playstation 3, and Nintendo DS: "Our spy has kidnapped Albert Einstein from the city of Bejing!"...
POSTED Monday, June 30, 2008
I'm not saying Battlefield: Bad Company is bad. It's not. It's a perfectly passable Battlefield game with about as good an online mode as you can expect. But I hereby present the ten reasons you should be playing Frontlines: Fuel...
POSTED Monday, June 30, 2008
I don't want to alienate any Aerosmith fans, but I have three little words to sum up my reaction to this week's Guitar Hero: Aerosmith: "Train Kept A-rolling". After failing that song in Rock Band a million and six times,...
POSTED Monday, June 30, 2008
The above screenshot is not a fake. It is actually from a Garfield game for the Playstation 2 called Lasagna World Tour, just released by Conspiracy Entertainment. These are the folks who brought you titles such as Action Girlz Racing,...
POSTED Monday, June 30, 2008
Electronic Arts announced details about Rock Band 2 today. The big news is that it will be out in September, which will beat its main competitor, Guitar Hero: World Tour, to the market. IGN got the news up first here....
POSTED Monday, June 30, 2008
It's a rare Saturday that brings news this big. Of course, it's not really news to anyone who followed Blizzard's deliberate splash-screen tease act over the last week. You can see a meaty – literally – gameplay trailer here. It...
POSTED Saturday, June 28, 2008
You know how lots of electronics are implanted with a special chip or some sort of fancy nanotechnology that makes them break down at some point after (days of warranty period + 1)? Electronic Arts has now advanced this technology...
POSTED Friday, June 27, 2008
After nine long months, Firaxis patched their epic strategy game again. In addition to addressing some small but important errors, the new Civilization IV patch lets you disable an entire feature: the espionage added in the Beyond the Sword expansion....
POSTED Friday, June 27, 2008
A publication that shall remain nameless because the last thing I want to do is contribute to their traffic – let's just say it rhymes with Spewsday – reported that six teens arrested for basic thuggery were inspired by Grand...
POSTED Friday, June 27, 2008
The CEO of Sony's videogaming division announced that we'll be able to download movies onto our Playstation 3's this summer. Yay! Another instance of something we're already doing on our Xbox 360s! Meanwhile, the buzz about the next step for...
POSTED Thursday, June 26, 2008
The security system in the Metropolitan Museum of Art is strange. At least I think it's the Metropolitan Museum of Art. They don't actually call it that in Alone in the Dark. You can thank the museum's lawyers for keeping...
POSTED Thursday, June 26, 2008
Taking place in the fantasyland of Planet Roo, you star as one of the last Roogoos still uncorrupted by the evil King Goo. King Goo can think of nothing but power and uses his influence to make other Roogoos believe...
POSTED Thursday, June 26, 2008
Unreal Tournament 3 is a dying breed. There aren't any games left that guarantee this many free maps and mods once you've bought them. Of course, it's all player-made, so a lot of it will be junk. That's the advantage...
POSTED Thursday, June 26, 2008
At Blizzcon 2005, Level 70 Elite Tauren Chieftain performed "I Am Murloc". The band was composed of Blizzard employees who apparently weren't good enough at thrash metal to quit their day jobs. The song featured the lyrics: "I am king...
POSTED Wednesday, June 25, 2008
"These two games were released this week and they both made you kind of go, 'Oh, um, okay, that's what you're going to do? Really?'" "What are Supreme Commander for the Xbox 360 and Guitar Hero On Tour for the...
POSTED Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Roger Travis (pictured above posing with a virtual isthmus) teaches classics at the University of Connecticut in Storrs. He also plays videogames. If you sign into Xbox Live, you can see from his gamertag that he's seriously into Halo single...
POSTED Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Anytime you have 16 million people around the world doing something, you can bet they're going to want to gather at some point to get a look at each other. And you can bet someone is going to try to...
POSTED Wednesday, June 25, 2008
To clarify the situation with Atari's legal threats in response to 4Players' review of Alone in the Dark, I spoke with 4Players editor-in-chief, Jörg Luibl. I also attempted to contact Atari but have yet to hear back from them. It...
POSTED Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Stephen Totilo has crunched some of the numbers available on the Wii's new Nintendo Channel. Apparently, his analysis is too incisive to fit on one blog. So for MTV's Multiplayer, he offers a sort of appetizer talking about WiiWare titles....
POSTED Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Rockstar has released a patch for Grand Theft Auto IV. Based on the notes, it's just a bunch of multiplayer fixes. Much to my chagrin, it apparently does nothing to fix my relationship with Carmen Ortiz. I've been out with...
POSTED Tuesday, June 24, 2008
On Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, a news quiz show on NPR, there's a feature called "Bluff the Listener", in which the show's panel presents three stories, two of which are fabricated. A call-in listener has to guess which is...
POSTED Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Look at all that new stuff on the shelves! Guitar Hero: On Tour, Battlefield: Bad Company (pictured above, looking uncharacteristically grim), and Alone in the Dark. This week has a lot of potential. For disappointment! The strange Nintendo DS version...
POSTED Monday, June 23, 2008
One of the great things about the Ratchet & Clank games is how they move forward relentlessly. There was almost never an instance of spinning your wheels and getting nowhere. Even if you kept dying in a certain area, you...
POSTED Monday, June 23, 2008
An hour-long documentary called Tilt, available for purchase online for $20, details a last-ditch effort to combine pinball with videogaming. Pinball 2000, pictured above, superimposed holographs over the table. Its modular design allowed arcade operators to swap out different themes...
POSTED Monday, June 23, 2008
The antics of David Jaffe are nothing if not entertaining, particularly when he's drunk at the Playboy mansion. Until the next instance of that, there's always his blog. The creator of the Twisted Metal and God of Wars series recently...
POSTED Monday, June 23, 2008
It was really hot in Los Angeles today. It got up to 106 degrees where I live. In other words, the perfect time to sit in the air conditioning and get in a little golf. 36 holes, to be exact....
POSTED Monday, June 23, 2008
Sony's downloadable ragdoll game, Pain, just got a new update. You might have missed this one last November considering all the actual games you could have been playing instead. In Pain, you launch your boneless character from a giant catapult,...
POSTED Monday, June 23, 2008
The main advantage of the Nintendo DS version of Space Invaders Extreme is that you can play through the levels to register your score on the global ranking servers. If you're playing the PSP version, sure, you've got much better...
POSTED Sunday, June 22, 2008
Atari really tries everything, in order to darken our reporting: Only they ignore our inquiries in the early phase to alone into the Dark, then they cancellation advertising campaigns already booked after our preview, then bemustern them us despite inquiry...
POSTED Saturday, June 21, 2008
If you've fired up your Playstation 3 or PSP lately, you've probably done some downloading. Both systems got an update this week from Sony. The PSP's 4.0 update isn't nearly as dramatic as its whole version number sounds. 4.0? Really?...
POSTED Friday, June 20, 2008
Brian Farrell, the CEO of THQ, discussed Saints Row 2 during a conference call with investors this week. He specifically mentioned how it's going to be distinct from Grand Theft Auto IV. We're always concerned about GTA as a competitor....
POSTED Friday, June 20, 2008
As you were playing through Metal Gear Solid 4, did you wonder what that flintlock did? The one with the long Japanese name that cost one million Drebin points? And how long was it before you realized there was no...
POSTED Friday, June 20, 2008
Three years ago, Square Enix acquired Taito. Which meant they got a catalog of games including Space Invaders, uh, let's see…Bubble Bobble…Qix, I think. And about a hundred ancient arcade games no one cared about. The move seemed more a...
POSTED Friday, June 20, 2008
Deus Ex…had a non-stop cast. Where people were walking onstage constantly. And the sequel is even worse. And I tried to even fight this on the sequel and failed at it… Guys would walk on-screen and walk off-screen and then...
POSTED Thursday, June 19, 2008
I'm really disappointed in British gaming blog Rock, Paper, Shotgun. They just posted a collection of many of the borderline pornographic things people are doing with the recently released Spore Creature Creator, which already boasts over a quarter of a...
POSTED Thursday, June 19, 2008
There's only so scary a videogame can be. As near as I can tell, that amount of scary maxxed out three years ago in Fatal Frame 3. But the next best things to scary are weird and unsettling. Those things...
POSTED Thursday, June 19, 2008
I kind of feel sorry for Clank. I mean, it's not his fault that I just had a 40-hour slog through Metal Gear Solid 4. When you take into account the ratio of gameplay to cutscene, that's nearly ten hours...
POSTED Wednesday, June 18, 2008
You'll probably score serious points with your girlfriend if you take some time out of playing Gears of War to show her the site for the new Princess Bride game. The whole thing even looks very chick-targeted. Notice the way...
POSTED Wednesday, June 18, 2008
As you've just read, it's not easy to come up with a headline that isn't "Blah blah blah something-or-other BLOWN AWAY by Lost Winds". But that one was already taken by gamesindustry.biz, so you get my second choice as it...
POSTED Wednesday, June 18, 2008
The Diablo II ladder just reset, giving player a chance to start anew. The idea is that you start out on equal footing with other players, and everyone's characters are secured on Blizzard's servers. >From the FAQ on ladder characters:When...
POSTED Wednesday, June 18, 2008
You met the heavy weapons guy a while ago. Since then, you've met the demoman, the engineer, and the soldier (if you haven't met them yet, you really should go here and do so). Now it's time to meet the...
POSTED Tuesday, June 17, 2008
VG Chartz "exclusively reveals" that Metal Gear Solid 4 sold 1.3 million copies on its first day. That and a dollar will get you a cup of coffee, as they say. They also say "good enough for government work", "close...
POSTED Tuesday, June 17, 2008
The conventional wisdom about the Wii is that it's an awesome platform for Nintendo, but not for third-party developers trying to cash in on its popularity. In laymen's terms, it comes down to all the soccer moms and grandparents buying...
POSTED Tuesday, June 17, 2008
You know those times when you're playing a side-scrolling shooter and some enormous construct lumbers onto the screen, spewing thick gouts of bullets. And you're all, like, 'No way!'. In Blast Works, that thing is you. Read the review after...
POSTED Tuesday, June 17, 2008
It was a big news day! Xbox Live is getting new Mii-style avatars (pictured blurrily above); Forza 3 will ship on two discs and have a hundred tracks; there are sequels coming to Marvel's Ultimate Alliance and Transformers; Jimi Hendrix,...
POSTED Tuesday, June 17, 2008
During the development of a game, sometimes publishers will throw fans a bone by letting them have a say in the process. Activision, for instance, drove traffic to the Call of Duty 4 web site by letting fans vote on...
POSTED Monday, June 16, 2008
Slow week. Probably the biggest release is Political Machine 2008. This is mostly a minor reworking of the 2004 version, but applied to a 3D engine with cute little bobble-headed candidates. 'Tis the season, you know? You can even make...
POSTED Monday, June 16, 2008
Blik makes "surface graphics…for people who like to change their mind [sic]". They describe them as "stickers for grown-ups". The idea is that you put them on the wall as a way of redecorating without messy paint or wallpaper. Among...
POSTED Monday, June 16, 2008
You might not know Darwinia. So I don't blame you if you don't recognize the Darwinian in the mock-up magazine cover above. But you're missing out. Those little guys are great, and their game was aces. In Introversion's Darwinia,...
POSTED Monday, June 16, 2008
Now you can play Rob Beschizza's Escape from Konami, exclusively at BoingBoing. The game was created in response to the alarming news that Metal Gear Solid 4 reviewers may have been forcibly detained so that they would sign NDAs. Waterboarding...
POSTED Sunday, June 15, 2008
Ben Fritz at Variety reports that Ken Levine's contract is being renegotiated in the wake of the success of BioShock, for which Levine served as creative director. Fritz notes that Levine has been strangely silent as news of BioShock's sequels...
POSTED Sunday, June 15, 2008
Jillian Michaels may not be a household name, but not for her lack of trying. From the look of her website, she seems like a woman hell bent on moving product. I know her from a radio show she hosts...
POSTED Friday, June 13, 2008
The guys at Funcom are real jerks. Yesterday I post 10 reasons not to play Age of Conan (scroll down, you can't miss it) and today, they make a whole slew of announcements about how they're improving the game. Way...
POSTED Friday, June 13, 2008
The Electronics Entertainment Exposition (aka E3 (aka E3 Media and Business Summit That You Can't Come To Anymore)) is a month away. And it's looking a little anemic. IGN has posted a list of all the games to be shown....
POSTED Friday, June 13, 2008
I knew the spectate feature for online games would finally come in handy! Two scientists – one from a Danish university, the other from a Romanian university – donned lab coats, took up clipboards, and then blew their grant money...
POSTED Friday, June 13, 2008
In the movie Conan the Barbarian, the eventual governor of California is chained to a giant wheel and forced to turn it. It's called the Wheel of Pain. I'm not sure what it does – Grind flour? Move the island?...
POSTED Thursday, June 12, 2008
Although they've been schlepping it around to various publications for a few months, High Voltage Studios officially announced The Conduit, a first-person shooter for first-person shooter fans. The twist? It's built for the Nintendo Wii. Turns out Metroid Prime wasn't...
POSTED Thursday, June 12, 2008
When it comes to the online aspect of videogaming, Nintendo has been consistently and notoriously two steps behind. So it's no surprise that its fledgling online distribution service, WiiWare, isn't getting the love it deserves. An Edge article critical of...
POSTED Thursday, June 12, 2008
So I get home from a midnight sale with my brand new copy of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Partiots. I pop the disc into the Playstation 3 and start the egg timer I got from the kitchen....
POSTED Thursday, June 12, 2008
We here at GamePlasma Fidgit are continually asked to review a bevy of different titles. Occasionally, we run across games from smaller developers that just blow us away with their new and creative ideas. Sometimes we even notice strange things...
POSTED Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Midway's underrated Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy is available as a free download from Fileplanet, but with some sort of built-in ad support (alternatively, you can get an ad-free version from IGN's Direct2Drive service for $15). Psi-Ops got a fair bit...
POSTED Wednesday, June 11, 2008
No, not the movie, the game. The developers of the Lord of the Rings MMO, Turbine, released the soundtrack as an incentive to get people to try the beta of their Download Manager, which is a BitTorrent style peer-to-peer client...
POSTED Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Please don't read this. Seriously, just skip on down to the thing about Fireteam Reloaded. Also, please don't post a comment about what a loser I am for saying what I'm about to say. You think I don't know already?...
POSTED Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Ten years ago, Fireteam was one of the first games with voice chat, which meant your opponent could actually hear your racial epithet or homophobic slur instead of having to read it. Although, to be fair to the original Fireteam,...
POSTED Wednesday, June 11, 2008
When Electronic Arts moved their Sims franchise from 2D to 3D in The Sims 2, the system requirements were pretty steep for the time. 43 expansion packs later, the game is certainly a huge commercial success, but it can't have...
POSTED Wednesday, June 11, 2008
GameDaily's MMO blog, Massively, is a good place for the MMO agnostic to keep up with the genre. In other words, it's not World of Warcraft-this and World of Warcraft-that. It's where I stumbled across Brendan Drain's comparison of the...
POSTED Wednesday, June 11, 2008
If you've been around as long as I have…wait, hold on a second. Okay, I'm back. There were some kids on my lawn playing their newfangled PSPs who needed yelling at. As I was saying, back in my day, there...
POSTED Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Ever since the first caveman looked at the sky and wondered how awesome it would be if dragons were fighting helicopters, we've distinguished ourselves from the animal world by coming up with cool combo mash-ups. For instance, what if a...
POSTED Tuesday, June 10, 2008
One of the great things about a game like Oblivion is that many people who love it roll up their sleeves and bang on it to make it better, stronger, faster, and without the crazy unfair leveling monsters. They create...
POSTED Tuesday, June 10, 2008
When Apple makes an announcement, people think "Games!" So it was no surprise that at this year's Worldwide Developer Conference, they listed some exciting [sic] new games coming to the iPhone. First, there's Super Monkey Ball. But not the cool...
POSTED Tuesday, June 10, 2008
The demo for Civilization Revolution is available for download on the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3. Up to now, it's been pretty easy to sneer at the idea of adapting the epic Civilization strategy games to a console system....
POSTED Monday, June 9, 2008
You want to know how good GRID is? It's so good that in coming up with 10 reasons you should play it, I don't even have to mention the drop-dead gorgeous graphics. There are much more compelling and substantive reasons...
POSTED Monday, June 9, 2008
The Australian Consumer Association published an article on Computer Energy Costs. Included alongside actual computers were televisions and console systems. There's a chart here, but the summary of the study is as follows: The device that consumed the most power...
POSTED Monday, June 9, 2008
The guys at the automotive blog Jalopnik have obviously been playing Grand Theft Auto IV. In The Real Life Cars Behind Grand Theft Auto IV, they examine many of Liberty City's fictional vehicles for elements of their real-world counterparts. You...
POSTED Monday, June 9, 2008
This week Konami releases the latest in its series of incomprehensible sneaking games. Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots hits the shelves on Thursday. Although these games have a very enthusiastic following, my experience with them is that...
POSTED Monday, June 9, 2008
On the day Wii Fit came out, I was in my neighborhood videogaming retailer (i.e. used game racket). While I was browsing the used section for deals slightly better than "$3 off this battered copy of Perfect Dark Zero", two...
POSTED Sunday, June 8, 2008
Grand Theft Auto IV publisher Take Two announced yesterday in an investor conference call that the downloadable content for the game has been delayed. Instead of being a part of the company's fiscal fourth quarter, it's now a part of...
POSTED Saturday, June 7, 2008
It's taken me only ten short days to decide that Wii Fit is terrible as an exercise game. So let's consider it as a game game. What about the minigames? Maybe it's something fun to keep around and whip...
POSTED Saturday, June 7, 2008
Infinity Ward has flipped a switch in Call of Duty 4 that doubles the experience points you'll earn between now and Monday. Unless you're playing on the PC, in which case you'll have to make do with the four new...
POSTED Friday, June 6, 2008
The Balance Board™ tells me I've lost 22 pounds since yesterday. Also, my Wii Fit Age™ has plunged to 37. At this rate, I'll be a zygote within two weeks. Then, at the beginning of our yoga session, Creepy Telepathic...
POSTED Friday, June 6, 2008
Remember Psycho, the loveable character from Crysis? Me either. I mainly remember my frame rate during the horrible final battle on the aircraft carrier. Oh, and I remember the cliffhanger non-ending. I also remember the terrible Harrier jet sequence. Those...
POSTED Friday, June 6, 2008
Namco released new screenshots for their "hip-hop infused action/adventure game". Oh, dear. "Hip-hop infused"? Well, 50 Cent: Bulletproof actually sold well enough that a sequel is on the way. Given that this is based on an animated series from a...
POSTED Friday, June 6, 2008
Via We Heart It....
POSTED Thursday, June 5, 2008
Close call today! It was hot today, so I was down to, well, my unmentionables while doing Wii Fit. I'd drawn the blinds, but the front door around the corner from my TV was open, with only the screen door...
POSTED Thursday, June 5, 2008
If you're playing Call of Duty 4 on the PC, you have yet another reason to make fun of the poor saps playing on their 360. Not only do they not get to use a mouse to aim, but they...
POSTED Thursday, June 5, 2008
I bet you didn’t know there's a blog called gaygamer.net. Their tag line is "For boys who like boys who like joysticks!" At which point I just sigh and shake my head at the silly boys' club that is gaming....
POSTED Thursday, June 5, 2008
Among Nintendo's WiiWare downloadable games -- distinct from their Virtual Console cousins for being developed specifically for the Wii rather than ported from other older systems -- is a strange hybrid from Square Enix called My Life as a King....
POSTED Thursday, June 5, 2008
Curious how your favorite band is doing when it comes to downloadable songs for Rock Band? The guys at DLC Stats have come up with one of those 'that's so ingenious/obvious...why didn't I think of it?' ideas. They simply...
POSTED Wednesday, June 4, 2008
The free-to-play online shooter Kwari (pictured above) is no more. It enjoyed a few short months of preying on places like France, Lichtenstein, and Vatican State, but it never made it to the US. With the company going into...
POSTED Wednesday, June 4, 2008
"Too busy to work out yesterday, eh, Tom?" Don't start with me, Balance Board™. I will box you faster than a One boxes a Three. Which I'm tempted to do anyway when I flub my balance test and am told...
POSTED Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Variety reports that Bruce Willis is in talks to play Kane in the movie adaptation of Kane & Lynch, an infamous Gamespot review. I think it's also a game or something. Here's the elevator pitch from the Variety article: [Kane...
POSTED Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Hell isn't just for Diablo and Doom clones anymore! Now strategy gamers will get their chance in Cryptic Comet's next title, Solium Infernum, a turn-based game about Archfiends vying for control of the Underworld. You can read more particulars on...
POSTED Tuesday, June 3, 2008
The pacing in Wii Fit is deadly. After each exercise, I just want to get on to the next one while I've still got momentum. Instead, creepy telepathic ghost chick trainer has to offer me not one, but two...
POSTED Tuesday, June 3, 2008
The Incredible Hulk is out this week. It takes place in New York City. Not Liberty City, not Gotham, not Metropolis. But actual New York City. I know this for a fact because I've been running around seeing how...
POSTED Tuesday, June 3, 2008
In the latest patch for the PC version of Frontlines: Fuel of War: Players can no longer stick Landmines onto their legsI love gamers. I love that someone tried that. I love that there are probably entire clans that...
POSTED Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Metal Gear Solid 4 has really really long cut scenes – lots of them! – and a really really long installation time! At least that's the implication from the game's publisher, Konami. They made it a pre-condition that any...
POSTED Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Most MMOs don't have collision detection for a couple of reasons. For starters, it's a strain on bandwidth if the world has to constantly calculate where two characters intersect each other. Instead, it's much easier to just let players...
POSTED Tuesday, June 3, 2008
WiiFit's Balance Board ™ notices that I've gained 17.9 pounds since yesterday. After scolding me, it asks me to choose from a list of explanations for why I've gained so much weight. Among the choices isn't "Because Wii Fit...
POSTED Monday, June 2, 2008
Dear Black Spider Ninja Clan, Hello. Ryu Hayabusa here. How are you? I am fine. You probably remember me from the first part of Ninja Gaiden II I just played. I'm the one that killed about a thousand of...
POSTED Monday, June 2, 2008
Everyone knows that Starcraft is wildly popular in South Korea. But will it last? Ratings are falling on the Starcraft television channels, teams of professional Starcraft players are disbanding, the military is canceling its special arrangements for kids who...
POSTED Monday, June 2, 2008
Chris Faylor' at Shacknews posted a hands-on with Guitar Hero On Tour, the Nintendo DS version of Activision's guitar games. Faylor describes how it plays, which isn't anything you can't figure from, say, an awful video of On Tour...
POSTED Monday, June 2, 2008
This week's wallet threat level is very high with the release of GRID, a gloriously gorgeous Hollywood-ized racing game, half way between Forza 2 and Burnout, and boasting a Prince of Persia time rewind feature for those times you...
POSTED Monday, June 2, 2008
The embargo on Capcom's recent press event lifts today, so you'll be seeing all sorts of Resident Evil 5 info popping up. Last night at midnight, Gametrailers posted the most recent trailer. Capcom took some heat for their last...
POSTED Monday, June 2, 2008
Great news! I somehow seem to have lost 17.6 pounds! Here I was trying to lose five pounds in two weeks, and now the Balance Board ™ is telling me that I've lost more than three times that amount...
POSTED Sunday, June 1, 2008
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