General Discussion

Xbox 360 users who own the motion based Kinect are in for a treat today. An update for Netflix has gone live allowing Kinect users to their hands and voice to navigate through the many menus of the popular movie and television show database. Do not get to excited yet to toss your controller aside and cuddle up on the couch with a bubbly beverage of your choice. According a Microsoft Representative who spoke with Joystiq, while all of the titles are Kinect enabled now, there are only a select number of titles that are available from the Netflix Kinect dashboard that can use both voice command and hand gestures. You can find these as “recommended” movies and shows. via J…

Concentrated Ebil is a live gaming channel on Justin.tv by Ebildustbunny, a multiplatform gamer, who plays games as simple looking as Minecraft to FPS shooters and the overlooked indie game. Whether its on Xbox 360, PS3 or PC… Sharing the experience is the passion of the channel. The Ebil Gamercide Astro Wave Raffle is a fundraiser to raise money for the Concentrated Ebil channel to hopefully replace her Xbox 360 which has been named the JetBox by the viewers of the channel. Concentrated Ebil hopes to keep doing what she loves and bring a little dose of mischievous fun to everyones day! Support Ebil and Enter for a chance to win HERE! http://justin.tv/ebildustbunny …

The same number that LGWyant is turning today! 33!!! Happy birthday brah!

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-real-housewives-of-wall-street-look-whos-cashing-in-on-the-bailout-20110411?page=1 This should be a non-partisan discussion. We're all screwed over equally.

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/gaming/2011/04/11/gog-drm-drives-gamers-piracy/1 Very good read. I totally agree with the author too.

I'm not sure if anyone has noticed, but Aperture Science is taking over! I have no less than three of my indie games updated with various references to AS! Amnesia, The Ball, and AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

http://www.humblebundle.com/ Supposedly at 9:30AM PST they will be releasing the new Humble Bundle. I'm definitely going to check into it!

Because it's Syc's birthday! Woot! Have a great day brah!

As you may or may not know, Dejobaan Games has been making quality games for over 75 years. They have released several PC games full of oddball humor and wackiness, held together by smooth gameplay. These include The Wonderful End of the World, AaAaAA!!! – A Reckless Disregard for Gravity, and their very recently released game, 1… 2… 3… Kick It! (Drop That Beat Like an Ugly Baby). The latter two compete for alphabetical superiority in my Steam library. 1… 2… 3… Kick It! was technically released as an alpha, which can be bought and will be supported and updated over time with the aid of user feedback, much like Minecraft. It’s a music based game along the lines of Audi…

Freaking settlement. No clear decision if consumers own, or 'lease' their consoles. http://blog.us.playstation.com/2011/04/11/settlement-in-george-hotz-case/ Boo.

Published by: Beatshapers / tastyplay.com Platform: PSN Players: 1 Mix Breakout, pinball, and action-puzzling and you will get Stardrone, Beatshapers’ Playstation Move enabled (DualShock controls are available as well.) foray in to Playstation Network gaming. How does StarDrone stack up against the multitude of action-puzzlers out there? Keep reading and see what makes this one special. View the full article

F2P games or Free to Play games have seen much success in the world of PC gaming especially lately with social games such as Mafia Wars and Farmville where you can play the game for free, but in order to enhance your gaming experience you need to purchase special items or upgrades. How would you like F2P games to come to Xbox Live? According to IGN that might be happening very soon. A trusted source close to IGN is claiming that Xbox Live will be adding these style of games soon which will “allow publishers and developers to release games through the service for free where users can then purchase additional content, such as weapons, experience points, in-game currency, …

It's crap like this that bugs me... I have Dragon Age Ultimate with all the DLC on my PC. Right now me and the thousands of others with the game cannot play it because EA's servers are down for the game. Now what the hell is the point of buying DLC if I cannot play the damn game when the servers are down? If I own the crap I should be able to play it when I want, regardless of the servers. Now that my little rant is over, what is your opinion on EA's digital content and do you feel that you rightfully own it if EA prettymuch has the ability to pull it from you if they shut down their servers?

http://www.bgr.com/2011/04/08/youtube-announces-youtube-live/

Do you love watching the sweaty bare chested men of the UFC duke it out in the Octagon splattering blood across the mat and found yourself wishing that you could do that without having to leave your living room? Thanks to THQ, now you can. THQ announced that they are launching UFC Personal Trainer for the PS3, Wii, and Xbox 360 sometime this June. The mixed martial arts trainer was designed by the National Academy of Sports Medicine and three MMA trainers including Mark DellaGrotte, Greg Jackson and Javier Mendez who throughout their training careers have worked with top UFC fighters gave their input to the excerise based game. According to Lead Designer Troy Sheetz, i…

“We weren’t an independent studio making ‘our’ games anymore – we were making games to fill slots. Although we did all believe in them, they were more the products of committees and analysts. The culture we’d worked on for so long gradually eroded just enough so that it wasn’t ‘ours’ anymore”, said the Creative Director with Bizarre Creations Martyn Chudley during an interview with Edge where regrets and the option to buy Bizarre back after Activision closed the 17 year studio in February 2011 were explained. During the interview Chudley details how it was making games for Activision and that they were just “fill slots”. ”I don’t think the atmosphere differed too much dur…

All this week Sega has been teasing about “big news” coming to Sonic the Hedgehog’s Facebook page. Fans of Sega’s favorite blue chili dog eating hero start tapping your feet, because Sonic is back in a new game coming to the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 later this year. The colorful 3D teaser trailer which you can view checking out Sonic’s very own Facebook page, shows Sonic speeding along, leaping from platform to platform only to make one big jump and another blue Sonic appears beside him. Does this mean the new game will be co-op or has Sonic gotten a speedy doppleganger? via Sonic the Hedgehog’s Facebook Tweet This Post View the full article

Kameo: Elements of Power, a colorful launch title for the Xbox 360 in 2005 almost had a followup with Kameo 2, but Rare cancelled the game in 2009 before it got off the ground. Artwork has surfaced from the planned sequel that shows Kameo would have gotten a more “womanly” appearance had the game had lived to see a release. via Eurogamer Tweet This Post View the full article

http://www.joystiq.com/2011/04/05/bioware-sequel-celebration-brings-free-mass-effect-2-to-dragon/ Even thought I already own ME2 on the 360 I may just download it for the hell of it on my PC since i bought DA2 (which in my opinion sucks a big one).

Woohoo! Happy birthday to Isabel! I hope you have a wonderful day with Rincon & Fam. Go pamper yourself! I'm sure you deserve it!!!!

One of the most successful casual gaming companies in the industry is bringing a new slightly edgy studio into the mix. PopCap Games announced that their new studio “4th & Battery” will be situated in Seattle and that the name comes from where the studio is located. Jason Kapalka, Co-Founder and Chief Creative Officer at PopCap Games says to “expect weirdness” from the new label that gives their designers free range. “4th & Battery is a purely experimental, creative label with none of the typical concerns like schedules, profitability, or even target audience. It’s kind of the video game equivalent of B-sides or short films. Expect weirdness.” The studio has al…

Gears fans anxiously awaiting for the September 20 release of Gears of War 3 might find the following little nugget of information bitter sweet. Executive producer Rod Fergusson spoke to CVG and said that fans will finally get closure to the Marcus Fenix story, however the universe within Gears will go on. “We’re not blowing up the world so Sera and the Gears universe will live on, but for us we didn’t want to betray our customers and community by having a cliff-hanger ending where you’re like ‘argh I just got duped, now I’ve gotta wait until the next game. We wanted to have closure, we wanted people to have some satisfaction that they were along for this ride and they …

Retailer GAME Australia has revealed the new DLC map “Escalation” coming to Activision’s Call of Duty: Black Ops before Activision had the chance to announce details about it. The flyer, which has since been taken down contains a release date of May 3 and showS that the content will feature five new maps with one of them appearing to be a Zombies map. via VG247 Tweet This Post View the full article

Yesterday a hacker who goes by the name of “Predator” claimed that he hacked into the Xbox Live account of Stephen “Stepto” Toulouse who happens to be the head of the Xbox Live Enforcement Policy Team and said that he only wanted to help Microsoft. Toulouse who spoke to Joystiq regarding the incident is telling a far more disturbing story. “He got an old cell phone [number] of mine, and yeah, he called it occasionally”. Toulouse then played it for Joystiq who said that they could not print the expletive and derogatory filled message because it was not suitable. Toulouse later said, “I have a six minute one where he and his friend discuss all the different ways they’re go…

Simply put, I would like to grab a copy of Portal for the PS3, simply for the Steam copy, then have a contest to give away the PS3 copy. My concern with this however is whether or not this will work. I do not own a PS3 and from the Google Searches I've done on the topic, it appears that you have to link your PSN account to your Steam account. I have a few unanswered questions that I am hoping some of you can help me with. Is it possible to create a PSN account without a PS3? If the above is possible, then what would the effect be if I link them together? Will I be able to play my copy on Steam on my PC without problem? Will the person who got the PS3 copy of the game b…