One of the most overlooked aspects of E3 is a chance to look at the Into the Pixel selections from each year. These are huge pieces of art inspired by and created for different video games. They often feature much deeper looks into the games they represent, just check out this piece from Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood as an example.
Our favorites are probably the simple yet fun Mokeskine-notebook from Rayman Raving Rabbids, or the Little Big Planet-esque Puzzle World Twilightlandscape painting. Check out our gallery below of images from the 2007 and 2008 shows and pick out your favorite. There's some really good desktop wallpaper fodder in there if you click the high rez button.
For more Into the Pixel art, check out the galleries on their site. If you're in the Los Angeles area, the exhibition will be open to the public during this year's E for All, from October 3rd through the 5th.
Want a Zapper-type gun shell for your Wiimote but don't want to overpay for what basically amounts to a handle? Well ... you're basically out of luck. But if you want to overpay somewhat less than the usual too-high price, Amazon.com is offering CTA Digital's Wii Magnum Gun, a Perfect Shot ripoff, for $8.99 as their Deal of the Day.
If you're concerned about the quality of this plastic gun shell versus other plastic gun shells, just remember: seriously, it's a piece of plastic, and probably does just as good a job of being that as any other piece of plastic. Don't think our dismissal of their complexity means we don't recommend a gun shell; anything that gets you playing Ghost Squad is a good thing.
One notable absence from LucasArts E3 room was any presence of Indiana Jones whatsoever. While they were highly touting Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, and Fracture, they didn't even have a poster featuring a silhouette of Indy and the Hat anywhere to be seen. Not only that, but LucasArts employees visibly bristled whenever we asked about it. "No comment" stung us like a whip several times.
Matt Shell, marketing manager at LucasArts, finally let us know that yes, they're working on something. However, they didn't want to talk about it at all. It just seems odd that they have one of the highest grossing movies of the year, based on one of their most iconic properties, and they don't even want to show us a photo of a whip and say "It's in the game." Jump on that opportunity, Lucas! Especially after you were honking your Euphoria physics engine so loud in 2006.
The poor guy must have been tuckered out from carrying that whip around all day. The last three press events we've been to that he was at, he was wearing the same white shirt, cowboy hat, boot and whip getup. Do you think he opens his closet in the morning and just has dozens of duplicates of that outfit all lined up and ready to go?
We just hope he's not tired from all the Castlevania Judgement Wii-mote shaking action. That can really take quite a toll on the body.
We've been a little busy with all the E3-ing and being hosts, so here's the PSN Thursday update for this week. PS1 classic Rayman is available, along with PSN game Elefunk. There's also several E3 videos and just sunshine with rainbows. So tired ...
The new 80GB PlayStation 3, which seems to lack even the partial PS2 compatibility of the previous 80GB console, is coming to Europe and Australia on August 27, according to Sony Computer Entertainment Europe chief David Reeves at an SCEE event earlier this week (via Gamespot). It will cost €399 for Europe and £299 for Britain and will still not be worth as much on eBay as the PS2-compatible (entirely) 20GB and 60GB launch models.
When Harmonix throws a party they get The Who to headline that jam; when Joystiq throws a party, we get Harmonix to headline. The generous devs from Boston brought Rock Band 2 to our E3 afterparty in Santa Monica for the 300 plus attendees to prove their mettle. Take Joystiq superband The Blueberry Muffintops who closed off the night with this rendition of Elvis Costello's "Pump It Up" – take note: by this point in the night, we'd already blown out the setup's speaker. Rawk!
So really, our heartfelt thanks to Harmonix for making everyone's night. But we'd also like to thank Nyko for the peripherals, Naughty Dog for the great signed stuff, and of course Mahalo.com for the super generous use of their space. Most of all, thanks to everyone that showed up. We put Joystiq together every day for you guys and it was flattering, and humbling, to see everyone turn out today. This one's for you (hit play now!).
While checking out Konami's 3D fighter, Castlevania Judgment, two Konami employees stood next to us and saw an opportunity to shoot the breeze. While conversing about things that this blogger couldn't help but overhear, one female worker commented to the other that if "they are just going to make fun of it, you have the power to kick them out." It was pretty obvious that she was referring to the fighting game we were currently engaged in playing.
And, before you ask, no we did not make fun of it. We waited until we left their space before laughing.
On a Thursday night after all the E3 shenanigans (and during our party, no less), we have word that Blizzard has begun the Wrath of the Lich King beta. Sources have told WoW Insider that the alpha phase reportedly shut down a few days ago and that invites should be going out soon for the beta. Additionally, a Blizzard site has gone live to help gamers get the beta set up. Are you one of the lucky few to get an invite? You can check out the patch notes here.
When the doors of the E3 showfloor first opened, herds of eager game industry denizens rushed inside to set up stations at kiosks to try their hands at the new wares. One small gaggle of gaming journalists from a world where women must not exist gawped and said "Check out all these girls playing games!" Keep in mind, this was after seeing two women playing games at one console.
Two girls, one console. Yes, apparently women play games.
While not every game may include Trophies for now, at least one major developer tells Joystiq that Sony's answer to Achievements will be "mandated" by Sony for every new PS3 release in 2009.
This isn't entirely unexpected given recently-revised comments by PSN director of operations, Eric Lampel. What's more interesting, however, is that the developer, which is currently working on an early 2009 release, is also hearing that Sony may be enforcing some measure of uniqueness between spoils earned on its console versus the Xbox 360. Commented to developer, "We've heard some things that make it sound like we will have to do some unique to PS3 Trophies...this is all very new to us." While unconfirmed, we can't wait to see to what extent Sony will try to separate its virtual accolades from those on the Xbox 360, or if the idea will simply be enough to make completionists' heads implode.
Here are a couple interesting takeaways from our tour of the New Xbox Experience:
"There's nothing to announce" right now regarding a keyword search for the Marketplace. Let's hope they either a) add one in or b) drastically improve how we find things
Playing games from the hard drive will work fine for multi-disc games; in fact, you can pick which discs you want to rip (for example, we're superstitious and we'd only rip odd-numbered discs).
As an example, we were told that Devil May Cry 4 is approximately a 4 or 5GB installation and took about ten minutes.
You'll need to keep the disc in the drive the entire time. This is about speeding up load times (and hey, bonus tip: no more noisy DVD drive while you're playing!)
The alerts look the same – actually, like the entire interface, they look sharper, cleaner. Oh, and the sound is the same.
Yes, you can still use your gamertag pics and your themes (in fact, they look a lot better now!)
With the App Store open for business, games are finally headed to Apple's iPhone, and the unit's multitouch interface, accelerometer, and built-in mic and speaker make it perfect for gaming. THQ Wireless is one of the many companies getting ready to try and cash in on the first generation of the App Store -- after making games for a lot of other mobile devices, Director of Global Production Brad Pitser is excited about finally releasing software for the iPhone.
Joystiq got to play two different games in THQ's demo at E3. De Blob is a handheld adaptation of the Wii game, and uses the accelerometer in the iPhone and iPod touch to do a little light platform puzzling. And Force Unleashed attempts to recreate the upcoming Star Wars action title, by using a touchscreen gesture system to try and make you feel like a Jedi. impressions of both are after the break.
Pete Hines from Bethesda shattered our crystalline dreams yesterday when he told us that the Vault-Tec 800 number for Fallout 3 means... absolutely nothing. He and Todd Howard had argued about it, and Pete wanted it to actually have something hidden inside for fans, but he got vetoed.
Although Bethesda would love for rabid Fallout fans to kick down the door of a 68 year old woman's house in Texas in search of hidden editions of the game, it just ain't happenin'. Listen to the actual audio dialogue below which busted up our hopes for a Rain Man level math secret hidden in the phone message.
Yes, we are actually live blogging our own party -- we have an addiction. Stay tuned for images and updates from the party with special guest The Who [Update: Turns out The Who couldn't make it, but we do have Rock Band 2] and if you're within 100 miles, get over here!
Pete Hines from Bethesda shattered our crystalline dreams yesterday when he told us that the 
