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Giant Wii remote

by David Hinkle { Feb 8th 2007 at 12:35PM }

This image brings so many things to mind. The first thought that jumped into our head was the ultimate match of Wii Sports ever, where Godzilla takes on King Kong in a match of Tennis that is being projected against the Empire State building. The match ends with Godzilla being the victor, only because on the Game Point he turned to Kong and melted his face off with his laser breath.

If you think we're crazy, know that Godzilla's cheating tendencies have been well-documented the world over for many years.

Aussies get 360 HD DVD March 29 for $249 AUD

by Ross Miller { Feb 2nd 2007 at 6:20PM }

In a short but sweet news post, Xbox Zone revealed new details on the Xbox 360 HD DVD drive it discovered from Xbox Australia. The most pertinent news is that Oz will get its chance to pick up the add-on peripheral on March 29 for $249 AUD, which translates to approximately the $200 price tag for the US edition.

The initial shipments of the drive will come with a Universal Remote Control (we presume he means the official Microsoft one) and a copy of King Kong on HD DVD. We're not going to pretend we can gauge the next-gen format market in Australia right now, so anyone hailing from the Land Down Under is more than welcome to contribute observations.

HD-DVD vs DVD: Let's compare Xbox 360 style

by Dustin Burg { Dec 13th 2006 at 2:00PM }

Since we're all about supporting HD-DVD here at Fanboy Towers, we've stumbled upon an article that compares the prettiness of HD-DVD to that of DVD. Games Central put up a few comparison shots of the movies King Kong and Batman Begins, focusing on the image quality of HD-DVD and DVD. The actual pictures on their site aren't of the greatest quality, but you can still tell a difference in many shots. Just look at the image above that was taken from the movie King Kong. The HD-DVD side looks much more vivid and pretty, where as the DVD side is more "blah". As we said, the images from the website aren't the greatest, but be rest assured that HD-DVD will look very pretty up close in your living room.

[Via Digg]

Boost Gamerscore the easy way: pay for it

by Richard Mitchell { Oct 16th 2006 at 9:30AM }

Life is hard. Every time you boot up your 360, all you see is the incredible Gamerscores that your friends have. It's embarrassing. Your pathetic, anemic little Gamerscore just doesn't compare. You feel like you just can't perform anymore. You don't have the time. You turn to your significant other and say, "I swear this has never happened to me before." Your significant other turns to you and says, "That's okay, honey. A lot of people have this problem. It's very common." Cold and ashamed, you warm up a glass of milk and go to bed early for 8 hours of fitful sleep.

Does this sound familiar? Well, the ~~dastardly~~ fine folks at Levelmy360.com are here to help. Through the goodness of their hearts (and for significant amounts of cash), they will boost your Gamerscore anywhere from 500 to 7000 points. Prices range from $40 to $400. That's right, all the pride and public notoriety of having a high Gamerscore is now free to be bought (and sold) at your discretion. Why on earth someone would actually pay just to boost Gamerscore we have no idea. It's not like World of Warcraft or anything -- the only thing Gamerscore is for is bragging rights.

We're not really sure what's worse, paying to use this service, or the countless hours of King Kong and College Hoops 2K6 being played by the people who run it.

[Thanks, Christian Santarelli]

See Also:
Earn 6,000 Xbox 360 points -- without trying

The algebra of wows, inspired by Xbox 360 HD-DVD dancers

by Ludwig Kietzmann { Oct 11th 2006 at 8:17PM }

Clearly, the parallels to be drawn between high-definition home entertainment and in-your-face dance showdowns are too numerous to list, but Microsoft chooses to highlight some of the more obvious ones in their commercial for the Xbox 360 HD-DVD drive (embedded in the post, natch). Depicting a rhythmically isolated DVD guy facing off against six HD-DVD dancers, it's a technology comparison competely devoid of technology and filled to the brim with bodies gyrating in largely unimaginable ways.

With the upscaled DVD dancers apparently disqualified from the event, HD-DVD soundly trounces plain 'ole DVD, its vibrant victory converted into a catchy and hilariously non-sensical "six times the resolution, six times the wow." Yes, really. Just how much is that, exactly? The answer is, quite sadly, after the break.

[via NeoGAF]

Continued →

X06 announcements crammed into a single post

by Ludwig Kietzmann { Sep 28th 2006 at 7:15PM }

Microsoft's X06 event started off in a thunderous explosion of news, with pieces of informative debris raining down upon the unshielded denizens of the internet since yesterday. If you're feeling clueless or overwhelmed, allow us to subject you to a helpful hail of bullet points:

Peter Jackson reveals a new partnership with Microsoft Game Studios. The king of the rings and his newly established Wingnut Interactive studio will work on an original property for the Xbox 360, as well as an unnamed Halo title. One can only hope that the crappy-game-based-on-a-movie and the crappy-movie-based-on-a-game curses cancel each other out when it comes time to play Peter Jackson's Halo: The Game of the Movie of the Game.
A new RTS, Halo Wars, is unveiled. Set in a time before the first Halo, the real-time strategy game is being developed exclusively for the Xbox 360 by Ensemble Studios. Many confused pundits take the opportunity to point out that the Xbox 360 does not have a keyboard or a mouse.
Grand Theft Auto IV will have two "epic" downloadable episodes exclusively on Xbox 360. Rockstar and Take-Two promise that the new episodes will provide "hours" of new gameplay and will be available "just months" after the game's October 2007 release. The vague wording of the announcement fails to rule out the possibility that the PS3 could receive different downloadable episodes of its own.
The next Splinter Cell game is console-exclusive to the Xbox 360 -- meaning handhelds and the PC are still fair game. Fewer people are upset by this than those who realize Splinter Cell: Double Agent isn't available on anything yet.
Bioshock is exclusive to Xbox 360 and Windows when it releases "next Spring". The wording of the press release says nothing of the game should it release during any other season following Spring. Of course, nobody likes waiting ...
Project Gotham Racing 4 is coming. And the surprise hit gamers with all the force of a linen sheet flapping in the wind.
Rare is working on a new Banjo-Kazooie game. Presumably, players are still keen on collecting all the coins, apples, music notes, beans, feathers, diamonds, pearls, potions, rings, blocks, wrenches and / or yams mysteriously floating around the finely rendered landscape.
Marvel Universe Online is announced for the Xbox 360 and Windows Vista. It's being developed by the folks behind City of Heroes -- perhaps you remember Marvel suing them for creating tools that allowed people to venture online as, err, Marvel characters.
Doom and Sensible World of Soccer join the Xbox Live Arcade lineup. The classic first-person shooter was already available yesterday for 800 points ($10). The Amiga footie title has not been given a release date yet, though the press release insists on using the word "soon."
The Xbox 360 HD-DVD costs $199.99 in North America and €199.99/£129.99 in the UK, France and Germany. It arrives in mid-November and will include the Xbox 360's Universal Media Remote and the HD-DVD version of Peter Jackson's King Kong. And with that, the circle is complete.

Congrats, scavenger hunter, you've found the secret c o d e good for one free copy of B A N K S H O T B I L L I A R D S 2: PRF4Q W798V G7JX9 2RX2W VT94G (Contest ran on 12/30/2006. The code has been redeemed.)

Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh to make new Halo game, original IP

by Ross Miller { Sep 27th 2006 at 2:01PM }

Microsoft has confirmed that the Academy Award-winning duo Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh (Lord of the Rings, King Kong) are set to create two "new interactive series" for Xbox 360 and XBLA. The first is a "collaborative effort with Bungie Studios to co-create the next great chapter in the Halo universe."

"It's not Halo 3," said Scott Henson, Director of the Game Development Group at Microsoft. "It's a brand new game based in the Halo IP. In a phone conversation with Joystiq, Henson disclosed that writing credits will be given to Jackson and Walsh. As for how the full-fledged game will fit within the continuity of the Halo universe among three installments, a real-time strategy game, and a film, Henson was tight-lipped. "It's going to remain a mystery," he said.

The second title will be an entirely new intellectual property -- "completely from scratch," Henson clarified -- created with the intention of "bringing new audiences into the captivating world of interactive entertainment." The game will be made in conjunction with Wingnut Interactive, a new studio created via a collaboration with Jackson/Walsh and Microsoft Games Studio.

"Fran is a really big gamer and really excited about telling stories through games," said Henson. "We haven't talked about any details and we will when we're ready." If the focus is mass appeal, then Jackson/Walsh -- who managed to make Hobbits cool -- are the best people to have at the helm.

Top 10 awful achievements

by Richard Mitchell { Sep 13th 2006 at 9:30AM }

Let's face it, some 360 achievements are pretty difficult to get. Others are pretty easy. However, there are some that are too easy or too hard. And of course there are those that are just stupid (here's looking at you Kong). GamersReports has taken our distaste for crappy achievements and combined them with our love of easily digestible lists of information. The product of this peanut butter/chocolate creation? A top ten list of the worst achievements on the Xbox 360, of course! Even better, Joystiq went to the trouble of recreating this list, which we will delicately lift for our own personal gain. It's the American way. Behold:

Mini-Games (Enter the Mini-Games mode); Madden 2007
Pyromaniac (Jack used fire to scare off enemies and get out of harm's way); King Kong
The Graduate (Earn the highest score on every drill in Training Mode); Rockstar Table Tennis
Tactical Instructor (Top marks in every Story Mode mission); Chromehounds
Play Some Online (Compete in each of the online game modes at least once); Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2006
Food Bank; Feeding Frenzy
Game Master (Finish the entire game without continuing while using default settings); Smash TV
Complete 99 Stages (standard mode); Bomberman: Act Zero
Transmissionary (Answer all calls from Otis); Dead Rising
World Champion (Multiplayer: Climb to the top of the universal leaderboard); GRAW

Do you agree with this list? Any others you'd care to throw up there?

[Via Joystiq]

Earn 6,000 Xbox 360 points -- without trying

by James Ransom-Wiley { Mar 14th 2006 at 2:00PM }

GameSpot has posted a "guide" for quickly accumulating a 6,000-point gamerscore. Wanna earn 400 points by pressing the start button for 30 minutes? How about the entire set of 1,000 points in a single game of College Hoops? Jeff Gerstmann will show you how, using these 7 games:

Madden NFL 06
NBA 2K6
NBA Live 06
King Kong
College Hoops 2K6
NHL 2K6
Amped 3

WARNING: While a 6,000-point gamerscore will look good on your gamercard, anyone that takes a closer look at your profile will be able to expose you for what you really are... Don't say we didn't warn you.

Joystiq Review: Peter Jackson's King Kong (Xbox 360)

by Christopher Grant { Jan 26th 2006 at 5:15PM }

After disappointment with EA’s video game adaptations of his The Lord of the Rings films, director Peter Jackson sought famed game designer Michel Ancel (and his team at Ubisoft’s Montpellier studios) to help him create a game for his latest movie, an adaptation of King Kong.

With (the verbosely titled) Peter Jackson's King Kong: The Official Game of the Movie, the two of them have created the rarest of things: an exceptional movie-based game. The finished product is unusually polished; the graphics, voicework, story, and gameplay have all been scripted into an elegant, if notably short, product.

Continued →

Making Kong: interview with designer Michel Ancel

by Christopher Grant { Jan 3rd 2006 at 3:45PM }

Peter Jackson's decision to work with the lauded creator of the unsung (and hidden gem #2) Beyond Good and Evil has earned both men much praise. Ancel proved himself to be a strong, artistic collaborator, and Eurogamer's interview reveals an eloquent and articulate designer.

On developing Kong: "It would be presumptuous to say that our game is an example of a good adaptation. We took some decisions and some risks and sometimes it could have been dangerous. I think that this is the key to achieve successful adaptations."
On a (much requested) sequel to Beyond Good and Evil: "I'd love to, and it's always in my mind. One day maybe!"
On next-gen gaming: "To me, the right direction is interface and gameplay innovations. It will bring new players to the world of games, far more than incredible audio and visuals alone."
The highlight of the interview is Ancel's ruminations on the artistic merit of game design: "My feeling is that a game creator is building a situation in which the player is experiencing emotions. The creation of this 'emotional situation' is very complex. You know, there is a language in game design and a lot of people who don't know this language don't really understand what makes a good or a bad game."

Ancel can talk the talk and walk the walk; hopefully the success of the Kong adaptation will allow him the luxury of pursuing his own interests.

PSP game releases for the week of December 19

by Ed Stasick { Dec 20th 2005 at 7:36PM }

If the PSP is a bit lacking in the game release department, it sure makes up for it with UMD movies (if this week is any comparison). The lull before Festivus has granted us a sole new PSP game: