Click the photo to see the eBay page.
Ever wondered what Halo’s “Master Chief” would look like if he was a hot woman? Ever wondered how much you might bid on eBay for a statuette of a hot woman version of Master Chief? You’ve got until tomorrow — October 4th, 2007, 6:47:07 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time — to place your bid.
10% of the final price will be donated to the American Breast Cancer Foundation. The current bid as of this writing is US$2,222.
Super Mario Galaxy: definitely not your father’s “Mario”!
Can’t see the video? Click here.
As you can see, this is the Japanese version of the game. Note that while all the mushrooms’ dialogue bubbles are in Japanese, the Princess’ “Help!” dialogue bubble (as well as her yelling) is in English.
We’ve been told that “Master Chief” from the Halo series of games reveals his face at the end of Halo 3. If you can’t wait to finish the game to find out who he is, the webcomic Godmode has given away the answer:
Click the comic to see it at full size on its original page.
Oh, those crazy MIT Guys…
Click to see the photo on its original page.
Here’s what the MIT Hacks gallery has to say:
During the night prior to the release of the heavily advertised Halo 3 video game, MIT hackers transformed the statue of John Harvard into the Master Chief character from the game. In the game, the character’s real name is known only as John. John was wearing the signature helmet from the game and was also holding a gun from the game. The hack was removed by around 8am.
Screenshot from Rock Band. Click to see the screenshot on its original page at full size (it’s huge).
Let me get the tiny bit of disappointment that I have with the upcoming game Rock Band out of the way first: What? No keyboards? They’re the most computer-ready interface devices to make! You suck.
That little gripe aside, I’m looking forward to Rock Band, the next step in the evolution of the Guitar Hero game. While Guitar Hero let one player at a time “play guitar” and Guitar Hero II let a single player “play” either guitar or bass, Rock Band offers, Rock Band lets up to four people play simultaneously, each one taking the role of guitarist, bassist, drummer or lead vocalist. As you can see from the screenshot above, gameplay looks like a hybrid of Guitar Hero for the instrument roles and Karaoke Revolution for the vocalist role.
Joystiq has just published the news on Rock Band’s release date and price. Rock Band for the XBox 360 and the PlayStation 3 will hit the shelves in the U.S. on Friday, November 23rd, with the PlayStation 2 version following on December 10th. November 23rd is “Black Friday” — for our non-American readers, this is the Friday of the American Thanksgiving long weekend. Being the last holiday before Christmas, it’s the biggest shopping day of the year and a day which puts a lot of stores “in the black”, hence the name. Shopping malls in the U.S. open ridiculously early on that day (we’re talking hours before sunrise) and the crowds are insane. Occasionally fights break out; perhaps the makers of Rock Band want shoppers to have the full rock concert experience — the Woodstock 1999 experience, that is.
The full Rock Band bundle will sell for the following consoles:
The bundle will include:
According to Wikipedia, the following songs have been announced for the game:
I think this is a pretty good collection of songs; a number of them are either in my accordion repertoire or were on the set lists of bands with whom I played keyboards.
Most of the tunes listed will use the original master tracks. I suspect that the game will use the bowlderized lyrics for Radiohead’s Creep (“You’re so very special” rather than “You’re so fucking special”), and I hope that Don’t Fear the Reaper has a special “cowbell” mode. I also think that The Perfect Drug might’ve been a better Nine Inch Nails tune, even if only to give the drummer a challenge (there’s a killer drum solo near the end of the song).
The inclusion of a tune by Boston-based synthpop band Freezepop seems a little odd — they’d fit better in a game that offered keyboard controllers. This may be a prank by a Wikipedia contributor.
Wired News reports that the vendor behind the Chinese MMORPG King of the World is cracking down on male players who choose to use female avatars in-game. None of the reports on the web state what the rationale behind this policy is, but I suspect that it’s meant to prevent incidents like the following one, taken from a Family Guy episode:
Peter: If you could be stranded on a desert island with any woman in the world, who would it be?
Quagmire: Taylor Hanson.
Joe Swanson: Taylor Hanson is a guy.
Quagmire: [Laughs] You guys are yankin’ me. “Hey, let’s put one over on Quagmire.”
Peter: No, he’s actually a guy, Quagmire.
Quagmire: What? That’s insane. That’s impossible.
[Pause]
Quagmire: Oh God. Oh my God. I’ve got all these magazines. Oh God.
According to Wired, anyone who wants to play a female character in King of the World must now confirm that they are female via webcam. The article points out that such a system is easy to work around: just ask anyone who’s ever asked an older friend to buy beer for them.
My friend Miss Fipi Lele sent me a scan from The Usborne Guide to Computer and Video Games, a children’s book published in 1982:
Image courtesy of Miss Fipi Lele.
I was quite impressed with how many predictions the book got right. Here are some excerpts from the “Videogames in the future” section of the book, followed by examples of the predictions coming true.
Here’s what the Guide had to say about “TV games” in which you can take part in battles. Remember, this was published when the Atari 2600 (which was still called the Atari VCS — short for “Video Computer System”) and the Mattel Intellivision were established consoles and the Colecovision had just been released:
A TV game with a very large memory will be able to reconstruct detailed pictures of say, the Battle of Waterloo or a space battle, and the players will be able to control far more of the details in the picture than they can today.
Score one point for the Guide. Although the game History Channel: Civil War got poor ratings, it fulfills the prediction. Here’s a screenshot:
Here’s the Guide on sports games:
In TV sports games you will probably be able to control each of your team members individually. These games will also have electronically synthesized voices and the referee will tell you when you are offside or given a free kick.
Score another point for the Guide. Here’s FIFA Soccer 2008:
The Guide has this to say about multiplayer games:
At present, most computer games are for only one or two players. More powerful computers though, will be able to cope with instructions from a number of people playing at the same time, either as teams against each other, or against the computer.
Another point for the guide! Case in point: a video of gameplay from the Halo 3 multiplayer beta…
Video duration: 9 minutes, 48 seconds.
And finally, here’s what the Guide predicts for handheld games:
Hand-held electronic games will still have liquid-crystal displays, but they will probably be in full colour and will be as detailed and realistic as pictures for a TV programme today.
Yet another point for the Guide: here’s Burnout Dominator for the PSP…
Serves me right for not Googling first: the Level Up blog at Sun has a complete set of scans of the book. Check it out!
