Hot on the heels of the Bangalore Human Weapon Gaming Night, comes the Delhi edition of Human Weapon Gaming Nights. To be held at Cafe Morrison on 26th September, you can start trooping post 6 PM to have your shot at winning Xbox 360 and other assorted goodies. If nothing else, like us, you will at least get to down as many cans of Red Bull as you want. Strangely though, unlike the Bangalore event, there doesn’t seem to be any registration page indicating any one can drop in any time. Smart move, we would say. It always better to conserve precious bandwidth for more…*ahem*…constructive purpose. So that leaves us with only one question: What does the “206 weapons per warrior” mentioned on the invite mean?…Owww, never mind. Should have paid more attention in my Bio class.

They usually say that when Judgment Day is near, we’ll see a lot of signs pointing to the Antichrist. So for all those who doubt that the PSP is it, first, we get news from Famitsu that the PSP is (surprisingly!) outselling the DS at least as far as this year is concerned. Then, two French exchange students in London get stabbed more than 250 times (one 80 times after he was dead) so that the perps can get away with two unbelievably rare and more-expensive-than-the-Kohinoor-diamond black PSPs. And if that don’t prove it, we’ve got the PSP wreaking havoc with lives here as well, and worse, we’re the ones who started it all.

When Abhinav’s friend got married a couple of months back, he decided that nothing would be better than blessing the happy couple (and the husband in particular) with a PSP. Talking about the London murders last night, Abhinav mentions that the couple, who’ve been enjoying a textbook romance, recently got into their first major fight. Over the PSP, and this time, it wasn’t the usual complaint we’re used to seeing.

(more…)

Reviewers have it tough these days. With a dozen or more games coming out each week, they’re probably under horrible pressures to deliver their goods faster than ever before, with the result that we get crazy scores for games like Need For Speed: ProStreet and Assassin’s Creed. And the latter is pretty disturbing, considering the sheer scope of the game and how it promised to deliver truly next-generation gameplay.

But it looks like dear Gabe from Penny Arcade has stumbled on to the obvious fact as to why such a promising game is getting 7-something scores.

(more…)

Wow, time flies when you are having fun. And time is money. So money flies when you are having fun. Especially when you spending over and over on games that, according to GamesRadar, haven’t really changed all that much over the last 10 years, even though (they are very quick to add) you may actually find them enjoyable.

Taking a sharp poke at fanboys who are seething with rage and burning up the Intertubes right now with death threats, the article takes a look at how games like Metal Slug, Guilty Gear, Football Manager, Virtua Fighter, Pokemon, Crash Bandicoot, Street Fighter and yes, even the Nintendo fan favorite, The Legend of Zelda, hasn’t evolved as much the other franchises like Super Mario, Prince of Persia or even (oh boy) Sonic! Trying to fix the situation, the GamesRadar article offers tips to developers on how they can reinvent the games, like maybe making the trip to the third dimension or adding more open-ended freedom to a platformer like Crash Bandicoot (this doesn’t sound too bad, Kameo could do it) or do something innovative with the Wii controller instead of ripping off the gameplay from Ocarina of Time all over again.

Yes, changes are required, and a lot of franchises have tried lots of new concepts - some are hugely successful, like Super Mario, Prince of Persia, Tomb Raider, Rainbow Six, etc. whereas others, like Sonic, have blown up in the developers’ faces. While some games lend themselves to a change, it has to be done in such a way that it attract a load of old gamers without leaving true fans high and dry, like Sega seems to have done in the recent years. The best thing to do is to ask the gamers what they want to see change in their favorite games. Chances are that if you sit down and talk to your target audience and long time fans, you will unearth a rare gem among the piles of garbage that will inevitably pour in. Also, game developers have to understand that, sometimes, its best to start a new franchise instead of flogging the dead horse.

Almost as if to counterpoint the whole issue, especially with the Sonic debacle, Sega is now looking to mature games like Condemned 2, Alien and comic book adaptations such as Iron Man, the Incredible Hulk, Captain America and Thor to help them rise to the top tier of videogame publishers. Let’s hope Sonic can make some dent and rise again in the eyes of his fans with the upcoming Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games, and yes, quite possibly, even Super Smash Bros.!

Games that haven’t changed in ten years [Games Radar]
Sega Goes Beyond Sonic [BusinessWeek]

A few days ago I was checking out some case mods posted by Joe from TheHappyGamer, until one of my hardcore Transformers friends showed me this beaut. A fully-transformable Optimus Prime PC case mod, packing a Core 2 Duo E6850, 2 overclocked GeForce 8800GTS, a staggering 1000W Power Supply Unit, and some seriously shiny lights. Congrats to John Mangus (god, even his last name screams Transformers fan) for his winning entry in ExtremeTech’s Case Mod Contest, your precious 300 hours of work certainly didn’t goto waste. Now if only the Indian film distributors here would hurry up and show Transformers the Movie so I don’t have to resort myself to watch some ugly Video CD “print”. Blargh.

Check out more entries to see how the other participants faired!

Crime never pays! But crime does give you a chance to Katamari with your accompanying law-breaking inmates, if you so happen to be living in the UK.

The Labour government has today revealed that 120 PlayStation 2 consoles have been installed in prisons for young offenders, an installation process that has cost the country £15,000. Those who commit crimes in our ‘glorious’ nation can now look forward to getting in a few free rounds of Devil May Cry instead of actually being, you know, punished for their crimes.

The implications of this are so vast; it’s almost downright intergalactic and depressing at the same time. Whereas its not uncommon to recall a good number of fuming politicians and parents and how they see it fit to ban violent games forever, these very same people are now having their money taken (no doubt unknowingly) in order to fund these kind of activities. Huh, so why was Manhunt 2 banned again?

I mean hey, if you’re going to at least discipline those wrongdoing frogurts – have them play nothing but Vampire Rain. They won’t last a week, tops.

Source: Destructoid

I don’t know why, but what seemed uninteresting yesterday seemed different when I woke up this morning. So without giving it a second thought, I went to the Youtube link and watched a video on the upcoming tactical Real Time Strategy (RTS) game from Massive entertainment and Sierra, called World In Conflict. It was extremely good! The detail, the game play, the plot, the new innovative multiplayer, everything looked and felt good. It seemed that Massive was set for really nice hit of a game!!

Link to video - http://youtube.com/watch?v=IromEM2CkBQ

Maybe it was indigestion or maybe it was the absence of my morning tea, but something kept on bothering me, an itch inside my head. I went back and watched the video again. A credit system where you can buy your units and jump into combat, calling air-strikes, tank busters, napalm showers, paratroopers and tactical nukes.

No, the itch was not just the video, as I watched buildings and humans disintegrate under the wave of destruction from the nuke, I actually felt a bit sad. Then my mind did a back flip and there it was, part of the itch, Manhunt2 banned in the UK.

Official manhunt website, containing video and teaser trailers - http://www.rockstargames.com/manhunt2/

What difference did this RTS game have from Manhunt2? The amount of gore or violence? But, isn’t the underlying point the same then, to kill? Manhunt2 gets banned? The plot for Manhunt2 seems saner to me than the first. But what kills more? Tactical nukes? Or a single man out on a rampage?

We have to agree that the whole of human society is based on dominance. The stratification of society, the unnatural bounds and rules that we believe to be given than created by our self, suppress and dominate the ones trying to get out or who go against it. There are those things we are blind to; the legal illegalities that are so common in life that we fail to notice. Have you asked yourself, ever, why we are blind to them? Our every move is measured with the moral yardstick that is embedded in everyone of us. Isn’t that evident when looking at Manhunt2 and World In Conflict?

In war, you have an enemy and it is legal to kill him. In real life, this fictional construct of the “enemy” and its killer is easily justified, because its socially acceptable, Whereas in a totally virtual world, killing the enemy is not? Oh! I get it! Its how you kill the enemy that matters!! So I can nuke them along with a thousand others and not to mention the after effects, but I can’t poison them eh!?

Manhunt is a minute still frame when compared to the portrait that is war. Ask any person who has been touched by this and you will know how horrible it is!

The whole society shuns topics and labels them evil and it becomes just that!! It is the nature of the collective. But when you legitimize something like war, and call it necessary, even when the whole of the nation becomes a James Earl Cash going against a gang member in a violent showdown in a snuff film, we cheer it on! Cheering the structure that protects us.

Art is a reflection of life, what you see here is a reflection of yourself. Your pain, your anguish, your frustrations..  It is not without plausible exits, this so called structure and these real exits from this virtual structure lead to a revolution and with a bit of irony into new structures, but made by you.

Nature is neither good nor bad. It is nature. whatever happens, happens as part of the cycle. The strong and adaptable dominate and the weak perish. Evey other order we know was put in place by us to adapt and dominate. Sadly to live in that structure, you need to adapt and dominate. where good or evil is what the structure has in place for us, not what is real. In nature, everything has an immanent desire to break free or escape from its suppression, no matter how hard it may be. This desire for escape in us is what leads to those creative outbreaks, where the so called “artist” in you escapes and reaches an ethical plane where nothing seems impossible. Living this escape leads to revolution, living this escape leads to change.

Games like manhunt should make you think, they go beyond what you see on the screen. If you look hard enough, you might find yourself somewhere inside! In a moralistic society that has its roots on cruelty, sadism and domination; banning a game and saying that it is for the grater good is simply wrong. When you cant curb your own perversions and hunger for power, which can be very hard when trapped inside the same system you are trying to break out of, then what can you do? Educate the masses, give them choices, show them the doors.