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Phew, we’ve been getting so much of Street Fighter IV love over the days that we just couldn’t bear to tear ourselves out of our game to do the stuff we were supposed to be doing – you know, like, the reviews and contests and all that jazz. With contests raining down every which way at The ANGRY Pixel over the last couple of days, we decided that the best thing to help ourselves and our brain-frozen readers if we ran a (oh god!) trivia contest. So, who amongst you are well versed with your Street Fighter lore? ‘Coz we’ve got one of our resident Transformers-loving, smooth-talking, ass-kicking Street Fighter fan to come up with a list of questions designed to leave you scratching your head as you figure out the right answer. So, what are you waiting for, head on over to our cooler-than-Daddy McCool Street Fighter IV Launch Center to get your shoryuken on, there’s prizes to be won! Chop, chop!
(Click image for a high-res photo of the Killzone 2 swag)
Welly, well, well! Looks like contest season has started again here. For all those folks that had their brians (yes, that was deliberate) aching from all the disuse, here’s something that should get those little grey cells firing wildly. Say hello to our Killzone 2 contest, where five lucky blokes will be able to snatch up aKillzone 2 artbook (yes, the same ones you’d have gotten if you got your press kit or placed your Steelbook copy order at GI), a Killzone 2 cap that should serve for protection from the harsh sunlight (if this contest were held on Helghan, we could have given you gas masks, but you’re on Earth, so tough luck!) and a nifty skin to deck out your PS3 and profess your love for all things Killzone 2. Without further ado, happy hunting, and oh yeah, don’t forget to check out our ossum-possum review of Killzone 2 while you’re tearing your hair out! 
Contest Details / End-dates / Terms & Conditions / Winners List
After complaining for months about not getting any love down south in Bangalore from Milestone, we finally got ourselves a nice little launch party for Street Fighter IV this Friday at The Living Room, where fans of the game could just sit back and kick their friends’ butt every which way with punches, kicks and focus moves. In fact, the party was so awesome that we completely didn’t manage to attend it! Don’t ask us why, because it mostly involves our associate editor busy rowing the slave boat and getting whipped good at work. As for me, well, I originally wanted to say I couldn’t make it because I had a brain tumor and had to get it checked out, but if I do, I’ve been promised that I’ll get my neck snapped by Milestone’s friendly neighborhood PR liaise, Payal, who loves nothing more than keeping us on track and, err, “mothering us” to make sure we do what we’re supposed to and don’t go around doing naughty things, like eating sand, spilling cooking oil all over the floor and breaking embargoes. (Ooh, look, Jill Valentine’s dead!)
Food, water, air, shelter, Killzone 2 – which seems to be the new updated list of what people need to stay alive and not curl up into a tight little ball and die from heartbreak and neglect. Just as news comes pouring in that the most eagerly awaited game of all time on the PS3 has officially broken street date and is ending up on game shelves everywhere in Dubai and Pakistan, we get some shocking news of what’s happening right in our backyard. With tensions running high between India and her next door neighbour, obviously, we can’t have them lording it over us about how they’re playing Killzone 2 and we aren’t. Well, fear no more, for India has followed suit and is breaking the street date as of right bloody now, with copies of the game being made available in all major cities starting from today.
And the best part is, it’s all official. With gamers in the country beating down the doors of the regional SCE distributors and threatening to cancel their pre-orders and take their business to the gray markets, Sony India and Milestone Interactive have done pretty much the only thing they could to save their business – break the street date officially and get the game out to starving fans a day or two before they’ll be available for sale in teeny tiny stores in a crowded alleyway. Talk about flipping the gray market off big time! Although we knew about it as soon as news of the Dubai leaks reached us, we were asked to keep our mouths shut until an official press release could be whipped up explaining what the heck was going on. Which, incidentally, also explains why we rushed to get our single player review of the game out the door a week before schedule.
Hit the jump for the official press release.
How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice, practice! And if that fails, an inexpensive GPS, Google Maps and front-row tickets could probably do wonders. But how do you get to Jaspreet Bindra, the man holding all the strings to Microsoft India’s Entertainment & Devices Division? Well, after trying for over four months through the usual PR channels, we finally decided to use my Xbox MVP status to try and spend some quality time with the newly appointed Country Manager and ask some really hard hitting questions that were just burning to be answered. So, last Wednesday, with a lot of help from the absolutely adorable Abhishek Kant – Community Program Manager for Microsoft India – we managed to burn up the telephone wires for the better part of an hour with the warm and very approachable Jaspreet and the Assistant Product Manager for the Xbox 360 – Sanjoy John, getting down to brass tacks about the Xbox 360 and the Games for Windows platforms in India.
We were originally supposed to schedule a video interview with him sometime next week, but with Vijay and Reggie rowing the slave galleon pretty hard next week (not to mention how every spare moment in Vijay’s life is now spent playing Gollum And Its Precious with his Leader Class Bulkhead action figure), we decided we’ll just roll with what we have for now and do the video interview when the stars are aligned just right. One note about the following interview, when you see text marked out in italics like this, that’s just me inserting my thoughts on what’s being said or just being the kooky klass klown. Consider yourself warned.
Ghajini. A name that’s been in the media spotlight for quite some time now, whether it’s fans swooning over Aamir’s new butch look in the movie or whether its Destructoid that splashed it on the front page much to the chagrin of Indian gamers who were hoping that this one dies a quiet death without being noticed. Based on a Hindi movie, which in turn is based on a Tamil film of the same name, which in turn is “inspired” by Christopher Nolan’s masterpiece “Memento”, Ghajini – The Game is purportedly India’s first 3D game, and joy to the world, it’s based on a Bollywood big-ticket movie! Please, don’t even get me started on the flick, which I consider a blight on Aamir’s acting abilities; a movie on which I wasted two precious hours of my life. I sure wish someone clobbered me over the head with an iron rod so that I would forget everything that happened after I decided to watch the bloody film! But then, this article isn’t about the movie.
Looks like things for December just got real.
This past November saw some nice, well-rounded events (both launch-related and for the public) – whether we were churning EPIC’s Gears (twice!), going Undercover before you made that trip to Metacritic, and least we forget Big Bose and his pals paying a visit to Mumbai, Bangalore, and Delhi for some Battle of the SingStars. This December, however, will go back to whats most chaotic of them all: the LAN parties.
Hygienists, beware! More after the jump.
UPDATE #2: The game is now available in India. Check here for more information.
UPDATE: We spoke with the distributor, who said that there was a minor unforeseeable delay, and that the game has already been despatched to all metros and should be available on shelves by Saturday (6/12) morning at the latest. If you don’t live in a metro, expect to find the game at your favourite game outlet by Monday (8/12) or Tuesday (9/12).
When Calvin once asked why the world couldn’t even be unfair in his favour, he would’ve been really happy if he was one of those thousands of people who were left confused, heartbroken and angry after news emerged that GTA IV for the PC could get delayed in the country.
And, to add to one of those rare occasions where we are the bearer of good news, it looks like you really wouldn’t have to wait after all if you were planning to drive Mr. Bellic around town on your monster PC. So yes, the game is coming out on December 3rd, as originally planned and yes, it will be available at the previously mentioned low, low price of INR 499, so there’s really no excuse not to buy one copy for playing and one NRFB copy for a keepsake, like someone I know is planning to do.
And for all those people who were getting increasingly paranoid over the game’s SecuROM DRM software, (yours truly included) it looks like things aren’t as bad as they are with EA’s games. Head over here for a 2-page interview by PC Games Hardware with Rockstar where every detail about the relaxed DRM mechanism in use by GTA IV PC is revealed.
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.
[Image: Bernardo Bertolucci's The Dreamers]
Looks like somebody up there (or down here) finally decided to have some pity on Indian gamers without an Internet connection, a credit card, a Play-Asia account and oh, about 3 weeks of patience. Or in some cases, way longer. After having ignored the country for a long time, except for Lost Planet: Extreme Condition on the Xbox 360, Jap videogame giant Capcom have tied up with local distribution giant Milestone Interactive to bring all their upcoming and back catalog titles to the country.
While the distribution would initially stick to the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and the PSP platforms, Milestone says they would also be offering PC and PlayStation 2 titles somewhere down the line. The back catalog, which currently includes hot property such as Dead Rising, Lost Planet: Extreme Condition and Devil May Cry 4 will be available starting this week at stores all over the country, with newer games such as MotoGP ‘08, Street Fighter IV and Resident Evil 5 being available in accordance with the international street dates for these titles.