WANT!: MGS4 Dated & Bundled, God of War Special Edition Red PSP Cometh

Is today some kind of Sony Fanboy Appreciation Day?

Sony hosted a retailer conference earlier today and made a string of solid announcements. I’m still trying to catch my breath, really.

• Metal Gear Solid 4 will be released on June 12, 2008. The game will also be bundled with 80GB PS3, DualShock 3 controller, and a bad-ass black box with sweet Solid Snake reflection action (pictured above) for $499.
• The US will be getting a new PSP bundle this June that includes God of War: Chains of Olympus and Special Edition Red PSP for $200. Why red, you ask? Because Kratos drinks people’s blood like red Kool-Aid, that’s why. I’m a sucker for the color red and this PSP has ‘WANT’ painted all over it.
• Metal Gear Online will have an open beta this April. By “open” I mean you have to pre-order MGS4 in order to beta test.
• The DualShock 3, a SIXAXIS with a mind-blowing new feature known as “rumble”, will be heading to the US on April 15th for $55
  

Ladies and gentlemen, start your wallets.

Shiny PSP up ahead!

[Source: Kotaku]

Cheap Thrills: Great Xbox 360 Themes for Free

I’m still in college I’m not necessarily cheap for a gamer. I do buy used games whenever possible (who doesn’t?) but I’m willing to shell out for a Rock Band bundle and an extra guitar without having to split it with friends (because they’re a-holes. Yeah, that’s right, I’m calling you out Kevin and Taf). Although I love spending money on games but cannot stand microtransactions. I loathe them. Therefore, I despise Xbox Live Marketplace with a passion. Okay, no, wait, that was kinda harsh. I just give XBLM dirty looks every now and then, you know, out of distrust. Especially when it makes me spend money just to customize my dashboard. I do have a (very) slight tolerance for legit downloadable content; the only DLC to take my marketplace virginity was the Oasis Song Pack for Rock Band.

So what happens when you’re a customization whore but too stubborn to hand your money over to Billy G? You start looking for free themes on XBLM. Here are some that are awesome but won’t cost you a damn cent.

January NPD: Wii and CoD4 Stay Top, PS3 Beats 360 & DS, Makes Everyone Go “Huh?”

 

Here we go again.

Nintendo Wii – 274K
Playstation 3 – 269K
Playstation 2 - 264K
Nintendo DS – 251K
PSP – 230K
Xbox 360 – 230K

Woah. Something looks different. Well, not too different.  As always, the Wii appears at the top of the list, but take a look at second place. Yes, the PS3 managed to defeat both the DS and Xbox 360 in sales numbers for the month of January. Now wait, before some of you get all excited and proclaim “Teh end of M$ has come!” and “Sony FTW!!1!” you have to take a lot of things into perspective. Yesterday morning Microsoft released a statement claiming to have had a hardware shortage after the recent money-makin’ holiday season. Hmmm, believable although somewhat skeptical; upon browsing my local electronic stores I did notice a number of Halo Edition 360’s (they’re not very pretty, are they) but not Premium or Elite models. Either way their statement saved them much embarrassment when the numbers hit the net. In December the Wii and DS went Incredible Hulk sales beasts on us and were definitely supply constrained, so as expected they had Bruce a more Bruce Banner like appearance in January. So with Nintendo and Microsoft having only leftovers (table scraps, even) from the holidays to sell in stores is this a huge victory for Sony? It depends on how you look at it.

It’s like pitting two teams against each other yet one team is without their starting line-up. You could defeat the Lakers by 15 to 20 points, but was it a significant win if Kobe was out injured? No. But the fact that you won in the first place is pretty impressive if the Lakers are considered better than you. Supply constraints or not, it’s a solid effort by Sony to top Microsoft especially with only one game in the top 10. Will they win next month? I doubt it. If the hardware shortages the MS claim are in fact true, Kobe (and a fresh new shipment) will return next and change it all. With the Wii staying undefeated in probably it’s most depleted state means the demand is not going anywhere for a while.

On the software side of things Call of Duty 4 is still tearing sh*t up. Rock Band narrowly eclipsed Guitar Hero III for the 360. No More Heroes apparently sold just over 100K units, which is OK for a new mature IP for a child-friendly console. Burnout Paradise debuts in the Top 10, which is a good thing. Look at that GH3 for Wii…

1. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (Xbox 360) – 330,900
2. Wii Play (Wii) – 298,100
3. Guitar Hero III (Wii) – 239,600
4. Rock Band (Xbox 360) – 183,800
5. Guitar Hero III (Xbox 360) – 182,700
6. Super Mario Galaxy (Wii) – 172,000
7. Burnout Paradise (Xbox 360) – 144,100
8. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (PS3) – 140,000
9. Mario Party DS (DS) – 138,500
10. Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games (DS) – 133,000

Review: Rock Band

+ Fun
+ Great Soundtrack
+ Downloadable songs every week
- Boring to single player experience
- Too much fun
- Fender Stratocaster < Gibson Les Paul

We all have a little bit of rock n’ roll inside of us and it manages to creep out every once in a while. Some people crank up the volume and bust out an amazing air guitar solo when their roommates aren’t present while others aren’t so smooth and have their moms awkwardly walk in on them singing out loud to ‘Pretty Fly for a White Guy’. Yes, we all want to be rockstars but certain things keep us from doing so: schoolwork, loved ones, I Love New York Season 2 (guilty). So what do you when your wildest, crowd-surfing, drum-ripping, guitar-grooving and groupie-loving dreams can’t come true? You do the next best thing by rocking out to Rock Band.

Think of it as four-player Guitar Hero except with two guitars, drums and a microphone. Not making any sense? Well, for those of you with less imagination than L’il Jon’s rhyme book I’ll go into greater detail. A portion of your TV screen is dedicated to each instrument and different colored notes scroll down to a horizontal bar near the bottom while the lyrics to the song, located at the top, scroll from right to left. It’s your job to hit the corresponding button on your instrument as the note and bar eclipse. At that point guitarists click down on the strum bar while holding a fret button, drummers simply give one of the four drum pads a solid tap (or sometimes two at the same time) and singers follow along by lowering or heightening the pitch of their voice. If performed correctly these steps will make you feel like the Foo Fighters in no time.

Chu is Now Playing: Devil May Cry 4, No More Heroes, Prof Layton, and COD4 Just Won’t Die

 - I picked up Devil May Cry 4 (360) this past weekend and so far I’m quite pleased with what Capcom has done with one of my personal favorite franchises. I’ll keep my impressions short for now since I have  a review coming soon (promise). Thankfully it’s not as hard as DMC3, easily one of the most frustrating games of last-gen, so you won’t be throwing your controller out the window anytime. I’m playing on the harder difficulty right now and it is challenging but not stressful. Seeing as Dante is my hero (that guy just doesn’t give a f…) I wasn’t expecting to like Nero, but he really isn’t all that bad. His Devil Bringer, a crazy phantom arm that grabs and throws enemies, adds an extra dimension to boss battles and combos. Plus, his sword has a freakin’ throttle! Yeah, like on a motorbike but on a sword. Why didn’t anyone think of that before? As much as I love what he brings to the game I’d give it all up just to kick tail as Dante. Also, if you’re a DMC veteran playing with the Xbox controller is going to feel pretty weird for a while. If I owned a PS3 (which will happen once Solid Snake is back in action) I probably would’ve picked up the PS version even with the pointless pre-game installation.

- No More Heroes (Wii) is a good game, not a spectacular game, just a good one. Hardcore Wii owners have been rallying up its buzz  since it’s the first mature-rated original IP the console has seen. They hope it will justify the reason they own the same console that’s become a regular in retirement homes. The game has quite a few camera issues and as much as I like its art style the graphics could have used a little more detail. What I do love about the game is just how different it is from any game out there. The game is just so odd and out there that it’s easy to fall in love with if you’re an action nut. It brings up the same emotions I had when I first saw Kill Bill and was blown away by its unique image. The best way I can describe NMH is a “Quentin Tarantino-esque” action game with good motion controls. It’s definitely worth playing. I mean, you’re aren’t playing anything else on your Wii anyway, right?

- Is Professor Layton and the Curious Village (DS) a big deal? Should I be excited that it just hit the US? I never really paid much attention to it until I realized Nintendo World Store had a launch party for it just recently. I guess it was a big hit in Japan. I decided to give it a go for about ten minutes and it’s pretty cool. Prof. Layton is a regular Sherlock Holmes and travels to a village to solve mysteries and puzzles with the help of your DS. I do enjoy the cutscenes though, which resemble a fully animated anime episode. I hear it has weekly puzzles available as DLC which is a nice touch. I’ll have more thoughts on it later on.

I have a problem. A serious problem. Instead of taking the time to complete the story modes of several games I find myself still getting sucked into Call of Duty 4’s multiplayer. It’s getting pretty bad. I’ve ignored so many quality games because I’m obsessed with getting to Prestige Mode (for the second time) just so I’ll have a cool emblem next to my gamertag. It’s gotten so bad that a copy of Super Mario Galaxy lies next to my TV and has been completely ignored for the past two months. I haven’t even beaten CoD4’s single-player campaign (sad, I know) because I’m trying to get new camo for my M16. And when I’m not playing CoD I’m playing the drums on Rock Band. Terrible.

New Mario Kart Wii Details Surface, Breaks chuboi.com’s Streak of Brawl Posts

Ok, Ok. I’ll stop talking about Brawl for a bit. Sheesh.

That better not be the final boxart.  

If there’s any other game I love to get into profanity-filled yelling fights with my friends other than Smash, its Mario Kart. The racing game that takes everything games like Gran Turismo and Forza stand for and slaps them in the face is finally coming to the Wii. According to that’s-kinda-skeptical-but-quite-soothing rumors it will be released April 10th in Japan and not too later in the US. According to woah-now-I’m-really-getting-psyched rumors MKWii will feature…

-  Bikes have special tricks like wheelies
- 16 remade & 16 new courses
- 12 players online mode
- Race with you Mii’s
- Online league &  Global world ranking
- Local ranking
- Mario Kart Channel on your dashboard for online mode
- Send and eceive time attack scores over wifi
- Online ranking for time attack
- Upload/download Ghosts

[via GoNintendo]

Brawl Sells 820K, Looks Down Upon Mario Galaxy

Yes, the hype has certainly paid off, or at least in Japan. Brawl has reportedly moved over 800,000 units since it hit the Far East on January 31st. By the time you’re reading this the game has already eclipsed Mario Galaxy’s mediocre Japanese sales. Some of you might look back at Halo 3’s monumental colossal US launch and respond to this with a “meh” but the Brawl sales are quite impressive once you consider that Japan has a much smaller population and that Nintendo only shipped around 800k copies of the mascot-fest. Yes, that means Brawl pretty much sold out its entire week’s stock. Plus, its hype machine didn’t cost $10 million. No, it was a simple, low cost, and effiecient one made up of 30% blog, 10% TV spots and 110% fanboy lust. Yeah, that doesn’t add up but you get the point: Brawl causes nerdgasms.