Man Marries Nintendo DS Character. Why Yes, It Was In Japan
Last Sunday, a man by the handle of Sal9000 was married to Nene Anegasaki of the Nintendo DS game, Love Plus. The ceremony was lovely by any standards, including an audience, a priest, and both the bride and groom. It was also webcast over the asian version of 4Chan, which is why we have the video below, courtesy of Boing Boing.
Okay, so it’s maybe a little pathetic, but it’s not without precedent. The Greek playwright Ovid recounts a story where the sculptor Pygmalion falls in love with a statue. The desire for romance is strong in humanity, but we are sorely limited by time and space such that finding the right person to share that romance is like finding a needle in a haystack when the haystack can sue for assault when …
Obama Calls For Focus On Science, Technology, Engineering And Math – Gaming Industry Forms STEM Cell
Much like Voltron, the mechanical giants of the gaming industry are coming together in a towering colossus to bring in the government dough. The core is the issue is Obama’s STEM program, an attempt to bring the upcoming generation into the scientific and engineering fields. You know, the things what keep a country strong and powerful.
Toward this end, the Administration sees video games as a potential way to educate and inspire the nation’s youth. Sony, Microsoft, the ESA, and the MacArthur Foundation, among others, agree. Together, they have arranged a series of video game competitions under the STEM program’s principles.
Read the press release at PR Newswire.
Russia Endorses, Empowers Pirate Gaming Market By Banning Modern Warfare 2
As the majority of the gaming public knows by now, if sales figures are any indication, Modern Warfare 2 is not a game that surrounds Russians with sweetness and light. In fact, our post-communist friends are portrayed rather badly, especially in a level called “No Russian” which involves a nasty airport shooting.
Strangely, Russia has become concerned about their image of late, both in the world and at home. As a consequence, someone took offense to Modern Warfare 2’s portrayal of Russians, and so banned the game. Copies of the game were pulled off store shelves, and Activision has been working with the game’s studio to put together a censored version to smooth over the objectionable content.
You can read more about the story here.
Of course, a banned game quickly becomes a pirated game, and from what I hear, MW2 didn’t need any new encouragement on …
Video Game Sales Crash, Only Make Several Billion More Than The Entire Movie Industry
Quoted off the Wall Street Journal, because if anyone knows gaming, it’s those boys.
“The NPD Group will release sales data for October late Thursday afternoon. Analysts on average are expecting sales to decline about 11% from the same month last year, according to a tabulation of estimates by MarketWatch.”
This follows a slight bump upwards in September, but the numbers are somewhat deceptive. They’re a comparison to October of last year, which saw the release of little, unnoticed titles like Fallout 3, Fable 2, and Guitar Hero: World Tour. In comparison, we’re getting more, ah, unique games like Brutal Legend (buy it) and Borderlands (buy the console version). The release of that Modern Warfare 2 game should help, a little. I guess. People seem to like it, right?
Gaming sales are also seeing a boost after the major players cut prices on their consoles, especially Sony. …
Battle.net Ultimatum Date Draws Near, Merge Accounts Or Perish
Blizzard is advising all players in their vast and sprawling World of Warcraft empire to join together in merging Battle.Net and Warcraft accounts. The move to merge all players onto a single account system has been coming for some time, with Blizzard offering gentle nudges and suggestions. The gentleness has ended.
Now the axe comes out.
All players, users, hackers, spammers, pubbies, puggers, scammers, keyloggers, and ERPers must merge their accounts before November 11th. Dire wrath faces those who resist the purity of Blizzard’s single-account system.
Read more at World of Warcraft’s community site.
The Dead Shall Sing, And No Doubt Sues Band Hero
Digital technology has allowed the dead to rise from their troubled graves, the most recent and truly creepy event being when Guitar Hero 5 launched with Kurt Cobain as a playable character. Kurt warbling through a Nirvana tracklist wasn’t the issue, really, but more that he could be set to sing tunes from other bands. Some songs just aren’t improved by a virtual undead mannequin.
This also created a certain amount of legal trouble, as in a totally unexpected surprise, artists care about what their digital images do, say, and sing. Their widowed wives do, too. Courtney Love complained then about the practice of turning her extremely lucrative husband into a juke box, and now it’s Band Hero’s turn to face the ire of its own performers.
The kind of punkish band No Doubt is suing Activision, the parent company of the Band Hero …
Wii Sales Slow, Investors Concerned, Nintendo Shrugs
Sales of Nintendo’s popular Wii console have slowed on the news that nearly every man, woman, and child on this green earth already has one. As the Wii reaches parity with the population of the globe, investors have become concerned. The Wii has seen a sales drop of better than 50% over the quarter, which places it, ah… let me see… Oh yes, places it some millions of units above its nearest rivals.
Nintendo’s top game designer, one Shigeru Miyamoto, has taken the news well. To help promote the upcoming Super Mario Bros. game, he’s packed up on a tour of the USA, showing off the game and giving a few rare interviews about how Nintendo is responding to the economic slowdown.
Read more at BusinessWeek.com.
Video Gamers Get Better – In Their Dreams
Dreaming and learning may be part of the same process, a new study from the Harvard Medical School suggests. In the study, volunteers played the rightly hallowed FPS, DOOM, and then answered questions about their dreams. Often, elements from DOOM would turn up in their dreams, like shotguns, blood, and demons.
“It really looks like if you’re not dreaming about it, you’re not getting better,” says Robert Stickgold, one of the researchers in the study.
Halloween Horror Games You Haven’t Played – But Should
Everyone out there is spitting up their own lists of the same creepy survival horror games right now, the only difference being which Silent Hill or Resident Evil is parked were on the countdown. Screw that.
I’m here to help you people out, and that’s what I’m going to do. Not every good horror game had the backing of a major producer, and you certainly won’t find them all on the PS3 and Xbox 360. May I instead present a list of the more obscure, more interesting horror games to crawl out into the gaming scene? Check out these titles as they lurk in the shadows, ready to suckle gently at your soul.
The Top 7 Scariest Games You’ve Never Played, courtesy of Games Radar.
Epic Mickey For Wii, Screenshots And Details Released
Over here at Vox, we’ve got a stack of what claims to be concept art for a new Disney game. It’s a motley collection of steampunk, decaying buildings, and strange, mechanical twists on classic Disney characters. Rumours around this art whisper the name of something called “Epic Mickey.”
Recently, official screenshots hit the Internet. Although the steampunk art might have been a hoax, the game is real, and it’s weird.
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