1P Start

This week in releases brings us a new Destroy All Humans, a not too shabby video game adaptation of the tv series Lost, and my favorite game early in the 360’s life cycle, Lost Planet. Though I have other games that grab my attention now, there is still a piece of my heart reserved for this series, I am glad now PS3 owners can share in the love. Though I will admit I am a bit jealous, as the PS3 version does include all the downloadable maps that I ended up having to pay for… AND.. it is only $40 right now (I guess there is also that free online play element to add to the jealous rage). Once you experience Lost Planet’s multiplayer maps, you will never look at any other shooting game’s maps the same again, I wish as much care went into other games as Capcom invested in this gem. Now onto the list!

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Well, every week can’t be full of winners, and this week proves that. If you are on the 360, I am sure you haven’t beat Lost Odyssey in just one week. Not an RPG fan? Perhaps then some Pimping of your Ride on the Wii or helping law abiding citizens with Apollo Justice on the DS is more suited for you (No DS? check out the Flash Demo of the game here, very cool). Check out the full list below, lots of GameFly queue material here:

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All WoW addicts pay attention! Your little gaming habit could be ruining every other aspect of your life, from your career, to your health, or even your relationships. Don’t believe me? Then believe the case of a guy who now finds himself single due purely to World of Warcraft.

An ex-employee of Blizzard entertainment, makers of World of Warcraft, has divorced her husband after six years of marriage, citing his WoW addiction as the reason the marriage ended in disaster.

28 year old Jocelyn had never played the game herself but stated that her husband Peter’s addiction to the game crippled their relationship, until it became more than she could handle.

She bought him the game, and nine months later, the marriage was in dire straits, and she applied for divorce. The lesson learned straight away is not to buy your partner World of Warcraft, unless you want to see a lot less of him of course.

She said:

He would get home from work at 6:00, start playing at 6:30, and he’d play until three a.m. Weekends were worse — it was from morning straight through until the middle of the night. It took away all of our time that we spent together. I ceased to exist in his life.”

“I bought the game for him for Christmas 2004, when it first came out. By May we had our first serious discussion about where our marriage was going, and by September I had moved out.”

California resident Jocelyn did try and talk to her husband about his “problem” on many occasions, and even tried to create together time for the couple to rediscover their relationship.

Unfortunately, hubby Peter was so utterly addicted to the game, he refused because he was in the middle of a raid. He then stopped paying bills and refused to do any of the housework.

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This week in new releases shows more variety then usual, it goes all the way from My Horse & Me (PC) to Lost Odyssey (Xbox 360). There is a game for every system and genre, as well as for the most part all new franchises that deserve a little of your love (Professor Layton on DS).

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As work for Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 finishes up, a designer on the game, Philippe Therien sat down with Eurogamer to discuss the series. The second sentence and first quote posted ends up being a huge “THANK GOD” heard worldwide across millions of computers as they read the news:

“We will never go back to Vegas - at least, not in the foreseeable future.”

Now does this mean the next Rainbow Six (After Vegas 2) will include a full game that sticks with one locale, that is not known at this moment. What is known, is that a lot of gamers were very happy when Rainbow Six was released and having the full game be set in Las Vegas = cool! However the novelty has worn thin, I think Xbox Live activity numbers can attest to that, Rainbow Six Vegas ended up being a rental rather than a buy for a lot (or at least CoD4 and Halo 3 has stopped everyone on my friends list from playing.. which I am sure is partly to blame as well).

Still, I have read Eurogamers’s preview of the game and I know at the very least I will be adding this to my GameFly queue right this second, the game is shaping up quite nicely, still not a “must buy” so far, but I can wait for full reviews to get behind that statement fully.

(Note: Literally 10-20 seconds after posting this news I was emailed a Digg story from the good folks at MEGATONik showing 9 new videos of Rainbow Six Vegas 2 in action.. I am off to check that post now because reading a preview of a game vs video of said game is no brainer)
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Interview, Leaving Las Vegas, Philippe Therien, Rainbow Six, Ubisoft

Random deal of the moment. Amazon is offering up Sid Meier’s Civilization IV: Gold Edition at 40% off, so it is $29.99 and shipping is free. On Metacritic has this game with a score of 94, that is huge. So if you PC gamers do not already have this great strategy game, get on it.

I love this quote about the game from GameSpy: “This is what PC strategy is all about: hour after hour of interesting decisions and nail-biting conflicts. The single-player game alone is remarkable, but the addition of multiplayer (and yes, it actually works this time) puts it over the top.”

[Source CAG, forums sadly down at the moment]

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Deals, Sid Meier, Civilization IV, Gold Edition, Amazon, Deal of the Day

The latest NPD results are in for PC gaming during the whole of 2007, and they show two distinct things: PC gaming revenue is down overall, at least in terms of over the counter retail sales; the same old faces are topping the charts for sales, with add-ons, expansion packs and alternate versions of existing franchises taking the top ten places on the chart.

The NPD numbers don’t take in to account anything other than retail sales, so that immediately rules out the effect of digital downloads on outlets like Steam on sales figures.

Bearing that in mind, retail sales have fallen quite substantially from $970 million in 2006 to $910.7 million in 2007. That’s a fall of almost $60 million and bears out thoughts that the PC gaming market is struggling at the moment.

The Top Ten PC Games Sales For 2007 In The US:

1. World Of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade (Vivendi) - 2.25 million
2. World Of Warcraft (Vivendi) - 914,000
3. The Sims 2: Seasons Expansion Pack (Electronic Arts) - 433,000
4. Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (Activision) - 383,000
5. Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars (Electronic Arts) - 343,000
6. Sim City 4 Deluxe (Electronic Arts) - 284,000
7. The Sims 2 (Electronic Arts) - 281,000
8. The Sims 2: Bon Voyage Expansion Pack (Electronic Arts) - 271,000
9. Age Of Empires III (Microsoft) - 259,000
10. The Sims 2: Pets Expansion Pack (Electronic Arts) - 236,000

It’s no surprise to see World Of Warcraft and The Burning Crusade expansion pack taking the top two positions. Although I was quite surprised to see such a big gap between them and the third placed Sims 2: Seasons.

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Ladies and Gents it pains me to say my farewells to 1PStart. I’ve been here only a short time, though I’ve been at Xbox 360 Rally (another 451 site) for just under a year. I will miss you guys, though you’re probably throwing a party, chanting “he’s leaving! Huzzah! Huzzah!”. If you do miss me, though, you can find me at my new home BingeGamer.net.

It’s been fun, and I hope to see y’all around.

P.S.: Qbix — E-mail me, dude. I’m still gonna get your GTA IV to ya.

Lots of random little great deals have popped up post Christmas for you to spend any left over (or newly received) monies.

For those that don’t have it still, Halo 3 is only $29.90 at GoGamer.

GameFly is having a Year End Sale up until January 4th: Some example deals are The Darkness only $12.34, Forza 2 $14.24, and Shadowrun for $12.34. I would really check this link and look into their full list, they have a ton of deals on all systems.

For the PC users, Steam is having a sale, 10-50% Everything! Great deals include, The Orange Box - $37.45, Bioshock $37.45, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. - $22.45, and Psychonauts - 9.95!! (If you haven’t played this title yet, you have no excuse not to now. You can even use a 360 controller.)

World of Warcrack - $9.99!! (Now you have no reason not to get addicted!)

Xbox Live Arcade Unplugged - $7.99 @ Amazon
Comes with full versions of
* Geometry Wars
* Bejeweled 2 Deluxe
* Wik - Fable of Souls
* Hardwood Backgammon
* Outpost Kaloki X.
Possibly the best deal of them all.

Expreview, a site I’ve never heard of before now (I don’t get around, I’m sorry) is reporting that nVidia’s newest graphics card, the nVidia GeForce 9800 GX2, will be released on February 19th, 2008.

We can not learn much of the card, Only knows it will be a dual GPU card and communicate with built-in SLI. It also have a SLI connector so it will become the another card supporting Quad SLI like its predecessor 7950 GX2. The power module of the card is somehow different, it have one 6pin and one 8pin power connector.

The previously rumored release date for the high-end 9800 GX2 was sometime in March. While the above refers to the GeForce 7950 GX2 as the immediate predecessor to the upcoming 9800 GX2, the new card will be using dual G92 chips as the 8800 GX2 does. It will be very interesting to see how this new card performs, though my rational side has a hard time believing that nVidia would already want to trump it’s 8800 series.

…I get the distinct feeling all our console readers saw was “crap, blah, blah, techno crap, more crap, blah, even more techno crap, blah, blah”. I assure you, console faithful – this all makes perfect sense.

If it’s true, of course.

nVidia, GeForce, 9800 GX2

Wow, it has been a pretty bad set of releases recently. I know, holiday stuff came a month or so back, but man, some one game could come out and really cash in just for the fact that it would have no competition. This week features MX vs. ATV Untamed on almost every console that exists, and of course the great return of the Nights series on Wii. I hope it does good for Sega and also because I want it to be good when I spend my hard earned money to rent it. Without further adieu, the releases this week:

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Last week’s release list of games wasn’t too shabby, no notable big name titles, just an overall list of quantity. The week before that however, it was just sad. Well, it looks as though it is another week of sad as far as a good list of games is concerned. Maybe this is all for the better, I still need to rank up a lot more in Call of Duty 4, I have plenty of stars to get in Mario Galaxy, and to add to this my friend lent me his copy of Mass Effect (which I haven’t even put a dent in).

There is one thing this week though that is strictly for the hardcore, if you haven’t caught on to what it is by the header picture, then you must not be a PC gamer or PS3 owner…. Unreal Tournament III is here (instant wood for K&M gamers). Check after the break for the full list of games this week:

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You wanna see something you won’t see every day? How about Jean-Claude Van Damme actually working? Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Jean-Claude Van Damme has joined the ranks of Mr. T and William Shatner as a spokesman for the game that really… really doesn’t need any spokesman, World of Warcraft.

In France. Video after the break.

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The kind folks over at NinjaBee have enlisted me to give you all notice: They’re holding a contest to give away a copy of Band of Bugs for the PC. You also get a T-Shirt, but let’s not kid ourselves — the game is the main draw here.

If you want to get a feel for Band of Bugs before you enter the contest, download the demo on Xbox LIVE. It’s a simple, fun, addictive little strategy game that, with the inclusion of a custom map creator, will have you coming back again and again.

And I’m not just saying that. I actually like this game.

Here’s how you enter the contest: You have to submit a picture of yourself with any character from the game, Band of Bugs. Doesn’t matter how you submit the picture (sketching, PhotoShop, MS Paint, etc.), but you have to submit a picture to [email protected]. Images are ranked based on humor factor, so get to makin’ the funny. The contest ends on November 30th, or a week from Friday, so get to it.

NinjaBee, Band of Bugs, contest, free game

Cyanide Studios, who’ve previously worked on several DS and PSP titles as well as Loki for the PC, have announced that they are working on a game called “Blood Bowl”, which will feature a new game engine developed by Cyanide Studios that promises to blend “real-life, real-time character behaviour for collisions, falls, tackles, kicks, punches, etc while takeing into account all the forces governing the game environment”.

Blood Bowl itself is based on a table-top fantasy football game from Games Workshop (Warhammer 40,000 ring a bell?), set in a universe where goblins, dwarfs, elves, trolls, orcs and humans settle their differences on the gridiron, in an obvious parody of American Football. I asked how the game will play, and while nothing is yet set in stone, I’ve been told that it will involve both Madden-esque real-time play as well as the tabletop/turn-based gameplay found in both the table-top game and Cyanide’s previous release, Chaos League. Of course, this info could easily change over time.

Blood Bowl is currently slated for a late 2008 release on the Xbox 360, PC, PSP and Nintendo DS.

Download the full resolution Blood Bowl image

Cyanide Studios, Blood Bowl