Sunday, December 4, 2011

News Roundup: 4 December 2011

The weekly news stories that caught my eye for the week ending 4 December.  Getting down to the wire on the year.  Stories, as always, after the jump with article links in the headlines!



Oooohhh!  Cactus!  Half-way there!

It's Christmas time which means plenty of donation drives make a push. One of the bigger ones, Child's Play (operated by fine folks at Penny Arcade), has many opportunities for gamers to dig deep and donate to the cause. Every year, a group plays Desert Bus, a dull driving game from Penn andTeller's Smoke and Mirrors (an unreleased Sega CD game). It is a real-time bus drive from Las Vegas, NV to Tucson, AZ, with a bus that pulls slightly right (at odd intervals), the bus cannot exceed 45 MPH and there is nearly no change in scenery. These valiant gamers play the game non-stop until the money runs out. This year, the intrepid group made nearly $4000. Wow! I urge those of you with the means to please donate to a Child's Play charity if you can. Tis the season and all!


Ueda, head of Team Ico

According to an article in Eurogamer, the man behind the amazing Ico and Shadow of the Colossus, Fumito Ueda, has cut ties with Sony. It's said that he'll remain as a freelancer to finish the third game, The Last Guardian, which has been in development hell for a while now. This may shed some light on why the game announced in 2009 has been absent from the last few trade shows (Tokyo Game Show and E3 being the biggest). Here's hoping it's a civil split and that The Last Guardian makes it out intact. (via Joystiq)


The infamous sign

Multiple game sites picked up this image seen on Reddit. Wow, Best Buy. That's definitely a challenge. The gauntlet is thrown, but it may not be widespread. An anonymous Best Buy employee told me that it wasn't a corporate sponsored sign, so someone at that store took initiative (maybe too far). We'll see how this all shakes out, but competition is always good. (via Destructiod)


It's coming here after all!

Hooray! One of the best Wii RPGs has finally been confirmed for release in North America. Nintendo, according to Edge, is releasing the game in “Early April” next year exclusively through Game Stop (both online and in store). This gives the Wii two fantastic RPG adventures in it's twilight years! I'm rather pleased to have reason to keep the Wii in rotation after Skyward Sword which I loved! I don't know if we can chalk this up to Operation Rainfall, the fan driven initiative to get Xenoblade, The Last Story and Pandora's Tower released outside Japan, or if Nintendo had planned this anyhow. Either way, I'm excited for April!


While not great, it had its moments

Sad news. Day 1 Studios, the team behind Fracture and F.3.A.R. (F.E.A.R 3) had a deal fall through with Konami and now face closure. It sounds like around 100 folks will be out of work. My thoughts and well wishes go out to each of them, and the hopes that they find something soon. (via Game Informer)

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