April 2011 Archives

Sony held a press conference at 2PM (Japan time) to answer questions on the PSN breach. Kazuo Hirai, CEO of Sony, headed the panel with two other officers from the company: Senior VP, Shiro Kambe, and CIO, Shinji Hasejima. Together, they answered questions and provided some explanation for what has been happening. After a short introduction and an opening statement, all three then deeply bowed in a formal demonstration of sincere apology.

Much of what was said was already generally known such as the involvement of the FBI and Homeland Security. However, it was mentioned that the passwords were hashed (giving them some protection) and that Sony reiterated their ongoing efforts to strengthen the network along with their deepest apologies for the inconvenience that this has caused everyone.

They also covered a timeline detailing events from when the intrusion was made between April 17 - 19th and when they shut PSN down on the 20th once detecting it, finally engaging an unnamed "top" security firm in the United States on the 24th to help with their investigations.

Shinji Hasejima, Sony's CIO, explained that the exploit had gone in appearing as a normal transaction and left the system in the same way, avoiding the conventional security measures they had in place. As with Kazuo Hirai, he promises that stronger measures will be implemented. SNEI (Sony Network Entertainment International) manages the PSN servers' data center located at an AT&T facility in California.

Kazuo Hirai had also stated they they are not certain that Anonymous is to blame for this breach, referencing only the problems that they have had with the hacktivist group in the past. They still have not determined who the actual perpetrators are. To that end, they are working with law enforcement officials in various countries as the investigation expands.

At one point, it had been mentioned that Sony will cover the fees associated with the re-issuance of credit cards (presumably such as those a card company may charge for a replacement). When pressed for further details by the press, it was then explained that while there is no clear evidence of leaked credit card info or improper use, if there is illegal usage and the customer suffers damage, then Sony will deal with it on a case by case basis. According to a statement earlier in the conference, there are approximately 10 million credit cards registered on PSN (out of an estimated 77 million accounts).

A "Welcome Back" program was also mentioned for when PSN returns which includes a thirty day trial period of  PS Plus along with a number of other incentives from their Marketplace as an apology to all affected users.

Update (5.01.11): Playstation Blog has updated with a review of what was stated in the conference as well as noting that PSN and Qriocity services will be rolling out worldwide in phases. Also updated the original article above to reflect that the passwords were actually hashed. If you want to watch the whole thing (which is more than an hour and a half), it's located here.

Here's the new preview for "Lego Pirates of the Caribbean: The Video Game." This one focuses on the Lego-fication of the Disney franchise's third installment, "At World's End."


The game is scheduled for a May 10 release for Nintendo DS, Nintendo 3DS, Nintendo Wii, PC, PlayStation 3, Sony PSP and XBox 360.

Sony Computer Entertainment confirmed today that the hacker (or hackers) who broke into PlayStation's Network and Qriosity systems accessed users' personal information.

PlayStation 3 owners have not been able to access PSN or Qriosity services for about one week. A GamePro editorial accuses Sony of an "astounding breach of trust" for the delay in acknowledging the compromise of sensitive information.

The following is from Sony's  letter to customers  to acknowledging the data breach:

"Although we are still investigating the details of this incident, we believe that an unauthorized person has obtained the following information that you provided: name, address (city, state, zip), country, email address, birthdate, PlayStation Network/Qriocity password and login, and handle/PSN online ID. It is also possible that your profile data, including purchase history and billing address (city, state, zip), and your PlayStation Network/Qriocity password security answers may have been obtained. If you have authorized a sub-account for your dependent, the same data with respect to your dependent may have been obtained."

"While there is no evidence at this time that credit card data was taken, we cannot rule out the possibility. If you have provided your credit card data through PlayStation Network or Qriocity, out of an abundance of caution we are advising you that your credit card number (excluding security code) and expiration date may have been obtained," the letter continued.

Sony shut down PSN and its Qriocity video and music streaming service on April 20. The data breach happened sometime between April 17 and April 19, Sony reported.

Additional coverage:

• Joystiq
• Kotaku

A number of news outlets on the 'net from MCV to VG247 have confirmed that Nintendo's long rumored successor to the Wii is coming out to play at this year's E3. MCV's report, in particular, mentions that the new hardware is slated for a 2012 release.

Now the big question on many players' minds is if it's going to cater equally to both casuals and 'hardcore' gamers.

The distinctions between the two crowds have often been pointed in what games they prefer - hardcores have generally bemoaned the plethora of titles such as Carnival Games and Wii Play, while a game such as Mad World seemed out of place on the console by so-called casuals. It also doesn't help that its shelves have been flooded by shovelware - cheap games with equally as cheap gameplay - diluting the overall quality of its library. Everyone wanted a piece of the huge Wii pie and Nintendo apparently had no problems in letting them grab for it all at once.

Of course, it's way too early to tell. It'll be years before we can see just what the new system is actually capable of and to whom it will mostly appeal to - the games are what will set it apart and we haven't heard too much about those yet. Likely guaranteed are a new Zelda and Mario game sometime in its future. After all, this is Nintendo.

E3 will have more of the answers - and probably provide as many questions. Only one thing's for certain: Nintendo hasn't stopped surprising us yet.

According to the TV series, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Skynet was supposed to become self-aware and launch its attack on humanity on April 21st of this year. It's come and gone, but to members of Sony's Playstation Network, it's as if it's actually happening.

PSN, the free service linking PS3 users together in multiplayer as well as providing the virtual space for Sony's marketplace, has been down for the past few days. Also affected in the past week was Amazon's cloud service hurting anything out there riding on top of it, such as certain websites. It's back in business, though the same can't be said for PSN which is still down as of this writing.

You might have also heard about a hacktivist group called Anonymous upset over Sony's heavy-handed handling over PS3 hacker, George Hotz, whose case was settled before going to court. At this point, they haven't taken responsibility for it and have gone so far as to issue a denial appropriately titled "For Once We Didn't Do It". And it's not like they're the only ones gunning for Sony nowadays.

All we do know is that Sony has finally admitted to an "external intrusion" of their systems and have taken them offline in order to investigate the issue. As for when they're coming back, or what that entails exactly, your guess is as good as mine keeping everyone that bought Mortal Kombat and anything else with multiplayer in the past week for the PS3 raging for awhile longer.

Personally, I'd bet on the rogue AI installing itself on everything with a CPU causing this mess. But that's just me...and anyone named John Connor.

It's been a decade of Dynasty Warriors. Where other games had died off for refusing to evolve, Koei's series has defied the odds, marching on thanks to a dedicated fanbase that can't get enough of tearing through hundreds of costumed cannon fodder without breaking a sweat. It's the kind of punchy appeal that beat 'em ups of old had - only with a SHMUP-like attention to body count.

Following news that Apple's popular iPhone and iPad products keep files tracking users' movements, the Wall Street Journal reports smartphones using Google's Android operating system transmit users' locations to Google.

Apple phones also transmit similar data, the Journal reports.

Google and Apple are gathering location information as part of their race to build massive databases capable of pinpointing people's locations via their cellphones. These databases could help them tap the $2.9 billion market for location-based services--expected to rise to $8.3 billion in 2014, according to research firm Gartner Inc.

In the case of Google, according to new research by security analyst Samy Kamkar, an HTC Android phone collected its location every few seconds and transmitted the data to Google at least several times an hour. It also transmitted the name, location and signal strength of any nearby Wi-Fi networks, as well as a unique phone identifier.

Apple's popular iPhone and iPad products record an unencrypted log of where users take their portable devices, according to several published reports certain to elevate concerns over the potential for consumer electronics to intrude upon privacy.

The data is also stored on any computers synced to iPhones and iPods, according to reports.

From the Associated Press, via San Jose Mercury News:

It's not clear if other smartphones and tablet computers are logging such information on their users. And this week's revelation that the Apple devices do wasn't even new--some security experts began warning about the issue a year ago.

But the worry prompted by a report from researchers Alasdair Allan and Pete Warden at a technology conference in Santa Clara, Calif., raises questions about how much privacy you implicitly surrender by carrying around a smartphone and the responsibility of the smartphone makers to protect sensitive data that flows through their devices.

Much of the concern about the iPhone and iPad tracking stems from the fact the computers are logging users' physical coordinates without users knowing it--and that that information is then stored in an unencrypted form that would be easy for a hacker or a suspicious spouse or a law enforcement officer to find without a warrant.

Researchers emphasize that there's no evidence that Apple itself has access to this data. The data apparently stays on the device itself, and computers the data is backed up to. Apple didn't immediately respond to a request for comment by The Associated Press

Thanks to a collaboration between Namco Bandai, Microsoft Australia, and Australian digital studio, Soap Creative, the "World's Biggest PAC-MAN" is here. It was created to help promote future PAC-MAN properties and from the stats, there's a lot of love out there. Over 274 million dots have been eaten so far in this online game (as of this writing).

Players can also create their own maps that get added to a growing collection of thousands. You'll see love messages, giant PAC-MAN shaped fields of dots, a cat shaped maze, and giant faces all linked together to provide an ever growing playground of close calls and endless eating. It could be Billy Mitchell's worst nightmare - or greatest dream.

It's also free to play. All you need is a computer, a browser, and a lot of time to help wear down your arrow keys. Or a good sense of humor with a dash of devious cunning when you unleash your creativity - as long as you can keep it clean.

Varric the dwarf knows what makes a good story. A strong character and a trusty sidekick go a long way, but impossible odds and an epic scale create staying power.

"Dragon Age 2," with Varric as its only slightly trustworthy narrator, tracks the rise of the Champion of Kirkwall from refugee to leading citizen. As the champion, Hawke to your friends, Dragon Age 2 is the story of your rise to power. Whether man or woman, peacemaker or warmonger, your Hawke will deal with a good deal of quandaries, no one makes it to the top unscathed.

What was the neatest thing you had ever seen in grade school? For the kids at Bondi Public School in Australia, this will probably be something they'll tell their own kids about someday.

A baby T-rex visited as part of a publicity tour for "Walking With Dinosaurs", growling and racing with a few kids before letting them pet it on its tooth filled snout. Fortunately for everyone there, it's only a robot with a very human person inside doing all of the driving!

The show, which features 20 different robotic dinos as part of an educational tour through history, is a huge international hit which actually started out in the Land Down Under. As it winds back home, the show is setting up special visits - like the one in the video below - to help promote it.

Game Informer reports that Nintendo will debut a new console during or even prior to E3, the industry convention to be held in June in Los Angeles.

From their report:

We have confirmed with multiple sources that this new home system is capable of running games at HD resolutions. There are conflicting reports, however, as to whether its graphics will be comparable to those on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 - meaning it could surpass or fall short of those systems. Either way it will offer competitive specifications. Moving to HD should greatly help Nintendo and its new console in getting more multi-platform triple-A titles like Portal 2 or Mortal Kombat. This, in turn, will strengthen Nintendo's historically poor relationship with third-party publishers/developers.

Interesting stuff. It's pretty much accepted as a truism among gaming writers that much of the Wii's success

Intelligence reports from the A.V. Club have it that MGM and Sony Pictures will have the next installment of the James Bond franchise in theaters by Nov. 9, 2012.

The good news here is another outing for Daniel Craig as James Bond, a role the actor played very well in "Casino Royale." Its follow-up "Quantum of Solace," was OK, but I share the opinion of many that it suffered a bit from the filmmakers apparent attempts to ape "The Bourne Identity" franchise's shaky-cam aesthetic.

(For whatever it's worth, my Top Five movies in the Bond franchise are "From Russia With Love," "On Her Majesty's Secret Service," "Casino Royale," "Goldfinger" and "For Your Eyes Only." "Eyes" was my first Bond flick, and "Tomorrow Never Dies" gets an honorable mention for featuring a newspaper magnate as its supervillain.)

The weird (?) news is that "American Beauty" and "Away We Go" director Sam Mendes is still attached to direct the next Bond movie, which will be the series' 23rd installment. Mendes' closest venture to somewhere near Bond territory was probably "Road to Perdition," which starred Tom Hanks as an old-time gangster raising his son while on the run.

This is on the Internet, so I am obligated to make a snarky comment about Mendes - who has made his ideas on suburban ennui a major part of his oeuvre - directing a Bond film. Here it goes. Instead of a typical Bond story about spies and sexy women with funny names, Bond 23 will tell the story of a conflicted Bond, who while spending a break from duty in his lovely Notting Hill home, realizes that Moneypenny is the only woman who he has ever truly loved and wrestles with his inability to commit to her and live a quiet suburban life with a desk job for MI-6.

 

WEST HOLLYWOOD - "Resistance 3" lets players imagine humanity's last stand as a lonely boat ride along a river swarming with murderous aliens.

Game developers Insomniac Games and Sony Computer Entertainment showed a preview of Resistance 3 to reporters who gathered Tuesday at Andaz West Hollywood. The new material included a level that puts new series protagonist Joseph Capellion a boat with scientist Dr. Fyodor Malikov navigating a murky river in an alternate 1957 in which the alien Chimera have taken over the United States.

The boat's route takes the player past the hulking corpse of a Chimera kraken. A host of leapers feast upon the monster's body. Malikov advises the player not to shoot. This isn't a war, the characters just want to survive.

"We're telling a different story than we did in Resistance 1 and 2," lead developer Drew Murray said. "It's about having lost, and (Capellion) having to slip through America to carry out his plan."

So what's not to like about EA's free FPS? It's cheap, disposable 32-player fun that's good for a quick bite of action, though it won't replace your copy of Bad Company or Modern Warfare 2.

It'll be supported through microtransactions which means that you'll need to pony up real-time cash to buy things like extra soldier slots (you start out with only two freebies) and permanent weapons outside of the generic stock that classes start with. It's also still a Beta which means glitches like the one where I had lost an entire level's worth of experience after being dumped from the game. I hope they fix that.

If you want to live free, that's okay, too - experience for levels and training points for skills are still  earned. Vehicles cost nothing, other than having the skill to actually use them - especially in the air - and the maps offer plenty of places to use for cover, snipe, or face to face time with heavy armor. All in all, a fun fix for FPS junkies that doesn't require anything more than a browser and a decent internet connection.

EA Games posted this new screenshot from FIFA 12. Behold.

EA Games today released "Gun Sonata," a pack of downloadable mutliplayer maps for "Bulletstorm," the ultraviolent and irreverent that has been in stores since Feb. 22

Epic Games and People Can Fly developed Bulletstorm. The DLC is available via XBox Live or PlayStation Network, and EA Games reports a PC release is forthcoming.

From the announcement:

Players will have access to three new maps for the game's Anarchy multiplayer mode, including the calamitous Sewers of Stygia, the abandoned Hotel Elysium and the open spaces of Villa. In Anarchy multiplayer mode, teams of up to four players fight together to survive waves of blood-thirsty mutants while scoring skillpoints in order to advance. These new areas provide a playground for gamers to work together to pull off heart-stomping team skillshots as they decimate their foes with creative mayhem mixed with an arsenal of the most gut-wrenching and unique weapons to appear in a first-person shooter game.

 

Gun Sonata Pack also includes two new Echo mode maps, including Crash Site and Guns of Stygia, offering completely new challenges for those competing to top personal high scores and global leaderboard rankings. In Echo mode, Bulletstorm tracks and compares players' scores through locations typically found in the campaign. 

The DLC pack retails for 800 Microsoft Points for XBox 360 players or $9.99 American for PlayStation 3 aficionados.

Our review of Bulletstorm is in the archives.

Nintendo announced its second quarter release schedule today. Major releases include the "The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D"  for the 3DS portable (June 19) and Wii Play: Motion (June 13).

The full list is after the jump:

Electronic Arts and Dice have provided use with a pretty sizable collection and screenshots of Battlefield 3, which is set for a Fall 2011 release for PC, PlayStation 3 and XBox 360.

Check them out after the jump:

Brink, an upcoming FPS under development by Splash Damage, is set to be released one week earlier than previously scheduled, the game's publisher announced today.

The title is now scheduled for a May 10 release in North America for PC, PlayStation 3 and XBox 360.

"Production wrapped on Brink earlier than we planned and we didn't see any reason to keep gamers from getting their hands on this highly anticipated game as soon as it was ready," said Pete Hines, marketing vice president for Bethesda Softworks, the game's publisher. "It's apparent from the tremendous reaction so far that people are eager to jump online and play, and if we can make that happen earlier - we're going to."

Funcom has released a new trailer that delves into the shadowy stories and conspiracies making up its backdrop.

Everything from the Tower of Babel to the Ark of the Covenant are being used as potential jumping off points for this new MMORPG. In it, players will take part in a secret war for the fate of the world as three factions will vie for supremacy using magic, technology, and mythology. Sounds like it could be a winning combination.

Mass Effect series developers BioWare and anime distributors FUNimation Entertainment announced a deal to produce a feature-length anime based on the Mass Effect series.

Tokyo-based T.O. Entertainment will co-produce the film, according to a press release. Mass Effect executive producer Casey Hudson is set to executive produce the anime with
 FUNimation  CEO Gen Fukunaga, Director of Original Entertainment Chris Moujaes and T.O Entertainment's CEO Takeichi Honda and Yui Shibata.

Filmmakers have already started production and digital and video releases are scheduled for summer 2012.

Production of the Mass Effect anime movie has already begun. Digital and home video releases are scheduled for the summer of 2012.

Rockstar Games and Team Bondi have a new trailer for "L.A. Noire" that further showcases the game's cinematic aspects.

Previous trailers have shown game protagonist and 1947 LAPD detective Cole Phelps investigating a case of murder-for-insurance money, a Black Dahlia-esque serial killing case and other examples of vintage vice. The new trailer, the game's third, reveals the game will also put Phelps on the trail of both a rigged boxing match and government-issued morphine. What's more, "the LAPD cops might be involved" with whatever sinister deeds are being committed in the City of Angels.

The trailer doesn't really give prospective players a chance to anticipate what L.A. Noire's actual gameplay will be like, but the featured cut scenes look superb. The game's visuals and soundtrack are reminiscent of such noir classics as "Chinatown" and "L.A. Confidential," just as last year's "Red Dead Redemption" looked to Westerns like "The Wild Bunch" or "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" for visual and thematic inspiration. Is Rockstar guilty of borrowing too much from movies? Let us know what you think.






L.A. Noire is scheduled to be released for PlayStation 3 and XBox 360 on May 17 in North America.

EA Games today announced the release of "Battlefield: Play4Free", a new title the company describes as a mix of "Battlefield 2" and "Battlefield: Bad Company", without the price of having to pay for either title.The free game combines Battlefield 2 maps with Bad Company's weapons and character classes, EA Games announced. Battlefield: Play4Free also features 16 vehicles, including the Mi-28 attack helicopter F-35 VTOL fighter jet.

Video games have proved that many people enjoy participating in kinetic military action as long as they don't actually have to leave home and get shot at. EA Games is now making it possible to play a kinetic military action game without having to pay for it, which seems like a pretty shrewd way to reward PC loyalists and lure FPS fans away from Call of Duty in advance of Battlefield 3.

Battlefield 3 is set for a Fall 2011 release on PC, PlayStation 3 and XBox 360. I thought Battlefield 2 and its franchise brethren were well-made games, although newcomers to  the series need to be prepared to be bombed into the stone age when pitted against longtime players who know how to use the game's aircraft.

I'll have to wait until I get away from my work computer to download the game and offer my opinion. Check back for a new posting later this week.



 

An interesting thread came up on Reddit a few days ago which outed an astroturfer using a large number of accounts to promote certain articles and posts on the site, specifically within its gaming area. One enterprising Redditor did a little digging and exposed the whole thing which you can read about here. The sites that have apparently been benefiting from having a few of their articles promoted in this way on Reddit are GamePro, G4TV, VGChartz, and GamrFeed.

Quite a few of the replies to it are filled with obvious, albeit civil and measured, rage. There are also a few amusing ones in there including one from an account called BiowareMarketingDept complaining about the unfair treatment of Dragon Age 2. But there's no question how serious a problem this is.

So what is astroturfing? In short, it creates an illusion of popularity around something by using tactics disguised as the public voice - old fashioned shilling. In this case, by having one user masquerade as several different ones using separate accounts to promote certain articles. Instead of having the kind of social discourse based on honest votes, astroturfers stuff the ballot box by using fake people. It's really nothing new and there are PR companies out there that have hired out people to do exactly this, creating underground ad campaigns with the appearance of a grassroots movement. There's even a film out there that documents what it's all about.

It's pretty frustrating to see sites such as the ones above resort to using methods like this to promote their own work on a social news site like Reddit since it taints the entire reason for sites like it to exist in the first place. Promoting your piece by submitting it on sites is one thing, but hiring someone to fake the sort of discourse that should result subverts the kind of social interaction from those honestly assessing it.

The sites outed above have issued apologies, but one or two smack of PR backtracking after having their hands caught in the cookie jar. Simply stating to being ignorant of who they were hiring and what methods they were using comes off as almost irresponsible. Where was the review process? The oversight? Or did they not care above seeing the hits coming in?

Sadly, this will likely not be the last time an astroturfer has been caught and the sites they worked with outed. There are probably many more out there doing the exact same thing and taking better care in covering their steps. It might only be a matter of time before they are also found out, but when it comes to the 'net, picking up where they had left off is as easy as registering for a new account.

I loved the arcades. At least when we HAD arcades to go to.

One of my favorite games from that time was a little something from Data East called BurgerTime in which you controlled a tiny chef climbing up and down ladders and running across platforms to create giant hamburgers. All the while you were chased by things like sausages and eggs with only two shakes of a peppershaker to save you. It was like a fast food worker's worst nightmare.



Now it looks like the old classic is going to be resurrected by Monkeypaw Games as an HD title. It even has a retooled version of the original theme and the levels looks like they could be a lot of fun while retaining that 2D-styled movement. Is it also no surprise that Monkeypaw is also doing a promotion with Burger King with DLC featuring the King?

Burgertime HD should be hitting your favorite downloadable source whether its Xbox Live, WiiWare, PSN, or Microsoft Windows sometime in the summer.

OC Weekly has a humorous list on the "Ten Signs Your'e an Aging Gamer."

Warning: If you rapidly press buttons during loading screens or don't like playing online with young whippersnappers, you might be getting old.