Gamertell

Advertisements for the videogame Stranglehold have been officially banned from television as of January 16, 2008 by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) for being too violent.

According to the ASA Adjudications posted on January 16, 2008, the issues the ASA had with the game were the promotion of “glorified” violence and the danger of impressionable children watching during the time frame it aired. The concern over time was an issue because the commercial aired before 7:30 p.m., a time when young children are most likely still watching television.

According to the ruling, both Picture Production Company (PPC) and Clearcast had made the necessary changes to the commercial for it to meet ASA standards. PPC told ASA that it removed the bullet flying scenes and ensured no character was struck by a bullet in the commercial. Clearcast claimed it thought the violence was unrealistic enough to meet the standards for advertisement.

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The Writers Guild of America has nominated the Playstation Portable title Dead Head Fred for its first Video Game Writing Award. The storyline authors Dave Ellis and Adam Cogan are both nominated for their work on the title. This is also quite an honor for the game’s development team, Vicious Cycle Software, and publisher, D3 Publisher of America. This new award has been created to honor and highlight writers in a category which is normally forgotten. On February 9, 2008 it will be revealed if Dead Head Fred will emerge victorious among the other nominees, which include Crash of the Titans, The Simpsons Game, The Witcher and World in Conflict.

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Gamerhelp recently released a list of the ten most pathetic video game villains. These are the guys who are so pitiful, they return game after game in an attempt to finally get things right. They never do though. Its a shame really. The list compiled includes: Bowser (Super Mario), Dr. Willy (Mega Man), Diablo (Diablo), Ganon (Legend of Zelda), Donkey Kong (Donkey Kong), Sephiroth (FFVII), Pacman ghosts, James Bond villains, Dracula (Castlevania) and Mother Brain (Metroid). Most of them are dead on.

I do disagree with the whole Sephiroth theory. I mean after all, he’s the standard for Final Fantasy evil. There’s also a darn good reason why he couldn’t just take out the whole team right away. I’m sure there is. Or if there is, it is a spoiler and shouldn’t be mentioned aloud.

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Seth MacFarlane will be hosting the Canadian Awards for the Electronic and Animated Arts this year. The event will feature winners from over thirty categories and is scheduled to take place on February 15, 2008 at the Centre in Vancouver for the Performing Arts. To cut to the heart of the matter, the nominees for best game of the year are as follows:

Assassin’s Creed by Ubisoft
Company of Heroes: Opposing Forces by Relic Entertainment
Mass Effect by Bioware/Microsoft Games
Skate by Electronic Arts

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Sony gave the PSP a new lease on life with the launch of the slimmer PSP Slim and Lite, and now it has aided the handheld’s sales prospects by making Skype available on it. Skype will add an entirely new dimension to the PSP by allowing gamers to make free calls over the internet to other Skype users across the globe. PSP owners will also have the option of calling any landline or mobile phone anywhere in the world at a small cost. The long rumored PSP Phone might not become a reality, but the addition of Skype should satiate communication-thirsty PSP owners.

PSP-2000 owners will have to download the 3.90 firmware upgrade to use Skype. All you need to do is connect to the internet using the PSP’s Wi-FI, attach a PSP headset ($19.99) and the PSP-2000 headphone’s remote control, and save the Skype application on a Memory Stick Duo. Then you are all set to use the app, which can be accessed through the XMB menu’s Network option. Just to remind any ecstatic PSP-2000 owners, if you don’t have an existing Skype account, make sure to register on another Skype device beforehand.

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Nothing goes better with a big, fat, juicy burger than fries smothered in ketchup, unless you add videogames to the mix. Then sales will skyrocket, according to Burger King Chief executive John Chidsey, who told Reuters that despite a recession, “If you look at the QSR space—the quick-service restaurants—we tend to be counter-cyclical because as people have pressure on disposable income, people trade for value.”

Which makes sense if you think about it, as people don’t mind dropping a few dollars for a quick meal or a cool game to occupy their time for hours, which Chidsey calls disposable income. Chidsey told Reuters that a typical person can eat well on $25 a day whether they are health conscious or not, especially if they’re purchasing items from the value menu. 

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Nintendo has raised its hardware and financial forecasts for fiscal 2008 after the company announced its impressive financial results for the first three quarters of fiscal 2008. However, Michael Pachter, videogame analyst at Wedbush Morgan Securities, believes that the forecasts are still very conservative. Pachter has raised his own fiscal sales estimates for Nintendo.

According to Next Gen, the big N posted impressive results for the first 9 months of fiscal 2008 on Thursday (Jan 24, 2008). Buoyed by the results, the company raised its sales expectations for fiscal 2008 to 1.63 trillion yen - a raise of 5.2%. The company also hopes to earn 275 billion yen during this fiscal, selling 18.5 million Wii’s and 29.5 million DS’ respectively.

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Sony CEO Howard Stringer is never short on words or confidence. He flaunted that same confidence during a recent interview with Reuters at the World Economic Forum. Stringer seems to be happy with the way the PS3 is shaping up, although he’s a bit worried about the volatility of the yen which affects the company’s exports.

He told Reuters that Sony’s consumer electronics business was performing well despite the U.S economy slowing down, and that PS3 sales were improving. The man at the helm of the consumer electronics giant believes that the “PS3 is out of the woods.” He mentioned the gains the PS3 had made during the Christmas period as it outsold the Xbox 360 during the holidays – the first hurdle.

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Good news for fans of spooky survival horror: new screens and details about the latest Fatal Frame title have just emerged. Fatal Frame: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse will be coming to the Wii (date is TBD) and Destructoid is reporting that it will be developed by Grasshopper Manufacture (No More Heroes) and will (of course) utilize the Wii’s motion controls. The new screens are coming straight from Famitsu, from a two minute teaser video that shows off the wonderfully creepy, washed out graphics and overall style of the new game.

The new game will be the fourth in the series, and will incorporate similar gameplay and atmosphere of the previous titles. The premise puts the player in a spooky house full of unhappy ghosts and tasks them with snapping ghoulish photos (a sort of combat system for photographers).

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It seems as if Majesco’s gamble with the casual market has payed off: the company has just announced that domestic sales of the three Cooking Mama games have reached 1.6 million units. The series was launched in 2006 with Cooking Mama on the DS, and followed up last year with a Wii installment Cooking Mama: Cook Off, and a DS sequel Cooking Mama 2: Dinner with Friends.

The games are “cooking simulators” in which players use the DS/Wii controls to prepare recipes. Cute, kitschy, and well-received by critics for their innovative gameplay, the games clearly appeal appeal to a broad range of gamers. A new sequel to Cooking Mama: Cook Off is due on the Wii this year.

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