Gamertell

Ah, Halloween. I still remember chanting “Trick or Treat! Smell our feet! Give us something good to eat!“ hoping to find Candy Corn, M&Ms and pieces of chocolate shaped like pumpkins in my bag. And like other towns across the United States, the variety of costumes you could dress in just to entice the homeowner for that extra piece of candy was the greatest thing since sliced bread to an 8-year-old kid.

Well now players can relive those days from the safety of their homes on Gaia Online. Gaia just started its Halloween Hysteria event last night (October 24, 2008) with trick or treating in the Gaia stores or in the towns. And for those who love dressing up for Halloween, a variety of Halloween costumes are available in the…

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On Monday September 29, 2008, for up to 24 hours Xbox live will be offline for maintenance.

According to Microsoft’s Larry Hryb, aka Major Nelson, not only will Xbox live be unavailable but so will the “My Xbox” section of Xbox.com and the forums will be in read only mode. 

This timely service maintenance is all in preparation for the upcoming new Xbox experience. However…

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Gaia Online just announced the release of celebrity-inspired items for Gaia users. This week’s items now allow registrants the opportunity to dress up their avatars as Snoop Dogg or The Incredible Hulk with hairstyles, purple pants, green fists and more. This marks the first time fully licensed celebrity-branded virtual items have been sold in the virtual world.

In a partnership with virtual goods sales and distribution system Virtual Greats LLC, Gaia Online will allow users to collect or “snare“ quality celebrity items each month to create…

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While Sony and Microsoft decided to take the downloadable movie route in expanding consoles content, Nintendo thinks pictures are the way to go. Fujifilm and Nintendo have joined forces to bring an online photo service to Wii owners. Currently it’s only available in Japan but it could find its way stateside depending on the success rate.

The service works similarly to other…

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Every E3 there are plenty of announcements and everyone claims their is the biggest, most important and whatevertheheck else. There were fewer hardware announcements than most years with more concentration on games, developing console interfaces and content options.

Not too surprisingly, most of the staff picks for their favorite E3 2008 announcements were somehow related to Microsoft’s Xbox 360. There was, of course, a sole dissenter.

Give it a read and then let us know what your favorite announcement was from E3 2008…

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James Cameron, the Oscar winning director of Titanic, Aliens and the Terminator is looking to break new ground in videogame-film relations with the announcement that he and Ubisoft have joined forces.

Ubisoft will be developing a video game based on Cameron’s next feature film, Avatar (no relation to the Nickelodeon cartoon Avatar)...

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In a rather interesting gesture, Philippine president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has unveiled her likeness in the virtual world, Second Life, during the National Innovation Summit held at the Shangri-La Hotel in Makati November 26, 2007. She as joined by members of the Department of Science, Technology Secretary Estrella Alabastro, IBM Executive Vice President for the Innovation and Technology Department Nick Donofrio.

Arroyo’s intent was to show her country that she is not opposed to change and innovation.

During the summit, with a theme from TV series Battlestar Galactica playing in the background, the president got her first glimpse of her Second Life avatar.

“Preparing our growth sectors of the future enables us to tap the opportunities of the 21st century.We will promote fast-growing industries where high value jobs are plentiful…let us declare that technology is the foundation of future economic development,” the President stressed in a speech given in July 2001 prior to hosting the summit to introduce a program that is designed to strengthen the country’s competitiveness in the global knowledge-based economy and transform the Philippines into a technology hub in Asia.

Creating a Second Life avatar is the first step to creating a virtual Philippine Embassy in the game. The virtual embassy will be largely used by IBM for global conferencing with many of its executives regularly meeting with the use of their own avatars.

“We believe that innovation is key to our national competitiveness,” Arroyo said during the summit.

Read [Inquirer.net] Also Read [Hackenslash] Site [Phillippine Government]

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Film director James Cameron (Aliens, Terminator, Titanic) announced his decision today (July 24 2007)  to select Ubisoft to develop the videogame based off his newest project, the 2009 sci-fi epic Avatar. The choice was based on a yearlong standoff between four game companies, each of which was tasked with presenting creative briefs to the director.

Ubisoft’s version was most in keeping with Cameron’s vision, showing off “...a fully realized presentation, which captured the soul of the world and the characters, while promising to be a knockout game on its own terms.” The title will not be a linear retelling of the film’s storyline, which itself sounds rather unique…

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