New York City is a big place, and Elliot Hanson knows it. He's been single-handedly recreating every last streetlight, hot dog cart, and apartment window in the Big Apple for the last three years. His medium? SimCity 4. I had the chance to have a virtual sit down with Elliot recently. Hit the jump for the full interview;
[e·phem·er·on –noun, plural -anything short-lived. Trolling the depths of eBay to being you the goofiest, weirdest (and sometimes cool) game related crap people are selling this week. Found a good one?
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Sonic wasn't always a total tool like he is these days. Back before we all lost our love for the blue haired speedster, his image could be found on just about anything. Call it the George Lucas method of product placement.
So for those of us that just couldn't bear to be away for a Sonic related game for any stretch of time, we had this. It's a combination game & shampoo bottle. Of course I'm not really sure how cool the game is, but at the absolute minimum getting a bath didn't have to interfere with your game playing. Now that your all growns up, why not have a little entertainment in the shower? Unless you have a boyfriend/girlfriend / wife/husband/friend with benefits, cause in any of those cases you oughta have something better to do in the shower than play with a Sonic the Hedgehog shampoo bottle.
Thank the people that aren't wearing the strap and destroying their televisions for this one. Though I'm dubious about the validity of the original wrist strap breaking if you're using it properly & not trying to show off to your friends, Nintendo has stepped up and made a more robust version. If you have the original skinny version, Head over to this form page to have replacements sent out. I credit Nintendo with tackling the "problem". Now there's no excuse for that black eye you gave your girlfriend.
I'm still entirely convinced it's not an issue if you're using the device properly, but it can't hurt to upgrade. Especially since it's free. Here's the form once again.
Exciting news for all of you puzzle fans out there - Ignition Entertainment has just announced that the Mercy Meltdown franchise will be making its way to the Wii in Spring 2007. Tentatively titled Mercury Meltdown Revolution, the gameplay won't stray too far from its PSP predecessors. You'll still be tilting the world around your little blob of Mercury in an effort to get it from point A to point B, using all kinds of color changing, mercury-flinging gadgets along the way. The twist? This time around you'll be doing all the tilting with your wiimote! Who didn't see that one coming?
Considering that the original title in the franchise was supposed to feature some sort of a tilt sensitive add-on for the PSP that was scrapped before release, this is a pretty sweet decision on Ignition's part. I can't wait - despite the crippling difficulty I loved Archer Maclean's Mercury, and I've heard Mercury Meltdown is even better. Let's just hope this controls better than the labyrinth-style mini-game in Raving Rabbids.
In one of the more creative mods I've ever seen, the modding community has taken the wargames inspired Defcon, and taken out the nuclear war element. Now your job is launch Santa's presents, not warheads. Hug babies, not bombs people.
From the Introduction:
Your mission is one of the most important mission that has taken place every year for hundreds of years. This mission requires you to do the impossible: DELIVER PRESENTS TO ALL THE BOYS AND GIRLS ALL OVER THE WORLD. You must position your distribution system before Christmas Eve. It's Christmas, and everybody wins. But maybe - just maybe - you can show your generosity the most.
I'm posting this cause Greshkov and B play the game like it's going out of style, and quite honestly I'm about to buy the game just so they'll get off my back about it. I told you guys, Christmas!! :) Either way, at least when I start playing I won't have to deal with all the issues they seemed to have fixed.
Follow-up to the craptastic / thinly-veiled Sony site about 2 "kids" wanting a PSP for Christmas. Posted on the now ubiquitous alliwantforxmasisapsp.com"
Busted. Nailed. Snagged. As many of you have figured out (maybe our speech was a little too funky fresh???), Peter isn't a real hip-hop maven and this site was actually developed by Sony. Guess we were trying to be just a little too clever. From this point forward, we will just stick to making cool products, and use this site to give you nothing but the facts on the PSP.
Sony Computer Entertainment America
Jeez, really Sony? What, you want a pat on the back or a gold star or maybe some nice cookies? I like how a site that was nothing but a lie claims from now on to give you "nothing but the facts".
Please listen to me all you advertising and marketing people. We're smart, intelligent consumers. You're gonna have to get up damn early in the morning to fool us. This of course wasn't to hard to figure out, especially when you use the ad companies name to buy the domain. Next time don't think so little of your target audience.
And one more thing. This isn't viral marketing... it's deceptive marketing. Viral is ILoveBees.com, we know it's an advertisement going into it.
...at least that's the consensus on the Hudson boards, anyway. For the second week in a row (hopefully this will become a weekly tradition) Hudson has dropped a hint in their forums about their Virtual Console release for the upcoming week. Unlike last week's no brainer, Hudson gave us a real noodle scratcher;
VGCE0590PG46
What in the hell could that possibly mean??!? Well, it didn't take long for someone to figure it out. Turns out it's code for "Video Games & Computer Entertainment, May 1990, Page 46." According to a Hudson forumite, the code was busted by the self-proclaimed Lester Bangs of games journalism (and my personal hero) Chris Kohler. I couldn't find anything about it on his blog, but still - any day I get to type the words "Chris Kohler" into a search engine is a good day in my books. Good on ya, Chris!
Since Military Madness was VG&CE's cover story that month and page 46 offered level codes, it seems like all the pieces fit - and I for one couldn't be happier!
Has playing the Virtual Console made anyone else regret not picking up a TG-16 back in the day? All they needed was a good slogan, dammit! "Genesis Does what Nintendon't, but TurboGrafx is was Genesisn't!" No? I got nothing.
Hit the jump to see a scan of the VG&CE May 1990, Page 46 that confirmed this, courtesy of Hudson forums poster cabel;
The demo was fun, and the more I see the more I'm looking forward to this game. It's like Starship Troopers in the snow, except hopefully it doesn't suck.
Both left and right are speaking out against the violence and killing that pretty much makes up the game. Most video game sites have already passed judgement, saying that the mechanics of the game are broken and not worth the time. Which ironically, means it has something in common with Postal.
But wait! The designers tell us this killing is different! It's not like all those other games:
"Our game includes violence, but excludes blood, decapitation, killing of police officers," the company says on its Web site, noting that a player can lose points for "unnecessary killing" and regain them through prayer.
(Quick side note, there's penalties for killing cops in GTA as well. I'm just saying)
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New York City is a big place, and Elliot Hanson knows it. He's been single-handedly recreating every last streetlight, hot dog cart, and apartment window in the Big Apple for the last three years. His medium? SimCity 4. I had the chance to have a virtual sit down with Elliot recently. Hit the jump for the full interview;
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Exciting news for all of you puzzle fans out there - Ignition Entertainment has just announced that the Mercy Meltdown franchise will be making its way to the Wii in Spring 2007. Tentatively titled Mercury Meltdown Revolution, the gameplay won't stray too far from its PSP predecessors. You'll still be tilting the world around your little blob of Mercury in an effort to get it from point A to point B, using all kinds of color changing, mercury-flinging gadgets along the way. The twist? This time around you'll be doing all the tilting with your wiimote! Who didn't see that one coming?
...at least that's the consensus on the Hudson boards, anyway. For the second week in a row (hopefully this will become a weekly tradition) Hudson 
Bloguin is the revolutionary blog network specifically focused on helping bloggers get the most out of their websites. We're currently working on building a large network of online communities and hope to expand our blogging coverage to include a wide range of topics. 
The Bloguin Network allows advertisers to promote their products and services to our ever-growing number of visitors. We offer both site-specific ad placements as well as the ability to run a network-wide campaign. If you're interested in working with Bloguin to meet your advertising needs, please contact us.
The Bloguin Network is always looking to expand. We're specifically looking for blogs in the sports, entertainment, and video games field, but are open to adding any type of quality site.. If you're a blogger and interested in joining our network, please fill out our application form.
The Bloguin Login gives you full access to everything our network has to offer. Your name and password will work for each and every one of our sites. Signing up is simple, and will allow you to post in all our forums, create member blogs, and access other cool features! What are you waiting for? Create an Account! 