Brutal Rumor

Game fans across the internet are in a tizzy at the news that Activision has dropped several Vivendi/Sierra titles from its publishing catalogue. Most notably affected by Activision’s “strategic realignment” are Tim Schafer’s Brutal Legend, the Ghostbusters Game, and Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena. Other titles cut from the lineup are Wet, World at Conflict: Soviet Assault, 50 Cent Blood on the Sand, Zombie Wranglers, Leisure Suit Larry: Box Office Bust, and some XBLA games.

Fat Controversy

There is a minor online controversy brewing over the recently-announced PSN Game “Fat Princess.” The game is a team-based multiplayer affair in which each side is charged with rescuing their captured princess from the other team. However, each team can fatten up their captive by feeding her cake and making her so heavy that she’s difficult to move. Charges of anti-female and anti-obesity sentiments quickly followed the unveiling.

The uproar began on the website Feminist Gamers and was further perpetuated by the site Shakesville. It was then picked up by the usual suspects: NeoGAF, Destructoid, Kotaku, Joystiq, etc. The general reaction amongst the gaming community to the accusations that Fat Princess is offensive has been, to put it mildly, unkind. See below for examples.

Finally

This year’s E3 was universally declared pretty uninspiring by all corners of the video game world, and despite some debate on which company came out the best overall, there’s widespread agreement that Microsoft and Square Enix’s announcement of Final Fantasy XIII on the Xbox 360 was the biggest announcement of the show. Clearly, this is a big coup for Microsoft and a substantial blow for Sony. However, the victory and defeat are both more psychological than substantial Naming the FFXIII 360 announcement the biggest news of the show is more indicative of how bad this year’s E3 was than anything. Read on to learn why FFXIII on Xbox 360 isn’t as a big of a deal as people are making it out to be.

E3 Press Conferences: The Aftermath

Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo have all finished up with their big E3 press conferences now, and as a whole this year’s show is even less exciting than I expected. I made predictions on what each of the three platform publishers would and wouldn’t show, and in some cases I was pretty accurate, and on others… not so much. How did I do over all? Let’s take a look.

E3 Predictions the E3rd: Nintendo.

Ok, time to finally get around to my overdue third E3 predictions column. Nintendo has released its E3 line-up, and it’s pretty damn boring. A Mario baseball game, a revamped Kirby game, and a casual online game ported to the Nintendo DS. Whee. The big announcement of the show has widely been discussed already – Animal Crossing for Wii, and that one’s almost certainly true. I’d say the odds of an also-rumored Punch-Out game are only about 50/50.

So, what else might we see from Nintendo this week at E3? I have my thoughts, but you’re not going to like them.