Sam Fisher finally returns in February.

After a delay earlier this year (it was originally supposed to hit shelves in October), Splinter Cell: Conviction has got itself a hard release date - February 23, 2010. 

To coincide with this happy news, Ubisoft have released a new trailer celebrating the subtle art of mass murder. Rogue agent Sam Fisher is on the hunt to find out why his daughter died and the dude kills a fuckload of people in the process. Check. This. Out.

I am now saved.

After a long wait, the transfer kit finally arrived. And bizarrely it worked fine.

One end of it hooked up to the new hard drive while the other end plugged into a rear USB port on the console with the old hard drive installed. Because of the amount of stuff I had on my drive, the process took about an hour and a half. Weirdly enough, all the crap I deleted from the new drive magically appeared again after the transfer so I had to get rid of that all over again. Oh well, if that was the worst thing to happen, I got off pretty light. It feels pretty awesome to have all this extra space now.

Pretty much this kind of awesome.

Saving myself - Part 3.

While I'm waiting for my transfer kit to arrive in the mail, I had a chance to fire up my new hard drive. Surprisingly, it runs like an absolute dream. I must have had a hell of junk stored on my old hard drive because that one was slow as hell.

Pictured: My old 20g hard drive.

Microsoft in their infinite wisdom stuck a whole bunch of pre-loaded stuff on the new 60g drive, mostly Halo related. Trailers, gamer pictures and the like. All of which I deleted. There was a demo of Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy which I played for a few minutes and then deleted. A bunch of ads for Xbox 360 wireless accessories that I glanced at and then deleted. Seriously, the only thing I kept was a Gears Of War dashboard theme which I'll probably delete seconds after looking at.

But this is how I want it. This new drive is going to be clean as a goddamn whistle. 

Here's your Alpha Protocol box art.

September is almost finished and as such, it almost signals the beginning of Q4. October is the time when games start to drop and there's a few coming in next month.

One of the more notable ones is Obsidian Entertainment's Alpha Protocol.

Published by Sega (yes, that one) this RPG is set in the shadowy world of espionage and spy type stuff, AP seems to shaping up to be really nice. Dialogue trees, outlandish characters and a government that has betrayed you are the ingredients of one potentially spicy meatball. Ex-CIA agent Michael Thorton travels to Rome, Taipei and Saudi Arabia while...I don't know...fighting arms dealers or something. But apparently you can bash an old man's head into a bar when he mouths off at you so...SOLD!

We'll find out how enjoyable pensioner violence is on October 27. My guess is very.

Saving myself - Part 2.

Things are looking up. After deciding on a 60gb hard drive, I waltzed into my local JB HiFi and managed to find one on sale - for $119 instead of the listed $149. Not only that, the hard drive isn't the only thing that comes packaged for that amount of kablingy. 

Here's the package...

...and its contents.

As much as I fucking hate the way Microsoft conduct business sometimes, I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. Not only did I save $30, but I also ended with more stuff that I thought. True, I couldn't give a shit about the extra ethernet cable and the headset will barely see any use, but it's that 3 months of Gold that I'm pretty chuffed about.

Regardless of all that crap, I'm still not back up and running just yet. After purchasing my pack of goodies, I rang the Microsoft robot call centre back and fed them my reference number. After a bit of a security check, they finally agreed to send out a transfer kit to recover all my precious save files. 

"Transfer kit, motherfucker!"

So now I wait. They told me it could take up to ten working days to arrive so I'm looking at next week at the earliest. Everything better work right when it gets here.

TO BE CONTINUED...

Valve responds to Left 4 Dead 2 banning.

Valve (developers of the Left 4 Dead franchise, as well as Half-Life and Portal) have responded to the OFLC refusing to classify their upcoming zombie experience, Left 4 Dead 2. Spokesman Doug Lombardi gave a statement:

"We were surprised to hear of this news yesterday. Obviously, everyone at Valve is pretty bummed. It would be a shame if folks in Australia, or anywhere else, are unable to purchase Left 4 Dead 2 because of a ratings issue."

Right. Not exactly the kind of response we were hoping for. By the tone of Lombardi's response, it doesn't seem like they are too bothered by it. More like a "That's bad, but who cares?" type statement really.

This sucks. You know what sucks even more? That the Australian government and the OFLC will get away with it. Nothing will happen. No matter how many irate people write letters or 14-year-old fat kids turn up on the doorstep of Michael Atkinson dressed as Zangief, the general public won't be able to change a fucking thing.

NO.

I'm too depressed to continue talking about this subject at the moment. More news as it comes to hand...

Left 4 Dead 2 banned in Australia.

"The game contains violence that is high in impact and is therefore unsuitable for persons under 18 years to play,"

I'm shocked at this. I really am.

This country's backward and draconian classification board, the Office of Film and Literature Classification, have refused to classify one of the most anticipated games of Q4 2009, Left 4 Dead 2.

That makes four games now for this year. But that aside, a sequel to Left 4 Dead being banned in this country (and only this country) is truly shocking. The first game was critically-acclaimed for it's depiction of the impending zombie apocalypse and sold through the roof. The OFLC have put forth their reasons for this and there are as follows:

Violence is “inflicted upon ‘the Infected’ who are living humans infected with a rabies-like virus that causes them to act violently.”

Melee weapons that “inflict the most damage” and cause “copious amounts of blood spray and splatter (sic), decapitations and limb dismemberment… or even cause intestines to spill from the wounds.”

"The interactive nature of the game increases the overall impact of the frequent and intense depictions of violence. This coupled with the graphic depictions of blood and gore combine to create a playing impact which is high.”

“a minority of the Board is of the opinion that the violence is strong in playing impact and therefore warrants an MA15+ classification” 

I can't really think straight with the amount of frustration and rage bubbling up inside me at the moment. I'll report on further developments as they come to hand. Let me leave you with this image while I calm down a bit...

Saving myself - Part 1.

Well, it finally happened. My hard drive has completely died.

For the last few months, my 20 gigabyte Xbox 360 hard drive has been playing up. Specifically, it has been busting out an error message called E68.

More harmful than looking at the sun.

I had been trying my best to ignore it. Usually after a quick restart, everything would be okay again and the dashboard would load as normal. When it first happened I lost my mind thinking my Xbox had red-ringed again. But after talking to Microsoft, they told me it was all about the hard drive. 

One light means 'hardware failure'. Four lights means 'AV cable unplugged'. Three lights means 'Oh dude, your Xbox is done.'

That was months ago. This week, my hard drive has finally given up the ghost. Basically saying "Fuck yooooooou!" whenever I fire it up, I have accepted to fact that it's time to upgrade. Now, I have two choices. Since they don't make the 20g model anymore (and that's fine since I need more space anyway), my options come down to the 60g and 120g model. Priced by the minions of Satan, they are $150 and $180 respectively. What a fucking joke.

What choice do I have, though? None. So since I want to save $30 and I don't really need that much space, the 60g model will be fine. Bastards. Apparently because of a relatively constant price drop on the Xbox 360 console itself, Microsoft have stated that they have no plans to reduce the price of the hardware accessories anytime soon. Why? DOLLAR DOLLAR BILL Y'ALL!

"Sup? We at Microsoft got mad duckets up in this bitch!"

Anyway, there's a bit of a catch. How do I transfer my save files and profile to the new hard drive? A transfer kit, that's how. Now, this kit comes bundles with the 120g but not the 60g. I had to make a phonecall to Microsoft to get them to send one out to me. After jumping through a lot of security hoops, they finally told me that because of security reasons (and piracy I assume) I have to purchase the hard drive first and call them back.

So, it begins. Tomorrow I journey to shell out $150 for this fucking thing and then place a call to these bloodsucking bastards. And we'll go from there...

I bet there's probably about ten bucks worth of parts inside this thing.

TO BE CONTINUED.

Borderlands...oh my.

The more layers that are peeled off of Gearbox Software's new RPG/shooter Borderlands, the more  incredible it seems to appear.

Inspired by Mad Max and Diablo, this sci-fi opus features four main characters (all of which you can take online in co-op play) taking quests on the planet Pandora. A desolate wastleland, most parts of Pandora have devolved into lawlessness after anyone with half a brain and a little money abandoned it. In addition to this, after the planet's seven year orbit ends, a veritable fuckload of horrible creatures emerge from hibernation.

One of the most prominent marketing angles that Gearbox has used is Borderlands' amount of firearms. Thanks to the game's randomly generating systems, there are approximately 3 million different types of guns (or a 'bazillion', as Gearbox put it). The landscapes, towns and creatures are all also randomly generated giving a fresh perspective to every player's journey. And Gearbox have said that once you load the game up, you'll never see another load screen.

The four characters you can choose from are as follows:

MORDECAI

ROLAND

LILITH

BRICK

Gearbox have brought them all together in this 'Character' trailer...and the game is out late October. If the finished game is even half as good as it looks, put some money aside now.

Lucidity + Shank = hell yes!

Hey kids, downloadable games are kind of a big deal nowadays. This year alone has seen one of the best titles so far in Shadow Complex and it looks as if developers are really starting to put a bit of effort into these previously ignored titles. Including these two:

LUCIDITY 

Developed by Lucasarts (Yeah that's right A BRAND NEW ORIGINAL FUCKING GAME FROM LUCASARTS!!!), players have to help Sofi through a dreamscape-type world unharmed by way of indirect platforming. Bizarrely, the gameplay looks to be a mix of Lemmings and Tetris. Yeah, I know that sounds a bit weird, but check out this video to understand what I mean...

Release date: Lucidity will drop on Xbox Live Arcade and PC (via Steam) on October 7. 

SHANK

Making its debut appearance at the Penny Arcade Expo in Seattle a few days ago, Shank is being developed by Vancouver-based Klei Entertainment. Here's pretty much all you need to know - guns, chainsaws, blood, stab, run, stab, dive, stab, awesome.

Release date: No official date or platforms have been announced for Shank but apparently the demo being played at the Expo was unleashed on a Xbox 360 controller. So that pretty much settles it I guess.

"Mother pus bucket!"

Back in mid-June of this year, Ghostbusters The Video Game was released on all platforms to generally positive reviews. 

But only in North America. Thanks to a questionable exclusivity deal between Sony and publisher Atari, the European and Australian Xbox 360 versions of the game were delayed until October 23. Effectively giving Sony the edge when it came to sales with its PS3 and PS2 versions of the game.

Now it's been delayed again. To November 6.

Pictured: Australia.

No official reason has been given for the second delay of the Xbox 360 version in PAL territories. Just because, punks. 

But since the US version of the game isn't region-locked, you can import to your heart's content. Which you should probably try and do sooner rather than later if you want to play it. Because let's face it, a November release date has pretty much put a bullet in the 360 version outside of North America. Why? Because it's only five days before this fucking juggernaut drops worldwide...

  If someone asks Modern Warfare 2 if it's a god, it will say yes.

Letting go of The Beatles: Rock Band.

Earlier this year, I went a little hyper insane for the impending release of The Beatles: Rock Band. So much so, that I toyed with the idea picking up the Limited Edition of the game which features three guitars, a microphone and drums coming in at a hefty AUD$350. But after a little bit of to-ing and fro-ing, I have decided my priorities lay elsewhere.

Oh man, how cool does that look?

The game came out yesterday around the globe, and by all reports it's selling like gangbusters. The Limited Edition box itself is fucking huge. Seriously, it's the size of small car.

Which makes sense I guess. It needs to fit all this awesome shit in it.

Taking a few things into consideration, I've realised I will have to leave this one alone. Maybe pick it up on the cheap next year sometime which really sucks. But there's a few purchases that have to take precedence around this time of year. Namely a new hard drive ($150), a wireless adapter ($100) and possibly a PS3 Slim ($499).

Oh Christ, look how much fun they're having! The guitar highways even have cool patterns on them! Fuck!

It's a real shame. I've never bought a single Guitar Hero/Rock Band title because the majority of the songs didn't really appeal to me (seriously, who fucking cares about Lacuna Coil?) but the Fab Four's entry in the music game genre was going to get me over the line. But needs must when the devil vomits into your kettle and 2010 will have to be the year of Beatlemania for me.

And this special 360 design would be pretty sweet too. Dammit.

Red Dead Redemption improves by the minute.

Since we now live in a world where the perfect Batman game exists, all we need now is the perfect wild west game. And next year, Rockstar Games may just deliver it.

This week, a lengthy demo of the game was shown at the Penny Arcade Expo in Seattle and Holy Christ - it is really starting to look promising.

Sweeeeet.

While it's a sequel to the PS2 game Red Dead Revolver, it bears little resemblance in story, gameplay and pretty much everything else. Former outlaw John Marston (!) is the dude you control and the game is set in the very early 20th century. In a reportedly massive open world (Rockstar themselves have said it's the biggest game they've ever made), there seems to be all the trappings of a western genre you could want. Horseback is your main mode of travel but there are also stagecoaches, trains and steamboats. Camps, settlements and towns litter the landscape and apparently they are all ripe for the taking by Marston. If the player so desires.

He looks pretty much tough as fucking nails.

The towns themselves have their own economies. Banks, saloons and general stores are all fully useable and it's totally possible to start some shit in every single one of them. But, as with the Grand Theft Auto series - a wanted level is in place if you break too many old-timey laws. Authorities appear on the street and try their best to subdue Marston with lasso ropes and of course, gunfire. Marston himself is on his own personal mission of course. After giving up a life of crime, the government threaten his wife and child with something horrible unless he hunts down his old gang. Those goddamn yellow-bellied sumbitches.

Hands up who wants this game like, right now.

One of the most interesting things to come out of the demo was the horses. You can kick them with your spurs to move faster but not too much because they can buck your off their back. If this happens, you may have to try and lasso a wild horse, break it in and saddle it to make that nag your own. 

Not since Law Of The West has there been a completely solid wild west video game (yes, even Sunset Riders). If someone can do it, Rockstar can. Have some faith. Some guys from the UK just made the perfect Batman game, so now anything is possible. We just have to wait until the first quarter of 2010 to find out.

They be some big shoes to fill, y'all.

The Bat is finally here.

Well folks, we now live a world where Batman: Arkham Asylum has been released. And to be perfectly honest, it's really quite amazing.

It was Wednesday this week that I received a text from JB HiFi telling me that my Collector's Edition of the game has arrived and I could pick it up immediately. Somewhere (apparently in New South Wales) the street date for the game had been broken and the JB staff got a phonecall from some higher up entity saying "Put it on the shelves NOW!".

So before I run through my opinion of the game itself, let me give you a quick guide on what the Collector's Edition (also known as HOLY FUCK KICK ASS CHAMPION Edition) consists of...

The Batarang:

Forget the box behind it (it's a fake version). The Batarang at the front is exactly like mine.

Initial reports on the internet started to rail against the Collector's Edition Batarang. Bitching about things like the quality of it and the inability to remove it from its stand so you can throw it around the house. What morons. I just wanted something that looks cool on my video game shelf and that's exactly what I got. It's sturdy (feels somewhat like wood weirdly enough), about a foot long and looks cool. Some people on the internet were whinging about the thing having 'worn-in' scratches all over it like as if Batman actually used this thing in his war on crime. Honestly, the scratches on mine are hardly noticeable.

The Prequel Comic:

About the size of a postcard and consisting of 12 pages, The Road To Arkham (written by Alan Burnett and art by Carlos D'Anda) is a lead-in to the events of the game. I found it to be best read after the game is finished as it details one or two plot points that may come as a surprise. Nothing major or spoilerific, but just stuff that makes you think "Ooooooh, I see". It reads great, looks cool and is a perfect companion to the storyline of the game.

The Arkham Journal:

That's the journal in the middle. Incidentally, that box behind it is the one my edition came in.

Bigger in width and page size than the comic, this Journal details files from Arkham doctor Penelope Young (who is a semi-important character in the game) about every single inmate in the madhouse. 48 pages of every Batman villian you could think of (with more art from Carlos D'Anda), it's a nice little collection of the rogues' gallery. 

The Downloadable Codes:

After the main storyline is finished, the game offers you specialised maps so you can fuck guys up to your heart's content.

I initially thought the collector's edition only included one code for downloading a challenge map, but I ended up with two. As part of the replayability of the game, it features challenge maps which you can either become the 'invisible predator' in a room full of thugs or other maps where you simply punch the fuck out of wave after wave of dudes. Racking up scores is what these maps are for, but also so you can unlock more stuff in the game. And also Achievements. Sweet, sweet Achievements. The two codes in the Collector's Edition are for the 'Villian' map and a map based on Crime Alley, which is where Bruce Wayne's parents were killed. Both maps are not in the retail game and I have no idea if they will be. Perhaps they will be the downloadable content that's apparently coming for the game. Who knows?

The Behind The Scenes DVD:

I couldn't find an appropriate picture for the bonus DVD, so here's a shot of Batman kicking a dude in the face. Which you totally can do in the game.

Pretty standard stuff here. Five chapters that are about ten minutes in length of the developers, composers and others talking about how awesome the game is. One bonus out of this is I finally discovered what Kevin Conroy looks like.

The Actual Game Itself:

To be honest, there probably doesn't need to be another Batman game after this one. Because Batman: Arkham Asylum is literally shocking in how faithful it is to every possible desire you could have for a video game based on Batman. I'm still reeling from how Batman games went from always being total garbage to one game completely turning that around in one shot and saying "You want it, here it is.". Because that's what Rocksteady Studios have done here. They've made the best Batman game you could ever hope for. Even besides that, it's not just a great Batman game, but a great game overall. The variety in gameplay, the environments, sound design, graphics, voice acting and writing is all top shelf. It just so happens that all those ingredients are made even sweeter by it being a Batman game. You wanna fire your grapple gun to an insanely high ledge? Check. You wanna prey on thugs and make them scared out of their minds? Check. Glide on your cape? Use a batcave? Talk to Oracle? Punch the fuck out of groups of thugs? Check, check, check and CHECK.

I could talk all day about the quality of the game, but fuck that - I'd rather be playing it. I'll just sum up by saying I am immensely satisfied with the collector's edition and the game itself is surprisingly terrific. Even I didn't think it would be as lovingly crafted as it is. And considering the amount of pre-release hype kind of shit I've  talked about this game, that's certainly saying something.

Oh, I almost forgot. I finished the game last night and Ryan, you owe me 20 bucks.

A brief interlude...

Can't...blog...too...busy

Will...return...shortly...Batman...out...playing...Batman...

Here...picture...look...awesome...