Art imitates life: Bit.Trip VOID in time for
Thanksgiving

Bit.Trip VOID is a game that you can play with your family, where you compete to see who can get fatter the fastest. Thanksgiving (link NSFW) is a holiday where families do the same thing, except with more awkward silences and passive aggressive bickering. One is a charming allegory about the dangers of selfishness, the other can give you an ulcer and case of mud-butt.

The choice is clear, people; skip eating this year and play Bit.Trip VOID on Thanksgiving instead. If you don't want to choose, that's actually OK too. The game is set for release on November 23rd, which will give you four days to play before the actual celebration of excess and obesity begins.

Just don't come crying to me when the mud-butt comes-a-calling.

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Tales of Vesperia voice actor says game is coming
to Wii [Update: Oops! He meant Tales of Graces!]

[Update: Abyssal Chronicles has updated their story, reporting that Mr. Koyama has updated his original blog post with the following clarification: "When I mentioned being on sale for the Wii, I meant Tales of Graces, and not Tales of Vesperia! I truly apologize to everyone for the misunderstanding!!!!" Well, we can see how that would be confusing. You'll find our original post below.]

Lock the doors and board up the windows, folks. Considering the seismic backlash to the announcement that the (formerly) 360-exclusive Tales of Vesperia would be coming to the PS3, we fear for what might happen when this story gets out. Japanese voice actor Rikiya Koyama, who provided the voice for Vesperia's pseudo-antagonist Duke, recently mentioned on his blog that, "Tales of Vesperia is coming out on one thing after another: Xbox 360, then PS3, and now upcoming, goes on sale even on the Wii."

While this may deeply excite RPG-loving Wii owners, keep in mind that it's entirely possible Koyama meant to say Tales of Graces, the franchise's next installment which is, in fact, coming to the Wii. Just think about that before you start snapping the pieces of your already-snapped 360 Vesperia disc in protest. Those edges can get pretty sharp.

[Via Kotaku]

Tales of Vesperia voice actor says game is coming to Wii [Update: Oops! He meant Tales of Graces!] originally appeared on Joystiq on Sat, 07 Nov 2009 17:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Tales of Vesperia voice actor says game is coming
to Wii

Lock the doors and board up the windows, folks. Considering the seismic backlash to the announcement that the (formerly) 360-exclusive Tales of Vesperia would be coming to the PS3, we fear for what might happen when this story gets out. Japanese voice actor Rikiya Koyama, who provided the voice for Vesperia's pseudo-antagonist Duke, recently mentioned on his blog that, "Tales of Vesperia is coming out on one thing after another: Xbox 360, then PS3, and now upcoming, goes on sale even on the Wii."

While this may deeply excite RPG-loving Wii owners, keep in mind that it's entirely possible Koyama meant to say Tales of Graces, the franchise's next installment which is, in fact, coming to the Wii. Just think about that before you start snapping the pieces of your already-snapped 360 Vesperia disc in protest. Those edges can get pretty sharp.

[Via Kotaku]

Tales of Vesperia voice actor says game is coming to Wii originally appeared on Joystiq on Sat, 07 Nov 2009 17:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sega Giving Out Early Access to Bayonetta 360
Demo [Offer]

No, it's not some preorder bonus. But quantities are limited. Sega's offering 40,000 codes to play the Bayonetta demo early on Xbox 360, but you have to be a registered Sega Pass member to be eligible.

Here's the deal - once you register (free) for a Sega Pass, go back to this site on Nov. 9 and register to get your code. Registration for early access will be open until Nov. 13, but given the first-come, first-serve nature of this offer, my guess is it won't last that long.

Again, this offer covers the Xbox 360 version of the Bayonetta demo.

Bayonetta Demo Offer [Official Site, via Ripten]

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Patapon shoes will rock someone else's feet

Kyozo Kicks returns! The guy who brings us awesome Zelda and Phoenix Wright shoes that we can never wear because he only makes one pair of them has brought us another pair of shoes we can never wear. This time he hand painted a pair of Converse for his girlfriend's birthday from with Patapon. It's quite awesome.

I think this might be my favorite pair of these shoes just because they are so subtle. The tiny little images around the sole wouldn't be noticed by most, but you'd have an instant connection with anyone who recognized them. Mr. Kyozo I am a size 12-13 shoe. Please contact me for my mailing address. It appears you do take custom requests. I can pay in love or blog posts.

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Trials developer put its own game on torrent
sites for marketing

We all know the timeless adage: "If you can't beat them, then think of cleverer ways to entice them, then break down their spirits, showing them the error of their ways, which will ultimately lead to you beating them." Developer RedLynx employed this strategy when trying to make a foothold in the piracy-riddled PC gaming market when it released its motorbike platformer, Trials, last year. However, the method of this "release" were unconventional, to say the least: The studio actually beat PC pirates to the punch, and uploaded its own game to a number of popular torrent sites.

The version the developer distributed was missing one key feature, however: Leaderboard support. According to RedLynx CEO Tero Virtala, who spoke on the bizarre distribution model at the Develop Liverpool conference, "leaderboards are the soul of the game." He hoped that pirates would fall in love with the leaderboard-less version of the game, then purchase the full version so they could compete with their law-abiding friends.

Virtala admitted that he has no way of knowing how successful that strategy was, but we applaud the studio's unbridled chutzpah nonetheless.

Trials developer put its own game on torrent sites for marketing originally appeared on Joystiq on Sat, 07 Nov 2009 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Smash TV 'will rise again'

Let's get the "I'll buy that for a dollar" quote out of the way. Right, now we can get on with the actual story.

Did you know that the classic arcade game Smash TV was in line for a remake? It was going to be a top-down shooter, just like the old days, but given a coat of modern paint with 3D graphics. Original Smash TV programmer Mark Turmell confirmed that the game was in development, but then it "hit the fan" with Midway and the project had to be scrapped.

Fear not, though, Smash TV fans. While Turmell did not state that the new game was still in the works, he voiced confidence that it "will rise again," thanks to Warner Brothers., the company that now owns Midway's soul. WB has the right, the means and, we hope, the desire to do it, so watch this space. Big money and big prizes may be yours to enjoy once again in the near future.

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Saturday Timewaster: Bloktonik [Hot Flashes]

Tipster BulletProof found this Tetrisesque block puzzle with an entrancing soundtrack and passes it along. But more curiously, "Bloktonik" seems to be in development for WiiWare (and for mobile), with a release date TBA.

I found Bloktonik to be pretty tough the first half-a-dozen times I played - on the easy setting. Different color blocks fall to the center of the playing grid from four directions; your job is to stack them so that four or more of the same color touch. When that happens, they clear off.

The key here is keeping in mind the four different gravity directions as you preview the next block. It filled up my RAM pretty fast. But it does deliver a moderately addicting challenge. And as I said, I dug the soundtrack - for as much as I heard of it before losing anyway. Then I just started up a game and pressed pause while I wrote this.

Jason Cirillo, of Bloktonik's studio Robotube Games, said the WiiWare version is "in the very early stages at this point.

"We're talking to a very influential company with a lot of WiiWare experience about publishing the game, and we are eyeing a release for next year. I'm dying to give more details on the release, but the suits would beat me unmerciful if I did since we're still hashing out the plan. I will say that the WiiWare version will be a more refined, feature-packed title than its Flash counterpart.

Cirillo said a version of the game for iPhone is "about 70 percent done."

Bloktonik [Site]

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Visually Impaired Gamer Sues Sony [Legal]

GameSpot reports that a man has sued Sony, Sony Online Entertainment and Sony Computer Entertainment of America, contending the company violates the Americans with Disabilities Act for not making its virtual worlds more easily navigable by the visually impaired.

The nature of Alexander Stern's visual impairment isn't clear from the report, whether that is total blindness or partial blindness, or some other form of sight disability. But his suit, filed in federal court in California, claims that Sony has ignored repeated requests to modify its games - the suit seems to focus on SOE's MMOs - and that the realms Sony maintains here are essentially public accommodations as defined by the ADA.

Stern repeatedly asked Sony for the addition of visual cues to point out destinations for gamers with "disability impaired visual processing." The suit mentions World of Warcraft and another game that, through the allowance of third-party modifications or other features, make their games more accessible to the visually impaired.

There's also a claim that by not making accommodations for the visually impaired, Sony essentially deprives Stern and others of fair participation in selling off in-game items over SOE's official auction site.

Sony told GameSpot it doesn't comment on pending litigation.

Whatever the merits of the suit, and I'm sure our team of lawyers will robustly discuss them in the comments below, the action is intriguing to me in that it seems to depend on finding a virtual environment is a public accommodation. I can't even begin to argue coherently that it is or isn't or should or should not be. A judge could find that an MMO is a public accommodation and Stern could still lose, but such a ruling could have larger ramifications that outlive this case, for more than just Sony.

Visually Impaired Gamer Sues Sony Online [GameSpot, thanks Roberto E.]

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More Call of Duty and Guitar Hero coming in 2010

There have been plenty of stories over the years that Captain Obvious has posted, but I feel this might be his greatest achievement. Yes, the power to state the obvious has been granted to Activison and they've used it with great skill. Hold on to your hats, because here it comes: next year will have more Guitar Hero and Call of Duty games. Activision stated as much during a recent earnings call. We can only imagine that the announcement was followed by a slow clap building into a roaring applause as all the participants realised they were in the presence of the most obvious statement ever.

Also announced in this cavalcade of obvious was a new Spider-Man game and a new Shrek game. The latter of which is most likely based on next year's new Shrek film. We don't know much else at all about any of the games other than their impending release in the next year, but it's pretty clear that the new Call of Duty will move away from WWII and into a new time period with awesome music.

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