New Year's Eve Video: Left 4 Dead - Macho Madness

The winter sale on Steam, extending through January 2nd, is ridiculous. BioShock is $4.99. BioShock is one penny less than five goddamn dollars.

I can't be bothered to find a New Year's related video so here's a couple clips of someone using a truly bizarre sound replacement mod for Valve's Left 4 Dead.

God bless us, everyone, and snap into a Slim Jim.





-K.

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Christmas Morning Video: MST3K - Santa Claus Conquers the Martians

So here at work instead of getting Christmas Eve off we got President's Day, but that isn't stopping a large number of employees from taking the day off anyway, which includes my boss. So while I'm stuck here by myself until noon, and with the odds of me actually posting anything during the Christmas break being slim, enjoy this ridiculously large post of a festive episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 with me and watch as Joel and the bots take on Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.

"I want to decide who lives and who dies." "...Oh, I don't know."





















-K.

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I'll Be Watching You

Just a heads-up that flawed-but-great FPS game S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl is now only $4.99 on Steam this weekend. If you don't already own it you can't beat that price.

-K.

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Well That Was Sudden

More sad news for the game industry as UK-based developer Free Radical, famous for the TimeSplitters series, is kaput. The studio started with a core group of ex-Rare guys, with the experience of N64 megahit Goldeneye behind them, they created TimeSplitters, an FPS with a similar forumla as a launch title for the PS2, which was met with great success. I don't believe you can chalk this up to a weakened economy as the two sequels were not met with equal enthusiasm, the greatly underrated Second Sight (It should hopefully still be a free title on GameTap, go check it out) went largely unnoticed, and the oft-delayed PS3-exclusive FPS money pit Haze became the death blow for the company. Not a huge loss, but rather sudden and surprising.

-K.

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Thursday Morning Video: Dinner for Five

I don't really watch television, outside of an episode of Cash Cab or whatever else is on DiscoveryHD if I have nothing better to do, at least not a show that I am already aware of in which case I will be watching it online or purchasing it on DVD. Like any other human being I prefer to go about my life on my terms, and not have my entertainment time beholden to a rigid schedule, which is unfortunate for a show like Dinner for Five. I would always watch it when it was on, when I would remember that IFC was an actual network with shows on it, but it often slipped my mind, so much so that I had forgotten it existed until about a week ago and was long since over. The premise is simple: Director/actor Jon Favreau (Swingers, Made, Iron Man) sits down with four other celebrity guests for dinner and candid conversation, often both funny and revealing. Thankfully there are a handful of episodes on YouTube so I'm going to share one with you, where Jon sits down with Bruce Campbell, Rob Zombie, longtime producer Roger Corman and comedian Faizon Love. There's also another link to a different episode with Louis CK, Eddie Izzard, Will Ferell and Illeana Douglas in the Stuff You Should Like column on the right.







-K.

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Play This Now: Savage 2

Much like my recommendation to check out Overlord, thanks to the pile of new titles I still have not been able to crawl out from under, Savage 2 is a game I have not spent much time with. Or any at all. I did play the first game off-and-on for a bit, and found the concepts and gameplay solid, so a sequel can only be better, right? It's an ambitious hybrid fantasy title, a team-based online multiplayer FPS-RPG-RTS, or TBOMPFPSRPGRTS. From what I'm hearing the player base had been somewhat lacking, but now that the game can be had for the low price of no dollars hopefully it'll give the title a boost. As long as you hold no prior engagements (Like, say, still not finishing Dead Space or Far Cry 2), free should always be a very strong motivating factor to give a professionally-developed title a whirl.

Link, S2 Games' Savage page

-K.

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Thursday Morning Video: Louis CK on Conan

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Carefully Orchestrated Chaos

So I picked up the PC version of Grand Theft Auto IV on Steam over the weekend, and I've probably spent more time fooling with the replay editor than I have the game itself. I know this'll screw up the format but it'll get pushed down soon enough. I present a progression of knowledge in the form of violent acts:











-K.

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Struggling Publisher Struggles Financially Due to Struggling Sales in Struggling Quarter of Struggle

Variety's Ben Fritz recently posted this article, which probably doesn't need any elaboration past the headline: "Midway has 50 days to come up with $150 million." So unless Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe does insane business toute suite we can probably expect Midway to file for bankruptcy in January. Surprisingly, the game appears to have been met with critical success and admirable sales, but obviously not enough to save the company.

For an alternate take on the game, listen to this bit from the recent Idle Thumbs podcast, which features Gamasutra's Chris Remo delivering a dramatic musical performance of an e-mail sent to Shacknews' "news tip" address.

-K.

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On Work and Waking

1. Denial: "That's not my alarm. It simply can't be 6:30 already."
2. Anger: "I hate this crap, it's stupid that there's such a thing as 6:30 AM. This job sucks."
3. Bargaining: "Maybe I'll call in sick, or say I have a dentist appointment and come in late. Maybe I'll say I have a dentist appointment in the afternoon and leave early. Maybe I'll say I have two dentist appointments on the same day."
4. Depression: "I'm sad now. I'll have to listen to Justin. He talked about a single YouTube video for an hour yesterday."
5. Acceptance: "I need the money."

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Reflection

I wonder how many times I'm going to post something that includes the term "struggling publisher."

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Thursday Morning Video: New Ghostbusters: The Video Game trailer

So because Vivactard is looking to harbor a series of franchises that can be milked yearly they dropped several IPs that didn't fit their model, including the upcoming Ghostbusters game. Looking to turn things around, struggling publisher Atari picked it up, looking to release it this summer. There's a pervading sense of dread that this game will ultimately be disappointing, but until it drops in June let's enjoy the first in what will probably be a handful of new trailers until then:



-K.

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Pleasant Surprises and Embarrassing Stumbles

Maintaining a near-constant diet of video game news means that I can only remember so much, and many stories or unreleased titles get buried and sink to the bottom of the useless information heap I call my brain. Black Mesa: Source is a mod for Half-Life 2 that was announced shortly after the game was released, which is already four years old, promising a complete remake of the original Half-Life, not just the straight port to the Source engine that Valve made. Naturally, like any other ambitious mod that doesn't produce any news for years, I assumed it had died off, never to see the light of day. Then they go ahead and release this teaser trailer a couple days ago:


I'm excited, it looks and sounds like they've remade almost everything from scratch, eager to see if they've drastically changed a lot of the levels.

Also in a bit of not-as-awesome news, struggling publisher Midway, the company from whose rich history gave us Mortal Kombat, Spy Hunter, NBA Jam and countless great pinball machines (Through their Bally and Williams lines), has had the controlling stake of their company sold off to a single investor for the grand total of... $100,000. The lucky investor will also be inheriting about $70 million in debt, but still, yipes.

-K.

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