The Week in Review

This week on the Week in Review: A legal defeat for Nintendo, boobies in occupied France, virtual pets on your Xbox, the mighty Kevin Butler and a gamer charity that helps kids with cancer.

Nintendo Fails in French Flash Fracas

A court in Paris has ruled that Nintendo has no legal right to prevent third party flash cards from working on its systems. This decision followed Nintendo filing a civil suit against Divineo Group for manufacturing flash cartridges to work with the DS. The judge opined that Nintendo should make its platforms more like Windows, allowing developers to make software available however they chose. (link)

Buy Saboteur New, Get Boobies for Free!

EA is continuing its policy of offering DLC goodies to gamers that buy new copies of its games. Unlike Dragon Age however, Saboteur won’t have anything as pedestrian as a suit of armour or anything like that, it’ll have burlesque dancers, or more specifically, their nipples. New copies of the game will contain a code that will remove the pasties from the dancers at the in-game nightclub Belle de Nuit, while those who buy used copies will have to fork out a few bucks. Seriously though guys, there are easier – and cheaper – ways to see a bit of skin. (link)

I Want To Ride The Pony!

Your zoot-suit sporting, pimp-hat wearing avatar might look like the bees-knees, but even the most sartorially savvy gamer will tell you that there’s no outfit that cannot be improved by a pony, or perhaps a guinea pig, or one of the other myriad animals now available to buy for your avatar on Xbox Live. For the paltry sum of 240 spacebucks – or Microsoft points as they are more commonly known – you can get a pet of your very own. Perhaps a purse puppy would look good with your Master Chief helmet? (link)

Funk 4 Butler

Yay! More PS3 ads! No, I didn’t think I’d ever be saying that either, as PlayStation ads are normally all monochrome desolation and bug-eyed space children and such, but Sony seems to have nailed it with the Kevin Butler ads. These two aren’t the best in the series, but they’re still pretty damn funny. Oh, and Mr Butler? My friend John reeeeeally likes you. Hit the link for sweet video goodness (link)

Give Games, Save Lives

Donate Games, a charity set up to help fund research into rare genetic diseases, is now has many used titles for you to buy. The system is a simple one, you donate a game and get a tax deductable receipt and then other gamers buy your used games, with all the profits going to the charity. The founder of Donate Games, Jim Carol, was inspired by the Child’s Play charity after his son benefitted from it while suffering from a rare form of leukemia. Visit Donate Games here. (link)