The Week in Review

Global warming is melting the polar ice caps and the influx of cold water will cause the seas to rise, devastating our society. Still, could be worse: you could fall behind with The Escapist’s news.

Seven Kill Streak: Shiva Unlocked

Time for a short quiz. Who is the publisher of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 – and before you all rush to say Activision, let me finish the question – in Japan? If you answered “Still Activison,” you’d be wrong, as Activison closed down its Japanese branch at the end of 2008, leaving the company in something of a quandary. Who could Activision turn to in its hour of need? Who could it trust with one of its most valuable franchises? Bizarrely, the answer was Square-Enix, who will be publishing the game in Japan. The rumor that a gunblade will be an unlockable weapon has yet to be confirmed or denied… largely because I just made it up. (link)

Nudity And Heavy Rain Spoilers!

Ok, there are spoilers in this section, so if you want to be completely surprised by Heavy Rain then skip this paragraph. Have the spoiler police gone? Awesome, we cool kids can enjoy this one in peace. Quantic Dream’s David Cage has defended a scene in Heavy Rain that reportedly made gamers feel uncomfortable. The scene in question involves lead character Madison Paige treating a seedy nightclub owner to a striptease in order to get some information. Cage said that the scene is supposed to feel uncomfortable, so that the player can empathize with Ms. Paige. Sounds a rather brave move, but pretty much what you’d expect from the man who made Fahrenheit or Indigo Porpoise as I believe it was called in the US; but don’t quote me on that… (link)

Gabe Newell Takes Victoria’s Secret Second

Those rascally little scamps at 4chan have been at it again it seems. Not content with voting 4chan founder Moot as Time Magazine’s “Person of the Year,” they decided to give Valve boss Gabe Newell a nice surprise by entering him in the “Love Your Body by Victoria” contest. Newell was narrowly pipped to the post however, by none other than Moot. Sadly, neither Gabe nor Moot will be winning the VIP trip to New York, because as men, they are apparently ineligible for the contest, a fact that the kind-hearted souls at 4chan no doubt overlooked in their altruistic efforts. Now, who said that 4chan were the bad guys of the internet? (link)

Robots Taught Sudoku, Judgment Day Delayed

A world ruled by cruel robot overlords sounds pretty unappealing, right? Damn straight it does, which is why we should all be thankful to Hans Andersson, a Swedish hacker who has averted our inevitable enslavement for another day. Hans designed a robot that could read and complete a Sudoku puzzle with no human intervention. The hope is that robots will be so distracted that by the time the revolution comes, humanity will be safely entrenched in bunkers under the sea. At least, I think that what he said, my Swedish is rusty. Hit the link for video goodness. (link)

StarCraft II Will Kinda Have Something Like LAN

You know how it is, when you spend a long time making something, you feel like you should use it, even if it’s more of a hindrance than a help. This strange quirk of the human condition explains so very much of our history: the Trojan Horse, Windows Vista and horrible Christmas sweaters. And now you can add Blizzard and Battle.Net to the list, because it turns out that StarCraft 2 will have something very much like LAN support, but it will have to go through Battle.Net 2.0, meaning that you will have to have at least some internet connection to get it to work. Sounds like a compromise that we can all live with, because who doesn’t have an internet connection these days? Everyone except hobbits and crazy people, that’s who! (link)