The Week in Review: Portals and Pokémon

In this week’s edition, Valve says that it isn’t worried about the PS3 security problems, and cheaters fail to prosper.

Mom Covers For Autistic Boy Accused of Cheating

When Microsoft accused 11-year-old Julius Jackson – who suffers from autism – of cheating, the boy’s mother acted like she knew nothing about it. But now, the full details of the incident have been revealed, and it appears that she might have had an inkling of what Microsoft was talking about after all, despite her earlier protests. (Link)

Crysis 2 Demo Is a Little Broken

In what must be a worrying turn of events for Crytek, the multiplayer demo of Crysis 2 that it released on Xbox Live this week wasn’t working right for a lot of players. What’s more, it wasn’t just one problem, but a veritable suite of glitches and bugs. Crytek said that it was working on a fix for the problems, and hopefully by the time you read this, everything is working like it’s supposed to. (Link)

Fan Draws Hundreds of Pokémon as Cosplay Girls

There are hundreds of Pokémon, from old-time favorites like Bulbasaur and Pikachu, to fresher faces like Piplup or Chimchar. Someone has taken these hundreds of characters and drawn all of them – or at least, what was all of them before Pokémon Black & White came out – as young girls in costumes. Don’t ask me why, but do hit the link for the gallery. (Link)

BioShock Inspires Bethesda

Bethesda has taken a few tips from other games for the revamped combat in the next Elder Scrolls game, including the likes of Irrational Games’ BioShock. The new magic system means that players can only cast spells with an empty hand, much like BioShock’s plasmids. Bethesda has tweaked other areas too, making stealth easier, for example, or blocking harder. (Link)

Valve Brush Off PS3 Hacks

The PS3 isn’t as secure as it used to be, but that doesn’t worry Valve too much. Portal 2 writer Chet Faliszek said that Valve wasn’t regretting its decision to bring the game to the PS3 in even despite the security breaches and hacks. He said that the security problems would have no effect at all on Portal 2, or on any other Valve games for that matter. (Link)