It’s been a quietish week, not a lot going down. There’s a reason for that off course, everyone is playing something. Arkham City, Uncharted 2, Battlefield 3, Modern Warfare 3, Skyrim, the last week and change has seen a flood of a Metacritic demolishing super releases. Our senses are shattered and our wallets are dry.

And we’re not even done yet, next week sees mairtal aid assisted assault simulator Saints Row 3 and renaissance faire parkour simulator Assassins Creed Revelations further strain out budgets, the week after Aussies finally get a chance to pick up Zelda Skyward Sword.

So we’d all rather be gaming. So I’m going to make this one super brief okay? Okay.

Oh and that birthday, it's the Xbox's tenth birthday today. Yay!

Bad Hack News

(for context, here's a picture of a broken valve, for some reason in my day job I have a large set of images of busted valves and this finally came in handy)

In case you hadn’t heard, PC game service Steam got hacked the other day and it’s suspected that many users may have had their usernames and passwords accessed. The files lifted were reportedly encrypted but the hackers likely have the capacity to crack the encryption and access a lot of personal information including emails, addresses, phone numbers and potentially credit card numbers.

At first it was presumed the hack only affected forum details but it seems things could be a little worse. So far there have been reports of tampered credit card activity or other malicious activity resulting from the theft of information. To be on the safe side it’s recommended you change your Steam password and possibly other passwords that might be easy to crack with your personal info and keep a close out on transactions with your credit card.

The hack was detected by Valve about three days before they officially reported it when the forums were defaced.

Harry Partridge News

Harry Partridge is funny in the best way possible, obscenely and with animation. His musical and animation talents produced the best advertisement for Skyrim ever a few months back and with the games release he fires of this little companion gem.

Call of Duty News

The new Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 sold a lot of copies, much in the way you’d describe the population of China as ‘a lot’.

Approximately 6.5 million copies were sold in the first 24 hours. Compared to last years 5.6 million figure by Black Ops, that’s pretty staggering, and 4.7 million by it’s true prequel Modern Warfare 2. That makes it, by virtue of money made as opposed to units moved, the biggest entertainment launch in history.

What does this all mean? It means Call of Duty isn’t going away any time soon, expect the next game this time next year.

Hopefully by then they’ve got Call of Duty Elite working, the much publicised service has been ‘intermittent’ since launch and Activision have all ready tacked on a free month to annual subscribers to make up to the lost time.

Halo News

Here’s a Halo movie made for only $850. No that’s not a type, $850 as in less than a $1000, as in less money than I’ve spent on games this year alone.

Oh my god I’ve wasted my life, I’m going to go and watch the sunset right now, in Skyrim.

Saints Row News

Saints Row is going to have heaps of DLC. Buying one of these season pass things will get you access to all these goodies when they come out for 15% off.

• Nyte Blayde Pack – Includes the Nyte Blayde Mobile, altar boy outfit, Bloody Canoness outfit and Bloody Canoness bike.

• Genkibowl VII (available January 2012): “The Wide World of Genki takes over Steelport for a sporting tradition totally and utterly unlike any other.”

• Gangstas in Space (available Winter 2012): “The Saints go intergalactic in this science-fiction misadventure.”

• The Trouble With Clones (available Spring 2012):
 “Copy-cat killing at its finest.”

DC Universe News

(Comic from the excellent Lets Be Friends Again http://www.letsbefriendsagain.com/)

Struggling MMORPG DC Universe that lets you create your own character, likely called B4tman has gone free to play this month and immediately jumped to a million users. If you’re keen for a World of Warcraft expierence with the Justice League as quest givers there you go.

Skyrim News

Skyrim came out last week and after an incredibly painful buying experience at my local EB Games that was akin to having a hot needle shoved under my tongue experience wise I have a copy. I’ve not played it yet as I need to complete Battlefield 3 so I can write my review for you dear readers, yes that’s my level of commitment. I’m putting of playing a game I’ve literally dreamed about every night this month to fulfil my important duties as pretend journalist.

No, no need to thank me. However if you really want you can send me cookies or caramel slice shortbread in the post.

FYI, there’s a rant coming, it might be a good idea to skip the next two paragraphs.

Anyway the unimportant news is that Skyrim had a big hollywood launch party, inexplicably attended by vainglorious celebrities who were told to go by their publicist and don’t know what a Skyrim is, such as Christina Aguilera and a bunch of other rich handsome people I don’t recognise who dress like catalogue models and drink bottled water all the time. Janes Addiction played and there were numerous consoles demoing the game surrounded by hot tight shirt wearing young ladies. I’m yet to see a single photo of the even showing someone playing the game.

Which leads me to wonder who the fuck this event was even supposed to be for? It’s like the cult of celebrity has become a business model and they create arbitrary events that revolve around product placement and paparazzi. Celebrities used to be celebrities because they had class, charisma, they were cool and you wanted to be like them. Now we’re spoon fed these personality challenged television people and pop stars and told we like them and they’re sex symbols and here’s another goddamn launch party for a deodorant spray where they all go and drink water, and nobody drinks alcohol , or eats or even god forbid smokes, and they sit around in constant poses waiting to be photographed and pretend to be people.  I mean just tlook at this goddamn gallery over at Kotaku of the event: http://www.kotaku.com.au/2011/11/hollywoods-skyrim-party-this-is-it/ Who the fuck are these people!?! The whole thing makes my head hurt.

...

And we’re back.

Anyway, the REAL news about Skyrim is that the Xbox version is having some issues  and Bethesda is advising people not to install the game to their hard drives until they’ve repaired the texture issue. A bit of a back pedal as they previously advised installing it to get the best graphical quality out of the Xbox version.

So hold of on that install.

Amusing News

I’ve been a fan of the website Fat, Ugly or Slutty (http://fatuglyorslutty.com) since its inception. Reading the appalling and sexist things people say to female gamers reminds me why I never plug in my mic. But through that site I’ve discovered the even more amusing ‘Tales from the Online Gaming Crypt” in the website Why Was I Banned? http://whywasibanned.com

It’s a gallery of forum posts by people complaining about their consoles being locked and perma bans on their accounts, usually followed by a detailed account of exactly what they did do, and often a hilarious slap by one of the XBLPET moderators, who have become my new heroes.

Well worth a few hours reading. My favourites are the ones from people pretending to be their indignant parents who somehow never learned how to spell simple words or use caps lock.

Movie News

They’re making a Carmen Sandiego movie with Jennifer Lopez.

If you’re too young to remember the game ‘Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego’ then you are lucky, it was terrible. Do not let the above image indicate otherwise.

Still no Halo movie.

PETA News

Maybe last week you thought I was too hard on PETA, the organisational that insists on extending human rights to animals. Because hey, everyone loves animals, and an organisation dedicated to loving and protecting animals, how could they be bad? They’d never do something petty or ridiculous in the pursuit of animal equality right?

Something like, say, criticising Super Mario 3D Land because the character wears a Tanooki skin suit as a powerup to fly. Well here’s their press statement:

“Tanooki may be just a “suit” in Mario games, but by wearing the skin of an animal, Mario is sending the message that it’s OK to wear fur. We created our game to help inform people that in real life, Mario would be wearing the skin of an animal who was beaten, strangled or electrocuted, and it wouldn’t give him any special powers other than the power of self-deception.

“Tanukis are real-life raccoon dogs who are beaten and, as PETA’s undercover exposés show, often skinned alive for their fur,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “This winter, everyone can give raccoon dogs and other fabulous animals a 1-UP by keeping our wardrobes fur-free.”

PETA have even produced a cheap 2D game featuring a skinned Tanooki chasing after Mario, much like the Super Tofu Boy game they made to criticise Super Meat Boy.

Off course this is just the latest PETA attempt to garner a little publicity. But how many non-PETA affiliated people are going to read the above press release and nod sagely at their words versus how many people are going to sigh deeply and mutter, ‘Man those guys are morons’?

Birthday News

Today, November 15, the Xbox turned 10 years old.

Gather round children, for I have a tale to tell.

O’er ten year past our land was ruled by a mighty giant. The giant, we called Playstation The Second, ruled us because it was the only giant in the land and we had no choice of ruler. Legends persisted of an ancient pantheon of god like giants. Ancient titans with names like Saturn and Gamecube, but they were only spoken in whispers, worshipped by tiny cults at the fringes of our society.

Playstation the Second was a benevolent ruler, gifting us with many wonderful trinkets, and we were happy. Some whispered that as a ruler the Playstation was poor at keeping up with new and advancing technology, and there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth.

These whisperers built their own giant in secret. With a strike of lightening they animated the beast and it came screeching, like a thousand souls in torment, into the world, and it was called Xbox. For the belief at the time, was that X’s were cool. The Xbox and the Playstation 2 battled each other from that moment on, locked it terrible combat. They fought by gifting us with trinkets, they fought to win our love. Many pointed out that Xbox did not give out as many trinkets, but others argued that the trinkets were often better so we should not expect as many.

Some people stood by their old ruler and cried that nothing from the Xbox could ever be good and right. Likewise others stood by the Xbox and said the same of the Playstation and there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth.

Some stood in the middle of the field and pointed out that the neither giant cared much for the people that loved it, only that they had more worshippers than the other giant. The worshippers cried even louder and each side screamed angrily that those in the middle must be deceitful supporters of the other side, suggested they were also open to relationships with people of both genders and said hurtful things about their mothers. The people in the middle shrugged and spoke witticisms to each other and swapped pictures of their cats.

The giants battles continued on, the giants themselves grew and changed, matching each other as each evolved. Their trinkets improved all the time until they were almost identical. But the worshippers cries grew ever more frenzied, they listed again and again, the tiny differences between the two giants and when they could not be persuasive, they only became louder and more disrespectful of peoples mothers.

For a brief time a white knight named Sir Wii appeared and many sought his banner. Sadly he turned out to be only an empty animated suit of armour, and not a real giant. Now he sits alone in his temple, silent and still, a film of dust on his white armour, awaiting the coming of something called Zelda.

Today the battle rages on between the giants, sometimes one has more followers, sometimes the other. But the more the giants changed, the more trinkets they gave out and the more abilities they learned, the more things stayed the same.

And that’s the story of the Xbox!

And that's all we've got time for good night!