Week 32, 2006

What’s new on this week? What’s special on this week? For me, the week went pretty slow, and it doesn’t help me to garner the mood to put in a new blog entry. After all, its weekend and I guess I’ll put up a summary review of what I would like to share with you guys coming to the end of Week 32, Year 2006.

First we start off with the big news, the Airline plot in Britain. It shouldn’t be something new to you by now, but just in case you wanted to know more about the development of the plot, visit here. What I’m more concern is the UK authorities have banned passengers from taking any eletronic items and liquids on board!

Other than the mentioned laptops, iPods, cell phones, it means that all of you proud PSP and NDSL owners out there who’s going to or from UK will not be able to enjoy your lengthy flight playing New Super Mario Bros., or Tekken Dark Resurrection (if you own a PSP! xD). It might not be the best of news, but its indeed the neccessary precaution to be taken critically in countering possible terrorist plot.

More about worldwide terrorism, but moving towards the much anticipated film, World Trade Center, which had just premiered in the US on the 9th August. Starring Academy Award winner Nicolas Cage, the Oliver Stone’s film had so far gathered great response from the public as a tribute to those who died and survived from the September 11 event 5 years ago. The film will be shown on local cinema only until the 12th of October, so for you guys who long awaited for the film, here’s a little trailer of the WTC film for you.

To the game industry, Rockstar, the maker of the ever-controversial best-selling Grand Theft Auto series, had announced that they will be releasing their new title, Bully, in October, a game based on the theme of school violence and bullies. With the authorities going aggressive in recent efforts to ban violent video games, Bully is likely to get an AO (adult only) rating and Rockstar will likely to fall again into the controversial saga of video games violence, with the Florida based Miami-Dade County School board already called for retailers not to sell the games to minors and required school district to warn parents about potential harm to play such video game. Video game violence has been a critically debated issue recent years, which I personally disagree to the fact that video games like Grand Theft Auto contributed to violence much more than movies and films. Anyway, I wasn’t a big fan of GTA series, but I do anticipating Bully, it might ended up being the next best-seller since GTA:San Andreas, lets us have a little sneakpeak of the game with the official trailer of, Bully.

More next-gen console information coming up, and another Wii-related rumor. According IGN Wii, Nintendo will be launching the “revolution”-ary Wii in between the 2nd of November and 12th of November. If this piece of information is anything but true, Nintendo will be competing head-to-head up against their mighty rival, Sony with the PlayStation 3 scheduled for a November 11th release in Japan, and November 17th release in USA, UK and Australia simultaneously. The report also stated that the Nintendo Wii will be retailed with a USD$229 price tag and will be coming in black and white color. It will be a massive console war with both the next-gen console being released on the same week, something in the magnitute that we’ve never yet witnessed in the industry for some time.

More rumors from the Nintendo camp coming this week, and this is something that really interest me alot. According to NintendoGossip, the website that reports anything from rumors to speculation about Nintendo, Nintendo is currently in development of a motion-sensing cartridge for the the Nintendo DS and Nintendo DS Lite. The cartridge will include with a built-in gyro-sensor and will be inserted to the GBA slot of your beloved DS/NDSL. One of the first game that will utilize the gyro-sensor will be Activision’s Tony Hawk DownHill Jam, an exclusive title for the Nintendo Wii and DS. The report suggested that it will allowed you to connect your NDSL in conjuction with games such as Excite Truck and Tony Hawk DownHill Jam for the Nintendo Wii, with having your NDSL as part of the controller. Interesting stuff, for a sneakpeak on how the control mechanism of Tony Hawk DownHill Jam will be like on the Nintendo Wii, here’s a little demo from the executive producer of the game explaning about it, released earlier this week by the developer, Activision.

Switching camp towards Sony, talking about the PlayStation 3, everything that came out recently is something bad and its not ending. According to the reputable Japanese gaming magazine Famitsu, developer FROM Software has halted their production of Dark RPG and Black Blade for the PS3. In the lead up to the launch day which is exactly 3 months away, we’ve already heard a lengthy list of cancelled title on the Blu-ray capable “personal computer” (as Sony called it) due to complexity in game development. With many developers already stated they won’t be developing any PS3 games until they’ve seen a response of the public towards the highly priced console, it has further push the PS3 under the dark cloud of serious doubts. Nintendo Wii is currently on top of my shopping list this Yule, but I’m waiting to see the situation of PS3 and probably I’ll just be enjoying my Wii and XBOX360 for the next couple of years, without Sony next-gen presense in my living room.

Here’s a little toy released by Nintendo-Japan recently, a robo-Mario and Toad controlled by a classical NES controler. Personally I’m pretty much to get one of these. The walking figure can walk, run and turn left and right and will be a great toy decorative in your living room while being a perfect present for your enthusiastic games/Mario loving friends. The walking-figure come with the price of USD$16.90 for each and USD$30.00 for both, currently available online at Brando Workshop, drop by and have a look! Here’s a little demostration on how the walking figure works.

A faithful Kotaku reader Marty might had gone wild with his misfortune of the NDSL cracking issue. In case you never knew, the NDSL cracking issue has been gathering much attention in the USA recently. The cracks appeared to affect only the USA release of NDSL and Nintendo has so far offered free-of-charge repair for any cracked NDSL. However, most cracking normally happened on the connection panel on top of the NDSL that connect both side of the screen, but never affecting normal gameplay and mainly minor crack at the connection point. Marty has went mighty unfortunate to suffer from a major crack and this is the first report of cracking NDSL in this magnitute. I wouldn’t need to describe more, just look at the picture below.

Forget about your misconception, Marty mentioned he is a cautious owner and take good care of his NDSL without a single scratch and dead pixel. I’m lucky to have paid the premium price for a Japanese NDSL, in which there’s little to no report so far concerning cracking issue on the Japanese machine.

Moving on to football. Nothing really big this week except for the naming of the new England national team captain. Steve McLaren, the new England national team coach has just named John Terry, the Chelsea skipper as the new England captain to succeed David Beckham, who stepped down as captain hours towards England’s elimination from the quarter-final at Germany 2006.

Time for some transfer news, West Bromwich Albion‘s goalkeeper Tomasz Kuszczak has finally completed his move from WBA to Man Utd. The Polish International keeper will be Edwin van der Sar‘s understudy for the coming season, allowing Ben Foster to continue his season-long loan to Watford. Foster will likely to be first choice in Watford, along with Tim Howard at Everton, Man Utd will now have two keepers playing as first choice for two EPL clubs, together with the arrival of Tomasz Kuszczak, the future is promising even with the imminent retirement of Edwin van der Sar at the end of coming season.

Other big name transfer will be Zlatan Ibrahimovich of Juventus has followed the newly appointed French International team captain, Patrick Vieira to Inter Milan for £16.7m. Spanish International central midfiedler Marcus Senna was still awaiting Man Utd‘s response towards completing his move to Manchester from Villarreal of Spain, while Ashley Cole exit from Arsenal seems to have stalled with Chelsea holding up a £16m bid while the Gunners demanded for £25m. Another Gunners‘ Spanish International forward Jose Antonio Reyes looked likely to join Real Madrid with the Spanish giant considering a bid in the next few days. The speculation of two important first-teamers leaving lead to the frustration of Arsenal‘s skipper Thierry Henry who criticized Arsenal‘s decision in selling their most important assets to their major rival locally and continentally.

There goes my weekly report, to wrap up the lengthy entry, just a reminder for you all football fans out there. We do have the FA Community Shield between Chelsea and Liverpool coming up this Sunday (13th August, 2006) at 9:50pm to officially kick-start the new football season in England. Stay tune and enjoy a great weekend!