Kotaku

I have a sort of love-hate relationship with Jonathan Blow. I still think he can come off like a pretentious jerk, but after some epistolary exchanges, I think we're maybe seeing a little more eye to eye on several key issues. But I adore his game Braid. I'm even willing to put up with the fact that it doesn't play nicely with my Mac: it's really a pleasure to play, and I'm looking forward to having it on my 360 so I can look at it on something bigger than my laptop. The guys at 1UP did an interview with developers Blow and David Hellman on the subject of Braid; we posted the gameplay montage a few weeks back. Now you have another chance to hear Blow talking about why Braid is pretty awesome. And I will — for once — gleefully concur on a lot of it.

Regular Wii just a bit too vanilla for you? Perhaps you ought to have won Nintendo's Super Smash Bros. Brawl tournament! Of course, if you suck at Brawl and think a Wii decked out with 20,000 Swarovski crystals is very much "your thing," you could possibly just grab one from Crystal Icing, maker of all things crystallized. They're not currently selling them, but I'm sure if you got them on the phone and asked them to charge four grand to your credit card, something could be worked out.

The Brawl to End Them All... [Crystal Icing]

The Cyberathlete Professional League has become the latest pro-gaming operation to close its doors. The organization announced that it had ceased operations on March 13, canceling all currently schedule events. The official statement cites "the current fragmentation of the sport, a crowded field of competing leagues, and the current economic climate" as responsible for the CPL suspending operations. General ennui was not mentioned as a factor.

The World Series of Video Games, which shut down in September of last year, similarly pointed to a "very crowded field of competitive gaming leagues." The CPL, established in 1997, noted that it "intends to continue to pay the 2007 World Tour prizes."

The CPL Ceases Operations [CPL]

SXSW hosted what sounds like a very interesting panel on the issue of personal property rights in virtual worlds: this is becoming an ever more important issue, with lawsuits a-flyin' and people getting arrested for virtual property theft. So, how is this issue going to get nailed down? And when? And by whom? The panel consisted of GoPets CEO Erik Bethke, Live Gamer co-founder Andrew Schneider and attorney Greg Boyd, with Charles River Ventures' Susan Wu moderating.

Wu began by discussing the recent Bragg v. Linden Labs court case -- in brief, a legal battle between a Second Life user and the world's parent company over land that Bragg apparently improperly acquired, resulting in a ban from the world by Linden. That case, Wu says, was a landmark in that it demonstrated that virtual property rights have tangible value in the court system ....

"What are the prevailing customs that should apply?" Wu asked. "Is it the country where the company is based? Is it the country where the customer lives? We don't even know what the basic virtual property rights are that we should be concerned with."

These sorts of issues will get nailed down eventually (maybe?), it's a serious balancing act in a lot of ways. And once you mix in the reasonably global nature of many MMOs? Well ....

Human and Property Rights in Virtual Worlds [Worlds In Motion]

The most recent Bungie Weekly Update teases that this Tuesday will see the official word on new Halo 3 Legendary Map Pack details, including a solid release date and a look at the second of three new levels. The first, "Ghost Town," was unveiled just a few weeks ago. We think it's a pretty safe bet that the new map will be frosty, as the game's vehicles have been given a fresh snowjob, with pictures of each new iced out ride over at Bungie.net. Luke Smith also drops word that the Hornet has been given a gameplay nerf, making it "less of an airborne death machine and more of an aerial support vehicle now."

Bungie Weekly Update: 3/14/08 [Bungie]

Leigh Alexander has an interesting proposal (one that will never, ever happen, but interesting nonetheless): two versions of the Wii console to rid the system of the pesky Friend Code system (which is, as Alexander points out, frequently a pain in the ass):

Friend Codes are a pain, right? The Wii doesn't have the sort of lobby system that just about every other game machine has managed to perfect. The mechanism exists, sure, but I've never seen it function usably. If current reviews of Brawl are to be believed, it's best to match up with a friend than to try and get a random battle.

Of course, the Wii is a family console; I don't think Nintendo has anything to gain from making it easier for random strangers to hook up with kids on the internet. But why don't they make like Xbox did and offer different console packages?

Clearly, the Wii is selling like hot cakes and Nintendo doesn't need to do anything; but it would be nice to have the option of dumping the clunky Friend Code system, no?

Wii For Grown-Ups [Sexy Videogameland]

You have to love how vague this stuff is; to me, leaving off the 'And they were playing a video game' part wouldn't diminish the story at all.

A 15-year-old boy from Marble Falls is at Austin's Brackenridge Hospital after suffering a gunshot wound to the head. [...] The boy was playing a video game with a friend when that friend loaded a gun and shot him in the head.

Police said the 13-year-old shooter is being held at the juvenile detention center in Belton and is charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.

The newspaper said the boys were playing a video game called "God of War".

Hopefully this won't lead to a media frenzy - news is sparse right now, but we'll see how it continues to develop.

13-year-old shoots friend in the head [News 8 Austin]

We haven't pulled the trigger on any deal, but we're looking at things all the time. We're definitely open to it, and the kind of consumer that we focus on. If it works with our family, music and games brand value and comes at the right price, we'd definitely be excited about it.

This is one of those flyers that I wasn't able to find much info on, but after checking it out I think you'll understand why I featured it this week.

Grudge Match was put out in 1989 by Yankee Game Technology. According to KLOV and the internets, this may well be the only game that Yankee Game Technology ever made. Grudge Match was a fairly straightforward wrestling game that could be played by up to two players at a time. In the single player version, you would go through a slew of opponents on your way to becoming the world champion wrestler. Each opponent would have to be beaten three times before moving on to the next. The multiplayer version had a continuous play feature that would let the losing player join back in for a rematch with the addition of a few quarters.

We brought the original this week. Flynn hit up Capcom's Digital Day, we recovered from EIEIO info dumps and juggled EA/Take-Two wackiness. Reviews, features, asides—the originality was all over the place, including gathering informal data on how y'all discovered Kotaku. A thousand comments? Woosh! That's BANANAS! We also formally said goodbye to our lovely intern Tori, welcoming new credit-slave Adam to Kotaku Tower. Bye, Tori! Keep in touch!

Hit the links to read our originals, if you missed out this week. It's fun!

The Intern Has Left The Building
Team Fortress DLC Price Is Up To Microsoft And Sony
Ninja Reflex Review: Cut To The Quick
The Xbox Live Police
How'd You Find Kotaku?
EndWar Sneak Preview Packed in R6 Vegas 2
EA Talks About Their "Tender" Offer and a Line in the Sand
Where I Get My Lazy From
Hands On With 1942: Joint Strike
Hands On With Wolf of the Battlefield: Commando 3
Hands On With Capcom's Piratical Plunder
We Love Golf Details
Udon Drawn SFII Turbo HD Remix Looks Amazing
Order New Pokemon, Get Pokemon Guide
Rondo Of Swords - A New Approach To Turn-Based StrategyPlayStation Home Beta Ends In May?
God of War Chains of Olympus Review: Portable Near Perfection
Brawl Online Not Working, Nintendo Says Try Again
Sega File Trademark For "Stormchaser"
Which Controller Do You Brawl With?
Super Smash Bros. Brawl Review: Mascot Mashing Mania
Hands On With Civilization Revolution Multiplayer
MIT Celebrates SSBB Release

Last week, Guitar Hero III came out in Japan. The game sold something like 3,000 copies fore both the PS3 and the PS2. Ouch. Not surprising as guitar-based music games were popular in Japan nine years ago. Nine years ago? As game site Next Generation points out, that's the same number that guitar manufacturer Gibson pulled out for its legal suit. As Next Gen points out:

1999, hmm? A quick visit to our good friend Wikipedia reveals that Konami's GuitarFreaks game made its debut in Japan in 1999, meaning it was most likely in the production and planning phases since 1998 at the latest.

My guess is that someone in the Gibson corporation's marketing department heard of GuitarFreaks in 1999 and immediately checked to see if Konami had filed a patent in the US. When their search revealed no results, they filed a patent themselves, and waited patiently. For nine years. How utterly slimy.