Australians may soon get "Mature" games

The great land down under.  Many times it has been refused the games they so rightly deserved.  They have either been watered down or not released at all.  Well soon they may be getting a path to gaming salvation, a path to the true game.  Or at least that is what they hope.  A R18+ guideline has been proposed to the the Australian government that will allow more adult friendly titles.

The new R18+ would allow "virtually" no limits. In the old R15+ (at least according to the draft) sex was limited to implied but could not be a reward, nudity could not be a reward, drug use has to be justified by the context of the game, and violence had to be justified while strong violence could not be shown very frequently.  In the draft of the R18+ violence "is permitted except where it offends against the standards of morality, decency and propriety generally accepted by reasonable adults to the extent that it should not be classified." Sex may be a realistic simulation (not real), nudity is allowed (period) and drug use is allowed (period).  If you are interested in this hit the source link for the PDF that has the guidelines.

The Beast is Coming

inFAMOUS was (in my opinion) a good game with a great story.  The ending was actually a surprise that I did not see coming. So when I saw this trailer that was posted I had to show it here.  If you want zero spoilers for inFAMOUS 2 I would advise not watching the video as it shows information about the beginning of the game. But if you don't mind a little go ahead and watch.

WW3 with MW3

You may have heard about this small game that is in the works for 11/08/2011 called Modern Warfare 3. Now normally I would let IrishPride report on this as it is not my type of game, but this one looks a bit interesting.  Also I felt that we should actually say something about what is bound to be one of the most anticipated games of the year. This time it looks to take place all over the world in American and European cities during what is (lets see if you guessed this one) World War 3.  The trailer does look pretty awesome, so give it watch, and then let me know what you think.

The Gameslave Podcast - Episode 73

So, for the first time in a few weeks all three of us were in one spot. We sat down, we recorded an episode, everything was great, until the saving was needed. First Audacity would not save the file, so I exported it as an MP3. Close audacity, open the MP3 and find out that everything before the 35 minute mark was lost. Dammit, so I give you what was left, and the notes of what we had talked about. Fail on my part.

Download Link

Podcast Notes

Xbox Bricks?

Microsoft is preparing their consoles to take a new disk format. This can mean great things for the 360. More space on a disk would be great.  This could prevent more 3 DVD games from being released.  Probably what Microsoft did not expect was to brick a small number (whatever that actually means) of their player base. Microsoft has even said "Following a recent update to our system software, we have become aware of an issue that is preventing a very small number of Xbox 360 owners from playing retail game discs".

But they are willing to make up for this to the people it happens to.  Eurogamer has stated that if you have the issue to contact Xbox support at www.xbox.com/support/contact to verify it has happened.  Once they have verified the issue then you can be your system replaced with a nice shiny Xbox 360 S complete with a 250 GB hard dive. Not too shabby.

Sony Customer Appreciation Program (Bribe)

Sony North America has come up with what amounts to a bribe for the massive failure of their online service, and it is not too bad. For those that are fast enough Sony is offereing ALL Playstation Network customers 2 of 5 games.  You have 30 days to get those game and once you grab them they are yours forever.  Your choices are:

• Dead Nation
• inFAMOUS (I highly recommend this one if you don't have it)
• LittleBigPlanet (good for families)
• Super Stardust HD
• Wipout HD + Fury

This deal is great, unless you are a very avid fan boy and you already have all 5 games. I guess you can at least get two of them to live on your hard drive then. PSP owners are getting a similar deal from the following list:

• LittleBigPlanet (PSP Edition)
• ModNation Racers
• Pursuit Force
• Killzone Liberation

This is the permanent stuff you get to keep as a "my bad" gift.  And hey, if you have both a PS3 and a PSP that is 4 free games. They also have some things that are going to be nice, but seem more like a marketing gimick, which I guess it really needed at this point given all the not so great press they got the past few weeks.

• A selection of “On Them” rental movie titles will be available to PlayStation Network customers over one weekend, where Video Service is available. Those titles will be announced soon.
• 30 days free PlayStation Plus membership for non PlayStation Plus subscribers.
• Existing PlayStation Plus subscribers will receive an additional 60 days of free subscription.
• Existing Music Unlimited Premium Trial subscription members will receive an additional 30 days of free premium subscription.
• Additional 30 days + time lost for existing members of Music Unlimited Premium/Basic subscription free of charge for existing Premium/Basic members.
• To welcome users Home, PlayStation Home will be offering 100 free virtual items. Additional free content will be released soon, including the next addition to the Home Mansion personal space, and Ooblag’s Alien Casino, an exclusive game.

I do like how they are giving people that were already paying for some of the services such as Qriocity and Playstation Plus an additional 30 days over everyone else.  Makes you seems a little more special.  So does this bribe work for you guys?

Portal 2 Review - PC and PS3

Welcome to Aperture Science, where the future is now. Or at least it was until you destroyed the megalomaniac AI that was running the place. This was a little over a hundred years ago and the place has not seen any real love. You start the game being brought out of stasis by Wheatly, the AI that is supposed to be in charge of all the humans. Too bad you are the only one left and the others are "bloody vegetables". So now you two are going to try and escape this place before the management comes down and knocks some heads.

Click here to continue reading...

PSN - Its On (Mostly) (EDIT)

Kazua Hiraj has announced that Sony has begun a region by region activation of the PSN today.  It is suggested that after you turn on your PS3 and update your firmware you immediately change your password for the PSN (like they have to tell you that).  They are slowly getting to each city and state and are saying it will be "several hours to restore PSN throughout the entire country".  As of this writing at 8:53 PM MST only 7 Northeast states had their service restored and given their estimate, we should be seeing a nation wide return to coverage by Sunday morning.  This is assuming they work on it all night.  If you would like to see the status on the return coverage check on the source link.  Good news is now you can start get Portal 2 on your PC for those that have it on PS3 and Mortal Kombat can start to see the online play it deserves.

EDIT: We now have a full return of the PSN.