I’m sure a lot of you will remember the 1993 first person shooter hit Wolfenstein 3D. I believe it’s been freeware for a while. You can now play Wolfenstein 3D in your browser on this page! It’s supposed to be a tech demo for Flash 8.

If you want to try out a miniaturized version of Wolftenstein 3D, you can play it here. It’s actually a mere 5K in size, it was created for a 5K contest, hence it being in black & white, but that doesn’t take away from the feat one bit.

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If you are a video game fan, then you will have noticed that so far Hollywood hasn’t been very kind to movies that are based on video games. Many of them have been absolutely terrible by anyone’s standards of “good” or “must-see”, these films include such titles as: Double Dragon, Super Mario Bros., Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, as well as every movie released by universally despised (by video game fans at least) German-born director Uwe Boll, who has released two insanely bad video game movies so far — The House of the Dead and Alone in the Dark — that did nothing to help the status of video game movies as legitimate entertainment.

Unfortunately, Uwe Boll has much more to offer us, with several movies in the works. BloodRayne will be releasing to theaters soon, and upcoming games based on films include: In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale (set for 2006 and in post-production), Hunter the Reckoning (2006, pre-production), and three more announced films: Far Cry (2006), Postal (2007) and Fear Effect (2008).

Fortunately, there is a bright side to this picture (pun-intended) . . . .
Read more…

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Some of you may find this Washington Post article interesting. It was written by Sebastian Mallaby and has him discussing the positive impact that certain computer games have had on his 11 year-old son; Games for which he approves as they deal with intelligent subjects and require some skill with numbers and reasoning, as well as historical and economical aspects in regard to real-time strategy titles like Age of Empires III, a game which the father sites in the article. While it’s readily apparent to any true video game fan that the father doesn’t know much about video games or the gaming industry, and he admits that he hasn’t played many, or any, games, the article still provides a lot of insight into the positive-side of video games and what they teach kids, as the kids learn how to play the games, and he informs parents that not all video games are “bad” or “evil”, which is a breath of fresh air to hear from the downright ignorant press.

I suggest that any parents of video game playing children read the article, and it’s an interesting read nonetheless even for us gamers who already know what skills video games help to develop. You can check the article out by clicking here.

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Although Amazon itself has yet to release sales data for the holiday season, Bloomberg is reporting that video games, along with ipods, has helped Amazon.com to have it’s busiest and apparently best selling, holiday season yet, with over 108 million items sold between November 1st and Christmas Day. The sales of video games and ipods topped the list for most sold items at the online retailer for holiday gifts. Amazon’s busiest sales day was on Monday, December 12 with costumers odering a whopping 3.6 million items.

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Updated: An official quote from Nintendo: “What the magazine has done is imagine how existing franchises would work with the Revolution controller, rather than actually seeing anything… It’s all still speculation.” So it’s not confirmed nor denied *sigh*

European GameCube magazine NGC says they have confirmed that Nintendo’s newest upcoming Zelda game, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, which is scheduled for release next-year on the GameCube, will be compatible with Nintendo’s upcoming next-gen system; still code-named the Nintendo Revolution.

While it is no suprise that Zelda will be playable on the Revolution, as the system is backwards compatible to play all GameCube games, NGC says they have learned that Zelda won’t just be playable on the system, but that it will actually have exclusive features and upgrades that take advantage of the Revolution’s unique controller and features if you play the game on the upcoming system.

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For the sixth time in no less than five years, a law restricting the sale of violent video games to minors has been struck down by a judge. Judge Ronald Whyte of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California prevented the new law that was signed by California Governor (Or “governator”) Arnold Schwarzenegger from going into effect, ruling that “games are protected by the First Amendment”–worthy of the same protection of free expression as books, films, television, or the press.

He granted the preliminary injunction on the grounds that the terms of the law, which would include mandatory labeling of games deemed unsuitable for minors, would “likely” be ruled unconstitutional. The law was slated to go into effect on January 1, 2006.
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Tecmo has just announced that the much delayed next installment in the Xbox’s flagship fighting series will, as promised, make release within 2005, squeeking by with a release of Dec. 29, and that’s final! The game was originally supposed to release at the launch of the system in America and Japan, but it ended up missing both dates as it kept getting pushed back another week for final tweaking. It’s still to be seen though whether this will boost the flogging sales of the 360 in Japan or not, but it’s good news for gamers with a newfangled 360 looking for some high quality fighting.

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Microsoft and Nissan have teamed up for the first ever car to include a “fully integrated video game system”. While this might at first sound like it’s just going to be another car with a PS2 or Xbox inserted, it goes well beyond that.

“Conceived by Nissan Design America Inc. (NDA) and equipped with the Xbox 360 next-generation video game and entertainment system from Microsoft, the Nissan URGE concept car allows drivers (while parked) to play ‘Project Gotham Racing 3′ using the car’s own steering wheel, gas pedal and brake pedal while viewing the game on a flip-down seven-inch LCD screen,” Nissan and Microsoft said in a statement.

The car will be shown at the upcoming 2006 North American International Auto Show in Detroit on Jan. 6th.

I say . . . great, that’s just what we need, a car full of teens driving WHILE they are playing a game . . . . you know it will happen . . . . wonder what the politicians will do when they hear about that . . . . . that’s assuming this car even gets made.

Though I’m sure it will be amazing the first time you try it . . . . a car that doubles as a sort of real-life arcade cabinet . . . why didn’t they think of this sooner!

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Bummers… I mean… Numbers by Business Week may have reported that Microsoft is losing $126 on every Xbox 360 sold. That figure is now believed to be a bit higher by some. According to Insider Scoop, the world’s largest software maker is losing upwards of $300 per console sold. From the article: “A high ranking friend at IBM, one that worked on the Xbox 360 chip design, tipped us regarding the real expenses involved in manufacturing the Xbox 360… ‘It costs Microsoft approximately $715 to make, the manufacturing costs are still too high, another reason why they’re producing relatively small quantities’.”

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It’d seem that Halo 3 might be closer than expected, with several stores, opening pre-order channels in the USA for the still-unannounced Xbox 360 update. Bungie has been coy when it comes to detailing what it is working on right now. The project is merely referred to as ‘next-project’. Hence the pre-orders might be nothing more than cash-ins, not surprising considering many of the same stores also carry Playstation 3 pre-orders.

Earlier reports quote Bill Gates saying Halo 3 will launch the day the Playstation 3 launches, to steal its thunder. Whatever the case may be, it’s good to know in 2006 we’ll see a new Halo game. In the same year it’s also expected that an all-new Bungie game to precede Halo 3 will be unveiled. This strategy would have the benefit of netting vast sales while fledging an all-new franchise, enabling Microsoft to roll out two games from its first-part studio.

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