The Pirate Bay hits a new record again

Over at torrent freak they are reporting that the overly famous Pirate Bay has reached a new milestone. In 2008 the Pirate Bay has reach 12 million seeders, a first in any torrent community. That means even with the fear of fines and jail time depending on the country you live in; that the raw desire to spread information is out shining any fear of repercussion.

Now the really amazing thing about this it used to be a great thing if a site could get even near 30 percent seeders. The pirate Bay this year is closing in on doubling that. The Pirate Bay is at 50 percent at the time of this rant.

Though that doesn't appear to be enough for them. The new goal is for anyone in using the service to tell a friend or two. By the end of the year their goal is to reach 20 million seeders. I would say this was a lofty goal to say the least but with the startling gains over last couple year I would not be surprised to be eating crow by the end of the year.

No matter what happens The Pirate Bay doesn't seem to be going anywhere anytime soon.

Blizzard pwns Boll

It turns out "famed" director Uwe Boll had his sights set on Azeroth. Luckily for all of us Blizzard is not a stupid company, the reports say Uwe was laughed out of the meeting. To be honest I don't know what he expected. The man has yet to make a remotely watchable movie from what I have been told and have read.

For those of you like me who are not to familiar with Mr. Bolls work, here is a short clip of his "art." I am all for art in any form but; I don't think this really hits the mark. It's not thought provoking, it's not really trying to push a worth while idea, and lastly it seems poorly written.

All in all WOW may never get a great film adaption. Let's be honest dose everything we like have to be put to film? WOW is such a epic and yet personal experience that film may not be able to meet all of our expatiation's.

Wii's poors sales

I know you have read all about how no one has the wii and it's one of the best selling systems of all time. Yet we could see this all coming from a mile away, Nintendo has some of the most accessible charters of all time. I mean who doesn't like at least one of the Nintendo franchises?

No one can argue that Nintendo hit a major home run in the cheap hardware department. Though take a look around online. You see bundles a wide as the net, this isn't because Nintendo is requiring it. The Wii sell wells enough by itself.

The issue a lot of retailers are coming across, and Nintendo as well is that no one really new what "casual" gamers would do. Now we seem to know. The NY times has a story just about this question. It seems that "casual" gamers have yet or will never get bored with the free sports disc. Now Nintendo has sold other software; but no where near the xbox360 or that of the PS3.

So the question has seemed to be answered for the moment. Maybe when you build a game system, sticking with the base is the best thing to do; and let the gamers bring in their friends and families into gaming so games can continue to push artistic freedom and imagination.

Funcom shooting CE people in the foot.

First off don't get me wrong, I am looking very forward to AOC, I have heard many good things like, "this game will rule our lives." Granted this may sound over the top but I was told this by a MMO veteran.

So I was linked to a story that AOC will know give the drinking cape to all that have been new subscribers. The drinking cape!? I couldn't believe this, this along with the early access going to cost you a extra five bucks, on top of a dwindling exclusive package. For anyone who likes to role plays a cape that lets you drink anywhere in the world for free would have been awesome.

Think about you could easily have come up with hundreds of ways in which you either have saved the world and the only thanks you wanted was free drinks everywhere in it forever. (Which would be pretty sweet, think about the money saved.) To how you saved towns or even a bar keeps wife or daughter from a band of thieves; or rival god.

Granted I do not know how many people will really role play in Age Of Conan, granted I am not a RP'er; yet I am annoyed for all of those people who spent ninety dollars to have a complete Conan experience to only have it be chipped anyway to those of who spent almost half.

ESRB has sights on DLC

The great guys and girls over at 1up have a interesting write up on how the ESRB wants to tackle down loadable content. It's no secrete that companies are shipping games that are not fully done. I not sure they are so much trying to sneak things under the ratings so as they are being lazy. Granted this is nothing new. PC games having been doing this for a while now.

Now what I think is interesting is; on the movie side when companies either put in a different ending or add back some deleted scenes the movie just becomes NR. Or the scenes are NR. So the question begs what makes a movie different from a game? Granted obvious differences asides they are both art forms. Granted this is they same with books, I don't see the huge censorship out cry.

So what makes them different? I don't think as for a art form there is a major difference. I think this is very complicated subject we have all heard the scapegoat answer; it's all in the protection of children. Though I think the issue gose much deeper than digital nudity and blood.

I think a lot of people are scared of new things. If you think about it, video games have not been around very long. A lot of the people who are most worried about them never grew up with them, so I think they fear where this could go.

Yet I think a greater number know out of all the things to protect your children from video games rank pretty low. This being you're a parent that pays attention to the world at large. So in one sense I don't blame them for throwing a fit. I mean video games, movies, books and music is all they can do to protect their kids form some untold danger. I think it gives them a sense of accomplishment and worth.

Yet I am not their kid, and no one has the right to limit art.

funcoms stone bleeding

I will first say that the price for the collectors edition of Age of Conan is pretty steep until you learn what you get. Any game that let your charter get drunk for free, though out the world forever isn't to bad. Plus if you are or are going to role play be "famous" enough to get free drinks for a lifetime is not a bad thing.

Though the thing that annoys me out of the collectors edition is the early access key. Don't get me wrong I think that part is cool and should come with the pre-order. What I don't like is that you have to pay to use the code. Really I mean after you either spend fifty or ninety dollars you have to give funcom five more bucks to play. So assuming you don't live in Oregon or another state that doesn't have sales tax ; to play Age of Conan to its fullest you will spend well over one hundred bucks. Look I am really looking forward to this game. Hell I do live in Oregon and I did get the collectors version, but even I'm thinking twice about handing over five more bucks.

The over thing I do not like about this is seems like they are trying to mix Koreas micro transactions with the Wests monthly subscription. I really hope this is the only thing they do to annoy me and you. I would hate to see this be a pre-cursor to a long and annoying trend to kill a great world before it even rises to it's feet.

Ooh, Ooh a girl is playing the Wii

In what could only be described as some of the most poorly executed ideas to get to gamers I have seen in a while. On YouTube.com you can see a preview to a show called Girls Play Wii
The show is of course not safe for work.

The clip starts off with a fairly attractive women throwing one of the most poorly acted fits I have seen in a great while. You'll notice that the voice track has been disabled, so you can't hear whatever she seems to be complaining about. Though do not despair the lovely ladies voice has been replaced with incredibly generic rock.

By her actions I could only assume she is waking up from a hang over. So over course the only thing to do is play the Wii. I didn't know this but it seems that the only way to play Wii bowling well is to strip down to your underwear. I have to admit I did like the fact that they used the Mario star fade when she went from being drunk to playing the Wii.

In all honesty I hope we can show potential upstart sites like this that yes most of us do like pretty women, but we do not need them playing a video game to get our interest. That just looks and is stupid.

Android coming to life

Yesterday a press conference was held on Google's new venture, the Android. Granted this is far from the first Linux based phone; though it could be the one to brake so thoroughly into the general public.

I think it's a smart move. If Google wants nothing else it wants the biggest piece of the phone pie. So that's why we have seen a few different models online. I have seen phones like the IPhone and The Blackberry to more end user general public phones designs. I think this is a incrediblyGoogles part. I never understood why if you can why just release a premium version of your product. Chances are more people will buy the sturdy work horse of the expensive fancy version.

To say they would like to go after Apple IPhone I think is pretty obvious, but I think is wrong. If you look at the numbers the IPhone overall has not been this huge success. I have heard from many people about how they all have jail broken phones, and when you look at the numbers AT&T doesn't make a ton of money when you go online.

Sorry about that I'll get back to the news at hand. One of the great things that Google had done was release the code to the general public a while back. I liked the fact that they could begin real world testing on it so soon. I just hope with all this real world testing that they have been doing, Android will be able to integrate with the average end user like myself. For the complete text story you can check it out over at arstechnica.com

MMO's for Mac?

The awesome guys and girls over at massively.com have posted something real cool. They are letting us all know about who still loves the Apple. I was amazed after reading it more than just a couple companies are bringing social gaming to other eight percent.

Granted we all know World of Warcraft is on the mac, but it's a common fat that Blizzard has and will always make games for Apple. What's great about WOW being on the mac is the low system requirements. Since the only macs that have dedicated graphics cards are the mac pros and macbook pros.

of all time EVE is on the mac. From what I have been reading about EVE online and heard from a friend who has played the game is; it's not for the weekend gamer. It's also a huge money drain, if you want to learn something The great thing is it's not just medieval MMO's, one of the most popular space themed MMO'spractice it, in real time.

Dead Fantasy the movies

So how many of you have ever wondered if different characters form different series could in fact kick each others ass? Granted that is a stupid question, why, because of course you have. I bet even had discussions with friends who could kick whom ass Well at gamedaily.com you can watch some of the Final Fantasy girls vs the Dead or Alive girls.

Granted this video has been online for a few months now but has not always been the easiest find. So I am hoping for a few of you this is a new and exciting video. The fist one is only about three minutes but the second one is a little over ten. The quality is jaw dropping, the motions are smooth as they are beautiful.

With two videos down I am eagerly waiting for the third film. If the jump is nearly as large as the first to the second, the final one will be epic, that and about twenty minutes in length. In each installment you get to see at least one new fighter. the Second one had the dramatic entrance of Tifa from FFVII along with Rino Hearilly.

So I ahve high hopes for the third installment. My hopes are that my favorite Final Fantasy girl will make a startling appearance. I'll just have to cross my fingers and hope. I really do recommend that if you have about thirty minutes to spare you will check this out. I honestly think that it will not be timed wasted.

Metal Gear bundle comes to Amcerica

I have jut read from Ps3fanboy that the highly anticipated Metal Gear solid 4: Guns Of The Patriots bundle will be coming to the U.S. markets. It has already sold out in Japan and most likely do the same in the U.S.

the bundle it self is a new color, the Ps3 will ship with the gun metal gray and will come with the new rumble three controller. It will also be sporting limited edition Guns Of The Patriots. The Bundle itself form what I have been able to dig up is predicted to run for $499 . If what happened in Japan is any indication of what is in store for the U.S. market this will go ridiculously fast. As it is they have sold out of all the pre-orders in the entire country. So if you are fan of the Metal Gear series I would recommend that you stop reading this right now and run to a Gamestop, or EB games and put some hard earned cash down right now.

For those of you unfamiliar with the Metal gear world, from what I have read up on there be cut scenes during the game from all of the other Metal Gear games. This will also include the portable ops for the Psp. The game takes place in 2014 five years after Metal Gear Solid 2. In this world the Military has had most of non interference restrictions lifted. This has lead to the rise of privet contractors. The main privet contractors are owned by a umbrella company called Outer Haven. Which in turn is being run by a man with the name of Liquid Ocelot.

A cool little tidbit of news is that this will be the first game to make full use of all fifty gigs of blu-ray disc. Granted this is not life changing news but I thought it was cool little fact. In North America Gamestop is announcing that the collectors edition will come in a metal tin with a limited edition box art, a second Blu-ray disc that has containing documentaries and interviews. It will also have a four chapter comic. You will receive all of this plus a soundtrack disc. The great thin about the soundtrack is the score is done by Harry Gregson and Nobuko Toda who did the music for the Metal Gear Acid games.
So with all this said I think Snake is getting the royal send off it style.

Red Alert 3 crazier than ever

So with all the R.T.S games coming out, one more is biding for your hard earned coin. It seems after seven years Red Alert will role out a new game. Though one of the cool things is if you purchase Command and Conquer :3 Kane's Wrath, you got a special code to get in the beta. But you will have to do this before September fifteenth or else the code will no longer work.

One of the things that I have loved about the Red Alert series is the what if. Though I doubt I was the only person to think before the game had come out, what if someone had killed Hitler before he could do all the untold amount of damage that he did. What turned out was a super slick and sweet R.T.S. game. With some really fantastic straight forward game play.

Now with the new game they are going with, what if all those crazy experiments in the seventies worked out? Just to name a few are the time travel, teleportation, invisibility, and the good old Tesla technology, that with all the weird training of dolphins and killer bears to name just a few. So they say this is just a taste of the over one hundred new toys to make.

Now with all that you would think that's all they would need to do. Yet the Red Alert crew has gone and added a new faction. That's right in the next Red Alert game you will be able to play as our friends in the land of the rising sun. I'm hoping the Japanese units will be able do some cool things with the floating fortress.

With all this I am confident that Red Alert Three will be well worth the coin it will cost. Plus with the limited time we will all have for R.T.S. this year I think this game will definitely shine in a already great year for the R.T.S. genre.

Warhammer Getting to Know the Zones

A new video came out yesterday that I thought you all would like to see. It shows some of the areas of the world. Granted I'm not to sure where they all are, but from the podcasts I can guess that the giant that you see is the one that Paul talked about getting drunk and blowing a hole in the Dwarfs castle.

Yet the nice thing I saw was the overview you got. You got to see a hint of some of the Destruction and Order zones. You got a clear view of some of the Dwarf zones, and I could only guess a saw few of the Chaos. Either way it was a nice pan of the zones in which we did get to see.

I have to admit the world is coming along nicely. Plus from watching the video you could see they seemed to have hit the mark in portraying it as a war torn world. The evidence is there in the broken pillars and dilapidated castles constant battles by players and NPC's.

Though the important thing is that it shows the game in it's current state. Which isn't bad as I have been reading it is in. Though I am glad that they are taking their time. I would rather wait another few months and have a great game instead of a good game. Well that ad it gives me a chance to beef up my system.

Alan Wake the game Remedy forgot?

I know what you are thinking. Alan Wake.... Alan Wake, hmm why does it sound familiar? Well it could be, if you where like me. It was the reason why you wanted a 360 two damn years ago! For those of you who don't remember, Alan Wake was one of the first games that where shown to us when Microsoft was trying to convince us to pick up the system.

Today I am happy to say after wondering online for a few hours I have found a few good reads. On is on what you will need to play the game on Vista, the short is a quad core system will run the game up to thirty percent better than on a 360. Here is the link to get all the interesting news.

Some other promising news is that the "blackout" will hopefully end soon. That is the official word from the Alan Wake site. The last little tidbit I was able to find out was just a rumor that Tokyo would get the first real look at the game. Being at the Tokyo game show in September.

No matter what happens I will still be looking forward to the game, just I like everyone else. My only fear is how well did Remedy use their two plus years making what could be one of the most anticipated games on the xbox360.

King of Horror on the Horrors of video games

I think we are in a interesting time, when Stephen King comes to the rescue of video games (link). Look, I think at this point we will take anyone on our side defending games.

Though I can see why scared parents are wanting to try and keep their kids safe from all the bad things in the world. Yet I don't really believe most of the parents out there really think that if little Sally plays a violent video game she will go up to be the next Jeffrey dahmer.

In my opinion it's something much more simple. I think it's more that out of all the things their children will be forced to see, this is one of the few things they can say no about and can control. Which is fine a parent should be a damn parent. Just don't be mine or anyone else's. I applaud your commitment to your child, I think that's commendable.

Just, please, why should you force the hand of the government to be all of our parents? Just take the time to learn what they are doing from time to time. Also let them know why this is something you don't think they are old enough to play or watch. You might be surprised by their intelligence.

Why little sister, why!?

If you haven't already seen the image on digg here is a link. It appears that Bioshocks popularity has spread farther than I had thought. Which was a cool thing, and I'm glad other artists are taking the time to show their love for the game as well.

Though I think that the picture completely deafest the purpose. The background and Big Daddy look pretty good, but the little sisters look completely out of context. It also looks like they are super-imposed onto the picture.

I think what really annoys me is the artist didn't even try to draw the Little Sisters. They took no great leap as a artist. Instead they just put in any random "anime" style looking little girls and called it good. So I think for the most part it is a great drawing, it's just the artist killed the whole feel of the Little Sister in one lame swoop.

Diablo 3 is their a reason?

Now with StarCraft two coming out, and Warcraft fans having their day in the sun for the last few years. We are left with the question when is it Diablos time? Granted it took StarCraft ten years and the last Diablo game came out in 2001. I think it is a valid question but I ask you what is left to do in that world? *Spoilers ahead*

The reason I ask this simple question is in the first Diablo you do not have the power to kill Diablo and are forced to imprisoned him in a soul stone and hold him in your head, as you slowly go insane. Though since you only killed Diablo in the first one you still had two brothers left. In the second one you killed Diablo again well because you are a new hero and had to kill the old hero that had become Diablos host body. Then you got to kill one of Diablos brothers Mephisto. So once you had beaten the game you knew one brother remained, Baal.

Then the expansion came out Lord of Destruction. This allowed you to head into the frozen north of the Barbarians homeland. Though this expansion you were able to go toe to claw against Baal the last of the three brothers. So once he was vanquished your long quest had come to an end. Well no matter what happens the world stone is destroyed and you are left with a uncertainty of what will happen in the world.

Though even with this uncertainty you have still killed all of the prime evils. So the job has been done. So what is left to kill, you might be asking yourself. Well you would be right besides a bunch of made up underlings that Blizzard could keep coming up with their is nothing important left to kill.

Though fear not, Blizzard could come out with a Sin War game. This would be a angles vs demons game, the advantage would be it could be set up in factions so it would have the PVP elements that is quite popular. Plus it might be interesting to see some bad ass old testament angles. Ones with six sets of wings and swords of fire. This would be my hope, but in all honesty I don't know how well it would go over.

Steam punk DIY

Steam punk for those of you who do not know; is a fantasy sub-genre that involves stylized Victorian decor with moder technology. I think it can look pretty interesting and if nothing else unique. Though it appears I am far from alone in thinking this. One great example is a steam punk laptop

Though as cool as that is, and trust if I could I would buy one. I think for the average person a great alternative is a site that has some DIY stuff for the rest of us. steampunkworkshop.com
out of most of the things I saw a great starter one to try out is a monitor mod. The great thing is that you do not have to remove much. Plus you get to play with spray paint and that's always fun.

Granted if you do decide to do this I would hope you would try this on a few older monitors you have laying around. But if you have to pick some up I would say places like goodwill or freegeek if you in Portland would be a good place to start.

Do we need the Frag dolls?

Something I have been wondering since I first heard about the Frag dolls is, is their point? I get what they are trying to do and I think it is great, but is it needed? I'm not sure if girls need encouragement to play a game.

Everyone knows video games have long since been a male dominated thing. Yet what I don't get is why we need a troop of women going around showing off that they and other girls can game if they want to. I am of the belief that most girls can think for themselves and make rational judgements whether or not they want to get into gaming.

Don't get me wrong, I think the frag dolls are a great group of women. It's just I think their original purpose has long since ended. With knew studies showing almost eighty percent of the population buying a game last year I think any stigmas about female gaming is over.

I think we could see very soon more games strictly targeted to female gamers. I'm not sure what one would look like but I'm sure they have already begun the market research. So I will say I am glad overall that a group of women were passionate enough about gaming that they wanted to get other girls into it. Yet I think that their end dream has come true.

Gamers getting tattoos

A long time ago tattoos were only on the roughest individuals or drifters. Now they seem to be almost everywhere. Just having a tattoo these days no longer helps you gain a sense of individualism, if anything it may make you more like everyone else.

Yet I have noticed that out of all different types of people; gamers are now getting a good amount of ink. Yet out of the gamers getting tattoos there seems to be a dived on how "geeky" to go. Some people seem to like referencing something small in a game that isn't obviously a video game tattoo. Something only another gamer would catch on to. This could be so the person only has to deal with people that know what it is, and might really get a kick out of it as well. Then you have the group that sees nothing wrong with getting sleeves chronicling the life and times of Mario, Link or Samus.

I believe that this trend of immortalizing video game charters with tattoos will only continue as time goes by. I think some of the reasons why people get them done in the first place is because they felt a real connection with the charters or the world. Now with video games and gaming becoming more mainstream. That means only more people will get a chance to experience some of the same life changing events that many of us have already felt.

So I am hoping to read your thoughts on this. The reason why I am asking is; I have noticed that the most extravagant tattoos I see are all Nintendo fans. So I was wondering if you have seen this with Sony or Microsoft fans.