We've been advised of a mass migration server move starting tomorrow night at midnight and lasting up to 48 hours. During this time, all of the websites that our host hosts will be moved to a new data center in Columbus. We recently moved our operation to a different server in the network, so we are somewhat confident that we're already in Columbus on a new server. In case we are not, though, this our advisory to you guys informing you that we may or may not have some downtime in the next two days.
If you find that we're slow / down keep tight, we'll be hopefully unaffected and if we are well, on the bright side it will be over by Sunday Night. Could be a good time to enjoy the weather in your area, or play video games, or go to a thrift store, or some other activity.
Some of you may be die hard haters of other game consoles besides the ones that you own. For others, you might be such a fanboy that you need be reminded of reasons why you should curb your enthusiasm. Fortunately for you, Gamesradar wishes to fan the flames of console bashing during its hate week, where they harp about why you should hate everything. Thank God for that too, because I certainly could not think of my own reasons to be spiteful about the console manufacturers.
Shall we check out these videos? Because I am a nice guy, I'll start out with the company I tend to support heavily (aside from my latest Cynical Gamer piece), Nintendo. You can find Sony and Microsoft after the Jump.
[img width=200 align=right]http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/repository/57026936647e82160480ffcg3.jpg[/img]Nintendo! What the hell is wrong with you? Words can describe how frustrated you make me. It's times like today where I wish that you went the way of Sega. You know how to print money for yourself, but in terms of catering to everyone, you've failed. I remember how you said that you wanted to cater to everyone, but now it's obvious that was a crock of shit. Kudos to you Nintendo, we love the shovelware that you promote.
Get this Nintendo - a large population of Wii owners are actually above the age of 18! We're sick of the "Protect the Kids Bullshit!" Microsoft does a great job protecting the kids while at the same time providing the best online experience of any console. You, on the other hand, are so preoccupied with "protecting the kids" that you neglect the potential sales and desires of your older owners. It pisses us off, and we hate it.
I don't want Carnival Games. I want more games like No More Heroes. I don't want Smash Bros with Friend Codes. I want Smash Bros with Live. I don't want the PS2 version of Rock Band; I want the full fledged version that the 360 and PS3 has. Perhaps you don't realize it Nintendo, but what you're doing now is pissing people like me off because your policies promote developers to port CRAP! I'm sick of this crap, and I am getting rather sick of you.
[img align=right width=200]http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/repository/180407488746fd6a4042c40Rock_band_cover.jpg[/img]Let's not kid ourselves. I really like music / rhythm games. As such, I really like games like Guitar Hero. So, when the next Harmonix game was announced and it was Rock Band, it was pretty damn exciting. Then, there was the revelation that the game was only coming out for the 360 and PS3, which made baby Jesus cry. I myself, was one sad panda. The pain was lessened a bit when I saw the associated price tag, but the game still was amazing, and deep down, I still wanted it.
Fortunately, Harmonix announced that eventually Rock Band would be coming to the Wii, and that was about it. No price, no release date... nothing other than that the game was coming to the Wii. Well, that's nice, but I want more concrete information. The Wii owners want more information. Would it be expensive like its brethren, or would it be slightly more affordable? Would it be a quick cash in like Guitar Hero / PS2 Rock Band, or would the content be more like the 360 / PS3 versions? Most importantly, when would it be coming out?
Well, there is a release data and price for the Wii version. June 22, 2008. $170. Price, not too surprising, but hey! We now have a date. Additionally, it will be a "Special Edition", with 63 songs, including 5 bonus songs. Oh boy, I can barely contain myself. Yay. Seriously.
So, the burning question of will this game be a gimped version like the PS2 version, or will the game be like the 360 / PS3 version has yet to be answered. Certainly, my excitement will either fall or rise with that announcement, and I can't wait to hear more about this version of the game.
[img align=right width=250]http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/repository/89805237447e2a8683ef7cjack_thompson_attorney.jpg[/img]Poor old Jack. Man gets a law degree, starts making frivolous lawsuits bordering the absurdity realm of Hot Coffee Cup Warnings, and then eventually gets referred to the Florida Bar. While the Bar Trial is still in process, we do have an interesting development that did occur today.
Apparently the Florida Supreme Court doesn't enjoy constantly receiving lots of frivolous cases from certain people. Recently, they sent Jack an order demanding why they should not place sanctions against him. Well, apparently Jack's reasons either were not good enough or he just flat out did not provide them with any. Well, the Florida Supreme Court has just decided to set sanctions against good ol' Jack. These sanctions now make it so that Jack can not submit any cases directly to them. That means now that he needs to find an equally crazy person to submit his cases, and I honestly doubt that anyone would be stupid enough to join him in his quest for frivolous lawsuits.
We wish Jack the best of luck in his future endeavors, and hope that the Florida Bar makes an expedient solution soon enough.
Check it out, it's Metroid. Looks nice, doesn't it? I sure think so, but then I am a die hard Metroid fan. What we have here is a remake of Metroid II, the game in the series where they kill all the Metroids on the Metroid Homeworld except one, allowing the events of Super Metroid to unfold. It came out for the Game Boy, back in the day. Game Boy... wow, how the mighty has fallen. Cannibalized by its own relative. But, I digress. This remake is pretty damn cool, and what makes it better is that it is fan made. Truly amazing, and better yet, there is a demo.
As Destructoid said, Nintendo would be wise to see this game on Wii Ware, in the form that this fine sir is doing. Even if it doesn't end up anywhere but just a fan service by a talented individual, it will still be one heck of a product.
Believe it or not, but we do listen to you guys. In fact, we even have ears that listen on other websites. You could say we're omnipotent... nah. That's not us. We're just a bunch of gamers, collectors, and average Joes running a website. But yeah, that's not the point. What is the point is that we've updated the collection checklist script after hearing some complaints about it. In the past, the script grouped variants and that was the only option. Now, the default option is that we show every game on a console, including variants. While this move will make a row for Greatest Hits, etc, it will also be extremely beneficial for those games that had multiple primary releases (read: Pokemon, etc.) We feel that it is better for you to filter out on the checklist which games you wish not to collect, rather than us. That said, if you wish to still group by variant, you can still do that as well, but such an action is not the default.
As with any new release on RF Generation, there may be bugs. As the PHP Programmer, as well as the Site Director, it is my job to quash these bugs. So yeah, let me know, somewhere, if you experience any bugs.
[img align=right width=200]http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/repository/202850710747ae286024acdBBFC-Big-Brother.jpg[/img] Britons! We Oceanians celebrate your recent triumph, for it was today that your country realized the intrinsic value of incredibly violent games. We have for so long known the value of these games, and now you'll get to experience a game that has been training our kids for your own perusal. We feel that this game will only make your people more prepared for the atrocities that will be part of the unending war, which we are sure that you'll soon enter. Where we're numb to the atrocities of the unending war, you people have no concept of the atrocities that you will soon experience and see. Thankfully, your government has officially decided to make Manhunt 2 available for purchase. Praise to your government.
Minipeace approves of this development, and we certainly hope that more games like Manhunt will be approved for purchase within your country. Perhaps your country will be the first to realize the masterpiece that is Thrill Kill. We personally so close to realizing that game; however, Big Brother felt that Oceania was not ready for this masterpiece. Hail Big Brother. His wisdom is unending, and with his leadership we're certain to prosper for years on end. May we remind you of his wisdom:
WAR IS PEACE FREEDOM IS SLAVERY IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
The Author of this Post assumes no responsibility for any thoughtcrime that may have occurred while reading this article. Hail Big Brother. That is all.
[img width=250 align=right]http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/repository/15473647647d219cde4f28CynicalEA.jpg[/img]Maxis was a great company. Who didn't love SimCity 2000? Certainly, it's no Stunt Driver, but boy was the game fun. Could you get the Launch Arcos to actually launch? I couldn't. I suck. But hey, at least I could start major floods like the best SimCity players. Floods are something that all the new SimCity games surely miss. Bring them back Maxis. I beg you. Maxis was certainly a great company. Today, however, it is part of the behemoth known as EA. Sure, they still have reign to make potentially amazing games such as Spore, but let's look at the other, unfortunate studios. Take for example Westwood Studios, the original developer of the hugely successful Command and Conquer Series. Red Alert" quality game. Red Alert 2" also a quality game. So you'd think a studio with a series as successful as Command and Conquer would have been allowed to survive, right? Well, you'd be wrong. Instead EA ate them. No more. Completely assimilated. That's apparently what you get for screwing up on an offshoot of your major franchise. Thanks C&C Renegade. So, there went Westwood, and other studios have seen similar fates, becoming less autonomous and on occasion just not existing anymore. Bullfrog? What's that? They've been gone for a while.
EA likes to buy companies. In the past, they would assimilate the companies, but recently their CEO mentioned that this model just was not a good idea. Of course, this statement was made right around the acquisition of a high profile developer. You may know them as Bioware. They make good games. Most recently they released Mass Effect, and before that they had hits such as Jade Empire and Neverwinter Nights. Hugely successful. Congrats to them. But you got to wonder, will their success keep them from becoming a footnote in EA's corporate history? Sure, EA says that assimilation is a bad thing, but was that just said to placate the masses of people who find Bioware to be the be all end all of developers? (I'm looking at you, Tan) History shows they have no problem making developers part of the bigger EA. So, is that fate subject to Bioware? What could it take? A bad game? A whim of the CEO? Nothing? Who knows? But what I do know is that I'd take Mr. Riccitiello's comments with a grain of salt. It might make a future assimilation even more stinging than it should be.
So, why am I writing this article? Is it because there is a Blizzard Warning out right now and I am cooped up in the house, or is it because EA is trying to become ultra-mega EA upon the purchase of either Take Two or perhaps Ubisoft. Maybe it's both. But yeah, doesn't EA's Grand Theft Auto sound delightfully evil? The Evil Publisher, with what is considered by some to be the devil's game. How delightfully maniacal. Damn you EA for owning Maxis. You'll get my money for that. But, will you or will you not keep your future and new acquisitions autonomous? I certainly hope that you do, but at the same time I certainly will not keep my hopes up.
February 2008. You guys managed to make 2208 submissions to our database. A little bit down from January, but still an excellent number of submissions. We'd be nowhere without your submissions, so keep it up! As a breakdown, 2027 submissions were for the games database, and the rest were for the hardware database. Poor hardware database. It's growing, slowly but surely, but it would certainly appreciate more love. Don't you hear it sobbing in the quarter, sad because it's being neglected compared to its more successful sibling? Make the database happy, you know you want to, and it will certainly allow for a better site.
So, who was the top non-staff submitter? This month, that honor goes to NES_Rules! He submitted 139 items! Congrats on being the top dog! It certainly is appreciated. Donkey Kong Kid was the second highest submitter with 109 submissions, and Yurf was third with 59 submissions. All you guys kick ass! Keep up the excellent work.
Of course, we have a dedicated group of staff also doing their job. Tan once again kicked ass in the staff category with 504 submissions. Apolloboy came in second with 235 submissions, and s1lence third with 224 submissions. Excellent work! In terms of the wonderful folks reviewing your submissions, Tan, Belgarath and s1lence are the top three people reviewing your submissions. Bum-man and Magewout also did their share approving submissions. Without their dedication, the site would be a stagnant site where nothing changes, so we certainly appreciate their work!
While many of you are not top three submitters or reviewers, we still want to recognize everyone who did their part in keeping our databases growing! A special thanks goes out to those members who made 50 or more submissions:
Thank you all for your submissions. Know that even if you were not mentioned specifically in this article your work is greatly appreciated. We'd be nothing without your work. With February behind us, let's look forward to an awesome March!
Bored? Interested in knowing useless knowledge? Want to know how many total titles everyone owns? Well, you're in luck. Today we launch our new statistics page. Fun and exciting things lay there. Be sure to check them all out. Did you know that our collectors own on average about 270 titles? It's true, right now at least. What else could you learn from the statistics page? How normal are out collection's owned distribution? I don't know, and I don't believe that I'll attempt to code that. But, for those of you interested in other stats, check out the page, and keep it tuned to channel 3.
Greetings Capitalist Pigs and Eastern European brethren. Live starting today is our radio station just for you - Radio Vladivostok. Broadcasting from Hove Beach, Radio Vladivostok is what you need to remember those better times in Eastern Europe. Sure, you can't read English well, but you certainly can have excellent Eastern European Musik to listen to, da?
This wonderful advertisement is brought to you by our friends at the Liberty City Police Department. A wonderful group of comrades. Check out their pitch after the jump.
So, I imagine that many of you have noticed the periodic slowness over the past few weeks. So have we. Today seemed to be the worst of the worst in terms of downtime. Being down over 10 hours is unacceptable, and we hope our host understands that. Recently, we switched servers to a new server, with more power... blah blah blah. You'd think that would make the site faster, right? Apparently not. It should be noted that we have not made live any new features since our switch. So, in theory, our site should have had a flawless transition. Unfortunately, it's been anything but, and we've been working with our hosts to rectify the situation.
We're as frustrated as you are when it comes to this issue, and we as much as you want it resolved. Hopefully our host can get the tweaks on the new server to be identical to the old server, as right now either our traffic patterns or someone else's traffic patterns are doing major stress upon the server. We think it's someone else, but regardless, we hope that our host will fix the issue in an expedient and proper manner.
Christmas is supposed to be a happy time when you are a kid. It doesn't become faceless until you're older, but as a kid, it's quite the magical time, normally. Unfortunately, there is the Grinch. You know the being. Green, evil, that guy. Well, apparently, the grinch struck this Christmas, and it wasn't very nice.
See, the video? The kid's name is Jonathan. He got a box for Christmas. Upon taking off the wrapping, he found that it was a 360 Arcade box. Most people, including Jonathan, would be elated that they were getting a new gaming system to play on, but there seemed to be something wrong with the picture. Upon opening the box Jonathan found that there was in fact no 360 in the box but rather CLOTHES! How evil. Dreadfully evil. Certainly, someone in this story has no heart.
Thankfully, lots of people do, and have contacted the family to get the kid a 360. Kudos to Microsoft for offering to help, but it looks as though Engadget has this debacle covered.
What a mean thing to do to a kid on Christmas. I hope the Grinch in this story grows a heart.
[img width=150 align=right]http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/repository/163238371547c70bd77c7e9Porteous-OP804.jpg[/img]See this man to the right? His name is Julian Porteous, and he has something to say about video games. Clearly, being the auxiliary bishop of the Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney Australia just doesn't fancy all of his time. Never mind striving for that "Just Community" and other Catholic mumbo jumbo*, for now is the time to talk about video games.
See, Australia currently has a maximum rating of R15 on video games. As you know, the age 15 generally doesn't correlate to mature audiences. As such, there are quite a few games that just don't get released in Australia. I don't know what I'd do if I could not play Manhunt, Postal, or Marc Ecko's Getting Up. I'd probably go crazy. Regardless, that is how it is in Australia. Clearly, video games are a subversion where any game intended for people over the age of 15 should be banned.
Recently, it was mentioned by sometime in the Australia's Office of Film and Literature Classification that they may consider adding the R18 rating to the game ratings. Currently, the R18 rating exists for film, but not games. Certainly, there are a couple prudes that think that it is their God given right to think what other people should or should not do. Take for example Julian Porteous. As a ranking member of the Catholic clergy shouldn't he be worrying about something more important than what games are rated, such as clergy abuse, or is that strictly an American thing? Either way, the auxiliary bishop of Sydney opposes the proposal to add R18 to the Australian Classification system. Why? He thinks that video game violence can desensitize people into performing acts of violence. Hogwash. If that was the case, I would have gone out killing lots of people with a beam katana that I obtained at the local flea market. Thanks No More Heroes! Thankfully for everyone, I would never make such an absurd connection and my rationality and morality would keep me from performing such a heinous action. God knows though what would happen if I was subjected to sitting through one of Julian's homilies. Now that's desensitizing.
Julian, bugger off. Convince your congregation to perform acts of charity and see God in all things. Stay the hell off of our modes of entertainment, and I'll be less inclined to criticize the work that you and your cohorts do.
*David Murnan is a raised Catholic kid who was subjected to 12 years of Catholic education, of which four of those years were in an amazing Jesuit Institution. As such, he is allowed to be openly critical of his own faith.
