MK Dev NetherRealms, “We Weren’t Allowed to do 360 Exclusive Character”

It was fun talking about who might be included or added as an exclusive character for the 360 version of the just-released Mortal Kombat. There are a wealth of characters exclusive to the system that would be right at home in the game.

Mad about the 360 snub? So is Liu Kang, damnit!

Today, we find out that there won’t be an exclusive on Xbox, because NetherRealm “was not allowed to” include one. In an interview with Eurogamer, NetherRealm’s Ed Boon noted that there had been a lot of discussion on who they would include for the system, but that “they” wouldn’t allow it. Who, exactly, “they” are was not revealed (Boon stated he wasn’t allowed to really talk about it.) If “they” are Microsoft, then we can chalk another point up on the “ridiculous corporate decisions” board. But it’s unfair to assume it was Microsoft who shut the feature out.

Regardless, I’m getting ready to head out and pick up my copy despite the lack of love for an Xbox gamer.

(Source: Gameinformer)

Yikes! We’re a little behind, huh?

I think I have about two days worth of news updates sitting in queue, though I know I’ve missed more than that. I’ll have to force myself to push some updates when I get home, or if things get quiet here this afternoon (not looking likely.)

The good news is that I had a breakthrough on the development side of things last night. I’d been goblin hunting (and I don’t mean playing ‘The Witcher’, though I’m dieing to get back to that too!)  I had typed up more about this goblin hunt, but I think I’ll post that over on the game’s blog instead. [Eta: Now posted here.]

Anyway, traffic’s been steady still — so I sincerely thank those of you who have been visiting even through this period of un-updated’ness. I’ll have some more stuff shortly, including a new ‘First Impressions’ of the first truly bad game I’ve played in a while. That should be fun, as I’ll get to break out my more evil, even sarcastic’er side. Mwahaha.

Again, Thank You!

Castlevania: LOS DLC’s Early Release on PSN a Mistake

[Edit: Wow. Helps to use the right game title when talking about a game. Corrected!]

The  recent video announcing the Duke Nukem delay made a point to say that the Duke never comes early. Unfortunately (or fortunately?), MercurySteam can’t say the same about their soon-to-be released-on-purpose Castlevania: Lords of Shadow ‘Reverie’ DLC.

The content showed up on the US PSN network unexpectedly last week, though it was curiously absent from the EU network and the Xbox Live service.

Officially, the content has been delayed as the company works to iron out some last-minute bugs in the XBox version. Both versions were to be delayed, but Playstation users found it had been added to the PSN anyway.

(Source: Game Informer)

New Duke Nuke’m Video Shows Off . . . Launch Delay?

In a video message from Gearbox Software’s Randy Pitchford, new details emerge surrounding Duke’s May 3rd release. Specifically, that the May 3rd release will take place on June 14th (or 10th, for the international May release.)

Eh, of course I’m disappointed. Duke was my next scheduled pre-order. But honestly, there’s a few games I want to get but was holding off on because I knew — rather, thought — that I’d be picking this up in just over a month. So this news actually buys me a few more paychecks to work with.

Duke’s ‘Capture the Babe’ A Step Too Far? Not for nJoystic. Here’s Why

Okay, so there’s been a lot of buzz around the net over the recently announced ‘Capture the Babe’ multiplayer mode to be included in the upcoming Duke Nukem Forever.

Quickly, the mode is a take off the typical ‘capture the flag’ mode, except the flag is a babe who occasionally ‘freaks out’ while being carried, which requires a little slap to calm her down.

Initially, it was taken to mean that Duke would be slapping women in the face, though that’s since been clarified to “needs a little love tap on her backside.” Okay, so it’s not as domestic violence’y, but it’s much more creepy.

Is it offensive? Hell yes. Does it fit a Duke Nukem game perfectly? Hell yes.

There’s a point when the offensiveness is so over-the-top ridiculous that even a lobotomized monkey can see that it’s an outrageous parody in no way meant to be taken seriously. If you don’t find that funny, good for you. You’re probably a more mature person than I am. Don’t buy the game. But for the love of god, chill out!

(source: PC Gamer)

Happy 1000th, nJoystic!

I knew we’d hit it by the end of the week, but didn’t expect it by the end of the day. The 1000th unique visitor came by sometime within the last hour. The lucky visitor has won our secret prize! A drink on me!

But since I can’t tell who that visitor was, I’ll have to enjoy the drink for them. Can’t very well let it go to waste.

The next milestone will be when I can add another 0 to the end of that number, which should be a ways off. Anyway, thank you, loyal readers and random google search result’ers alike.

Holy Helluva Lot, Bat Man!

Too much going on. Too little time. Blah blah blah. I had hoped to catch up from a daytime absense from game news last night, but something unexpected came up. It was a good thing, but nothing worth writing about here.

I’m too busy today to catch up. Things to do tonight, including picking up my copy of Dragon Age 2. So *that* will really free up some time . . . heh.

I think I’m going to have to look for “correspondents” to help me keep things going around here . . .

Busy Week . . . Time to Play Catch-Up

It’s a shame real life doesn’t have some sort of “band-width limiter”, as it’s very busy at my actual puts-food-on-the-table job, but it’s also been a busy week for games. We’ll (rather, “I’ll”)  be attempting to catch-up on some of the news items of note that have slipped through the cracks over the last couple of days, as well as catching up to the “breaking news” stuff.

There’s the Dragon Age 2 demo which I still need to play, Mario Galaxy 2 came in the mail yesterday, and I have been fighting to get back to Arkham Asylum. Also, I have two or three Op-ed pieces in various states of completion waiting in the queue. Sheesh!

But things are still piling up at work as well, so please bear with me. Thanks!

nJoystic Updates . . . Updated

Okay, after fumbling around with the comments section a bit, then cheating by getting help from the forums (Thank you!) I finally got the comments display to bend to my superior will.

I’ll probably play around and tweak some things, but for the most part I’m done with the changes I wanted to make.

Let me know what you think; I can only see the page on two monitors (from home and from work) and I think it’s pretty readable; but I don’t know how the look comes across on other non-Fazor calibrated monitors. Is the text readable enough? Is the fact that I used about a half-dozen shades of gray too clashy or distracting? Any display / spacing issues? If so, speak up!

Thank you,

Fazor

Customiz-a-mania

Just a quick note that I’ve got some plans to customize the site a little further to give it it’s own look, as well as customizing our twitter page. Nothing major, but with me at the helm, there’s always the risk of something going haywire. So if things get messed up, please forgive me while I attempt to correct the issues.

. . . or if things go incredibly bad, I’ll just deny I ever heard of ‘nJoystic’ and walk away. Hey, it’s always good to have a plan B!

Oh, and to make news updates more search-friendly, I’ll be going back to posting news stories individually. I’ll just try not to flood Facebook too much (I don’t feel as bad about frequent Twitter updates, so those will likely increase.)