In an interview with IGN, Bungie’s Frank O’Connor revealed, almost stressing that the beta was only a small glimpse of what the final multiplayer would be like.

A small fraction of Halo 3 multiplayer was revealed. A small sample of maps, but more vitally, a tiny sample of features, gametypes, weapons and vehicles. To describe it as feature-lite would be an understatement.

Of course no one expected the beta to be feature complete, it would seem as though the multiplayer will be well over double the experience of Halo 3 multiplayer, which will undoubtedly please fans. It will be very interesting to see what new vehicles, maps, and of course weapons we’ll see in the final game. Another tidbit that will please fans was revealed. Not only will the equipment be in campaign, but AI will have the ability to use it as well. There will also, naturally, be more “gadgets” introduced in the final version of the game.

Unfortunately Bungie isn’t listening to all the feedback. They are apparently ignoring player’s dislike for the Snowbound map and are doing little to change it.

We’ve made some minor changes, but it’s actually a staff favorite and provides a wide range of mid-range, close-quarters and long distance combat opportunities.

(IGN)

Japanese based research company Media Create reported that for the week of june 8th to 24th Nintendo’s hardware and software topped the charts leaving Sony and Microsoft eating dust. the Nintendo DS Lite sold 163.888 units against 32.984 PSPs on a ratio of 5 to 1, meanwhile the Nintendo Wii managed to sell 7 times as much as the PS3, 65.582 against 9.581, while the Xbox 360 sold inexpressive 3.369 units. On the same week, the new entry on Zelda’s series; The Phantom Hourglass for the DS sold 302.887, becoming by far the biggest seller of the week., You can see the full chart here.

It’s common knowledge that the media has bashed Sony and the PS3 for quite some time now. Insomniac Games’ CEO Ted Price thinks so too, stating to GameDaily that Sony has become the “whipping boy” for the press.

“I think the PS3 has become the whipping boy for the press, quite honestly. I think everyone just wants to fill it full of arrows because Sony’s had some pretty amazing success over the years. And it’s easy to overlook that it’s been, I think, the fastest selling PlayStation console. I think it’s human nature to want to take down the guy on top, and Sony has definitely gotten its share of… mud [laughs] … but it’s unfortunate,” he said.

He talks about Resistance, the most successful PS3 game since launch. He also expects Sony to do well this Christmas due to the fact that they have a “lot of content” coming, along with Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction, the studio’s upcoming entry in the series. Price confirmed that the game was their biggest project till date; he also said that the company has learned a lot about the PS3 thanks to Resistance and that they are using that experience for Ratchet.

“Resistance is still the #1 PS3 game out there in terms of overall sales, and all of the knowledge [we gained from developing Resistance] we have now applied to Ratchet, and have been able to make Ratchet head and shoulders above Resistance in terms of the visuals and what you’ll see in the game,” he said.

And Red actually wins. Just kidding. For the many, many, fans of this Halo machinima series, this is it. Too bad it had to end at 100, because the multiplayer in Halo 3 was practically made for machinimas, especially becuase of the replay feature. Red vs. Blue is also pretty popular at Bungie, and there some speculation the the legendary edition of Halo 3 will include some Red vs. Blue content. Hopefully it does, but don’t hold your breath. Back to the one hundredth episode. It actually has three endings, but out of the three, this one makes the most sense. If you would like to watch the other two, go here, then click on either “Red vs Blue’s” or “100th”. Warning, this is not work appropriate, unless you have headphones.
(Red vs. Blue)

Valve has released the official Half Life 2: The Orange Box boxart, so we don’t have to looks at the countless mockups that are found around the net. The Orange Box includes Half Life 2, Episode 1, Episode 2, Team Fortress, and Portal, and retails for $60 on Xbox 360 and PS3, while the PC version will cost $50.

Last night, while playing a round of Gears of War online, my Xbox 360, my fourth Xbox 360 (the previous three broke as well), got the famous red ring of death. I first got one back in October, a week later, the DVD drive broke. They sent me a new one, which, a month later, broke because of overheating. Got a new one in December, then in January, it too failed, DVD drive again. They sent me a brand new one which was broken from the beginning. Now, the fourth console has broken because of overheating, again. Again.

And I know there are people out there on their 7th, 8th, even 11th console, yet Microsoft hasn’t acknowledged anything. As soon as I get it back, I’m putting it one sale, screw Microsoft. It’s a good console, but the hardware is pure shit.

Ok, don’t laugh now. Promise you won’t laugh? Alright, here it goes: Uwe Boll claims his latest film, Postal, is nothing else than “One of the best films ever”. Ever. Got it?

Postal is my final statement. You can’t make a more radical movie… There is no way you can ignore Postal — it’s one of the funniest and most important films of the last decade! …It’s one of the best films of all time!

I’m not going to judge Postal since I haven’t seen it yet, but considering Boll’s track record and the Postal trailers I’ve seen, Boll is full of it. Simply making a “radical” movie (in his opinion), doesn’t mean it’s going to be worth watching. During an interview, Boll said the movie was so radical that he will “probably end up in jail for it”. One can only wish.

Over the past few weeks, the majority of BF2 players haven’t had their statistics properly tracked, which has resulted in yet another outrage against EA. Apparently some ranked servers do in fact track stats properly, but it’s only a handful out of hundreds. After a while, EA has properly responded to the issue:

We have identified the problem causing the recent stats issue that has affected a lot of Battlefield 2 players. Our planned fix will ensure that your current and ongoing stats are recorded. In the meantime, we are going to start seeing the stats being processed from the time of the outage. When this happens, over the course of a few days, you may see little to no relevant updates to you stats. This is not because any stats are lost or broken, and you should see normal processing continue once everyone’s stats processing from that time that the stats are caught up.

The stats and ranking system is pretty much the only thing keeping the core BF2 payers still in the game. Results from game-monitor.com show that the count of active BF2 players has decreased by 50-60% over the past two weeks. In related news, EA released the final version of the “Highway Tampa” map, but a long awaited patch wasn’t released along with it.

Are you one of the millions that owns a Wii, but not a PS3 or 360? Do also happen to be one of the many fans of the unarguably unique PS2 game Katamari? You may (may being the keyword), be in luck. IGN’s Matt Casamassina reports that sources close to Namco Bandai have informed IGN that apparently the sequel Beautiful Katamari may have been dropped from the PS3, in favor for the Wii.

” …the studio ran into some trouble with the port of the game to PlayStation 3 and these issues, coupled with the stalled sales of the system, have led to the project’s quiet cancellation. Looking to better-than-expected sales of Wii, the company has, say insiders, re-shifted resources to ready a Wii build of Beautiful Katamari instead. Given that the title cannot be ported from Xbox 360, the game is being re-concepted for Wii.”

Considering the target audience of the Wii to the more casual gamers (bit of an understatement), this move makes a great deal of sense. Katamari is simple but fun in the same way that Wii Sports is. The Wii controller could also potentially add greatly to the over all experience. Of course this is just a rumor, just like Project H.A.M.M.E.R.’s cancellation.

(IGN)

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/-0daH8ZdUAU" width="460" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]
Above is the trailer for Echelon Software’s first IP, a game called Black Powder Red Earch – a multi-player only FPS, “co-designed by former US Special Operations Forces members and private security contractors.” The game is said to be similar to Second Life, in that virtual money (named “virt cash” so far) is earned and can be used to buy new items, weapons and armour. Players can even start their own virtual companies called Private Military Companies, which will be similar to guilds.

“Rather than build an elaborate 3D world space, BPRE uses the same framework commonly found on the Web for social networking. Players are already used to creating and managing online identities on sites like Myspace and Orkut. They are also buying and selling real and virtual products on sites like Ebay, iTunes and Amazon. By using these familiar tools, BPRE keeps the learning curve as flat as possible.”

Hopefully the game works out well as the FPS genre could do with a new direction, and Black Powder Red Earth could open up a whole new style of gaming. Don’t let the somewhat boring trailer curve an early judgment, this could be interesting.

See:Destructiod, GameSpot