Video Of ‘Endless Racing’ On iPhone

This is freakin cool…

Upgrade Your Xbox 360’s Hard Drive on the Cheap

PCWorld:

“Microsoft expects you to pay close to $200 to upgrade your Xbox 360’s hard drive from 20GB to 120GB. That’s about $150 more than a 120GB SATA drive actually costs. But with this slightly tricky hack, you can save a bundle while boosting your game console’s storage capacity to hold more music, video, and other media files.”

FULL ARTICLE

Now Available: Rock Band for iPhone and iPod touch

Gizmodo:

“I’ve been psyched for this ever since EA confirmed the multi-player mode supports four players over Bluetooth. The $10 app lets you invite Facebook friends, and choose guitar, bass, drums or vocals. 20 tracks are included, too…here’s the full listing:

There’s also a solo mode, of course. And additional tracks available to buy from artists like Foo Fighters, Devo, Smashing Pumpkins, and Leny Kravitz. Sweet!” [iTunes Store]

“Attack” – 30 Seconds To Mars
“Girls Not Grey” – AFI
“Move Along” – All American Rejects
“Sabotage” – Beastie Boys
“All The Small Things” – Blink-182
“Hanging on the Telephone” – Blondie
“Learn To Fly” – Foo Fighters
“Everlong” – Foo Fighters
“Bad to The Bone” – George Thorogood & the Destroyers
“Hymn 43″ – Jethro Tull
“Bad Reputation” – Joan Jett
“Simple Man” – Lynard Skynard
“Ace of Spades ‘08″ – Motorhead
“Debaser” – Pixies
“Ladybug” – Presidents of The United States of America
“Give It All” – Rise Against
“Lazy Eye” – Silversun Pick Ups
“Cherub Rock” – Smashing Pumpkins
“Take The Money and Run” – Steve Miller Band
“We Got The Beat” – The Go Go’s

L4D2: Scavenger Mode

RPS:

“Valve have sent word of a fourth game mode to be included in Left 4 Dead 2, called Scavenger Mode. It’s like this: “Scavenge mode challenges players to compete in round-based games of up to 8 players (Survivors vs. Infected). The Survivors must battle both the Infected and the clock as they collect gas cans to refuel a generator located in each map. Every can the Survivors pour into the generator scores their team a point and adds time to the clock.” Needless to say, the infected have to stop them. Just as interesting, perhaps, is the confirmation of previously discussed Ai Director 2.0, who will have “the ability to procedurally change weather effects, world objects, and pathways in addition to tailoring the enemy population, effects, and sounds to match the players’ performance.”

Video below.”
(…)
Read the rest of L4D2: Scavenger Mode

Rather Good Fallout 3 Machinima

RPS:

“Thanks to Jun Shen Chia for sending in a link to this first episode of what proposes to be an ongoing series made in Fallout 3, which I’ve
posted below. Further episodes can be found here. I have to admit it’s been a while since I’ve paid any attention to the machinima scene, so do feel free to send in other efforts that are out there on the web. This particular piece is by Drakortha Productions, a chap who has done a whole bunch of game movies before now.”

2K Games Gives BioShock 2 Street Date

1UP:

“2K Games has finally taken the wraps off of the new BioShock 2 release date. The company announced today that the game has been set for a worldwide release on February 9, 2010. The announcement was pretty sparse, since the rest of the press release details the two separate stories in single and multiplayer modes, and doesn’t cover anything we haven’t heard before. The game was initially pushed back to 2010 to “perform better in the marketplace,” which we take to mean 2K wanted to avoid Modern Warfare 2. But the extra time is also letting them put on a bit more polish, and the game should be better for it. “

Half-Life 2 Audio Replaced by modder’s voice

This is hylarious…

RPS:

“So the internet has a new greatest thing. Earth’s best human, Trase, has created a Half-Life 2 mod where he replaces nearly all the game’s sounds with his own voice. And yes, it’s just as good as that sounds. Every weapon, vehicle, explosion, and enemy sound is now the vocal stylings of this lunatic modder. See below. Please, see below.

He’s nailed the shotgun. It’s spot on. Many sounds are. Others are just hilariously silly. Sadly he stopped short of dubbing over the character and NPC voices, for the remarkable reason that, “it would sound dumb.” Um…

It’s properly awesome, and you can get the mod from here. I’d love it if he’d also replaced the Combine’s squealy-beep noise, but then I want everything and I’m not prepared to pay. So, watch this. Then express amazement. Thanks to radomaj for the awesome tip.”

OnLive Beta Now Streaming Spectacular Games to Crappy PCs/Macs

Gizmodo:

“OnLive has a good idea: stream games over the internet rather than make you buy a Crysis-capable PC/Mac. And when we checked out OnLive streaming Bioshock a few months back, we were impressed. Now you can check it out, too.

Testable in an invite-only beta, you can register to potentially try OnLive here. And even if your internet connection isn’t top-notch, it may be worth a shot anyway. OnLive is clearly trying to tune their service to all service speeds, as they’ll want to know your connection type, speed and ISP.

And if any of our commenters have gotten in the beta early, let us know what you think so far.” [OnLive via Kotaku]

Check Out the First GTA4: Ballad of Gay Tony Trailer

“The second expansion pack for Grand Theft Auto 4, The Ballad of Gay Tony, has finally made its trailer debut today. Rockstar’s latest trailer shows off much of what you can expect to see in the game, including parachutes, an attack helicopter, cage fighting, a guy with no pants, explosions and racing on a golf course — with you in a golf cart, naturally — and a helicopter lifting a subway car right off the tracks. Parachutes look to be especially interesting and should make navigating the rooftops of Liberty City’s skyscrapers much easier.

The Ballad of Gay Tony is releasing on October 29 for 1,600 Microsoft Points ($20) on the Xbox Live Marketplace and in disc form (bundled with the first GTA4 expansion, The Lost and the Damned) as Episodes from Liberty City for $40.”

Juan Carlos Fresnadillo To Direct Bioshock

Well, now…….

/Film:

“The good news: Universal Pictures is making a big screen adaptation of the videogame Bioshock after all. The bad news: Gore Verbinski has stepped out of the director’s chair. Who is the new director? Why did Verbinski step down? Details after the jump.

Lets recap the story thus far: Universal greenlit the movie, and director Gore Verbinski stepped down from directing a possible fourth film in the Pirates of the Carribbean series. But in late April, Universal shut down the production, due to the film’s ballooning budget. The plan was to rework the script and explore possible locations outside the country which would offer financial incentives. When asked by the Los Angeles Times for an update on the project, Verbinski sounded less than hopeful.

“The bottom line is it has to shoot out of the States for budget reasons and my schedule may be prohibitive. There’s a great script and a really interesting cast. It really comes down to the financial model now. Big movies are just not being shot in the States. I’m weighing whether I can physically go the U.K. or Australia or one of those other places with a tax rebate for a year-and-a-half.”

Well, that is exactly what Universal has done, and as Verbinski hinted at in the quote from a few months ago, the shooting schedule abroad prevents him from being able to commit to the overseas shoot. Variety says that Verbinski could not commit to the overseas scheduling due to his duties on the animated film Rango, which he is directing for Paramount, and stars Johnny Depp. So who is going to take Verbinksi’s place?

Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, best known to American filmgoers as the writer/director of 28 Weeks Later. Verbinski will remain involved in the project, but only as producer. I know a lot of people weren’t too excited about Verbinski’s involvement with the property, but I thought he would be one of the filmmakers who would be able to get the production design and tone right. I was actually one of the few people who didn’t like Fresnadillo’s 28 Days Later sequel, although I did enjoy some of the cinematography and terrifying action.

With a pool of talented name brand filmmakers hoping to helm such a project (Guillermo del Toro has been outspoken), its amazing that Universal went with Fresnadillo in the end. Don’t get me wrong, Fresnadillo shows a lot of promise, but why is Universal trusting a project this big to a filmmaker with only one Hollywood hit? Going from the guy who released three of the highest grossing films in the history of cinema to a guy who directed a fun horror sequel is a huge trade downhill.

When Verbinski was working on the project, the budget ballooned to an unreasonable $160 million, and was said to be growing larger and large by the day. I understand why Universal would be afraid to step into those waters, but the project they are now prepping sounds like a massive cut in creative, talent, and budget. I could be wrong, and I hope I am, because Bioshock is the kind of property that needs to look and feel as big as the game.

Since its release, Hollywood has eyeing a big screen adaptation of this popular first-person shooter. Praised for its morality-based storyline, immersive environment and Ayn Rand-inspired dystopian setting, the game has received overwhelmingly positive reviews, and ranks as the thirteenth best video game on Game Rankings. Set in an alternative history 1960, BioShock follows the story of a plane crash survivor named Jack, who must explore the underwater Objectivist-dystopian city of Rapture, and survive attacks by the mutated beings and mechanical drones that populate it. Jack is drawn into a power struggle during which he discovers that his will is not as free as he’d thought. Aviator screenwriter John Logan penned the script.”