Amazonys – Wii Games

Soldiers who grew up in the burbs playing video games instead of shooting varmints in the country, or avoiding trouble in a bad neighborhood, are singled out by Army research as particularly poor at spotting roadside bombs.

Writes the Los Angeles Times:

Military researchers have found that two groups of personnel are particularly good at spotting anomalies: those with hunting backgrounds, who traipsed through the woods as youths looking to bag a deer or turkey; and those who grew up in tough urban neighborhoods, where it is often important to know what gang controls which block.

Personnel who fit neither category, often young men who grew up in the suburbs and developed a liking for video games, do not seem to have the depth perception and peripheral vision of the others, even if their eyesight is 20/20.

Note, this isn’t explosive ordnance disposal, they’re talking about riding in a humvee and picking up details that someone might have buried explosives in the road. This is important because, of bombs discovered before they went off, like 90 percent of them were found because someone’s spidey-sense went off.

The story quotes a sergeant major who finds the research fits with his own observations. “The gamers are very focused on the screen rather than the whole surrounding,” he said. Country boys and hood rats have a more finely-tuned radar – that head on a swivel mentality when you’re potentially in a dangerous situation.

Some Troops Have a Sixth Sense for Bombs [Los Angeles Times via Game Politics]

There have been numerous complaints about the body proportions for the character Bayonetta. Just look at her, some say! Her head is too small, her back is too bendy, her torso is too long.

Website The Zeonic Front decided to do something about it! Behold, “fixed” Bayonetta:

I don’t want to play Bayonetta [The Zeonic Front]

The 18-song Walmart exclusive AC/DC Live: Rock Band Track Pack, which went out a year ago, will be available at GameStop beginning next month, and for less than the disc’s original full price.

GameStop lists it for shipment Nov. 4 at $19.99 – of course, less than the $29.99 to $39.99 it sold for when it debuted a year ago. The tracks can be transferred to your hard drive for Rock Band or Rock Band 2, but just for the 360 and PS3 version; not the PS2 or Wii.

Rock Band: AC/DC Pack to Hit non-Walmart Shelves Soon [Destructoid via VG247]

Speaking at the London Games Conference yesterday, Sony’s director of PlayStation Home in Europe said the virtual world accrues users who spend money and stick around for long stretches, but Home is nonetheless “not a priority right now.”

“It’s been a long road,” Pete Edwards said, according to Edge Online. ” We’ve proved there is a market out there and we’ve got a lot of people that spend a lot of time in [Home]. It’s not a priority right now but there is a business model there.”

Edge Online noted that Edwards himself said European users spent an average of 56 minutes in Home per session. So it’s not like Sony’s shelving or shutting down Home; he’s just saying that investing further in its business model is not part of the strategy right now. Still, publicly deprioritizing PlayStation Home speaks loudly enough about how Sony feels about this project a year later.

PlayStation Home Not A Business Priority [Edge Online via Game Stooge]

Only two days left to get me your pumpkins if you want ‘em posted. Today’s patch features more Mario Bros., Aliens vs. Predator, Dead Space, Brütal Legend and Final Fantasy VII.

Thanks for sharing, Dave Brown, Jonathan Barrett, Adam Olson and gyophry (who did both Brütal Legend and Final Fantasy VII).

Square Enix amended its consolidated results forecast today, lowering its income projections for the fiscal year, which is now half over. Severance payments to get rid of some Taito employees and the company’s takeover of Eidos were blamed.

The revision takes some ¥4.9 billion off their net income – about $53 million US – in the first half of this fiscal year (which spans April 1 to March 31). Originally, Square had been planning on 7.5 billion yen in the first half of this fiscal year; it’s now predicting ¥2.6 billion, and for comparison’s sake, at this time last year it had pulled in ¥6 billion.

Square’s income picture for the year fell commensurately; it was lowered from ¥15 billion for the entire fiscal year down to ¥10 billion.

The entire filing [pdf]is available through Square-Enix’s investor relations site if you’re into this sort of thing.

The Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 DLC package announced last week has been dated and priced for the Xbox 360 and PS3. It arrives Nov. 5 on both consoles in North America, and on Nov. 12 for the PS3 in Europe.

The package will deliver five new characters - one of whom is Black Panther, it was just announced. He joins Cable, Psylocke, Carnage and a player to be named later.

You also get more boosts and simulator missions. In Xbox Live currency, it’ll set you back 800 points. On PSN, it’s $9.99. Additionally, Juggernaut will be available separately on the same dates (for both services). He’s 160 points and $1.99, respectively.

DLC Date and Pricing Announced [Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 Forums]

A jury awarded $16 million to the family of a Sacramento-area woman who died in a 2007 radio stunt in which participants chugged water and held their bladders in order to win a Wii.

Jennifer Strange (pictured), a mom to three kids, died of apparent water intoxication during “Hold Your Wee for a Wii,” a contest held by KDND-FM of Sacramento in January 2007, not two months after the Wii debuted and demand for the console was white-hot.

The jury found the station negligent in the death, especially for ignoring several warnings that the point of the stunt – drinking a ton of water and refusing to pee – could have fatal consequences.

Ten station employees were fired after the death; Entercom Sacramento, the company that owns KDND, sounds like it will not be appealing the verdict. A spokesman told the Los Angeles Times that, “We respect the jury’s decision and hope that it will assist the Strange family in coping with its loss.”

During the trial a tape of the program revealed that an on-air host had mentioned the potential fatal effects of drinking too much water – citing a 2005 fraternity hazing death. A listener also called to advise they not try the stunt.

Strange was trying to win the console for her three children. She finished in second place. After the contest she rushed with the winner to the bathroom to vomit; by the afternoon, she was dead.

Jury Awards $16 Million to Family in Fatal Radio Prank [Los Angeles Times, thanks Andres B.]

The only reason I avoid multiplayer-centric games is that I don’t get along well with other people. This is going to cost me in MAG.

Take for example my mild obsession with driving tanks. Valkyria Chronicles might pander to it exclusively, but in MAG, you’ve either got to spawn inside an armored vehicle or find one controlled by your team and get into it without getting run over. I managed to accomplish this feat after a player parked one of our tanks in an awkward corner behind some dumpsters.

I hopped in, spent 10 minutes un-parking the tank and then headed for the next objective point. I got to a gate that needed to be blown up before we could continue, so I hopped out of the tank and ran up to the gate – but an overzealous teammate I’d left in the tank shot me with the tank gun in a misguided effort to blow up the gate. I spawned back inside the tank and hopped out again to go blow up the gate, only this time some other teammate of mine ran up to the tank, took the driver’s seat and drove the tank all the way back to the dumpster parking spot.

What the hell, man! I don’t care if that’s a clever way to protect a mobile spawn point from being destroyed. I was driving that!

What Is It?
MAG is a “massive action game” themed around constant warfare. The fiction is that it’s the year 2025 and countries pay one of three private corporations to fight unofficial wars for them. Your faction choices are Valor (America), S.V.E.R. (Post-Soviet region), and Raven (I forget where they’re from, but they’re very high tech). Players take the role of a persistent character within a faction and begin leveling them up by participating in one of four types of game (Suppression, Sabatoge, Acquisition, Domination) and completing objectives assigned by squad leaders. Depending on the game type, there are between 64 and 256 players at any time – no AI controlled opponents, no singleplayer mode to speak of.

What We Saw
I borrowed someone’s level 15 Valor character for a Suppression match in MAG’s open beta.

How Far Along Is It?
The game is in open beta right now, but it’ll be officially live January 26, 2010.

What Needs Improvement?
Very, Very Busy Screen: Objectives appear both on a mini-map in the upper right hand corner and on screen as bright red or blue icons and little arrows pointing to where they are. Between that and the actual people shooting at you, plus your squad mates’ health bars and name tags, there’s way too much to look at during combat.

I Hope The Training Mode Rocks: Unfortunately, I didn’t get a look at the training modes or tutorials. However, after being instructed by the developer and then dropped into the action, I cannot stress enough just how much is riding on the training the game provides you. MAG really doesn’t feel like any other shooter or war game I’ve played and while that’s not a bad thing – it takes getting used to.

What Should Stay The Same?
Fast Paced Action: I died like eight times, but I never felt like I was out of the game too long. Once I got back in, I could pick up right where I left off in the action without missing a beat.

Sooo Many People: The more, the merrier. It helps to have groups of players separated by eight-person squads for organizational purposes. However, knowing that there are maybe 63 other people out there is both overwhelming and exhilarating. Best of all, you’ll rarely ever wander into any no-man’s-land zones where you can’t find somebody to shoot at.

Panama-themed Map: The map were were playing on isn’t modeled after a real city per se – however, it did have a distinctly Panama theme to it. It was well-made, too, with lots of alleyways and debris-cluttered streets to provide cover and ambush spots.

Good Matchmaking: I just clicked “join queue” and the game found me a match in less than 30 seconds. God, I hope it stays that smooth at launch.

Final Thoughts
If you’re the type who can get along with other people and likes realistic-ish war shooters, MAG is probably for you. If you don’t like other people but you do like realistic-ish war shooters, MAG is probably still for you. After all, you don’t have to do what your squad leader says – you can just wander off and try to drive a tank over people like I did and the game won’t penalize you. But still, with so many people in a game at once, being antisocial seems like a waste of good game design.

At yesterday’s Nintendo Tokyo conference, company president Satoru Iwata was frank, saying this about sluggish Wii sales: “The Wii stalled.”

Wii sales dropped by 10 million units during the six month period ending September 2009, and Nintendo has recorded its first decline in profit in six years. Iwata summed up the feeling at Nintendo. “Not being able to continuously release strong software has made a good mood grow cold.”

With upcoming titles like New Super Mario Bros. Wii, Nintendo is feeling more confident about this holiday season.

任天堂：４年ぶり減収減益…「Ｗｉｉ」急減響く　９月連結 － 毎日ｊｐ(毎日新聞) [Mainichi]