Our inaugural podcast picks up straight where the revered 404 radio show leaves off - the same low production values, the same incompetence, and the same professional level of nonsense.

In this episode we discuss a variety of topical item, and provide in depth reviews of Tony Hawk’s Downhill, Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle Earth, and Guns, Girls, Lawyers, Spies. The recording is a little rough due to our rusty, yet still immeasurably impressive, skills, so please forgive the dodgy level changes - or complain bitterly. Merry Christmas y’all!

[ download ]

Notes:

1. The show runs for 45 minutes, we were aiming for 30: we claim technical victory.
2. I actually quite like Retro Gamer magazine
3. Guns Girls Lawyers Spies is by Strategic Light Studios
4. Look out for Shades’ upcoming reviews on this very organ.

Todays Nebraska Mall Shooting, in which 9 where killed before the gunment committed suicide, will be treated differently by different people. For the emo crowd it will be ‘a call to recognise teenage angst’ for the Godhead ‘A time to reconcile our differences’ but for the anti-music and games lobby, this quote might stick:

“…But he also had a drinking problem and would occasionally smoke marijuana in his bedroom, she said. Hawkins liked to listen to music and play video games…”

From the woman who cared for him.

To her credit she goes on to say that’s normal teenage stuff, but I stopped reading where the hate mongers will.

I wonder if it was Mario Universe, or Catz that led to his downfall in their opinion…?

As ever with our intrepid journalism, 404 is approximately 908th on the scene of a breaking story.

It appears a rather large furore has broken out over the sacking of Gamespots late editor, Jeff Gerstmann. The internet rumour mill is alleging he was sacked as his review of Kane & Lynch on the X360 was pretty scathing, not a problem for a games review site, but it just so happened that Eidos, publishers of said game, have paid Gamespot for  bunch of rather obvious advertising all over their website and are a major sponsor.

There’s no confirmtion from any party that Jeff lost his job s a result of insider foul play or sponsor lobbying, but the internet loves a conspiracy nd it seems to be gaining ground as an idea.

Here at 404 we believe his departure will be followed by a tit for tat expulsion of Gamespys editor in chief for espionage and it’s all part of the great game.

Update: Penny Arcade did one of their annual ‘actually funny’ comics on the story here.

Update 2: An anonymous poster on the internet rumour boards had this to say about Jeff’s firing, makes for interesting reading:

2…BY GAMESPOT AT 11/30/07 04:54 PM

No one wants to be named because no one wants to get fucking fired! This management team has shown what they’re willing to do. Jeff had ten years in and was fucking locked out of his office and told to leave the building.

What you might not be aware of is that GS is well known for appealing mostly to hardcore gamers. The mucky-mucks have been doing a lot of “brand research” over the last year or so and indicating that they want to reach out to more casual gamers. Our last executive editor, Greg Kasavin, left to go to EA, and he was replaced by a suit, Josh Larson, who had no editorial experience and was only involved on the business side of things. Over the last year there has been an increasing amount of pressure to allow the advertising teams to have more of a say in the editorial process; we’ve started having to give our sales team heads-ups when a game is getting a low score, for instance, so that they can let the advertisers know that before a review goes up. Other publishers have started giving us notes involving when our reviews can go up; if a game’s getting a 9 or above, it can go up early; if not, it’ll have to wait until after the game is on the shelves.

I was in the meeting where Josh Larson was trying to explain this firing and the guy had absolutely no response to any of the criticisms we were sending his way. He kept dodging the question, saying that there were “multiple instances of tone” in the reviews that he hadn’t been happy about, but that wasn’t Jeff’s problem since we all vet every review. He also implied that “AAA” titles deserved more attention when they were being reviewed, which sounded to all of us that he was implying that they should get higher scores, especially since those titles are usually more highly advertised on our site.

I know that it’s all about the money, and hey, I like money. I like advertising because it pays my salary. Unfortunately after Kasavin left the church-and-state separation between the sales teams and the editorial team has cracked, and with Jeff’s firing I think it’s clear that the management now has no interest at all in integrity and are instead looking for an editorial team that will be nicer to the advertisors.

When companies make games as downright contemptible as Kane and Lynch, they deserve to be called on it. I guess you’ll have to go to Onion or a smaller site for objective reviews now, because everyone at GS now thinks that if they give a low score to a high-profile game, they’ll be shitcanned. Everyone’s fucking scared and we’re all hoping to get Josh Larson removed from his position because no one trusts him anymore. If that doesn’t happen then look for every game to be Game of the Year material on Game spot…” 

So it seems Activision and Blizzard have merged.

They’re going to be called Blizzard Activision, imaginatively. This is a massive step for WoW players as it clearly means there will be more call of zombie included in World of Warcraft.

We can expect a future MMORPG in which realistic depicitions of WW2 battles are endlessly reenacted online via Blizzards massive client base.

What better way to honor history than constantly repeat it? 

Suprisingly it turns out shows on TV are fantasy and ‘exaggerte the truth’. one such show is Gonzos favourite, CSI.

Dr Sheila Willis of Ireland’s forensic science laboratory gave a lecture in Dublin at which she landed this bombshell on her audience: “…The shows wrongly suggested crimes could be cracked within the space of an episode…”

The idea that forensic pathologists dont have hats, wear sunglasses or throw pithy one liners before blowing up cars on beaches has totally thrown me. I envisaged lots of wise cracking nerds doing slow motion gunfights before solving crimes with IR torches. My life is now pointless and Gonzo has probably topped himself.

More of the bleeding obvious here. 

This article over at the BBC looks again at whether Hip Hop, rap and video games are to blame for gang violence.

I’m going to wade into difficult territory here, Quake Wars style, and see if I can put some reason up. I can only speak from the UK perspective, so thats what I’ll do.
As I understand it the current Games and guns argument goes: Games and music are violent, kids experiene these and get violent. Or, kids are predisposed to violence and games and music tip them over / encourage this.

First numbers, the number of people buying and listening to Hip Hop in this country is massive. Yeah, it’s heard in council estates and ghettos, but its also heard in middle class homes and the odd mansion. Hip Hop, as Nas would say, is dead in its truest form, that is expression music for those most disenfranchised, or a way out for that same crowd.

Games are equally widespread, literally hundreds of thousands of kids are playing Halo, Grand Theft Auto and Manhunt along with a healthy proportion of adults.

Of these, less than 1% will go on to commit violent crime. It’s true that if you look backwards and say ‘but 100% who have done crime have played games at some time’ its also the same if you ask how many of those people have drunk tap water. Quick ban the taps.

Next, demographics. I am going to make a racial point here, and as always the pc brigade will likely wet their environment friendly, dead cow hair, recyclable nappies. Fuck off, it’s time to stop reacting and start learning.

Of all the recent gun crime in the UK, the majority of perpetrators (not always the victims but still mostly) are from the black community. There is a reason Operation Trident was set up to deal specificlly with Black on Black gun crime in London: It is happening a lot.

Now lets look at Hip Hop and Games, is this music and entertainment restricted solely to this demographic? Hell no. Black people listen to Hip Hop, and white people listen to Elvis right? Wrong.

Eminem tapped into the market when he correctly identified that the vast majority of kids buying his (And HH other artists) stuff were white…And middle class. The same goes for games, go to any LAN cafe, cyber league, Game store, Computer Exchange, hell even the games section at hmv, go to the most violent games sections you can find and you will see a lot of white faces, in some cases and places mentioned above you will see only white faces.

Where is the operation trident for White on White gun crime fuelled by games and music? It doesnt exist.

Gun crime is not just a black problem, its being perpetrated by white, asian, chinese..fucking martian…whatever as well, but it’s over representative in the black community, why?

And if the Black community is not wholly involved with guns (It isnt by a long shot - ahem) and if the black community is a small proportion of the whole gaming and hip hop community, why does a minority within a minority dictate the rule for the whole?

In the UK a tiny number of individuals, predominantly within one community, are being examined as the test case for everyone, those people aren’t right, and neither is that method.

There is now an album of pirate hip hop out. By pirate I of course mean of the swashbuklin sort. You can preview the tracks or download / buy the album from CD Baby over here.

Avast ye landlubbers!

P.S: Soundtracks are an essential part of life, something SpiKe will discuss in his hotly anticipiated Quake Warts / TF2 review…

It’s been a damned good year for games financially, selling large numbers all over the place with the big jump being largely due to MS and the Halo 3 franchise.

The hardware sales aren’t even comparable and I’m guessing Sony is still loosing money hand over fist on the PS3, looking at its pretty woeful numbers. They’ll be a Christmas pickup for sure, but enough to bump it into second behind MS? Doubtful.

You can read the numbers over at CNN here.

Edit: A thorough market analysis and  cost benefit report of the respective publishers campaigns is inherent in Spike’s upcoming review of Quakewars. He tells me he’s formulated a new macro economic module from the data he’s got on users versus sales. Can’t wait to read it.

This article over at the BBC looks at next gen gaming.

Thing is, it actually just looks at marketing Assasins Creed for the Xbox 360, which is no bad thing but the fabric of the argument i.e. What it takes to be next gen isn’t truly explored. It does give us some more info on a game I want so bad it’s a kind of lust though. So read it you filth peddlars.

Of course, the idea of next gen will be fully explored in Spike’s upcoming review of Quake Wars, which he assures me is well underway…

The Government is about to launch a review into games.

The idea is to identify any negative affects they have on children and better ways top regulate the industry. I’m not exactly thrilled by yet another ‘psychologists review’ of gaming, sponsored by the government but I’m hoping the findings are balanced. ELSPA have got in there early and are working with the review, as are some senior developers, here’s hoping it balances out. You can read more here.

Of course all of these social ills will be blown away by the compelling argument for sohial cohesion through gaming put forth in Spikes upcoming Quake Wars review…