Is Origin a good service? Right now, it is middling. Its future remains to be seen. Is it already improving? Sure. When Origin launched last June it was pretty basic. It was a little more than the EA Store in a different wrapper. Why did they tow the Origin name out of storage (for those that didn’t know, EA purchased Origin Systems in the early 1990s when Garriot and crew were on a large hot streak)? They needed a re-branding.

The EA Store was a real piece of crap. Purchasing extra licenses for $5 to re-download the game you already purchased, horrible customer service, and an overall poor experience was to be had whenever you had to connect to the EA Store. So, EA recognizing their shortcomings called an audible and threw some muscle behind a new client and store: Origin. Origin is already leaps and bounds better than the EA Store, so that is already a small victory. Next step, is it better than Steam?

Not at the moment. Steam is a powerhouse. Steam is the ’86 Celtics of the digital distribution world. The content that they hold is unmatched and the Steam user experience has few flaws (few, but they do exist for some). Friends, groups, and great deals; the Steam experience is very tight. That said, Steam absolutely does not have to exist in a bubble. Competition only makes for better products.

Origin can easily become a top tier digital distribution store. How many of you remember Steam before and just after the launch of Half-Life 2? It really wasn’t any good. As a matter of fact, people reacted to the introduction of Steam in a similar way they are reacting to Origin.

Steam gained a head of steam in a hurry. Within five years they were pulling in publishers from all over the place. However, it took them nearly four years to make a distribution deal with another publisher. Even when those initial deals were made in 2006, it was very limited, not until mid-2007 did Steam as a major distribution platform really take off.

Origin is going to make its own way by bringing you content that you want. EA is already pulling in other publishers; THQ, Warner Brothers, Capcom, Paradox, CD Projekt Red, and many more already find themselves in EA’s house ready for the party. Soon, the rest of the industry’s major publishers will be joining them all at the dinner table (except for Valve).

I think that Origin can hit it big. They had a rocky launch that dropped the public perception of them out of the gate. The way Crysis 2 was unceremoniously ripped from Steam along with some harsh words towards Valve regarding their DLC policies put off the PC gaming community from taking a liking to the new platform. EA and several other developers including Mojang (of Minecraft fame) have said that the nature of Steam’s DLC policies don’t mesh with their content releases. Over the years EA has had a hard time getting out their downloadable content on Steam without trouble. Complaints ring out on forums for every game from The Sims to Dragon Age.

Any new platform will have its share of wrinkles. What EA does with Origin moving forward will prove whether or not it is viable for long-time use. I am confident that Origin will eventually clean itself up and be an excellent service for those looking to expand their digital distribution horizons Perhaps Origin will do well enough to match Steam’s popularity.

Kevin Dent has been floating about the gaming industry for over 10 years now. His LinkedIn page describes his focus: “to help developers and content creators tell their story by driving deals and creating strategic visions.” This direction lead him to his current position as the head of IGDA Mobile Special Interests Group. IGDA, or the International Game Development Association, is a non-profit organization that helps out game developers. “My mission is to make games better,” Dent’s Twitter bio reads.

Clearly, Dent seems to be all for the growth of the industry, if he had something important to say, a lot of people would be listening. And they did when he lit a fuse with this tweet late Saturday night.

Warhammer 40K is an important franchise to THQ. Not only have the past real-time strategy games been successful, but Relic’s latest entry Space Marine was a strong influence on THQ’s sales the second quarter of its 2012 fiscal year (July through September), according to the CEO Brian Farrell it “exceeded expectations”.

As soon as Relic Entertainment finished Space Marine they were free to lend help to on the Warhammer 40K MMO Dark Millenium Online Vigil Games has been working on publicly since March 2007.

It’s important to understand just how much work goes into an MMO, and how much of a risk it is. Massively is in the name, these games have to be huge to accommodate thousands of players at a time. Typically they have a lengthy leveling experience to introduce players to the world, and end-game content with high-level enemies that require groups to take down. It’s a lot of assets and design work, and that’s if you want to mimic what Blizzard has already done with World of Warcraft. EA spent roughly $125-$200 million on Star Wars: The Old Republic, it garnered more than a few pre-orders and hasn’t had any signs of dropping in player count, yet. WoW may be slightly dropping, but it still holds a large active player count; the market has very little room for alternatives.

So why cancel something that’s been in development for at least 5 years? Dent offered this as a potential reason:

He’s referring to early December last year when THQ lowered its earning forecast down approximately 25 percent due to the uDraw tablets unsuccessful performance during the third quarter of its 2012 fiscal year. He mentions the month of June because that’s when THQ’s second quarter ends.

I spent Sunday morning digging for more information as I wrote up a post for my personal blog. I found someone close to Relic that was willing to talk about the fate of Dark Millenium Online. The source claimed nothing had been said of its cancellations, even calling Dent’s original tweet “baseless”. Not long after, more reports of denials came in supporting my source’s comments.

Then the gravity of the situation grew, Dark Millenium Online was just the beginning according to Dent.

Dent’s alluding to THQ saving up money to potentially sell. Were THQ to go through with it, the future of the unannounced project former Assassin Creed designer Patrice Désilets is working on in the new Montreal-based studio, the joint operation of Crytek and Kaos Studios on a Homefront sequel, and possibly many other games would be cut short. For someone like Dent to feel confident enough to say that a big publisher like THQ is planning on selling, his sources must have been incredibly trustworthy.

A few hours later Kotaku published an official statement from THQ.

“THQ has not cancelled its 2014 line-up, and has not made any decisions regarding the planned MMO. As part of the ongoing review of our business, we have made decisions to ensure that the company is strategically addressing the most attractive markets. As we have previously announced, we have dramatically reduced our commitment to the kids’ boxed games sector which leads to a significantly more focused release schedule moving forward. Our slate for calendar 2012 and beyond is focused on high-quality core games and continues to build our digital platform and business. We are excited for our pipeline of original and high-quality content along with our relationships with some of the best talent in the industry.

Additionally, we are thrilled with the great performance of Saints Row: The Third, which on a like for like period in North America has tripled in sell-through from Saints Row 2. In addition, WWE ’12′s worldwide sell-through sales are up almost 40% year-over-year for the same sales period with fewer platforms. According to NPD, for the month of December and the 2011 year, THQ was the #5 publisher overall, #4 third party, with reported sell through growing over 18% in a market that was down almost 6%. And coming up next, we have two great titles for the first half of the year including UFC Undisputed 3 and Darksiders 2.”

Through careful wording, THQ’s statement maneuvers around a definitive answer for Dark Millenium Online, it simply says “not made any decisions”. THQ wanted to quell the rumors, a denial doesn’t necessarily mean nothing will happen to the MMO in the future. As for the 2014 cancellations, THQ comes off firm, but again, it doesn’t mean that some games won’t be cut from the roster.

It could have gotten a lot worse if THQ never issued a statement, it did, and have caused the rumors to die down to a low simmer. Dent still believes what he heard, and he’s right to do so, we haven’t heard enough solid evidence that Dark Millenium Online or any other games won’t be cancelled eventually. For now, we have to wait and see. We still have games like Metro: Last Light, Darksiders 2, the newly announced South Park game, Guillermo del Toro’s inSANE, Devil’s Third and Saints Row 4. I don’t even want to know what this world would be like without another Saints Row.

Does anyone remember Nick Arcade? Back in 1992, a prototype version of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 was featured on the show. In that version, Emerald Hill Zone played the Star Light Zone music. I would later find out that the music was a placeholder, but as a kid I was infuriated at what I thought was an unforgivable screw-up by corporate blowhards that just don’t understand video games. I had forgotten what that feeling was like until today.

The ad features the invincibility/Super Sonic music from Sonic the Hedgehog 3, but as you can see, Sonic is clearly not invincible nor is he very super. Whether this is due to a lack of the necessary seven chaos emeralds or he’s just a few rings short of 50 is irrelevant. There is no excuse for this kind of oversight. If you are as outraged as I was over this blunder, I urge you to call or write a letter to Progressive Insurance DEMANDING that they correct the issue.

Good Old Games continues to live up to its name as on January 19th they will begin selling the PC classic Syndicate for the non-oppressive price of $5.99.

In a time before first-person shooters infiltrated the hearts and minds of our youth — with sweet promises of power armor and regenerating health — there were games like Syndicate. Games that focused less on shooting aliens and more on mass oppression. That is to say, the original Syndicate, not this fancy-pants, new, dubstep simulator that come out in February. I’m talking about the one that Peter Molyneux made.

GOG has even been nice enough to begin a contest over Twitter giving away free copies of the game to some of the best Syndicate teams. We here at SideQuesting intend to participate in the contest, of course. However, we might have a tough time communicating gameplay strategies while harmonizing a non-stop rendition of Three Dog Night’s “Joy to the World”.

[Source: GOG.com]

The 12th annual Game Developers Choice Awards, an award show where game developers give honor among themselves. It may sound a little selfish, but promise us, it’s not at all, in fact the judges lean towards the innovative rather than the bombastic. It’s purely a few hours of appreciation for the amount of work that goes into their games, a far more appreciative attitude than that of the Spike TV Video Game Awards.

Last year the awards were streamed online for those that could not make it to San Francisco, California where the Game Developers Conference is held. It’s safe to assume they will be streamed once again this year, but that information has yet to be revealed.

A list of the nominees for all ten categories were released today, which you can find below.

Bastion, Supergiant Games’ first title, released on XBLA earlier this year, is nominated for 5 awards. The game you (probably) didn’t play, Ubisoft’s Rayman: Origins is nominated for “Best Visual Arts”. Up for the “Game of the Year” award, arguably the hardest to choose is The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, Portal 2, Batman: Arkham City, and Dark Souls. I’m sure some would argue the idea of rewarding FromSoftware for the punishment they gave out is terrifying and wrong, but their tactics to chastise players who got their hands on the game early deserves an award itself.

The Game Developers Choice Awards will be held on March 7.

Best Game Design
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (Bethesda Game Studios)
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (Nintendo)
Portal 2 (Valve)
Batman: Arkham City (Rocksteady Studios)
Dark Souls (FromSoftware)

Innovation

Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure (Toys For Bob)
Portal 2 (Valve)
Bastion (Supergiant Games)
Johann Sebastian Joust (Die Gute Fabrik)
L.A. Noire (Team Bondi)

Best Technology

Battlefield 3 (DICE)
L.A. Noire (Team Bondi)
Crysis 2 (Crytek Frankfurt/UK)
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (Bethesda Game Studios)
Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception (Naughty Dog)

Best Handheld/Mobile Game

Tiny Tower (NimbleBit)
Super Mario 3D Land (Nintendo)
Jetpack Joyride (Halfbrick)
Infinity Blade II (Chair Entertainment)
Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP (Capy Games/Superbrothers)

Best Audio

Bastion (Supergiant Games)
LittleBigPlanet 2 (Media Molecule)
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (Bethesda Game Studios)
Dead Space 2 (Visceral Games)
Portal 2 (Valve)

Best Downloadable Game

Stacking (Double Fine)
From Dust (Ubisoft Montpellier)
Bastion (Supergiant Games)
Outland (Housemarque)
Frozen Synapse (Mode 7)

Best Narrative

Portal 2 (Valve)
The Witcher 2 (CD Projekt RED)
Bastion (Supergiant Games)
Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception (Naughty Dog)
Saints Row: The Third (Volition)

Best Debut

Supergiant Games (Bastion)
Team Bondi (L.A. Noire)
Re-Logic (Terraria)
BioWare Austin (Star Wars: The Old Republic)
Eidos Montreal (Deus Ex: Human Revolution)

Best Visual Arts

Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception (Naughty Dog)
Rayman Origins (Ubisoft Montpellier)
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (Bethesda Game Studios)
El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron (Ignition Japan)
Battlefield 3 (DICE)

Game of the Year

Batman: Arkham City (Rocksteady Studios)
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (Bethesda Game Studios)
Portal 2 (Valve)
Deus Ex: Human Revolution (Eidos Montreal)
Dark Souls (FromSoftware)

Source: PR Newswire

“I love this 3D photo that I took of my stack of chocolate chip cookies, but I have no way to share it with friends and make them jealous.” I know you’ve thought that same thing. Except, you know, exchange “stack of chocolate chip cookies” with “penis” in your case. Well, that’s all about to change.

Nintendo has just let loose its nifty free 3DS messaging app, Swapnote, into the eShop wilds. The app allows for the sending of messages, slide shows, audio clips, and 3D photos to other users via Streetpass or Spotpass. No, we DON’T want to get your 3D balls in a photo. It was a joke. The app starts off bare-bones, but as is Nintendo’s typical methodology more options are opened up the more that we use the app.

Other options include stationary, Powerpoint-like slide shows, animations, attachments, scheduling messages — we reckon “Merry Christmas” and “Happy New Year” will be popular this week — and sketching in 3D. It’s a very “lite” version of email, but stands as possibly the most in-depth native messaging app for a video game console to date.

The app has a few cool uses already, as I’ve already been putting together a collection of 3D photos of “typical Walmart shoppers” on this final Friday before Santa arrives. Yes, butt cracks abound.

Our favorite thing to do with the service (with the few hours that it has been available) is creating a recipe book of alcoholic drinks that people will acquire when they Streetpass us. If anyone has downloaded it yet, that is. This is probably the first time most people are hearing about it, so we don’t know if our “Spiked Eggnog Cinnamon Latte” will make the rounds by Sunday.

Regardless, it’s free. So go get it in the eShop for $0.00

Update 2: Gamestop released this statement to IGN:

“The Last Guardian has not been cancelled by Sony as we incorrectly stated in an automated call to reservation customers. Because the game did not have a specific release date, GameStop made the decision to remove the game from our system. The Last Guardian will be reinstated for pre-order when a firm launch date is known.”

Well, that was a close one. Clearly, the patience for this game is running thin, hopefully Sony will start to give the game some much needed attention.

Update: Sony president of Worldwide Studios Shuhei Yoshida is consistently denying the original report on Twitter. It’s looking more and more like this was a mistake on Gamestop’s side, but it still makes you wonder where the initial information came from and why it was trustworthy enough to begin cancelling their pre-orders.

If you pre-ordered The Last Guardian through Gamestop, chances are you may have received an automated message informing you of its cancellation.

According to Kotaku, Sony, the game’s publisher, is denying Gamestop’s claim. But it’s highly unlikely Gamestop would take the step to send out calls without a trusted source telling them Team Ico’s latest project has been cancelled.

I’ve sent out a few emails in hopes to get some kind of confirmation either way.

The Last Guardian has been the subject of much doubt lately, forced to hold onto the game’s creator Fumito Ueda as a freelancer until the its completion after he announced his departure from Sony. Earlier this month, Team Ico lost the game’s executive producer as well.

If its disappearance from the Tokyo Game Show and E3 weren’t enough, The Last Guardian also suffered a delay in May.

The Last Guardian is Team Ico’s third game showcasing the developer’s strengths with emotion, telling the story of a boy and his giant, mysterious animal friend.

Source: Kotaku

Audio recording of Gamestop’s message can be found here.

If you’re as much a fan of a Song of Ice and Fire as we are, and you drooled over Season 1 of the hit HBO adaptation, then get ready to melt. HBO has released the official first trailer for Season 2, focusing on the Clash of Kings. In the teaser we see scenes that those who’ve read the book will be familiar with:

• Tyrion on the throne as the Hand
• Daenerys and Jorah staring into the wasteland desert
• Arya on her way to the Wall
• Robb as the King in the North

The entire length of the clip is narrated by Stannis Baratheon, who claims the throne for himself after his brother King Robert’s death. The cold winds are rising, indeed!

The show returns April 2012. Are you looking forward to it? Have you read book 2 of the series yet?

The galaxy’s favorite Time Lord will be riding the air waves again this Christmas. After that, however, The British sci-fi sensation Doctor Who won’t appear again on TV until late next year. But just because the good Doctor and his companions won’t be televised, that doesn’t mean our summer will be entirely time travel free.

BBC Worldwide and Supermassive Games have announced the first in what they say will be a series of new Doctor Who video games; Doctor Who: The Eternity Clock for the Playstation 3, Playstation Vita and PC. They’ve even got themselves a spiffy teaser trailer featuring Cloister Bells and cosmic clocks.

Apperantly the game will feature the talents of Matt Smith and Alex Kingston as titular Doctor and his saucy time travelling bride, River Song as well as the BBC Wales writing team. As noted in the press release, players will take on the roles of both the Doctor and River as they travel through the universe; presumably to engage in wibbly wobbly timey wimey activities. The game is set for release in early 2012.

Update: After a 2 percent drop in shares after what probably was a misunderstanding by investors that Shigeru Miyamoto was retiring, Nintendo denies that he’ll be moving to a lesser role.

“This is absolutely not true,” a Nintendo representative told Reuters last night, “There seems to have been a misunderstanding.”

Not long after Nintendo released an official statement:

“Video game designer Shigeru Miyamoto’s role at Nintendo is not changing. He will continue to be a driving force in Nintendo’s development efforts. In discussing his priorities at Nintendo in a media interview, Mr. Miyamoto explained how he is encouraging the younger developers at the company to take more initiative and responsibility for developing software. He attempted to convey his priorities moving forward, inclusive of overseeing all video game development and ensuring the quality of all products. Mr. Miyamoto also discussed his desire to pursue fresh ideas and experiences of the kind that sparked his initial interest in video games.”

It remains unclear if Miyamoto will still be switching his focus to smaller games or not, the original interview could have been interpreted incorrectly.

In a tweet by Wired’s Chris Kohler, he remarked that they stand by Miyamoto’s statement:

Shigeru Miyamoto’s comments in the Wired story speak for themselves. Wired and I stand by this report.

Whether or not it’s true, Nintendo has no reason not to be protective of their most valuable designer, especially if their stockholders disagree.

Duncan Harris' "Smoke on the Water" from Skyrim

Duncan Harris is a gamer just like the rest of us. He spends hours playing, and looking at, some of the best games of this generation. Games are, coincidentally, often the products of large teams of creators and artists, coming together to develop backgrounds, environments, characters, and style. His understanding of the medium as a visual art form, not just a story-telling or experiential one, combined with his knowledge of software and graphics tweaking led him to create the blog Dead End Thrills.

With DET, Harris focuses on stripping away HUDs, characters, animations and more to create landscape-style scenes from some of the biggest games of the past decade. Using several imaging software and hardware tweaks, as well as source code and emulators, Harris creates “perfect” shots from games like Bulletstorm, Portal 2, Mirror’s Edge, and more.  And, not by coincidence, they’re all stunning.

Have a look at the blog, where he’s even listed the steps and tools necessary to recreate several of the images.

Link: DeadEndThrills.com

Image: Smoke on the Water

Help fund the first issue of PXL magazine through Kickstarter

The slow death of print magazines became ever more apparent to me the other day when I took a look at my dwindling monthly subscriptions. I wasn’t cancelling any, but my tabletop pile of unread issues wasn’t growing by much either. Transitioning more to digital news consumption, whether it’s through my RSS reader or iPad apps, has become more of the norm for me — and for millions of other Americans.

Perhaps that’s why some of my favorite gaming magazines are facing challenging issues. We’ve recently lost Gamepro’s storied print magazine, and Future’s “Official” magazines are a weird state of flux.

I couldn’t help but throw a fist pump, then, when I saw that some of my favorite writers and Editors were banding together to create a new digital magazine for tablets. The team behind PXL is setting its sights on delivering a fresh approach to delivery of information about the industry, focusing more on fun and enjoyment rather than deep industry sales figures analysis, and they’re using technology to their advantage. The magazine will be released monthly at only 99 cents per issue, but the news within each ish will be delivered weekly to remain up-to-date and relevant. That way you’ll not only be reading the mag for its great features, but also coming back to it far more often than once a month.

The magazine is being planned and developed for iPads and Android tablets, but as with any new endeavor the team needs our help. They’ve created a Kickstarter campaign to get the funding needed for this first issue, which they hope to have ready and available by the first week of February. In case you haven’t checked your calendar yet today, that’s about 8 weeks away. In other words, get on over to the Kickstarter page and help fund this great project. The group is offering Founders Club acknowledgement, t-shirts, artwork, and more for different levels of donation, starting at just $1.

Click here to go to the Kickstarter page, and help spread the word!

Want to follow the team? Just go to twitter.com/pxlmag or facebook.com/pxlmag and keep up to date.

Get all of Skyrim's Books on your Kindle or iPad

Thanks to some intrepid Skyrim fans, the great 4th wall has been broken: We can now take Skyrim with us into the bathroom.

Well, sort of. The folks at capane.us have taken the in-game books of the latest Elder Scrolls adventure and made them available in Kindle and ePub format for use on your iPad, iPhone, and… well, Kindle, naturally. You SHOULD own a copy of Skyrim to even consider grabbing these [and we're no quite sure just how ethical it is, either], but if you’ve made it down to this sentence then we think you’ve already got that covered, maybe even several times over.

To get this on your iDevice just surf to their post via your iPhone or iPad, click the ePub link, and the books automatically install into your iBooks bookcase. Technology!

It’s a fantastic feat, and one that we can celebrate with leftover turkeys and dragon eggs this holiday weekend.

Click here for the books: capane.us

Thanks, tipsters!

FXOLeenock holds his MLG trophy.

The Major League Gaming StarCraft 2 Championship was held this past weekend in Providence, Rhode Island. It attracted some of the best players in the world, including many past MLG and GSL winners, all battling it out for a $50,000 first place prize.

Making it to the championship was no small feat; players were either seeded into the championship bracket based on how they had finished in previous MLG events throughout the year, or had to fight their way through an open bracket of over 200 players. This was how eventual champion FXOLeenock had to enter the tournament, as this was the 16 year old South Korean’s first time playing in the MLG after recently making it into Code S from the GSL, arguably the most prestigious StarCraft 2 tournament in the world. He had a crazy run through the open bracket and the start of the winners bracket before being dropped into the losers bracket by a loss to DongRaeGu.

From there he played and beat some of the best competitive StarCraft 2 gamers including SlayersBoxer, previous MLG winners EGIdra, EGHuk, SlayersMMA, IMMvP — who is also a 3 time GSL champion– and MvPDongRaeGu again. All of this to beat yet another previous MLG winner, colNaniwa, in not one, but two best-of-three matches to win the championship. That’s pretty impressive for someone still in high school.

Congrats to FXOLeenock for an incredible run and some amazing games!

[Source: www.majorleaguegaming.com]

Dear readers, we here at SideQuesting adore you. We love writing for you, and we love holding contests for free stuff that you want to win. What we’re saying is that we live to give. If that wasn’t a big part of our core selves we simply wouldn’t be here. But here’s the thing. You guys, while we love you, are probably well enough off. If you had never heard of us you’d still be able to pretty much play anything you really wanted, if you set your mind to it.

There are kids out there who aren’t as fortunate as you, or us.

Years ago, Penny Arcade launched a charity to help these kids out. Since you’re a member of the global community of gamers, you probably know all about it. It’s called Child’s Play. From the time they launched, various groups of gamers and like-minded nerds have been doing their own fundraising, all in the name of helping sick kids.

One of these groups is a sketch comedy group based out of British Columbia, Canada known as Loading Ready Run. You may have seen their videos on the Penny Arcade ‘PATV’ website. Every year they do a fundraiser called Desert Bus for Hope. In short, they marathon a game and livestream the whole thing. They host a chat, hold contests and auctions, and generally do their best to entertain everybody watching. You can watch the stream and find out more specifics here, at their website.

Like we said. We love you guys. We love giving you stuff. It makes us feel happy that we can make other people happy with our contests and giveaways. So now, we’re hoping you guys will jump at the chance to feel the same way we do. Head over to Desert Bus for Hope. Donate something. Anything. If you can’t donate, maybe jump in their chat and wish them well.

Relevant Links:

• Child’s Play
• Desert Bus for Hope
• Desert Bus for Hope Donation Link (if you wanna skip the fun and just help the children)

Minecraft is officially official!

Today at the first annual Minecon, creator Markus Alexej Persson (aka Notch) announced the official release, finally bringing the game out of its beta stage.   Get it here

Since May of 2009, Minecraft has risen from a simple side project to a stunning success-with over four million purchases. A figure made more incredible by the fact that it is climbing by the second.

The game now includes many new features, such as item enchantment, new mobs to battle, a revamped combat system, potions, and even a surprise ending that transport the player to a new dimension: The End.

Whenever a new Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is released, it’s followed by its fair share of controversy. Usually that controversy revolves around the high levels of violence portrayed in the game. It is war, after all. Al Jazeera English this week took a look at the successful series and the recently released Modern Warfare 3, asking EIC of Icrontic, and good friend of SideQuesting, Brian Ambrozy to comment on the new game.

Watch as Brian does a great job of relating modern culture’s views of violence in entertainment art to those of the past, like books and movies.

Read up on the rest of Brian’s thoughts here as well: Icrontic News

[Image credit: Al Jazeera]

November is the home of many things: turkeys, football, and massive game releases. It’s also the host month to Veterans Day, one of the most important holidays in the US. It’s a time when we reflect back on the great, amazing people that have served, and continue to serve, this great country, often putting the safety of us citizens before their own lives.

The great people at Operation Supply Drop have set out to bring some of our luxuries to those in service. OSD works with the video game community and industry to send several games, consoles, portables, and swag to help ease the minds of military units. There is very little down time, but when there is there’s often not much to do.

Operation Supply Drop is not only celebrating their anniversary, but they are doing so in a big way: delivering weekly care packages instead of one big one. There are several ways that we can help, too.

Donate a new or used games and gear to:

Operation Supply Drop
9301 Alvyn Lake Circle
Bristow VA, 20136

Or, send a tax-deductible donation through either Chip.In or through Paypal to donations@operationsupplydrop.org

Visit the Operation Supply Drop page here for more information

[Thanks, John/Thriftynerd!]

The Smurf's Village

Australian consumer watchdog Choice have awarded Smurf’s Village a ‘Shonky’ award in their annual effort to highlight the worst products available in Australia. It received the dubious honour following reports that parents let their children rack up hundreds of dollars in bills through in-app purchases for Smurfberries, believing the game was completely free.

The Smurf’s Village is in esteemed company, including underwear infused with green tea to help you lose weight and miracle cure quail eggs.

Will publisher Capcom take heed of this public slamming and create a clearer pricing model for its iOS games? Will they adopt gameplay that is truly free-to-play and not pay-to-win? Probably not, considering the recently released financial reports showing a massive profit in its mobile gaming division, mostly thanks to their new little blue friends.

SideQuesting’s top mathematicians are hard at work trying to convert ‘giant waste of money’ to a Metacritic score.

Source: Choice, Joystiq

Launch day woes are unavoidable. Pre-order figures can help, but predicting server load is always going to be just that–a prediction. This problem stands twofold when you’re one the most highly anticipated games of the year, boasting multiplayer worthy of tackling one of the best selling franchises of all time. Everything won’t go smoothly, but with enough support hopefully nothing will be broken long enough for fans to light their torches, grab their pitchforks, and raid your offices.

To look at a console-focused game like Call of Duty as direct competition, Battlefield 3’s PC alternatives should have been competent. Instead, players were witnessing extreme amounts of lag, matchmaking issues, animations out of sync, squads getting split up, and worst of all the inability to simply connect to a server. The game’s campaign wasn’t performing up to standards either, although the experience was considerably better than the multiplayer. Maybe staying up until midnight to buy Battlefield 3 for the singleplayer wasn’t such a perplexing idea.

On the PC side of things, DICE’s lead platform for Battlefield 3, EA’s darling digital service Origin caused more than a few headaches. The amount of hoops that must be jumped through to get into a match is baffling, leaving a bunch of room for error. Just like its console counterparts, the PC version of Battlefield 3 suffered various mishaps with crashes and lag. You could quietly accept it having a hard time on consoles, but on the essential platform that is capable of running the stellar Frostbite 2 engine at its best? I’m sure more than a few people felt like screaming.An official EA forum user maps out the problems occurring on consoles.

A forum poster lists the problems affecting console players.

Clearly, even Battlefield 3 isn’t inherently immune from messy release days. While EA scrambled to appease the millions of players aching to fly a jet into something, the internet was abuzz with complaints, excuses, and apologies. I sought out some fellow journalists’ opinions to see how they felt Battlefield’s numbered return went, and their opinions on a larger discussion regarding what’s acceptable and not on launch day.

I asked each of them two questions.

How do you feel Battlefield 3’s launch went?

What is your stance on day one problems, are they acceptable?

Andrea Rene, Clevver Games:

“I think their launch was very successful as far as publicity goes. We won’t know for sure how well it went until EA reveals their sales numbers, but I personally know a lot of gamers that were very excited to finally have BF3 in their hands. A lot of major titles involving online multiplayer will have technical snafus on launch day. No matter how much “stress testing” you do, online traffic is still difficult to predict. However, I do think it is a little tragic that we almost have to expect a “Day 1 Patch” for games now. But, better patched than broken right?”

Jim Sterling, Destructoid:

“It’s been problematic, but it probably won’t matter. Games this big can have bumpy rides, and Battlefield’s had issues with the servers going down on 360 and the PS3 freebie not existing. As I understand, it’s been fine on PC, which is the really important one. Either way, nobody will be talking about that in a few days, they’ll just be focusing on the game, so I don’t think DICE has anything to worry about.”

“It’s one of those things, like a lot in this industry, where it shouldn’t be acceptable, but has become banal enough to the point where it’s increasingly hard to get angry about it. We definitely shouldn’t be willing to stand for any issues with a $60 product, but so many other gamers will that a small handful of angry consumers won’t make a difference. So, in my mind I’d say they’re unacceptable, but in reality, we’ve already accepted them.”

Ben Gilbert, Joystiq:

“Like Bad Company 2 and 1943 before it, the launch of Battlefield 3 was messy. Leaving aside the near-hostile marketing campaign that EA launched surrounding the game (“Above and Beyond the Call!”), the game’s online multiplayer — arguably its most important feature — was unplayable for the majority of the game’s launch day, at least on Xbox 360. With EA forcing gamers to play multiplayer via EA’s own private servers, it’s especially frustrating to buy a game on launch day for full price and not be able to play it — even a private match or online co-op!”

“At this point, in the context of the past two Battlefield launches (BF:BC2 and 1943), it’s entirely unacceptable. Both games had similar launch issues, and I was hopeful that EA and DICE would’ve finally fixed said issues for the launch of BF3. It looks especially bad when you compare the past launches of Battlefield’s competition — Call of Duty — given that EA/DICE is hosting fewer players in BF3 on dedicated servers and still can’t make things work.”

Patrick Klepek, Giant Bomb:

“Launches for games with ambitious multiplayer hooks are always rough. Based on how Electronic Arts handled the review process for press, it was clear the game was coming in hot from Sweden, and while most people appear to have written off the game’s campaign, the multiplayer is being received really well. Given Battlefield’s bread and butter is multiplayer, that’s probably good news for DICE and EA.”

“They happen, and it’s up to the companies involved to maintain constant communication with players. Those complaining have most likely already invested their $60 into the game, but if they want to keep them coming back and buying downloadable content, it pays to keep them in the loop about the issues coming up.”

You’ve heard what their thoughts are. Now, what are yours? Leave a comment below and let us know how you feel that this launch was handled.

I still have my floppy copy of Wolfenstein 3D. I acquired it from Babbage’s, nestled in a stack of shareware disks. I played the heck out of those 3 levels on my Packard Bell, in awe of the “true” 3-dimensions of mobility. I then played a version of the game on the Super NES, and again on XBLA and iPhone. I think I was even playing a port of it once that worked on an old Kodak camera’s LCD screen.

The point is, I’ve played a heck of a lot of ports of Wolfenstein, each with its own nuances and changes. I’m not the only person, either. Ben Paddon appreciates ports of video games, and is looking to create a web video series about the subject. PortsCenter is planned to examine the many ports of games that Paddon’s come across, and if the pilot episode (above) is any indication then the series looks to be both entertaining and informative. The pilot takes a look at the legendary game DOOM, peering into it’s history on PCs and consoles, and deep-diving into the excellent Playstation port.

Paddon is planning on creating 13 episodes, but being a starving artist in California has its disadvantages. The cost to create the series is about $7000, and so Ben has turned to the generous community of Kickstarter to help fund it. Through different pledge levels Paddon is offering various recognitions, and even guest spots and production credits.

Really, though, if you like seeing fresh video game content on the web then this is a good endeavor to support.

Visit the PortsCenter Kickstarter page to donate a few bucks, or at least enjoy the fun pilot. You can follow PortsCenter on Twitter as well to keep up to date!

Before we even know a damn thing about the game, Amazon has already posted up a pre-order for it. Both the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 versions are listing for $59.99 each. Surprisingly, no rumored WiiU version is listed.

Don’t worry about that, though. You can still pre-order Arkham City, Darksiders 2, Tekken, Ninja Gaiden 3, and Metro Last Light for the Wii U, and we’re pretty sure that those won’t even be released for the device.

(Thanks, Jim)

Over the past seven years since WoW’s launch it’s gotten increasingly more cartoonish and playful. Gone are the savage looking armor sets and the grotesque demons littering the various dungeons, to make way for foam weapons, motorcycles, helicopters, and now, a playable Panda race. The Pandaren are the hardest to defend, take a look at them, they’re a race composed of bipedal Panda Bears–there’s no getting around it. But they fit seamlessly within the confines of the colorful and whimsical road WoW has been following for the last few years. If you don’t like it, you probably haven’t been subscribed for quite some time, or you have learned to ignore it.

NOTHING.