More Mega Man Mashups

Many Many Mega Men by DeviantArtist captainslam

CLICK HERE OR ON THE IMAGE FOR FULL SIZE.

It’s no secret that I can’t get enough Mega Man in my life.  So anytime someone like captainslam here is going to go to the effort of putting together a buttload of fan art, AAAAND throw a bunch of my favorite games of all-time into the mix, I’m going to take notice.  Well played, sir.

Gears of War 3 Delayed until Fall 2011

Originally slated for an April release, Microsoft announced last Friday that it planned to push Gears of War 3 to Fall of 2011.  Well, that just sucks.  Although I’m not trying to wait 10 years for a game like this, one does have to keep in mind that the “It’ll be ready when it’s ready” philosophy of say, Blizzard, certainly results in quality products.  Lead Gears Designer Cliffy B reminded us all via Twitter what happens if you take the bun out of the oven before it’s fully cooked.

That’s good advice, and Peter Moore of EA Sports definitely smells what you’re cooking.  Hopefully they just need 5 extra months to figure out an absurdly elaborate death for Clayton Carmine.

Except Microsoft basically said the delay has nothing to do with the game’s development, and everything to do with their sales strategy.

“Gears of War 3 promises to be the biggest entertainment launch of 2011,” the Microsoft statement reads. “The teams at Microsoft Game Studios and Epic Games have done great work thus far readying the title for release in the Spring of 2011. However, we’ve elected to move the launch of Gears of War 3 until Fall 2011 to make it the marquee title for the holiday season.”

If it is indeed purely about marketing, there are a couple of things that could be at play here. Epic’s other big game, Bulletstorm, is set to knock us off our feet on Feb. 22, 2011. Maybe they wanted to give that a bit more breathing room.

–Kotaku

Definitely possible, especially when you consider what was in the next tweet after Cliff broke the news and promised a “silver lining”: Bulletstorm’s box art.

Follow Cliff Bleszinski, Design Director at Epic Games, on Twitter @therealcliffyb.

Airball: EA Sports Decides to Spin-off NBA Jam After NBA Elite Demo Makes Gamers Physically Ill

So Peter Moore must read WG (not surprising).  It seems EA Sports has miraculously realized the idiocy of their plan to release NBA Jam, the game you are currently imagining being HELLA FUN as a one-time download with a fresh purchase of NBA Elite ’11, the “new” iteration of the basketball-simulation  schlock that’s been the cause of countless controller smashings over the last decade.  In case you missed it, you can read all about me bashing that “strategy” last month right here.  Anyway, It seems the Elite demo was so buggy and universally criticized [YOUTUBE] that EA head Peter Moore announced that the game would be indefinitely delayed.  Since NBA Jam is basically good-to-go (it has been around for 20 years), it will be released separately.

“Unfortunately, NBA Elite 11 is not yet ready and we have made a decision to delay next month’s launch,” Moore said, without specifying a new release date. “The decision to delay NBA ELITE was hard because the game has great promise. But ultimately we feel this is the right thing to do. We’ve been making steady progress on basketball for the past few years and it’s going to take extra time to make the game.”

NBA Jam, the arcade-style two-on-two game also due on Oct. 5, will still ship on that date for the Wii. The PS3 and Xbox 360 version was to have been included with a free download code in NBA Elite 11. Moore said that game will now be a standalone product that will arrive “in time for the holidays.” He did not indicate a price point or if this will be a physical retail release or digital download.

–Kotaku

Let me humbly point out that the important thing in all of this isn’t that I said that bundling the two games together was a crappy ploy, doomed to fail because it hinges on the assumption that people will actually willfully spend $60 on the crap that NBA Elite ’11 would surely be.  And it’s not that I predicted that NBA Jam would be spun off and available as an XBLA/PSN download within 3 months of launch.  No, it’s not all about being right here at WG, folks.  Sometimes, it’s about being SO RIGHT that the head of EA Sports had to publicly acknowledge the shittiness of his product, and announce on his official blog that he’s going to switch on over to the WG strategy, a week before the damn thing was set to launch.  MUAAHAHAHA! Dude ought to be thankful that he’s got the luxury of living in the world of demos, Internet message boards, and wannabe savvy bloggers like yours truly, or he might have released this thing and forced virtual-LeBron James to take his talents down to a landfill in New Mexico.

Well, it’s a glorious day in for wannabe geniuses everywhere.  Just goes to show you: if you go around blowharding a couple of times a day and you cover enough topics, eventually you’ll be right about something.  It’s all a numbers game.

Can’t wait to be the first person to fork over $10 for NBA Jam this holiday season.  I deserve it.

Peter Moore’s Blog via Kotaku

http://kotaku.com/5649371/nba-elite-11-delayed-nba-jam-to-ship-separately-by-holidays?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+kotaku/full+(Kotaku)

10:00 of Bioshock Infinite Seems Awfully Finite to Me

There’s 10:00 of Bioshock Infinite floatin’ around that thurr Intyweb.  If you enjoyed the immersive narrative and claustrophobia of Rapture at all, you have to be pumped that this team is taking to the skies.  Also if you enjoy bad puns, this game seems to have a certain magic so far for me.  Enough puns to take down a bull elephant.

The game’s hero, Booker DeWitt, seems to possess a great deal more character than the protagonists from previous BioShock titles, which should come in handy when dealing with the incredibly powerful (not to mention adorable) Elizabeth.

–Kotaku

Mega Kombat

Not much needs to be said here, it’s another Mega-Mashup and it’s lookin pretty, pretty, pretty good.  These pixelated pugilists were assembled in bead form by Flickr user ShampooTeacher, and are the 10 karakters from the original Mortal Kombat with their updated looks from MK2.  Although if you’re wondering why Shang didn’t get the updated treatment, you must be minutiae-obsessed and/or me.  Keen eye, sir; but I presume it’s because his reverse-aging from the first game to the second was actually part of the story while the other guys just got more details as a result of a bigger budget.

Anyway, aside from Sonya lookin’ a little buff for my taste, these are really well done.

MK fans can follow Ed Boon on Twitter @noobde.  As far as I know, Dr. Light’s not on it.

ShampooTeacher via Kotaku