Project Thursday

Take Two and Rockstar have once again received negative press for one of their videogames. Senators with nothing better to do (we’re still in Iraq, right?) and anti-gaming activists are up in arms about Rockstar’s Manhunt 2 game for Wii, PS2, and PSP. Apparently, it has been confirmed that hackers have found ways to get past the blurring and other distortion effects that basically filtered out all of the content that gave the game it’s original "Adults Only" rating.

The ESRB has come out and stated in a press release that they will not be changing the rating back to AO, since all of the game’s content (including the filtered parts) were submitted to the ESRB for review. Hacks have only been discovered in the PS2 and PSP versions of the game (by utilizing the third-party Codebreaker application).

So sorry Senators, for once the ESRB is growing some balls and sticking to it’s guns…for now at least. So by all means, go ahead and pick up your copy of Manhunt 2, hack away, and then hack away.

For more info on the subject, check out Mercury News.

Kojima is undoubtedly going to have to create a  new trailer with a 2009 release date with the way that things are going. The highly anticipated Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, for the not-so highly desired Playstation 3, has now been delayed until the second quarter of 2008 (anytime between April and June). Yes, sadly, this means more painful waiting and more defending of our, thus far, unjustified PS3 purchases.

The good news is, the demo that we got to check out at the E For All Expo looked incredibly promising. I got the opportunity to speak with one of the developers at the expo, where I was told that "Metal Gear Solid is one of those games with no restrictions." What that means for you and me is that this game gets done when it’s done. Sony and the rest of the world are just going to have to wait.

Last week’s E For All convention out in Los Angeles marked a new chapter in the world of gaming. Last year, the Electronics Entertainment Expo (E3) was scaled down dramatically and pretty much closed it’s doors to everyone except for media personnel and industry big-wigs. Average Joes like you and I were forced to either travel all the way to Tokyo, Japan for TGS or stay glued to our computers and check out all of the third-party media and "awesome" text updates.

But what about those of us who like a more hands-on approach? What about those of us who dream of being immersed by awesome games that few have ever played, meeting the B-grade celebrities of the gaming world, and (most importantly) lots of amazing booth babes standing around pretending to be totally into what you’re saying and doing while raining tons of free swag upon you? What are we supposed to to?! Enter E For All: a four-day convention open to the public that provided all of these things and more. Despite a lot of media criticism, the convention actually did a pretty decent job for it’s first time around the block.