Changing culture, one gamerscore at a time.

Look at that pixel-art shirt. The man's a pimp.

In a happy announcement today, Hideo Kojima is up for a lifetime achievement award, though at forty-five and after four fantastic Metal Gear Solid titles, you’d wonder why this particular gaming rockstar hadn’t had one already. But, deservedly enough, he’s had one already thanks to MTV, and his second will be given to him at the Game Developer’s Conference this year. This said, Joystiq made an excellent point; he’s only forty-five. Unless he has some life-shortening issues we’re not aware of I don’t understand why he’s had two before he’s even reached the peak of his career. I could understand it in twenty years or so, but the man’s been making stealth-’em-ups since the NES and I don’t see him stopping any time soon. Anyway, congratulations Hideo, and I shall enjoy watching the presentation ceremony in March.

Not-So-Hotmail

Hotmail is, by and large, a fairly decent mail program. It does what it’s told, and with the addition of the Windows Live Mail program it’s become a fantastic addition to a good series of helpful plugins and programs furthering online communication on behalf of Microsoft.

Unfortunately, they installed a very, very poorly thought-out failsafe on their free mail accounts; after 30 days of complete inactivity, including but not limited to MSN and the email login itself, the account will shut itself down. Now, this isn’t a major problem, right? Just log in, reboot it and continue as per usual. Not true if you’ve gone away for a while and your gamertag for Xbox Live is tied to the account, as you’ll lose your gamertag permanently. Zero gamerscore and a fresh start are all that await those who make the mistake of going AFK for too long. It’s a shame but it makes me glad I have my own mail server. Any programmer who results in my needing to get to level fifty in Too Human again is going to feel my wrath.

Jonathan(‘s Pricing) Blow(s)

Apparently, those paying around forty to fifty pounds sterling for PC titles are shocked by the idea that Braid should be anything more than a quarter of the price. At 1200 Microsoft Points, it’s sitting at around ten pounds on the Xbox Live Marketplace. However, the PC gaming crowd have been so stubborn about paying a little more that Jonathan Blow, the creator of, in my opinion, one of the best games of the last year, has had to reduce the price by the American equivalent of around £3 to please, and I quote: “certain areas of the Internets”.

How in the hell is the games-are-art movement supposed to get off the ground if people keep assuming that because it’s not a ten hour shooting fest it’s a worthless waste of time? Those areas of the Internet happily paid through the nose for titles like Crysis, yet anything actually innovative (and no, a game that challenges NORAD in its recommended specs isn’t innovation) gets shunted into the bargain bin for fear of angering the Counter Strike addicts. It’s a sad day when someone who poured his heart and soul into a solo project, funded out of his own savings and various loans, has had his inbox filled with hate mail for trying to make a living from a title that raised the bar for quality on the Xbox Live Arcade platform. Put it back up, Jonathan. I’d pay forty pounds for it.

Guitar Heor

No, that’s not a typo. However, the cover for Guitar Hero: Metallica contains one I find seriously amusing considering how “into” the music the developers should really be in order to work with music from bands of this magnitude. I am by no means a Lynyrd Skynyrd fan, but my God guys, spell the name right. Leaving out a Y on the box art isn’t a mistake I’ve had this much fun grinning at since I saw a huge IGN watermark on the box art for Okami, though it baffles me how that even happened in the first place. Well, it looks like some last minute retraction-of-art announcements for the Guitar Hero crew. Though in all honesty, I was expecting a mistake in Megadeth, more than anything. That would be funny.

In other news, I’m off to go order a book on violence backlashes by the media and why they’re bad. I love Newsweek.

Oh, and the new Plot Wholes is up. You can find my ramblings on humour in videogame humour here.