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When EA announced that users would have to pay actual money for guns in their upcoming FPS ‘Battlefield: Bad Company’, gamers were understandably upset.  Paying for a gun?  In a first-person shooter?  It’s rather absurd, but then again, this is EA we’re talking about.

From an email EA sent to Brian Crecente of Kotaku after they posted an article pointing out the charges:

At launch, EA will release a Gold Edition of Battlefield: Bad Company which will feature an additional five new weapons. For players who do not purchase the Gold Edition of the game, they can still buy the five weapons at a small individualized price per item. All weapons are balanced for gameplay. More weapons offer players more choices but do not create an advantage/disadvantage for players who do not opt to buy new items.

However, IGN just interviewed Senior Producer of DICE(the developers of Bad Company) Karl-Magnus Troedsson to set the record straight.  Here’s what he has to say:

IGN: So there’s no charge for the Gold Edition guns?

Karl-Magnus: No, there’s no charge for any of the guns in the game. All of the guns in the game can be achieved without purchasing them. All guns are available to everyone. However, we want to give some exclusivity to those who buy the Gold Edition. They will get the five Gold Edition weapons from Day One when they put the disc in. People that don’t buy the Gold Edition can get the five additional weapons by getting to the final rank in the game. There will be a golden, shiny five-weapon unlock when they hit level 25 in the game.-link

So there you have it.  The power of the internet once again prevails.

The last we heard of Gears of War 2 was from the Game Developers Conference(GDC), back in February(18th-22nd).  It was basically just a tech demo and didn’t reveal anything new to the story.  Fortunately, a member a NeoGAF has a bunch of new details from the May edition of ‘Game Informer’:

New Characters:

Tai Kaliso: While Cole and Baird are still a big part of the story, they won’t be attached to Delta Squad as the new game opens. The reunion with those popular characters will have some lead up first, and until then, you’ll be meeting some new personalities. The most memorable of these new additions may be Tai, a spiritual and meditative warrior from a tradition of honor-bound fighters. This familiar archetype should add a fun and perhaps mystical dynamic to the squad.

Chairman Prescott: Lots of gamers found themselves wondering if Marcus’ domineering superior officer was the head of the human government. It turns out that Hoffman is only second in command. Above him stands the Chairman, an almost dictatorial military leader who nonetheless has made the hard choices necessary to keep humanity alive through decades of warfare. As Gears 2 opens, this leader of the COG forces will deliver a speech to the troops before sending them reeling into the suicidal mission ahead.

Dizzy: In the seemingly unending struggle with the Locust Horde, the military forces of the COG have taken massive casualties. Somewhere along the way, Operation Lifeboat was enacted to bring in some fresh blood. Under this new act, the Coalition government will rescue a Stranded family and bring them into the relative story of a COG-protected zone. In return, the able-bodied men of that family join up and contribute their skills to the war effort. Such is the case with hardened soldier Dizzy, a new character who drives the massive Derrick on which Delta Squad ascends into the mountains. With a trademark drawl and an insistence on calling his truck “Betty”, he’s a colorful new addition to the cast.

Maria Santiago: When Emergence Day struck, Dom’s wife Maria became a victim as surely as if she had died in that first attack. On that day, her children were killed. Unable to deal with the shock and loss, Maria lost herself in the ruins of civilization. For Dominic, who joined the COG to protect his family, no priority is higher than to retrieve his lost love - his very personal quest to find her is a major part of the story that unfolds in Gears 2.-more details

Could Google be acquiring Skype for their upcoming Android handset?  If so, it’d be one sweet deal.  Last week:

Techcrunch broke news that Google and EBay are in talks about a Skype acquisition or partnership deal. Michael Arrington postulated that Google could be working to integrate their Grand Central, GTalk VOIP and other Voice services such as Google 411 to the Skype community.-theregoesdave.com

This might just be the thing to save Skype from collapsing.  In case you hadn’t heard, in the summer of 2006 Skype went through a pretty rough time.  People couldn’t log in, and even if they could, they couldn’t talk with one another.  SkypeCast’s were next to useless as well, since none of them actually allowed you to join.  Since then it hasn’t been the same.  Google seems to be the one company out there who actually cares about people, and wants everyone to get a great deal, while at the same time getting great services.  I can only hope these rumors prove true.

If you were ever a fan of both Halo and machinima, at one point you more than likely watched a few episodes of ‘Red vs. Blue’.  The series was created back in 2003, and ended it’s run in late June of 2007.  The creators, Rooster Teeth, still continued making machinima with the miniseries ‘Red vs. Blue: Recovery One’ in late October of 2007, and ended in December of that same year.

They’ve just recently announced yet another ‘Red vs. Blue’ series, entitled ‘Red vs. Blue: Reconstruction.’  No official word on what it will be about, or if it’ll be a comedy or drama.  However, one of the creators did say ‘Don’t let appearances fool you.’

If you’re reading this, that means you’re probably already a pro at just about every online game invented for use through your simple web browser. Well good for you. That makes you so special. Why don’t you leave the rest of us alone?

For the rest of us, we’ve got You Have To Burn the Rope. It’s so damn complicated that you’ll be glad it’s so short. In fact, because it’s so complicated, you shouldn’t even click the link to it until you’ve got that brainiac friend of yours nearby. And some money, so that he’ll actually care enough to figure it out after staring at it for hours on end.

You Have To Burn The Rope

If you haven’t heard of improveverywhere.com or don’t know what they do, you seriously need to spend more time on the internet.  Improv Everywhere gathers large groups of people to basically pull one big prank at a specific location.  From their site:

We’re out to prove that a prank doesn’t have to involve humiliation or embarrassment; it can simply be about making someone laugh, smile, or stop to notice the world around them.

One of my favorite pranks, or “missions” as they call them, is Frozen Grand Central.  Over 200 people entered the Main Concourse of Grand Central Station and froze in place for 5 minutes.  So now that you have an idea as to what they do, it’s time to take a look at one of their latest pranks: Mobile Desktop.

To many this will bring laughs, but to me it brings back memories from not too long ago. Due to technical issues I actually had to use Windows 95 for a few months back in late-2006. I was setup with a 10 year old CRT monitor, HP Pavilion and keyboard. The most high-tech thing I had was my laser-mouse. Good times…

You can watch all of Improv Everywhere’s missions here.

It’s true. They all have it in for me. When Skynet comes to life, they won’t be after John Connor…they’ll be after me. Why, you ask, raising your brow in the most quizzical fashion? Because computers, and all machinery, breaks under my use.

Let me rephrase that. Any electronic equipment that I use while agitated in some form or other is physically damaged, and with enought time (depending on proximity, ie the closer it is the me the sooner it’ll crash), depending on how well made the device is (remote control vs TV), it will crumble beneath me.

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