
Do you want to participate in the LEGO Universe beta? You may be able to! Here’s the sign-up site, but there’s no guarantees you’ll be selected. LEGO Universe? It’s a LEGO-themed MMO. Could be fun, yeah. It’ll be released for the PC later this year if all goes according to plan.
So, BioShock 2. Presumably you’ve heard of it. It comes out today, and I really can’t figure out how I’m supposed to feel. I’ve read plenty of reviews—Rock, Paper, Shotgun’s is my favorite—and they’re sorta all over the place. We weren’t cool enough to get a review copy, but that’s not a big deal; Steam to the rescue.
Get ready for another movie franchise re-boot! Yes, Warner Bros. wants to re-boot Superman, and it wants Christopher Nolan to sorta oversee the project, but not direct it. You’ll recall that Mr. Nolan successfully re-booted Batman, the silliness of the second film notwithstanding. Money is money.

ESPN plans to launch a 3D channel in time for this year’s World Cup. This is the downside. Not even Newcastle deserves that.
Here’s an interesting fact, if you really stretch the definition of the word “interesting.” Team CrunchGear often used the Novatel MiFi during CES to bring you all that great content. The concept is simple: it takes a 3G signal and then outputs that signal via Wi-Fi. You then connect to the Wi-Fi network. Instant broadband, cell signal depending, for everyone. The same concept applies to the MBRN3300, a router that’s the product of a Netgear-Ericsson partnership.
Kudos, I guess, to Asus, being the first manufacturer to incorporate Nvidia’s Optimus technology into actual products. The Taiwan-based company has announced five laptops (note: I refuse to use the term “notebook” when referring to laptops; I think the name “netbook” is dumb, too, so at least I’m consistent) that range in size from 13.3 inches to 17.3 inches, all of which use Optimus. “What is Optimus?” I’m glad you asked! It switches between the Nvidia GPU and the Intel integrated GPU as the situation warrants. So, using Firefox? Let the Intel handle it. Playing World of Warcraft? Nvidia takes over. It’s not too hard to understand.
Much has been written about China and “hackers” in recent weeks, probably because it contains two items that sound mysterious and scary: China and its rise, which unsettles people who believe the U.S. should run the planet, full stop, and “hacking.” Oh, scary hackers! Anyhow, here’s another story! A rather large Web site, one allegedly offering software for hacking, has been shut down. The site, Black Hawk Safety Net, was once located at 3800cc.com, but all you get now a bad request.
Is Peter Molyneux the video game industry’s Dana White, talking trash at every turn for seemingly no reason? I’d say so, yes. He’s going to show off more of Fable III at next week’s X10 event in San Francisco. He told Gamereactor that you’ll be “pissed off” by what he reveals. Peter Molyneux: promoter extraordinaire.
Last night’s Super Bowl was pretty amazing. That seems to be the general reaction, at least. But you know what was just as amazing, if not more amazing? The Ron & Fez Twitter party, which I’m pretty sure was the very first organized Twitter party in history. Is there a FourSquare for that?
Thanks to TiVo, we have a pretty good idea of what the most popular commercials from last night’s Super Bow. Survey says: that Doritos commercial with the little kid telling his mom’s date to keep his hands off his mother (fat chance!) and off his Doritos. America is a peculiar little country, isn’t it, cheese-flavored chips and light beer as far as the eye can see.
If I may, I’d like to play devil’s advocate to something I wrote a few days ago. To quickly summarize, Boxee took issue with NBCU’s Jeff Zucker’s characterization that Boxee was some sort of rogue piece of software, and that Hulu is in the right whenever it blocks access to the XBMC-derived media player. How about this: maybe Hulu is right to block Boxee? Let’s see where this takes us.
It’s time we start implementing DRM on console games. I mean, look at this nonsense. The Xbox 360 version of BioShock 2 leaked yesterday, a full five days before its official release. The same thing happened with Mass Effect 2, which leaked something like six days for the Xbox 360 before its official release. Since publishers are so keen to treat PC gamers like filthy thieves, I say we start implementing annoying DRM on console games, too.
Microsoft will kill Xbox Live support for orignial Xbox games. Rumor has is that this is being done to increase the numbers of friends you can have on Xbox (360) Live. Right now it’s at 100 people—a limit imposed by old Xbox architecture—, but clearly you need more.

Stupid Steam, making me spend money whenI had no intention of doing so. This weekend’s deal is the FarCry collection, which includes FarCry and FarCry 2: Fortune’s Edition (includes DLC and other bonus items). (Of course, you could have just visited that Web site I mentioned the other day.) It costs $15. Yeah, I can part with $15 to have those two games in my ever-growing collection. Note the use of the word “have”: I still have BioShock, Mass Effect, Mass Effect 2, and Final Fantasy XII to beat, to say nothing of World of Warcraft, before I get into these FarCry games. Sigh.
This may be a first: a Twitter Super Bowl party! Sirius XM’s Ron and Fez is having some sort of Twitter party celebrating The Big Game. Trivia, prizes, virtual booze, Chris Stanley passed out at a speakeasy in Long Island City—what more could you want? Oh, that’s not enough for you? Then how about a pair of knissors signed by East Side Dave McDonald, whom I interviewed last summer?

Five days. We’re a whopping five days away from the game’s official release date, but BioShock 2, the second truly big game of the year (the other being Mass Effect 2) has now leaked. Well, the Xbox 360 version, that is. It’s found where these type of things can be found, and I only mention it for the sake of mentioning it. Me? I’ll wait for the Steam version, thank you very much. I may have to take Tuesday off!
The world’s worst manager, Jeff Zucker, who just so happens to be the president of NBC Universal, was on Capitol Hill today trying to persuade lawmakers to allow the proposed merger with Comcast go through. Interesting to note his take on Boxee’s relationship with Hulu, which, you’ll recall, has been something of a mess. Boxee adds Hulu compatibility, Hulu breaks said compatability, Boxee re-works its code so that Hulu works again, Hulu breaks compatability again, etc. And on and on and on.
ATI just released a new, super entry level graphics card that should placate, well, not hardcore gamers, but most regular people. It’s the Radeon 5450. Like other 5000 series cards, it works with Eyefinity, meaning that you can spread the image across several screens, as this image swiped from Tom’s Hardware shows.
Prediction: Fallout: New Vegas will be extraordinarily among the tech press. How can you hold CES in a destroyed city? Anyhow, here’s the game’s new trailer. Remember: it’s being developed by Obsidian (and not Bethesda), comprised of a number of the guys who worked on the original Fallout. This is good news.
The Sirius XM application for BlackBerry is now available. It runs on the Storm/Storm 2, Curve (8500, 8900), Bold (9000, 9700), and Tour (9600).
Angry Internet Man here with a chip on his shoulder and a shoot promo to cut. This pre-order “bonus” video game content bullshit has to stop. Lives are at stake.
Anyone else running through BioShock again in anticipation of new week’s launch of BioShock 2? I’m currently in Arcadia, which is about where I got to on the Xbox 360 version before tapping out. (I’m playing on the PC now. Yay.) But enough of that, let’s get to the topic at hand: BioShock 2’s fancy launch. Take-Two has a bunch of stuff planned to ensure that, come February 9, you won’t be able to escape the call of Rapture.

Flickr’d
Short and to the point: EA Sports’ Madden NFL 10 has predicted that the New Orleans Saints will beat the Indianapolis Colts 35-31 in Super Bowl XLIV. Go ahead and dance in the streets. Also, what in God’s name does “Who Dat?” mean?
My idea of market research is to browse various message boards to get a sense of what the people think. I recently found myself on a PSP message board—I’m a baller, you see—and discovered that the kids there (I assume they’re kids) now refer to the PSP Go as the PSP No. So yeah, Sony would do well to re-launch that bad boy.
Is this footage new? Meh, doesn’t matter.
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