You know, a lot of websites wouldn’t bother to tell you whether or not patches have increased the playability of a game.  No, the gamespots and the IGNs and the EVIL LARGE NEWS SITES of the world are perfectly content to play’em and leave’m.  But not here, no.  In part due to the fact that we are too poor to purchase new games but mostly because of JOURNALISTIC INTEGRITY, you can look forward to knowing whether or not poop has since turned to gold.

And so here we are, at 1.01.1039.  Details of the patch can be found here.  But you don’t need to go there.  In fact, I’d rather you wouldn’t.  Don’t leave me for their honeyed words and empty promises.  You need me.  You need me to tell you whether or not it works.

It does!  It works pretty well, and playing the game is significantly easier now than it was in the past few weeks.  Fewer people dropping randomly, fewer people needing to bog down their connection by force proxying their connections.  All and all an improved experience.  Now that connection issues have largely been fixed, a more standard tweak and content adding patch should drop before the end of the month.  Hopefully it will take care of the minor balance issues, but with details scarce we’re going to have to wait and see.  At the least, the replay system they are working on could help in giving players an idea of why they lose, an absolutely critical element in retaining new ones and keeping interest up amongst the more advanced players.  Because losing without having any clear idea why is never any fun.

Also, a demo isn’t too far off.  Hopefully a multiplayer one so people can know in advance whether or not they’re in for a headache.  I’ll keep you posted.

One word summarizes the news of Kojima’s Castlevania.

AWESOME!!!

Quite possibly one of the biggest announcements at this year’s E3 is famed Metal Gear creator and director Hideo Kojima’s creation of a new Castlevania game. Castlevania is a game almost everyone has enjoyed and to have a brilliant director like Kojima work on a title only brings glee to my childhood heart. For the first time in years I’m excited about a sequel. And we’ve all waited for the day Kojima works on something other than Metal Gear.

View the awesome E3 trailer here.

Kojima Productions has a teaser flash page for the new Metal Gear, as revealed in the latest update. A very obvious picture of Big Boss flashes across the screen when lighting flashes. Though many speculate, only time will tell as to what the real answer to the mystery is.

My prediction: A PS3 remake of Metal Gear, you know the NES retro one. Yes there was a metal gear game before the PS1. Damn brush up on your game history newb!

Check out the sweet kojima productions clock here.

You really screwed me Relic
You really did a number on me
Never knew me playin’ Dark Crusade would come back to haunt me
But we was kids then, Relic, I was only 18
That was years ago
I thought we wiped the slate clean
That’s messed up!
Oh God my brain is racing
(I love you!)
What are you doing?
Change the rotation I hate this map
Does this look like a big joke?
(No!)
There’s a building with 360 degrees right above the victory point
in your new mode
what, you think I’m kidding you?
(you asked for that, didn’t you?)
No!
Bullshit you dev don’t freaking lie to me
What the frack’s this ally’s problem on the side of me?
Screw you ass, yeah bite me
Relic, RELIC!
Why don’t you buff me?
You think I’m terrible don’t you
(It’s not that!)
No you think I’m terrible
(Baby)
Get the hell away from me, don’t touch me
I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU!
I SWEAR TO GOD I HATE YOU!
OH MY GOD I LOVE YOU!
How the hell could you do this to me?!
(Sorry!)
How the hell could you do this to me?!

(Be sure to check back for the ‘balance’ patch!)

With a plethora of MMOs out there one stills cuts through the mundane, Guild Wars. Having sold over six million units since its release nearly four years ago, guild wars has released a large content update to commemorate its launch and success.

Read the offical news here Here

And be sure to check out all the updates and expansions at www.guildwars.com

I’ll see you online!

Ten years after the release of the Vandal Hearts II, Konami, At this year’s Konami Gamers Night showed off Vandal Hearts Flames of Judgement the prequel to the original two. The story is as follows:

On the continent of Sostegaria, two rival kingdoms stand on the brink of war. Caught in the tide of battle is young orphan Tobias Martin. Driven to defend his homeland, and to avenge those already fallen, Tobias enlists with his comrades to fight for peace. But all is not what it seems, and they face a threat far deadlier - and closer - than they know.

Konami has announced the following features:

Classic gameplay, expanded and streamlined - Combines the speedy RPG pace of the original Vandal Hearts with improved user mechanics and top-notch presentation.

Strong story - Serving as the prequel to the original Vandal Hearts, Flames of Judgment delivers a rich, focused, and character-driven storyline.

Multiple endings - The player’s actions throughout the game will determine the party’s future and more!

Available on XBLA - Download from the comfort of your couch.

Party members adapt to the player’s style of gameplay - Player characters naturally and automatically improve at whatever they do, providing a wide, range of customization options.

Konami has not announced the following features, however, when I was at the Konami Gamers Night event I was able to speak with the assistant at the kiosk. When I question him about the prospects of downloadable content he replied with, “We can’t comment on that at this time.” Could that mean missions, quests, continents, and items avaliable for download? We can hope!

Check back, as more information is revealed about Vandal Hearts we’ll be here to cover it.

Marvel.com has posted a new video, or what they call a vignette, of X-Men Origins: Wolverine, featuring some new gameplay footage and short clips of interviews with the dev team at Raven. Now this was released Possibly because of the recent leak of the upcoming movie onto BitTorrent, but who really knows?

While certainly not the only movie game in existence that doesn’t suck (Escape from Butcher Bay comes to mind), it’s certainly looking to be a fun ride.

[Marvel]

PopCap Games has a new title coming out on May 5th, Plants Vs. Zombies.

They’ve decided to reward their fans, apparently, with this sickeningly cute music video featuring a singing flower from Peggle, as well as zombies with butter on their heads.

If you’re a masochist you can “enjoy” the song to your endless delight by downloading the MP3 here, it’s by some lady named Laura Shigihara.

[Rock Paper Shotgun]

Yahoo Finance reports today that Interplay and Masthead Studios have joined forces to produce an MMO of some kind. The Press release is intentionally vague about the game itself and goes more into the details of the deal between Interplay and Masthead, which probably meant to generate interest from potential investors.

But, seriously, with the popularity of Fallout 3 and it’s recent DLC releases, what the hell else would Interplay be working on? Freespace? While that would be more awesome to me than you can possibly imagine, the answer is no.

[Yahoo Finance]

In a move that is sure to surprise many Americans but not a single Canadian, Quebec today began enforcing a new law which prohibit the sale of English-only video games if a French version is also available.

Apparently the law is intended to protect and preserve the French language, which I wasn’t aware was in any danger of becoming extinct. Doesn’t France still exist over there? Isn’t it still filled with millions of French people? I’m pretty sure it is!

Quebec locals - consumers, developers and representatives from the retail industry - are worried (rightfully so) that the implementation of this law will effect all aspects of video game sales and development in the province, which it obviously will. Bug tracking for text is a time consuming process, and since the majority of American games are released first in English only, this law basically forces all Quebecians to surrender to the European release schedule, which means they’ll get their games several months after everyone else does. When it’s a simply matter of driving over the border into non-French Canada to get their games, why would anyone not?

[GamePolitics via The Toronto Star]