Borderlands 2 is set to release this Sept. 18.

Remember when you were a budding post-adolescent and started having this almost instinctive urge to “rage against the machine”? That feeling of needing to fight The Man, without even fully knowing who That Man may be, was an emotion that, while in retrospect completely juvenile and almost assuredly stupid, has become the basis for untold stories, films, and video games for countless years. While the theme has become ubiquitous, however, none have been created with such bravado and outright Japanese insanity as one of the most treasured gaming experiences from my youth, Jet Set Radio Future.

Before even truly starting this off, I feel the need to start this off by saying that, as I put digital ink to fictional paper, I’m listening to the JSRF soundtrack, which if you haven’t had the chance prior is something you need to remedy posthaste. And I’m not even saying that in the sense that it’s good for a video game soundtrack; if you’ve ever had even the slightest interest in jpop, jrock, electronica, or The Beastie Boys (of which one of their side projects, The Latch Brothers, is heavily featured), then you should at least go on youtube and give a track or two a listen. In fact, here, there you go.

Though without a doubt JSRF‘s lasting influence on me definitely dwell’s within its soundtrack, there’s a hell of a lot more to appreciate. In a time when developers were just starting to get their legs for showing off modern, realistic modelling and graphics, the developers over at Smilebit (a now defunct in-house team over at Sega) went in their own direction, showing just how wild and wicked one could go with cel-shading (an art direction which at the time hadn’t fully gotten over the beating it took from Cel Damage), resulting in a style that, to my plebian eyes looks like what you’d get if you dropped Andy Warhol, neon, and punk rock into a blender. It was beautiful, but moreover it was something unique; you just didn’t see a game that looked like this.

…Unless of course you consider JSRF‘s prequel, Jet Grind Radio, for the Dreamcast, which I guess technically “started that gangsta’ shit”, but I have to admit my lack of owning a Dreamcast stopped me from ever getting a chance to see how JSRF‘s predecessor played out (though this may soon no longer be the case).

As for the story of Jet Set Radio Future (and, getting back to my original point in as long-winded and laborious a manner as I can), you play as a gang of rough-and-tumble street youths called The GG’s, with a devil may care attitude, a set of roller blades, and a penchant for motion-sickness-inducing graffiti art. Unfortunately, they reside in a future Tokyo where the insidious Rokkaku Group, a mega-corporation with ethics ideals that are roughly in line with what you’d expect a mega-corporation to have, rules the roost. They’ve got the cops in their pocket, a hatred for spray paint, and they’re damn well determined to make sure the streets of Tokyo go untagged.

So what better way to screw with the man than by drawing sweet street art on as much of the cityscape as you possibly can? Hence the foundation of JSRF‘s gameplay, roller-blading around the beautifully detailed Japanese landscape, graffiti-tagging as much of it as you possibly can. The movement was fast and fun, graffiti-tagging was simple and satisfying, and you could even create your own graffiti art in the editor mode.

But there was so much more going on! There were rival skater gangs, looking to get into your turf with their own graffiti. And we’re not talking about modern-day interpretations of gangs here; this is some straight-up The Warriors shit here, with gangs like The Love Shockers, The Immortals, or The Doom Riders, you half-expect at any moment to turn a corner and come face to face with the Baseball Furies. It’s gangsters at their most stylized, and like everything else Jet Set Radio Future was putting down, I couldn’t get enough of it.

Yes, they were actually called "The Doom Riders". How fantastic is that?

Whether it was their art style, the setting, the story, or (and I say without hyperbole) one of the best contemporary soundtracks in gaming, Jet Set Radio Future was a goddamn work of art. It’s too bad the IP’s gone completely silent in the years since its release; I would personally go to Japan and plead my case to Sega’s Board of Executives why they need to take the craziest developers they have on staff and have them make a new Jet Radio game. It would certainly beat the hell out of throwing an emaciated and downtrodden Sonic out once again to the blood-thirsty masses.

Something along those lines must have been in the head of Thomas Fenady, a former director of information technology at Activison, who was asked in the summer of 2009 to take part in a project which involved hacking into the email accounts of two fellow employees, in order to build up a case so that they could be reasonably fired. Fenady was asked to “dig up dirt” but “don’t get caught doing it”, two statements that could not have been more dripping with film noir even if Humphrey Bogart himself had said it whilst wearing a trench coat and smoking.

All of this came to light earlier this week as the court case between everyone’s favourite gaming mega-publisher, Activison-Blizzard, and the game developers (specifically two gentlemen, Jason West and Vincent Zampella, though other developers are also involved) who originally developed the Call of Duty franchise, which is likely to go to trial this summer.

For those of you not fully up to speed on the situation I’ll try to sum it up as quickly as possible: the gentlemen at Infinity Ward (the studio that developed the Call of Duty series) were bought by Activision in 2003, and over the years became increasingly unhappy with their work relationship between themselves and their benevolent overlords. So individuals from Infinity Ward made a number of secret meetings with other publishers, including Activision’s big rival Electronic Arts, in a bid to break away. The business guys at Activision caught wind, pitched a fit, cited a breach of contract and summarily shit-canned West and Zampella in a massive public spectacle, which included having armed guards stationed outside the studio on the day the developers involved were fired. Activision afterwards refused to pay any bonuses or royalties to the now-fired Infinity Ward boys for their games, as had been previously agreed upon, which included at the time everyone’s favourite dude-bro video game, Modern Warfare 2, in effect reneging on millions in promised payments, due to a “breach of contract”. Insults were thrown, feelings were hurt, and a number of civil suits between both groups summarily cropped up.

And so here we stand today, reading from recently made public documents about Activision’s “Project Icebreaker”, which was created by executives to build a case towards firing West and Zampella, Fenady states. The documents show that almost outlandish plans were concocted in hopes of getting access to West and Zampella’s emails, including staging “fake fire drills”, or a “fake fumigation” to get the two away from their computer terminals. Fenady was also told, when expressing concern over what he was being asked to do, to “not worry about the repercussions” of his actions.

I’m hesitant in any situation to just start painting a company in broad strokes, and state something like “man those guys running Activison are all assholes“, but when you start reading just how far some Activision executives were willing to go to get rid of West and Zampella without having to pay them, the term asshole seems to fit rather snugly. I mean, breaking into someone’s email is a rough, dirty tactic.

At the very least though, whoever names the projects over at Activison deserves a raise. I may need to name my first child Project Icebreaker. If anything else interesting about the looming court case crops up, I’ll be sure to keep you informed.

Set to be released in early 2013 for the PC and Xbox 360, Dark pits you, an angsty angry vampire with nothing to lose (all of that may not actually be true, but come on look at the image above we all know I’m right) in a fight to topple an evil giant global corporation. using a mixture of physical attacks and vampire trickery to get past both human and supernatural opponents.I also imagine there’ll be dubstep played at some time, though don’t hold me to that. If this sounds a lot like Deus Ex meets Vampire: The Masquerade to you, I’d have to agree with your assumptions.

Though the track record for Realmforge remains at this time a looming question mark, the game itself does sound pretty cool, in a middle-school, “Oh man wouldn’t it be cool to be a magic-ninja-vampire fighting evil undead Matrix agents!?” kind of way, so I guess you could throw my vote in with the “cautiously optimistic” crowd.

Because f*ck giant evil global corporations, am I right?

Little is being said about the full functionality of the 360′s Internet Explorer, or the specifics of how you’d use Kinect to control it, or even really when it’s slated to be released, though I feel like these questions will be answered at Microsoft’s E3 press conference this following month, with its release to come in a hardware update this fall. Until then however it looks like I’m stuck here surfing the net on my old laptop, point-and-clicking with my mouse like a damn fool.

Since everyone holds a controller just a little bit differently, this patent, if put into effect would, create a controller that could consistently tell who was holding the controller. Each individual “pressure profile” (which by the way is now the official name of my new techno-punk band) could then be connected to your gamertag, in essence giving the 360 the ability to potentially open one’s gamertag account simply by holding the controller. The future is here!

The official description on the patent goes into more detail on the controller idea, stating:

“A hand-held device having a body with a pressure-sensitive exterior surface. At least a portion of the pressure-sensitive exterior surface is designed to be grasped by a user’s hand. The pressure-sensitive surface contains a plurality of pressure sensors operative to provide an output signal proportional to a pressure applied by the user’s hands to the exterior surface of the hand-held device at the area the pressure sensor is located. The device also includes a memory for storing the output signals provided by the plurality of pressure sensors and a processor for comparing the output signals provided by the plurality of pressure sensors against stored pressure profile signatures for positively identifying the user.”

While most of the ideas put forth by the patent don’t seem to create any sort of dramatic gameplay changes, which coupled with the fact that this patent while recently accepted was filed all the way back in 2009 puts some shades of doubt into whether this neat technological quirk would ever actually be released, but I still hope it does. Though the idea of your console knowing it’s you simply by holding the controller does little more than allow you to go “Isn’t this f*cking cool!?“, if one take’s a step back and looks at the idea from a whole there could be some potentially interesting gameplay mechanics brought forth. I’m imagining an action game scene that forces you not to move by punishing your character if you hold the left side of the controller, or some sort of Johann Sebastian Joust-esque indie game where the last one holding onto their controller wins.

Though little more than the patent filing has come forth about this new controller idea, I for one hope to hear more about it in the near future.

Even for us unfortunate few who don’t have a PC beefy enough to play Diablo 3, there’s still an element of excitement and anxiety around the game’s upcoming release, but even this close to it’s release Blizzard’s not done fanning the flames of player anticipation. In a collaboration with Titmouse Inc (The guys behind the awesome cartoon series as Metalocalypse) Blizzard has released an animated short detailing some of the lore and history going into the plot for D3.

The combination of the Metalocalypse-esque art style and Diablo (which at times looks as if it was inspired from an 1980′s Heavy Metal album cover) could not make a more perfect fit, in my esteemed opinion. Though don’t take my word for it, watch the video below (with credit to gameinformer for the youtube upload).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MQdRSFZw50

Early this morning we received an email with a message about the upcoming powerhouse BioShock Infinite.

“A MESSAGE FROM KEN LEVINE

When we announced the release date of BioShock Infinite in March, we felt pretty good about the timing.
Since then, we’ve come to realize that some specific tweaks and improvements will make Infinite into something even more extraordinary. Therefore, to give our talented team the time they need, we’ve decided to move the game’s release to February 26, 2013. We wanted to let our loyal (and very patient!) fans know this as soon as possible.

I won’t kid you: BioShock Infinite is a very big game, and we’re doing things that no one has ever done in a first-person shooter. We had a similar experience with the original BioShock, which was delayed several months as our original ship date drew near. Why? Because the Big Daddies weren’t the Big Daddies you’ve since come to know and love. Because Andrew Ryan’s golf club didn’t have exactly the right swing. Because Rapture needed one more coat of grimy Art Deco.

The same principle now applies to BioShock Infinite.

What does this mean for you? It means a bit more waiting, but more importantly, it means an even better BioShock Infinite. The great can be made greater, and we owe it to both ourselves and to you, our fans, to take this opportunity. Irrational Games is one of those rare developers lucky enough to ask the people who sign the checks: “Hey, can we have a few more of those checks?”

We are also going to hold off on showing BioShock Infinite at the big events of the summer, like E3 and Gamescom. That way, the next time you see our game, it will be essentially the product we intend to put in the box. Preparing for these events takes time away from development, time we’re going to use instead to get the best version of Infinite into your hands in February.”

For anyone that knows me, I’m never going to flip out at the delay of a game. Especially if said delay is this far from the proposed date. If a game needs more time to become a better product and a better experience, then all the power to them. I’ll wait infinitely to play….infinite. Levine and the team at Irrational have always garnered my respect and this is one of the main focal points of my adoration. It may cause a little bit of uproar from those of you out there that think these people “owe you something”. If you want a good game, tough it out and suck it up.

As far as the team avoiding E3 this year, no serious red flags are raised. However, I do speculate that they are doing some serious construction on some major pieces to the puzzle and contrary to the public’s belief, it takes a shit load of work for these developers to show anything at expos let alone E3.

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Microsoft and the effervescent Major Nelson have released statements regarding the plug of Inside Xbox officially being pulled. Inside Xbox provided fans with a lot of in depth videos with tips, tricks, trailers and a lot of other useful little tidbits. I’ve always been a fan of the quick fix videos provided by the whole team. Even Major’s Minute wasn’t that bad from time to time.

“We want to express our sincere appreciation to all of our viewers and fans of Inside Xbox, and remain committed to providing our members with access to high-quality news and information via the console, social media channels and Xbox.com. We will be leveraging third-party news and video content available through a variety of existing and future partners, and supplementing this content with select first-party offerings. However, day-to-day news content and weekly programming currently offered though Inside Xbox will cease production in the United States. This includes shows like Major’s Minute, Featured Videos and Insider Moves packaged under the Inside Xbox brand.

This decision was not made lightly. Our teams working on Inside Xbox have done a great job connecting with our members and delivering high-quality, informative game news and tips. We thank them all for their contributions to the Xbox LIVE community and wish them all the best in their future endeavors.” – Major Nelson

Obviously there is a slight tinge of regret for the decision and I don’t blame Major for feeling a little down right now. He went on to state that his job at Xbox (as a whole) will not dissolve and he will continue to do the job he has always held. Getting your fix of tips and vids on gaming somewhere else may be a treacherous journey, but do know that is due time (maybe a week or so) we will be the host of multiple awesome first-party videos.

Take care,

It’s not that I don’t want the world to have a new Call of Duty title every year. Well, maybe a little bit of that. I just don’t feel it necessarily for two teams to pray on the same consumers in segmented time-frames in order to consistently have a product at or near the top of everyone’s mind. This defeats the purpose or creating these games. Even at a split release schedule, that’s a new title every two years. It takes more than two years to even create a decent blockbuster these days! How can you be making the best game you can possibly make on a fraction of the average dev cycle?

As I watched the trailer for BlopsDeuce I couldn’t wrap my head around what seemed so familiar….

HOLY COW! Now I see it!

Oh....My.....tits.......

*slow clap* Way to go Treyarch. The only major difference I see in Blops2 is that they’re attempting the future war setting with far less conviction than Ubisoft’s GRFS. So there you have it folks. If you want to play a first person, slightly less well done version of Ghost Recon: Future Soldier then run down to your game stop and pre-order BlopsDeuce. Don’t forget to say Baaaah.

Though little is known about the story or background for Dawnguard, what is known at this time is that it will be arriving at some point this summer, and that it’ll be arriving first on the Xbox 360 (much to the chagrin of PC and PS3 owners), with the other versions coming soon afterwards. Look for more details on Dawnguard at Microsoft’s Press Conference this E3.