MGS 4 non-exclusive!? Yes plz

To the rumour that Metal Gear Solid 4 could appear on the XBox 360, I say Hell Yes! Will it happen? I say not, but a man can dream. Not that it will be of direct benefit to me, because I'm a PC gamer, but it's a smaller jump from an 360 port to the PC. This is especially a good time for Kojima's team to get pressure from above to go multi-platform, with the PS3 looking so doomed (and this, and this). It makes sense for them to spread their risk a bit, but MGS4 is pretty much the PS3's Halo, or at least one of them, so it's possible it'll help Sony sell the system which means they need to hold it close to their chest.

Finally ...

I finally finished Knights of the Old Republic this morning. I'd started the game at the beginning of this semester, so about 3 or 4 months back, and got to about 2 hours from the end, and then I kind of left it. I'd played through as a completely Light character and I wanted to start over as Dark so I had to at least finish my current game. The game's pretty easy so it was no big deal getting back into it and finishing it off. I guess I should post a review or something, one of the reasons I'd started this blog in the first place, but I'm feeling a bit lazy right now so maybe I'll put it off til I finish the second run, if I ever do. I'm definitely going to have to try the second game, if I can get hold of it. I have quite a large backlog of games that I need to finish - I have a recurring habit of starting a game and then leaving it, even though I do badly want to reach the end. I just tried the demo of Beyond Good & Evil which I thought was really good, so now I'm tempted to start that.

Moving on up

Anna Molly moves up to #7 on the Billboard Modern Rock chart.

This story's just six words long.

Some of these are pretty awesome.

[Update]
Others can play the same game.

Incubus - Anna Molly video

Video is finally out in decent enough quality. I have to say I'm disappointed in the video, though it's not terribly bad. I find it annoying that the song is fast paced and energetic yet everything's shown in slow motion; it kills the impact of the song somewhat. That effect worked with Wish You Were Here, but it doesn't with this song. And because everything's slow hardly anything happens in the video at all. Worse still, the little storytelling that is shown has absolutely nothing to do with the lyrics or theme of the song whatsoever. It's quite irritating, because I found the attic set very cool, I had seen photos of the shoot quite a while back and was looking forward to seeing it in the video. The band sequences were pretty cool (except for the bleedin' slow motion) - I wouldn't have minded seeing a lot more of that rather than some silly plot. Big thumbs down for Jamie Thraves, he could have done a heck of a better job.

Aw

I guess it was too good to be true, even with the flames fanned a little more for good measure. But, alas, Jack Thompson skips jail, gets away with jackassness one more time.

[Update]
Shut up already Jack, just shut up.
And, AHAHAHAHAHAHA.

This is getting ridiculous

EA are going goddamn nuts. First charging for unlockable content in games, then selling in-game money, and now selling frickin' video tutorials. As with any stupid idea given the push by a large force in the industry, these have a danger of actually catching on and forcing gamers to pay more and more for things they should already be getting with their games. There are possible models out there for gamers to buy parts of a game's experience that they want, but I don't trust the industry to deliver a good model, not after the way they are handling this microtransaction/"consumables" business.

Incubus live in San Francisco 20/10/06

Multi-platinum alternative rockers Incubus and Verizon Wireless have created a unique opportunity for fans — a private concert and an invitation to help create a music video for the first single off of Incubus' much anticipated new album Light Grenades. Concert clips and songs from the album will premiere exclusively on Verizon Wireless V CAST following the event.

Over six hundred fans will attend a private show in San Francisco this Friday, October 20, and will be encouraged to use their V CAST Music phones to record video of the band's performance of 'Anna Molly,' the first single from the new album. The final music video, assembled from images submitted by fans, will run on YouTube, Yahoo! Music and Verizon Wireless' V CAST service.

Some people had to go through some crazy shit indeed to get tickets.

Setlist:
Anna Molly
Nice To Know You
Warning
Wish You Were Here
Sick Sad Little World
Mexico
Pistola
Talk Shows On Mute
Nebula
Drive
Megalomaniac
A Kiss To Send Us Off
Summer Romance
A Crow Left of the Murder
Let's Go Crazy
Pardon Me

ZIP ~ 57MB


Pardon Me vid, and some photos.

I'm glad to be seeing older songs like Nebula and Summer Romance in the set, a well as the underplayed Mexico. I've not heard through the show that many times yet, but I think they did a good job. I don't like the slight changes in Pistola, I think Ben's doing something different that I'm not digging. The cover of Prince's Let's Go Crazy is as welcome as ever, it's always been a fun addition to the set.

I'm really looking forward to seeing what comes of this show, hopefully the phone cam experiment turns out well.

Incubus live at VH1's Decades Rock Live 11/08/06

The show aired on October 20th.

Setlist:
A Kiss to Send Us Off
Anna Molly
Drive (with The Pretenders)
Message of Love
Middle of the Road

Drive (AVI ~41MB)
Message of Love (AVI ~35MB)

Drive was ok, I thought Chrissie Hynde sang pretty badly - she sounded as if her heart wasn't in it, or like she was drunk. I wish she decided not to sing it at all and ruin a great song. Though it wasn't ruined, really; I loved the two guitars, the second solo was good - though not as good as Mike's own extended solos that he's played in the recent past. I've not heard the original version of Message of Love, so I don't really know the song well, but they played it fine.

What really annoys me is that they didn't air the whole performance, more specifically the two new songs. This makes sense, as this was a show centered around the Pretenders. But there was TV quality footage and soundboard quality sound captured of these songs which you don't get usually with concerts, it would have been a perfect opportunity for those of us not able to go see them live get a glimpse of the new material. Now I'm suspecting we'll never see those songs, which is really frustrating.

This isn't the first time something has happened as far as I remember, either. Some years back they played two days at the Bridge Benefit, an acoustic set. Two of the songs made it on their special edition album DVD, the two new songs they played. No other video made it from that show, though we were lucky enough to get some bootlegged audio. They played a great cover of Massive Attack's Teardrop, and an awesome alternate version of Are You In. It would have been utterly kickass if they had released videos of those songs, but they never saw the light of day. A year or so before that, during their Lollapalooza tour, a few clips appeared on the Lollapalooza site, one of The Warmth and one of Nice to Know You. Both were really short, about 20 second clips but were of excellent quality. I found it extremely annoying that they had such great quality footage and all they'd show was some measly clips. Another wasted opportunity.

Incubus - Light Grenades: 30-second clips

30-second clips of Incubus' upcoming album Light Grenades have been up at the Sony Music Store for some time now. YouTube'd, too. I've not listened to them, because I've already heard four of the songs on the album: one because it's the single, Anna Molly, and the other three through bootlegs. I love them so I know I love at least a third of the album. That's enough for me for now, I can wait til it comes out and hear the rest all together. Album out November 28th.

Incubus - Light Grenades
1. Quicksand
2. A Kiss To Send Us Off
3. Dig
4. Anna Molly
5. Love Hurts
6. Light Grenades
7. Earth To Bella (Part I)
8. Oil and Water
9. Diamonds And Coal
10. Rogues
11. Paper Shoes
12. Pendulous Threads
13. Earth To Bella (Part II)

The Japanese version will have two extra tracks:

14. Punchdrunk
15. Look Alive

Firefox 2.0!

http://releases.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/releases/2.0/
It came a day early, and I had a go. Looking nice, but I miss my coloured tabs.
Some tweaking and it's gotten easier to settle in.

[Update]
Sorry Mozilla.