1up.com has a first look with video of the upcoming We Love Katamari. From the article: "Without question, the new game is its father's son -- very literally so, in fact. (The narrative that appears between stages details the tough-love story of the fruity King Of All Cosmos and his childhood struggles to win the acceptance of his own stern and cold-hearted dad.) More to the point, the gameplay itself is largely unchanged from last year's surprise hit. The control scheme is exactly the same, and the fundamental concept of rolling things into a giant katamari ball within a certain time limit remains intact as well."

Gamasutra has an interview up with Rodney Greenblat, graphic designer of PaRappa The Rapper. The article refers to the popular character as Sony's "Almost Mario", and digs into the rationale behind the game and its sequel. From the article: "In the case of Chop Chop Master Onion, he was just supposed to be a karate teacher. I came up with lots of designs of what a karate teacher might be, but the onion thing they just loved, so they changed the whole thing so he was the onion master. It just worked out perfect. I don't think they had an idea of what the driving instructor might be, and I just thought it would be so funny if she were this big moose, and I was thinking of Queen Latifah in a certain way."

Plaguelands has up a rundown on the recent IBM MMOG Roundtable, with speakers such as Steven Reid, Raph Koster, and Geoff Heath putting in their two cents on the growing massive industry. Krones is not shy about voicing his opinions as regards the speakers and their effectiveness. From the article: "Continuing on, despite my subjective disagreement, Steven Reid; Directory of Community Relations NCsoft Europe stepped in after Heath and he pretty much spoke general edification about mmo communities. His presentation was average, not up to the quality of articles seen from community specialist Jessica Mulligan, but I believe he is well qualified in doing what he does and has an excellent head on his shoulders. The defining part of his presentation on community building is that community leaders should be local and native from that community. This is crucial for many reasons... including the most important, cultural differences." Also includes links to streaming media of the event.

Shacknews has images from a small product information piece about Gears of War. The scans show off a booklet full of beautiful imagery and some interesting insights into the game. From the booklet: "Since Emergence Day, the residents of Sera have been paying the price. Crumbled buildings and ruined monuments loom over the battlefield as somber reminders of what the Gears fight for. The glory of Sera and everything that mankind has struggled to achieve collapses in upon itself, yielding to an unstoppable force. A brutal and protracted war has dashed this planet's veneer to pieces, and left the shattered bits to be picked up by the most unlikely few. The Gears of War continue to turn."

The Inquirer has a piece up breaking down the millions of dollars ATI spent securing a "special relationship" with Valve prior to Half-Life 2 being released. The relationship resulted in a voucher being included with ATI cards for a free copy of Valve's hit game. From the article: "ATI gave Valve $2.4 million in cash for the deal. ATI also invested $1.2 million in marketing this great game. And last, but not least, was a cool $4.4 million that ATI and its partners spent for bundles. That amounts to some $8 million dollars....[ATI] sold an incredible lot of 9800XT and 9600XT cards just because of the nice voucher [for Half-Life 2]. That small piece of paper convinced many people to go out and buy an ATI card." A little salt with this article will help it go down easier.

Computer Games World, part of 1up.com, has done up a fantastic piece looking into the world of Massively Multiplayer Sweat Shops. More than just a look at how it's done, it painfully illustrates that not all farmers are farming by choice and not all farmers are from Asia. From the article: "How does it work? The macros for World of WarCraft, for example, control a high-level hunter and cleric. The hunter kills while the cleric automatically heals. Once they are fully loaded with gold and items, the 'farmer' who's monitoring their progress manually controls them out of the dungeon to go sell their goods. These automated agents are then returned to the dungeons to do their thing again. Sack's typical 12-hour sessions can earn his employers as much as $60,000 per month while he walks away with a measly $150."

rafg writes "In most story-based games where you get to talk to characters, interaction is limited to selecting conversation options from a menu. Facade calls itself a one-act interactive drama, and is an attempt to create realistic 3D AI characters acting in a real-time interactive story, where you can talk to them via a natural language text interface. The player is cast as a visiting longtime friend of Grace and Trip, a couple in their early thirties, and ends up in a verbal crossfire resulting from their failing marriage. More info in the press release, an older conveniently mirrored NYT article and an Idle Thumbs review. It's available in the form of a rather chunky 800MB torrent."

1up.com has an interview with the guy who faked the beautiful Nintendo On video prior to this year's E3. The faked video raised quite a ruckus on message boards from here to fark. From the article: "The Nintendo community is famously excitable when dealing with leaks and rumors - the uproar over recent comments insinuating Revolution's downloadable classics would be free sent shockwaves - and this instance was really no different. Still, there were plenty of skeptics and cynics. To many, the presence of the esteemed Virtual Boy, the company's infamous portable blunder from the mid 90s, tipped the scales. 'The Virtual Boy isn't something Nintendo should ever use to promote a new revolutionary product,' said Jeffery Van Camp, editorial coordinator at Nintendo fan site N-Sider. Even the visionary behind Nintendo On admits 'Nintendo would never make another reference to a console that didn't comply with their expectations, but in this case, it wouldn't be a mistake, but a correction.'"

GamesIndustry.biz reports that Microsoft and Nintendo will not be following Sony into budget pricing. From the article: "Sony's initiative will inevitably force its two console rivals to fall in line sooner rather than later. With price pressure on full price titles forcing the high street to adopt aggressive tactics, older titles are looking disproportionately expensive."

The Guardian Gamesblog has a piece on Jeff Minter's hookup with the Xbox 360. From the article: "It basically happened because a certain well-connected friend of mine really liked what we were doing here with VLM3 on the Gamecube, and brought someone from MS here to see. He in turn got very enthusiastic, and went back to MS and began bending ears. It took a fair bit of prodding and sending of demos but eventually it progressed to the point where I got hold of a devkit. Once we had proper live 360 code running it turned from 'maybe' to 'definitely!'."

PipianJ writes "Remember the ruling in Britain which outlawed mod chips last year? BBC News is reporting that a man has been convicted of modding an Xbox and sentenced to 140 hours of community service, a fine of 750 pounds (about $1300), and the confiscation of his PCs and Xboxes." From the article: "The man had been selling modified Xbox consoles which he fitted with a big hard drive containing 80 games. 'This case sets a major precedent which marks a milestone in the fight against piracy,' said games industry spokesman Michael Rawlinson." Update: 07/04 22:12 GMT by Z : Updated to more accurately discuss the story.

GamesIndustry.biz is reporting that Microsoft has sent out new versions of the beta development kit for the Xbox 360, replacing the Apple platforms used up to this point. From the article: "Prior to E3, developers reported that a very small number of these more advanced kits had been manufactured, but it's only in recent weeks that they have begun shipping to Microsoft's development partners on a wide scale."

Eurogamer has the news that Sony has lowered prices on Platinum titles. Selections such as Eye Toy Play 2 and Jak 3 will now retail for about a third less, or roughly $US 34.95. From the article: "The news is set to allow retailers to enjoy a bumper summer at a time when the supply of quality new releases has all but dried up - and consumers will be able to sample a huge range of titles at prices that won't break the bank."

cyrus_zuo writes "Game Tunnel has just finished and published its yearly mid-year article 2005 Independent Game Mid-Term Grades. This article, the mid-year equivalent of Game Tunnel's year-end Game of the Year awards, captures the best indie games so far in 2005 while also grading each game genre. The article is set-up just like a school report card, grading genres, such as action, adventure and strategy, with a letter grade from 'A' to 'D' while also spotlighting two of the best games that have been released so far this year in each of the genres and listing what game GT is looking forward to most in the genre."

Nintendo President Satoru Iwata has publicly stated that the Revolution may be the last next-gen console to market. From the article: "Until today, Nintendo has said only that the Revolution will be released in 2006 in North America, without specifying any date. Iwata's comments indicate that the console could appear after the launch of Sony's PlayStation 3, which is currently slated for a spring 2006 launch in the US. Microsoft's Xbox 360 will arrive on store shelves during the 2005 holiday season worldwide."

Sophia wrote in to mention some discussion of Video Game Violence on 1up.com this week. Brooks Brown had the experience of attending Columbine High School around the time of the now infamous shooting incident. Via his blog, Brown goes into a detailed discussion of Why Violence in Gaming is a Good Thing. From the article: "GTA isn't about fucking hookers or killing cops. It's a story of a guy who got screwed trying to get back on top. It is, by nature, a story game. Postal 2 may let you kill anyone you want in bloody and disgusting ways - but that's not what it is about either. It is, by nature, a tech demo in the abilities of programmers and AI. it is WE - the gamers - who change what the game is about and determine what happens. It is the person playing who determines what the game contains." Jane Pinckard has a quick reaction to his post. More commentary on this subject is available via John Davison's Blog, who met Brown at a taping of a news program which was ostensibly to be about gaming in general. Instead he was ambushed about violence in games and ended up walking out.

Late last month the Games + Learning + Society conference came to town in Madison, WI. The assembled big thinkers discussed many different aspects of gaming as it interacts with education, socialization, and main-stream culture. Terra Nova has a great big breakdown thread with commentary from some of the presenters. The Shifted Librarian has a firsthand account of the conference, and PsychoChild's blog features musings on the MMO presentations. From PyschoChild's blog: "Stephen Gillett, a Senior Director at Yahoo! Inc., gave an excellent presentation at the GLS conference entitled Guild Building is Skill Building where he argues that you can learn important skills from playing online games. In his case, he says he learned important management skills from leading a guild. Stephen argued that the act of forming and running a guild is similar to what an entrepreneur does. An entrepreneur has to raise capital, incorporate, find talent, etc. Similarly, a guild master (GM) has to get together funds, form the guild, recruit good members, etc. Given Stephen's history as an entrepreneur he knows what he's talking about."

TubaJon writes "Exploring all of the maps in World of Warcraft can be very interesting, especially to see the parts that Blizzard is still working on. Silithus is one major zone that Blizzard is still working on, which a guy got to and took screenshots of. He also went to the airport in Ironforge and the Wetlands Farms, both of which are still areas in development. There are even whole websites devoted to getting to these areas."

Gamingreport.com has the list of this year's Origins Awards winners. Best RPG went to Ars Magica: 5th Edition by Atlas, Best RPG Supplement went to The Eberron Campaign Setting by WotC, and Best Board Game went to Ticket To Ride by Days of Wonder.

The Alternate Reality Gaming Network has an examination of the ARG H3ist, which recently completed its run. The Audi sponsored alternate reality title went off, generally speaking, very well. From the article: "Overall, The Art of the H3ist has to be considered one of the giants of the ARG genre. The richness of the story, the depth of background, the amazing live interactions and the masterful puzzles all played a role in making this a must-play game."