By Adam Thomas
April tends to be a boring moth for gaming, but in ‘08 it
was the complete opposite. With plenty of downloadable content and gaming
available, it would be easy to mistake this as a second March.
The last week may have been the best yet, with GTA IV coming out [to be reviewed
shortly] and stealing everyone’s free time.
Aside from GTA mania,
this week’s Peep Game features some interesting developments with reports
coming out of both console camps, and the fact that another first-party
Nintendo game has been released so you can actually play your Wii.
We can only hope for May to keep the momentum going.
Big News
Blu-ray 360
Units?!?!?!
Microsoft has continued to deny, deny, deny, but more and
more information tends to flow out that the head honchos at Redmond may not want us to see.
The Chinese
language Economic Daily News is reporting that Pegatron, an OEM
subsidiary of ASUS, has won the order from Microsoft to assemble the Xbox 360
with Blu-ray Disc ROM drive to be released in Q3. Could storage issues create
Blu-Ray games for Microsoft?
SIXAXIS = Discount?
What is better than giving SIXAXIS controllers away? The
good people at Sony giving the controllers away with a discount. Japanese PS3
buyers will be able to choose from three "Welcome Box" Metal Gear Solid 4 bundles in Satin
Silver, Ceramic White, and Clear Black.
In addition to MGS4
and a Dual Shock 3, they'll find a
SIXAXIS inside. The bundles will cost ¥49,800 ($470), compared to ¥51,800 ($492)
for the gunmetal gray bundle that just contains the game and the DS3.
Played
Grand Theft Auto 4 – There isn’t much to say that won’t be
contained forthcoming reviews. The short and long of it is: go get this game.
It is a great mixture of the best of all three games of the trilogy [check our
article here to refresh your memory]. Fair warning of course... college students
don’t fail out because you’re blasting half of Alderney instead of blasting out
those finals.
Mario Kart Wii – For those of us who have dusty Wii’s or maybe
are not into GTA madness, there is a fun alternative. Mario Kart has never been a bad game, and this one is no different.
The only thing that may irk gamers is that the steering wheel may need some
getting used to. However, there are alternate control schemes for those who
fell in love with their wavebirds.
Whenever he isn’t contemplating a world takeover, you can find Adam
Thomas building the Gamer Studio. For now, join the support and catch
some cool screen shots at Myspace.com/thegamerstudio