The stories for this week:
- 360 E74 Errors on the Rise Since NXE Release
- Stan Bush's "The Touch" Coming to Guitar Hero for Free
- THQ Puts Big Huge Games Up for Sale
- Mass Effect 2 Not Coming to PS3 (SHOCKER!)
- BioShock 2 Unveiled
360 E74 Errors on the Rise Since NXE Release
This started innocently enough with Joystiq doing general reading about a lot of people getting E74 errors on the 360s. Generally this error points to some sort of graphic problem, usually seen with different colors on the screen and obvious graphical tears on the screen. Joystiq decided to ask their users about it and were inundated with a lot of people that have encountered the E74 error and the number has actually risen since the release of NXE last November. They contacted Microsoft, which said that people should contact the Xbox phone number and get it fixed. Problem is, unlike the Red Ring, if an E74 happens over a year after your console manufacturing date you have to pay $100 to have it fixed.
Bad luck seems to follow Microsoft with the 360. It is also believed most, if not all, of these problems are present on the boxes with HDMI on it. I personally have never seen any graphical errors on my screen, but I don’t have an HDMI machine and didn’t get one when I had to send in my launch Red Ringed system around the time BioShock came out. I’m sure Microsoft is fighting a PR nightmare here and is trying to figure out how to handle this because it seems to be a growing problem.
Source: Colony of Gamers via Joystiq
Stan Bush's "The Touch" Coming to Guitar Hero for Free
This is so full of awesome. Come with me back to 1986 where a 10-year old me is highly anticipating the Transformers: The Movie release. He picks up a comic book preview magazine (I forget the name, used to pick it up all the time when I was buying comics back then…or I should say my parents were buying comics). In this magazine they spoil that Optimus Prime is going to die in the movie. This was a couple weeks before release, so I was totally bummed out. Go to the movie and think it is awesome, but I shed some tears when Optimus goes grey (remember, I’m 10!).
The scene before that where Optimus opens a can of whoopass on the Decepticons, killing many of them (I forget who he kills, I’d have to watch the DVD again) there is a song that plays in the background by Stan Bush called “The Touch”. All you Transformaniacs out there know the words...”You’ve got the touch! You’ve got the Power!!!!” followed by the guitar riff. Heck yeah! Well, Stan has been trying to get Activision or Harmonix to bring the song to Guitar Hero or Rock Band. Well, it looks like he was successful with Activision because the song is coming for free. No date yet or if it is tied to World Tour or just guitar only. Guess we’ll see, but it should be awesome. Then again, it could be lame like the Top Gun theme (not Loggins’ “Danger Zone”), although that’s strictly guitar with no voice. Hopefully we can sing the darn song!
Source: Colony of Gamers via Joystiq
THQ Puts Big Huge Games Up for Sale
Another company largely known for their RTS games (and Catan on XBLA) is on the selling block. THQ decided to put Big Huge Games up for sale and said if there wasn’t a buyer soon that they would axe the company. Let’s hope someone picks them up because we’ve seen what happened to Ensemble. Brian Reynolds is a rather large name in the industry, having worked with Sid Meier on many of his largest games and being in control of such games as Civilization II and Alpha Centauri, both million plus sellers. He sold his stake in Firaxis to start Big Huge Games, let’s hope they find a buyer. Is Microsoft still in the market for something like this or maybe Firaxis’ owner Take Two?
You know, I’m starting to wonder if RTS as a genre is going the way of Adventure games. Sad thing, although it is an indication of the general move to console gaming from PC gaming.
Source: Colony of Gamers via Crispy Gamer and Joystiq
Mass Effect 2 Not Coming to PS3 (SHOCKER!)
Any hope for PS3 owners to be able to experience Mass Effect 2 when it comes out early next year has been quashed. This doesn’t mean that EA/BioWare may announce later that it is coming months after the 360 and PC release, but I’d say the chances are pretty good. Are we really surprised by this? Personally, I’m not. Let’s just hope they fix those forever elevators with the new game.
Source: Colony of Gamers
BioShock 2 Unveiled
Well, it’s no longer subtitled Sea of Dreams and is just BioShock 2 now. The bigger news was that people seemed to take from the Game Informer exclusive that the game had co-op play. Unfortunately for this site that isn’t the truth at all and 2K has announced the game will have multiplayer, but no co-op. I hate to be Negative Nancy here, but I think adding co-op to a game that is built around single-player would be blasphemous honestly. At least it’ll have multiplayer, plus you’re playing as the original Big Daddy…how bad can that be?
Source: me