Morning Hangover

I don't have a problem admitting I kind of, sort of want to play Sega's Iron Man 2. No, there's not much reason to have confidence it's going to be any good, but bolstered by Batman: Arkham Asylum, the idea of playing a legitimately awesome superhero video game remains an awesome prospect. The Halo: Reach beta and Alan Wake will likely prevent me from indulging in such flights of fancy, but I can't be the only one kind of, sort of interested in checking out Iron Man 2, despite knowing better.

If you weren't lucky enough to score an early download code for the Halo: Reach beta, there's good news: the beta opens up to Halo 3: ODST owners today. For those among us who did pop into Bungie's latest shooter over the weekend, however, let me hear your favorite moments in the multiplayer beta thus far. I have to admit, it was tough to wipe the smirk off my face the first time I floated into the air via jetpack and nailed a headshot. That didn't, uh, happen very many times after that, though.

Tell me your favorite Halo: Reach moment from this weekend.

2010 is going to be a good year for fans of racing games. Split/Second, Blur, Gran Turismo 5 (maybe), and the game that I just started playing last night, United Front Games’ ModNation Racers, just to name a few. All very different racing experiences, but racing games nonetheless. I’ve always been partial to Project Gotham and Burnout, but the original Super Mario Kart and F-Zero will forever hold a place in my heart for many, many reasons.

What I’m getting at is, racing games are abound this year. As such, I wanted to find out what you all consider your favorite racing games of all time, and which racing games you’re most looking forward to this year.

I’m going to keep today’s Morning Hangover short and sweet, because what I’m curious about is pretty straightforward. And here it is: what is the scariest game you’ve ever played? And I don’t just mean the one that had the most jump out scares or anything like that. I mean, genuine, constant sense of dread kind of thing where you could just as easily scare yourself thinking there was something ready to jump out at you as you would be if there had been something that lunged out at you from the darkness.

I bring this up because we’ve been playing a game around the office that has us all giddy, precisely because of how it handles tension and terror. In fact, check back in a little bit for our impressions of this mystery game to find out more.

For now though: Scary games. What are your picks?
 

As you’ve probably heard by now (thanks to our own Patrick “Scoop” Klepek), a group of current and former Infinity Ward employees have filed a lawsuit against Activision over Modern Warfare 2 royalties. Now, this is obviously a rather compelling new development in the ongoing drama between IW and Activision, but as Stephen “I Make Assertions” Johnson pontificated yesterday afternoon, there are a heck of a lot of people who could care less about legal battles waged between publishers and developers, because to them, it’s just about the games, not the insider baseball being played on a daily basis. And Activision's stock holders don't seem to care either, but that could change soon once they start to realize the ramifications of the IW collapse that is currently underway.

So what I’m wondering is whether the IW/Activision story is something that you really care about beyond just the “Activision is evil and they deserve to go down!” type of reaction. Do you think that this whole ordeal will honestly influence the eventual sales of Modern Warfare 3? Infinity Ward is one of a handful of developers that more and more gamers know by name, but if MW3 were developed by, say, Treyarch, do you think the majority of MW fans would avoid buying it because it wasn't made by IW?

Between the Alan Wake prequel mini-series on Xbox Live, the Red Dead Redemption animated short film airing on Fox next month, and the most recent news about a Red Faction movie airing on SyFy (which could end up serving as a pilot for a possible TV series based on THQ’s franchise) as well as a de Blob animated series, it’s clear that the cross-media bug has hit the video games industry hard as of late. There are a number of ways this topic can be discussed, so feel free to tackle it anyway you see fit.

What I’m particularly interested to find out though is whether you think television could end up being the preferred medium for handling video game adaptations, considering the majority of movies based on games are rather terrible? Is TV a better structural fit for games than feature films (especially since we already associate games with TV since that's how we play them)?

What games would lend themselves well to a weekly television series? Or should people just stop trying to adapt games to fit into other creative mediums, and just let them exist as their designers originally intended?

For reasons too mundane to get into, this weekend was a gaming bust for me. I had little time to play anything "serious," and my kid's newfound interest in the big TV screen and understanding of dark and violent imagery means I have to keep everything Family friendly... except at night when the household is asleep. So I only played a little Rock Band, and washed it down with Ms. Pac-Man... Dex loves Ms. Pac-Man.

What about you? Did you play anything of note this weekend?

A long week is nearly over, everyone, and that means the weekend. The highlight of my week was meeting and interviewing Jon Landau, the producer of Avatar and Titanic -- how often do you shake hands with a legend? We'll have a video of both his keynote speech at the 3D Summit and my interview on the site soon, of course. What about you -- what's the best thing that happened to you this week, either in a video game or in real life?

Today is Earth Day, gamers, or as I like to call it "Urrf Day." I'm celebrating the day by considering the impact my high-energy lifestyle has on the enviroment, then I'm going to realize that simply by trying to get by in the modern world, I'm using more than my share of resources, then I'm going to get depressed, and then I'm going to play Castle Crashers. Also, I'm going to make sure to recycle. I'm going to recycle everything.

What about you? Any Earth Day plans? Do you care?

Yesterday, we dropped a ton of videos and news on you about Capcom. Bionic Commando Rearmed 2,  Dead Rising 2, and a lot more. While the higher-profile titles are much-anticipated, I am most interested in a DS game called Ghost Trick. Just check out this trailer:

Pretty cool, right? What under-known game are you most interested in right now?

Yesterday, we reported on the fact that Gizmodo published a story detailing the next iPhone. It was apparently found in a bar, and then made its way to Gizmodo, who, of course, published all the details and specs of the device.  Later in the day, Gizmodo told the story of the guy who lost the device: A young Apple employee named Gray Powell.  But that got me thinking about another player in the story: The unnamed person who apparently found and presented the cell phone to Gizmodo. The assumption is money changed hand, and that's how the blog got its hands on the handset.

Personally, if I found a phone in a bar, and I realized it was the new iPhone, I'd be tempted to "go public" with the info and see if I could get paid, but I'd also realize that leaking it to the press would likely get the guy who lost it in very bad at his (awesome) job at Apple. So I would have quietly gotten the phone back to him, and no one would ever have found out.

What about you? If you found an awesome, unreleased tech device on a bar floor, what would you do?

This weekend, I spent some quality time with wacked-out, Twin Peaks-like survival horror game Deadly Premonition. I also played a bit of Rock Band 2 with my neighbors, and I spent a regrettably long time in the Microsoft Game Room playing Millipede. Yet, somehow, I still suck at it. What gives, ancient Atari game?

What about you? What did you play?

Late yesterday afternoon, Microsoft officially pulled the plug on the original Xbox Live service, bringing a ceremonial end to one of the most significant era’s in gaming history. I don’t really want to turn this into a big weepy weep-fest, but I did want to hear some of your thoughts on the end of Xbox Live 1.0, some of your most memorable moments playing games on the original Xbox Live, and what you were doing when the service officially came to an end.

Let the healing begin.

I’ve never played a single Facebook game, and I have absolutely zero problems admitting it. Mafia Wars, Farmville, etc. just never piqued my interest enough for me to try them out, and the only reason I use Facebook at all is to keep people up to date with the goings on of G4tv.com, so it's not like I was actively avoiding them either.

However, this week I played my very first Facebook game: Red Dead Redemption: Gunslingers. I’m finding it somewhat amusing, and the damage animations are bloody fantastic. Red Dead Redemption is currently my most wanted game, so anything related to the game is going to get at least some of my attention. I was kind of hoping the game would tie into the actual game somehow, but I have no idea how that would work.

I bring this up because I’m curious how many of you play Facebook games, and which ones you play? Have you tried out the Red Dead Redemption one? What do you think?

As you might have heard, the debut trailer for Gears of War 3 arrived yesterday, and brought with it some new info on the game and plenty of discussions as well. It was a solid trailer to be sure, and it definitely did its job. But it also got me thinking about other memorable game trailers, and I wanted to open up the floor to you all to see what you consider to be the top five best game trailers of all time.

I’ll be checking back throughout the day to compile the submissions, and then at the end of the day, I’ll put up a post listing the top five picks, as decided by you all, accompanied with the trailers themselves of course (assuming I can find them).

Sound good? Now get ranking!