21st Century Digital Boy

From the Ikea website, found when looking for something to sleep on in the new place:

Erwin Schrödinger would be proud.

Dear Microsoft,

Why is the Xbox 360 Backwards Compatibility list full of shit? I recently bought Guilty Gear XX again because it’s listed as compatible on the EU list, yet when I try to play it on any of the multiple 360s I have access to, I am prompted to install a compatibility update, after which there’s just a message saying that “This original Xbox game is not supported”.

As it turns out, Silent Hill 2 (which I was considering buying a moment ago) is apparently in a similarly odd state:

• Silent Hill 2: Dreams²⁺⁷

² Currently the North American versions of these games are the only ones supported as backward compatible titles on Xbox 360.

⁷ Currently the EMEA/ANZ versions of these games are the only ones supported as backward compatible titles on Xbox 360.

EMEA/ANZ being “Europe, Middle East and Africa / Australia and New Zealand”. Note the decidedly unambiguous use of “only” in both and the application of both to SH2 resulting in a similarly unambiguous clusterfuck. Judging by a bit of research on the Almighty Internet, it seems that the NA version of the game is not region free and won’t run at all on European consoles, while the EMEA version will work fine except for the fact that there’s no video.

What the hell, guys?

Yours,

Outie

Why does my Xbox 360 not allow me to remove my old credit card from the list of payment options? It expired almost half a year ago, and both my 360 and Xbox Live know this.
Furthermore, why does my 360 even allow me to select this credit card for buying stuff with on the Marketplace?
And, most importantly, why does it insist on selecting this credit card BY DEFAULT every time I want to buy something?

Yours,

Outie

Update 2009-03-14: While it is possible to remove credit cards from the My Account section on xbox.com, this also failed for me. The reason for this apparently was that I bought my last 12-month Gold membership with it about a year ago. I assume – I HOPE – that Xbox Live would have noticed that the card is no longer valid and switched to the new card once the current membership expires. After manually re-selecting 12 Months Gold from the Membership Level menu on Xbox.com > My Account and “paying” for it with my new card (which will only happen once the current membership expires), I could remove the old card from my account.

Take that, bitches

Endangered Gamer (via clockwork, Kotaku): god, I’m laughing so hard at this. The invisible coin blocks are sheer and utter brilliance.

Sort of relatedly, this.

This is pretty freaking awesome. Reduced the amount of space I take to store all of these Tesco bags (which I use as trash bags) massively, and they’re easier to get to than “in a large plastic bag below the sink” as well.

Right, I’m getting sick of shit like this:

“Germans Cut Suicide Bombers From C&C3″ ZOMG CENSORSHIP!!!1

No. No, no, NO. For fuck’s sake, NO. Games aren’t censored by “the Germans” or “the government” in Germany. There are no laws that require the removal of stuff like that. None. At all. (continue reading…)

This is fairly old by now, and I’ve been throwing it around on IRC and IM for a while myself, but I keep finding myself coming back to it, watching it, and grinning like an idiot. It’s just so supremely, beautifully, deliciously evil.

So, yeah, just to update – after having moved to the UK in July last year, I’ve finally also gotten myself a hoster based in this country. Which is why my blog is here now, and will probably stay just there for a fair bit.

1up reports (emphasis mine):

According to the Famitsu inteview with Kazunori Yamauchi, Gran Turismo HD will have two SKUs on the PS3. One of these games will ship with no cars, all of them will be purchased via microtransactions.

The other, Gran Turismo HD: Premium, will ship with two courses and 30 cars, with an additional 30 cars and an additional two courses online at a later date.

[...]

A complete copy of the game will cost gamers somewhere between $426.50 and $975, and that’s without factoring in whatever Sony decides to charge for the menus (since that’s all you’ll get with GT HD: Classic).

Thought Bethesda had balls for their downloadable Oblivion content stunt? Think again.

WHAT HAVE THEY DONE

WHY :-(

edited because Konami redid their website and now require registering to view screenshots ffs

I just found a DVD of Six-String Samurai while I was shopping for groceries.

HELL YES.

For those who have no idea what I’m talking about, 6SS happens to be pretty much my favorite movie of the past, oh, I don’t know, ever. Kickass music, glorious camera work, and a premise that is made of crack and awesome. Because I’m a lazy bum, I’ll just copy&paste a short review of it that I’d written someplace else when I’d first seen the movie.

So I had a vid night with some of the mates last night. We watched The Iron Giant, Seducing Doctor Lewis… and the one I’m going to recommend.
Six-String Samurai.

Think Lone Wolf and Cub meets Mad Max meets 1950’s Rock’n'Roll.
The basic premise is a wee bit wacky, but stick with me for a moment.
In 1957, the Cold War escalates and the Soviets end up nuking and invading the US. Hilarity ensues, Elvis (yes, the Elvis) gets crowned King of the remains and takes seat in “Lost Vegas”.
Fast-forward forty years. The King Is Dead. Vegas needs a new King. Road Rockers from all over the place start flocking towards Vegas to claim the throne as theirs. Among them Death himself, incarnated as a postapocalyptic version of Guns’n'Roses’ Slash. And, of course, the unnamed protagonist whom everyone just calls “Buddy” and who looks a very slight bit like Buddy Holly would after having survived the Nucular Holocaust Of Doom. I think.
Thus, Buddy sets out equipped only with his trusty six-string electric guitar – which conveniently happens to have a katana taped to it – his postapocalyptically torn-and-dirty tuxedo, his broken glasses and a battered parasol, for he has “a gig in Vegas”.
As we join him on his journey, he encounters a group of badlands wildmen chasing after a little kid and his mother. They kill the Mom, Buddy arrives and disposes of them with a little help from his awesome Rock’n'Roll Kung Fu (and his katana). The Kid sits there, pokes his Mom with a stick a few times, then bleats at Buddy who passes him by.
Buddy tells him to “Float away, little butterfly, just flutter away”, the kid stalks him. Buddy tells him a bit more directly to back the fuck off, but the kid just bleats and continues following anyway. The beginning of a wonderful friendship fo sho’.
The two travel through the desert heading for Vegas, kicking some wildman ass in a breakneck 15mph car chase, getting caught up with the Postapocalyptic Sitcom Family From Hell, running from guys in badly-taped space suits, and slaughtering the whole remains of the Red Army along the way.

I love it. This flick is stuffed to bursting with various pop culture and rock’n'roll references, from the lead character, his nemesis, a cameo by A Guy Who Looks Suspiciously Like Clint Eastwood, the whole Samurai Tale concept, a bunch of Spaghetti Western spoofs, the all-pervasive Mad Max style, up to the store in a town called Fallout (seriously) which is owned by a Gangsta Midget who quotes The Wizard of Oz (yes, seriously).
Oh, and the soundtrack is played by a Russian-spawned Rock’n'Roll band called The Red Elvises.

There’s a trailer and ad blurb here. Six-String Samurai being a rather Indie production from 1998, it is somewhat hard to get regularly now, but can still be acquired through the usual intarweb outlets for decent prices.