No, not the Pratchett book, the first part of a Russian horror film trilogy that actually looks pretty cool from the trailer. Nice to see a Russian film get exposure like this, it’s not like they’ve exactly got a huge Hollywood equivalent or anything even close. There’s also an earlier, less professional trailer that shows a bit more of the movie and gives you a better grounding in the premise.

An amusing remake of the GTA:SA trailer. Probably old but it’s new to me. I love a good quality machinima.

Random recommendation here - this game site might as well be called "To The Point" because it is - just the news/review/preview links ma’am. Reminds me of Old Man Murray, during one of their tiffs with Voodoo Extreme, creating a stripped down version of said site with just the quote and link from each news item because they felt that was the only worthwhile content there. Classic.

I remember hearing the project name Dmitri ages ago but it now seems we know what it is - a game that lets you relive your entire life from when you where 12 years old. Nothing too ambitious then.

Of course, there’s room for plenty of speculation here. Will a game where you already know the whole story still be overly fun? Do you finish the game looking down at yourself sitting there playing Dmitri? Humour aside, maybe it will in fact offer you the chance to do what all games do - things you can’t do in real life, except this time it’s in the setting of real life. Ditch your job, drive to Cumbria in a stolen Lotus and take up trout fishing - well why not?

Who knows. As ever, all credit to the man for coming up with some truly original game ideas, regardless of how much fun they actually turn out to be (and let’s be fair, he’s had more hits than misses). One of the guys over at Games Domain put it best by writing "whereas this year Nintendo reminded us they can think outside the box,
Molyneux doesn’t even seem to know where the box is any more.". You’ve got to feel sorry for his PR person though.

I have a friendly little bet running with a few friends that’s been in place since before the launch of both current generation handhelds. My claim basically goes that the DS will outsell the PSP (we’ve since agreed to decide the "winner" by Christmas).

Battery, price, Nintendo’s experience and brand strength in handhelds, the precedent of countless "Game Boy-beater" failures, Sony’s complex hardware (hence the inevitable shortages and late Euro launch)… the list goes on. A bit late to be blogging this since reports have now surfaced of the PSP not selling out in the US as anticipated - hindsight is 20/20 as they say. But even so,  no doubt both will be successful enough (I sure as hell want both) but those predicting that the PSP would stomp all over the DS purely based on its superior graphics and media options just weren’t looking at the bigger picture, I’m still convinced that’ll be conclusively proven by this christmas.

Against all odds, this is entirely work safe, however the images that will subsequently pass through your brain might not be. Those wonderfully crazy Japanese, honestly.

Bit of a random mix of quick snippets today to make up for recent slackness. Bullet point time!

• New PK header graphic is fab (modest of me, I know) but dear god, making pixel art is both soul and wrist destroying. Never again. Yes, the borders need HTML fiddling, expect that to happen once I shift to Moveable Type.
• The Xbox 360 (codename-du-jour) hype machine continues. More RAM (yes please, had a few dev mates complain that it needed more)? Pre-E3 announcement? Mucho support from Japanese game dev heavy weights (meh, Tetsuya Mizuguchi’s doing a game for it, that’s enough for me)? MS is clearly throwing even more of their weight and cash behind their follow-up console - splendid!
• The new Lara Croft might not suck (I put in a 24 hour test shift on Angel of Darkness in a former life - ugh). I’ve been saying this all along, largely because I have a lot of respect for Crystal Dynamics, plus Warren Spector apparently had some input. Not to mention that her boobs no longer look like weather balloons.
• Prey resurfaces? Now THIS I must see. Apparently in development at Human Head, which is nice - they were about the nicest bunch of guys I met at E3 2000 so really hope this is a) True b) Successful.

Alright, I’m done. Expect a writeup on Legacy of Kain: Defiance soon - it unexpectedly consumed my entire Sunday, 2 pm to 2 am.

Oh dear. Through a very foolish typo it appears I previously had a link on the right to the hilariously overpriced, laughably underpowered, and entirely doomed Gizmondo. The link should in fact have lead you to splendid gadget news blog Gizmodo. I recommend you go there now, and if the Gizmondo site lead you to accidentally buy one of those very pointless little handhelds, well, you have only yourself to blame actually.

I’m sure this has been done already at research level, though not in a commercial/military application - games that shock you. Take a bullet, get shocked. Crash a plane, get shocked. Sounds like stupidity aversion therapy to me, though soldiers training with it apparently experience "rapid heart rates, sweaty palms and fear" so sounds useful as a training tool ahead of exposure to actual combat.

The strange thing is they’re developing this for consumer use too. Hands up who would prefer electric shock feedback to force feedback? What, no raised hands? (Source: The Shack).

Look, I’m sorry if I sound like a grumpy git here, but was April Fools Day ever funny? At least on the internet, the answer tends to be no, not by a long shot. About the closest to anyone has got to something remotely worthwhile this year is GameSpot fiddling with the ratings on their games. ROFLcopter indeed.

Alright, I’m sure they’ll call it something different, but you get the point I’m sure - Sony is apparently working on iTunes style digital movie distribution. Dear Lord, it really is about time, I’m all for it. Even if they do DRM it to death it’s a great step in the right direction, especially now they’ve got the PSP in all its movie-playing glory.