posted by Chris on July 21, 2008 7:26 PM in Podcast
In the aftermath of E3 2008, Chris, Qais and Jinny discuss what ensued during the Nintendo and Sony conferences, and other great games announced at the now stripped down show. They raise questions such as: is Nintendo in the business of making money or making video games? And: what is the plural of "red headed stepchild"? Whether or not you want to have this information in your head is immaterial! It is here. Would you like to hear about our frothing demand for Mirror's Edge and EA's offerings? You can experience this.
posted by Chris on March 20, 2008 10:11 AM in Games
EA just blasted my inbox with some exciting news: Rock Band is getting an update this week, with the focus being on a brand new in-game music store. The music store will allow you to view tracks sorted by album, genre and more, with album art and song difficulty for each instrument displayed. This update will also include "additional game features that address many of the popular requests by the gaming community" which could mean anything!
I am thrilled to see EA keeping their word in making Rock Band a brand new way to experience music, and the addition of a music store means better organization for the 100+ downloadable tracks so far, and also most likely means that full album downloads are mere weeks away. Rock Band is already my favorite game of all time, and with this news its only going to get favoriter. Is that even a word?
Having grown up watching Food Network, I've learned to appreciate food and cooking. I worship the altar of Alton Brown and I deeply admire Tony Bourdain. The guy is fantastic: honest, open-minded, loves food, loves travel and drinks like a fish. No Reservations is one of my favorite shows, and this week they went to Vancouver, BC and visited EA Sports during a segment.
I visited another Vancouver developer a couple years ago, Next Level Games. They were working on Super Mario Strikers at the time, and their studio was a neat brick-lined loft in downtown Vancouver with maybe 50 people. EA Games is GIGANTIC in comparison, with their motion capture studio and Google-esque workplace mentality.
Note: It is a well-known fact that I despise Vancouver. After the great hobo war of 2007 I was left battered, bruised, stinky and unable to micturate properly. This episode changed my mind and made me want to visit again, so maybe if you enjoy the passion in which we here at the 'Geek speak about things, you'd enjoy the same level of passion from Mr. Bourdain.
Check out this clip and wait for the end when Tony pitches a game idea that has him battling it out vs. Mario Batali.
No Reservations airs Mondays on the Travel Channel. Tivo it!
posted by Mack on December 16, 2007 3:22 PM in Games, Rant
A week and a half ago I decided to take the very generous offer that EA had put forth to replace Rock Band Guitars that don't function properly. A co-worker had done it and it had worked well for her so I decided to give it a shot. I went to the Rock Bandproduct support website and registered for a replacement guitar. I decided to take advantage of the Express delivery option. Using this I'd put $125 down as a deposit and then they'd 2-day mail me a guitar. Take the new guitar out of the box, put the old guitar in and send it back with the pre-paid slip. Easy as punch.
Upon completing the registration and inputting my credit card number I was told to wait for the confirmation email. It didn't arrive that day and I got distracted by other things and didn't think about it until a couple days later. I decided to call up the EA technical support hotline (which is impossible to find if you don't have the game manual right there, so that adds 15 minutes to the call time). After waiting on hold and being forced to listen to awful hold music from the Burnout games and Madden I finally got in contact with someone there. He told me that the guitar had been shipped and he gave me a tracking number, a reference number, and an RMA number. I checked the tracking number on the UPS website and it said it was already in town and out for delivery. Great!
The day passes and no truck arrives. I go to the tracking page and it says the package has been delivered to the "mail room" to someone named "Macy". Well great, only we don't have a mail room, and who the hell is Macy. At this point I'm still not panicking because I know that UPS sometimes delivers to the Post Office who then actually take it to the address. I give it another day to arrive. It doesn't.
I call UPS and they say that something has happened and that the local UPS distribution center will call me if they can figure out what happened to it. I call EA and tell them that UPS lost the package and that I'd like a refund on my $125 and for them to send out an empty box for the standard replacement. For some reason the support person's phone keeps cutting out and breaking off and I am disconnected before I can confirm the details. Since I took a break to call him during my work day and I didn't have time to call back I had to hope that everything worked out. Heading back to my computer I saw a new ticket added in on their site and figured it had gone through.
A couple hours later I got a call from the local UPS distribution center. They'd figured out what had happened. Apparently they delivered the guitar to the mail room of one of the dorms on the university campus near my house. They had no explanation for this. They offered to send a driver to retrieve it the next day but I told them I would go pick it up myself. After work a friend and I walked across the campus and went to the mail room and claimed the package (maybe from Macy, I didn't ask).
I packed the old guitar and sent it back and I figured that even with the muddled delivery, that was that. Well the guitar should have arrived by now and I still haven't received my deposit back. On Friday I received a box in the mail from EA games. It's a box for drums. I called technical support Saturday and they told me that they don't have record of the guitar being returned or even sent. Then she told me she was going to escalate the issue.
"I'm going to have a senior customer service person call you tomorrow," she said.
"Why not today?"
"They're not here on weekends."
"So they're going to call me tomorrow."
"Yes."
"Which is a Sunday..."
"Mhmm."
Right now I'm pretty sure that my $125 is gone for good. I realize that EA games isn't at fault for the delivery but they completely mishandled every point where they were involved. I don't know what to do. Ideas?
posted by Qais on October 11, 2007 2:11 PM in Games
We here at Chez Geek have a bevy of mysterious and shady sources at our disposal. Most of the time they just send us LOLcats pictures and heavily photoshopped Goatse references, but today they really came through!
Apparently, EA Games is set to purchase Bioware and Pandemic Studios, two of the most highly lauded RPG and open environment games producers respectively. With Mass Effect currently primed for release by Bioware (and several sequels already planned) and Mercenaries 2 on the way as well this is easily one of the best moves EA could have made.
EA will pay up to $620 million to the stockholders of VG Holding Corp. (the owner of both Bioware and Pandemic Studioes) and will issue up to an additional $155 million in equity to certain employees of VG Holding Corp. EA has also agreed to lend VG Holding Corp. up to $35 million through the closing of the acquisition. While the monetary figures are pretty nifty, the most interesting bit about this whole buyout is the possibility that with this purchase Bioware might just stop putting out repetitive pap and produce an original IP.
posted by Grant on September 6, 2007 12:44 PM in Games
Sometime in the future, EA and Harmonix announce that every goddamned rock song ever will be playable in Rock Band. Seriously, guys. With all the stuff they keep announcing for Rock Band, this is where we're headed.
posted by Qais on August 22, 2007 1:11 PM in Games
EA Games brought down the thunder at Leipzig with a whole host of announcements regarding it's upcoming release Rock Band. EA made an expected track announcement, so far we're getting "Gimme Shelter" by the Rolling Stones, "Highway Star" by Deep Purple, "Should I Stay or Should I Go" by The Clash, "Epic" by Faith No More, "Cherub Rock" by Smashing Pumpkins, "Creep" by Radiohead, "Sabotage" by the Beastie Boys, "Are You Gonna Be My Girl?" by Jet, "Here It Goes Again" by OK Go, and "The Hand That Feeds" by Nine Inch Nails.
So far so good.
However, the really interesting announcements regarding Rockband are that EA will be releasing a European version with localized content and that they will be releasing a European version for the PS2. No word yet on whether or not a North American PS2 release is planned, although unfortunately I'd expect not. So far I've been unable to find a tracklisting for the European release but I'm hoping against hope that somehow EA will be on the ball enough to put a Lordi track on there, at which point the weekly geek crew will rock out like the Finnish Monster Gods we were always meant to be.
EA, MTV and Harmonix took a moment from their insipid love fest to announce something incredibly cool and exciting. Rock Band! It is apparently going to be using guitar, bass, drum and microphone peripherals and will span all genres with master recordings of most of the songs. An official website has been launched which you can see here.
This seems to go hand in hand with EA's announcement of more music partnerships, and is the big secret project we have all been waiting for from the creators of Guitar Hero. Hopefully EA doesn't crap it up. More details as they come to us. Maybe we will see a playable version at E3?
Unfortunately for the Wii, it's only for PLAYSTATION 3 and Xbox 360. Another nail in the coffin. Full release after the jump.
posted by Chris on July 17, 2006 6:45 AM in Podcast
On this week's podcast, The Geek and Frodo kick it old school, talking about The Amazing Screw On Head, third party love for Nintendo, hardcore gamers and as always, Snakes on a Plane. It just keeps getting weirder and weirder. Oh, video games are also discussed. Naturally.
The Weekly Geek is done on a zero budget, with no funding other than ads and merch. Help support the site with a donation! Consider it like tipping your waiter. We also give gifts for larger donations.
Sometime in the future, EA and Harmonix announce that every goddamned rock song ever will be playable in Rock Band. Seriously, guys. With all the stuff they keep announcing for Rock Band, this is where we're headed.
EA Games brought down the thunder at Leipzig with a whole host of announcements regarding it's upcoming release Rock Band. EA made an expected track announcement, so far we're getting "Gimme Shelter" by the Rolling Stones, "Highway Star" by Deep Purple, "Should I Stay or Should I Go" by The Clash, "Epic" by Faith No More, "Cherub Rock" by Smashing Pumpkins, "Creep" by Radiohead, "Sabotage" by the Beastie Boys, "Are You Gonna Be My Girl?" by Jet, "Here It Goes Again" by OK Go, and "The Hand That Feeds" by Nine Inch Nails. 
EA, MTV and Harmonix took a moment from their insipid love fest to announce something incredibly cool and exciting. Rock Band! It is apparently going to be using guitar, bass, drum and microphone peripherals and will span all genres with master recordings of most of the songs. An official website has been launched which you can see 