Jack Thompson, Spore porn, and more.

For those of you living the lives of busy, important people, here is a rundown of the biggest gaming-related stories of the past week.

Monday: Jack Thompson got a visit from a couple US Marshals in regards to a letter he wrote to a federal judge.  In the letter, he compared himself to detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, and stated, “I guess my ‘mistake’ was not killing 3000 people to make my point.”  The ever-tactful attorney is now furious that the judge sent the Marshals to explain to him the impropriety of such correspondence, and is even complaining to the House Judiciary Committee.  The Thompson saga is becoming like a bad VH1 Saturday afternoon reality show marathon.  I know it’s mindless, and I know it caters to the lowest common denominator…  but I can’t stop watching.

(more…)

Now the excitement truly begins.

Viewers who tune in to watch the CBS EliteXC Saturnay Night Fights will be treated to the first-ever television commercial of Street Fighter IV. The program is scheduled to air this Saturday, May 31 at 9pm. According to the press release, the trailer will make its debut immediately following the bout on the StreetFighter.com (featuring a countdown to the trailer set to run simultaneously with the commercial) along with an official GameStop prorder campaign for the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions. All customers who receive a limited-edition collectable Street Fighter Tribute artbook, illustrated by top artists from the comic book and video game industries.

It just keeps better guys - we can’t wait to finally get our personal hands-on session with SFIV this year at E3.

Editor’s Thoughts: Back when the game was still in its 2% phase, it was hard to keep my optimism up. However, all the recent updates that’s revealed a massive rehaul of Chun Li and Ryu’s designs, new original characters and an upcoming announcement to follow on May 30 has clearly made raised my enthusiasm beyond words.

We knew it was coming, no really.

Slow news day? I guess you can say that. In any event, while this news probably won’t come too much of a surprise for most, it still deserves a mention. Capcom has officially confirmed Street Fighter IV for consoles and PC.

(pauses)

Yes, I know that seems like common sense that one of the most anticipated release would eventually have to make the jump from the arcade to the console, right? Of course - it’s just that up till now, everything has been speculation. Well now the theories can be put to rest because SFIV is in development for Xbox 360, PS3 and Windows PC. (Looks like the Wii isn’t getting any love, at least for now).

That’s just about it. Sorry guys. I was hoping the news was going to come with some new gameplay footage, details of more hidden characters, anything that would create a bigger buzz than the obvious. I guess they’re holding out until E3. I hope you’re reading this Capcom, this gamer is starved for some new JUICY tidbits.

In other news, Super SF2 Turbo HD Remix is allegedly going to be included as a playable demo with . I can’t wait for that, and yes, expect full hands-on impressions to follow!

The future of the feature is obvious, and console gaming needs to embrace it.

It's been a long time since the days of the Doom wad, when obscure tools were required to make maps and only the truly dedicated could create something worth playing.  Level design tools have come a long way since then, and now anyone with creativity and a bit of perseverance can play game designer.  While the distribution methods on the PC side of things have evolved nicely, with the clear leader in the field being Trackmania's incredible community website, consoles…  Hmm…  How to put this kindly…

Level distribution on consoles sucks syphilitic goat wang.  That's the polite, sugar-coated version.

N+ had its online level distribution yanked by Microsoft at the very last second.  Boom Blox lets you share your levels with friends, putting Nintendo in the unique position of being smarter about the ways their online infrastructure is used than Microsoft.  Echochrome is even better, automatically uploading a handful of user-created levels every week or so in addition to allowing users to trade.  Taking things a step farther, Blast Works: Build, Trade, Destroy will allow players to upload their levels to BlastWorksDepot.com to share with the world, and Little Big Planet will do roughly the same thing a few months afterwards.  Now we're talking!

Tangent-  Part of the reason given for Microsoft pulling the plug on N+ level sharing was fear of rude words and genital-shaped creations polluting the minds of America's youth and upsetting their lawyer-happy parents.  While I have no doubt that there will be more than a few giant penis bosses to download for Blast Works, Nintendo is still showing themselves to be less afraid of the shenanigans their users get up to than its more "mature" competitors. -End Tangent

Creating things can be a lot of fun, although I'll admit I'm not particularly good at it.  There's not much point, though, if you can't share what you've made with other people, and so far it's been very difficult to do on consoles.  The PC world has been dealing with the content for years without any problem, and in the age of memory sticks, USB drives, and web browsers built right into the system it's time for the console world to follow suit.  Every game with a level editor needs to have a web site where users can upload, trade, and rate their levels, from now on.  It's being fixed, slowly, but two games working to build an online community around shared content barely qualifies as a nice start.

This blog article should be recognized as the sole opinion of the editor and does not necessarily reflect GotNext's official position on the subject.

Grab a Snickers, take the week off, and kiss your free time goodbye.

No, it’s not a belated April Fools joke, but I sure wish the news wasn’t true. We’ve come to expect Metal Gear Solid to feature extensively long cut scenes, but MGS4 will end up taking it to a whole new level. According to an article reported by PSW Magazine, the game will feature cut-scenes that approach the 90 minute mark. Read that again for a sec because you probably missed it - several cut scenes will average 90 MINUTES. Holy Xenogears!!!!! No offense, but what’s Kojima thinking?!?

Ocelot is just as outraged as you probably are.

It’s been known for some time that the game would be the most extensive installment to date, going as far to be produced on dual-layer discs and now it’s all starting to make sense. (I take that back, it still doens’t make sense. I was merely trying to justify how bizarre this is). PSW made an apt comparison to MGS4 is being the equivalent of “three Godfather movies on one disc.” Perhaps they should have just converted the game into a full CG production if 50% of the time will be taken up by non-interactive cinematic sequences. Fortunately, players can skip the cut-scenes, however PSW delicately discourages fans from doing so as MGS4 boasts the most “finely crafted examples of FMV footage anywhere in gaming.”

I hope this doesn’t end up developing into a trend. There’s clearly going to be some major upsets within the gaming community, but I for one, won’t let this news stop me from picking the game up on June 12th. What about the rest of you?

Source: CVG

This blog article should be recognized as the sole opinion of the editor and does not necessarily reflect GotNext’s official position on the subject.