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Rockstar is at it again. Just when you thought they couldn’t create anymore controversy they let the world know that Grand Theft Auto: The Ballad of Gay Tony will be available this fall on the Xbox 360.

Grand Theft Auto IV’s second downloadable episode, The Ballad of Gay Tony injects Liberty City with an overdose of guns, glitz, and grime. As Luis Lopez, part-time hoodlum and full-time assistant to legendary nightclub impresario Tony Prince (aka “Gay Tony”), players will struggle with the competing loyalties of family and friends, and with the uncertainty about who is real and who is fake in a world in which everyone has a price.

In an interesting move this downloadable content will be available in the Marketplace for 1600 MS points or on a disc with the first downloadable chapter (The Lost and Damned) for $40. The disc will not require you to have the GTA IV disc.

It looks like both Sony and Microsoft are scrambling to catch up to the Wii. Rumor has it that Sony will unveil a motion camera (better than Eye) that will be more accurate than the Wii motion sensor.

Supposedly it uses LEDs to track movement. More information is here.

Microsoft has leaked some information about the Zune HD and it looks like they are finally catching up to the iPod Touch.

The new model will, as expected, feature a 16:9 widescreen OLED touch display, built-in HD Radio receiver, full-screen internet browser optimised for multi-touch and Wi-Fi functionality. There will also be HD video out capabilities: as the press release explains, “the HD compatible output lets Zune HD customers playback video from the device through a premium HDMI A/V docking station direct to an HDTV in 720p.”

They are also adding the Zune marketplace to the Xbox 360 dashboard so users with both systems will be able to stream their Zune marketplace subscription music to their Xbox while playing games. It’s about time.

I know there are some Bad Company fans out there waiting for the next edition. Well, good news at a multiplayer video has been leaked. From the off camera video it looks very smooth and polished and it isn’t scheduled for release until August.

Other exciting news is that it supports forty players online.

Fallout 3 begins with a unique character creation sequence where you start life in the game as a baby to choose your stats then quickly grow up. Some people with way too much time on their hands have found it’s possible to escape the Vault as a baby and crawl Capital Wasteland…

Nine years ago on May 24th, Looking Glass Studios doors were shuttered. For a decade, this little studio making games criticized as being by MIT graduates for MIT graduates slowly turned out some of the greatest games of all time including Ultima Underworld, System Shock, and Thief to name a few.

Of course, it’s not all sullen. The splinters of Looking Glass have spread far and deep. The intellectual property for Thief was picked up by Eidos and as I recently posted they are working on Thi4f. BioShock is in direct lineage to System Shock. And their games continue to influence developers and gamers alike.

So like the creepy Edgar Allen Poe toaster. I’ll raise a glass and blog a black rose. For this ahead of its time company is nevermore.

You may have noticed there aren’t any screen captures with the reviews. Well the obvious answer to that is because it’s a pain. Sure there’s some expensive solutions like DVI2USB. Cheaper solutions exist for non-HD, but I’m not playing low-rez to make captures. And there’s the video capture card route. But it all seems like a lot of bother. I haven’t found anything cheap and workable enough to get me to crack open my wallet and let the moths out.

Which has got me to thinking. It ought to be so standard there should be a dedicated button on the controller you can hit anytime you want and like flash splash mountain at key moments a game ought to take automatic shots. To be fair some games have screen capture features already, but it’s anything but standard.

What’s this good for? Posting amusing screen shots is fun and free advertising for games. Being able to virtually frame and hang in your PS3 Home apartment would give you something to do in there. And I could make the reviews more colorful. Until I get less lazy or find something easy, text it is.

“The essence of balance is detachment. To embrace a cause, to grow fond or spiteful, is to lose one’s balance, after which, no action can be trusted. Our burden is not for the dependent of spirit.”-Mayar, Third Keeper

I think I’ve lost my balance. The Eidos Keepers (of Looking Glass Studio intellectual property) have been hard at work resurrecting the Trickster of Legend.

THI4F

More on

“Were in the early development stages for Thief 4, but this is an incredibly ambitious project and a very exciting one. It’s too early for us to offer any specific game details, right now we are focused on recruiting the very best talent to join the core team at the studio and help us make, what we believe will be one of the most exciting games on the market.”

Dare I say w00t!

Well they’re not really saying what it does. I’m guessing it fixes some embarrassing security problem.

From the PS3 Blog…

Hello, I just wanted to provide everyone with a head’s up that the next PLAYSTATION 3 system software update (v.2.76) will be coming soon. This is a minor update that improves the playback quality of some PS3 format software.