Artillery Online.

Remember that annoying yet painstakingly addictive artillery game we all used to play? Where you had to blast the opposing player (whom you took it in turns with) through figuring out what trajectory you had to use and how the wind speed would affect it? Well, good news if you care - there's now an online version!



Artillery Live pits you with random players split into two teams. What's next? Well you slug it out of course. It's hard to pick up at first but you soon get the hand of it. Just watch the wind!

Artillery Live - Gamebrew.

Grand Theft Auto IV Trailer.

In about ten minutes the first GTA IV trailer will hit the web (courtesy of the handy countdown on the Rockstar site). Let's hope it's actually worth waiting for, I had no idea this was coming today until I followed a handy link.

I'll update this post as soon as I see it but, for now, hit this link and watch as time slowly ticks away...

UPDATE 1, 23:03: Ok, so the timer's ended but the site's getting hit pretty hard at the moment so it's impossible to view it. I'm just getting a 'connection timed out' notice.

UPDATE 2, 23:43: Been there, done that. It's a bunch of city shots and some Russian guy. It seems to be based heavily on New York (Statue of Liberty, Brooklyn Bridge, MetLife Building (renamed to Getalife), St. Paul's Cathedral, Grand Central Station etc.) . It might end up a bit like Liberty City but, who knows? Maybe it'll be like GTA: London and try to be true to the actual real-life city.

I'll embed the video just as soon as I get the Game Trailers video back up (I closed it by mistake and now can't get back on).

UPDATE 3, 23:48: Here's the YouTube GameVideos.com Version:



It doesn't do it much justice though so check out the HD version on the earlier Game Trailers link.

UPDATE 4, 23:55: Seems like Gamespy is agreeing with me on the New York front.

UPDATE 5, 00:02: Ok, people are saying it's Liberty City again due to the boat with Liberty City printed on it (it could have come out of Liberty City though) and the apparent presence of the Liberty Tree.

It's a bit disappointing in that sense; using the same old setting. They better do something good with it.

UPDATE 6, 00:36: IGN have their impressions up.

UPDATE 7, 30/03/07, 13:29: I've replaced the YouTube version with a higher quality GameVideos.com version.

Other locations:

• HD Torrent.
• Game Videos.
• The Game Trailers one again.
  
• Gamesradar.

GTA IV Trailer - Rockstar.

Night Links: Go To Bed Barely Informed!

Some links for you to feast on;

• Our friendly Gnome discovers his adventure fetish can now extend to the Wii. This blogger retracts his previous statements.
  
• The Elderly Gamer finally realises that, yes, some people have no lives.
• Someone had to go and do it, minus the fat plumber.
• Google Ad's may be coming to a video game near you - the horror!
• Because ice cream is SO out of fashion.
• Finish it off with some good old plasma pong!

That bed sure looks inviting from over here...

Zelda Wii Case Mod.

The sword is even detachable, allowing the winning bidder to act out their desire to be Link (who doesn't want to wield the Master Sword?), as well as possess one of the sweetest looking Wiis in existence. - Wiifanboy.

Pretty cool, huh? Yes, it looks cool and much props (street!) to the person who designed it, but it doesn't stop the actual console being a one-trick pony.

WHAM-BAM-SHAZAM!

Pretty much the best Wii case mod ever - Wiifanboy.

In case you're thirsty for more Zelda news the Nintendo team have been playing with their Miis in Twlight Princess. Those sneaky bastards!

Salt Lake City Named Video Game Capital Of USA.

According to the The Salt Lake Tribune Salt Lake City is the video game capital of the United States;

It's called gamer's thumb, and families in Salt Lake City could be among the nation's most afflicted: the city has been named No. 1 in the number of households owning video game systems.
Thirty-two percent of the households in Utah's capital city own video game systems, compared to 24 percent nationwide, according to a report released on Tuesday by Scarborough Research, a New York-based firm that measures America's shopping patterns. - The Salt Lake Tribune.

32% is pretty decent figure considering the population of SLC stands at a respectable 181,743 (source). If the Wii was more readily available throughout the USA then I'd predict that the number would be a little higher due to it's casual gaming aspects.

So, what does this mean? Well, if the US Air Force are looking for decent fighter pilots they don't have to look any further than SLC, of course (and maybe they can train them not to shoot allied British troops)

All this gets me wondering what the capital of the UK would be. Granted, the percentage would probably be much smaller due to video gaming being more popular in the US but I reckon it wouldn't be far off - and most of those would be Playstations. The 90's saw the rise of a clubbing culture surrounding the Playstation, everyone had to own one. This, in part, is why Sony has a huge audience in the UK today. People here will dive on anything with the Playstation brand slapped on it, which is exactly why the PS3 will be a huge sell-out here for months., regardless of the hefty price tag.

Of course, since everyone and their dog owns a PSone/PS2 it leads the UK charts packed with awful games like the latest Fifa while decent games, like Okami, get lost in the tide.

SLC Is Video Game Capital Of America - The Salt Lake Tribune. (Via Button Mashing)

Robo-Pigeon To The Rescue!

Pigeons, awful things. They shit on you, nearly pluck your eyes out and crowd around you when you stupidly take out a sandwich to eat downtown. You could always do what they did on 24 Hour Party People and lace bread with rat poison, thus, killing all the little bastards - but that would be inhumane, wouldn't it? What if, then, you could control them? Dive bombing them into the nearest river sounds like a tempting option.

Scientists in eastern China say they have succeeded in controlling the flight of pigeons with micro electrodes planted in their brains, state media reported on Tuesday.

Scientists at the Robot Engineering Technology Research Centre at Shandong University of Science and Technology said ther electrodes could command them to fly right or left or up or down, Xinhua news agency said. - Reuters

It's a bit scary to be honest, if they can do this with pigeons then what's stopping them trying it on humans in the future? Ok, so we're not dumb 'rats with wings' riddled with disease (ok, some of us aren't!) but what's stopping them with technology proceeding at such an extreme rate? If you can design something that directly interfaces and controls the brain against their will then it won't be too long before it can be adapted to humans. Hence...

'GOVERNMENT CONTROLLING RELEASED CONVICTS WITH MIND CHIPS!'

Ok, maybe not, but there's nothing wrong with a bit of whacky speculating.

Bird-brained China scientists learn to fly pigeons - Reuters.