Filed under: Previews

For game journalists, Devil May Cry 4 hasn’t gotten a lot of real “preview” time since the same footage and levels have been on display for nearly a year. In an effort to correct this at Capcom’s Gamer’s Day, the game’s producer, Hiroyuki Kobayashi, showed off a ton of new material on both Nero and Dante — tickling gamers’ fancies and implying that Dante might have a much larger role than we originally thought. We’ll make a list of the new stuff that appeared, just for you!

• The big brawl between Dante and Nero is showed off at last — it serves sort of as a tutorial for getting used to Nero’s controls. You use his Devil Bringer arm to smash Dante into the ground a few times, then you get to fight him like a full-fledged boss. Kobayashi admits there’s still some tweaking to be done, as Dante continually kicked the crap out of Nero.
• The Devil Bringer arm was only thought to move you from place to place or grab enemies, but when powered up, as Kobayashi displayed, it has much more functionality. The description IGN used doesn’t make much sense, but we imagine it as something overly dramatic and stylish.
• Kobayashi introduced the female fighter Gloria — she’s not playable, but her intro is “humorous” and has been labeled as Kobayashi’s favorite female character yet. Probably due to her overtly sexual behavior.
• Nero was also shown fighting a new boss: some weird floating snake demon with a lady in its mouth. Sounds cool and all, but without seeing it, some of the magic is lost.
• Dante gets all his familiar fighting styles (Trickster, Swordmaster, Gun Slinger, etc) and he can switch between these styles and weapons on the fly. Kobayashi showed off Dante’s Gilgamesh fists/boots, which veterans should be familiar with what to expect there. A new weapon, Lucifer, was shown off. These were like metallic wings that attached to Dante’s back and seemed to serve a primarily defensive purpose.
• Pandora’s Box! Dante’s last new weapon shown was a briefcase that could churn out any number of insane weaponry — explosive arrows, a chaingun, a giant missile platform, you name it. Of course, these will be difficult to use, so keep in mind tweaking these powerful weapons will probably entail making their use extremely limited.

As for the Q&A session with Kobayashi, it’s been determined that the game isn’t two separate tales as originally thought (Nero and Dante going off and doing different things), but one long tale. You play through Nero’s portion from start to finish, then swap over to Dante to complete the remainder of the game. Our hero still gets to take the glory, it seems. There are a large number of extras, which are still secret, and no word on downloadable content. We’re excited. Let’s just hope it remains about as difficult as the third entry into the series, so we’ll have something else infuriating to play on the PS3.

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Rebraun by Marcus Wolf + Marcus Bader

Designed in 1962 by Dieter Rams, the “Audio 1 Kompaktanlage” is a milestone of german post-war design. It embodies, even more than its predecessor, the famous “snow-white’s coffin”, the design ideals of the rationalist “Ulm School”. These sober paradigms of utility and matter-of-factness are playfully remodelled in the “ReBraun”: Two TFT-Displays take the place of the radio scales, the lettering on the anodised front plate ironically quotes the lingo of the radio era. A randomly positioned button, labelled “Zufall” (Randomness) stands for the freedom from mechanical constraints. The antenna does not receive any FM radio, but is used to connect the system to the internet via Wireless LAN. The case and acrylic hood were lowered by several centimetres for sporty reasons (think: hot rod!), and the window that formerly contained a signal strength readout now becomes a tabernacle for the old Braun nameplate.

A phono-radio without the phono, a cassette receiver sans cassette, and a non-turning turntable are the first three pieces in a series called “Bootleg Objects”. Obviously, something has been stolen here from these three right honorable design classics. Or rather, was something added?

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Filed under: Snacks, Food Porn, Chocolate, Cheese, Hacking Food, Pop Food, Southern States

A few weeks ago Wendy raved about the food at the Austin City Limits Festival, particularly Frito Pie. I too have become a fan of Frito Pie, albeit a version topped with BBQ chili. Recently I learned that one vendor at the 2007 State Fair of Texas has put yet another twist on this classic by relying on that age-old fair food technique of deep frying.

Fernie’s Fried Chili Frito Burrito consists of a flour tortilla stuffed with chili and Chili Cheese Fritos and then deep-fried. I didn’t even know Chili Cheese Fritos existed. I wonder if they’re available outside of Texas. The Frito scoop came to my attention by way of a blog by Dallas Morning News reporter Katie Menzer who’s covering the event until it ends Sunday. Appropriately enough her blog is called Our Fair Lady. Keep reading to find out about more newfangled fair fare.

Continue reading Newfangled treats at the 2007 State Fair of Texas

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Filed under: Gaming

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Sony will announce their 40GB PS3 today for $399. Right, the same PS2 incompatible, 2x USB port model already announced for the rest of the gaming world. That’s $50 more than Microsoft’s Xbox 360 (with 20GB disk) and $150 more than the Wii. Still no date, or official press release from Sony but that should be rectified on the quick as the US wakes up to a retrenched, domestic console war.

Update: It’s official! This from Reuters: the 40GB model will be on sale November 2nd and the 80GB model will be reduced to $500.

Update 2: Sony’s press release is now out.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

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Filed under: Gaming, Peripherals

Sure, your average PlayStation 3 controller is functional… but is it super ugly? Enter the dreamGEAR Lava Glow wireless controller — a peripheral so heinous looking it can likely be used to visually stun your opponents. The liquid-filled, glowing controller transmits on the lovable 2.4GHz RF band, and is said to be the “most comfortable controller ever created,” according to the company’s modest PR. The Lava Glow is also jam-packed with “motion sensing gyroscopes,” which somehow provide you with “complete latency free game play,” though we’re not sure how. The controller comes in red or blue, and is available now for $34.99 — just be sure you don’t spike it against a wall and get lava juice on your carpet.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

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Filed under: Before the bell, Earnings reports, Google (GOOG), eBay (EBAY), Pfizer (PFE), Bank of America (BAC)

Index futures were flat Thursday morning ahead of today’s round of earnings results. Companies reporting this morning include Dow 30 component Pfizer (NYSE: PFE) and Bank of America (NYSE: BAC), with internet giant Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) reporting after the market closes.

Analysts expect Pfizer Inc., the world’s largest pharmaceutical firm will post earnings of 52 cents per share, following a 16% miss last quarter.

UPDATE: Citing a $2.8 billion charge to end investment in the insulin drug Exubera, Pfizer posted third-quarter earnings of just 11 cents per share. But for the Exubera charge, Pfizer said it had earned 58 cents per share.

UPDATE: In its third-quarter report Thursday morning, No. 2 U.S. bank Bank of America posted just 82 cents EPS, missing analysts expectations by nearly a quarter.

Google, which will report third-quarter earnings this afternoon, is expected to post earnings per share of $3.25, up from its Q3 2006 EPS of $2.36. Check back with BloggingStocks this afternoon as we LiveBlog Google’s earnings call.

Extending a run of strong tech results, eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY) posted impressive third-quarter numbers after Wednesday’s closing, crippled though by a write-off related to its investment in Skype, the online telephony service.

New unemployment claims are due out this morning — the number is expected to climb from last week’s 308,000 new claims reported. Also being watched Thursday, the Philadelphia Federal Reserve will report its manufacturing index for October at noon, an indicator of expansion.

UPDATE: The Labor Department reported that 337,000 new unemployment claims were filed last week, up 28,000 from last week’s unemployment report.

Foreign bourses were mixed Thursday: Japan’s Nikkei average rose in early trading, while Britain’s FTSE 100 slipped 0.25%.

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Shahid Kapoor has admitted that the break-up has really affected him and he is trying to put his life together. He feels very hurt over his relationship ending with Kareena. He told in an interview that his relationship with Kareena has come to an end because Kareena had been seeing someone else, and we all […]

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Filed under: Action & Adventure, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, 20th Century Fox, Newsstand, Comic/Superhero/Geek, Remakes and Sequels

Talk of a Wolverine movie have been ongoing since (I think) right after X2 came out, and the project has been moving forward (slowly but surely) since that time. Now comes word from Variety that the Hugh Jackman spinoff project has claimed a release date, changed its title (slightly), and promises some new mutants that we haven’t seen yet … as well as some old young friends.

May 1, 2009, is when the Gavin Hood-directed Fox action movie will make its debut, and when it arrives it’ll most likely be called X-Men Origins: Wolverine — which means we can probably expect to hear some fresh news about X-Men Origins: Magneto some time soon. It also looks like Liev Schreiber is close to signing on as William Stryker. Yes, he’ll be playing the younger version of the Brian Cox character from X2.

According to Variety, the story “explores the claw-wielding character Wolverine’s violent and romantic past, and his complex relationship with Victor Creed and the ominous Weapon X program, as well as his encounters with other mutants.” (The Wolverine screenplay comes from Troy writer David Benioff.) And since Mr. Hood is presently scheduled to shoot some of Wolverine in New Orleans, that’s led to some speculation that Gambit may be among the new mutants.

For (lots) of previous reports on Wolverine, just toss the word “wolverine” into our search bar and get comfortable.

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Filed under: Cellphones

In one of the more impressive Frankenphone installations we’ve ever seen, a company called Mobile Complete has been operating a remote phone-testing service called DeviceAnywhere that allows mobile phone developers to test out their apps on any of their choice of over 500 different phone models. The phones are opened up and have their circuits wired directly into a server, so devs have access to every part of the device, just as if they were physically present. CEO Faraz Syed says that the networked handsets are “surprisingly reliable and robust, even though they look like we’ve cut them open and killed them.” According to the company, all the major carriers and several large content providers are all customers, and only Nokia offers a similar testing suite — and it’s not as robust. Too bad the service starts at $200 and runs from $17 an hour up — we’d love to spend a couple hours fooling around.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

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