eat. sleep. game.

With all this Gamestop mess (Or is it Gamespot? I get fucking confused with that) there are bound to be people coming out of the wood-work that have opinions about reviews and reviewing. And if you think about it, it is advantageous for publishers to have the button mashed down hard on our reviewing collectivity. Just ask EA’s Kathy Vrabrek!

“They’re (causal gamers) not swayed by a low score on IGN or a low score out of one of these gaming sites. It’s a little bit amusing, in that it’s people reviewing games against measures that are important to core gamers yet are not important to casual gamers. Metacritic scores or the GameRankings scores are just off-base. In fact, if you run a regression analysis against those scores on casual games or even kids games, sales don’t correlate.”

I’ve never sounded off on causal gaming. There are plenty of mediums that have a casual product and a hardcore element. Hip hop is an example. Rock is another. You can dive as deep into a genre as you want, or as lightly as you want. But, just because Mom and Pop Wii don’t read Metacritic, doesn’t mean that EA shouldn’t go for the gold. You can package shit. You can sell shit. But it will still be shit. And when this causal trend wanes, and it will, the hardcore will be the only ones waiting in line for Rock Band 18. Casual gaming. Jeez. I haven’t done anything casual since I was five.

[via Nextgen]

Jayslacks.

Probably a big deal to anyone with an Xbox 360, the Fall Update has finally dropped! Aren’t you excited? Get excited! The Fall update has some very interesting little nuggets in it. Some are good. Some are silly. Some are surprisingly interesting.

The most obvious update is the Friends of Friends thing. You can now take a pick into other people’s friends list and look around. Don’t freak, privacy nerds. This can be blocked or limited in the Guide. I actually like the Friends of Friends thing, but it is no substitution for a Clan blade, which Microsoft will never give us. The cool thing about the Friends of Friends is that you can join the Friends in your Friend’s Friends list in a friendly game of Call of Duty 4, shooting noobs in the face! Which is always awesome.

Another new add on is the Divx support. Now you can view all your porn on your fancy HDTV. Yay! This update also supports a whole slew of other Mpeg-4 type monsters. What it doesn’t support, at least for this blogger, is Quicktime. This doesn’t surprise, but its still stupid. I could play some of my Quicktime movies, but not all, and some weren’t even recognized. Still, this is a big improvement.

Speaking of quick, the Guide blade and the blades in general are much faster. The entire dashboard just feels more responsive. All the time and attention they put into this update is noticed, and appreciated. Still, I was worried that my box would red-ring once the update went down. Those 360s. They are sensitive beasts. Check Major Nelson’s blog for Fall Update details, yo. I’m out!

Jayslacks.