Diehard GameFAN

Author: Christopher Bowen

  • News: Southpeak Loses Copyright Infringement Suit

    United States based developer Southpeak Games (OTC:SOPK) was hit with another blow in UK High Court recently, losing a copyright infringement lawsuit brought against them by German distributor CDV Software Entertainment. The Hon. Mrs. Justice Elizabeth Gloster ruled in November of 2009 that Southpeak had been guilty of breach of contract in when they failed…

  • Nintendo Download Wrap-Up for February 22nd, 2010

    Looks like we changed the name of this column just in time. For the first time that I or any of us can remember, there is no Virtual Console game to look at. As a writer, this makes me somewhat happy – after all, smaller articles are less work to put together – but as…

  • Unbranding the Sheep – Why I Almost Pulled The SOCOM Review

    Last Friday, I reviewed the new PSP game SOCOM: U.S. Navy Seals Fireteam Bravo 3. I gave it a fairly positive write-up, and had no problems getting into the online component of the game, even if there was a sparse number of people due to my review going up before the game’s release. With that…

  • Playstation Network Update for February 18th, 2010

    I consider myself a professional. I feel that I can get past whatever comes to me, get past it, and get my job done properly. The Winter Olympics are one of the few times when I decide to hell with professionalism. They have hockey on literally all day! I just watched Canada beat the Swiss…

  • Nintendo Download Wrap-Up for February 15th, 2010

    In the two plus years that we’ve been doing these wrap-ups, whether just for the Virtual Console or for the entire service, just about every article has had a lot of comments about whatever the Virtual Console has put out. When we started profiling the other downloadable titles on the WiiWare and DSiWare, most of…

  • Playstation Network Wrap-Up for February 11th, 2010 (UPDATED)

    I don’t really think I can lead this off with a “witty” lead-in this week. We all know what the big elephant in the room is. There’s no sense in beating around the bush: the Heavy Rain demo is the only PSN release this week that actually, truly matters. This is the first PSN update…

  • Review: SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs Fireteam Bravo 3

    SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs Fireteam Bravo 3 Developer: Slant Six Games Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment America Genre: Tactical Third Person Shooter Release Date: 2/16/2010 AUTHOR’S NOTE: We received word about Sony’s registration policy for PSN play after this review went up, and after the game was released. For our full stance on this, please refer…

  • Xbox LIVE Wrap-Up for February 10th, 2010

    First off, let me begin by apologizing for the tardy nature of this piece. D.J. Tatsujin, the normal writer of this article, had a personal situation that had to be handled immediately. Therefore, I’m pitching in relief this week, and trying to fit this in with an already loaded schedule. So to steal a line…

  • Review: Physics Lab (360 Indies)

    Physics Lab Developer: Danthekilla Publisher: Microsoft Indie Games Genre: Physics Simulator Release Date: 1/20/2010 Price: 240 Microsoft Points/$3 The Indies service on XBox Live is hard to gauge. Some of it’s games are flat-out steals, such as the $1 Robotron-inspired I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MB1ES!!!1 and the $4 College Lacrosse 2010: The Video Game,…

  • Nintendo Download Wrap-Up for February 8th, 2010

    Last week, I took a little vacation to handle some other responsibilities, so the capable and beautiful Aileen Coe took over and did an admirable job with a loaded slate of games. It was a lot of work, but she came through beautifully, and I was able to take care of everything that I needed…

  • Unbranding the Sheep: Big Trouble in Little Japan

    We consistently harp on how the American video game industry is affected by various forces within it. Most of the time, we only care about how specific releases are affected, if American jobs are affected, or if American release dates are affected. It’s not often we really look into the Japanese game industry unless it’s…

  • Playstation Network Wrap-Up for February 4th, 2010

    The past few weeks have been weak for the Playstation Store. For two straight weeks, we had weak updates with little content. Then last week, we had an update with a lot of content, most of which sucked (on that note, expect my Hustle Kings review sometime next week!). This week brings us a bunch…

  • Unbranding the Sheep: The Neverending DRM Dance

    Ubisoft is the latest company to cause a stink among gamers with their announcement that starting with The Settlers 7: Paths to a Kingdom beta, they are instituting a new DRM policy that requires a perpetual connection to internet for any of their games. Ironically, as the music industry decides to gradually back away from…

  • Playstation Download Wrap-Up for January 28, 2010

    I think after the past couple weeks, I got a little lazy. I got kinda used to not having to worry about writing a whole lot, because the last couple updates have been absolutely pants. As a writer on a tight deadline that also deals with Sony’s awful update schedule (which can basically be summed…

  • Nintendo Download Wrap-Up for January 25th, 2010

    Predicting the quality of these weekly wrap-ups is senseless. Nintendo’s last couple updates have been very good, with last week’s being outstanding. This has happened in the past, and usually been followed up by bad weeks. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to a bad week. It’s entirely possible Nintendo blew their proverbial load by releasing Muscle…

  • Unbranding the Sheep: The Cost of Innovation vs. The Reward of Convention

    If you asked two different types of people about Electronic Arts’ CEO John Riccitiello, you would get two different answers. One group – gamers, or at least those that look past the yearly Madden release – would speak highly of him. Since taking over in 2007, he mended the damaged relationship between the company and…

  • Playstation Download Wrap-Up for January 21st, 2010

    Looking back at my piece on last week’s Playstation Update, I came to a conclusion I don’t normally come to when it comes to my writing: I don’t think I was hard enough on Sony. I haven’t been paying attention to Playstation updates until recently due to the fact that I haven’t owned a system…

  • Nintendo Download Wrap-Up for January 18th, 2010

    For the first time that I can remember, the WiiWare update was looked forward to by a lot of people. Nintendo’s usually secretive about their plans for their games (as proven way back in ’08, when they pulled an end-around on three companies as retribution for them leaking their updates early), but we knew ahead…

  • Playstation Network Wrap-Up for January 14th, 2010

    It’s strange that for someone that just bought a PS3 a few weeks ago, most of my gaming this past week – with the exception of trying the Matt Hazard demo – was based around two PSOne games: Suikoden, and Suikoden II. For the most part, my $350, 250GB monolith has served as an expensive…

  • Review: Qix++ (Microsoft Xbox 360)

    Qix++ Developer: Taito Publisher: Taito Genre: Arcade Release Date: 12/9/2009