Source: My Nintendo News

It was inevitable, I guess, but in a way that you’d hope it would never happen, sort of like how you keep telling yourself you’re not going to eat the whole pizza, but it’s Friday and you had a rough day and…

Anyways, Battleship, the classic board game from Milton Bradley, has now gone from a movie to a video game. For me, this is one step of extrapolation too far. As far as the entire known universe is concerned, the board game had no discernible plot, characters, or setting aside from a four-sided body of water of indeterminate size that may or may not be hosting a maritime conflict. To make this a movie, this meant applying a thick slab of creativity gravy all over the offering, i.e. putting in aliens.

Now, developer Double Helix Games is concocting an entirely new story to go alongside the movie with the Battleship video game in which you play as demolitions expert Cole Mathis. How his possibly (probably?) victorious actions coincide with those of super alien-fighting duo Taylor Kitsch and Rihanna remains to be seen, but the game itself will feature the “merging of tactical and action elements” where players will “fend off the enemy beachside while ordering attacks against their marine counterpart.”

This sounds like it could be an interesting blend as the press release purports “seamlessly switching” between the two modes of play, but like I said, this is a video game based on a movie, and those don’t necessarily have a good track record, let alone those that are based on a movie that is based on a 80-year-old board game. Look for it on May 15^th for Xbox 360, PS3, and Wii with portable versions from developer Magic Pockets for the 3DS and DS handhelds.

Source: Joystiq

After a rough week for Game Group Plc the inevitable has happened and GAME has confirmed job losses at its Basingstoke headquarters.

A total of 46 roles roughly 10% of the workforce at the head office in Basingstoke have been cut. A spokesperon for GAME said:

“The proposed restructure will result in around 46 fewer roles at our central support centre in Basingstoke..Our proposed new structure will change the way that we operate and will enable us to be significantly more efficient in our relationships with suppliers and customers.

Amongst the layoffs,  there is a also a corporate restructure with several people taking new positions within the company. Former commercial strategy director Tricia Brennan became chief commercial officer, while the new channel director is the former managing director Tom Devine. The man who was in charge of the recent relaunch of www.game.co.uk Dave Hughes will leave the company in March.

GAME recently dodged a bullet after it was able to renegotiate credit agreements with major lenders and publishers allowing for it to get stock of the newest titles. However as rumoured it is selling it’s overseas business as has set a deadline of this Friday for companies to make an offer.

Source: DigitalSpy, MCV

Game Group Plc has been in the news everyday this week. For those not keeping track click here and here to get up to speed.

Today Game Group Plc released a press statement:

Having received support from its stakeholders and lenders, the Board now believes that GAME will meet its covenant tests for the period to 31 January 2012 when tested on 27 February 2012. The Board now expects that the loss before tax and non recurring items will be around £18m for the year to 31 January 2012.

Financing update:

Further to the announcement earlier today, the Board of GAME is pleased to announce that it has now concluded discussions with its lending syndicate and agreed revised terms for its facilities.

Under the terms of the revised facilities, the Group has agreed to operate within lower limits of its existing facilities than was previously available. These revised facilities will allow the company to continue to trade. The Group has also agreed to provide an updated strategic plan for review, and approval in part, by the lenders. This plan will cover all aspects of the business’s activities and strategy, including its overseas operations.

Ian Shepherd, CEO of GAME said “We’re pleased to reach agreement with our lenders, but should be under no illusions about the challenges in our market or the hard work that is required to deliver our strategic plan.”

So the saga of Game Group Plc hasn’t ended yet, but its future is far from secure. In the short-term for people (like me) who have an existing order with GAME for the Mass Effect 3 Collectors Edition, BioWare’s Community Coordinator Chris Priestly offers some reassurances:

Nothing is going to happen to Game before March.

They also now have the ME3 DLC listed on their site, so take that as a good sign.

While it’s hardly a ringing endorsement for the future of GAME, it is at least something.

Source: Game Group Plc, Bioware

After much speculation yesterday about GAME and their current financial troubles, Game Group Plc - The Owners of GAME and Gamestation issued a statement this morning:

In response to press speculation the GAME Group plc confirms that it is in ongoing dialogue with its lending syndicate to reach agreement on revised terms for its facilities. As part of these discussions, the lending syndicate is reviewing a strategic plan of the company which includes a review of its overseas operations.

A further announcement will be provided once discussions with its lending syndicate have concluded.

It’s also worth noting that yesterday EA boss John Riccitiello told investors,

“We are concerned with the financial condition of one of our major European retail partners, which could lead to both increased bad debt and lost sales.”

John Riccitiello isn’t the only concerned person at EA with CFO Eric Brown stating,

“We are focused on some isolated European retailer issues that have recently been announced. A negative outcome could adversely affect our Q4 results.”

On a personal note, I have had my up and downs with GAME but they are the exclusive retailer of the Mass Effect 3 collectors edition here in the UK, and I wouldn’t be happy if my pre-order which is about 6 months old was cancelled.

Source: GAME, MCV, CVG

Currently floating around the internet are various rumours regarding high street retailer Game. These vary from not paying staff(not true) to long existing pre-orders being cancelled (partially true based on Twitter rage) and not having stock of this weeks big releases(also not true).  However while these rumours were/are concerning the biggest worry is that Game has lost their credit insurance. What this means is that they may not have credit to purchase new stock with one anonymous source (does any news story ever have a named source these days) saying:

No credit from the agencies means no stock for the stores. It’s going to get worse before it gets better. You won’t find a new release this Friday

Obviously these rumours have been denied by Game but the original source of the story (MCV) has confirmed that Game

is facing challenges regarding its credit insurance and that its financial landscape has changed significantly since the beginning of the year..The chain admitted last month that it will struggle to meet EBITDA covenants requirements by February 27^th.

 It’s worth noting that Game trades and is a market leader in several locations worldwide. 

GAME territory	GAME market position
UK & Ireland	Market leader
France	Fourth
Spain	Market leader
Scandinavia	Market leader
Australia	Fourth
Czech Republic	Market leader

While a collapse of Game wouldn’t affect everybody, it would show that it is possible for a major dedicated games retailer to fail and could be the start of things to come.

Source: CVG MVC

With the release of Resident Evil: Revelations only a week away, Capcom has implemented a last-minute price cut. Originally slated for $49.99, Capcom recently announced that the 3DS title would hit shelves with a shiny new $39.99 price tag.

Bret Elston, community manager for Capcom, had this to say on the subject:

Since the announcement of the $49.99 price point, we’ve spent weeks looking for a way to bring your cost down to standard 3DS pricing. Today we can finally confirm we were successful in this, and hope the reduced price encourages even more people to check out this strong entry in the Resident Evil canon.

Although there’s been no word on what allowed such a price drop, I’m wondering if Capcom got a discount due to misprinted labels (see below).

Source: GiantBomb

Nintendo president Satoru Iwata recently hinted (see quote below) at the possibility for downloadable stages for games such as Super Mario 3D Land, and possibly upcoming Mario 3DS titles, as well. Despite the words “downloadable content” and “Nintendo” sounding totally weird next to one another, it does seem like a really obvious move. The only thing officially hinted was new stages for a Mario platformer. What about new tracks for Mario Kart, or new game modes for online racing? Or new items or neighbors sold in packs for Animal Crossing (whenever that’s gonna be released)? It’s a little silly such a prominent gaming company is just now realize the endless possibilities DLC means for their games. But hey, better late than never, right?

“As I referred to before, for example, this is the idea of supplying new stages to Super Mario users who want to play the game more but have completed the game and lost interest in the existing stages. This will not only give us new profits but will lengthen the life of a product, in that it will never be out of fashion and can keep attracting public attention as long as many people play it.”

Source: My Nintendo News

In Unnecessary Analysis I’ll spend way too much time and much to much effort in coming up with random theories about inconsequential things in video games. Our first entry will be Link’s famous enemy, the Octorok.

Let’s start with the Octorok’s name. The ‘rok’ part is easy. These creatures are famous for their ability to spit rocks out of their mouth with great velocity and accuracy. The subtraction of the ‘c’ from ‘rock’ could be because pronunciation, ease of spelling, or no reason at all. The ‘octo’ part of the name is more interesting. While there are many different pictures of octorok’s, many of them show a creature with four legs. The prefix ‘octo’ means eight. Since the octorok couldn’t have gotten its name for having eight legs it must have gotten it for its resemblance to an octopus.

A Octorok looks very similar to an octopus but with a few exceptions. According to the above photo the suction cups on a Octorok are on the top of their arms, not the bottom like an octopus. They also have a proboscis looking mouth while the octopus has a beak. Despite these and a few other differences they look very similar. This similarity with the octopus must be the reason for the octorok’s name which means that octopuses (which I found out is the correct way of pluralizing octopus) exist in the Zelda universe. It seems strange that, with octoroks all over the place in nearly every Zelda game, octopuses would be discovered and named first.

Let’s return to the Octorok’s rock shooting ability. There are a few reasons why they might have evolved that ability. First and foremost would be hunting. For octoroks that live on land, this ability would be great for hunting. The Octorok’s narrow mouth means that their diet must be made up of small animals. Their rocks could easily stun or kill small mammals or birds. They would have to have great eyesight to be accurate. Their cousins, the octopus, have great eyesight as well. Another similarity to octorok, some species of octopuses use tools.

Although the rock shooting ability is great for living on land, it would be far less effective for those that live in water. Perhaps they come to the surface and hit birds with their rocks.

The last aspect of the Octorok I’ll discuss is their relationship with Link. Why do octoroks attack Link? It can’t be for food. Their mouths are far too narrow to eat Link. They could just run from Link, but they stubbornly stand their ground and attack.

One option would be that they have young nearby. Many animals will fiercely protect their babies. This is a long shot though because what are the odds that every octorok you encounter would have just had babies.

Another option is that they are protecting their territory. A strike against this theory is that Octoroks don’t attack each other. Why protect their territory from Link but not from other Octoroks?

The simplest idea is that it usually works at scaring off predators. Octorok’s might be used to other animals and humans running away from their rock shooting. Maybe they expect Link to run away and when he stands his ground they don’t have any other strategy.

There are many aspects of the Octorok I haven’t touched; their different colors, why some look extremely different from other, the fact that some shoot bombs instead of rocks, and more. Hopefully though, you’ve learned something fun about a useless subject! If you have any theories or suggestions for what to analyze next, leave a comment.

Source: Zeldapedia