ninjasockmonkey[dot]com {Ball Up}

As many of you may have already heard and know the entire story. The 1up Network was sold to UGO Entertainment by Ziff Davis.

Yes, yes. I know. “So what? Companies get sold all the time!”

On the same day of the sale, UGO canceled the print magazine EGM, canceled 1ups two big podcasts, and fired 30 people. This is horrible 1up will NOT be the same without the staff they fired. The brand is a great brand and UGO was smart to buy it. But the people they fired are what made the brand special.

I am slightly late to the game but my heart goes out to those that were “let go” and I look forward to seeing them stay together and thrive in a place they will be appreciate. We fans still love you (the Internet kind of love).

Read the FULL STORY at joystiq.

EDIT:

The crew of the 1up shows are rising again. Check this out.

Bethesda replied to my email about the bug I have encountered and a few other people have also encountered in Fallout 3. This was their response:

Hello,

Due to the high volume of requests, technical support is unable to provide gameplay tips or advice.

The Fallout 3 Official Game Guide is by Prima and is available for purchase. The ISBN number is 0761559965 and it can be purchased at most computer game stores or through Amazon.

You may also wish to visit the Fallout 3 Message Boards at http://www.bethsoft.com/bgsforums/.  Here you can find many others who may have information on the quest you are on and help others with quests you have already completed.

Enjoy the game!

Uhhh. Guys, guys. I can’t enjoy the game, I CAN’T FINISH IT. This isn’t time or a canned response from your support team. Your game is broken. Fix it.

I take back everything I said about fallout 3. After putting a very long amount of time into the game I encountered a bug that now prevents me from finishing the main story line. Seriously Bethesda? SERIOUSLY?

I went back to previous saves in order to try and the quest that led to the bug over again. But it resulted in the same thing. I sent off a bug report to Bethesda and decided to search through their forums in order to see if anyone else was encountering the same issue I was. WELL. In order to search their forums you have to register as a user. This is now just aggravating me more. So I walk through the steps to register a user and wait for the confirmation email so I can activate my account. Granted the email was almost instant.

I click the link to confirm  my account and it returns that I successfully confirmed my account and that I would now be redirected to the login page (really, you can’t just log me in). I put in the information I just confirmed and guess what. My account wasn’t found! Maybe it was just me fat fingering my password so I try again. Nope. Did I set up my password wrong? I finally located the lost password link (it was the same color as the background) and I can’t even get the password sent to me because apparently the account I just created and confirmed doesn’t exist.

So. Now I won’t buy another Bethesda game and I suggest you do the same.

This week three quite video games have been released that all deserve lots of attention. The top of this list is going to have to be LittleBigPlanet, followed by Fallout 3, and finishing with Fable 2.

LittleBigPlanet is an epic platformer and world creation tool developed as an exclusive for the Playstation 3. Media Molocule put in a lot of time and it shows. If you do a straight through shot of the story it only takes about 10 hours. However for a 100% completion it will take much longer. It has the added benefit of an online community to develop new levels. Endless supply of awesome. There were some issues with the servers on launch day and the day after. That kind of thing _shouldn’t_ happen but it didn’t take away from my joy of playing the game. I highly recommend seeking out this game.

Fallout 3 is a great action adventure, fps, rpg put forth from the great makers of Oblivion. The world is awesome, and the story line is interesting. The customization and combination of story arcs makes the entire thing replayable. However there are some obvious trigger events in the story arcs. They have developed a very interesting targeting system that is quite a lot of fun to use. A big downside is that the weapons are still based to heavily in the rpg side to be truley considered an fps. Each shot is still calculated as a dice roll and this can be frustrating in close quarters combat when health is tight.

The third game of note is Fable 2. I haven’t started playing this game yet but have watched as others have played. There are some obvious play control issues but the story and possibilities make up for it. Though apparently a shorter straight shot through the story I am excited to dig deeper into it.

It’s nice to have a run of great video games that will last a long time all at once. Playing Fallout 3 has actually re-inspired me to finally get around to finishing Mass Effect. Keep your eyes peeled for more awesome stories about the video games I occupy my free time with.