Team Superfriends|Fighting the good fight

It's a clash of the titans today, as Game Politics discovered that Valve is suing Activision, with Activision threatening to countersue the Half-Life developer. Here's the thing: the lawsuit itself actually stems from a 2002 cybercafé licensing dispute between Valve and Sierra, a publisher Activision inherited as part of the Vivendi merger last year.

Thus, this dispute is now Activision's problem. Valve is suing Activision for allegedly refusing to honor an April 6 court decision that should have settled the issue.

Activision says the decision awarded Valve too much money -- we're talking $2,391,932 vs. $1,967,796 -- and decided to write Valve a check for the lesser amount. Clearly, Valve isn't happy with this outcome, nor is Activision excited about Valve's decision to take the situation to court, which may prompt them to countersue.

This all begs the question: when's the last time you played Counter-Stike in a cybercafé?!

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E! Online - Last year, Iron Man opened the summer box-office season with a $98 million bang—$102 million, if you counted the early-bird sneaks. Come Friday at midnight,  X-Men Origins: Wolverine will kick off Hollywood's blockbuster months with a...or a...

Rev your rumor engines Forza fans. The upcoming third installment of Microsoft’s racing series has been spotted in the Brazilian wilderness, aka Microsoft’s headquarters in Brazil. CVG posted a video of a presentation that briefly showed a logo for the game sitting squarely in the 2009 line-up column.

Honestly, we’ve been dealing with Forza 3 leaks for so long now that it’s hard to really summon up the energy to jump up and down over it. But the fact that the video has since been pulled from YouTube is a pretty good indicator that it contained some valuable info.

In the very least, it means there’s a good chance we’ll be hearing more about it at E3. So be sure to tune in to G4 starting June 2 for all of your E3 ’09 needs!

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In every game since Ultima IV, designer Richard Garriott has included a room where players are asked to kill or save a room full of children. The moral mechanic dates back to a moment during Ultima IV's development where he wanted players to prove how good they really were, Garriott told Crispy Gamer in an interview today.

"What I created was a room with cages in the four corners filled with children, and in the middle of the room was a lever," he explained. "And if you threw the lever it would open the cages. But the things that actually looked like children were in fact monsters, and the monsters would just come over and attack you. And I knew that this would cause the player to wonder — as they first saw the lever there, they’d probably go, 'Uh-oh, what do I do now? Because I’m the good guy, and I probably should free these children.'"

Garriott's decision was met with resistance from even his own brother, his business partner at the time, when a tester raised a complaint about it. His brother refused to be associated with a game where players were given the choice to kill children, but Garriott wouldn't budge on the issue. In Garriott's mind, "the fact that this person was moved to this level of emotional response, I think is a good thing."

Eventually, despite protest from much of his family, Garriott kept the feature in the game and it went more or less unnoticed. But the experience has remained a profound one for Garriott; he's included a similar room in all of his games since, including his most recent project, the recently shut down MMO Tabula Rasa.

Head on over to Crispy for the full interview.

What have you chosen to do when presented with this dilemma in Garriott's games?

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Hello, my name is Dr. Jonathan Goorvich, PhD, DDS, OBGYN. With credentials like that you may be asking yourself, “what are you doing working at G4?” Well, my friends, the answer is simple: I made those credentials up. I am not a body, mouth or vagina doctor, rather, I work closely with the good people of The Feed. You have never read my blog posts because all of them get taken down within minutes of publication and result in me attending a sensitivity training workshop in Palm Desert. But, you have seen my videogame work. With the aid of my trusty intern Steven Moreno, I provide a lot of the HD gameplay videos that you watch and make negative comments on. Thank you for those, by the way.

The rest of the work I do here at G4 has absolutely nothing to do with The Feed, but when the editors decided they were going to make these fancy little “Meet The Feed” articles I immediately threw a childish hissy-fit and demanded to be part of it. So without further adieu, it’s time for you to meet Sir Jonathan Goorvich of Awesomeville, Esq. [This credential has also been made up]

Interview: Jonathan Goorvich, G4 Interactive Content Associate
By: Dave Hall

What do you do for G4?

I’m G4’s Interactive Content Associate. This somehow means that I am in charge of getting all of our G4 content (both broadcast and web) to all of our new media outlets, like iTunes, Video OnDemand, DirecTV, mobile phones, all that jazz. I also plan and create a lot of G4’s HD gameplay videos. But as far as my mom knows, I’m the SVP of the entire network. Don’t tell her otherwise!
 


What is your favorite videogame of all time?

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time for Nintendo 64. That game blew my mind at the time it came out. But I am biased, I will buy and play anything Zelda. If Nintendo put out The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Cooking Challenge, I’d be chopping celery with my Wiimote controlled boomerang and loving it.
 
If a friend was describing you to another friend for a blind date, how would they describe you?

Wait, does this mean that the date is actually blind? If so, I’m 6’2” with the body of a Greek God, face of an Italian male model and junk that would make a horse insecure. I’d just have to make sure that this girl never touches me and finds out the horrible truth. Hm… my plan has already backfired.
 
Monster X, Godzilla, and Rodan start leveling downtown and the news says they are heading your way: what do you do?

A lot of crying. I’m not going to pretend to be a hero because I’d probably just end up humiliating myself in some way. And there’s no way I would try to make a run for it because I am sure the traffic would be a nightmare and I really hate traffic. So honestly, I’d just stay at home and cry a lot until they crushed me.
 
Where is the most exotic place you have traveled, and what do you remember most about it?

I went to Thailand last year to visit a good friend of mine who now lives there. It’s a really amazing and beautiful country with such a rich and magical culture. Here’s an example of such culture: One night my friend and I went down to Bangkok’s Naughty District and caught what the locals call a “Ping Pong Show.” Some very tired and well fed looking Thai lady shot a barrage of ping pong balls out of an extremely shocking place on her body. While I was able to swat down and dodge a lot of them, one ball landed on the table in front of me, bounced up and hit me right on the lips. I immediately began vomiting with rage and was then asked to leave the fine establishment. Oh Thailand, your majesty is never ending!
 
You free an imprisoned genie from a lamp and he grants you three wishes. What are they and why? (You know the rules: no wishing for more wishes.)

An order of chicken wings, a six pack of beer and a good DVD. Then, when I’ve eaten the wings, drank the beer and watched the DVD, I’ll regret the poor choices I have made in life and learn from them for the next time I rescue a genie. Life is about learning from your mistakes.
 
What gadget do you currently own that you can’t live without?

My iPhone. I’m totally in love with it. If they offered an app where the iPhone could make love to you, I’d probably marry it.
 
What is your favorite kid's cereal?

Fruity Pebbles. Not only are they awesome, but Fred Flintstone is on the box! Fred Flintstone and I agree that Fruity Pebbles are Yabba-Dabba Delicious! If I'm the first guy to think of that then back off Post Cereal Company, I'm totally trademarking it!
 
What game character do you feel you have the most in common with?

Probably Hoagie from Day of the Tentacle. Like when my nerdy friend Bernard had to travel through time to save the world from an evil purple tentacle and asked me to help, I totally felt like Hoagie.
 
You are about to bury a time capsule with space for only 3 things to remind the world you were here. What goes in the capsule?

Dry ice, me, and a frozen pizza.

There. That’s my interview. In retrospect, throwing that hissy-fit totally wasn’t worth it.

 

AP - The son of Ryan O'Neal and Farrah Fawcett is getting a chance at a clean slate.

When it comes to quitting your job (something you probably shouldn’t be doing these days), the last thing you want to do is make it forgettable. You want people talking about it six months later. “Man, I still don’t know how Fred got all of those chickens in the air ducts. What a hero.” Something like that. Or, if you happen to be the indie developer Farbs, and you feel that it's time to part ways with 2K Australia, you could just retool a classic game like Super Mario Bros. and get your message across that way.

If you want to see what an awesome job-quitting-based game looks like, you can play it at Farbs’ site.

Is it too early to speculate about a sequel?

Source via Offworld

The Wii hardware isn't quite powerful enough to deliver a realistic sim-racing experience, but that doesn't mean Nintendo can't cross the finish line. Excitebots: Trick Racing is a new arcade-style cartoon racing game that delivers easy to learn play mechanics, a fun assortment of mini-games and online multiplayer.

According to reviewer Rob Manuel:

"The influence of Mario Kart is hard to argue when so many others try to copy it’s easy to pick up and play style along with a wide appeal. Never satisfied cornering the market on this kart racing games, Nintendo tries to push the genre once again by creating a racing game that has perhaps veered off the racing spectrum all together.

Excitebots: Trick Racing practically fills every muddy path with tricks and treats while leaving gear heads behind in the dust."

Click here to watch the video and read the full written review.
 

Reuters - Several major Hollywood studios are delaying the release of big-budget summer movies in Mexico due to the influenza outbreak in that country, a key market for U.S. films, the distributors said on Thursday.

Got some time to spare? Have an arcade fighting flashback with some direct-feed of the freshly announced Marvel vs. Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes which is heading to PSN and XBLA availability.

It's also worth noting that a heavy Street Fighter IV addiction drastically affects your ability to play this game as they are extremely different.

For more check out our Hands-On preview and the debut trailer.

Marvel vs. Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes Direct-Feed Gameplay 1 

Marvel vs. Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes Direct-Feed Gameplay 2