god

Feeling mad and disgruntled and want to boss somebody else around for a change? I have a quick fix for you.

It's a game called Pocket God designed for the iPhone and iPod Touch, and it's the best 99 cents I've ever spent.

As the title suggests, you are a God overlooking a small, isolated island, and you are omnipotent over the lives of the islanders.

When you're in a good mood, you can tab the screen to make the people on your island dance, feed them with coconuts, help them fish, or change the time … Read more

This week's E3 2009 coverage continues as The 404 examines the Nintendo and Sony press conferences!

Each company made plenty of exciting announcements as well as some not-so-exciting ones. Will anyone really ever use a Wii Vitality Sensor? Sony officially debuted the PSP Go, which will be released October 1 for $250. We think that may be a bit much for the redesign, but the 16GB of internal storage sure is tempting.

We were glad to see all the awesome game announcements, including titles even our own Justin Yu has heard of! Yes, Justin, they're still making Super Mario games. Having not even made his way through the first quarter of the original God of War, Justin is still pleased to hear about God of War III coming to the PS3 in March of 2010.

Finally, a big congrats is in order to Blake Stevenson, the winner of our 404 logo design contest.

The original God of War helped spur sales of the PS2. Now Sony's hoping God of War 3, the first version of the franchise to hit the PS3, will deliver a sales jolt to that console. Some new screenshots and a rather gory trailer showed up at this year's E3. (Note: The latter half of the screenshots in the slideshow originally appeared in February.)

Additional reading: Dan Ackerman's take on God of War 3.

If there's one thing the semibeleaguered PlayStation needs, it's more high-profile exclusive games that can drive system sales. After all: brand loyalty aside, it's the actual games that sell systems, and a big hit (such as Microsoft's Halo) can add considerably to a console's fan base.

God of War (and its sequel) were both big hits for the PlayStation 2, and the franchise's appearance on the PS3 has been eagerly awaited since that system's launch. We got a glimpse of the game-in-progress back at the Game Developer's Conference earlier in 2009, and at E3, it's one of Sony's main pushes.

Those expecting a major departure (aside from greatly improved graphics) obviously are not familiar with the addictive charms of angry Greek demi-god Kratos. The series is basically Bulfinche's Mythology filtered through the UFC. Guide your bald-headed killing machine through ancient Greece and the underworld, slicing and dicing pretty much everyone you run into, from foot soldiers to giant Clash-of-the-Titans-style beasts. … Read more

While Sony didn't necessarily dazzle us with unannounced exclusive titles, the company definitely cemented the console's beefy lineup with a handful of live demos. Kicking it right off was gameplay footage of Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, expected this holiday season. What some call the "male Tomb Raider," Uncharted 2 was quite possibly the best-looking game of the conference.

Next up was MAG, a game teased at last year's E3 promising 256 online players at once. We were treated to a live demo that accomplished the feat featuring players from all over the world. MAG is expect this fall.

Sony Computer Entertainment of America President and CEO Jack Tretton then briefly mentioned Rockstar Games' Agent, claiming the title could only be possible on a PlayStation 3. Unfortunately no footage or release date was given. Two developers from Ubisoft then showed off Assassin's Creed 2, though the game will not be a PS3 exclusive. It will be available this holiday season.

While we all knew Final Fantasy XIII was coming to both Xbox 360 and PS3 consoles in 2010, we had no idea that Final Fantasy XIV was in development, let alone an exclusive PS3 title. A trailer for the game noted the next chapter in the story would take players online as well.

Sticking with the theme of "play, create, share," Modnation Racers will allow users to customize racetracks, cars, and racers very much in the vein of LittleBigPlanet. Gamers can also design their very own tracks to share and play with other PS3 owners--a demo that made us immediately think of Sim City.… Read more

One of the big marquee games expected later this year (or early in 2010) is God of War III. It's a title industry watchers say is one of the few shots the beleaguered PlayStation 3 has left to score with a "system-seller," that will prompt fans to buy the expensive console just to play it.

Shown off behind closed doors at the Game Developer's Conference, it's not unexpected that someone in attendance (not us, we weren't even there) would surreptitiously film the secret presentation of early gameplay and promptly post it on YouTube (from … Read more

Wilson Tang thought it'd be a better idea to cover the new Google Android phone today, and we can't disagree. So that just leaves myself and a one Justin Yu to fend for ourselves on today's 404.

Today we'll talk about why it's a bad idea for record companies to release albums on thumbdrives, a U.K. family that lives in a pig sty, and how an Xbox Live Survey seems to be an accurate sampling of how the gaming demographic will vote this November.

Also, Justin updates us on his Justin PSYu Foundation campaign, enlightening us with the difficulty he's having in completing God of War--a game my 11-year-old female cousin has finished three times.

All this plus a HUGE calls-from-the-public session on a very personal and intimate 404.

I've taken heat in the past for writing about network "god boxes" (author's note: historic industry term, not mine) so let's just agree to refer to said systems as "super boxes." Just what is a super box? A honkin' big system that combines processing and network I/O capabilities. These systems were pure vision in the past, but a modern combination of cheap processors, global software development talent, and stable scalable operating systems makes them a reality today.

When I think of these network super boxes, I think of vendors like A10 Networks, … Read more

Our resident peeping Tom (don't ask, you don't want to know) joins us for today's videogame heavy show. Surprisingly, I actually participate a fair amount! I think it has something to do with the Playstation Yu Foundation...Jeff flaunts a very positive review of Hamlet 2, we "ooh" and "ahh" over a very cute marriage proposal (hint, hint Mr. Bakalar), and talk way too long about our fear of those horrid little eight legged freaks.

Although there's lots of talk about videogames today, we somehow find the time to introduce yet another cryptid in the wild: a giant 50 foot mechanical spider miraculously appeared on the side of an building under construction in Liverpool yesterday. The creature is the pride of joy of this year's La Machine street festival, set to debut tomorrow to the public. Luckily for us, a few pictures leaked onto Flickr and sufficiently make us squirm like frightened little girls. Seriously though, spiders freak me out, there's something about their small furry legs running around my house that makes me want to cut off my skin. And you know what I realized? My generation's unreasonable fear of spiders is solely based on the movie Arachnaphobia. So thanks, Director Frank Marshall, for ruining my childhood.