Crave

The PlayStation 3 has already had the benefit of a triple-A title this calendar year as Killzone 2 certainly helped fill a gaping hole in the console's exclusive games library. With the release of inFamous, developer Sucker Punch hopes to extend the list of quality 2009 PS3 exclusives.

We sat down for a phone interview with Sucker Punch game director Nate Fox and chatted with him about the story in inFamous and how players' actions can dictate the narrative. While most superhero games offer somewhat of a linear experience, inFamous strays from the usual pack of games by offering an open-world "sandbox" experience.

Fox talks about why Sucker Punch chose the superhuman ability of shooting electricity for the main character, and how the developer was able to create the effect of feeling like a superhero in city torn by anarchy.

Make sure you listen all the way through as Fox sheds light on the future of Sucker Punch and whether we can expect to see a Sly Cooper game in the PS3's future.

Listen to the entire interview below

Download the interview

inFamous is out now exclusively for PlayStation 3. Make sure you listen to The 404 every day to find out how you can win a copy.

After a very relaxing three-day weekend, we're back for a fresh start and a hilarious show. Today, we recap our appearance on Fox News and our weekend exploits, debut a few excellent logo submissions, and reveal Wilson's secret shame.

Sick camera face, Wilson

(Credit: Justin Yu/The 404)

Welcome back, everyone! Hopefully your weekend was as relaxing as ours was, although sometimes a three-day weekend can be more tiring than a whole week of work! Let's just say that seeing the sunrise as you go to bed can be beautiful and tragic at the same time. We kicked off our Memorial Day weekend with an appearance on Fox News' "Strategy Room" with our buddy Clayton Morris. Most of you have already seen it, but check it out if you haven't and let us know what you think. Were we too serious for our own good? More bathroom humor, perhaps? I'll try harder next time.

In related 404 news, Wilson discovers that Dave Matthews Band is using the REMIXED version of our theme song in a promotion on its Pandora channel. What the crap is that all about, DMB? We're calling you guys out on stealing the song from our buddy Jamie Lewis, and we're extra protective since we consider him the unofficial voice of the show, so expect that subpoena in the mail immediately. And Jamie, if you're reading this...we'll be looking for our commission check soon, too.

Aside from us tearing apart some d-bag that broke the Rock Band 2 world record, we also have a hilarious call from the public and show off more submissions for our "Design The 404 Logo" competition. Watch the video for today's show to check them out, or see the slideshow below for high-res shots. Send your high-res submissions to the404[at]CNET[dot]com and we'll show them on the air for the chance to win a gigantic prize package that includes a copy of "The Back Book," Anna David's "Bought," and more!

The 404 Logo Submissions

Aside from some technical difficulties today and a giant bug bite, we've got a great show featuring all three of your favorite Web celebrities. Before we get to the stories, we want to remind everyone of The 404 logo contest and of our appearance on our buddy Clayton Morris' FoxNews.com's Strategy Room to talk about all the good tech, video game-related goodness at 2 p.m. EST.

(Credit: Jasper Engels)

On today's show, find out ways that kids now are using abbreviations in text messages to hide things from their parents. Apparently, "RU/18" is something that kids these days are getting on their cell phones. Also, Pfizer is giving away free three-month supplies of Viagra and Lipitor because of the recession, but only if you were on the drugs before you got laid off. We hope Justin isn't itching to get fired for this deal.

In regard to a story about China shutting down a sex-themed park, Wilson gives us way too much information about "the talk" with his mom when he was 15. Justin and Jeff learned everything from "Sesame Street." Speaking of more things naughty, there is a new version of "Star Trek" called "Star Trix", and we can't really say much more about it other than it's totally NSFW.

Finally, showers make you more productive at work. Just be sure to watch out for peephole-size openings at work. Be sure to write in at the404 [at] cnet [dot] com. We'd love to see more of your submissions for our logo contest. See you on Tuesday after the Memorial Day break!

Episode 348

Friday marks the release of "X-Men Origins: Wolverine," the first X-Men movie in three years, and the first ever to focus on one character. Now X-Men and Wolverine are properties of Marvel Comics, but Fox still owns the movie rights to all things X-Men and handles the production of X-Men movies, the same way Marvel produced "Iron Man."

(Credit: Fox)

Early word on Wolverine is that while Hugh Jackman puts his best claws forward, the film, some say, is poorly written and saddled with a cliched plot.

Also, some of the changes that one of the fan-favorite characters undergoes in the film have been deemed "pointless" and "unnecessary" by fans. And by fans, I mean me. I won't spoil which character I'm referring to, but if you've been following the production of this movie closely, you'll know who I mean.

So my question to you is, given Fox's recent track record with the X-Men movies, would the franchise be better off at Marvel?

Having spent Tuesday evening in New Jersey attending a big Acer/Gateway press event at the Liberty Science Center, I arrived home to find the first back-from-hiatus episode of Fox's sci-fi (or is that "syfy"?) show, Fringe, waiting on my Time Warner Cable DVR (hey, that's far from the nerdiest thing that goes on in the CNET halls).

Here's the problem, you've got this DVR set to "evil."

Unfortunately, the preceding program, a purportedly popular show called American Idol, ran long (once a relative rarity on network TV outside of sports broadcasts, but becoming more common with live episodes of reality shows), meaning the DVR recording was offset by about 9 minutes. The end result -- the episode cut off early, and right in the middle of a dramatic door-opening reveal. Several Twitter and Facebook updates from other viewers confirmed this was a widespread problem.

The question naturally arises: Since my cable company has access to all this TV show schedule metadata, why can't Fox push through an update when a live show runs long (something I'm told has happened before on Idol), allowing my cable provider to update its program guide, so that a DVR will know to offset its recording time?

Fortunately, the last few minutes of the program were only a Hulu click away, but it's telling that I find it easier to keep up with programs on Hulu than to cross my fingers and hope the DVR works correctly. I'm curious -- has anyone else had similar problems with their TiVo, PC-based PVR setup, or cable provider?

Update: A reader who says he works for Time Warner cable offered this explanation of the problem:

I work for Time Warner in their technical department. Guide data is published 14 days in advanced so there is no way to publish an update to lets say about 100,000 set top boxes (stb), and successfully push it out to all STB's, especially on late notice. You can configure your recordings to run longer via the recording options from guide(highlight the show and hit ok/select) and change the end time.

Yeah, we're not sure what the title of our show means today, but it's what happens when you let the chat room run the show. We think they want us to take off our clothes. Anyway, we're back to our old antics today: Bittr, Wii, Wolverine, iPhone, and pedometers.

As you can see, Slate.com already stole our idea for a skit mocking Twitter. We were going to shoot a video about a one-character status update. Some times, "F" is the only character that describes exactly how we're feeling at the moment.

On today's show, we talk a bit about how Nintendo is almost literally printing money with its Wii console. Apparently, it costs Nintendo 45 percent less to make a Wii than when it first came out. Nintendo is also trying to make more bank by releasing a pedometer, a device that measures foot steps--not an alarm for child predators. Also, we've got some info on a new iPhone app called Bad Decision Blocker that blocks your ability to make drunk phone calls. Seriously, though, if you need an iPhone app to stop you from making drunk calls, you need to 1) stop drinking 2) leave your phone at home, and 3) go see a therapist about your lingering girlfriend issues.

Finally, we get to our favorite "It came from Fox News!" segment. This time around, a Fox News commentator was fired for reviewing a pirated copy of the new "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" movie. Yeah, smart one. Fortunately, Jeff stopped selling DVDs of "Two and a Half Men" a few months ago. And a reminder, please call in with your most death-defying story to win your copy of "To the End of the Death: Our Epic Journey to the North Pole and the Legend of Peary and Henson" by our guest, Tom Avery. Yeah, long, long title.

In case some of you missed this Thursday, Ritz Camera--and by association Wolf and Kits Camera among others--is shutting down more than 300 stores around the U.S. as part of a court-supervised bankruptcy reorganization. This of course means stock liquidation sales, which will begin Saturday, April 4.

As with the Circuit City liquidation, I wouldn't expect huge discounts despite a senior VP at one of the four LLCs handling the sale saying we'll find "quality, brand-name merchandise at greatly reduced prices." (I'm willing to bet his idea of "greatly reduced" and mine don't jibe.)

Though it's sad to see more stores shutting down, at least Ritz isn't going away entirely. The company as of right now plans to keep more than 400 stores open.

Click here to see the full announcement and view a PDF of all the stores shutting down.

"Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)" by the lovely Beyonce turns out to be Justin's ringtone. Find out how we found out on The 404 today. It's in the same vein of how we discovered about his obsession with Disney music and Alvin and the Chipmunks.

(Credit: Gizmodo)

On today's show we talk about video games, and no, Justin doesn't tune out. EA is pushing the iPhone/iPod touch platform pretty hard with releases of Madden NFL and the venerable Wolfenstein. We hopes it's the updated version and not the sprite-based classic Wolfenstein 3D, though killing Nazis on the subway train does sound like a lot of fun. Also in gaming news, a company called OnLive has announced a new "streaming video game service." Cool, except we don't want to wait two seconds for Chun-li to land a punch on Baraka.

(Credit: Gamespot)

Jeff flips out when the NHL announced it will stream hockey games live with multiple camera angles. Only catch is that it will cost you 20 BUCKS A DAY. In reference to our phone book story yesterday, "boxed water" is now in. Anyone ever hear about tap water? And FOX News has announced it will launch a new social network dedicated to "fair play and fair speech".

Win a chance to win a copy of Wheelman for the Xbox 360, starring Vin Diesel, if you enter our caption contest for this photo of our beloved Justin Yu. Feel free to make fun of his glasses, face, the Lexmark printer behind him, or that lumberjack flannel shirt. Funniest caption will get a copy of the video game and major props on the show.

The rental version of 'Slumdog Millionaire' will lack the deleted scenes and commentary tracks available on the retail version.

(Credit: Amazon)

A few days ago, we pointed out that more people seem to be renting DVDs rather than buying, which means the studios are making less money on their former cash cow. According to a recent report by Video Business, Fox is trying a new strategy to encourage DVD purchases, by releasing two different versions of the DVD: the standard retail version with deleted scenes and commentary tracks, and a stripped-down rental version including just the movie. Movies such as "Slumdog Millionaire," "The Day the Earth Stood Still," and "The Wrestler" are set to get the treatment, which means you can expect to see the bare-bones versions at your local rental store in a matter of weeks.

The Video Business story goes into more depth about how "rentailers" will try to get around Fox's new policy, but our biggest question is "What will Netflix do?" We've always thought one of the best parts of a Netflix subscription is you can enjoy the excellent Criterion Collection packages without shelling out $40--especially if you only plan to watch it once. Netflix subscribers are already used to giving up special features when using the Instant Streaming service, but there are definitely plenty of cinephiles who will be upset if Netflix goes with these bare-bones DVDs.

Do you care if your rentals lack special features and audio commentaries? And if so, will Fox's strategy make you more likely to buy the fully featured retail versions? Let us know in the comments.