Nintendo admits it faked Wii U game footage

You know, I haven't been impressed with Nintendo in, well, just about ages. I much preferred playing Golden Axe on the Sega Genesis than Mario on the NES.

True, that was many, many years ago - but some things never change.

For example, I have long suspected Nintendo excels in little else but marketing, as the corporation seems to have an uncanny knack of convincing people they absolutely must buy a subpar system and play mindless games until their eyes are red from sleep deprivation.

Admittedly, I probably do sound like an aging curmudgeon, but I always believed the color Lynx was miles ahead of the monochrome Game Boy.

But what did the mindless masses end up buying? Yeah, the Game Boy. Sure, the quality was lacking, but so friggin' what? Obviously, high-end graphics have never mattered to Nintendo.

So that's why I wasn't at all shocked to learn the bloated corporation had faked video game footage ostensibly rendered by its "next-gen" (*cough*) Wii U console this week at E3 in Los Angeles.

That's right, some of the clips were actually snatched from Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 games, both of which, IMHO, probably boast superior graphics to whatever advanced "console" Nintendo is working on.

But Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime seemed rather nonplussed by the controversy, telling GameTrailers the presentation was perfectly legit, as the graphics on the Wii U would definitely be comparable to what was shown at the LA game show.

"We're talking a year away from when the system's going to launch. The system's going to be 1080p," Fils-Aime claimed.

"You're going to see games that take full advantage of a system that has the latest technology and can push out some incredible graphics."



Yeah, right. If I was an optimist, I would say Nintendo needs to internalize the following age-old slogan:

"You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time."

But they won't, because they really don't have to. Unfortunately, modern consumers tend to fall for slick marketing campaigns, and never seem to learn that spin just can't quite make up for lack of quality.

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1

Watch the exclusive online trailer debut for The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1, starring Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart, and Taylor Lautner, coming to theaters November 18, 2011!

Mass Effect 3 coming March 6, 2012

Electronic Arts has confirmed a release date for the anticipated Mass Effect sequel.

Those were almost the very first words out of EA during its pre-E3 press conference this afternoon.

Bringing the most state-of-the-art visuals yet and ambitious new gameplay controls, EA promises Mass Effect 3 will be "the best in the series."

One of the unique features about the Mass Effect series has been its unparalleled continuity. That is, the way players interacted with Mass Effect had a fundamental impact in the way their Mass Effect 2 experience was handled.

In Mass Effect 3, that dynamic will go even further, as players continue their epic journey in which every move they make, every decision they take, has an effect.

Mass Effect was originally an Xbox 360 exclusive, but in one of the biggest scores for the PS3 to date, Mass Effect 2 was brought to the Sony console (albeit after a significant wait following its Xbox 360 release).

For Mass Effect 3, multiplatform support will come right out of the gate, with the PS3 version coming alongside the Xbox 360 and PC versions on the same day.

We now know that day is March 6, 2012.

After 25 years, Ubisoft reinvents classics

Platformer fans rejoice, because there's a brand new, high-definition Rayman game in the works. And that's just the beginning.

Ubisoft, which does not traditionally go to the expense of having a decked-out pre-E3 media event, used this as an opportunity to celebrate its legacy as a 25-year-old video game publisher, which started as a humble company founded by a couple brothers in France.

The company's very first creation was an unlikely superhero with no arms or legs named Rayman. Today, that same character was the first thing shown at Ubisoft's briefing.

Rayman Origins takes all of the fast-paced platforming, puzzle-solving action fans have come to know and love, and brings it to the world of powerful HD graphics and all new gameplay, with support for up to four-player cooperative gaming.

Rayman himself has taken a back seat in recent years, with his spin-off franchise, the crude, toilet-dwelling Rabbids getting most of the attention as of late. So it's nice to see him make a return to gaming.

It's not just Rayman that's getting a refresh. Driver, which first gained notoriety as a blocky, simplistic racing title back in the day, is poised to take over the latest consoles in Driver: San Francisco.

There is more than just remakes of decades-old franchises, though. Ubisoft also revealed a new installment to its high-octane adventure series, Farcry 3. But today's conference was mostly about Ubisoft's rare 25-year mark in the gaming market.

Ubisoft may not be a part of most gamers' everyday vocabulary, but it does have a strong hold on the industry, and its E3 lineup in honor of the company's 25th anniversary looks pretty decent.

ClearOS 6.1 Alpha 1

Dave Loper has announced the availability of the first alpha release of ClearOS 6.1. Previously ClearOS was a small distribution for network and gateway servers, but starting with this release, it is now a full-featured operating system for servers and workstations built from source packages for Red Hat Enterprise Linux. From the release announcement: "ClearFoundation announces the release of ClearOS Core 6.1 Alpha 1. This release is intended for testing and proof of concept for the new line of operating systems for servers and workstations. ClearOS Core is an enterprise Linux distribution for server and desktop environments. The goal is to provide near binary equivalence and functionality that exists in the upstream distribution, including bugs. Additionally, ClearFoundation strives to release versions, updates and patches in a timely and professional manner (the goal for updates is 48 hours or less)." Download: clearos-core-6.1alpha1-x86_64.iso (3,616MB, SHA256, torrent).

SystemRescueCd 2.2.0

François Dupoux released an updated build of SystemRescueCd, a Gentoo-based live CD with a collection of utilities for data rescue and disk management tasks. Version 2.2.0 comes with a long list of updated packages: "Updated standard kernels to Linux 2.6.38.8 (rescuecd + rescue64); updated alternative kernels to Linux 2.6.39.1 (altker32 + altker64); updated 'Offline NT Password & Registry Editor' ('ntpasswd' boot entry); updated NTFS-3G to 2011.4.12 (driver that provides read-write access to NTFS); updated Python from 2.6 to 2.7; updated Gentoo Portage to 2.1.9; updated GParted to 0.8.1; updated Samba to 3.4.12; Updated Perl to 5.12.3; added xfce4-session package (new menu entry to leave Xfce)." Read the full SystemRescueCd changelog for more information. Download the live CD image from here: systemrescuecd-x86-2.2.0.iso (321MB, SHA256).