PAX Prime attendance grows to 70,000

Hey, PAX East? Sit down, we gotta talk. You know how we made a big deal about your 69,500 attendees earlier this year? Well, we don't want you to freak out, but your older brother PAX Prime has surpassed that figure, establishing the record for most attendees at a PAX.

Look, don't be down, PAX East. We're a growing family with a third kid on the way, but there will be plenty of opportunity for you to prove yourself again. Chin up!

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Here's What Square Enix Says About Deus Ex's "Racist" Character

Exploring the world of Deus Ex: Human Revolution might just be my favorite thing to do in the game, as you never know what you'll find. If you're like me, you've probably already spoken with everyone in Detroit, in which case you've run across Letitia.

Letitia is an NPC who used to serve as an informant for Adam Jensen when he worked for the police. When you find her, she'll offer up some information and tips if you're willing to bribe her with cash. (Or give her four beers and she'll grant you access to a hard-to-hack area nearby.)

While that sounds harmless enough, it's the way she speaks that has prompted some criticism, namely from Time's Evan Narcisse, who wrote a piece calling the character "the worst thing about Deus Ex: Human Revolution."

"Why is this in here? Humor? Any mirth to be had from watching the sequence dissipates about 30 seconds in," Narcisse wrote. "No, the purpose of talking to Letitia is to move the player forward and give some hints about Jensen's backstory. Yet in doing so, you encounter something really ugly. Letitia embodies a strain of racist stereotype that renders black people as less than human, as the worst that society has to offer."

He points out that he doesn't believe developer Eidos Montreal or publisher Square Enix is racist; he just takes issue with the the character's performance.

"The horrible broken English Letitia speaks is so far removed from any actual slang that it renders the character practically extra-terrestrial," he continued. "It's not from an alien planet, though. That slang harkens back to the worst blackface minstrelsy of the last century. Even the voice actor sounds embarrassed at the things she -- even though it sounds like a man, at times -- has to say."

The video above shows off the few minutes you can spend talking to her after finding her searching through a garbage can on the street. However you may feel about the character, Square Enix has publicly denied that it set out to disparage any ethnicity.

"Deus Ex: Human Revolution is a fictional story which reflects the diversity of the world's future population by featuring characters of various cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds," Square Enix said in a statement. "While these characters are meant to portray people living in the year 2027, it has never been our intention to represent any particular ethnic group in a negative light."

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X-Men: Destiny development clip is full of Hollywood production values and mutants

With less than a month until the late-September release of X-Men: Destiny, Silicon Knights' mutant action-RPG, you've probably seen all the teasers and promo stills you can muster interest for. This behind-the-scenes look at the title takes a gander at the motion-capture and voice-acting work required to craft a game which allows you, in the words of head Knight Dennis Dyack, ?to interact in very deep and meaningful ways within the universe.? Well, that's what we all want out of life, after all.

As Dyack points out, one of the most exciting parts of X-Men: Destiny is the content ? which might seem like empty promo-speak, but if your first X-Men experiences were the side-on 16-bit iterations, it really is a nice change to contemplate Marvel's mutants in a title whose most exciting part isn't the full-color manual. With Knights' history ? Too Human aside ? of crafting engaging experiences out of unexpected properties, are you looking forward to the studio's big-budget take on the X-Men?

Aug 31, 2011

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Japan Review Check: Tales of Xillia, Deus Ex

A selection of the most interesting games due to hit Japan next week, courtesy the review pages of Famitsu magazine:

- Tales of Xillia (10/9/10/10, 39 points): Undoubtedly this is the big console release in Japan right now -- a game that's already racked up more preorders over there than any previous game in the Tales series. As expected, Famitsu had nothing but good things to say about it. "A lot of attention's been paid to how different this game looks from the rest of the series," one reviewer said, "but actually try it out, and you'll find the real surprise lies in how easy it is to get into and play. The tempo of battle, in particular, is excellent."

"The battles encourage you to work combos for the most damage," added another writer, "which results in a fast-paced and fun little system. They did a great job on it. The relationships your characters slowly develop through their chats keep the midgame from getting boring, too. They really thought of everything."

- Deus Ex: Human Revolution (9/9/9/9, 36 points): Square Enix's big RPG release of the month (who would've imagined it'd be something like this in Japan a decade ago?) seemed to earn a great deal more genuine enthusiasm from the editors than Tales. "Customizing your hero's abilities depending on what style of gameplay you prefer is really neat," said one. "From tackling missions to talking with NPCs and figuring out what items to keep with you, you're asked to make a lot of decisions that have actual portent behind them."

"At its core it's a first-person shooter," reasoned another reviewer, "but you're capable of a great many things, from sneaking around to martial-arts combat. The enemy AI is pretty smart, so the thrill of trying to stealth your way through missions is unmatched. It's really one of the few successful attempts at combining RPGs with FPSes."

- Resistance 3 (9/8/8/9, 34 points): Insomniac's latest doesn't do quite as well as the other big-name titles of the week, although 34 points is still nothing to sniff at. "The setting and situations are pretty neat," Famitsu said. "Having to refill your energy with items is a little on the hard side, but now that you're back to carrying multiple weapons, there's much more strategy to the action. The online play is nothing surprising, but I'm glad that health refills automatically in net play."

"Each weapon has its own fully-defined function," agreed another editor, "and switching between them depending on the situation offers a great deal of strategic gameplay."

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D-Link Boxee Box Tech Review

The Boxee from D-Link can do more than just wirelessly stream HD media to any television, thanks to its remote and full QWERTY keyboard. Kevin Pereira and Candace Bailey review the device that allows users to search and stream as much Internet content as they want for only $200.

Find the full review from Gadget Pron on Attack of the Show after the cut.

What You Need to Know

• The Boxee Box has a ton of inputs and outputs, like HDMI out, optical audio out, wired and wireless internet connections, 2 USB ports, and an SD card slot.
• At first glance, the interface is self-explanatory, so you know where to find TV shows, movies, and apps.
• There's really no way to tell which content costs money, so you may run into a lot of stuff that isn't free before you find what you're looking for.
• It doesn?t have a dedicated back button, so sometimes the menu button will go back, and other times it won't.
• We also liked that they put a full keyboard on the back side of the remote.
• It's pretty easy to type on since the keys are spaced out and they click down easily.
• All you do is start typing and it will give you a drop-down list of content available.
• Sometimes it would take awhile for the box to catch up to fast typing.
• It needs a backlight.
• The Boxee Box might just have a little more media content than everyone else.
• You'll get apps like Netflix, VUDU, Pandora, and a ton of others, but sometimes they're just shortcuts to web pages.
• You can also buy movies and TV shows through VUDU, or you might even get lucky and find some of that stuff for free on the web.
• They have a little more content than Google TV since almost every television network is blocking Google right now.
• The browser is underpowered, so the shortcuts to web pages are bad.
• Even though it supports Flash, it's super slow and not at all easy to use.
• The remote only has a directional pad, so you'll have to scroll your mouse cursor around the page at an incredibly slow rate to click on anything.
• It's also crashed on us numerous times while running Flash-heavy pages, which are usually the ones with the content we want.
• Another thing unique to the Boxee Box is how you can see what your friends are watching; you can scroll through your friends' choices and watch whatever they've shared.
• You can also share whatever you like, and it will drop into your friend's list.
• It's a good idea, but it's hard to find friends on Boxee.

Price

• It?s $200 on Best Buy?s site

Overall Rating

• 3 Seals of Approval Out of 5 (How do we rate gadgets?)
• They've got some cool concepts here, like the social aspect and keyboard remote, but for $80 more, you can get the Logitech Revue, which has cable pass-through, a universal remote, and a better interface

Want something reviewed on�Gadget Pr0n? Email us your suggestions to gadgetpron@g4tv.com.

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Japan Review Check: Tales of Xillia, Deus Ex

A selection of the most interesting games due to hit Japan next week, courtesy the review pages of Famitsu magazine:

- Tales of Xillia (10/9/10/10, 39 points): Undoubtedly this is the big console release in Japan right now -- a game that's already racked up more preorders over there than any previous game in the Tales series. As expected, Famitsu had nothing but good things to say about it. "A lot of attention's been paid to how different this game looks from the rest of the series," one reviewer said, "but actually try it out, and you'll find the real surprise lies in how easy it is to get into and play. The tempo of battle, in particular, is excellent."

"The battles encourage you to work combos for the most damage," added another writer, "which results in a fast-paced and fun little system. They did a great job on it. The relationships your characters slowly develop through their chats keep the midgame from getting boring, too. They really thought of everything."

- Deus Ex: Human Revolution (9/9/9/9, 36 points): Square Enix's big RPG release of the month (who would've imagined it'd be something like this in Japan a decade ago?) seemed to earn a great deal more genuine enthusiasm from the editors than Tales. "Customizing your hero's abilities depending on what style of gameplay you prefer is really neat," said one. "From tackling missions to talking with NPCs and figuring out what items to keep with you, you're asked to make a lot of decisions that have actual portent behind them."

"At its core it's a first-person shooter," reasoned another reviewer, "but you're capable of a great many things, from sneaking around to martial-arts combat. The enemy AI is pretty smart, so the thrill of trying to stealth your way through missions is unmatched. It's really one of the few successful attempts at combining RPGs with FPSes."

- Resistance 3 (9/8/8/9, 34 points): Insomniac's latest doesn't do quite as well as the other big-name titles of the week, although 34 points is still nothing to sniff at. "The setting and situations are pretty neat," Famitsu said. "Having to refill your energy with items is a little on the hard side, but now that you're back to carrying multiple weapons, there's much more strategy to the action. The online play is nothing surprising, but I'm glad that health refills automatically in net play."

"Each weapon has its own fully-defined function," agreed another editor, "and switching between them depending on the situation offers a great deal of strategic gameplay."

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Limbo Developer Playdead buys itself back from investors

The investment bank GP Bullhound announced that the indie developer Playdead would be making a somewhat risky investment into a relatively and new company ? itself. Due to the financial success of Limbo, Playdead's first title, the founders have been able to reacquire the company back from investors.

Playdead is now completely owned by its creators, Arnt Jensen and Dino Patti, and the company's management. The company began with Jensen and Patti's personal investments and help from the Danish government. As the scope of Limbo began to expand, they brought in outside investors to keep the game alive.

Jensen and Patti cite the game?s success on XBLA and PC as the major factors in getting the funds they needed. Now that they're back to being their own bosses, they'll be working hard on Playdead's next game, a recently�announced, but still unnamed, game�that will utilize the Unity engine and determine if Jensen and Patti's investment was a good one.

Aug 31, 2011

Source:�GamaSutra

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