Eat this, Kingdom Hearts!

This is a franchise mash up I never saw coming. Everyone knew that a new Mortal Kombat was coming. They had talked about going in a totally new directions. This was best illustrated by the rumor that they were going for a Teen rating this time around. That was shocking enough but nothing compared to what they announced: Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe. The trailer does have a bit of blood, so they must be going for a very close-to-Mature Teen rating. As a not big fan of fighting games, this is the kind of announcement that catches my interest (even more so than half assedly tossing two characters from another franchise in the roster.) They must have some good stuff up their sleeves if they are ditching their over the top violence hook for this one. I’m excited to see where this ends up in the fall. (Notice that I didn’t make any “replace the C with a K” jokes. It was a struggle.)

Shhhh! It’s a secret!

Gamers With Jobs started a fantastically inspired thread this week called Game Secrets. Not much to say about it, but I hope they keep it going. You should definitely go check it out for yourself.

Don’t anger Mamma.

In another not really news related note, this letter was sent to Alex Navarro (formerly of Gamespot and currently of picking an album I buy every month) after his less than favorable review of Cooking Mamma 2. The kicker here is clearly when he says, “stay golden.” This is a masterful piece of passive aggressive communication. Also, check out the rest of passive aggressive notes, great site.

Adventures in bland naming

This week the Rockstar Games Social Club opened up for registration. There isn’t really anything to do there currently, but it is the time to snag your account for the full roll-out on April 29. It sounds like it’s going to have a pretty impressive amount of features once it’s in full swing with the release of GTA4. Mmmmm…GTA4…Which leads me to…

Options are key.

So the rumor is that the Xbox 360 version of GTA4 will have an optional install to alleviate frame rate slow down and load times. While the PS3 owners flip out over a mandatory 5 minute install, I am excited for the opportunity to make the overall experience smoother by waiting a few minutes to start playing the first time. My only question is how big this install will be and hold long it will take before everyone is offering up an optional install.

Priests, Cars and Pixies

Harmonix let loose the first three full albums they will be offering up as DLC. They start next week with Judas Priest’s Screaming For Vengeance, which will be available April 22 for the far too reasonable price of 1200 MS points or 3 easy payments of $4.99 ($14.99). Far more exciting to me is the Pixies album, Doolittle, which is supposed to drop in June. Also The Cars’ self titled album should be out in May. Weekly 3 packs and monthly albums, all at a price that is lower than they could get away with? You might be boning Europe, but as an American I love you, Harmonix.

Please keep them coming.

Adding to the already awesome series of character introduction videos for Team Fortress 2, Valve released Meet The Scout. This also coincides with a new map, game mode and weapons for the medic. Only owning the Orange Box for 360 I thought I wouldn’t be able to try these new things but Valve is running a special this weekend and selling TF2 for $20. I’ll be grabbing this as soon as I get back to a non touch mouse. Anyone know any good servers? And since I’m on the subject of TF2 videos, I have to send you toward Ignis Solus. This is one of the best pieces of machinema around.

A sad state of affairs

Next-gen put out a list of the top 100 selling games between last March and this March. This list is exactly what I hoped would not happen. Just like in all other entertainment forms crappy games with household names sell a metric fuck ton. The top 10 looks a bit more respectable with the exception of Need For Speed: ProStreet at 6, which confuses me to no end. I’ve never seen anyone on my friends list on XBL playing it. I guess the fact that it came out for everything is the only reason it’s there. The top of the list is littered with Nintendo and Microsoft exclusives, you have to go down to 25 to find the first Sony exclusive on the list and it’s God of War 2 with is for PS2. You have to go through SingStar to get to the first PS3 exclusive on the list, which is Motorstorm at 52. I don’t even own a PS3 and that makes me sad. I could talk about this list for a long time, so check it out youself, it’s pretty interesting.

Quote of the Week

“Because look, I’m not a fucking retard like Michael Bay or other people running around in the business. Or Eli Roth making the same shitty movies over and over again. If you really look at my movies you will see my real genius…I’m the only genius in the whole fucking business.”

- Uwe Boll, from this amazingly awesome video response to an online petition to have him stop making movies.

This week’s Defeated is brought to you by: SWAT team Pete. It’s really fucking creepy.