Gaming Irony: Grand Theft Auto III Signed by Jack Thompson

Want to own one of the biggest pieces of gaming irony ever created? Well, if you've been searching for a copy of Grand Theft Auto III on eBay, you may have come across this.

A new ChildsPlay fund raiser has appeared on eBay with a Jack Thompson signed copy of Grand Theft Auto III. Oh, the irony. Only for a price of $4,000. Why would you want to pay $4,000 for this?

1. Own the biggest piece of gaming irony.
2. Help raise money for ChildsPlay.
3. Because Jack Tretton actually signed it.
4. Show your friends.
5. Play Grand Theft Auto III knowing the box is signed by Jack Thompson.

Head over to eBay at the link below to check it out.

[Via eBay]

PlayStation Magazine: Fallout 3 Interview with Bethesda's Emil Pagiarulo

The latest issue of PlayStation: The Official Magazine had an interview with Bethesda Softwork's Emil Pagiarulo, who is working with the team on the upcoming Fallout 3.

Emil was asked to describe Fallout, she goes to say that "Fallout as a franchise, is all about finding your way in an open-ended, post-apocalyptic world. There's good, there's evil, and there's everything in between. So for the player, it's all about doing what you want, how you want. There's always a greater good, a sense of nobility and selfless purpose that you can champion... if you want. If you wander through the rubble and be a complete ass, well, you can do that, too!"

There will be some funny gags and dialogs in the game. Fear not for a late PLAYSTATION 3 release as well, Emil says bringing Oblivion on the console gave them great experience with the system, and that releasing the game on the same day for every platform means they bring more people into the Bethesda world.

Read the full interview at the link below.

[Via GameFAQs Boards]

Go! Sports Skydiving Launches on Japan PLAYSTATION Network Jan. 10, 2008

Go! Sports Skydiving will let gamers perform tricks in mid-air freefall using the SIXAXIS motion control. While the main goal of the game is to make formations with other skydivers. This game is coming out soon to the US PLAYSTATION Store, but Japan is getting it a litte earlier.

Go! Sports Skydiving will be available on the Japanese PLAYSTATION Store starting January 10, 2008 for only 800 yen (or US$ 6.50).

[Via Go! Sports Skydiving]

Time Crisis 4 Gets an 18MB Update

To join with the handful of unannounced updates we've been receiving constantly, Namco Bandai's Time Crisis 4 received one today as well.

The update is 18MB in size, the same as the Heavenly Sword update we've received earlier this month. Think they are planning something? Think not. It probably just added rumble to the SIXAXIS controller when you use it to play.

[Via Siliconera]

Petitions: Mass Effect for the PLAYSTATION 3

Another day, another petition. Today, we have a petition to BioWare to bring Mass Effect to the PLAYSTATION 3. They state:

"Since Mass Effect has caught the attention of many people, we think it would be for the best if it was released on Playstation 3 as well. The reason to this is the fact that Playstation 3 is a large market, of which majority of owners don't have an Xbox 360, because they don't want it for many respective reasons."

If you agree with their statements, head over to the link below and give it a sign. We know we will.

[View: Mass Effect PS3 Petition]

Tales of Vesperia Only Coming to the Xbox 360?

On the official Motoi Sakuraba site, composer of games such as Star Ocean: Till the End of Time, Tales of Symphonia, and the upcoming Tales of Vesperia, it lists the game as Xbox 360 only.

Namco Tales Studio (Bandai Namco, Telenet Japan)
- Tales of Vesparia (XB360)¹

Could this mean that we won't be seeing the upcoming Tales title on the PLAYSTATION 3? Let's hope that it's just a composers guess rather than official word.

[Via Motoi Sakuraba]

Sony Talks Upgrading Your Hard-Drive: Do It!

In a PlayStation Tips segment over at the PlayStation.Blog, Jeff Rubenstein spoke about upgrading the PLAYSTATION 3 hard disk drive.

If your hard drive is filled with music or movies or demos, whether you have the 20GB, 40GB, 60GB, or 80GB versions, you might want more room for more content, no?

They even provide a link to a tutorial that teaches you how to do so. The top the PLAYSTATION 3 can reach with internal hard disk drives is a 2.5" 250GB HDD. It's weird they are telling us this. I remember hearing this voids your warranty.

[Via PlayStation.Blog]

Surfer Girl Talks 2008: Factor 5, 2D Grand Theft Autos, More

Surfer Girl updated her blog today with ten new pieces of information. This includes what Factor Five has been working on, the old 2D Grand Theft Auto games coming to us in downloadable form. Take a look at her list below. As usual, the PLAYSTATION related stuff is bolded.

1) Factor 5's next title, a downloadable affair out next year, will feature multiplayer.
2) Discs of Tron and Tron will see finally release next year on XBLA.
3) The Grasshopper DS remakes (The Silver Case, The Silver Case Ward 25, and Flower, Sun, and Rain) will see stateside release next year.
4) EA Tiburon's Wii-exclusive title is a new intellectual property that is one of the two or three new intellectual properties from Tiburon that will see release next year.
5) Some of the 2008 additions to the Xbox Originals lineup: Amped: Freestyle Snowboarding, Amped 2, Armed and Dangerous, Blinx: The Time Sweeper, Blinx 2: Masters of Time & Space, Blood Wake, Brute Force, Conker: Live & Reloaded, Dead or Alive 3, Deathrow, Dino Crisis 3, The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, Fable bonus content, Grabbed by the Ghoulies, Grand Theft Auto III, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, GunValkyrie, Halo 2, Jade Empire, Jet Set Radio Future, Mechassault, MechAssault 2: Lone Wolf, Metal Arms: Glitch in the System, Midtown Madness 3, Ninja Gaiden, Quantum Redshift, Panzer Dragoon Orta, Phantom Dust Rent-A-Hero No. 1, Sneakers, Shenmue II, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords, Stubbs the Zombie in "Rebel Without a Pulse", Tao Feng: Fist of the Lotus, ToeJam & Earl III: Mission to Earth, Tork: Prehistoric Punk, Voodoo Vince, Whacked!. Service expected to have over one hundred titles end of next year.
6) The two-dimensional Grand Theft Auto titles (with Mission Packs included) will grace console(s) next year in a downloadable form.
7) Watch out Mario Kart because Electronic Arts racing to the finish line next year with MySims: Racers for the Wii and DS.
8) Cryptic's Marvel project is dead, but they have two or three other MMOs that they are working on. One will peep its little head out next year.
9) Next fall's Wolfenstein takes place in some large, open hub city where you select missions and go about them. And there are side quests too! So it's like Saboteur, except with more shooting, less French people, and is not published by Electronic Arts.
10) Next year, Eidos hopes you want to survive a virtual recreation of an existent earthquake.

I don't know about you but I got a bit jealous at number five. The Xbox Originals service just launched and yet they are soon getting all those titles, while the PSone Classics service has been around for a year and we have nearly 20 titles. Hopefully, Sony will start picking up the pace.

[Via Surfer Girl]

The PLAYSTATION 3 Makes a Happy Christmas for a Child

Even though this kid doesn't have anything on the Nintendo 64 kid, he is still trying. The parents of this child played a little trick on him following up to his PLAYSTATION 3 gift. I guess we won't have to return that Lego Starwars as we once thought.