Nintendo announced WiiWare, which allows anyone with some developer moxie to produce games for the Wii.

“Independent developers armed with small budgets and big ideas will be able to get their original games into the marketplace to see if we can find the next smash hit,” said Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime. “WiiWare brings new levels of creativity and value to the ever-growing population of Wii owners.”

Just like the airborne, this game has been flying under the radar. The father of the Call of Duty series and one of the best WW2 series ever, now their new version is purported to be free-form playing. Apparently the maps can be attacked from any angle, from different drop zones and with different weapon loadouts.

As usual, the graphics in the MoH series push the limits of PC hardware, and this new open-ended gameplay may just make this a huge winner.

This game is looking better and better. Between this and Team Fortress 2, I think my FPS needs will be covered for awhile.

The video has a bunch of gameplay as well as a developer talking about all the new character building and “perks” entered into this new version of the classic game. If you didn’t see the previous videos, COD4 is no longer centered around WW2, but around modern and even futuristic combat.

Notice how he says “For all those playing Call of Duty 2 online…” ? Yeah, because they were idiots for not including Call of Duty 3 on the PC.

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I’m not fond of paying for download services, but I am a beta junkie, and fileplanet seems to get most of the good exclusive ones.

So click here for the fileplanet subscriber-only beta for Enemy Territory : Quake Wars, and join me for some fragging.

I am getting so sick of this thorn-in-the-side, supposed copy-protection program. I really really wish software producers would not be so lazy about copy protection and find a better way rather than schluffing it off to this inept third party program.

In the last few months I have had troubles with Command and Conquer 3 in that you can’t use a Microsoft application called Process Explorer at any time before running it. If you HAVE, it will give you an error when trying to start the game, until you reboot. There is no other way to clear the error except to reboot, and not run the legitimate Microsoft application again.

I would think Microsoft would be pissed off about this. I am pissed off enough for the both of us. I hate having to reboot, especially for this arbitrariness.

This isn’t the only error, I get random other ones from Securom all the time. Either balking at other system utilities I run, or about virtual drives, or network drives, or wearing yellow feathers in a purple cap while dancing a jig.

Now I try to play the demo of Overlord, and I get the same damn message.

Googling Securom and Process Explorer shows that they’ve pissed off thousands of other people.

Please, game producers, I hate to break it to ya, but your games and apps are being copied and played despite Securom. The only thing this program does is piss off people that actually legitimately pay for these games. Even before you release your precious software, the net floods with replacement executables which are stripped of any copy protection you so diligently paid for. Oh, how do I know, you say? Because I have to use these stripped executables TO BE ABLE TO PLAY THE DAMN GAME I PAID FOR WITHOUT JUMPING THROUGH FRICKIN HOOPS!

update: While searching a bit more, I found out that a dutiful member of the Sysinternals forum (the software group that originally made Process Explorer and were bought out by Microsoft) whipped a “hider” program for Process Explorer’s services. I’ll admit I was surprised Process Explorer left a residual driver after running, which is what is detected by Securom. This worked perfectly with the Overlord demo. Thanks, throx!

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The dream pack of Half-Life 2, Team Fortress 2, and Portal has a new confirmed release date: October 9, 2007. Of course, we all know Valve’s track record with release dates, including these titles. And c’mon, TF2 was on the Vaporware list for years!

But anyways, this is the official word Shacknews wrangled out of them.

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Bloomberg catches a blurb from a Microsoft executive.

“We are well aware that the sweet spot of the market is really 199 bucks,” said David Hufford, a director of Xbox product management.

This would definitely make me buy one. I want a Wii as well, but man, there are some very good games for the XBOX360 platform. Everyone knows that they make all of their money off of the game sales anyways. While a price drop would make it take longer to accomplish breaking even per user, it would make the overall users explode in number.

Unfortunately Sony will never learn this lesson. They are far too proud and pompous of their visionary PS3. It is time for Microsoft to be smart and take the hit for the future of their console, as the Wii is leaving everyone in the dust.

I’m still boggling at the idea to give them Teddy Bear heads. The Battlefield Extraction Assist Robot (BEAR) is under development for the US military to rescue wounded soldiers from the battlefield.

Gary Gilbert, from the US Army’s Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Research Centre in Frederick, Maryland, said that the teddy bear appearance was deliberate.

“A really important thing when you’re dealing with casualties is trying to maintain that human touch.”

Seven dark patches were found on Mars near a volcano, and dubbed the seven sisters, by researchers last month.

This week, they focused in on one of them, and it appears to be a very deep hole. A hole that could most likely be able to reach a depth inside Mars that would be warm enough to have liquid water.

I can’t wait until the Mars Bats Invasion.

The geological oddity measures some 330 feet (100 meters) across and is located on an otherwise bright dusty lava plain to the northeast of Arsia Mons, one of the four giant Tharsis volcanoes on the red planet.

The hole might be the sort of place that could support life or serve as a habitat for future astronauts, researchers speculated.

The Fallout 3 teaser trailer has been released, along with a general release date announcement of Fall 2008.

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