News Blips: Double Dose of Mass Effect, Gaming Children w/o Childhoods, Cheap Beatles Rock Band

Would a Mass Effect movie be more successful than the Avatar movie? Probably not. Will Mass Effect 2 do better than Avatar: The Game? I think so....

News Blips:

Mass Effect 2 project director Casey Hudson recently commented on the "tremendous amount of interest from people in Hollywood" to make a movie based on the popular video game franchise. Nothing is in production quite yet since Bioware wants to ensure that if a Mass Effect flick is ever made, it will be "great." Why don't they just play Mass Effect 2 in a movie theater and have the audience vote on Commander Shepard's every decision? Because that would be very time consuming and kind of stupid. [MTV]

In other Mass Effect news, nine new items for Mass Effect 2 are currently available for free on Xbox Live Marketplace. For easier downloading, Team Xbox has the links for you to queue up the special weapons, armor, etc., assuming your Gamertag is registered on Xbox.com. I have no idea how long this "deal" will last for, so I recommend that you get it while it's good.

British politician Iain Duncan Smith believes that violent video games "are driving children to lose their childhood." Smith has the perception that kids are playing Grand Theft Auto, a game intended for adults, but "nobody cares." Let me get this straight: The stereotypical view of gamers has gone from adults who don't want to put games aside and grow up to children who grow up too fast? [Pocket Gamer]

Have you yet to get The Beatles Rock Band into your life? Today's Amazon.com Video Games Deal of the Day has the Limited Edition Premium Bundles for PS3 and Xbox 360 listed at $169.99 (regularly $249.99). The deal runs until midnight Pacific time, so if you wanna dig this pony, hop to it. [Amazon]

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(6)

Jon Cole

January 25, 2010

As far as I know, the "Mass Effect 2 freebies" have been dead in the water since about 8 AM EST, with exception to the Collector's Edition equipment.

Luke Flora

Even the Collector's edition stuff isn't available now. I wish I could've gotten in on that, because I really wanted the Collector's Edition, but I wasn't even aware it existed until a few days ago. Gamestop didn't tell me when I preordered. I checked their website a few times and it wasn't listed, and then the other day when I asked about it, they said the SKU was delisted, but I could come back when they got the shipment to upgrade. Went over there today, and they only got two Collector's editions -- the two that were preordered.

Alejandro Quan-Madrid

oh well. it sounded good while it lasted.

Any stigma to online purchasing or purchasing at Wal-Mart? I know Wal-Mart does ship to store for a lot of items, and they still have CE's available online last time I checked. Best Buy still have them stocked online, too.

McKinley Noble

Ugh. Even at $80 off, I doubt that people are suddenly going to start shelling out cash for a gimped Rock Band games, Beatles or no. What Harmonix/MTV should do is throw in a free DLC album.

@McKinley, serious. I know I can't afford Beatles Rock Band, even with the discount, but I'm sure other people see it as worthwhile.