The Last of Us patch 1.02 includes MP fix, and removes sex hotline numbers from SP

Apparently Naughty Dog recently went under fire when players noticed that a portion of the game has Joel and Ellie stumble upon a few hotline numbers placed on the wall. People actually tried to see if these numbers were valid and they were. Problem was those numbers were working sex phone hotline numbers. So, bam. The devs apologized for the mistake and quickly released patch 1.02 to remove it along with multiplayer fixes.

Creative director Neil Druckmann spoke to Kotaku regarding this:

"That was an artist's mistake," . "What happened was, they put some phone numbers in the game and then they thought they could just change the area code to 555, then it's invalid because it's what they do in movies. But I guess that doesn't work when you have a 1-800 in front of it. We're now working to take it out." Druckmann concluded that the working numbers are "just an honest mistake."

It was hilarious that devs get into situations like this. They should realize by now that there will always be at least one person that will do things like test numbers in a video game to see what comes out.

The patch also included a handful of changes in the game's multiplayer, here's the full list of patch 1.02:

• Single player
  • Texture of a phone number on a bulletin board changed

• Multiplayer

Technical

• Host migration has been improved. Losing connection to the host during a migration should occur less often
• General crash when leaving multiplayer fixed
• Intro camera fix for some introductory cut-scenes
• Connectivity issues while playing have been tuned
• If you disconnect or lose connection to the host, you will no longer advance a clan day. You will only advance a day if you are kicked from the match, or exit through the menu

Gameplay

• Explosion Expert level 2 should be selectable now
• The voting time for match selection has been reduced to 15 seconds
•  “No party” playlist options have been added to both Supply Raid and Survivors, players can only join this playlist solo
• Melee against a downed character now uses the same range as normal melee

[Source: Naughty Dog]

Xbox Live having an "Ultimate Game Sale" next week

Payday has come up for the end of June and if your thinking of getting a game for your Xbox 360, you might want to hold off for a few days because an "Ultimate Game Sale" is coming next week.

Xbox Live Programmer and blogger Larry "Major Nelson" Hryb announced that a big sale is coming to Xbox Live and provided a list of games that will be included:

• Assassin’s Creed 3 
• Bioshock Infinite 
• Borderlands 2 
• Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway 
• Bulletstorm 
• Command and Conquer Red Alert 3 
• Crysis 
• Crysis 3 
• Divinity II: The Dragon Knight Saga 
• Dragon Age Origins 
• Far Cry 3 
• Far Cry Instincts Predator 
• Forza Horizon 
• Gears Judgement 
• Hasbro Family Game Night 3 
• Hitman Absolution 
• Kinect Sports 2 
• Left 4 Dead 2 
• Lego Batman 2: DC Superheroes 
• Lego Lord of the Rings 
• Mass Effect 
• Max Payne 3 
• Metal Gear Rising: Revengence 
• Monopoly Streets 
• Perfect Dark Zero 
• Prey 
• Rockstar Table Tennis 
• The Orange Box 
• Tomb Raider 
• Witcher 2 
• WWE 13 GonD 
• X-com: Enemy Unknown

A very interesting list, but no word on how much of a sale we are talking about here. One thing is good though, is that most of the games in the list are considered big titles, some are fairly new.

[Source: Major Nelson]

Going Old School - Pocket Fighter (PS1)

Here's a little Throwback Thursday us. A fun little fighting game that I'm sure is near and dear to a lot of people's hearts. A little gem that I wish Capcom would give the digital HD port / PS1 Classics treatment to. It's Pocket Fighter (Super Gem Fighter Mini Mix in Japan) for the original PlayStation.

Migoy and his cousin Jiks do a first to 10 set with Jiks on the 1P side and Migoy on 2P.

Guild Wars 2 devs plan to add content every 2 weeks

Usually MMO devs take longer to create more content as the months go by. Well, for Guild Wars 2, Arenanet plans to speed up the content updates from every 3 weeks to 2 weeks. 

It's crazy, at the same time an amazing bit of news for players still stuck in the world of Tyria. The first example is the latest update that just came yesterday, The Sky Pirates of Tyria update, which is a follow-up to the current Dragon Bash festival still ongoing. With June almost over, we might see another content again soon since Arenanet has been releasing themed content every month since launch.

lead content designer Mike Zadorojn told Gamerzines that they are getting better and faster at creating content:

“It’s interesting because it feels like were launching [a new game] every two weeks, and so there’s still that level of excitement when we jump in and see what’s new, what’s going live, and play the content again and then realise, ‘Oh god there’s a bug, okay,’ then it all starts over again,” Zadorojny explained.

“’Okay we’ve got this issue, do we need to fix this right now, or can it wait until the next release? Okay we need to fix it now, okay what hotfix? what’s the priority? Do we have somebody working on it, what’s the solution?’ That kind of stuff…”

“Our goal is that as we do this, we’re getting better and better at it. We’re starting to catch the bigger mistakes that we would’ve missed earlier on. We’re starting to build the infrastructure, the framework and the tools to help us do this because we really think that this is the longevity of the product,” he told us with an air of confidence.

“If we can push this, if we can add content every two weeks that is engaging to the players, then really it’s almost like a TV show at that point. It’s kind of stay tuned until next week for the thrilling conclusion of…That’s where our goal is, and it’s really fascinating when you have an entire studio dedicated to pulling off.”

This concerns me a bit because throwing content out the door might ruin quality. But so far, it looks like they are pulling it off. This kind of consistent updates is rarely seen in a developer, and if they can really dish out good content every two weeks, it will only mean that other devs will pick up that it is possible and hopefully follow suit, because constant updates on an MMORPG is key to staying afloat.

Sky Pirates of Tyria was released just yesterday.

Deadpool launch trailer is hilarious

Activision has released the launch trailer for the antihero game Deadpool, and just like past trailers, it's hilarious. Deadpool! Bang! Babes! Mayhem! Oh and to give you a bit of a heads up, there's dubstep. 

It looks great, but I have a feeling we'll get entertained by Deadpool's crazyness more than the actual gameplay. Activision has the tendency to hide things we might not like in their trailers, so I have my guard up on this one.

High Moon Studio's Deadpool is coming out today, June 25 in the US and other countries on PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PC. No word if it will be available in the Philippines this week.