Daily News Spin — August 22, 2001 (Wednesday)

More news later, maybe

Slow day. If something interesting happens, we'll update the news. Send us some news why don't you? We're more than happy to print vile rumors, vicious innuendo, and anything funnier than your average Bazooka Joe comic, such as this one where the Mystic Master of Space & Time disses Shakespeare.

Weekly top ten

NPD has the top ten selling games for the week ending August 11th.

1. Max Payne
2. Diablo II Expansion Set: Lord of Destruction
3. The Sims
4. The Sims House Party Expansion Pack
5. Diablo II
6. The Sims Livin' Large Expansion Pack
7. RollerCoaster Tycoon
8. Age Of Empires II: Age of Kings
9. Microsoft Flight Simulator 2000
10. Pearl Harbor: Zero Hour

Max Payne, number one with a bullet.

Ziff game mags show growth

IE Magazine reports on the circulation figures for the Ziff game magazines.

� Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine (OPM) saw its circulation rise 36%, from 276,168 to 375,784 over the time period of June 2002 to June 2001.
� Electronic Gaming Monthly (EGM) delivered a 6% growth over last year to a total paid circulation of 426,794.
� Computer Gaming World boosted circulation 4% to 345,322.

That's a big jump for a PlayStation magazine. Do they cover PS2 stuff? Seems odd that a PSX mag should see circulation rise otherwise.

3am

That stuff about games damaging mental development? The game industry, via The European Leisure Software Publishers Association, has a response:

"The result of this study is actually not that computer games damage the brain, but that half an hour of playing this one particular title was less effective at developing the brain than doing half an hour of repetitive arithmetic," the group said.

One of the leading Dungeons and Dragons news sites is shutting down. No, it's not over diminished ad money in any direct way. The site owner, Eric Noah, is just tired of running the site. Maybe if running a popular website was lucrative, he'd feel differently, but it's pretty obvious that these sites are hobbies at this point, so you'll probably see more and more sites shut down (or go longer between updates) as owners lose interest.

Action Trip has a writeup of some hands-on time with Etherlords, one of those games we have our eye on.

The power of press junkets? The Toronto Star's film critic gave Planet of the Apes 4 stars and now regrets it.

...Perhaps it was my romantic fondness for the franchise: The original Planet Of The Apes had imprinted movie-love on me as fiercely as mother-love was imprinted on the robo-boy in A.I. Maybe it was the junket for the remake, and the fact that I'd had such a disarmingly amusing conversation with the movie's chimpophobic director Tim Burton.

Or maybe the guy's a moron. Four stars? Speaking of movies, Leni Riefenstahl is 99 today. That's certainly a triumph of the will of sorts.

There's a lawsuit in the works over Dracula's castle. Except it's not really his castle.

This fellow has an interesting way of protesting his poverty, namely in cutting off one of his testicals. Last year he cut off his penis to protest his lack of work. Looks like he's beginning to run out of protest material.

Bill Gates was an usher at Katherine Graham's funeral, and here's one writer's account of how he "hired approximately $150,000 worth of Bill Gates's services...."

If you play Sanctum, there's a new patch for it from the group of not-for-profit players who took over the game after Digital Addiction went out of business. Looks like good work from dedicated fans.

The Filthy Critic gives four fingers to Ghost World. Some interesting writing:

Ghost World beautifully captures the adolescent moment when Enid (Thora Birch) realizes that she is forever doomed because she stayed her course while everyone else compromised. She's fucked up, just like me and most of you, and while we all hope for happy endings, we chicken out, sabotage our chances and have to settle for something like a desk job that makes us contemplate swerving into a tree on the way home every night.

For those of us who work at home, we accomodate our existential angst by contemplating walking real fast and swerving into the bathroom door.

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