Welcome to this week's Press Pause. This week Carlos and Jason talk about the latest news including: Job cuts at EA, Facebook coming to PS3, Microsoft banning cnsoles, and more. Also they have a discussion about the pros and cons of easy games versus hard games. All of that and the week's new releases


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Easy VS Hard Games

Is easier better?
Some gamers talk about how much they like a challenge, but the greater gaming audience seems to have more fun when they get to move through the experience without failing much. It seems like patches for games keep making them easier, and never harder (recently, games like WoW and Dragon Age keep tweaking the difficulty downward). On the whole, big popular games of today are a lot easier than the big games of a decade ago. Is this a good trend?

Here are some examples of titles talked about:

Hard
Ghosts 'n' Goblins/Ghouls and Ghosts
Castlevania
Contra
Zelda II
Any old school Shmup (Shoot 'em Up)
Battletoads

Top 10 most difficult games from Tech E Blog

Easy
Any Wii game
Lego games
Spyro
Fable
GTA -- basically open worlders (easy to play -- *sidenote - dont HAVE to beat)

Game News:

EA to cut 1,500 It was announced in its quaterly financial report. That's about 17% of its workforce. About 900 of the jobs come from game development studios. The "Cost Reduction Plan" detailed in the EA release involves the closure of several facilities and a huge reduction in workforce in order to "narrow its product portfolio to provide greater focus on titles with higher margin opportunities." They're closing several facilities and axing about a dozen games.

Child's Play 2009 is underway. Child's Play is the charity run by the fine folks at Penny Arcade. The 2008 drive gathered a whopping $1.4 million dollars worth of donations for children's hospitals. This year they've added even more hospitals. Helping out is easy - go to www.childsplaycharity.org and pick a hospital to donate to. Then buy something from the Amazon wishlist that pops up.

PS3 Facebook integration coming soon? Leaked images suggest that a future PS3 update will add Facebook, among other things.

PlayStation father Ken Kutaragi creates new company. "Multi-platform console gamers may be making the switch to the PlayStation 3 for sequels to games they may have owned on the Xbox 360, analysis from consumer research and consulting firm OTX shows."

Microsoft wields the Banhammer! Microsoft has banned a number of Xbox Live accounts from the online service in a bid to prevent the owners of modded consoles using the service.

Fall 360 Dashboard update on Nov. 17. Xbox Live's Major Nelson has confirmed that the big fall Xbox 360 system update, which adds Twitter, Facebook, Last.fm, and the new Zune video marketplace, is coming to everyone on Nov 17th.

Game Releases 11/13 – 11/19
 
Release on 11/12
Braid – PSN
Star Trek: D-A-C – PSN, PC


Assassin's Creed II – PS3, 360, PC
Assassin's Creed II: Discovery – DS
Assassin's Creed: Bloodlines – PSP
Bermuda Triangle: Saving the Coral – Wii, DS
Buck Fever – Wii
Chaotic: Shadow Warriors – PS3, 360, Wii, DS
EA Sports Active: More Workouts – Wii
God of War Collection – PS3
GTI Club+: Rally Côte d'Azur - PSN
Gyromancer - XBLA, PC
Hidden Secrets: The Nightmare – PC
Hot Wheels: Battle Force 5 – Wii, DS
Imagine: Artist – DS 
Jambo! Safari Animal Rescue – Wii
JumpStart: Escape from Adventure Island – Wii
Just Dance – Wii
Kamen Rider: Dragon Knight – Wii, DS
Left 4 Dead 2 – 360, PC
Lego Indiana Jones 2: The Adventure Continues – PS3, 360, Wii, DS, PSP, PC
LittleBigPlanet – PSP
My Hero: Doctor – DS
My Hero: Firefighter – DS
Naruto Shippuden: Clash of Ninja Revolution III – Wii
NCAA Basketball 10 – PS3, 360
New Super Mario Bros. – Wii
Petz Dogz Talent Show – DS
Petz: Hamsterz Superstarz – DS
Planet 51 – PS3, 360, Wii, DS
Pokemon Rumble – WiiWare
Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles – Wii
Scene It? Bright Lights! Big Screen! – PS3, 360, Wii
The Princess and the Frog – PC, Wii, DS
The Sims 3 World Adventures – PC, MAC
Tony Hawk: Ride – PS3, 360, Wii
Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's Tag Force 4 - PSP



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