On Monday I busted open Sony’s E3 conference by leaking the entire script a week before it was due to be presented.
Sony isn’t the only company with lax security measures, though. I’ve also managed to obtain the full scripts for Microsoft’s E3 conference and Nintendo’s E3 Digital Event.
Today I’ll be chucking a middle finger in the face of Bill Gates (or whoever it is now) by revealing Microsoft’s E3 script in its entirety.
On Friday I’ll round things off with the entire shooting script for Nintendo’s E3 Digital Event.
The leaked Sony document I received: read it in its entirety below
In my years as a games journalist I’ve built up a sizeable repertoire of contacts I can get in touch with to verify rumours, ask questions, what have you.
Sometimes these sources, under an agreement of anonymity, will reveal juicy information to me so I can report on it.
Last week one of these sources forwarded me the mother lode: the entire scripts to Sony’s E3 Press Conference, Microsoft’s E3 Press Conference and Nintendo’s E3 Digital Event.
It is my journalistic duty to present these to you so you know exactly how each conference is going to go, starting with Sony’s. You’re welcome.
To anyone at Columbia University looking to contact me regarding my Pulitzer Prize: my email address can be found in the sidebar to the right.
This is the first entry in my regular series, the Tired Old Hack Developer Open Invitational, in which I challenge developers to send me their games for a guaranteed review. I don’t promise positive coverage, I only promise a review: so if I don’t like it, it could backfire. If you’re a developer (be it triple-A or a one-man indie) and you’re confident your game is good enough to pass the test, check out how to submit your game. I’m not a snob so all genres and budgets are welcomed.
Given that the Tired Old Hack Developer Open Invitational is blatantly inspired by the WWE and John Cena’s US Title Open Invitational, it’s perhaps fitting that the first developer to brave my inbox came bearing a wrestling game.
Wrassling is the work of indie devs Colin Lane and Folmer Kelly, and is a physics-based wrestling game with its tongue placed firmly in its cheek.
It’s set in the land of Slamdovia, where champion ‘wrasslers’ are considered the greatest athletes in the country.
I’m a big fan of professional wrestling. Look, just shush.
At the moment John Cena is the United States Champion. Rather than keep him going in a feud with another wrestler, the WWE have decided it would be best for him to fight a bunch of different wrestlers: lower-to-mid card ones who may not necessarily get the chance to feature in a title match during a pay-per-view.
It’s called the John Cena US Title Open Invitational, and I reckon it’s a great idea because it gives everyone a fair chance to shine.
Bear with me here, things are going to get a bit rambly and train-of-thoughty. Yes, it’s a phrase.
This morning I went to a Rock Band 4 press event, where I got to try out the game.
I wrote up this preview article detailing my thoughts. Long story short, my opinion was that at this stage it didn’t seem to be revolutionising things by any means, but that was fine because it was still Rock Band and that’s good enough for me.
Contrary to popular belief, it’s completely fine to be negative in a preview. Some believe that publications are scared to badmouth a game at preview stage because they might be denied review code, but as long as the publication is fair about it then publishers are actually usually okay with it. Continue reading “An open letter to journalists who don’t give a shit”→
The infinite food scenario is the most commonly used example: if you were stuck on a desert island and could only eat your favourite food for the rest of your life, you’d still probably be sick of it after about a month. Even if it was Nando’s.
This was the fate that befell the ‘plastic guitar’ sub-genre of rhythm action games spearheaded by Harmonix, who created Guitar Hero and then – in an odd twist of fate – went on to create its rival Rock Band after being purchased by MTV. Continue reading “Rock Band 4 hands-on preview – It’s Rock Band, innit”→
If you’re the sort who even slightly follows gaming news you’ll probably already be aware that FIFA 16 will feature women’s football teams for the first time in the series’ 22-year history.
To say I’m excited about this is an enormous understatement: not just because it offers the ‘new content’ FIFA critics demand on an annual basis, but because of what it stands for.
Let me be honest: I’m not a massive follower of women’s football. I would be lying if I pretended to know a lot about it. I’ve only been to two women’s games and though I keep an eye on the Celtic Women and Scotland Women teams, my involvement doesn’t go much further than knowing Kelly Clark is a bloody good player:
What excites me, then, is what I might end up learning about women’s football by playing FIFA 16. I’m not the sort of person who’ll just randomly watch a football match (men’s or women’s) if my team isn’t playing, but I am the sort of person who’ll play a random match on FIFA regardless of what team I’m controlling.
I am a big fan of the Windows Phone operating system. It’s intuitive, it’s time-saving and its little grid-shaped layout looks cool as hell.
Besides, as a self-confessed Xbox achievement hunter, the added benefit of mobile games that add to my Gamerscore is too much to resist.
There’s just one problem (other than the aforementioned achievement obsession): my Windows Phone of choice, a Nokia Lumia 1020, had major battery issues since launch for reasons I could never pin down.
Any time I booted up Internet Explorer – which, incidentally is the best mobile browser I’ve ever used by far – the phone would rapidly heat up and the battery would start plummeting. Even after closing it down and turning on its battery saver functionality I’d still find myself losing 10-20% battery an hour.
After 18 months of putting up with this, I’ve finally decided to take the plunge and go for my first ever Android phone. I will always love the Windows Phone operating system, but it’s time to move on. With this in mind, I’ve decided to pen this song, to the tune of Candle In The Wind by Elton John: Continue reading “An ode to the Nokia Lumia 1020”→
I launched Tired Old Hack at the end of January and right away my introductory article got a decent response, mainly thanks to my lovely Twitter followers getting on board from the beginning.
Here’s how much fun I’m having writing this site: I can put up a crap stock photo of a monkey using a laptop and I couldn’t give a fuuuuuck
Since then, while the quantity of articles hasn’t been as great as I’d have liked – thanks to freelance work and job-hunting, which have to take priority just now – I’ve been happy with the quality and, hopefully, so have you.
While I loved being a paid video games journalist for the best part of nine years, it’s so refreshing to have no limits on deadline, article length, topic of discussion or what have you. I’m having fun slowly building this site and I hope that shines through.
Until now I’ve just been posting articles as ideas pop up in my head, so you’d be forgiven at this stage for wondering just what exactly it is this site is supposed to be. Is it a news site, a reviews site, a features site?
In truth, it’s whatever I feel it is each day. I’m not fussed about having a structure at this early stage in the site’s life and I’m enjoying that freedom.
That said, I do feel it’s worth letting you know the sort of content you can expect on Tired Old Hack in the coming months, so you’ve at least got an idea of my short-term plans for the site. Continue reading “Plans for the site”→
Last week Tired Old Hack got all sentimental, kicking off with my article ‘I remember‘, in which I shared some of my childhood gaming memories in a manner designed to aim directly at your delicate heartstrings and give them a bloody good tugging.
This then spawned ‘You remember‘, a follow-up article in which I invited readers to share their own memories, which it turns out were similarly lovely and awww-inspiring (see what I did there?).
We aren’t quite done with the nostalgia though. One reader, my lovely chum Caitlin, didn’t just deliver a few paragraphs of memories: she dumped an entire bastard Word document in my inbox.
Normally I’d guiltily cut something like that down to a more manageable size and hope the writer in question didn’t notice (they always do), but as luck would have it I bloody loved Caitlin’s article, so I’ve asked her if it was okay to publish the whole thing in its entirety on the site, all illustrated and that.
Here, then, is the first ever guest article on Tired Old Hack: a lot earlier than I expect to be posting one, but hopefully you’ll agree it’s worth it.
I remember getting a second hand BBC Model B when I was nine. It was already an old platform by the time I got my hands on it, but that just meant it came with tons of games to get into.
I remember never getting anywhere in the text-based Lord Of The Rings game: no matter what direction I went in, the Black Riders would come. On one unprecedented occasion, I found a mithril shirt and got to the stone giants.
Far more interesting was the discovery I made whilst playing Sam. I was carrying nothing, Merry had pumpkin, Pippin had some matches and Frodo, obviously, had the ring. In a fit of pique over the fact Merry wouldn’t give me any more pumpkin, I typed: Continue reading “Guest article: Caitlin remembers”→
On Monday I busted open Sony’s E3 conference by leaking the entire script a week before it was due to be presented.
Tired Old Hack 