A recent PAX interview by RockBandAide with Harmonix's John Drake reveals a ton of minutiae for hardcore fans, and confirms that Rock Band 3 will allow you to export the RB2 tracks for a fee -- as you could with RB1. Drake states that the the export feature will work for all three consoles, though there are always "a couple songs that get complicated" when it comes to re-licensing. Official pricing and details regarding the export should be available shortly.

Drake also states that while regular DLC will keep the regular price ($2 per song), content made for Rock Band 3's Pro Mode will "probably" be more expensive. Harmonix has "a lot more work to do" on those tracks, and doesn't wish to increase the cost of the regular DLC to subsidize the Pro DLC that's aimed at a smaller group of players.

Rock Band 3 details: RB2 export confirmed for all consoles, 'pro' mode DLC may be more expensive originally appeared on Joystiq on Mon, 06 Sep 2010 13:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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I don't care much for video games -- well, not when I'm playing them inside another video game. I can appreciate the recursive wink and what it says about the hours we devote to entertainment as life continues around us, but in the wrong context it can dissolve a game's sense of urgency. It's classic Shenmue syndrome. If you have the time and impulse to pet a cat, get a haircut and play a computer game, then maybe your quest isn't all that important.

Continue reading BioShock 2: Minerva's Den review: Turing Rapture

BioShock 2: Minerva's Den review: Turing Rapture originally appeared on Joystiq on Mon, 06 Sep 2010 12:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Did you think Take-Two's Mafia 2 would slip off the top spot in the UK charts after one week? Well, fuhgeddaboudit -- Chart-Track notes that despite a 23 percent drop in sales, the crime sandbox maintained its Godfather status. Last week, the publisher announced that it expects the game to continue being a good earner.

Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days maintained its silver status with Nintendo's Wii Sports Resort rallying into bronze (thanks to a Wiimote bundle). Sales stalwarts Toy Story 3 and Red Dead Redemption remain in fourth and fifth, respectively.

It appears that the time for one of Ubisoft's Dance titles is over. Older brother Just Dance is still jammin' at seventh, but Dance on Broadway has a bum leg and laryngitis, slipping even further this week down to 22.

Check out last week's top 10 selling titles in the UK after the break.

Continue reading Mafia 2 controls top of UK Charts for second week

Mafia 2 controls top of UK Charts for second week originally appeared on Joystiq on Mon, 06 Sep 2010 09:05:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Just two days after revealing its stewardship of the Duke Nukem Forever title at PAX, Gearbox Software just revealed that it has actually purchased the Duke Nukem brand. Gearbox president Randy Pitchford told an audience at PAX this afternoon that they're not just making sure Duke Nukem Forever makes it to store shelves, but they've actually purchased the entire Duke Nukem IP. "We actually bought the brand," Pitchford told fans. "We bought Duke Nukem."

A press release timed to go out with the announcement has some more information. Here's the big picture quote: "Gearbox Software announced today that it has acquired the full intellectual property rights of the 'Duke Nukem' brand including Duke Nukem Forever and all future projects in a cooperative deal made with 3D Realms." Even more interesting: "The first product to be available under the Duke Nukem brand will be the long awaited Duke Nukem Forever." Naturally, if they're buying the brand you can imagine DNF won't be the last game to feature the Duke.

Pitchford made a point to say that Alan Blum, the creator of the Duke Nukem franchise, is now with Gearbox. "He's on the 10th floor with his team," he said. He also wanted to explain that this franchise couldn't simply have been purchased by anyone. "I didn't buy it from [3D Realms]," Pitchford said. "They sold it to me." In the press release, 3D Realms' Scott Miller said, "Gearbox was handpicked as the new home for Duke Nukem because of their continued passion, commitment and long-time heritage with the brand and 3D Realms."

Continue reading 'We bought Duke Nukem.' Franchise rights transferred from 3D Realms to Gearbox

'We bought Duke Nukem.' Franchise rights transferred from 3D Realms to Gearbox originally appeared on Joystiq on Sun, 05 Sep 2010 19:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Since Congress passed its health care legislation expanding health insurance to tens of millions of Americans earlier this year, leading conservatives have debated about the best way to oppose it. Some have advocated for simply repealing the entire bill wholesale, while others have argued for a “repeal and replace” strategy that would replace the legislation with a yet-to-be-determined conservative plan for health care.

Scott Tipton, the Republican candidate for Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District, is advocating for a third option: rather than repealing the legislation or replacing it with something else, he wants to “choke off funding” for the legislation, effectively stifling its effectiveness without doing anything to improve the U.S. health care system:

The Republican candidate for the 3rd Congressional District called for reductions in the size of the federal government and said he would vote to ?choke off funding? for health-care legislation passed by the current Congress. Scott Tipton spoke to about 110 people, most of them supporters, Thursday night in a town-hall meeting in the Grand Junction City Council chambers. [...]

Health-care legislation will cost $2.2 trillion over the next 10 years, Tipton said, and the only way to bring those costs under control is to cut them in the House, which controls the nation?s purse strings.

Tipton’s desire to “defund” health reform has previously been floated by Rep. Michael Burgess (R-TX) and Newt Gingrich.

Purely on the facts, Tipton is wrong to imply that cutting off funding for the recently passed health care bill would rein in the deficit. The bill already serves to cut the deficit, and repealing certain provisions or denying them the funds to be utilized would only end up costing the country more in the long run.

Putting deficit concerns aside, a far greater cost to denying funding for the legislation would be borne by the 3rd District Coloradans that Tipton is running to represent. As of estimates made in 2009, a quarter of the people in the district lacked any sort of health care coverage whatsoever. Hospitals in the district who have to care for these uninsured residents without compensation have calculated that they’ve paid “$94 million in annual uncompensated care costs in recent years.” When a surgery center in the district offered free care to residents one day late last year, people were so desperate to be able to be one of the few the center was able to take care of that some of them slept in its parking lot (less than half were actually offered care).

Thanks to Congress’s recently passed bill, an additional 106,000 district residents will be able to get insured and hospitals will be able to reduce the funds they spend on uninsured residents by $84 million annually. That is, if the legislation is fully funded. If Tipton gets his way, more than a hundred thousand people in his district will be unable to get health insurance, and hospitals will continue to expend countless tens of millions of dollars on caring for the uninsured.

In their quest to extend the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest two percent of Americans, many leading Republicans have invented a fantasy world in which tax cuts always pay for themselves through increased economic growth. Extending the Bush tax cuts for the rich would cost $830 billion in lost revenue over the next ten years, but nonetheless, Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) claimed, “You should never have to offset cost” of tax cuts, while Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH) said, “tax cuts should not have to be offset.? Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) went a step further, falsely claiming that the Bush tax cuts have actually “increased revenue.”

But on CNBC today, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), the ranking GOP member on the House Budget Committee, splashed some cold water on that delusion, saying dismissively, “I?m not one of these people who says that say that all tax cuts pay for themselves”:

ZANDI: Congressman, the president has proposed allowing the tax rates for upper income individuals to rise back to where they were in the 1990s, the CBO says that?s going to cost $700 billion over the next ten years. Do you those estimates are correct?

RYAN: I actually, I don?t think they’re correct. … But the CBO just gave us a report, Mark, the other day, that said that if we allow these top tax rates to expire, it?s going to cost us 1.25 million jobs next year, it?s going to shave off a full percentage point off of GDP, and it?s going to slow down the economy.

QUICK: But Paul, you just quoted the CBO on those numbers, but disagreed with them on the others. Where did CBO get it wrong on the other numbers?

RYAN: Well, on the revenues, because I believe you?ll get faster economic growth. Look, I?m not one of these people who says that all tax cuts pay for themselves, but tax cuts on the margins is where the growth occurs. And that does make a difference.

Watch it:

Ryan has received tremendous praise from his GOP colleagues for his supposed policy knowledge and economic smarts. Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin called Ryan “sharp,” while former House Speaker Newt Gingrich labeled him “extraordinarily formidable,” and House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) touted that Republicans, “led by Congressman Paul Ryan, have already identified $1.3 trillion in specific spending cuts.” Indeed, Paul is absolutely correct that tax cuts don’t always pay for themselves.

However, his smarts didn’t stop him from contradicting himself seconds before that moment of lucidity in the CNBC interview. As host Becky Quick pointed out, Ryan quoted the Congressional Budget Office approvingly when their numbers supported his argument, but questioned their estimates moments earlier when they did not fit his narrative.

A favorite Republican talking point lately is that the businesses are not creating jobs because they are “hamstrung by uncertainty.” According to this argument, the specter of taxes and regulation is paralyzing companies, and if only Congress would preserve the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy and promise to not produce any new regulations, a flood of business investment would ensue. Last night on CNBC, Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) told supply-side guru and Reagan disciple Larry Kudlow that the way to get businesses to “unleash” the nearly $2 trillion in cash and assets they’re currently sitting on is to extend the Bush tax cuts for the rich and then cut marginal income tax rates even further. “C’mon, we know what works,” Pence said:

C’mon, we know what works. Larry, you know what works better than most Americans, and that is across-the-board marginal tax relief…We’ve got to demand, whether it’s this fall, whether it’s after the election, or whether it’s in a newly minted Congress next year, we’ve got to demand that we preserve tax relief, no American sees a tax increase on January 1, and then promote across-the-board tax relief on marginal rates that’ll really unleash all that more than $2 trillion in trapped capital in this economy.

Watch it:

It seems like some variation of “c’mon!” has become the Republican leadership’s go-to argument these days, but Pence shouldn’t be so smug when it comes to the efficacy of marginal income tax cuts to spur business investment. As The Wonk Room explains, business investment following the Clinton-era tax increase far outstripped that following either the Bush or Reagan supply-side tax cuts. “The failure of investment to respond to supply-side tax cuts greatly undermines the central premise of the theory underlying the policy,” wrote economists Michael Ettlinger and John Irons.

Former Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE), the chairman of the Atlantic Council, recently sat down for an interview with the Washington Diplomat. In the interview, the former senator touched on a variety of topics, including what he feels is the need for the United States to “unwind” from the war in Afghanistan. Towards the end of the interview, Hagel says that while he has “no plans to renounce his membership in the party,” he finds that the Republican Party of which he is a part is not “presenting any new alternatives, any new options, or any new thinking“:

?I don?t see them presenting any alternatives, any new options or any new thinking,? Hagel said. ?If the Republicans get back in power, what are they going to do? There is no articulation. It?s just a ?no no no, I?m against Obama because he?s a socialist and he?s taking America in the wrong direction.? That?s certainly an opinion, but what about you, Mr. Republican? What would you do??

In fact, leading Republicans like Sarah Palin, Bobby Jindal, and Peter King have proudly embraced the ?no, no, no? agenda. Hagel told the interviewer that he remains confident that his party will once again rebuild itself. “The Republican Party will find a new center of gravity,? he said. ?I think they?ll let this nonsense play out. It?s like a bad storm ? it just has to go through.?

In a statement reminiscent of Nevada GOP Senate candidate Sharron Angle’s call to abolish the federal Department of Education, Colorado GOP Senate candidate Ken Buck falsely claimed at a Q&A session with College Republicans that American schools have declined since the 1950s because of increased federal involvement in education:

In the 1950s, we had the best schools in the world, and the United States government decided to, um, get more involved in federal education. Where are we now after all those years of federal involvement?  Are we better, or are we worse?  So what?s the federal government?s answer?  Well since we?ve made education worse, we?re gonna even get more involved.  And what?s gonna be the result?

Watch it:

First of all, Buck’s claim that American schools are worse now than they were in the 1950s is laughably wrong. In 1957, less than half of white Americans and fewer than one in five African-Americans graduated from high school. By 2002, however, almost nine in ten white children and eight in ten black children earned their diploma.  Likewise, college graduation rates more than tripled during the same time period for both racial groups.  Our country has a long way to go before we build the education system Americans deserve, but Buck is simply wrong to claim that American schools haven’t made massive strides since the 1950s.

More importantly, although Buck was probably referring to the federal Department of Education, which was created in 1980, when he attacked federal involvement in education. His blanket attack on federal education policy ignores the single most significant example of federal intervention in public schools:

In the 1950s, much of America was an apartheid state. For millions of children, the black educational experience was a tale of crumbling buildings housing overcrowded classes taught by underqualified teachers who were paid a substandard salary.  Federal involvement broke this “airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society,” and Buck is wrong to ignore this history.

(HT: David Sirota)

Other than a teaser image and a fall release window, we've heard little to nothing on the next Bit.Trip title from Gaijin Games, Fate. That all changed this past week with the reveal of the game's premise and its first gameplay trailer on the developer's website.

Fate will have players guiding CommanderVideo on a guided path (in 2D), aiming and firing his various weapons by pointing the Wiimote at the screen. The game also features "appearances from Super Meat Boy and Mr. Robotube," as well as a kickin' dubstep soundtrack that, frankly, we've been jamming too since we first found out about. Bit.Trip Fate may not be out until sometime this fall, but you can pick up its jams right now.

Continue reading Bit.Trip Fate is an on-rails shmup, Super Meat Boy to make guest appearance

Bit.Trip Fate is an on-rails shmup, Super Meat Boy to make guest appearance originally appeared on Joystiq on Sun, 05 Sep 2010 13:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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