MTV Multiplayer › R.T.F.A.

By now you should know the R.T.F.A. drill, so here are the links:

Stephen's Pick -- Nintendo Says Only "Geeks And Otaku" Worried About Wii Storage: Edge magazine reports and analyzes the "mixed messages" of WiiWare.

Jason's Pick -- Game Secrets: Mario and Sonic At The Olympic Games: Hackers find out what characters didn't qualify for the Olympics.

Tracey's Pick -- WoW Getting Achievements With Wrath Of The Lich King: If this rumor is true, my life is over.

Patrick's Pick -- "Wii Fit" Even Out of Stock At Nintendo's Store: Unbelievable!

* R.T.F.A. stands for “Read The Full Article.”

Wondering if you missed any awesome news yesterday? Well, we are here to help with our picks for the best links from around the blogosphere. Who do you think has the best link?

Tuesday's Links:

Jason's Pick -- The Best N64 Games That Still Matter Today: The list starts with everything you would expect, but then peppers in a few surprises towards the end.

Stephen's Pick -- What Kojima Does Well: Newsweek on how "Metal Gear Solid 4" contributes to the argument about the financial cost of modern war.

Tracey's Pick -- 'Warcraft' Sequel Lets Gamers Play A Character Playing 'Warcraft': The new expansion will be called "World of World of Warcraft." (Watch the video from the Onion News Network.)

Patrick's Pick: -- Konami Code + Google = ?: I have to try this.

* R.T.F.A. stands for “Read The Full Article.”

It's another big week for gaming. This week yet another highly anticipated, and much delayed, sequel will be hitting stores shelves, and gamers will finally get a chance to get their hands on "Metal Gear Solid 4."

There are a handful of "Metal Gear" faithful around the MTV.com office that have really been looking forward to this release (even more so than that other sequel that came out just a few weeks ago) and can't wait to get their hands on Kojima's latest masterpiece. It's now only a matter of days.

Are there any "Metal Gear" fans out there that rank this as the most important sequel of the year so far, above "GTA IV," "Mario Kart Wii," and even "Smash Bros. Brawl" which co-stars Snake?

Monday's Links:

Jason's Pick:

Geoff Keighly and Peter Moore Go Head to Head In "Facebreaker": While the first gameplay from EA's new arcade-styled boxing game should be the highlight of this segment, it really is Peter Moore asking "Does Reggie deliver?" Here's my best guess on how Reggie would would respond; "Do I really deliver? You'll just have to wait and see."

Stephen's Pick:

Rumors Of LucasArts Future: A week after news of massive layoffs at LucasArts, ShackNews reports that the developer/publisher may be shutting down all internal game development.

Tracey's Pick:

WoW-playing Legislative Candidate Talks About Her Level 70 Orc Hunter: Jeanne Stevens, a Republican candidate for the Connecticut legislature, isn't a fan of video game legislation. Read on to see what she says about JT. [via Joystiq]

Patrick's Pick:

Apple's WWDC Liveblog: I'll be checking this all morning for word on a possible new iPhone. And then spending all day coming up with reasons not to buy it.

* R.T.F.A. stands for “Read The Full Article.”

I thought I was on the verge of finishing "The World Ends With You" last night; however, I was not. There was a quasi-surprising twist which I won't speak of for fear of spoiling it for anyone. In any event, instead of the game heading back to the shelf, it will stay securely in my DS, and hopefully I can make some more headway this weekend. Not to sound overly cliché, but what will you be playing this weekend?

Friday's Final Picks:

Jason's Pick:

Tomonobu Itagaki: A Blood Splattered History: Some people may not like the guy, but he sure has made some great games while at Tecmo. I will miss "D.O.A." the most.

Patrick's Pick:

Users Satisfied With Funcom's "Age of Conan" Boob Fix: "I will seriously lol hard if Funcom loses a ton of subscribers over this," said one user. I think I might just lol, too.

Tracey's Pick:

Yahtzee, Oblivion, and Choosing Our Own Adventures: Triggered by Yahtzee's take on "Oblivion," Nate Ralph over at GameLife wonders whether there's room for games with more depth to their environments.

* R.T.F.A. stands for “Read The Full Article.”

I've had two addictions develop since the Xbox 360 was released. The first was Achievements, but I'm over them, and the second is "Call of Duty 4" multiplayer. Yesterday Major Nelson announced that "CoD4" returned to the top spot in most played games on Xbox Live, knocking "Grand Theft Auto IV" all the way down to third with a little help from "Halo 3." Anyone that still hasn't played this (Patrick I'm looking at you) really needs to take it for a spin, and there's no better time than this weekend - the "CoD" team announced it will be a double XP weekend. There's no time like the present to "go deep, and go hard."

Thursday's Links:

Jason's Pick:

Must Have Handheld Games!: Gamepro puts together a list of some of the must have handheld games.

Patrick's Pick:

Adam Sessler On The "MGS4" Review Controversy: Even though Adam doesn't say anything that hasn't already been said, if you're still confused about the situation, Adam lays it out.

Tracey's Pick:

Zero Punctuation - Oblivion: Even the universally-loved RPG isn't safe from Yahtzee's criticism.

* R.T.F.A. stands for “Read The Full Article.”

Patrick's write-up of "Roogoo" yesterday convinced me, and it looks like I'm going to have to download it when I get the chance. It also seemed like Mr. Klepek is up for taking on all challengers in the game's multiplayer, claiming to "almost beat the creator after only 30 minutes of playing." Well, I've never played the game, and I'm pretty sure I could almost beat one of the journalists that wrote about it. Game on!

Wednesday's Links:

Jason's Pick

'TWEWY' IRL: Two fans of Squeenix's newest DS title head to Shibuya in Japan and snap some shots of landmarks from the game.

Patrick's Pick:

Bruce Willis Signed For "Kane And Lynch" Movie: You know, this might actually work.

Tracey's Pick:

Age of Conan's Breasts Inadvertently Reduced: A patch to the game apparently caused the female characters to have a breast reduction. Funcom is working on the "error" and said, "Your breasts should be back to normal soon." ("Normal" being inflated and disproportionate, of course.)

Half of Multiplayer's staff pulled a double duty last night helping out with the MTV Movie Awards on MTV.com. While there may not be much Movie Awards/video game crossover, "Rock Band" was in full effect, both on the red carpet, as well as in the presenter's gift bags. Other than that -- aside from the scene in (the now-MTV-Movie-Award-winning) Juno where someone is playing a DS and the handful of licensed games based on nominated movies -- they have nothing to do with each other.

Monday's Multiplayer Movie Awards Hangover Picks:

Jason's Pick:

A Brief History of Video Game Ads: Next Gen takes a look back at some of the highlights of video game advertising over the years.

Tracey's Pick:

EGM Refuse To Review MGS4 Because Konami Imposed "Limitations": Last week, Totilo reported that reviewers had certain things they couldn't mention in their reviews about "MGS4." Thus, EGM skipped reviewing the game.

Patrick's Pick:

N-Gage's Next Great Hope?: Might as well call it N'Gage's last stand.

* R.T.F.A. stands for “Read The Full Article.”

What happened to "echochrome," that little game the Sony released over a month ago? I know we touch on this subject weekly in 'What We're NOT Playing' but I haven't actually played it since the day I downloaded it. It's easily the best 3-D puzzle game in a very long time, surpassing its' contemporaries like "PQ," and "Cube," but I'm still not playing it. I'm also finding this is happening more and more with the PS3 games I download. They're great games ("Everyday Shooter," "PixelJunk Monsters"), I just never think to turn my PS3 on. I know I'm missing out big time here, but I just always seem to gravitate towards my Xbox 360. Maybe I'll remember to go monochrome this weekend.

Friday's Multiplayer Link Selections:

Jason's Pick:

Game Informer's List Of The Top Ten Video-Game Books Of All Time: One of the best things to do when you aren't playing video games is read.... about video games. This list will get you going in the right direction with classics like (selections from my personal library) The Ultimate History of Video Games, and Game Over.

Tracey's Pick:

The memories of our future: Steampunk in gaming: Ars Technica's Michael Thompson takes a look at Steampunk in pop culture and video games, and wonders why the subgenre isn't as commercially successful.

Stephen's Pick:

Hidden Levels From 'New Super Mario Bros.': Hacker's find the most interesting things. From GameSetWatch [via Press The Buttons].

Patrick's Pick:

In-Game XBM Coming to PS3?: Whether this report is true or not, it's coming, but is it too little, too late?

* R.T.F.A. stands for “Read The Full Article.”

Ubisoft made a whole bunch of announcements yesterday at their Ubidays event, however, I don't think any were as well received as the confirmation that there will be a sequel to "Beyond Good and Evil." Though it wasn't well received by the mainstream, the original has become one of the most acclaimed and under appreciated titles of the last generation, and yesterday's news was music to the ears of the game's fans. While little else was announced about the game (like when to expect it, or what to expect it on) just the fact that it is in development made quite a lot of people happy. Thank you Ubisoft.

Thursday's Multiplayer Links:

Jason's Pick:

Destructoid Review: Playing Columbine: While we don't nessecarily include reviews in the R.T.F.A., this one is a little different. Playing Columbine is a documentary focusing on the controversy that surrounds "Super Columbine Massacre RPG!," as well as video game related violence in general.

Stephen's Pick:

The Real World: Kotaku's Leigh Alexander asks: What kind fo real world connections should game creators, game reporters and gamers want or expect from what they play?

Patrick's Pick:

Ubisoft Reveals "Babies Party" for Wii: There are no words, really.

* R.T.F.A. stands for “Read The Full Article.”