Steven Spielberg is a Hollywood legend. When not directing highly successful motion pictures, Steven Spielberg likes to make video games. He's also really paranoid, a new book claims.

Just how paranoid? From the upcoming book The Men Who Would Be King:

• "In Spielberg's office, hanging above his desk, a plexiglass half-moon keeps sound from reverberating so that his phone conversations remain ultra-confidential. When an assistant once asked what the funny thing over Spielberg's desk was, a security guard referred to it as a 'dome of silence.'"

• "When Spielberg isn't at [his office], live-cam images are streamed to his home. There are also measures to protect against earthquakes or attacks, as Spielberg believes in being prepared... At one point, employees were given survival kits including gas masks and other amenities."

• Steven Spielberg has a never-used motorcycle permanently parked outside his office in the event he needs to escape.

Maybe not paranoid, he likes to be prepared! Some of the measures the book claims that Spielberg takes - like coding all documents in his office - make sense for security reasons. Steven Spielberg isn't just some guy, he is an industry. Steps like those are taken at large corporations, and it's not surprising to see them taken elsewhere.

The motorcycle, though? Nutty!

According to Spielberg's spokesperson, "This description is so far from the real world of Steven that it doesn't deserve a comment. If the rest of the book is like this excerpt, readers can expect very little of what they read to be true."

The author of the book claims to have conducted over 200 interviews with current and former Spielberg associates.

Steven Spielberg ready for anything [NY Post via /Film] [Pic]

These two clips are commercials for Dent Oi, a brand of Norwegian mints. Mint fans will love the house-crushing taste on display, but it may be of even more interest to fans of PSP strategy series Patapon.

While the Patapon - the creation of French artist Rolito - are older than the games based on them (Rolito designed them as far back as 2002), Sony's PSP series is how most will have been introduced to them. And probably how the animation studio tasked with putting this commercial together got the idea.

It probably cuts a little too close to the original for us to endorse it - inspiration is fine, straight-up copying less so - but we're posting them here anyway, because seeing them in motion like this has us all keen for a Patapon movie. Or, at least, a Patapon TV series.

Provided no Jonas brothers were involved, that is.

[thanks Stein-Inge!]

After pumping out hundreds of lightning quick microgames for the WarioWare series, its up to you to design the next moneymaker for WarioWare Inc. Your tool? WarioWare: D.I.Y., the Nintendo DS game that let's you create games from scratch.

What could me more perfect? The WarioWare series, famous for its lo-fidelity presentation and hasty game length, is an eclectic collection of single-command challenges that exist only for a few seconds. WarioWare: D.I.Y. gives players a chance to create custom graphics, music and game rules, then play those microgame creations alongside the built-in ones or share their homebrewed ideas with friends. Your oddball nose-picking game or Super Mario Bros. spin-off will fit right in.

WarioWare: D.I.Y. is less of a game than a toolbox, a rare chance to create a video game in a matter a minutes, not months, all done with the intuitive Nintendo touch.

Loved
Game Design Within Reach Of A Stylus: WarioWare: D.I.Y. gives players a surprisingly rich but accessible set of tools with which to create rapid fire games. Players essentially start with a blank game canvas, one that's quick to fill, thanks to the simplified and robust 2D graphics editor. Players can create animations and effects easily, thanks to precision editing options, a variety of brushes and stamps. Similarly straightforward is the AI editor. (That's not "artificial intelligence," mind you, but "action instructions," according to WarioWare: D.I.Y.). Setting up programmatic commands, tying them to other commands and applying them to stages and sprites is intuitive, thanks to the step-by-step interface. Better, WarioWare: D.I.Y. makes it painless to correct one's programming mistakes, removing much of the frustration from understanding how action instructions work in conjunction with one another. Best of all though, are the creations tools for those of us musically inept...

Music Maestro: My microgame designs skills aren't likely to win me any awards, but my skill at composing music—despite the very friendly MakerMatic music interface—are downright embarrassing. Thank Wario, then, for employing the Music Maestro, the auto-composer who can add aural flair to your WarioWare: D.I.Y. game creations. His auto-generated tunes are pretty good in seconds-long bursts, but the compositions can be tweaked and edited after the fact, in the rare case of a sour note. (Players also have the option hum into the Nintendo DS microphone to record tracks, which I attempted multiple times with limited success.)

WarioWare Micro-charm Intact: I love Wario as a character and he serves as a great foil for your instructor, Penny Crygor, to bounce insults and banter off of. Although the beginner tutorial's can be long-winded, the rapport between Penny and Wario makes it worthwhile to pay attention to their crucial lessons. Having access to plenty of WarioWare-themed stamps in the MakerMatic Comic creator is also a Wario plus, if only for the fart cloud stamp.

Programming Disguised As Puzzles: After the rather lengthy and mandatory D.I.Y. tutorials—they'll consume a good two or more hours of your initial hands-on time with WarioWare: D.I.Y.—you may have the burning desire to express yourself creatively with the Game MakerMatic... but don't miss the Assembly Dojo. This section of WarioWare Inc. offers small game design challenges, essentially tasking you with filling in one missing piece of the game design puzzle. These include things like setting conditional timing and behavioral triggers—make a ball roll when a light turns green, fit one object inside another when tapped. Your choices will be judged by the Assembly Dojo master and you'll learn valuable game design techniques that fall outside basic D.I.Y. design. It's what we call "edutainment."

Game Plagiarism Is Fun: For the impatient microgame developer, WarioWare: D.I.Y. let's the player steal just about anything—art, music, and even entire games if you want to. Not only is this incredibly helpful in speeding up the process of getting a customized microgame in your D.I.Y. library, designers will get valuable insight into the workings of the microgames created by the WarioWare team.

Take It To The Wii: Nintendo DS owners who want to see their microgame creations (or those of a friend) on the big screen can do so with the WarioWare: D.I.Y. Showcase app released via WiiWare. It's another 800 Nintendo Points ($8.00 USD), and of limited use without a copy of the DS game within reach, but it makes game sharing (and showing off) much more exciting.

Hated
Limitations & Interface Frustrations: Don't expect WarioWare: D.I.Y. to be able to perform your wildest game design dreams, as some of the software limitations can dampen your creative spirit. The game doesn't take advantage of the DSi's features, so players can't import photos for backgrounds or import game sprites from an SD card. The game's stamps are single-frame, so you'll have to animate that Mario sprite yourself, and the limited triggers may not feature the flexibility you're looking for. But it's the limited interactivity with the Nintendo DS hardware itself that may be most disappointing. Players are essentially limited to touchscreen taps, leaving the rest of the hardware's input options underutilized.

A Long Journey To Fun: Getting to the meat of WarioWare: D.I.Y. takes a more substantial time investment than the series famous for its tiny session gaming has conditioned us to expect. Unlocking the game's full set of built-in WarioWare games may require players to do more than they bargained for, crafting comics, compositions and taking a crash course on game design to get access to the pre-made stuff. That can become frustrating when you really want to borrow some of 9 Volt's game assets for your NES-themed microgame creations.

Think not of WarioWare: D.I.Y. as another collection of microgames with an editor as welcome afterthought, but the inverse. The game creation tools, which are easy to learn, fun to use, and often surprisingly deep when fully explored, are the main draw. The 90 built-in games serve largely as professionally crafted microgame examples for players to dissect, little more than future design templates.

WarioWare: D.I.Y. is improves when combined with the WarioWare: D.I.Y. Showcase—which adds another 72 pre-made microgames to the mix—and the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection, which will provide fresh weekly downloads after the game's release. The long-term appeal, however, is tapping into your own creative abilities and those of the inevitably impressive D.I.Y. design community. What you'll get out of WarioWare: D.I.Y. is what you'll invest in it—and it's a wise investment.

WarioWare: D.I.Y. was developed by Intelligent Systems/Nintendo and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo DS on March 28. Retails for $34.99 USD. A copy of the game was given to us by the publisher for reviewing purposes. Completed all tutorials and Assembly Dojo challenges, then created about 20 microgames, four comics and three nigh-unlistenable musical compositions.

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Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon is an all-time rock classic, but that's provided you're listening to it on a record. And maybe smashed off your face. Things are a little different when it sounds like a NES game.

This project does just that. It's called Moon8, and is the work of Canadian Brad Smith, all-round geek hero, who's not only a video game programmer (most recently on Obsidian's ill-fated Aliens RPG), but a synth musician and Wikipedia editor as well.

He's remixed the entire album in this style, and it's available for download from the project site below.

[Moon8]

David Hayter, the English language voice of protagonist Snake from stealth series Metal Gear Solid, is a busy guy. Besides getting ready to direct an edgy, Twilightesque Werewolf movie, Hayter is moving forward on a TV series.

Hayter hopes to turn the 2009 film Push into a television series in the vein of Heroes. He and his producing partner Benedict Carver have inked a deal to turn the feature film into a series with Hayter writing the pilot.

The MGS voice actor also penned the screenplay for X-Men, worked on the Watchmen script and co-wrote The Scorpion King. His feature film debut, Wolves, will begin filming this summer.

News: Hayter Eyes TV Series, Directing Debut [Latino Review]

As the world's #1 specialist games retailer, GameStop has a lot of retail clout in this business. So it's always good reading when the company discloses just which publishers do the best business across its chain of stores.

According to an SEC report, Nintendo is the retailer's best-selling company, with 23% of all "new product" sales being Nintendo hardware, software or accessories. Next is Sony, with 17%, while Microsoft and EA both were on 12%. Rounding out the top 5 was Activision, with 11% of the GameStop pie.

That means five companies controlled 75% of the sales of "new product" (so, excluding preowned) at GameStop stores. Meaning publishers like Capcom, THQ, Ubisoft, Lucasarts and Take-Two were simply fighting over the scraps.

Remember these figures are just for GameStop, not all retailers, so try and keep that in mind before wondering why EA outsold Activision, or why Atlus didn't make the list.

Nintendo 23% of GameStop's non-used business [GameStop]

Apparently! Japanese ladies have been polled about the top ten worst things to find in their boyfriend's residence.

Over at Japan's Goo Ranking website, females have listed what items in their boyfriend's abode would cause them to feel the most let down or dejected. Let's have a look at the results:

1. Dirty Toilet
2. His ex-girlfriend's things
3. Rotting garbage
4. Dirty bathroom (In Japan, toilets and bathrooms are typically separate.)
5. Moldy bathroom
6. Products for women
7. Dirty kitchen
8. Garbage hasn't been taken out
9. Anime posters
10. Cockroach

Boyfriends with cockroach-infested rooms, take heart!

行ってがっかりした彼氏の部屋ランキング - 恋愛＆結婚ランキング - goo ランキング [Goo via Sankaku Complex]

In spring 2009, the Western media caused a brouhaha over computer game Rapelay. The game was released in 2006, and CNN is only now covering the controversy. Why?

To bring everyone up to speed, Rapelay allows the player to have his way with the game's three female characters. The title is out of print and after the game started to get flak, Illusion, the company that created Rapelay, pulled the title from its website.

"We are simply bewildered by the move," said Illusion spokesman Makoto Nakaoka. "We make the games for the domestic market and abide by laws here. We cannot possibly comment on (the campaign) because we don't sell them overseas." New York-based Equality Now kicked off a campaign in May 2009 "against rape simulator games and the normalization of sexual violence in Japan".

To be clear, the game company legally released the game in Japan in 2006. And in 2009, the West discovered it and got upset.

Japanese politicians in the New Komeito Party, pinning erotic games as a cause for Japanese sex crime, stating, "There is a very good chance that the influence of violent sex games far exceeds that of regular pornography." Japan has one of the lowest rates of reported rape:

UN Rape Rates per 100,000

Canada: 78.08
Australia: 77.79
USA: 32.05
Sweden: 24.47
UK: 16.23
France: 14.36
S. Korea: 12.98
Germany: 9.12
Russia: 4.78
Taiwan: 4.08
Japan: 1.78

While these game makers broke no Japanese laws, the country's Ethics Organization of Computer Software held an emergency meeting in June 2009 in which nearly 100 representatives from various erotic game companies concluded that the manufacturer and sale of rape-type games should cease. This was not a government decision or even a legal one, but instead a self-policing policy on the part of the EOCS.

Thus, erotic game makers decided not to make any more rape games. What's more, game makers began giving their titles "cleaner" titles for adult games that were already scheduled to come out in the wake of the controversy. For example, "Slave Maiden's Rape Hell" became "Young Girl's Prison". Japanese adult video game makers retreated, some erotic game company websites even blocked foreign access. Retailers began renaming the "rape" genre category, and Kyoto cops arrested one Japanese man for illegally sharing the game on the internet. (One Japanese erotic game company dealt with the entire situation tongue planted firmly in cheek with this title screen.)

Yet, CNN still felt the topic deserved merit. The angle? Japan needs to deal with erotic game makers in a far stricter way because these video games can be leaked onto the internet and then foreign people can download them. Um, yeah. Think of all the things on the internet right now — all the horrible, disagreeable things, and people are upset about an out of print computer game. (The other game that CNN features is "Chain Trap", a computer rape game from 2004.) People are getting all in a huff about used video games! Concentrating on games that are years old is a bet like getting upset right now about Cannibal Ferox and then condemning all horror games based on that title.

In the U.S., pornography featuring staged rape is legal, because both actors are consenting adults. Granted, there are obscenity laws that exist in the U.S., but these niche videos exist in America. They also exist in Japanese pornography; however, unlike their Western counterparts, the genitalia of the Japanese performers are censored. Contrary to what the CNN piece leads viewers to believe, there are obscenity laws in Japan. Going by CNN's angle that these games should been policed even more because they are being leaked online, one could argue for the censorship of genitalia of Western adult video actors due to the difference in censorship laws!

The real peg for the CNN story is the virtual child porn bill that was proposed by the Tokyo Municipal Government, which would amend the Metropolitan Tokyo youth welfare law on child pornography and limit the manner in which "nonexistent youths" are represented as well as clauses that call for the filtering of images of minors online and via mobile phone. The "visual depictions" are understood to encompass underage characters in manga, anime, computer games and video games - i.e., virtual characters. Some of Japan's most beloved anime and manga creators stood up to this bill, stating that it impedes on freedom of expression. The bill has since been delayed.

Instead of discussing this bill in any sort of depth, the Western media's favorite Japan-is-so-messed-up punching bag, Rapelay, has been dragged out for another round of "those in glass houses to toss stones".

'RapeLay' video game goes viral amid outrage [CNN.com]

The manner in which Nintendo chose to tell the world of its new handheld, the 3DS, was a strange one: a crudely-worded press release in the middle of the night. No pictures. No logo. Ever wonder why that was?

It wasn't some exercise in marketing. It wasn't to torture you. It wasn't to intentionally undermine the impending Western release of the Nintendo DSi XL. It was, instead, a move by the publisher to head some Japanese journalists off at the pass, who it appears had found out about the new console and were going to blab all about it.

"Apparently, the Japanese press was all over it and talked with suppliers there and Nintendo just wanted to get out ahead by breaking the news to prevent a leak," says analyst Billy Pidgeon. "Does it clash with the DSi XL? Yes it does."

What strange days we live in. Sony and Microsoft stuff leaks all the time, but Nintendo is usually tight as a drum. For word to slip out ahead of an official reveal means either Nintendo is getting sloppy or, as is more likely (and more hopeful for future scoops), the Japanese press is finally realising that getting hold of this information isn't as hard as they once thought.

Did Nintendo Doom New Handheld Before Its Release? [CNBC]

Will Wright, creator of The Sims and SimCity, hasn't worked on a video game since 2008's Spore. What's he been keeping busy with in the meantime? How about making a TV show.

Yes, the super-successful game designer has teamed up with Albie Hecht, former boss of Spike and Nickelodeon, to develop a series called The Creation Project. There's no real gaming angle. It's "just" a TV show.

It's one that promises to be a little different, however, as it's built around the premise of viewer interaction. According to IGN, members of the public will be asked to send in ideas for plotlines, and the best of those will go to a vote. The storylines winning the votes get made into episodes.

Wright's input comes in the form of the "StoryMaker Engine", which will allow people to come up with functional storyboards real quick.

None of this has been officially announced, mind you; this all comes from "planning documents" obtained by video game website IGN. So whether the show ever sees the light of day or not, we won't know until later in the year.

What's Will Wright's Next Creation? [IGN]