If you happen to be in the area and you’re over 21 years old; come on down to LA and hang-out with the 8-bit Playground crew. Joystiq.com is hosting their reader community extravaganza; with a great line-up of playable games and developers it would be a real shame if you missed out. It all starts at 5:30pm and ends at 9:00pm, here are all details.
La Cita Bar, Downtown Los Angeles
336 South Hill Street
Los Angeles, CA. 90013
The New York Times reports that Spanish police have arrested three suspects, who they believe are the leaders of the “hacktivist” group by the name of Anonymous, who is the main suspect connected to the Playstation Network outage. They are all being questioned and could be seeing jail time if they are found guilty.
Spanish Police commented that one of the suspects, a 31-year-old, was arrested in Gijon. The suspect had a computer server in an apartment in the northern port city, from which the group attacked the Web sites of the Sony PlayStation online gaming store. The other two suspects were arrested in Valencia and Barcelona.
It was reported that the same computer was responsible for the attack on Spanish banks, the energy company Enel, and many government sites in Spain, Egypt, Algeria, Libya, Iran, Chile, Colombia, and New Zealand.
Recent attacks on Spanish websites opened the investigation into the group which then led to the arrests. It was stated that the computer used in the Playstation attack was also used to hack into many other Websites and organizations throughout the world.
It’s finally PS3 users turns to get their hands on the highly anticipated ‘Escalation‘ map pack.
The pack includes four multiplayer maps: Hotel, Convoy, Zoo, and Stockpile. Let’s not forget that Call of the Dead mission with all those celebs and the master of zombie movies himself, George A. Romero. If you’ve got $14.99 pop on in to the PSN store and get that download code!
Unfortunately, last Friday Codemasters.com suffered an attack by a outside source. The hacker was able to gain access to the Dirt 3 code redemption page, the E store, and the CodeM database. Codemasters has sent an email out to inform users of the breach. Here is a copy of the letter:
Dear valued Codemasters customer,
On Friday 3rd June, unauthorised entry was gained to our Codemasters.com website. As soon as the intrusion was detected, we immediately took codemasters.com and associated web services offline in order to prevent any further intrusion.
During the days since the attack we have conducted a thorough investigation in order to ascertain the extent and scope of the breach and have regrettably discovered that the intruder was able to gain access to the following:
Codemasters.com website
Access to the Codemasters corporate website and sub-domains.
DiRT 3 VIP code redemption page
Access to the DiRT 3 VIP code redemption page.
The Codemasters EStore
We believe the following have been compromised: Customer names and addresses, email addresses, telephone numbers, encrypted passwords and order history. Please note that no personal payment information was stored with Codemasters as we use external payment providers, meaning your payment details were not at risk from this intrusion.
Codemasters CodeM database
Members’ names, usernames, screen names, email addresses, date of birth, encrypted passwords, newsletter preferences, any biographies entered by users, details of last site activity, IP addresses and Xbox Live Gamertags are all believed to have been compromised.
Whilst we do not have confirmation that any of this data was actually downloaded onto an external device, we have to assume that, as access was gained, all of these details were compromised and/or stolen.
The Codemasters.com website will remain offline for the foreseeable future with all Codemasters.com traffic re-directed to the Codemasters Facebook page instead. A new website will launch later in the year.
Advice
For your security, in the first instance we advise you to change any passwords you have associated with other Codemasters accounts. If you use the same login information for other sites, you should change that information too. Furthermore, be extra cautious of potential scams, via email, phone, or post that ask you for personal or sensitive information. Please note that Codemasters will never ask you for any payment data such as credit card numbers or bank account details, nor will Codemasters ask you for passwords or other personal identifying data. Be aware too of fraudulent emails that may outwardly appear to be from Codemasters with links inviting you to visit websites. The safest way to visit your favourite websites is always by typing in the address manually into the address bar of your browser.
Unfortunately, Codemasters is the latest victim in on-going targeted attacks against numerous game companies. We assure you that we are doing everything within our legal means to track down the perpetrators and take action to the full extent of the law.
We apologise for this incident and regret any inconvenience caused.
We are contacting all customers who may have been affected directly.
Should you have any concerns or wish to speak to a member of our Customer Services team, please email them atcustservice@codemasters.com.
This is an unfortunate event in the industry. Especially after the s@&!-storm from the PSN attacks has started to die down.
With Nintendo recently announcing their next home console, the Wii U. Their library of games available has exponentially increased. One of those games being showcased is Team Ninja’s Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor’s Edge. Yosuke Hayashi, head of Team Ninja said the game will differ in a big way from its counterparts on the PS3 and Xbox 360 by implementing different control schemes.
One will allow the player to control Ryu Hayabusa in a traditional button and analog stick configuration. While the other more exclusive scheme will allow players to play by: swiping, and tapping the screen in order to move and throw shurikens at the on-screen enemies. It’s a control layout that worked very well on the Nintendo DS title, Ninja Gaiden Dragon Sword. Hopefully this new controller mechanism will give players enough control for simple game-play.
No release date was given for the Wii U version by publisher Tecmo Koei, nor by Hayashi himself. Expect Xbox 360 and PS3 versions early next year.
While enjoying my brand spanking new copy of inFamous 2, I noticed a funny shaped sticker on the back of Cole’s new weapon. I zoomed in closer and guess what i saw. A Sly Cooper emblem! Cole’s new weapon, the amp was cool enough as is but with Sly in the mix it just got that much better. Even though Sucker Punch has passed development of the series onto Sanzaru Games, they’ll never forget the series that helped launch them into critical acclaim. 
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