AU News Wrap, August 02 - What Happened Today

What a day. I'm horribly ill, high on cough syrup and plagued with technical problems. Be thankful I don't run away and join the circus.

Luckily my being sick has coincided with a relative lull in news, but seriously - "relative" is a key word. There's still plenty of headlines to look through.

Johnny's taking over now, and shortly Pat will be along with the Bulletcast. He's been slaving away on a ripping feature the past few weeks and it's 100 percent guaranteed magic.

• The Xbox Story, Part 1: The Birth of a Console
  Part one of a massive four parter with which our beloved editor proves he's still got his chops despite a developing interest in onions. Oh yeah, and it's a pretty amazing read. The Xbox changed everything.

We kicked off this morning with some overnight presents from Johnny, who doesn't understand this "going to bed" concept, and Debabrata:

• Square Enix buys rights to True Crime: Hong Kong
  That pinging sound is my eyebrows hitting the ceiling. Squeenix has the game itself, but not the rights to the name.
• Shelved PS3 exclusive Eight Days looked "jaw dropping", says developer
  Sounds like Sony figured it didn't need another TPS after Uncharted. They backed a good horse there.
• Off-screen F1 2011 gameplay videos emerge
  Good old Shaky cam.
• Steel Storm: Burning Retribution added to Humble Indie Bundle 3
  This year's humble bundle just keep growing. If you picked it up already, you've scored some free games.
• New Sly Cooper Thieves in Time trailer introduces El Jefe
  That's the bad guy.

At this point I thought I'd better do some work instead of idly reading everyone else's articles and coughing up disgusting lumps of lung matter.

• $1 million up for grabs in DotA 2 gamescom tourney
  I'm in the wrong business.
• Street Fighter x Tekken draws inspiration from Tekken Tag Tournament
  Yoshinori Ono is pretty great, isn't he? Our freelance extraordinaire Lauren once tackle-hugged him, I believe.
• Two more GBA titles named for 3DS Ambassador Program
  Titles revealed so far haven't reached the value of the extra $100 I'd have to fork out to be part of this.
• PSOne Imports coming to European PSN
  SCE Europe used PSOne Imports. It's super effective! Brenna is broke!
• OnLive is "built for scale", chances of downtime "mitigated"
  Hear that? It's hubris! But good luck to them.
• Gears of War 3 Five Against All trailer shows off Horde 2.0
  We have a clean HD copy of this, but getting it onto YouTube minus tremendous audio distortion is apparently impossible today.
• Battlefield 3 pre-order bonuses - Amazon, Best Buy, Gamestop
  Where will you buy Battlefield 3? You notice I don't wonder whether you will.
• Bodycount developer diary says check out our guns
  When I flex, all the ladies swoon. It's the sight of my biceps not getting any larger at all, it goes right to their heads.
• Batman: Arkham City pre-order bonus fashion parade
  Batman is the best. If you've never read The Dark Knight Returns, now's the time. It's always the time.
• House of the Dead: Overkill: Extended Cut gets two PS3-exclusive levels
  Johnny again. There's new content in this edition - have a look at it.
• Tuesday Shorts - Just Dance 3, fringe financials, Twittah
  I hate typing "Just Dance Whatever" because I am physically incapable of doing a capital on the "d".

To bed!