Still hope for Australian gamers

Last week, we at Shufflingdead were beginning to lose hope when it came to the plight of Australians. The nation that’s also a continent was facing the government censorship of everybody’s two favourite types of media, games and porn.

This week though, there is reason to be hopeful, at least when it comes to games. EB Games may be considered a pretty terrible retailer by many consumers, but the company is taking the fight to Australian politicians with a grassroots petition effort for video game classification reform. The move is certainly positive, if not a little self-serving. If it works, reform would surely boost EB’s sales by giving them more to sell, and the story itself generates positive buzz for the company, but I shouldn’t knock it too hard. After all, in the fight for freedom, every bit counts.

Additionally, No More Heroes 2 has received a classification rating in the country, which means it is definitely going to be coming out. The game is described as containing “strong violence,” as compared with its predecessor, which was censored in Australia, and described as containing “moderate violence.” Details are scarce, but this may mean that Australians will get to play Desperate Struggle uncensored.

Sources: IGN, aussie-nintendo

INSANE RUMOR: Sonic to be playable in Super Mario Galaxy 2

Since its announcement at E3 2009, the world hasn’t heard much about Super Mario Galaxy 2, but the general impression has been that the game will be a thoroughly awesome, but safe, direct sequel to the original Super Mario Galaxy.

Well, it turns out that the game might not be “safe” at all. British Nintendo-centric magazine NGamer just harnessed the power of Twitter to claim:

We’ve just had some shocking news from an inside source at Nintendo: Sonic will be a playable character in Mario Galaxy 2! Wha?

The publication later added that the news came from a “trusted source,” and said additionally that “Sonic levels will be in ‘Green Hill Galaxy.’”

All of this sounds too absurd to be true, but once upon a time, no one thought Sonic would ever be in Smash Bros., or that the two mascots would team up at the Olympics, or that Sonic would even be on a Nintendo system. We’ll just have to wait and see, and Shufflingdead will keep you up-to-date as this frightening story develops.

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Avatar is the highest grossing movie of all time

Although many outlets declared Avatar the highest grossing movie ever back when it hit #1 in the list of all-time highest worldwide unadjusted grosses, I’ve been holding out for the film to reach first in the US unadjusted gross list, because that’s the list people really get worked up and talk about.

Well, the film has done it. Sometime on the second of February 2010, Avatar surpassed what seemed to be the untouchable Titanic, and reached the epic status of highest grossing movie with over $600 million taken in.

If you find this news disheartening, and refuse to believe giant blue cats hold such a powerful position in American popular consciousness, don’t worry. The truth is, Avatar has cheated to reach this position; it not only has the immense benefit of ticket price inflation, but actually the additional cost of 3D movie tickets as well. The film also has built-in theatre draw because of the 3D, which lessens the tendency of people to pirate it or wait for home release. In other words, not as many people are ultimately seeing it as its $600 million draw might suggest.

If you have a look at the top films in the US according to their number of tickets sold, Avatar only ranks 21st. That’s well below blockbuster classics like Star Wars, which sold over twice as many tickets as Avatar has so far. Cameron’s adventures in glow-land even ranks below the classic, but very un-blockbuster, The Graduate.

Sources: Box Office Mojo, The-Numbers