ONTD

Gamer geeks rarely get their fair share of the scoop here on ONTD, so I come bearing gifts -- gifts of ROCK and PAIN.


'Guitar Hero,' 'Rock Band' soon playing Beatles?
SOURCE

Beatles music may soon be strumming a new tune via air guitar video games, according to a report in the Financial Times.

Apple Corps and EMI, which respectively represent The Beatles' business interests and ownership of its master recordings, have reportedly been in discussions with video game publishers Activision and MTV Games.

Under a possible deal that could be worth several million dollars, users could put their air guitar to use while listening to The Beatles and playing Activision's Guitar Hero or MTV's Rock Band games, according to the report.

The move to push The Beatles' music onto a new stage via video games could occur within the coming weeks, the Financial Times reported. Such a move would mark a change in embracing technology for The Beatles' music, given that digital-use licenses for Beatles recordings are not yet available.

The Beatles representatives, as well as the game publishers, declined to confirm whether a deal is on the horizon.


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Have you ever had a hankering to play a computer game that allows you to inflict real pain
on your opponent?

Ever wondered how it would feel to shock, burn and lash your opponent into submission? Well, wonder no more. Two German designers have addressed this yawning gap in the gaming industry with a fiendish invention called, appropriately enough, the Painstation. The concept is simple. Two players eyeball each other over a table console. The left-hand is positioned on a sensor field -- otherwise know as a PEU, or Pain Execution Unit. When both players have made this electric contact, the game, and the real fun, commences. The game itself is based on the first-generation PC game known as Pong, or bar tennis, and is followed by both players through a graphics display in the center of the table. The player's right hand controls the bat, and the object of the game is to keep the ball in play as long as possible.

In the original PC game, missing the ball resulted in nothing worse than a moment's frustrationand perhaps a well-chosen expletive. In this revamped version, missing the ball is not only annoying, it is also very painful.

Randomly arranged along both sides of the playing field are Pain Inflictor Symbols, each representing a different sort of pain. Depending where the ball hits, the player will feel sensations such as heat, punches and electroshocks of varying duration delivered through the PEU.

The game ends only when one of the players decides that the pain is too much to bear and
lifts a hand off the PEU. All of which sounds straightforward, but in truth games often continue long past the point where common sense has given way to stubborn machismo.























AND YOU THOUGHT CALL OF DUTY WAS HARDCORE.