Total Gaming Network

Ziff Davis has officially sold the entire 1UP network to the Hearst Corporation. UGO.com, a unit of the Hearst Corporation, will assume control over 1UP in the near future.

After a comprehensive process, this morning we completed a deal with Hearst Interactive, the owner and operator of UGO Entertainment. 1UP.com, MyCheats.com, Gamevideos.com, and Gametab.com will now all be part of the UGO Entertainment business. Many of our employees will travel with this business and become part of the UGO team.

With this transaction happening, we have also made the decision to discontinue publication of EGM. The January 2009 issue will be the final issue of the publication. With demand for print continuing to decline amongst both advertisers and readers and the content being produced by 1UP no longer available for use in the publication, it simply did not make sense for us to move forward with this business any longer.

We will continue to operate the Filefront business as a part of the PCMag Digital Network. In the coming months we will determine the best ways to leverage the scale and functionality of this digital property to expand our business position.

As noted in the letter sent to Ziff Davis employees, EGM's last issue is the January 2009 issue. The publication certainly had a great 19 year run.

However, it is now known that many employees have been outright fired during this transition. Upwards of 30 employees of Ziff Davis have been fired, leaving just a very few remaining to make the actual transition to UGO.

Kotaku makes note of some of the more notable ex-employees of Ziff Davis.

According to twitter posts, GAF posts and phone calls to MTV, around 30 staffers were let go today, including Skip Pfister, Ryan O'Donnell, Philip Kollar, Jay Fresh, Cesar Quintero, Nick Suttner, Anthony Gallegos, Matt Chandronait, Shane Bettenhausen and former EIC James Mielke.

Also cut were most of the Gamevideos.com team, as well as production of the 1UP Show.

So much for that statement of "many" employees moving to be part of the UGO team.

The latest episode of the Total Gaming Network Podcast has been released today. Here's what this newest episode covers:

You asked for it - you got it. It's the BEST OF RICHARD !!! Please be sure read our warning below:

PC-MA (Mature Audience Only) -- This podcast is specifically designed to be enjoyed by adults and therefore may be unsuitable for children under 17. This podcast contains one or more of the following: Graphic Violence (V), Explicit Sexual Activity (S), or Crude Indecent Language (L). Listener discretion is advised.

AoC intro courtesy of the Jeff Green and the Games for Windows Podcast.

Enjoy !

TGN Podcast #29: Best of Richard

(Mature Audience Only)

Be sure to listen to this podcast and stay tuned to the feed! Feel free to post your feedback in this thread. You can also post any suggestions or ideas for the podcast in this forum.

Computer and Video Games has a new and rather interesting article up today. The staff at CVG were rather interested in what the writings on the floors and walls were in the game Dead Space. Well turns out it was all a code. Check it out:

Dead Space is an interstellar scare-a-thon of the absolute highest order. And we guarantee that anyone who plays the game will wish they knew what all the alien scribblings plastered inside the Necromorph-infested Ishimura mining vessel mean. Which is why we went and cracked the code.

The vast majority of it ties-in with the game's religion, Unitology - the fanatical followers of which support the idea of the recently deceased waking up, growing a few extra limbs and snacking on necks. As Isaac Clarke you'll uncover reams of Unitology writings, all of which can be decoded. Get your thinking caps on...

After the credits have finished the endgame screen will appear saying 'Dead Space', 'Chapter Twelve' and 'Completed', all written In Unitology. Scribble them down, or take a picture if you can, and you'll have your first steps towards solving the game's secrets. Armed with these symbols it's possible to revisit previous chapters and start cracking the code.

The biggest secret appears once in every chapter. It's a strain to read but by boosting the in-game brightness and turning the camera the message is unmistakable: 'Do you believe? deadspace.ea.com/ibelieve. Your light shows the way. We have left you a gift.' Read More...

Read the rest of the article here. If you missed our review of Dead Space you can check it out here.

21CW is hosting a 21CW vs. all battle on New Year's Day -- Check it out:

Think you are one of the best in Battlefield 2? Do you think you can compete with some of the top organized BF2 players around? Come and prove it on January 1st, 2009. Even if you aren't the best come and see how organized play really shapes the game; its not all about skill, it's about having fun and 21CW will be opening it's doors and it's battle server to players from around the world to come in and test their skills. This won't be your little brothers pub play either. There will be intense battles of organized skill, working as a team not individuals. No more need to run rambo, join a squad and participate in tactical attacks and structured defense on different flags. No need to stress out over unorganized players ruining your game, come join us for a day of organized fun. Focus on your skills helping the team, no need to do it alone, you have a squad to back you up. Tired of Squad Leader's that just run around, here they are part of a tactical unit, helping to get you spawned in to the fight. Here at 21CW, it isn't about how you play, but about how you act with your team, and how you help your squad to complete its goal!

Join us Jan 1st @ 12 noon Eastern!

21CW Ranked Public Server
69.12.98.91 port:16567
21CW Teamspeak Server
72.232.167.123:2042

The recent poor performance for Take-Two Interactive's stock isn't the result of poor sales of Grand Theft Auto IV for the PC. It also isn't the fault of the poor economic conditions plaguing the world. No sir, the poor performance of Take-Two's stock is the direct result of God!

Jack Thompson says that God is the only reason why Take-Two Interactive's stock prices have gone down. GamePolitics and Jack Thompson went back and forth through e-mails to discuss the finer points of God's wrath.

Here, enjoy a few brief excerpts from the book of Crazy, versus 2-14.

From: Jack Thompson
Sent: Thursday, December 18, 2008 9:10 AM
To: Dennis McCauley
Subject: Re: Spin this, Strauss...

...If you had any understanding of the Bible and of God you would understand that persecution comes Christians' way, and we are blessed by it. There is no blessing for Zelnick, who is not a Christian, when he gets what he deserves...

He continues in another email...

(...)I have been persecuted for my faith, not because I did anything wrong, by those committed to evil. Glad to clear it up for you. And as it now stands, Mr. Zelnick's problems at Take-Two are minuscule [sic] compared to the eternity of punishment that is coming his way unless he repents and accepts Christ as I did 32 years ago this month. You might do well to read the Gospel of John yourself. Come to think of it, I'll write Strauss about all this and send you a copy...

It's hardly surprising to see that on top of being completely ignorant of violence in videogames, Jack Thompson is also intolerant of other person's beliefs and religious backgrounds.

Read more of this over at GamePolitics.

Yahoo! Games has named five video game franchises that should be put to rest for one reason or another. Check out Yahoo's list below:

Remember when Sonic was awesome? Neither do we. We're not sure what's more puzzling -- the fact that they keep making terrible Sonic games, or the fact that Sega keeps using the tired blue blur as its official mascot. Other than the recent role-playing game Sonic Chronicles, there hasn't been a truly fun Sonic game in about a decade. That's about nine years too long. Speed kills.

Okay, we'll admit that Dance Dance Revolution (DDR) did a lot for getting kids into shape, and we tip our cap to Konami for getting it into schools. But for a game that's merely a decade old, why are there six hundred versions?. Ultramix, Universe, Unleashed, Supernova, Extreme...can anyone follow this? We cannot, which means it's time to rein it in for a few years and let everyone catch up. Maybe by then we'll have learned some new moves, too. Is the Electric Slide still cool?

Another throwback mascot who can't take a hint (the lifespan of the Eastern Bandicoot is only three years, you know), Crash Bandicoot is having a harder time retiring than Evander Holyfield. While his games aren't quite as lousy as Sonic's, they're just as meaningless, doing little to advance the platforming genre and mostly stinking up the sales chart. And as the revenue dwindles, so does our interest in appreciating the good times we had with the onetime Sony mascot. Wow, yeah, he IS old.

Old-school adventure gamers might light up when they see the name Leisure Suit Larry, but my, how the times have changed. His embarrassing last game, Magna *** Laude, was widely considered the worst game of 2004. Which, of course, means only one thing: make another one! The next offender, Box Office Smash, is due out in 2009, although Activision/Blizzard mercifully swapped his leisure suit for a straightjacket and put the game on indefinite hold.

You know your racing game series is in trouble when you start promoting the live-action talent and awful illegal street-racing plotline more than the actual racing, but you know your racing game series is on life-support when even the live-action talent can't save the game from poor reviews and low sales. Such is the fate of the overdeveloped Need For Speed franchise, but unlike the other games on this list, rumor has it that this junker is headed back to the shop. Let's hope it stays there.

As we count it that's 1 for Sega, 1 for Konami, 2 for Activison-Blizzard (both of which are former Sierra Entertainment titles), and one from EA Games. Read the story here.