The new anti-piracy measure put in place by Croteam for their recent first-person shooter, Serious Sam 3: BFE is simple, effective and innovative. Those playing pirated copies of the game will sooner or later encounter a relentless, invincible arachnoid enemy who follows and beats the bejesus out of you until you eventually die and can no longer progress through the game. This, of course, is brilliant and hilarious to witness and it makes me think of other opportunities all over the place that developers are missing. For example:

Skyrim – A dragon voiced by Ray Romano who follows you around giving you a play-by-play of your actions. “Ooh look, your carryyying waaay to much treeaaasuuuurrree.”

Modern Warfare 3 – Replaces your competent team of military personnel with the cast of ABC’s The View.

Battlefield 3 – Game reverts back to the beta build.

These are just a few anti-piracy ideas off the top of my head but this concept could be used for just about every game I can think of. Can you think of any good ones? Tell us about it on our Facebook wall.

 

11/11/11, it will only happen once in our lifetime. So, what better way to immortalize that date than by playing video games with friends? WeTheGamerz and KontrolFreek (along with some other really awesome people and companies) will be hosting an Xbox Live Community Playdate online from 8-11 PM EST this Friday, November 11.

The game we will be playing is Modern Warfare 3 (duh?!?) and is open to anybody who wants to join. All you’ll need to do to participate is send an invite to the following Gamertags and start playing:

• TG Fireflex
• Sogo01
• MollyPopGirl
• Rondeau04
• Kelky 111
• Uo1drama
• MRPINK310
• KF Trevor

There will be prizes awarded for completely random happenings. All prizes are Call of Duty themed and include our FPS Freek Prestige and FPS Freek ELITE controller attachments. You have to play with us to be eligible to win.

WeTheGamerz is a fantastic community to play with and we are really excited about killing everyone involved. Seriously, you’re all going to die. See you there!

Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words. In this case, a video is worth about a million more. If you were lucky enough to be in Los Angeles for E3, you may have caught a peek of the awesomeness that is “Horde 2.0.” If you weren’t at the show, it’s likely that you’ve at least read all about it, seen a bootleg video or possibly kidnapped Clifford Bleszinski yourself and made him play for you while you brushed his hair.

Now Epic Games has finally released an official “tutorial” video that lets you see officially that the Horde mode you know and love has been upgraded and is officially more awesome than ever… officially. Narrated by the tough and sexy Anya Stroud, this tutorial lets you see for yourself some of the evolved features like Fortifications, boss creatures and the new money feature. Check it out!

Next time you turn on your Xbox 360 and log in to Xbox Live, you will be prompted to download the Fall dashboard update.  The update is mandatory if you want to continue playing on Xbox Live—which you obviously do, since Black Ops will be here in less than a week.  The Fall update finally gives us a better voice chat and a number of other improvements that should make the overall Live experience a much better one.  Here’s the list of features straight from Xbox Live’s Major Nelson:

ESPN on Xbox LIVE*

3,500 Sporting Events A Year – Access more than 3,500 live and on-demand global sporting events from ESPN3.com a year, including college basketball, college football and college bowl games, MLB, NBA, international soccer and more.

Out of Market Games – Catch your favorite college team games. Check out the huge catalog of out of market games and enjoy them on the big screen.

The Best Ways to Watch – Enjoy HD programming, DVR controls, plus access to hundreds of clips from ESPN3.com, refreshed daily.

Games at a Glance – Keep up on real-time score information using ESPN.com’s score feed without leaving the game you’re watching. View scores for leagues and games currently in the ESPN.com feed and select “Watch Live” or “Watch Replay” to jump straight into that game.

Predict the Winner – Pick what team you think will win. While watching selected games in college football, college basketball, MLB, and NBA, you will be prompted to vote for your team of choice. You’ll also see the percentage of votes among the Xbox LIVE viewing community.

Voice Chat – Voice chat with up to seven other friends while watching the big game.

My Sports – To customize your ESPN on Xbox LIVE experience, click on the “Events, Highlights and More” slot on the homepage and browse by sport to pick a specific league that you want to follow for the season. The league that you select will now automatically display in your My Sports Channel.

Zune Music*

Zune Pass – Zune Pass is a monthly subscription service that gives you unlimited, on demand streaming of millions of songs at launch from all the major music labels and thousands of independent labels.

Enhanced search – Search the broad library to find your favorite artists, albums, songs and playlists.

Social – Connect with like-minded fans on the Zune online community and get new music recommendations. Zune Social also lets you see friend’s Avatars and listen to their recently played songs or check out their favorite artists.

Smart DJ – Instantly create customized playlists by selecting an artist and have Smart DJ find songs that complement your selection.

Netflix* Search – Experience a streamlined search function making it much easier to find the movies and TV shows you want to watch.

 Improved voice chat quality – The audio codec is updated to improve Xbox LIVE Party audio quality. So grab your friends and jump into a multiplayer game or catch a big game with friends via ESPN3.

Improved Gamertag creation – Choosing a new Gamertag? If the Gamertag you’re looking for is already taken, your Avatar will spin a wheel and we will provide five other Gamertag suggestions at a time for you to choose from.

Streamlined in-dashboard virtual keyboard – We’ve taken the existing QWERTY keyboard in-dash and made it easier to use for scenarios that involve repeated text entry, when signing up for LIVE within the dashboard for example.

Improved Xbox LIVE Marketplace UI and browse experience – The Game Marketplace has been re-organized to provide streamlined access to the gaming and video content you want, reducing the number of steps to get to a download.

Easier to get on a wireless network – Trying to connect to a wireless network? Now you can see a list of all the wireless networks within range when you go into network settings.  From there, you can select a new network or further configure the network you’re connected to.

Ability to sign-out other controllers in the sign-in UI – We’re adding the ability to sign-out profiles on other controllers in the sign-in UI within the Guide. This is especially useful when playing games like Rock Band.

New browse experience for 100% completed games – You spent a lot of time and effort earning those Achievements, so we’re giving you a new and better way to browse all of them.

Updated Family Settings – Xbox 360 continues to lead the industry in efforts to create tools that help parents and caregivers choose the right play and viewing settings for their families. We are enhancing the core Family Settings tools for all Xbox LIVE members:

Family Programming – When turned on, Family Programming disables display of all mature content on the dashboard and can be turned on or off with a protected password for individual members (per account). It also highlights all family-friendly entertainment.

Intelligent Default Settings – Your Xbox automatically customizes privacy and activity settings for each member, based on age (child, teen and adult). These settings can later be individually customized.

Title Exceptions – Allow your family members to play specific games above the console’s designated ESRB/PEGI (etc.) rating as you deem appropriate.

* Xbox LIVE Gold account required to access these features. Not all features available in all Xbox LIVE Regions.

Sometimes you don’t know about stuff until someone that does know stuff about stuff tells you about it.  I guess it's the nature of getting older and more intelligentier.

Yesterday, I found quite possibly the best 2D Super Mario Brothers game that has ever existed—and it’s free to download!  Super Mario Bros. X v.1.2 is a homebrew Mario game that takes all the best things about the 2D Mario games and packages them together for an experience that’s so good it has to have Nintendo pissed-off.

This newest version of Super Mario Bros. X features an exceptional co-op mode that seamlessly splits the screen.  So when the person you’re playing with decides to go all rogue-like and leave your ass behind, it won’t matter a bit.

The new version also features a level editor that works in real-time, so if you don’t like the obstacles ahead, you can just change them to better suit your mood.  All of your favorite power-ups, characters and music are here, too, so everything feels like it actually came from 1990 Nintendo.  This is not a cheap rip-off.  The people who created this game obviously love Mario and gave him the royal treatment here.

If you want to play it for yourself and see what I’m talking about, just click here!

And it’s about freeking time.  The game that defined my early-teen years is finally playable on my favorite white console thanks to Xbox Live.  The Xbox version includes an all-new episode with 9-levels called “No Rest for the Living,” enhanced graphics and 4-player co-op.  Here’s hoping it’s as awesome as I remember it!

Game description from Microsoft:

“To save Earth, you must descend into the stygian depths of hell. Battle nastier, deadlier demons and monsters with your trusty Super Shotgun. Survive more mind-blowing explosions and take part in the bloodiest, fiercest, most awesome blastfest ever. Recruit your friends and plow through 9 all-new levels in the new episode, No Rest for the Living! Play solo or multiplayer over Xbox LIVE with up to 4 players. DOOM II for XBLA includes split screen co-op over Xbox LIVE, Game clips, 5.1 Surround Sound, enhanced graphics, and HD display support.”