New Website coming next week!

Sanctuary4gamers.com

Well, we have finally sorted all the little stupid things and we are proud to bring you a new website that should be a lot more interactive than this crap blog.  One of the main problems with this blog was it was only down to me to help people out, but there are a lot of good people with good knowledge that can help out other people with thier problems.

The new site is called sanctaury4gamers.com and it will house a platform for news, reviews, a forum and a general piss-taking attitude.

Unfortunately this wordpress blog is so crap it cannot bounce you accross to the new url once we go live, so I will have to resort in just leaving a message.  Also, due to this being a wordpress site (which is free) it means I cannot move any of the database from here to the new website, meaning you will have to re-register, I know this is a pain in the ass but once you sign up you will have a lot more options than you do here.

At the moment the site is blocked off to the public, but it should be ready within a week for you to sign up.  I just wanted to give a heads up to people that we are looking at launching soon.

Hopefully I will see you on the new site and have a real conversation not like we do on this site. Will let you know again when we go live.

Chris

Sanctuary4gamers.com

New Website arriving soon!

Hi Guys, I know I dont blog on this thing nearly enough – but quite frankly it’s a lot of work just to find out about region codes on my lonesome and to be honest it is kinda boring. Plus the update of wordpress has left it almost unusable on my mac. So I have decided to step it up a little.

Arriving soon will be a brand new website – with all the up-to-date region codes and a place to discuss them within a forum.  We are also looking at providing daily gaming news, reviews and a hopefully a strong community to boot.   There will also be a lighthearted podcast (which will not be featuring region free stuff unless it is really good info).  Expect the site to be up within a month and the new link will hopefully bounce you from here to the new site!

Wish us luck!

Wii Freeloader. DATEL: Firmware no problem!

At last the Freeloader for the Wii will be hitting shelves soon The disk allows you to bypass the region code settings on your Wii console and then when inserting a foreign game.  Hopefully, this will be better that the old gamecube freeloder disk which died after the update and could no longer be used.

Though Datel proudly boasted to a user over at Kotaku:

..we can confirm that on every occasion that the product is used when the disc is inserted in the console that it allows the usage of any imported Wii game discs and disables the console from been able to update its firmware, if the disc is removed after been inserted and reinserted this will again enable the console to update its firmware but still allow the usage of the any imported Wii game discs.

Let’s wait until the next Wii update and see what happens!

GTA IV REGION FREE? Don’t get your hopes up!

Buyers beware this April as word has come down that GTA’s maker Rockstar have region locked their newest title Bully: Scholarship Edition and has been tested by Videogamesplus. This coincides with other Rockstar games of the past including Rockstar Table Tennis and other GTA titles on the first xbox.

With pre-order fever kicking in for the game I am thinking it wise to hold off until the day of the release, otherwise we would end up with another Halo 3 disaster and get the game with Chinese instead of English.

If you are a PS3 person, then I would say that you should consider buying GTA IV from any country as it will be region free, though please be aware that this may not have your language and you may not be able to get some of the download content that has only been only slated as a Xbox 360 only release.

If you are from the UK,

Do you need this site? WE NEED YOU!

Please give me a minute of your time.

The question is, do you need ths site? Do you use it regularly? Would it affect you if it shut down?

Do you wish to see the site expanded to become something more? Do you want forums? Regular gaming news? A podcast covering some gaming and region info? These are all the things that I am considering here at the regionhell, but only if demand requires it.

Please let me know how you would like to see the site improve, if you could leave just a small comment here I can understand what people want.

Although I know a lot of people use this site as a reference for looking up games but not many people post here. I know some of the fault is my own due to my hectic work-life and moderating the forums over at the crankygamers.

CFB

New Year, New Games

Hi guys, sorry for not being around too much over the last month – I went home for the break and had no net access.  If you posted items when I was away, I have now approved them and can now be seen.
Well, it is now the time when all the new games start releasing, so it means that I will be busy again working out these region codes.

Hopefully, we have a good year this year!

Crazyfruitbat

Lost Odyssey – We are watching you

Maybe the biggest release for Japan this year is Lost Odyssey, made by Mistwalker studios’ Hironobu Sakaguchi (king of the J-RPG) and it is hitting shelves this week in Japan. Of course there are going to be a lot of people wondering about it’s region free availability and regionhell is going to be watching to see if this title will be region free for our friends over the pond. Though I should state now that this is not the first game Mistwalker has done on the 360, Blue Dragon was also one of their projects and that was region locked – so maybe we can expect more of the same.

Play Asia is stating that both Japanese and Asia versions are out of the 6th December and with a big of luck, some people will be able to get the asia version with some English!

The ones I missed from November

 Due to my busy schedule and my stupid decision to study even more Japanese I have been pretty busy and I missed a few of the releases during November.
After the break, I will discuss LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga, Scene It? Lights, Camera, Action., Turning Point: Fall of Liberty, BlackSite: Area 51, Need for Speed ProStreet, Beowulf, America’s Army: True Soldiers, PopCap Arcade Volume 1

Regionhell moving into next gear

Considering that this site was only started a couple of months ago, I made it because I was bored of searching the interweb to look for region code stuff as there are no specific locations where all this info is housed (apart from online retailers, who have a habit of bending the truth), and I am really surprised that anyone has given the time and effort to post on here – to be honest I didn’t expect people to read it, not alone add a comment.

So from this weekend onwards I am going to spend a lot more time on this site and hope that it will grow and become something better, I know I have missed a few titles this month and will write up about them later for (google) reference.
I understand writing comments on these boards is a little annoying because I have to moderate all new users to filter the spam (I have had over 100 spam objects in 1 month), but once you have been accepted you are free to post as much as you want.
Also, I am going to move this blog to normal web space territory in the new year just so I can design the layout a little better (the list page is terribly cramped and blogging systems don’t like lists), so I hope you will still follow through the transition.

Lastly,
Please give comments of what you would like to see here, I know some people are in different countries, so maybe they require different things. Please let me know.
You can contact me by gamercard: CRAZYFRUITBAT
Or by e-mail: regionhell (at) gmail.com

Cheers,

CFB

Region problems with US Rock Band

For those hoping for some region free goodness from Rock Band on the 360 it would probably be better off if you go to another venue, i.e. the Playstation 3.

A poster over in the rock band forums has confirmed (kinda) that his US copy of rock band is region locked, you can see what his dodgy software has confirmed *Here.
Asian versions have yet to be confirmed with regional compatibility, English availability or even a set price for the bundle. We have to remind ourselves that this game is being published by EA, which has had a terrible reputation in the past for locking region codes across the boards.

You also have to bear in mind the availability of any set that comes out before Christmas will be sold out for quite a while, so if you are desperate to play Rock Band and you are one of rich people who can afford both a PS3 and a Rock Band bundle, you should go for the region free PS3 version.