For the Metal Gear fanatic. Hot off the heels of the Metal Gear Solid 4 release date and announcement of the bundle. Konami has released 5 new Metal Gear Online screenshots to make the wait even harder. Check the source to see these new screens.
20th March was the expected date for Sega Superstar tennis, but you can scribble that out of your diary now as it will actually arrive a week earlier than expected. Basically Virtua Tennis - and that isn't a bad thing - with Sega characters, you will be able to finally pit the likes of Vector the crocodile against MeeMee from Monkey Ball in what should truly be a contest of epic magnitude.
For those of you who don't know, this dude invented Pong... founded Atari and setup the Chuck E Cheese food chain... He knows what he's doing. So when he let slip at GDC that he was working on an MMO, well you tend to get interested. Not much info is known at the moment, and all Nolan had to say was:"As compelling as World of Warcraft is, it too shall find that there are other ways to play a game"ooh exciting stuff, stay tuned for more info!
She might have a pair of tits like two aspirin on an ironing board, but that hasn't stopped Gwen Stefani and her No Doubt band scoring three downloadable tracks for Guitar Hero III. The tracks are from their Tragic Kingdom album and will include songs such as their best known hit 'Don't Speak', and the aptly tragic 'Excuse Me Mr.' and 'Sunday Morning'.
After finding out that the European and American versions of MGS4 would NOT feature a Japanese soundtrack due to lack of space on the disc further news emerges that the Japanese version of the game won't feature English subtitles. So for those who wanted the authentic Japanese voice overs... well you ain't getting it because your Western edition won't have the soundtrack and the Japanese one won't have English subs... doh!
ooooh tricky... they look like they have potential... but rough textures don't you think? I'm sure we're all hopeful for this game to be the next-gen survival horror we've been waiting for...
Event organizers announced today that Games Convention 2008 will be hosted in August. Conducted by Jack Wall, the Video Games Live Symphony Orchestra plays classic game tunes, like Pac-Man, Tetris and Myst, while scenes from the relevant games are shown on a giant screen. There's also a coordinated laser show, and a bit of audience participation during an "interactive game competition"."Video Games Live is the best way of making both videogames and their wonderful music even better known, anyone coming to our show will quickly see what a fantastic artform video games have become in recent years." VGL producer Tommy Tallarico.
Battlestations Midway arrived last year with hype and expectations, but for various reasons didn't turn out as well as everyone was expecting. The game had a great idea of combining an action game and a strategy game, but the idea was held back by the level of micromanagement that was necessary to play the game.
Since its official announcement at GDC earlier this week the internet has been rife with speculation with what Gears of War 2 will do next, out doing Gears 1 will not be an easy task."We're doing Gears of War 2 right now; we're in the middle of production," he revealed. "I'm reprising my role as Marcus again. I'm doing one of the characters, Franklin - those are the two that I'm reprising."Clearly the Guy is excited about the prospects of next game, as are we. Gears 2 is set for a November 2008 Launch, that's as long as Mark Rein hasn't already killed John.
"It's badass. In fact, I saw some of the stuff yesterday! Which level was it? It was, well listen, there's bigger beasts in this game. Bigger beasts. Remember the scene with the Brumak, when the Brumak comes out and we're like 'Brumak! Roll! Get outta there!' and it's coming after them - and they don't have a fight with him? Well, they fight him now"
The long awaited fourth and final instalment of the acclaimed series Metal Gear Solid has been Officially announced to launch simultaneously on June 12th 2008 in both the US and in Europe."The game will be released on a Blu-Ray disc containing both Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots and Kojima Productions' Metal Gear Online - a dedicated online title that uses locations and gameplay elements from Guns of the Patriots," Konami confirms."
SCi, parent company of Tomb Raider publisher Eidos has said that is plans to cut jobs as part of a radical restructuring plan."Following our business review over the last six weeks, we are initiating a clear action plan based on three fundamental strands of activity: a radical change in our structure to a studio-led business, a top to bottom programme of product improvement and efficiency and a considerable cost reduction plan." "To get SCi on track we have to act rapidly and effect change quickly. We must allow the world-class people that we have within the Group to focus on strong, profitable titles which will create the value our shareholders deserve. I am confident our staff share this vision and excitement for the future, and determination to build a working environment where our innovation and creativity can be commercially realised."The company plans to switch from a centrally controlled development and publishing model to a studio-lead business focusing on its core products – Tomb Raider, Hitman, Championship Manager and Deus Ex.
"Our quality has slipped below acceptable standards and, through disappointing game development and working within an ineffective operating structure, we are failing to realise the commercial return our creative ability and our shareholders demand, our infrastructure is too big and expensive for the scale of the business."Source: GamesIndustry.biz
After saying PC gaming wasn't really going anywhere and being all for the consoles, Cliffy received some flak from the big man at Epic but Cliffy's now changed his tone to that of something similar to Mark's comments. When asked if "PC gaming is back" by MTV Multiplayer, Bleszinski said:"Abso-frigging-lutely."Personally, I'm not really bothered what these media built or perhaps in Cliffy's case, self built gaming icons/role models care about formats. Cliffy's done Gears on 360, it went to PC, he's doing Gears 2, that'll go to PC. But 2 guys taking digs at each other about which format is better? Keep it to yourselves...
"I think everybody coming together in that kind of way will essentially kind of help re-glue things back together and kind of help fix the market... I have a big PC gaming heritage and I love playing games with a keyboard and a mouse, as well as a console, and I'd just love to see [PC gaming achieve a comeback]."
Infinity Ward's Robert Bowling has updated his blog; IAMfourzerotwo with some interesting info:"With the release of our Feature patch and DLC coming closer and closer every day, and plenty of new playlist ideas being thrown around for Call of Duty 4 multiplayer I know we can keep the fight going for a long long time. I love these weekly number checks because it provides a great opportunity to give you guys a weekly update on how things are going here at the studio with those updates, so with that said…Sweet, I hope we can start shooting people properly with sniper rifles and not have game lobbies close when the host leaves.
I got word that the Xbox 360 Feature patch could be ‘very very close’, I can’t tell you exactly when because they haven’t passed on that information but apparently certification went fantastic and I was given the Green light to take care of some things that I have to do before it goes live to you guys, which means good things. I’m not going to get any hopes up, but I hope to be seeing some new Kill Cams by the weekend if we’re lucky."
Activision have recently established themselves as being very big players in the games industry and rightfully so. They've made a lot of smart moves and published a lot of great games. Hardly surprising to find out they were considering making an offer for Take-Two but decided against it. Activision boss Bobby Kotick stated:"I think we've had - as we've said for a very long time, now - well-stated criteria for what we're interested in in an acquisition. We've said that we need a history of profitability, good management, the proprietary technology for a franchise, history of multi-million unit sellers. They would have to be non-dilutive and operating margin accretive. And, for us, Take-Two didn't fulfill those requirements. Maybe it does over the long-term for EA, but it doesn't for us."That's really refreshing to see that a company thought about something before just doing it... Yeah so Take-Two have GTA but... well what else...? Good play.
For a while now, Bandai Namco has kept their lips shut about which console (or consoles) their next Tales game, Tales of Vesperia, was coming out for. Well, it's now official: The next outing of the series is coming out on the 360 later this year.
Taking into consideration the terribly negative and frustrated feedback concerning the atrocious demo released on Xbox Marketplace, developer Spark Unlimited vowed to delay the game and work out the kinks and spruce it up to acceptable standards.
Snaps featured in Famitsu magazine details a Wii version of the Gamecube horror, Resident Evil Zero. Just like Resident Evil 4, the game will receive some work on the controls to work with the Wiimote and most likely receive a knocked down price tag as the original can already be played on the Wii as a backwards compatible title.
A new report, recently approved by the U.S. Congress, explains a program aimed at catching terrorists using online games like WoW to organize their terrorist attacks. The program works in two steps, the first is to find out what normal behavior is in a game like WoW, which after playing games for ten years or so is still a mystery to me. The second phase of the program is to use software to:automatically detect suspicious behaviour and actions in the virtual world
Painful is how I would describe the lack of communication options for online Wii games, especially if you start having to pay for the online service as rumoured. For a community based gaming meganought like Nintendo, some of its decisions can be pretty baffling. There is some kind of remedy though with the forthcoming Mario Kart.
EA has been acting like the Tesco of the gaming world lately, trying to suck developers into their abyss by flashing the cash. Their recent attempt to acquire Take Two, makers of Grand Theft Auto, has been met with disdain in some quarters which has prompted Ubisoft to make a statement.
Remember seeing this game, way back at E3 2006. It certainly looked impressive, even if it is a CGI film. However, with virtually no new information since then, many simply assumed it had been canned. Well, apparently Sony London, the development team behind the project had other ideas. New news has emerged about the game. A new trailer along with gameplay demos were reportedly showcased behind closed doors at GDC. Sony hasn't officially released any new information on the game, but if reports are true this is what we may expect:"You'll travel across eight States of North America. This, as you might imagine, is said to make for one of the biggest game maps in any console game to date. So large, in fact, that you will never revisit any one location, and will be constantly pushed to move on.
It will also apparently incorporate Google Maps functionality, and tie into a real-life clock, so when played at night in real life, it will be night in the game.Reports are comparing the game to Killzone 2 Graphically and to Uncharted: Drakes Fortune in animation. This, if true sounds awesome to say the least. The title is expected to see a release date of approximately October 2008, an official announcement is thought to be made very soon.
You take control of one of two characters (possibly one of the two seen in the early trailer), each with their own storyline and varying abilities. One's a bad guy, who's out for revenge on a mob syndicate.
The other is a good guy - a detective who's in search of the same mob syndicate, who've kidnapped his son. Their paths, predictably, cross at some point, and they end up working together".
BioWare has brought to light their first downloadable content for the Xbox 360 version of Mass Effect. The content includes a new scenario on a new planet. It also marks Shepard's first encounter with the Batavians, a vicious and aggressive race. What else do you get in the content, costing players 400 Xbox Live points? Casey Hudson explains:"Changes to the main game experience will be along the lines of opportunities to gain more experience, paragon / renegade points, and levels, as well as finding things to use or sell to make money, and an achievement that contributes to your Gamerscore. You'll also find that enemies within the new adventure have some different behaviors that put some twists on the combat you'll find there."
At the retailer only conference, Destination Playstation, Sony has announced a Metal Gear Solid 4 80GB PS3 bundle. This bundle will release sometime in Q2 of 2008. The bundle will include MGS4, MGS4 Online "starter pack", and a DualShock 3.
Well, the wait has been very long for PS3 owners, but finally, the DualShock 3 is coming to the U.S. It's set to launch on April 15th for $54.99. This is to coincide with the release of GT5: Prologue. Rumble on the PS3? It's about time.
The price of the 360's HD-DVD add on has been slashed amazingly for the second time in a month to a stonking $49.99 (roughly about twenty-five quid). This is even more amazing when you consider it had already been slashed to a still pricey $130 even BEFORE Toshiba announced their intention to stop producing for it, suggesting Microsoft want to wash their hands of it ASAP.
There used to be a website around called Pokemon Farm which has recently been updated by Nintendo. Website GoNintendo has translated it and come up with some interesting info. Apparently it's being renamed 'Everyone's Pokemon Ranch', which will allow you to add Pokemon from your DS version of Diamond and Pearl with a capacity for about 1,000 lil critters to be stored.
"We've talked to our legal department about it, all we're doing is moving it out of PlayTV and to the cross-media bar as if it was any other recording. So hopefully users won't do stuff they shouldn't do with it."
"If I'm prohibited from getting the recording off and storing it somewhere else because some other dude is making money out of selling it, then I'd rather they brought the law in to catch those people"
According to an Advertising Age article, Sony will offer an open platform on the PlayStation 3, allowing the three key players in the in-game advertising market to strike deals with game publishers. This will no doubt spark a battle between the key players, Double Fusion, IGA and AdScape."Making things open only makes things better for marketers or people who want to place ads because they aren't the mercy of a given network... Everyone's playing around with the best model - how to charge, what gamers will and will not put up with." eMarketer senior writer James Belcher told Advertising Age.
I'm sure a lot of people will take this comment and laugh, a lot will disregard it as being out of context, but a spokesperson for Sony has quoted:"LittleBigPlanet is potentially our biggest Blu-ray release of 2008"Nick Robinson, a senior product manager at Sony Computer Entertainment Europe confirmed the title will be released in September on Blu-ray disc only... So for those of you who had the idea in your head this was going to be a Playstation Network title, well you best forget that idea...
"This isn't a Warhawk or a Tekken: Dark Resurrection... This is a triple-A Blu-ray title."He also confirmed the game will have a very substantial offline Story mode to justify the price for those less interested in its community and content-creation aspects.
You have to admit, it does look rather good. Here are several new screens showing off WipEout HD in all its glory, high definition explosions, intense racing and big crashes are expected.
Valkyria Chronicles is a different looking game. It's a mixture of cell-shaded graphics with the look of a water colour painting in motion... quite frankly it does look pretty fantastic... Also known as Valkyrie of the Battlefield, the game takes place in a make-believe world roughly modeled on 1930s Europe, where the Empire and Federation are the two ruling powers... (Yeah, we know what you're thinking too...)
CVG, the guys behind the magazine Xbox World 360 have published news today that they have "the scoop" on the "aborted" Goldeneye 360 project."Explosions and flame effects have been remade from scratch, and rows of trees and new in-game objects add a sense of presence to areas without affecting gameplay. The atmospheric changes are most apparent when playing the Jungle level, where every tree and plant has been rebuilt. Where a green wall at the edge of the arena fenced you in on the N64, now the wall has been removed and a new wall of foliage has been set several metres beyond the original boundary..."Talk about rubbing salt into the wounds... nearly ever gamer was convinced they had an exclusive for a new Goldeneye game on 360 when really, they just dug up the old news... Personally as a gamer, I'm pissed off at this low attempt for publicity.
If you were in two minds about the recently released Indiana Jones 4 movie, here's something to prick up your ears, 4 screenshots of the upcoming Lego version of the series. Looks pretty good so far, lets hope it can go the distance. Expect to see it coincide with the release of the movie this summer.
Bad news folks, Microsoft has today denied any involvement with the classic Goldeneye and itself, announcing that it won't even be released on XBox Live Arcade. Microsoft game studio's had this to say:"Unfortunately, we were never contacted by the publication to confirm information or participate in the story in any way, as we would have confirmed that we do not have the necessary rights to release GoldenEye on Xbox Live Arcade. We do however share the gaming communities enthusiasm for the title and would love to release it on the service."
If you were one of the Billion people worldwide to watch the Oscars at the weekend then you will have noticed Jon Stewart playing Wii Sports as they returned from a commercial break. Looking flustered but playing up to the joke, his playing partner ran off and Jon got off with the show. Now the real question, was this a gag or clever advertising on Nintendo's part?
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Import And Play Final Fantasy XIII Region Free On PS3 Now From Play-Asia.com |
