Michael Bay Calls Boll "A Fucking Idiot"

Michael Bay (acclaimed film director) has responded Uwe Boll's (guy behind cheap game-to-movie flops) "request for a boxing match" by simply saying he's an idiot. Bay's response below:

"Can we stop talking about this guy! I never even heard his name till last week when he made threats and rants. The guy is a fucking idiot, making threats to me, Clooney, Eli Roth, says he has a doctorate - but uses the word "retard" in his vocabulary, come on"

He then went on to point out just how lame Uwe's request was filmed and uploaded to YouTube:

"low rent offices, with 15 year old 3/4 machines, archaic computer... some dumb chump trying to get some fame when he has none"

Another virtual punch in the online ring. Seriously Uwe, just be quiet. yes we're all splitting our sides laughing at you but it's embarrassing. So who do you vote for, sell-out media whore Boll or seasoned film director Bay... hard choice

Source: Eurogamer

Koch Media Opens North American Subsidiary

Multi-format publisher Deep Silver, a subsidiary of Koch Media, today announced the opening of their office in the Los Angeles metro area. The office will serve as headquarters for US sales and marketing activities, as well as North American developer relations. Dr. Klemens Kundratitz, CEO of Koch Media commented:

"In the last five years, Deep Silver was able to successfully position itself as a quality brand, and now enters the North American market with its own branch office. With a presence in the USA, we can market our own products more efficiently, all over the world."

Deep Silver aren't that big of a developer but have worked on S.T.A.L.K.E.R and they're currently working on "Warhammer - Battle March" (in cooperation with Namco Bandai)

Source: Internal

PC Gamer Showdown in September

Future Publishing has announced its latest live gaming event, PC Gamer Showdown. Taking place at Stoneleigh Park, Warwickshire on the weekend of September 27th and 28th, the LAN tournament offers big cash prizes to the best PC gamers. Many of the games being contested will be announced over the summer months but Future has already confirmed that Counter-Strike and Team Fortress 2 will feature. Registration for the event opens tomorrow at the official website which also offers players the chance to buy their way to the finals. Which is hardly in the spirit of things, now is it?

The organisers have high hopes for the tournament, as PC Gamer Publisher Richard Keith explained:

"Future wants PC Gamer Showdown to become the UK’s ultimate LAN tournament – a three month online search to find our greatest PC gamers, with a fantastic live event to round it all off and crown the UK’s best."

Register for the event at the official website.

Source: Internal

Kart n' Crazy Ready For Download

Free online games portal Goa.com has confirmed that arcade racer, Kart n' Crazy, is available for download. The game is Goa's third free release and features 16 player online action on a variety of colourful tracks. Like Mario Kart, the player can collect items that influence the race and Goa has promised that there will be fresh content added every fortnight. With 22 tracks and 4 game modes already available, we at DGN think it's worth a punt.

Download the free client here.

Source: Internal

Fatal Inertia EX Heads To The PSN

Fatal Inertia EX hit the Xbox 360 as a retail game last year and will now hit the PSN sometime in May for the price of $29.99. Of course, this is also the same month that Wipeout HD is expected to hit the PSN.

The game recieved some poor reviews so I don't think it will fare very well against Wipeout HD...

Source: 1up

New Street Fighter 4 Screenshots Released

Some new Screenshots for the upcoming Street Fighter 4 showcasing Balrog and Vega. Looks fantastic so far...

Source: Pro-Gamers

DICE Suprised People Got Pissed Off At Paying For Weapons...

Speaking to Videogaming247, DICE producer Jamie Keen has expressed his surprise at the negative reaction by the community regarding the "cash for weapons"scandal:

“We were slightly surprised by the strength of the reaction”

“Charged downloadable content is becoming more prevalent throughout gaming, but it’s important for us to be able to react to people’s wishes and desires. There was a very strong reaction to it."

“For a game like Battlefield, where we’ve had a very strong online presence, and traditionally we’ve had very strong communications with the community, it’s important for us to be able to react to people. And yeah, we have to listen to people.”

In somewhat of a defense, Keen talked about the BETA being a way to test this kind of mechanism and proposal. But perhaps it was more of a case of EA dipping their foot into the DLC pool to see just how hot or cold it was...

“The beta was an opportunity for us to try out a few different bits and pieces and see how people react to it, and that was one of things we wanted to see. One of the things that cropped up was the reaction to [charging for weapons].”

Whatever spin they put on this, they seriously dented their image and as a result have had to make some free offerings to appease the community.

Source: Videgaming247

New Team Fortress 2 Content

Valve has released the new Goldrush map for PC players of Team Fortress 2. No word on the console one just yet tho... The new map will also feature a new gameplay mode "Payload". For more info check out the source...

Source: Valve

Nordic Game Conference Gets Influential Speakers

This year, the Nordic Game 2008 conference will have a varied range of speakers from the games industry including Siren and Silent Hill developer Keiichiro Toyama, Tameem Antoniades, co-founder of Ninja Theory, Sega's Ryuuta Ueda from Jet Set Radio Future, EVE Online boss Hilmar Pétursson and Age of Conan’s Jørgen Tharaldsen.

A very seasoned selection of speakers for what would be an interesting conference which is dated for May 14-15 this year, again at the Malmö Convention Center in Malmö, Sweden.

Source: Official

PS2 to PS3 Adapter Released in US

Wireless peripheral specialist, The Ant Commandos, has announced its PS2 to PS3 controller adapter is now available in US stores. This is great news for PS2 Guitar Hero and Rock Band owners as their existing controllers will be compatible with the PS3 versions of the games. TAC insists its adapter is 100% compatible with all popular guitar controllers and is engineered to function perfectly with Rock Band and Guitar Hero.

TAC's Universal Adapter has a suggested retail price of $19.99.

Source: Internal

Crytek Abandons PC Exclusives

German-based developer Crytek has announced that it will no longer produce PC-exclusive games due to piracy issues. Illegal copies of Crytek's last release, Crysis, have been widely-distributed on the internet and company president Cevat Yerli told PC Play that the company has learned from the experience:

"I believe that’s the core problem of PC Gaming, piracy. To the degree PC Gamers that pirate games inherently destroy the platform. Similar games on consoles sell factors of 4-5 more. It was a big lesson for us and I believe we wont have PC exclusives as we did with Crysis in future."

Source: PC Play

GTA IV: Online Problems for PS3?

According to the good folks over at CVG, PS3 Grand Theft Auto IV owners are hitting the internet to complain about major problems with the online multiplayer. Apparently, players are unable to initiate the multiplayer (done through the in-game mobile phone) and are sent a text message reading: "Cannot connect to game provider, please try again later."

Rockstar are yet to comment on the issue.

Source: CVG

EA Unveils Battleforge

Germany's award-winning EA Phenomic studio is developing a new online fantasy RTS game for the PC. Battleforge offers players the chance to build armies using a collectible trading card system. Cards can be won, traded and bought online via microtransactions. EA's Richard Leinfellner sums up the vision for Battleforge:

"With co-op play, challenging tournaments, Guilds, chat rooms and a robust marketplace for trading and buying your cards; BattleForge is the first RTS to add integral social and community components to an exciting fantasy RTS."

Battleforge is due to be released on PC in the autumn.


Source: Internal

Porsche Steering Wheel For PC and PS3

Fanatec have announced they are working on an official Porsche 911 Turbo reproduction wheel for the PC and PS3 for use with racing games. Designed to give Porsche fans and gamers alike an authentic look and feel along with a rich feature-set that delivers a genuine Porsche racing feeling when playing games such as Gran Turismo 5: Prologue, Racedriver: GRID, rFactor, etc.

The wheel when available in May will retail for a whopping $349.99 and will be sold exclusively at the company's website: Fanatec.com

Source: Internal

Double Dragon Released On Virtual Console

Only one game will be released this week on the Virtual Console and that is Double Dragon (NES version). The game will cost about $5 to download.

While this version lacks the achievements, enhanced graphics, and online co-op that the Xbox Live Arcade version has, it does have the one-on-one mode that the XLA version lacks.

To be honest the XLA's Double Dragon seems like the better of the two, but if you only have the Wii and need your Double Dragon fix, well beggars can't be choosers.

Source: 1up

Paddy Power Opens Bets For GTA IV

According to GamesIndustry.biz online bookie Paddy Power is taking bets on Grand Theft Auto IV's staying power, offering odds of 9/2 the game will sit at the top of the UK charts for ten weeks. It's not the first time they tried this stunt as they previously made bets on Sony lowering the price of the PS3 some time ago in Europe which backfired...

Source: GamesIndustry.biz

GTA IV Freezing On PS3

Reports are coming through of certain copies of the game locking up or freezing after the intro screen leaving eager gamers, rather frustrated. No response yet from Rockstar but stay tuned...

Source: Videogaming247

Play.com Selling 80 GTA IV's Every Minute

Play.com have reported record sales for Grand Theft Auto IV reporting 80 orders every minute which usually happens in the run up to Christmas for the most wanted products... Play.com boss Stuart Rowe commented:

"We're experiencing trading levels similar to what we would see in the run up to Christmas, taking over 80 orders per minute at peak times."

"We have had to recruit extra warehouse staff to work through the night to ensure product arrives on the day of launch. Grand Theft Auto IV is going to break all previous records when it comes to gaming."

Looks like GTA IV will without a doubt be the highest selling game of all time...

Source: Eurogamer

Exodus From Earth Announced

Publisher Strategy First Inc. has unveiled details of its new high-concept shooter, Exodus From Earth. Developed by Parallax Art Studios, Exodus is set in the near future and the fate of mankind is under threat. Bungling boffins have miscalculated the lifespan of the Earth - initial estimates of 5 billion years turn out to be a little optimistic - and humans must adapt to extraterrestrial conditions or find a new planet.

The mysterious AX Corporation has developed a vaccine to allow humans to survive in harsh conditions but the discovery of a new Earth-like planet threatens to render it obsolete. The player takes on the role of a CIA agent sent to infiltrate the shady organisation and must battle through some epic locales on both planets to get to the truth.

Exodus From Earth is being developed for PC and is due for release in the autumn. Find out more from the official website.

Source: Internal

No XBLA Title This Week!

Is it because no one will bother downloading it or perhaps because Microsoft are afraid that one minor rock to the Xbox Live service may result in catastrophic consequences...

Either way it seems there will be no launched XBLA titled this Wednesday due to the release of GTA IV taking all the time lime light.

Source: GamerScoreBlog

GTA IV Cheat Codes Flood Out

Apparently these should work on both the 360 and PS3 versions of the game. I must warn you though, using these cheats on any save game on the 360 will prevent you from being able to get the achievements, you have been warned! You can check 'em out for yourself below, they're intentionally hard to see in case you didn't fancy stumbling across temptation, but if you a cheating little hound, feel free to highlight the text for your cheating desire!

• Advanced Weapons - GUN-555-0100
• Climate Change - HOT-555-0100 [not a myth - Ed]
• Health - DOC-555-0100
• Health And Weapons - GTA-555-0100
• Spawn Cognoscenti (Mafia Car) - CAR-555-0142
• Spawn Sanchez (Dirt Bike) - MBK-555-0150
• Spawn FBI Buffalo - CAR-555-0100
• Spawn Turismo - CAR-555-0147
• Spawn NRG900 - MBK-555-0100
• Spawn Comet - CAR-555-0175
• Spawn SuperGT - CAR-555-0168
• Spawn Police Chopper - FLY-555-0100
• Spawn Jetmax (Boat) - WET-555-0100
• Weapons - GUN-555-0150
• Wanted Level Down - COP-555-0100
• Wanted Level Up - COP-555-0150

Source: Eurogamer

A Real Portable NES!

Do we care? Well I'm sure some die hard retro heads out there will love this so it gets a mention. After so many crazy designs and contraptions of portable NES systems, this one looks like it could be the one, and law-suit free.

The FC Mobile is such a product, bringing a Nintendo Entertainment System into your hands. Reading real cartridges, 8-bit glory can either shine on its 2.4" display or be outputted to a television—all while fueled by classic AA batteries.

Shame the real cartridges are bigger than the damn thing... check the source for more info!

Source: Gizmodo

GAME Stores Record £75.5 million

UK games retail giant GAME reported record sales growth of 86% for the year ended January 31 2008.

Profits before tax were GBP 75.5 million, a whopping increase of 156% on the previous year. The company has opened 116 new stores in overseas territories and saw international profits more than double to £13.2 million. Website sales also increased with profits reaching £2.9 million, up 61%.

No doubt chuffed, company chairman Peter Lewis had this to say:

"This is a record set of results and clearly demonstrates that we've taken the right steps to expand the scale and geographic reach of our specialist offer to benefit from the broadening appeal of PC and videogames products"

"This performance marks a transformational year with a significant improvement in a number of core business operations, further enhanced by the acquisition of Gamestation in the UK. In addition we more than doubled international operating profits and increased eCommerce operating profits by over 60 per cent, both of which continue to be a focus for growth"

Source: GamesIndustry.biz

GTA4 is released

What are you doing here, GTA4 has officially been released, call in sick, unhook the phone, gather a pile of snacks and drinks and most importantly play the game.

Source: Internal

Duke Nukem Forever Update

The good people at Kotaku have announced that 3D Realms, most famous for - you guessed it! - the Duke Nukem games, have actually shown a playable version of Duke Nukem Forever to people over at Shacknews.

Shacknews' Steve Gibson and Maarten Goldstein were shown around 30 minutes of footage detailing the gameplay and environments. Here's their response:

"We both confidently agree that after seeing this demonstration, Duke Nukem Forever is looking great, and will easily stand apart from the crowd in both visual and gameplay styles."

With the gaming world's equivalent of Guns N' Roses 'Chinese Democracy' album (for our sake, I hope you get that joke), it looks like Duke Nukem Forever like finally starting to take shape.

Sources: Kotaku / Shacknews

Portal Sequel Not Until 2009

With Kim Swift having accidentally announced there would be a sequel to Valve's "sleeper hit" Portal, there has been anticipation with the fans, but unfortunately for them, there will be a long wait as the game will not be released until next year. And that's if things go smoothly.

However, Doug Lombardi, Valve's marketing director has explained why there would be a long wait:

"In typical Valve tradition, it won't be Portal with different colors,"

"I think that when you hit something like that, you have two choices: you can quickly replicate it and stick it out there -- do the opportunistic thing and cash in on it; or you can do the crazy thing like we did after Half-Life was so successful and go off and try and say, 'Okay, that was revolutionary, so its successor has to be equally as revolutionary.'"

Therefore, no Portal 2 this year: "You won't see a new Portal at retail this Christmas because of that,"

"That's the trade off. People want more, but we don't want to give them more of the same right away because that would just be boring."

Almost sucks to be a Portal fan at the moment. But it's not like Valve don't have any other games worth playing to bind your time until 2009.

Source: 1up

PS3 GTA IV not Running 720p?

According to one of the posters of tech forum B3D, Quaz51, the PS3 version will only run at an unimpressive 630p (1120x630) seeing as the Playstation 3 advertises true next generation technology. However, while this may seem unacceptable to, well, all PS3 owners, audiences that have already played the game say that it looks much better than its Xbox 360 counterpart--running at 720p--because of its superior processing capabilities.

Source: Game On Game

(U.S.) Game Dates For The Week Of 4/28/08

Big Titles: Grand Theft Auto IV, Mario Kart Wii

Sunday, April 28th
Mario Kart Wii (Wii)

Monday, April 29th
Brain Voyage (DS)
Grand Theft Auto IV (PS3, 360)
SNK Arcade Classics Vol. 1 (PS2, PSP)
Toy Shop DS (DS)

Friday, May 2nd
Iron Man (PC, PS3, 360, Wii,PSP,DS)

(U.K.) Game Dates For The Week Of 4/28/08

Game Dates For The Week Of 4/28/08

Big Titles: Grand Theft Auto IV

Tuesday, April 29th
Grand Theft Auto IV (PS3, 360)

Wednesday, April, 30th
Zero-G (DS)

Friday, May 2nd
Iron Man (PS3, 360)

360voice.com Acquired By GamerDNA

360voice.com is an awesome auto-blog website that gives your Xbox 360 console a voice... by entering your gamertag it writes a blog in the voice of your 360... you really have to go check it out to find out who freaky it is...

It's been announced today that GamerDNA completed the acquisition of It Can Talk Inc, owner of the popular Xbox community website 360voice.com. Jon Radoff, CEO of GamerDNA Inc said:

"We're building out a platform for the videogame market, unified by the idea of a consistent gamer identity that you can carry with you across an open network of gaming communities"

We'll see what they do with it if anything...

Source: Internal

New Prince Of Persia On The Way

Ubisoft have announced they have a new POP game in the works which doesn't currently have a title but promises to bring a refreshing take on the genre. From the release:

Prince of Persia is opening a new chapter in the Prince of Persia universe, featuring a new breed of gameplay. The game is poised to rejuvenate the action-adventure genre in addition to introducing a brand-new illustrative art style.

Source: Internal

Siren: New Translation demo on PSN.

Do you have a ps3 ? If so turn it on, log into a Japanese/Hong Kong account and you will be able to download a demo for Siren: New Translation. Spawned from the mind of Keiichiro Toyama (the father of the silent hill series), New translation is the third game in the series of pant wetting Survival Horror games.

As Siren 3 is currently still a Japanese exclusive and as its only on the Japanese/Hong Kong PSN store expect the demo to be in Japanese, however as its only a demo it shouldn't be too hard to get the game going.

Siren: New Translation is set to hit stores in Japan this summer, a release date in Europe and the USA has yet to be confirmed or announced, so show that lot at sony what for a download this demo.

Source: Internal

Ghostbusters Game Will Look The Same On 360 And PS3

According to the developers Terminal Reality, the game will look and play the same whether it's on PS3 or Xbox 360. The game was up and on both formats at the recent Sierra showcase event. Executive producer Brendan Goss stated:

"We're demoing on both systems so you can see the game is fully running on both systems at the same performance level."

However, Goss commented on a particular scene with a Ghostbuster walking down a path...

"Something unique for the PS3 is the displacement mapping. The ground you're looking at is only two polygons, it's a completely flat plane. We get the illusion of the 3D brick surface because of the relief map."

So there goes that statement. They're the same, but with differences, cheers Brendan, clear as mud now.

Source: Eurogamer

GTA IV to be a Record Breaker?

Guinness World Records is keeping a close eye on tomorrow's Grand Theft Auto IV launch as Rockstar's apparent masterpiece threatens to smash sales records. With the GTA series taking the Best Selling Game award in 2001 and 2002, the highly-anticipated launch could land the controversial developer a few more accolades.

Find out more at the Guinness World Records website.

Source: Internal

Midnight Openings For GAME Stores In UK

Not an unusual thing for UK games retailer giant GAME to do to keep ahead of the competition the retailer will open up 260 stores for a midnight launch of GTA IV with a 7am opening of 414 of all stores the following morning. GAME UK and Eire managing director Tricia Brennan commented in a statement:

"Everyone at GAME is working flat out to make sure customers can pick up their copy of GTA IV as fast as possible"

Roughly translated to "we want to secure people purchase the game from us and you can expect queues and mayhem" What... you know it's true!

Source: GamesIndustry.biz

Portal Proposed For XBLA But Rejected

According to Doug Lombardi, marketing director at Valve they asked Microsoft if they could put Portal onto the Xbox Live Arcade system but the request rejected:

"We'd love to do that. Right now it's something we'd love to do. I'd love to sell Portal on Xbox live. But the platform holders aren't doing that right now. There's a size limit and all kinds of other things." "We've asked them, we said we were open to it. So it's a decision for the platform holder and how they want to make the games available and how much bandwidth they want to [allow]." "It always happens once it's been proven and I think it's been proven now on Steam, so I'm sure it'll migrate back to the consoles just like everything else does."

Doug remains optimistic and believes we'll see it on there sometime in the future. Although Microsoft are very anal when it comes to its platform, they did increase the XBLA limit from 50mb per game to 150mb and from experience, the platform is solid and works very well so it's understandable they won't bend to everyones requests.

Source: GamesIndustry.biz

Boom Blox Cover Art

EA have released the cover art for Steven Spielberg's upcoming Wii game "Boom Blox". Some screenshots for you to check out below and for more info on this crazy game, check out the source

Source: Official Site

IGN Watermarks Appear Again!

My word, this is insane! Following the recent discovery of an IGN watermark on Okami box art Kotaku has noticed Bradygames have popped one on their official guide for the game, unbelievable. Someone in design is getting the sack for sure... Close up below:

Source: Kotaku