Monthly Archives: February 2008

First official mention of a PS3 outing for God of War here. The ad says the game is “coming soon” and has appeared on the back of the God of War: Chains of Olympus retail manual. Still no word on whether David Jaffe’s involved, or anything else about the project for that matter, but we’ll bring it to you when there is.

Obviously.

We can embed this one, and that’s just great. According to this, Treasure shooter Ikaruga is listed on the Japanese developer’s website as an 800 MS Point release any time now. The game is something everyone should play, if only to see if you are actually genetically capable of finishing it. We’ll never forget that ridiculous movie of the Japanese guy playing it two-player by himself in an arcade. Fingers crossed, anyway, that this is true.

Tried to embed this too, but not for very long because you, like, can’t. It’s a new trailer for Sega’s Viking: Battle For Asgard and there’s absolutely no way this can be shit. It’s made by Creative Assembly and it’s got vikings in it. It’s out at the end of March for PS3 and 360, according to Gamespress.

Here. We tried to embed it, but Filefront started having a fanny and we’re boggle-eyed with typing. No idea how Funcom’s MMO’s going to play, but it certainly looks the part. Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures releases for PC on May 20 and Xbox 360 at some point in the future-uture-uture.

Says so here. It’ll be releasing in the US on May 12 alongside the Wii downloads service. We still don’t know when WiiWare’s going to happen in Europe, however, so there’s no news on when you’re going to be able to pretend to eat buffalo wings really quickly on you TV over here.

Street Fighter IV continues to excel in the “taking the piss” stakes today, with news that Sagat and Balrog are in the arcade version, as seen in this movie. From this:

“Taken from the Taito Center in Akihabara, the first clip shows Sagat fighting Zangief on a stage that looks reminiscent of Balrog’s Las Vegas backdrop from previous Street Fighters. Sagat still has access to his Tiger punches, and while he never used a Tiger Uppercut in the video, he did fling a lot of fireballs. According to the poster on YouTube, Sagat is currently the final boss of the game, and after you beat him in the arcade you get a “Thanks For Playing” message. Balrog, on the other hand, appeared to demonstrate many other moves, with shoulder charges, dash punches and uppercuts, and other aerial strikes. He appeared to attack Zangief on a stage that resembled the deck of a ship, which looked like a Junk.”

The game’s slated for a summer release in Japanese arcades. It’s been out IN OUR HEARTS for many months.

Here. The shots are taken from five different maps from the online starter pack, namely Ambush Alley, Gronznyj Grad, Midtown Maelstrom, Urban Ultimatum and Blood Bath.

MGS4 was confirmed today for release in the US and Europe on June 12.

Mastiff boss Bill Swartz has given first details of the recently announced Major League Eating game, claiming that we’re going to be “shocked” at the intricacies of trying to eat 50 virtual hotdogs.

“I figured we could do a really good game,” he said. “I read the forums, I know what guys are saying. A lot of people out there seem to think that because it’s Major League Eating, it’s going to be a trivial game, like the whole thing’s going to be button-mashing. Without giving too much away, I think that people are going to be shocked at the depth of play. At the end of the day, our game is really a fighting game with moves, counter-moves, strategy.”

Swartz also explained the reasoning behind being interested in the franchise in the first place. In fact, videogaming247 Quote of the Month Award, February 2008, goes to the following paragraph.

“We started because we wanted a widely-known but under-appreciated – at least in the videogame world – intellectual property,” he said. “In terms of my attraction to Major League Eating and competitive eating in general, I like to think of myself as a civilized person. But I’m also a man, like you. And what’s civilization about? Civilization is about taking the raw impulses of especially young men and putting restrictions on them so you can have a functioning society. If you didn’t have civilization, all we’d have is 12-28 year old guys going around and stealing, raping, killing. So you build this social rules for tens of thousands of years, and you get society, where everyone follows the same rules and so on. That tension between our baser selves and society’s rules has always fascinated me.”

Genius.

EA Sports boss Peter Moore has admitted that Fifa is the only franchise in the division’s portfolio that has genuine border-crossing appeal.

“This is our one truly global franchise, and we’ll continue to invest in it accordingly,” he said.

As well as pushing FIFA to “stretch… critical rating lead over the competition”, Moore said plans were firmly in place to increase the EA Sports portfolio’s ability to cater to national taste.

“We need to globalise, and we’re taking many steps to broaden the reach and appeal of our product portfolio,” he said. “FIFA obviously has global appeal, but this is about more than just selling additional copies of FIFA — this is about truly delivering a global product portfolio.”

Read the full interview through the link.

According to this, a home version of Sega’s arcade game Initial D Arcade Stage 4 is heading to PS3 in the form of Initial D Extreme Stage.

Apparently the street racer’s story mode will be extended for the home version, to feature 20 characters. We know someone that played the arcade version so much he damaged his shoulder by turning the steering wheel too violently. Just goes to show.

It’s out for PS3 this summer in Japan. No word on it making it anywhere else yet.

Gamecock’s Sabotage has received a name-change, and is now called Velvet Assassin.

“Rather than a trite, overused, and generic working title like ‘Sabotage,’ ‘Velvet Assassin’ captures the heart of what we’re trying to accomplish,” said Sascha Jungnickel, creative director at developer Replay Studios. “From the start we’ve wanted a game with a strong female lead that stays true to the history of Violette Szabo while pulling players into a world of dark intrigue.”

The game’s inspired by the real story of British agent Violette Szabo, so it’s all behind enemy lines without support-type stuff. Press release after the link. It’s out this year for PC and “next-generation consoles”.

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Here. There are a fair few images we haven’t seen before there, and quite a big preview. Go look, if you like it cute, whippy.and non-Nazi.

According to this, the 360 version of the anticipated Call of Duty 4 patch is now live and available. If you’re one of the thousands addicted to playing the Activision shooter on Live, you can now expect host migration [even when a host drops teams stay together - Ed], better accuracy for snipers and ACOG scope users, an expanded Kill Cam that includes claymores, airstrikes and grenades, nine new spawn points on each map, quick mute and lots of other stuff. Go get.

SouthPeak Games just announced X-Blades, “a dynamic third-person hack-and-slash action title for next-gen consoles and PC, due for release in late 2008.”

X-Blades features an anime-style heroine and guns, blades and magic. We’ve never heard of anything like it ever before.

Press release after the link.

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According to this, EA enlisted the services of a real-life mercenary called Richard “Woody” Mister to advise on dual-play shooter Army of Two, a man that both helped the publisher with details of the latest battle gear and customized weapons and had rather odd eating habits.

“He’s crazy,” said Reid Schneider, the game’s producer. “He would put you in a hold,” he said, demonstrating how Woody once grabbed his shoulder from behind. “You’d have bruises for weeks. We’d take him out to a restaurant and he’d never sit with his back to the door.”

Read the full thing through the link. It goes on to challenge EA on whether or not Army of Two might make someone want to become a gun for hire, which has to be worth a laugh.

According to this, the Met police has launched something called Project Gamerz with XLeague.TV, an initiative designed to keep involved with the community instead of selling it crack or burning it down.

“The aim of the project is to enable young people to re-connect with their local community in a way that reflects their interests,” said Sergeant Rob Evans. “By creating this social network we hope to encourage responsible participation across the age group, where we can also engage with local youngsters on policing and community issues that can affect them.”

Anyone aged between 11 and 18, who lives or attends school in the Riverside Ward of Rotherhithe, is being invited to come along to The Salmon Youth Centre in Bermondsey up to March 28, after which the scheme will be rolled out on a large scale across Bermondsey.

We stayed in a flat in Bermondsey once after a very heavy night. Games aren’t going to save it. And you so should have put a capital “Z” in “Gamerz”, police people.

The Iron Man of Gaming has been confirmed for June 19-22 at the Grapevine Convention Center near Dallas, Texas. Contestants compete over 10 games from different genres and eras and hardware for $10,000 in cash. The reason we’re telling you this is because the promo trailer below is one of the best things we’ve ever seen, inviting you to become part of the “non-stop gaming radness”. Seriously, watch it.

This looks very cool. Free games are the absolute future, although there may be a few developers that would disagree. Check out our impressions of Battlefield Heroes from GDC and watch the movie below.

Here. We reported on the GDC presentation of DICE’s upcoming first-person revolution this morning. The shots give a better idea of how the character moves in the game, and shows off the red progression indicators mentioned in the earlier piece.

Mirror’s Edge is scheduled for PC, PS3 and 360, with no date set at the moment.

Guinness World Record’s Gamer’s Edition will be attempting the “largest gathering of games characters” on March 18, 10.30 to 11am on the Millenium Bridge, London. This involves you dressing up like a games character and turning up. Should you wish to debase yourself in this way simply to get your picture in a big book, register here.

Press release after the link.

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