Monthly Archives: September 2008

Raises our eyebrows, anyway, because we’re addicted to ABBA. We don’t know why. Best not to question.

Both PS3 and PS2 versions are listed on IGN, but there are some glaring omissions, as far as we’re concerned. No One Man, One Woman. No Hole in Your Soul. And, most evilly of all, no Put On Your White Sombrero. Plenty of bloody Waterloo, though. Seriously, Sony: sort it out.

There’s shots here too.

Xbox World 360 is rumouring that Max Payne 3 is currently in development at Rockstar Toronto.

EGM’s already published something similar, so this appears to be sticking. Unless, you know, Xbox World 360′s been reading EGM.

More on CVG.

According to this Kotaku story, EA’s stopped work on C&C-based FPS Tiberium because, essentially, it wasn’t up to scratch.

“EA has suspended work on Tiberium effective immediately,” said Mariam Sughayer, EA spokesperson. “The game was not on track to meet the high quality standards set by the team and by the EA Games Label. A lower quality game is not in the best interest of the consumers and would not succeed in this market.

“This decision will result in some individuals being released. However, EA will make every effort to place talented people on other projects. Eligible employees will receive severance and outplacement support.”

More through the link.

We are beyond hot for this game. EGTV’s got the next video in the Gears of War 2 promotion drive, which is a good look at the various new enemies in the action sequel.

Seriously, we couldn’t want Gears 2 more. Hit this for our playtest from the recent London preview event to find out why.

Speaking to Boomtown this morning, Far Cry 2 multiplayer producer Gaetan Richard said that the map editor to ship with the game will provide almost the same functionality given to the in-house developers at Ubi Montreal.

“The functionality of our development tools and the editor that ships with the game are pretty much the same,” he said.

“There are one or two things you can’t do with the public editor but for the most part you can do almost anything we could do in development such as terrain editing, placing thousands of objects, etc.

“Anything that’s useful in setting up a multiplayer game is there in the editor. And we think it’s really strong. We don’t believe there’s a map editor on console or PC that’s close to our Far Cry 2 map editor.”

We popped along for a chat with Gaetan and a few rounds of multiplay in London this afternoon, so we’ll have some news for you tomorrow. In the meantime, the rest of Boomtown’s interview is here.

According to this Forbes article, the modern games industry is becoming increasingly less tolerant of the “core” gamer. That’s you, probably.

“The ongoing paradigm shift in gaming is expanding the industry’s audience, giving the sector steady growth at a time when many others are shrinking,” says author Chris Morris.

“But growth doesn’t come without cost. As parents and seniors become more important to publishers, core gamers are being nudged aside.”

Never fret, though. Avid gamers are going to be increasingly catered for by indie developers. Phew.

“The hardcore is completely safe,” said Warren Spector. “They are less relevant to major publishers, but they are more relevant to independent developers.”

More through there.

Following overnight downtime for Xbox Live, Xbox.com has reappeared with a blockbuster new feature: all your Friends are now on one page.

Apparently Microsoft split Friends lists into separate pages a few months ago in a redesign. we say “apparently,” because this passed us by, unfortunately.

More on X3F.

Ernst and Young believes the Indian gaming market now has all the elements in place for huge future growth.

“Disposable incomes of the upper middle class are growing with the economy, favourably influencing gaming growth,” said the firm in a report. “The action, though, is still restricted to the top eight cities but with the right investments the potential for box business in India is immense.”

The market, apparently, is “warming up”.

“Indian consumers are warming up to gaming as an entertainment alternative with proliferation of gaming devices moving northwards,” said a rep.

More on MCV.

This Gamekyo story claims that Nintendo’s going to show an old franchise update at its press conference this week. Like, dur. From the piece:

Nintendo seems to be hiding some more surprises for its upcoming Japanese press conference next Thursday. Everyone is talking about a new model of the Nintendo DS that includes a camera, but what you don’t know is that Nintendo has a new game to show. We can announce today that Nintendo will reveal a new game for the Wii during this event which is actually an old franchise that everyone is waiting for. Nintendo press conference will be held in Japan on October 2nd.

What could it be?

The Sunday Times Tech Track 100 has pinned Rebellion as the fastest growing UK developer of the year.

The company was also named the top independent developer in the country by Develop this year.

“We strive to develop innovative, exciting and quality games. Reaching No.1 in Europe this year was a great achievement for everyone at Rebellion, but to now be named as the fastest growing games developer in the Sunday Times Tech Track 100 in the same year, is very special,” said CEO Jason Kingsley.

“Our successes this year are testament to the hard work all our teams put in every day.”

Press release after the link.

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That’s it, pretty much. Codemasters and Front Magazine have teamed up to take pictures of Alex Sim-Wise branded with Rise of the Argonauts stuff. There’s a six-page feature on it in the latest issue, apparently.

There are three wallpapers of Sim-Wise wearing pretty much nothing after the link. Eh, lads? Eh?

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Level-5′s released the first proper trailer of the next Professor Layton game, titled Professor Layton and The Last Time Travel. It’s only just been announced, so that’s fast work for you.

After the break.

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Microsoft’s announced that sales of Xbox 360 have risen 214 percent in the past two weeks, and that the console is, according to the company, now outselling PS3 by 2:1.

The firm’s calculations come from Chart-Track figures.

“This data shows that the Xbox 360 trajectory continues upwards, and not just in the UK,” said Xbox Europe boss Chris Lewis.

“We’ve seen uplift in all countries in Europe and are confident that even at this rate of growth we can keep retail satisfied with a steady supply of consoles throughout the Christmas season.

“Our commitment to continuously improving and innovating new content, our new high-profile marketing campaign and the fact that we’re now the best-value next-gen console on the market with an entry-level ERP of £129.99 combine to make Xbox 360 the right blend of gaming and wider experiences at the right price to offer unparalleled entertainment for everyone. And these figures prove it.”

The figure rise has come from a substantially price cut earlier this month.

Speaking to Videogamer, Lionhead boss Peter Molyneux has claimed that Fable II’s online co-op has only been possible because of the way Live’s structured, and that PS3′s online offering isn’t as “mature” as 360′s.

“The thing I love about the 360 more than anything is nothing to do with the hardware, it’s all to do with Live. Live is still underexploited for a game mechanic,” he said.

“Some of the stuff in Fable II we’re doing with co-op is only possible because of the way that Live is structured. I love playing around with that stuff as a designer.

“Whereas PS3 doesn’t seem to be quite so mature on that side. They haven’t got quite the same infrastructure and service but, you know, yeah, I’d love to get games on every platform.”

More through the link. As we reported this morning, Molyneux’s aim is to have online co-op patched into Fable II on its launch day.

Lionhead technical art boss Ian Lovett has told Eurogamer that Fable II’s original “visual mission statement” was that it was to be like Fable, “but done by Ridley Scott”.

“The idea behind that is that Microsoft understand Ridley Scott, they understand that this means that we wanted to mature the franchise a little bit. Not losing its charm, but basically trying to grow it up ever so slightly,” he said.

There’s more through that link, and a full interview here.

According to this Kotaku story, LucasArts is planning to release new campaign content and fresh characters for The Force Unleashed.

Force Unleashed executive producer Haden Blackman told the site that four new characters and a new single-player campaign set inside the game’s Jedi temple are to be released for the 360 and PS3 versions of the game as DLC.

In addition, a pack containing new costumes and character models for the existing game is to be released next month.

More through the link.

Speaking on the Battle.net forums, Blizzard poster “Bashiok” has confirmed that Diablo III will use a dungeon check-pointing system as a way to deal with death.

“Throughout your adventures, and generally at the ends of each ‘floor’ of a dungeon your character is saved to a checkpoint,” he said. “When you die you’re dropped back at the last checkpoint with a small amount of health, and the rest regenerates slowly.

“It’s obviously a very forgiving system as it is. It’s just too early to put a ton of thought in to what penalties there should be, if any, added on top of it.”

“Early” is not a word we like seeing used in association with Diablo III’s development. More through the link.

Chart-Track’s confirmed that both PS3 and Xbox 360 have achieved 1 million console sales in the UK in the past year.

According to this GI report, as of September 2008, PS3 has reached 1.4 million units, 360 2.3 million and Wii 3.6 million units.

The numbers show considerable growth from 2007 – both PS3 and Xbox 360 have moved 1 million units since the same period last year, when their installed base was 0.4 million and 1.3 million, respectively.

Wii is the real success story, however – the Nintendo machine has sold 2.5 million units in the past 12 months in Britain, up from 1.1 million units in September 2007.

More through there.

Eidos put out a bunch of new screens and a video of Shellshock 2: Blood Trails this afternoon, as you can see on Shacknews, claiming the game is to release this “Christmas”.

We’ve seen hide nor hair of this for plenty time, so news it’s out this year is a little surprising.

PC, PS3 and 360, apparently. Take a look.

IGA will supply in-game ads to Activision’s PS3 games, thanks to a deal announced today.

The first game to be served by the deal will be Guitar Hero World Tour.

“Activision has one of the most impressive stables of games in the video game industry,” said IGA head Justin Townsend.

“To partner with them demonstrates the appeal of in-game advertising to marketers and consumers, alike. We will be able to connect more brands with engaged users than ever before.”

Press release after the link.

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