Monthly Archives: September 2008

Sega’s announced that the official website for Valkyria Chronicles is now live.

We would tell you where it is, but there doesn’t appear to be a link in the release. Here’s the Sega product page instead.

The PS3 RPG’s demo will release on October 9, the firm said in addition.

Game’s out on November 14. Press release after the link.

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Sony Worldwide Studios boss Shuhei Yoshida has told VG247 that taking risks is part of Sony’s strategy for getting good results from its PlayStation business.

“Absolutely,” said the exec when asked is he liked taking risks, specifically in relation to first-party games such as LittleBigPlanet and Heavy Rain.

“People who take risks regularly get the best results. We always strive to be the risk-taker, because we are priding ourselves to be the leader of the industry from the platform standpoint, so we have to show by example: this is what we can with the new hardware, this is what we can do with some way of thinking.”

Yoshida said that Sony is able to push creative limits partly thanks to not having to pander to the needs of the City.

“My organisation has the benefit of [being an independent company], [and not one] that must always [satisfy] shareholders every quarter,” he said.

“We don’t have to have investors meetings. We can purely focus on creating something unique and interesting.”

Ready for all those risky PS3 games from TGS, then?

This SCEJ page – translated by Siliconera – apparently confirms that the firm is to announce 14 new titles at Tokyo Game Show this month.

Nine are for PS3 and three are PSP games, says the site.

Like, blimey. More through the link.

If the Live downtime’s been like losing an arm overnight, rejoice in the news that it’s now back up after a heavy bit of maintenance in preparation for New Xbox Experience.

Thanks, evilashchris!

Speaking to VG247 yesterday, Lionhead boss Peter Molyneux said that it was his “ambition” to include online co-op in Fable II in a first day patch, and that everything was “going well” to achieve the goal.

“It is a very usual thing with anything to do with co-op and it relies upon the Live service,” he said. “It gives us a tiny bit more time to polish it and make sure it’s working right. Anything to do with Live is much more complex than single-player, so out ambition is to get it out on day one release patch.

“Now, I can’t absolutely confirm that at the moment. It’s all going well. It’s looking like it should be spot on for that. It is down to a few minor little things, and we’re pretty close.”

Molyneux added: “This is purely me as a guessing man – remember, I haven’t been in the office for quite some time – but it’s all looking good to be a day one patch.”

The developer said the situation with the feature was preferable to having the game slip.

“I’d much rather have done that than to have delayed the product, obviously,” he said, saying patching in this way was a throwback to older PC development.

“This is kind of like a heritage from the PC days, of course, when you did always used to patch with a day one patch, and because you’ve got Live now you can do these things,” he said.

And yep, we did ask him some of your questions. We’ll put up his answers this week.

Let’s hope this isn’t the beginning of the end. Funcom’s announced on the official Age of Conan forums that its to start merging the game’s servers, both in Europe and the US.

“I can today confirm that we are actively working on an approach to merge servers, both in Europe and North America,” said director Craig Morrison.

“It’s important for us to ensure the best gameplay experience for you all, and more healthy populations on each and every server will make sure we maintain healthy communities for the game in the future.

“There are many complexities involved in this, and we want to ensure that everything happens as fair and streamlined as possible. That work has now started, and we are naturally making sure that guilds and players can get to new servers in the best possible way. We will come back with more info on this, but I hope that this will serve as a positive injection to the social scene in the game.”

More through the link.

UK retailer Game’s reported record profits of £36.4 million for the six months ended July 31, 2008.

Total sales across the group were up 64.2 percent, and 17.4 percent like-for-like.

“The business has performed extremely well with both turnover and profit growth throughout the group,” said Peter Lewis, chairman.

“We deliver a compelling customer experience. Our specialist proposition is centred around customer service, our pre-owned offer, our Reward Card and our online capabilities, all of which have contributed to this success.”

More on GI.

According to this Evil Avatar post, Epic and Microsoft are planning to release five Gears of War maps as free DLC for the sequel. Provided you buy a new copy of Gears 2.

Previously, it was thought that Gridlock and Subway would be the only gears 1 maps making a return. Well, Epic is doing something different. There will be release day DLC that will contain those two maps, Canals, Mansion, and Tyro Station. These five maps will be free of charge but the only way to get them is if you receive a voucher, which every NEW copy of the game will have.

The info comes from the latest issue of GamePro, apparently.

More through the link.

Nelson’s updated his blog to bring word that scheduled maintenance work on Xbox Live is taking longer than expected: the service is still down.

Another update is promised at 2.00am PST, which is 10.00am BST.

According to this New York Time piece, MTV will announce today a deal with the band and its label, Columbia Records, to create an AC/DC version of Rock Band video to be sold only at Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club.

The new version will only be sold in America.

“If you want to be a physical band, you better make an alliance with a strong physical retailer,” said Steve Barnett, chairman of Columbia Records. “It’s a great way to sell the new album, the catalog, the game, merchandise and DVDs.”

Plenty more through there.

Speaking to Kikizo, Sony’s Pete Smith has said that a 3D approach to LittleBigPlanet may not have even been possible, and that plumping for a 2D design wasn’t a “copout”.

“Part of the beauty of the game being 2D is that it keeps it really simple, and that really helps,” he said.

“If you were trying to make your own gameplay in full 3D, there’d be a lot more to consider. I don’t know if it would be possible, but there would be a lot more to think about. We don’t see 2D as a copout.”

There’s a big interview through there Media Molecule’s Mark Healey and Alex Evans, as well as Sony’s Pete Smith. Take a look.

Following a US political vote which threw out $700 billion plan to rescue America’s economy from “challenging” global conditions, the stock market turned down sharply, with many games publishers swept along by the tide.

The NASDAQ took the news hard. Activision Blizzard shares slid 13.8 percent ($2.26) to end the day at $14.12. EA saw $3.63 shaved off of its stock price, ending the day down 9.16 percent at $36 even. THQ lost 7 percent, or $0.87, to close at $11.48, and Take-Two dropped 4.52 percent to close at $15.43 – nearly $10 less than its asking price one month ago.

More on Gamespot.

Bitbag’s carrying a few screens of what is apparently a user survey designed to gauge reaction to various pricing plans for PS3 multiplayer shooter, MAG.

There are four options there, which include different publishers, which is interesting.

The game was first shown at E3, and is in development at Zipper.

It’s out next year. Hit the link for more.

According to this SiliconEra piece, Sega’s releasing a bit of DLC for PS3 RPG Valkyria Chronicles this month in Japan that allows you to play as the bad guys.

Apparently, “The twist is you get to control Selvaria and invade Gallia, the small nation you’re trying to defend in the main storyline.”

The game’s out in Europe on November 11.

As we reported yesterday, Microsoft’s doing some marketing stuff with COG tags in the run up to the launch of Gears of War 2 on November 7, and it looks as though the first site to get in on the action’s Eurogamer.

You can win one. Apparently there’s “more to it than meets the eye” as well, so there’s lovely. Also up for grabs is a copy of Beneath the Surface: An Inside Look at Gears of War 2, signed by Cliff Bleszinski.

You want a COG tag and a book, right? Off you go, then.

According to this MTV piece, Rare actually set out to make a straight Banjo remake, even including the same worlds as the original, but binned the idea because it “wasn’t the way” the team wanted to go.

“We started off thinking, ‘Okay, let’s do almost a clever remake of the original, where we have the original worlds,’” said studio boss Gregg Mayles.

“We actually started on Mumbo’s Mountain, but all the tasks that you played in Mumbo’s Mountain weren’t quite as you expected it and different things would happen. We thought that’s not the way we wanted to go. Then we tried something else.”

Nuts & Bolts was eventually born of an idea to give the player increased freedom to accomplish tasks.

“In traditional games of this genre, there’s usually a loaded task that’s created by the designer and then it’s up to the players to work out what the solution is to that task, and there’s usually only one solution. Then we thought ‘What we can we do with that? Kind of give the player more choice, kind of turn that around.’

“We actually got these quite simple tasks, but the solutions to them — there isn’t one correct way of doing it. And it came from that. I felt like it’s a different way of looking at it. Rather than [giving] Banjo and Kazooie these abilities that you learn and that are bolted on this character, can we give players abilities in a different way?”

More through the link.

More excellent footage from the upcoming Quantum of Solace adaptation, this time showing off the game’s environments. After the break.

We’re getting a look at this tomorrow, apparently, so we’ll have some more stuff for you later this week.

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The Force Unleashed has managed a second week at the top of the UK chart, with newcomer Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway making a sterling debut at number four.

Last week’s charts here. Data for the week ending September 27.

1. Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (Activision-Blizzard)
2. Wii Fit (Nintendo)
3. Mario Kart Wii (Nintendo)
4. Brothers In Arms: Hell’s Highway (Ubisoft)
5. Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09 (EA)
6. Pure (Disney)
7. Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (Activision-Blizzard)
8. Mercenaries 2: World in Flames (EA)
9. Lego Indiana Jones: Original Adventures (Warner Bros)
10. Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning (GOA)

Sony’s LittleBigPlanet beta key giveaway’s the talk of the internet this morning, with many sites putting keys up for offer only to be humbled by demand.

Here’s where you should be looking if you haven’t tried the beta already, or at least where you should have been looking last night:

• 1UP – 500 keys are being given away over the next four days. It’s a simple “answer a questions thing.”
• The official LBP site – 1,000 were given away overnight, but apparently users posted more than 2,000 posts in an hour and crashed the server.
• IGN – Keys from the US site were sent out overnight. Check your inbox if you entered its giveaway.
• GamePro – Tried to give away 1,250 keys last night and promptly fell over. More are being promised for Wednesday.
• GameGirl.com – The site is giving away five codes per day until Wednesday. All you have to do is mail in some answers.
• Gamespot – Apparently that thread says codes aren’t going to be issued until Wednesday, but we couldn’t find the post. They were suposed to be sent out yesterday. Good luck.
• Joystiq – The site’s giving away 10 per day. All you have to do is comment.

Ascaron’s released a demo for RPG Sacred 2, available now from FilePlanet.

Apparently, “This exciting new demo immerses gamers in the mystical world of Ancaria, as they experience a small sampling of the quests, environments and monsters that will be part of the grand adventure of the full game. Playing as the beautiful and deadly Seraphim, a powerful guardian of the world of Ancaria and its T-Energy, gamers will explore the lush lands of the High Elves, encountering a variety of creatures and environments.”

It does not get better than that. Remember that Eurogamer’s Rob Purchese does some of the voices in it. So try it.