Monthly Archives: January 2009

Blizzard has released a character customisation tool which allows for alterations to skin colour, facial features and sex.

Head over to the official site and click on ‘Manage Account’ if you feel the need for change.

The service costs €15 (about 12 quid).

Thanks, EG.

By Mike Bowden

Microsoft has told videogaming247 that the “Free” Knothole Island we linked to earlier is simply allow players who can’t be bothered buy it, the chance to play co-op with their mates.

“The free update will grant players a handful of gifts from the fine people of Knothole Island and will enable those who haven’t purchased Knothole Island downloadable content to continue the co-op action with their friends,” says the forwarded release.

“Some of the fun items include: Knight’s Boots, Assassins Gloves, a special Weight Loss Potion, a collectible silver book and more. The update will also enable players to check their standing in over 50 new Leaderboards on Lionhead.com.”

We’re told that you can get to the docks, but the ship’s Captain won’t give you access to the Island unless you pay up.

He does give you the swag mentioned above though.

Thanks, evilashchris.

By Mike Bowden

In an interview with CVG, Fable II writer Mark Llabres Hill has said that providing you don’t blaze through Fable II DLC Knothole Island, there’s over 4 more hours of gameplay to be enjoyed.

“As with everything else in Fable, it very much depends how you approach it,” said Hill when asked about how much gameplay is in Knothole.

“If you just want to blaze through it, it will probably take a couple of hours. If you want to discover everything on offer, it will take over four.”

Full interview through the link.

By Mike Bowden

The UK retail GAME Group has reported that it experienced “exceptional consumer demand” for platform exclusives over the Christmas period.

“GAME experienced exceptional consumer demand for a number of single format games, including Mario Kart and Wii Fit on Nintendo Wii, LittleBigPlanet on Sony PS3, Gears of War 2 and Fable 2 on Microsoft Xbox 360 and Brain Training and Professor Layton on Nintendo DS,” said the company.

According to GI the big multiformat hitters were ove Call of Duty: World at War, FIFA 09, Fallout 3, Need for Speed: Undercover and Guitar Hero World Tour.

“Sales in the UK and Ireland were up 16.3 per cent, with like-for-like sales up 10 per cent, while international sales increased 17.3 per cent, although like-for-like sales were down by 3 per cent on a constant currency basis,” says the article.

More through the link.

Although Fable II DLC Knothole Island isn’t on the Xbox Live Marketplace yet, it is, however, on Xbox.com for what appears to be no money what so ever.

However, underneath is another listing stating the content cost 800 MS Points. However, both items weighing in 532Mb.

It’s all rather confusing.

We’re just checking with MS now.

Update: Microsoft has confirmed to VG247 that Knothole Island is not free. See link for details.

By Mike Bowden

US Democrat representative Joe Baca has proposed new a piece of legislation entitled ‘Videogame Health Labeling Act of 2009′ that if successful, would see videogames carry a health warning similar to that of cigarettes and alcohol.

“The video game industry has a responsibility to parents, families, and to consumers – to inform them of the potentially damaging content that is often found in their products,” Baca said.

“They have repeatedly failed to live up to this responsibility. Meanwhile research continues to show a proven link between playing violent games and increased aggression in young people. American families deserve to know the truth about these potentially dangerous products.”

More over at GI.

By Mike Bowden

According to MCV, UK retailer GAME’s Christmas trading statement, which cites Gfk-ChartTrack data, reveals that the UK has a console install base of 22 million.

The report also states that sales of Xbox 360, Wii and PS3 have jumped from 4.7 million to ten million units as of January 3rd 2009.

Nintendo’s Wii accounted for nearly half of the aboce figure, rising from 2 million consoles in January 2008 to 4.9 million units in 2009.

Xbox 360 sales rose from 1.8 million to 3.2 million and the PlayStation 3 installed base more than doubled from 0.9 million to 1.9 million.

Full thing through the link.

By Mike Bowden

Japanese site Watch.Impress has upped some new Resident Evil 5 screenshots that show Chris and Sheva battling these huge, black tentacle-laden beasties.

It’s impossible for us to convey in words how hyped we are for this.

Exactly two months to go before its released.

By Mike Bowden

EAs The Sims is the big winner this week, not only does it oust Blizzard’s Warcraft expansion Lich King from the number one spot, two expansions packs also feature in the top ten.

Last week’s charts here. Top ten below.

1. The Sims 2 Double Deluxe
2. World Of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King
3. Spore
4. The Sims 2 Apartment Life
5. World Of Warcraft: Battle Chest
6. Fallout 3
7. Left 4 Dead
8. Call Of Duty: World At War
9. World Of Warcraft
10. The Sims 2 Mansion & Garden Stuff

Thanks, GI.

After the break you can see new footage of Sucker Punch’s PS3 exclusive, inFAMOUS.

The trailer reminds us of Real Time World’s Crackdown if we’re being honest, and that being one of our favourite games this gen, means our inFAMOUS excitement levels are rising.

Game’s is out later this year.

By Mike Bowden

More »

Joystiq has noticed that a Gamestop listing showing that the 360 exclusive downloadable content will be released on January 21.

The listing shows a ‘Tomb Raider Expansion Pack’ for $19.99 and states, “This is not a disk. It includes 2 XBox Live Market Place Cards.”

We’re checking with Eidos now.

By Mike Bowden

IGN has them. There are 16 in all and hand on heart Raven Software’s fantasy action movie tie-in actually looks pretty good.

Activision will release the game for PS2, PS3, Nintendo DS, 360, PC, PSP and Wii in May.

Through the link for the screens.

By Mike Bowden

A couple of new off screen Killzone 2 videos have been released showing two rather large cut-scenes that look pretty awesome.

In fact, they look just as awesome, if not more, than the five trailers that were shown at CES 09 last week.

Release it now please, Sony.

Game’s out end of Feb in the US. Euro date is isn’t 1000 percent confirmed as of yet.

By Mike Bowden

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Lionhead has revealed a resurrection shrine will appear when you download its Knothole Island DLC which is due out today.

However, for the sake of not wanting to spoil a good story, Lionhead isn’t revealing exactly what this resurrection shrine will be used for.

And for that matter, neither will we.

Knothole Island will cost 800 Points.

By Mike Bowden

Konami announced a new Metal Gear Online campaign called ‘Welcome Rookie’ last night.

The details:

“Welcome Rookie” campaign for the online tactical shooter. The campaign aims to provide new users who register up until February 16th, 2009 with a special codec pack which includes new voice content and 5,000 in-game reward points which can be used to get new items for players’ characters.

The release goes on to say that the campaign is only open to players who have not previously installed and registered the retail version of Metal Gear Online.

Full thing after the break.

By Mike Bowden

Microsoft’s Xbox 360 product manager, Aaron Greenberg, has told MCV that the only two winners at retail this generation is Microsoft and Nintendo.

“We think that we’re one of those industries that consumers are staying in for entertainment,” said Greenberg.

“‘We’, by the way – that’s us and Nintendo. Both the Wii and the Xbox 360 are really the two big winners. Actually, the only two winners right now if you look at holiday sales year over year.”

Both EEDAR and Wedbush Morgan’s Michael Pachter have predicted that Nintedo Wii sales are more than double that of Xbox 360 last month.

Full thing through the link.

Thanks, Destructoid.

By Mike Bowden

Atlus has announced that 2D beat ‘em up, Tokyo Beat Down is coming to DS on March 13 in the US.

We like our old school side-scrolling beat ‘em we do, and this one seems to have all the qualities we like, as you can see yourself in the trailer after the break.

By Mike Bowden

More »

According to IGN, the kind of hardware capabilities you need to be looking at if Monolith’s F.E.A.R. 2 Project Origin floats your boat is as follows:

Minimum System Requirements:

• CPU: P4 2.8GHz (3.2GHz Vista)/Athlon 64 3000+ (3200+ Vista)
• GPU: DX9-capable graphics card with 256MB (SM 2.0b). NVidia 6800 or ATI X700.
• RAM: 1GB (1.5GB Vista)
• Hard Drive: 12GB
• OS: Windows XP SP2/Vista SP1
• DirectX: 9.0c
• Sound: DX9.0c compliant
• Optical drive: DVD (boxed only)
• Internet: Broadband

Recommended System Requirements:

• CPU: Core 2 Duo 2.2GHz processor family/Athlon 64 X2 4400+ (required for MP host)
• GPU: Fully DX9-compliant graphics card with 512MB (SM 3.0). NVidia 8600 GTS or ATI HD 2900 XT.
• Ram: 1.5GB
• Hard Drive: 12GB
• OS: Windows XP SP3/Vista SP1
• DirectX: 9.0c
• Sound: DX9.0c compliant
• Optical drive: DVD (boxed only)
• Internet: Broadband (768kbit/sec upstream required to host 16 players)

Project origin is release next month.

Update: There’s a rather tasty new Mech video after the break. Watch it.

By Mike Bowden

More »

IGN rumoured last night that LucasArts’ Indiana Jones had been canned. In response, LucasArts has confirmed to Joystiq that the rumours have no substance and the team is “committed” to the title.

“LucasArts remains absolutely committed to the Indiana Jones franchise,” said LucasArts.

“While we are aware that fans have been eagerly awaiting additional information on the upcoming game, they can rest assured that details are forthcoming.”

So there you have it. Myth busted. Or whatever it is the kids say these days.

By Mike Bowden

Left 4 Dead dev Chet Faliszek has confirmed to Shacknews that a PC patch is due for the fast-paced zombie shooter this week.

“The problem on the PC side was a few large bugs affected other systems that we were going to rewrite on the PC so we ended up waiting to fix a whole class of bugs instead of just individual bugs,” wrote Faliszek on the Steam forums before the aforementioned confirmation.

“Also for the patching, the real key is to patch more often and not wait for everything to accumulate,” added Faliszek. “Because of a perfect storm of events, this patch got larger than we would have liked and that really snowballed the time it is taking.”

More through the link.

By Mike Bowden