Monthly Archives: January 2009

Sega’s confirmed Empire: Total War for a March 3 release.

The game is the latest PC RTS from Creative Assembly, and is tipped by UK journos as unbeatable in its field. A monster, apparently.

It’s actually America that gets it on March 3: the rest of the game-playing world gets it a day later.

“A source close to Sony” has issued a less than subtle denial to IGN’s PSP2 rumour, calling the talk of a touch-screen sequel to the handheld “nonsense.”

“Clearly, being a quiet time of year, many, what we thought to be credible websites, are making up stories about PSP2, and how it allows you to teleport across the globe, travel through time, and will be powered by the horns of baby rhinoceroses,” MCV was told today.

“Hopefully, you can sense a mild tone of sarcasm, which should hopefully indicate how ‘on the money’ IGN are. Needless to say, we don’t comment on rumour or speculation, but this is nonsense.”

Don’t hold back, “source.” Sony’s put out an official denial of the story, according to TechRadar, although no quote was given.

Call of Duty: World at War is back at the top of the Live play charts, Nelson’s confirmed, holding off Halo 3 for the week of January 19.

List below. Click through for the community games charts, should you feel the need.

1. CoD: World at War
2. Halo 3
3. Call of Duty 4
4. Gears of War 2
5. Left 4 Dead
6. GTA IV
7. Fable II
8. FIFA 09
9. Guitar Hero World Tour
10. Madden NFL 09

Here we go. Think Services has confirmed that Nintendo super-boss Satoru Iwata himself is to deliver a GDC keynote. It’s megaton time.

The exec’s speech will be entitled “Discovering New Development Opportunities,” and marks his first return to the conference since 2006.

“The Game Developers Conference is thrilled to welcome Satoru Iwata back to the keynote stage,” said GDC boss Meggan Scavio.

“His previous talks at the GDC can be credited with setting the stage for much of the huge growth the games industry has since seen, and attendees continue to talk about how both lectures impacted their perspective on development.”

The keynote’s set for set for Monday, March 25 at 9.00am PST.

The world will be watching. We fucking love this shit, yo. Plenty more detail through there.

Sony has released some PSN stats revealing the most popular, and therefore the most downloaded, things on PSN.

There is the most downloaded PSN title, movie, even the top 3 downloaded PlayStation Home items. Everything has been tracked and recorded for safe keeping.

Kudos to Kotaku on this one.

Full list after the break.

By Mike Bowden

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Rare community manager George Kelion has updated the Banjo Blog to revealed that Banjo sequel remake Banjo-Tooie will be ready to go from April.

He also added that the Stop ’n’ Swop feature will be implement and that the “items collected in Banjo-Kazooie will ‘magically’ appear in Tooie, resulting in… well, you’ll just have to find out.”

This is a world first in gaming, apparently.

On top of all that, there are four new screenshots for you to look at after the break.

More through the link.

By Mike Bowden

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EA has announced that the upcoming Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 expansion pack will get a few new cast members.

Gemma Atkinson and Ivana Milicevic are joined by newcomers Jamie Chung, wrestler Ric Flair, Malcolm McDowell, Jodi Lyn O’Keefe and Holly Valance.

“When I found out that EA wanted me to be part of Command & Conquer, all I could say was ‘Woooooooooooo!’” said world heavyweight champion, Ric Flair.

He used to say that all the time back in 1990.

The expansion pack will be available in March.

Update: Take a look at the new batch of cast members below.

By Mike Bowden

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In amongst Venturebeat calling Flower “most inspired game for the PlayStation 3″ in a recent hands-on, the article also revealed that ThatGameCompany’s latest PSN venture will cost the princely sum of $9.99.

Eurogamer then rushed to contact SCEE who told the site that no Euro pricing is forthcoming at this point in time.

Flower will be released for PlayStation Network on February 12.

By Mike Bowden

Below you can see the live footage of the Halo 3: ODST soundtrack that aired at Video Games Live in Seattle that we told you about last week.

Although the quality is so-so, it still sounds excellent. We’re now even more gutted we weren’t there.

Come to Europe, please.

By Mike Bowden

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Organisers of this year’s New York Comic Con have revealed that the allocated space for games at the show now takes up around 50 percent of the show floor.

“I am enormously pleased and gratified to see how much and how fast our videogame component has grown since last year,” commented show manager Lance Fensterman.

“From the get go, one of our principal goals at New York Comic Con has been to build on our core interest, which is comics, by expanding outwards to include other interests.

“This is what defines us as a true pop culture event. We provide a wide range of stimulating activity which commands the attention of our many fans. I couldn’t be happier that videogaming is now taking a leading role in all of this.”

The New York Comic Con gets underway at the Jacob Javits Center on February 6 and lasts two days.

The titles on show include Prototype, Champions Online, The Godfather 2 and Afro Samurai.

Thanks, GI.

By Mike Bowden

As per this Friday, the Singstar Store will have a whole host of new tracks including ‘Confide in Me’ from everybody’s favourite lady, Kylie Minogue.

Will Young’s in there too, as are Suede and Supergrass – (although sources tell us they’re only in it for the money!) So not a bad update, really.

Full list over at ThreeSpeech.

By Mike Bowden

Videogaming247 has sat down with Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard lead producer, Brian Etheridge.

We asked him what makes Eat Lead unique, the trials and tribulations of development, and all kinds of interviewy things like that.

He even reveals that the game will be released in March for 360 and PS3.

You can watch three new gameplay video and check out loads of brand new screenshots here.

Full thing after the break.

By Mike Bowden

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Eurogamer reckons that PSP title, WipEout Pulse, is headed for a release on PlayStation 2.

According to the source, the port has been in development for some time, but it now appears the space racer may never see the light of day.

Sony wasn’t prepared to comment on the rumour but did offer the following statement:

“There are over 9.5m PS2s in the UK and we will continue to support this large userbase with software on an ongoing basis.

“Of course, we need to make a business decision that there will be sufficient demand for a particular product, but we see franchises such as SingStar and Buzz still selling very well – for example SingStar Abba which launched in December proved very successful,” said the spokesperson.

“With regards to other titles we will judge each on an individual basis and make decisions accordingly.”

More through the link.

By Mike Bowden

Activision has just unveiled just what songs you can download for Guitar Hero World Tour in February. As the headline states, Wings will be there, along with Incubus and Ryan Adams. The magic doesn’t end there however, as we’re promised songs from The Shins and Bob Seger.

There are three track packs to choose from:

February 12 (“Acoustic Track Pack”)

• Incubus – “Drive”
• The Shins – “New Slang”
• Ryan Adams – “Wonderwall” (cover)

February 19 (“Wings Track Pack”)

• Wings – “Junior’s Farm”
• Wings – “Hi Hi Hi”
• Wings – “Jet”

February 26 (“Bog Seger Track Pack”)

• Bob Seger – “Old Time rock and Roll”
• Bob Seger – “Her Strut”
• Bog Seger – “Get Out of Denver (live)”

The songs will cost 160 Points each and £0.99 on PSN where the various track packs will cost the usual 440 MS Points or roughly £4.40 on PlayStation Netwrk.

Full details after the break.

By Mike Bowden

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EA has released some new Godfather II screenshots that show the dark side of the game.

There are lots of pictures of wise-guys with guns looking very menacing indeed.

Godfather II ships on February 24th in North America and on February 27th in Europe for PC, 360 and PS3.

Images below.

By Mike Bowden

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D3Publishing has released a ton of new media for its spoof-action hero shooter, Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard.

Vicious Cycle Software’s Matt Hazard is a fictional video game character from the 80′s who is now making a comeback six years after his last game.

The three videos that show some old and new school graphics and the groovy new images can all be seen below.

Look out for our interview with the dev team coming soon.

Update: Speak of the devil: here’s the interview.

By Mike Bowden

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Eurogamer has published the first review of Bethesda’s Fallout 3 DLC and wasn’t too impressed if the decidedly average 5/10 score is anything to go by.

From the review:

I love Fallout 3. I love it to an almost indecent extent. It was far and away my game of 2008, and doesn’t look like being knocked out of my personal top spot for a good while yet. But when you sift out its role-play, the ammo-box inspection and the exploration and draft in a fleet of health and ammo regeneration points to compensate… well, affairs just feel shallow and somewhat naked. Hopefully a lesson has been learnt at Bethesda towers. Business as usual next time please.

Operation: Anchorage is available now on PC and 360 for 800 Microsoft Points.

Full review through the link.

GI understands that various marketing and PR positions at EA UK are to be cut.

This is part of EA’s restructuring initiative that will see 1000 people lose their jobs.

EA’s next earnings call is set for February 3rd where hopefully the company will detail its plans in full.

We’ve contacted EA UK for comment.

By Mike Bowden

If you boot up what in our opinion is the best PSN title to date, WipEout HD, you’ll be prompted to update.

However, the only thing that seems to be different is that the version number is now 1.26 and not 1.20.

The update is 11Mb.

We’ll check with Sony right away and see if we can unravel this greatest of mysteries.

By Mike Bowden

Pocketgamer reckons it’s got some insider info pertaining to Polish porting experts Gamelion are bringing PSP’s LocoRoco Hi to mobile phones.

The game is already for mobiles in the US and the European version will be coming “sooner than you think,” says the rumour.

Awesome.

More through the link.

By Mike Bowden