Monthly Archives: February 2009

Acclaim boss Dave Perry said at DICE yesterday that single-player games will not be able to compete with online free-to-play games.

The creator of Earthworm Jim told the crowd that “the days of single-player games are numbered,” and added that his company’s focus is “entirely on multiplayer.”

More over on Gamasutra.

Speaking at DICE in Las Vegas today, NPD analyst Anita Frazier said that some 75 percent of gamers say they prefer a boxed product, and 58 percent had never downloaded a game.

But out of those who have downloaded a game, 77 percent said it was just as good as a retail box, she added.

The NPD perennial number-cruncher went on to say that 65 percent of surveyed gamers said they would be more likely to purchase a digital product if it were 10 percent less than retail.

More on Edge.

On the official site. No date, no platforms. Go go go.

Capcom have released webisode one for Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop.

It mainly schools you on how to use Wii’s controls to make head shots, and the proper way to use a sniper rifle.

Loads of explosions, shooting, dismemberment and zombie poodles can be watched after the jump.

More »

A Remedy community manager has posted up a passage on the Alan Wake forums written by the protagonist novelist himself.

It wasn’t really. You know what we mean.

And here it is. Alan’s alive!

The amount of pages keeps growing each night. There are also new edits on the old pages. They keep getting more aggressive. The story is rewriting itself. The protagonist is now my namesake, and his wife is called Alice. The most worrying aspect: the genre seems to be shifting. It’s turning into a horror story. I can no loner be certain whether the hero can succeed or even survive. Apart for the jumbled fragments of bad dreams and an oppressive feeling, I can remember nothing of the process when I wake up. But this morning, a breakthrough! When I came to my senses, I could smell her perfume on my shirt. I am close. I know it. I must push on.

- Alan Wake

Any news is good news, right? Might want to do a spellcheck though, Alan. GDC, please.

Ubioft’s confirmed that Mac users will get Prince of Persia and Shawn White Snowboarding next month.

The new versions are the result of an agreement with TransGaming.

Both titles will up for download on GameTree Online and Ubisoft’s store. System requirements for each game are posted below.

More »

The latest Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena trailer released today, and looks pretty damn sensational. In a really, really violent way.

If you’re after a nasty action game, you’ve found it. That shouldn’t be a recommendation. And yet it is.

Take a look. It’s out for PS3, 360 and PC next month.

More »

Ensemble Studios co-founder Bruce Shelley is very happy for the ex-Ensemble vets who have moved on to form Robot Entertainment and Bonfire Studios.

Speaking at DICE, Shelley said the studio’s demise mostly boiled down to lack of quality, lack of quality hires and genre diversification as projects not related to RTS were canceled.

Shelley also said that the worst thing Ensemble did was to close, as there were ways to have moved on specifically downsizing and reaffirming its relationship with Microsoft.

“It’s a sad day, but this is business,” Shelley said. “Maybe we didn’t do some things very well. We were shocked, but we’ve gone through the stages of grief and now we’re looking for a new direction.”

More through here.

Relic’s confirmed it’s already working on a Dawn of War II patch after complaints that players are being prevented from accepting any new campaign missions in the game.

The RTS sequel released today in Europe and earlier this week in the US.

“The fix should bring those corrupted save games back to life and shouldn’t interfere with unaffected save games in any way,” wrote Relic on the Dawn of War II community site.

Apparently, though, the update will not address the root of those crashes, an out-of-memory error.

Whoops. More on Shacknews.

Deal time. Pre-order Tom Clancy’s EndWar on Steam and you’ll get Ghost Recon Fighter for free.

EndWar will be available on February 25 and 26 worldwide.

Get two for one by hitting this link.

Comedian Jay Mohr was the host of this year’s AIAS awards, and what better way to get the crowd warmed than by making fun of some of the most prominent people there?

Here are just a couple of them:

• Cliff Belinski:  (Dropping the “y” from his name to be more adult): “That worked well for Rick Schroder.”

• Richard Garriott: “That guy used 30 million to launch himself into space. Maybe he should have used that to launch Tabula Rasa.”

• Makers of Grand Theft Auto IV: He couldn’t joke about the game: “If you want to watch an awards show about thugs beating up ho’s, watch the Grammys”

More over on MTV Multiplayer.

Atsushi Inaba – creator of MadWorld, Okami and Viewtiful – feels that Japanese developers are lagging behind their western counterparts.

“To be honest, I think that western developers are superior to those in Japan overall,” he said in an interview with Develop.

“So we the Japanese developers should realize that we have to work hard to reach the western level. We’re fast reaching a stage where it’s going to be about individual developers and not about what country they are in, globalisation is coming to our industry too.”

Inaba also mentioned that original IPs will provide “developers with an unrivaled opportunity to succeed”

Full interview through the link.

American McGee’s expanding on his now-announced return to Wonderland – which is tentatively titled: The Return of American McGee’s Alice – says on his blog that the game will have the original executive producer and the same writer.

“The original Alice was a good bit of fun – and aspects of the original are still quite compelling,” he said.

“The challenge for us – to build a great game, and a sequel worthy of the original – is real, but not daunting.”

Speaking with Kotaku, EA chief David DeMartini says that the company has given McGee carte blanche.

“We’ve given him a blank canvas to go where he would like. There is nothing set in stone and nothing has been removed either.”

EA also said that more collaboration could be on the way with McGee, providing this one does well.

More through the link.

After the break. This is the first part if a two-part vidoc on the making of Killzone 2, featuring interviews with Guerrilla and lots of saying how great PS3 is.

The second part’s on Monday, and the game’s out February 27.

We’ll tell you one thing for free: that is a bloody good-looking videogame.

More »

Joystiq and a few others received a faux email earlier in the day saying Valve was giving them Far Cry 2 for free.

The email address appears to originate from Steam and the link looks legitimate, but it goes to a third-party site where heaven only knows what sort of nasty thing will download onto your system.

If you are one of the recipients of this email, don’t fall for it.

More over on Joystiq, and you can view the offending email flier here.

The open beta for browser-based shooter Quake will go live on February 24, id confirmed today.

The classic game is for competitive play, complete with leaderboards and matchmaking. And all for free.

Stats will be wiped from closed beta participants in preparation for launch.

There’s an Empire: Total War demo up on Steam now, as you can see here.

If historic strategy’s your thing, this is a must. Creative Assembly’s the final word.

Even if it isn’t, it’s free. So get it.

NASA, Virtual Heroes and Project Whitecard have entered into an agreement to develop the space program’s MMO, Astronaut: Moon, Mars and Beyond.

NASA hopes that the Unreal Engine 3-driven game will be a learning tool, and will help more students become interested in engineering and science careers.

“We want to create a fun, compelling gaming experience that will give players the chance to learn about science and engineering careers while they play the game,” said Daniel Laughlin, project manager at NASA to Yahoo Games.

“NASA is committed to attracting more students to science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields of study and careers. We hope this game will inspire players to consider those careers.”

Astronaut is due to be released in 2010. A demo is expected sometime around the end of this year.

The GTA IV: The Lost and Damned free multiplayer week continues, with the chance to play the developers at it this weekend.

Join in from 5.00-9.00pm EST (2:00 -6:00 pm PST) on both Saturday and Sunday, and be sure to add the following Gamertags to your friends list:

• RstarGames01
• RstarGames02
• RstarGames03
• RstarGames04
• RstarGames05
• RstarGames06
• RstarGames07
• RstarGames08
• RstarGames09
• RstarGames10
• RstarGames11
• RstarGames12
• RstarGames13
• RstarGames14
• RstarGames15
• RstarGames16
• RstarGames17
• RstarGames18
• RstarGames19
• RstarGames20

If any of our readers get in on this, drop us a line and let us know how it was.

A Steam patch released yesterday for Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3 removes the SecuROM and Steam digital rights from your game.

Next time you log in, the patch will apply itself and will also remove the game-specific license from your machine.

More information over on GamersDigest