Monthly Archives: February 2009

Nelson brings word that Rare’s Grabbed by the Ghoulies is now available on Xbox Originals.

Yours for 1,200 Points. Get to it.

Future’s PSM3 mag has blown the lid on EA’s Dante’s Inferno, revealing a “muscular six foot knight with magic powers” fighting through the nine circles of Hell to a showdown with Old Nick himself.

From PushSquare.com:

• The game runs at a solid 60FPS and is brought to life by the excellent animations of its enemies and protagonist.
• Dante Aligheri, the Florentine poet of whom the game is based upon, has been turned into a “muscular six foot knight with magic powers” to suit the tone of the game. Dante is fighting his way through Hell to save his lost love Beatrice, who has been murdered and wrongly sent to the underworld.
• One of the first boss encounters takes place in “Limbo”, an area of lost souls who are agonisingly close to God but can never reach Him due to a life of non-believing. It’s here that Dante fights Death himself and steals his magical scythe before plunging into the underworld.
• The game shares the exact same control scheme as God Of War. Even down to Circle being used to open chests.
• The games artist Wayne Barlowe was chosen because of his work on Barlowe’s Inferno, a collection of images based on Dante’s poem.
• Structurally, the game is designed to take the player through the nine circles of Hell. The first circle, Limbo, is where you will encounter Death and moving through the world areas get more horrific. Circle 5, “The Wrathful”, is where violent people are forced to endlessly fight each other. The game will culminate in Circle 9, presumably with a massive boss fight against Beelzebub himself.

No date on it yet. Watch for an embargo-lift in the very near future.

Speaking in a video documentary on Mass Effect – watch it after the break – principal lead designer Preston Watamaniuk has apparently dropped the first proper piece of information on the next piece of Mass Effect DLC.

“Things we’re working on right now, for the Mass Effect universe next … we had something in Mass Effect 1 that again, we weren’t able to pull off just because we didn’t have the time and we didn’t think we’d be able to do it well enough, which was a fight club or an arena. So we’re actually working on that for our next downloadable content piece and we’re hoping it’ll be really special.”

Project director Casey Hudson then expands, saying, “So we wanted to be able to give people a much more combat-oriented, lighter-story experience. You’re going to go to a kind of casino gaming fight club space station.”

There’s no date on any more Mass Effect DLC as yet, and no official announcement of anything as yet.

Thanks, Joystiq.

More »

According to this Destructoid piece, the Street Fighter hardcore are complaining that the apparently brilliant Mad Catz SFIV stick… sticks.

Members of the Shoryuken message board are complaining the joystick sticks in its former diagonal position instead of snapping back to the neutral zone.

This is all about the lower cost stick, for the record. There’s a beefier version which is apparently “perfect,” as we’ve just been told.

There’s no geek like a Street Fighter geek. Full thing through there.

Metal Gear Solid 4 is to be released as a budget PS3 title in Europe.

As of March 5, you’ll be able to buy Snake’s latest for a piffling £20, €30 if you’re on the mainland.

You should probably buy it for that, innit.

Yet more responsible games activity towards children from the UK today, this time in the form of a promotional stunt for Rise of the Argonauts.

Codemasters is offering a year’s worth of games to anyone stupid enough to name their child Jason in return for a small amount of money. Someone should give little Alfie a shout. He’s bound to have a few boys next week.

“Any parent who names their new son Jason will be eligible to win a year’s supply of the firm’s videogames on their chosen platform,” says the press release, after the break.

“All they have to do is fax, post or email a copy of the birth certificate to bringbackjason@codemasters.com for the opportunity to enter the prize draw.”

Assuming someone actually does this: shame on you.

PR after the break.

More »

What do you do when you have a baby aged 13? You play Saints Row 2 in front of the Sun’s cameras.

Our words are pointless. Read this.

The BradyGames Lost and Damned strategy guide’s releasing on February 20, the company confirmed today.

Buy it and you’ll have:

• Complete walkthrough to all new missions
• “In-depth” area maps
• Listing of all weapons and vehicles
• “Expert” multiplayer strategy
• Price: £8.99

The first episode of 360′s exclusive GTA IV DLC launches tomorrow.

Fiddy loves the games, yo. In the video interview after the break, the rap superstar says upcoming actioner 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand is one of the best things he’s doing right now.

“This… for me is one of the more exciting projects that I’m involved in,” he said.

“I can’t wait till the public has an opportunity to actually play it.”

The game looks amazing. And stupid. Amazingly stupid, in fact. It’s out this Friday.

More »

After the break. The hugely anticipated piece of GTA IV DLC launches tomorrow for 360.

As you can see from the movie, it’s looking none too shabby.

More »

Sega just officially confirmed a Wii version of Virtua Tennis 2009.

There’s no mention of Wii MotionPlus support in the press release.

A Sega UK spokesperson has just told us that they’re unable to comment on game features beyond those listed in the press release.

A Wii MotionPlus logo is rumoured to appear on the game’s box art, making is the first officially confirmed third-party game to support Nintendo’s new motion tech if true.

Full thing after the break. The game releases in May, alongside all other versions.

More »

VG247 has learned that Microsoft intends to release Forza 3 as one of its major 360 titles this holiday.

The game has never been confirmed by the company, although it was heavily involved in the Intellisponse leak fiasco last June.

Intellisponse marketing concepts hinted that the game may feature a Collector’s Edition, DLC, over 100 tracks and 400 cars.

Microsoft’s Q4 first-party line-up for this year is unknown as yet, and we’re still in the dark as to when it’ll be announced.

The publisher hasn’t confirmed a GDC keynote this year: last year it used the platform to announce Gears of War 2, with the rest of its Christmas roster being shown at a US event in May.

Aside from Forza, it’s now known that newly-formed developer Ruffian is working on a “Crackdown 1.5″ product aimed for release at the end of this year.

Halo: ODST will also release in late 2009.

We’ve asked Microsoft for comment.

A Lionhead spokesperson has just told VG247 that Justice and Survivors are old Lionhead concepts and are not in production at the studio.

Concept art created by Leading Light Design appeared last night, but we’re assured neither points to an actual game.

Peter Molyneux is to speak at GDC next month, and is likely to announce his next project.

The developer has already said the game is based on a single premise.

Warner Bros has lent its support to a Square Enix bid for Eidos, saying it’ll add its 20 percent holding in the firm to a take-over.

Over 36 percent of outstanding shares have now been placed on Square’s side of the fence.

Eidos shares were trading at 32.25 pence when trading opened on Monday.

More on GI.

And round and round we go. Xbox Europe boss Chris Lewis has told GI that 360 is well ahead of PS3 in EMEA.

“If you look right across my area of responsibility, every data point that I’ve got, which I trust – and data points we’ve always used – put us approximately 1 million units ahead in the aggregate,” he said.

Lewis is using GfK Chart-Track, figures, he said, and it talking specifically about EMEA – Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

This grouping doesn’t include Australia and New Zealand, which will be added to Sony’s figures when they talk about the PAL region.

Next up: David Reeves says Chris Lewis is wrong! Keep that breath bated while you wait.

Rockstar dev boss Jeronimo Barrera has confirmed that GTA IV DLC The Lost and Damned – releasing tomorrow – is at the limit of Live’s file-size restriction, and should be considered a full game.

“There’s nothing ever been out like it,” Barrera told Major Nelson in the first section of a two-part audio interview.

“We’ve done a full game in my opinion, in terms of the production quality and the new gameplay mechanics.

“We’ve literally reached the maximum memory size that we can do for DLC with Microsoft.

“You’re going to get a lot of game.”

Barrera, however, refused to put a play-time estimate on the content, saying only that players can expect “hours and hours and hours” of bang for their buck.

The exec also took the opportunity to snipe at other premium DLC, saying Rockstar had pushed the concept further than anything else yet available.

“That’s not to say there hasn’t been good downloadable content: obviously, there has been, but I find a lot of the time the stuff you can download to be more of an appendage to a game in terms of, you know, a new area opens up, or you can travel to another island, or something like that,” he said.

“You know, it’s cool, and it keep fans coming back, but [there's] nothing that’s crossed story arcs and that’s what we’re trying to do, to push this, to deliver… a new experience, and I think we’ve hit it right out of the ballpark.”

The full thing’s through the link. Well worth a listen.

Having been pipped to the January NPD analysis post by Edge’s Kris Graft last week, Gamasutra’s posted up its exclusive Matt Mathews feature on the US sales numbers.

As ever, it’s a solid effort. Nice graphs. Sombre colouring. Great pies. Very authoritative. Not as Day-glo as the Edge piece, but you can’t have everything.

Do you need to read all this again? Off you go, then.

When Sony initially bequeathed unto U.S. gamers its first holy, zeal-inspiring slab of Killzone 2, only those who had pre-ordered the game were able to partake. However, after sensing a horrendous disturbance in the Sony defense force, it seems Sony decided to back down on its somewhat perplexing policy.

Well, kinda.

Starting at 6pm Pacific (9pm Eastern), a gaggle of Helghast soldiers will begin cavorting about PlayStation Home. When not checking out the latest Twilight trailers and performing carnal acts, they’ll be handing out a limited number of demo codes. Free demo codes.

You know what to do, we trust. Enjoy.

Kotaku’s posted what’s apparently a retail listing for a red 360 Elite.

It’s $400, says the shot, which comes from a Toys ‘R’ Us.

This is most likely the Resident Evil 5 special edition rumoured a few weeks ago. It’s never been officially confirmed.

RE5′s out in March.

Headshot. Leading Light Design, a company that specializes in concept and production design, has shown art from two projects done for Lionhead, namely Justice and Survivors.

Justice appears to be some kind of framed convict thing, while Survivors looks apocalyptic.

Peter Molyneux’s already said his next project will be based on a single premise, and may well be announced at GDC next month.

No idea if these are games or not. We’ll check with Lionhead in the morning.

From superannuation, via Destructoid.