Monthly Archives: March 2009

No shock whatsoever in the UK chart this week, with Resident Evil 5 taking first place.

Killzone 2′s having reasonable legs, there. Not so true of Halo Wars or Empire, unfortunately.

Last week’s chart here. Thanks, Johnny Cullen.

1. Resident Evil 5
2. Wii Fit
3. HAWX
4. Professor Layton
5. Killzone 2
6. FIFA 09
7. all of Duty: World at War
8. Empire: Total War
9. Halo Wars
10. Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games

The first Fable has been reduced as the next Deal of the Week, Nelson’s confirmed.

The Lionhead RPG will set you back 800 Points, reduced from 1,200 Points. The Major actually says there that’s it’s been reduced to “240 points, a savings of 40%.”

Maybe he was drunk, or something.

Epic’s confirmed that MMO functionality is to be added to Unreal Engine, details of which are to be shared at GDC later this month.

It was already confirmed that Epic would be focussing on UE3 at the show.

Advancements in the software were detailed in a press release today, which you can find after the break. In short, there’s “lots of them”.

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Capcom US speak chief Chris “Kramer” Kramer has seemingly confirmed Lost Planet 2 and Dead Rising 2 for release in 2010.

“Capcom’s kind of on a 30-year high right now,” he said, speaking in the latest Major Nelson podcast.

“It’s a pretty amazing place to be, between everything we’ve got going right now, between the launch of Street Fighter IV and Resident Evil 5, and our big titles for next year, Lost Planet 2 and Dead Rising 2.”

Capcom UK stayed quiet on the comment today, saying only that, “We haven’t announced a date yet” for either title.

Here’s a big, elbow-in-the-ribs VG247 hint, though: you don’t see big Capcom games launching in the fourth quarter much, do you?

Thanks, D-Pad.

Speaking in an EGTV video, BioWare’s confirmed a Bounty Hunter for The Old Republic.

Each class in the Star Wars MMO will get its own epic story arc, in addition to the main storyline of the game, said lead writer Daniel Erickson.

“You’re going to have as much choice in that one class as you would have had in an entire Bioware game before, because every single class gets its own story, and that’s a story personal to the player. He gets to have his own Star Wars trilogy,” Erickson said.

No date on it yet.

EEDAR’s released its February NPD estimates, and they’re pretty much the same as Michael Pachter’s, released earlier today.

• DS – 500,000
• Wii – 725,000
• PSP – 200,000
• PS3 – 200,000
• 360 – 300,000

Check Edge for the software estimates. The final figures release this Thursday.

Guinness has claimed House of the Dead: Overkill contains the most uses of the word “fuck” in a game.

The Wii shooter uses it 189 times, “which equates to just over one per minute and three percent of all words spoken in the game,” according to a press release this morning.

“Parodying the profane excess of grindhouse cinema was Headstrong Games’ objective and I am flattered that this record acknowledges that we not only rose to that challenge, but entirely exceeded it,” said script-writer Jonathan Burroughs.

Full thing after the link.

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Wedbush Morgan’s Michael Pachter’s just released his NPD estimates for February, predicting yet another giant month for Wii.

“We estimate sell-through of 725,000 Wii, 300,000 Xbox 360 and 200,000 PS3 consoles (a 26% year-over-year unit increase in consoles),” said the analysts.

“Our console sell-through forecasts reflect our belief that supplies for Wii hardware were up year-over-year. Double-digit hardware unit growth implies solid software sales growth for the succeeding year, giving us confidence in our 12% growth estimate for 2009 U.S. software sales.”

The final figures release this Thursday.

SCEA’s confirmed that only those that pre-order Patapon 2 through either Gamestop or Amazon will get to play the game’s demo.

The tester was openly released in Europe last week.

Those Americans that get the demo will be awarded a “Lordy Hairpiece”.

Find lots of glossing-over through the link.

Konami’s just confimed that Metal Gear Solid Touch will launch for iPhone this Thursday in Europe.

The game will cost €4.99.

The shooter will include 12 stages, with a further eight to be made available for free in the second quarter.

Press release after the break.

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Microsoft said this morning that Halo 3, Mass Effect and Project Gotham Racing 4 will all be £20 in Europe’s Classics range as of this Friday.

Cheap.

The company also reiterated that Xbox 360 has now sold more than 8 million consoles in Europe.

Marketing head David Gosen said the machine had “sailed past” the milestone in the region.

“As we see more and more families looking to save money by staying in, Xbox 360 continues to offer high-quality home entertainment at fantastic value and consumers,” he said.

Peter Dille, SCEA’s senior marketing VP, has told Bloomberg that developers apparently want Sony to sell PS3 for “free”.

“Everybody in the development community would love for the PS3 to be free, so they could just sell razor blades,” Dille said.

He added that Sony is concerned with profitability as well as PS3′s installed base.

Dille’s comments come as Sony faced mounting pressure to cut the price of PS3.

“Sony obviously still has a ways to go with their pricing,” said EA Sports’ Peter Moore.

Dille said that there were no immediate plans to cut PS3′s price.

Thanks, Xephon1970.

Eidos has pushed back Championship Manager from its intended April release date, GI reports.

The game will now arrive in the publisher’s next financial year, which ends on June 30.

“Eidos has a total commitment to producing the highest quality games and we believe by moving the release date of Championship Manager we will give the product the additional time needed to deliver a more polished and highly competitive game within the genre,” said Eidos boss Phil Rogers.

“We will not compromise on quality and we are confident that this decision is right for consumers and will benefit the continued popularity of this franchise.”

Capcom US comms boss Chris Kramer has called Resident Evil 5 a “new direction” for the franchise, and said that previous games, characters and storylines in the series should be seen as “act one” of the series.

RE5, said the exec, was Capcom “starting afresh” with the property.

“It’s a really good time for new players to jump in, because what we’re doing is kind of waving goodbye to a lot of storyline elements from, essentially, act one of the Resident Evil franchise,” Kramer told the Major in his latest podcast.

“Resident evil 5 is really setting the franchise up for what’s going to happen now going forwards, so establishing new characters and storylines, and pretty much a new direction for the game.”

He added: “If you’re late to the party and you haven’t been playing the games for the past 15 years, all you need to know is that the game’s a lot of fun and just filled with action, so you don’t have to worry about the plot, as we’re kind up picking up and starting afresh.”

Resident Evil 5 is a fairly dramatic departure from previous Resident Evil games, focussing on co-op and action over traditional “survival horror”.

The title launched in the West last week.

Despite the fact Publishers Weekly listed a new Bone game for spring release last week, Jeff Smith, the comic’s creator, has instantly said the whole notion’s a load of old bollocks.

“You know, I don’t know what the video game thing is all about,” he told VGTribune.

“There is no new Bone video game in the works. I think it may be refering to something Scholastic is planning for its website – - a little flash game, maybe, or it could just be an internet rumor that made it onto the list!”

So there we are. Thanks, Joystiq.

LucasArts has posted the second edition of its online comic for The Old Republic, as you can see here.

This is the second part of the comic’s first act. There’s still no release date on the BioWare MMO.

Solid Snake voice actor and Watchmen co-writer David Hayter has formed Dark Hero Studios, “a company that will generate film, TV, Internet and vidgame projects in the action, sci-fi and horror genres,” according to this Variety report.

The company will set up graphic novels, comics, game properties and original genre scripts for movie treatment.

Dark Hero’s first project will be something called Demonology, which Hayter penned and will direct as a movie.

Tons more through there.

Just because, really. Look at this. We have no idea why this is being made, although it’s fairly safe to assume that someone will attempt to have sex with it. We am the news.

Thanks, GoNintendo.

BioShock 2 will have some form of multiplayer, Kotaku reports.

The info’s taken from the latest issue of Game Informer. There’s no other detail included at all.

The game’s out later this year.

Nintendo Europe’s put out a huge release date list for the second quarter, putting Punch-Out!! down for a “May” launch, getting a little more specific on the Play Control! version of Donkey Kong Jungle Beat, and has dated the first proper DSi title, Rhythm Paradise, for May 1.

DSi releases in Europe on April 3.

Donkey Kong Jungle Beat is now down for “June” as opposed to the “summer” date given last week.

Rhythm Paradise, named Rhythm Heaven in the US, will be an American DSi launch title on April 5.

Nintendo of America put out its second quarter dates at the end of February.

You’ll find everything below.

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