Monthly Archives: March 2009

Tim Kretschmer, the German 17 year-old responsible for killing 15 people at his school last week, played Far Cry 2 the night before committing his crime, the Times reports.

Kretschmer played the FPS from 7.30pm to 9.40pm the previous evening. The Times report claims there are “remarkable parallels” between the game and Kretschmer actions the following day, in that he hijacked cars and wore a camouflaged uniform.

“Most sinister of all,” the Times went on, “Far Cry 2’s killer uses a Beretta 92 handgun, the weapon fired 112 times by Kretschmer. The game, which carries an 18 certificate in Britain, includes sequences in which the aiming, firing and reloading of a Beretta are portrayed in vivid detail. It also rewards players who shoot their victims in the head, the style of killing chosen by Kretschmer.”

Kretschmer also played Counter-Strike on the same night.

The report does add, as its final two paragraphs, that Walter Hollstein, a sociologist working with the Council of Europe, said: “It’s nonsense to assume they turn adolescents into school shooters.

“A variety of factors, such as helplessness, anger and loss of control, must come together for them to become the trigger, but the games themselves don’t make anyone a killer.”

Glad that’s cleared up.

Capcom’s confirmed that 4 million copies of Resident Evil 5 have shipped to retailers.

In addition, the publisher confirmed today that the game’s demo has been downloaded more than 4 million times across both PS3 and 360 versions.

Resident Evil 5 released in the West last Friday, and the week previously in Japan.

The Resident Evil series has now sold more than 40 million units, Capcom said today.

Speaking to IGN, EA Sports boss Peter Moore’s given a clear indication that a mixed martial arts game’s in the firm’s future. Boxing, however, despite the impending release of Fight Night 4, is a thing of “the past”.

“We keep a very close eye on where things like Mixed Martial Arts are going,” said Moore.

“Obviously we’ve got Fight Night — we’re incredibly excited about Fight Night — but boxing, for me, sadly feels like it’s the past of fighting and Mixed Martial Arts feels like it’s the future of fighting.

“So when we look at where people’s attention is going, that’s something we keep a very close eye on.”

No other detail was given. THQ’s releasing the next “big” mixed martial arts game in UFC 2009 Undisputed this spring.

This week wasn’t too eventful in the way of MMO news, other than Warhammer consolidating server populations and luring gamers back with some goodies. But we already touched on that, it’s, like, old.

Today, news reached us that Second Life is trying to deal with all of the adult content in the game, Zork is no longer going to be an MMO, and EverQuest II players are currently inebriated with Brewday. Who wouldn’t look forward to Brewday?

Hit the break for all you need to know about the goings-on in the land of MMOS this week.

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A new Battlefield 2 map, Operation Blue Pearl, will be added to the game with DICE’s next patch.

This map will be included in both BF2 and Battlefield 2142.

The developers felt that BF2 “lacked a map with a beach landing scenario” like Omaha Beach in BF 1942, thus the addition of the beach setting.

An open beta is expected, but no details on when and how to sign up were mentioned on the official site.

The second micro-expansion for Sins of a Solar Empire is going to be late, says Ironclad.

Entrenchment, the first out of three planned expansions, has been out for a bit, but Ironcald’s Blair Fraser says that the next part will be “done when it’s done”.

Sounded like Blizzard talking there for a minute.

Untitled at this point, the second update expands on diplomacy features.

1UP and six of the top Street Fighter IV players from Northern and Southern California had a match over at the Hearst offices last night.

They live-streamed it, have no fear if you missed out. It’ll be posted on GameVideos come Monday.

The top Street Fighter IV players shared their match and characters strategies, and chatted a bit about the “fighting game scene”.

Be sure to watch this link for more information.

Turbine has announced that the Volume 2, Book 7: Leaves of Lórien update for Lord of the Rings Online can be downloaded a few days early from the official site.

Scheduled to go live on Tuesday, March 17, North American, Australian and New Zealand can get the patch ahead of schedule. No word on European players.

More information over on Massively.

EVE Online has a new developer blog up for the new expansion Apocrypha explaining how the new exploration system works.

The recent expansion implemented a new drag-and-drop method to exploration, a more visual process than the old way.

It’s supposed to make the discovery of hidden encounters and wormholes easier, but, as with so much in EVE, it can be a bit confusing — thus the tutorial.

The video posted after the break was created by EVE Online player Espoir and is a visual tutorial covering everything from “exploration probe placement” to focusing in on the signatures you discover.

Thanks, Massively.

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Australian? Looking forward to the PSP-3000 Resistance Retribution bundle landing March 26? Here’s what it contains:

• PSP 3000 console
• Resistance Retribution game
• Resistance Retribution branded black pouch
• Resistance Retribution PSP skin

Megaton. EB Games has it listed. Go take a peek.

Telltale Games will be releasing Wallace & Gromit’s Grand Adventures for PC on March 24.

The game up for pre-order right now and to entice you to purchase it, the cost is currently $26.00 instead of the normal $34.95: plus you will get a full episode of both Sam & Max and Strong Bad’s Cool Game for Awesome People.

A demo of the first episode in the episodic series, Fright of the Bumblebees, is expected to go live this Monday (March 16), exclusively through Yahoo Games.

Click here for more information, and hit the jump for a cute trailer.

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Last year, Boston mayor Tom Menino was heavily involved in trying get anti-videogame legislation passed. Now he’s attempting to woo companies by declaring Boston a “game industry friendly city”.

Menino recently announced the launch of a website called PoweringUpBoston, a tool promoting the area’s game industry with news, job postings and other resources.

His change of heart comes on the heels of a 2007 and 2008 push for or a sales restrictions on videogames, similar to restrictions recently found unconstitutional by federal courts.

Also, in 2006, he campaigned to have Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories ads removed from city buses.

Menino’s new focus, however, is on “strengthening the Boston-area game development presence, raising Boston’s profile as a global leader in digital media and specifically the game industry.”

2K Boston, Harmonix, Turbine and 73 other companies employ over 1,500 people in the area.

More over on GamePolitics.

Valve released a new update to Team Fortress 2 yesterday, which will be applied when you log into Steam.

Only two gameplay changes are included. One is an increase in distance when stunning a player with the Sandman, and the other means players take 50 percent less damage when stunned by a Scout.

Fixes:

• Problem where clients were unable to join a team or maintain a connection to the server
• Scout taunt kill achievement firing for people who didn’t actually qualify
• Client crash in when creating muzzle flash effects
• Client crash when determining which disguise weapon to use for a spy
• Natascha’s chain not being drawn on the view model
• Stun code regression that resulted in a subtle reduction of Natascha’s slowdown effect
• Rocket & grenade jumps not propelling players as far as they’re supposed to

Hit the link for more information.

A video containing a trial mode walkthrough for every Street Fighter IV character has popped up over on EventHubs. It’s posted after the jump.

It shows you how to pull off all the different combos from normal to hard, and there’s a write up for each one.

Only you know if you need this.

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Blizzard’s first ever global writing contest has gone into effect, with the lucky winner getting invited to the company’s headquarters in California.

If you’re feeling creative, write up a piece of fan fiction up to 10,000 words long pertaining to one of Blizzard’s three main franchises, submit it and cross your fingers.

“Whether you conjure stories in your free time or write for a living, you’re encouraged to participate,” says Blizzard.

“This contest is open to entrants from around the world, and will be judged by Blizzard Entertainment’s own writers and masters of lore.”

The winner gets a free trip to the studios, a meeting with Blizzard lore staff, taken to dinner and handed a Frostmourne sword of their very own.

Seven runners-up win packages containing signed copies of novels Diablo Archive, StarCraft Archive, Warcraft Archive, and the Warcraft War of the Ancients Archive.

Extra details and legal stuff can be found here.

Sony’s started handing out vouchers for free High Velocity Bowling. If you are a Qore subscriber, check your email to see if you got one.

The game uses the Sixaxis controller to simulate bowling swings, and includes eight characters and eight themed alleys.

Multiplayer for 1-4 players is enabled, as is a Trophy room to show off your eagles. Providing you don’t pull off a lot of turkeys.

Thanks, Tawkn.

Valve has updated Left 4 Dead: changes will go into effect when you log into Steam.

We missed this yesterday. Our apologies.

Mostly a bunch of fixes, but here is the list anyway:

• Fixed sv_search_key appearing in server browser
• Fixed issue where changing the sv_search_key did not update the master correctly
• Fixed master server issue with Linux fork mode that affected availability of Valve dedicated servers
• Tank melee attack can now hit multiple Survivors in one swing
• Missed from the previous list changes:  Fixed achievements to match stats. Past achievements not previously awarded will be shown in the game UI

While you are over there, if you are feeling a bit daring, Steam now has Grey’s Anatomy: The Video Game up for grabs.

Sorry, just couldn’t resist.

Star Trek Online has a surprise in store for fans of the original series. Seems that CBS has given Cryptic the go-ahead to design races mentioned in the series, but never before seen.

During a Q&A over on the Cryptic site, it was revealed that the game will not only include the known races from the Star Trek universe, but the devs will have the full gambit of Trekkie lore behind them when it comes to designing the new races.

Already known, but also of note in the Q&A, is mention of the creation process which will allow players to use bits from all pre-existing races to make their very own. This customization is limited to bipedal humanoids, so no mixing with Tribbles folks.

Imagine creating a race that’s a mix between a Ferengi, Tholian, and a Hirogen with the talents of a Betaziod.

That would be horrible to look at. But very cool.

Thanks, IncGamers.

The Dead Space: Extraction team has said the new Wii title will be a full game, and last as long as the original PS3 and 360 horror.

According to and interview over on Skewed & Reviewed:

• Game will take “about as long as it took players to play through Dead Space,” according to someone unnamed on EA’s production team. If that’s so, they’re building a rail shooter (yeah, it’s a rail shooter) to last a dozen hours or so. It’ll be interesting to see how they do that without getting boring or repetitive.

• New areas of Aegis VII (the mining colony where the infection breaks out) and the ship Ishimura will be revealed.

• The co-op mode will allow a second player to jump in mid-session, rather than require both players to start the mission together from the beginning.

• Vague promises of new weapons, badder enemies, different bosses to battle, etc.

Via Kotaku.

Bungie will be releasing the Mythic map pack for Halo 3 sometime this spring on Xbox Live, and until the fated day arrives, the firm is continually posting goodies over on the official website.

Today’s offering? A haunted house and zombies.

The Sandbox map will contain a haunted dwelling called “Spooky House,” and it’s filled to the brim with flesh-hungry zombies. Exciting.

Loads more is through the link including a Q&A with the map’s creator, Shay.