Monthly Archives: March 2009

A ton of apparent BioShock 2 information’s popped up on the 2K forums, supposedly taken from subs issues of Game Informer.

CVG’s done a precis. Be warned: if this lot’s true, there are some huge spoilers here.

A few of you lot could do with one of these. Some company or other’s offering up “console war” medals, “that celebrate the memories of endless epic battles, infinite high scores and numerous blistered fingers.”

And the wasted years screaming into the void on the internet. Buy some.

Ta, UKR.

Remember how white and silver DS Lites are now being discontinued in the UK? It’s obviously because DSi’s launching in April, right? Of course it isn’t. It’s because retailers don’t want them any more.

“Correct,” said Nintendo when we asked the firm if the colours were being pulled.

“Because retail are not ordering them anymore. We don’t stop selling things that sell.”

Conversely, we were told by a UK retail source earlier this week, “The white SKU is one of their most popular colours and we were at a loss as to why they’d finish it, until you remember that the DSi is appearing in white very soon.”

We say nothing.

A Traveller’s Tales employee has just confirmed to VG247 that she is working on both Lego Harry Potter and Lego Indiana Jones 2: The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull at the UK developer.

“That’s right,” we were told on the phone when asked if the information was correct.

“But they’re not confirmed. I can’t really talk about them.”

An online CV let the cat out of the bag today, saying the staffer was working “on LEGO Harry Potter & LEGO Indiana Jones 2: The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull which are both in the early stages of production.”

Neither game has been officially announced.

A Lego Potter game has been long rumoured, and a second Indy title was heavily hinted at by the BBC earlier this year.

We’re contacting EA, Warner and Activision for comment now.

Update: Mention of both games has now been removed from the CV.

Update 2: This story originally contained the name of the staffer involved. After consideration, the person’s name and the link to their CV has been removed.

It’s Friday. The lager alarm’s already ringing. Jeremy from accounts is being a cock. You want to kill that stupid woman from the desk opposite that sounds like a stricken horse. Don’t fret: listen to hundreds of sounds from ancient SNES games on the internet.

Just play the Mario coin sound a few dozen times and pretend to write some emails. You’ll be fuck-full of imported beer soon enough. Save the link for your hangover on Monday.

Thanks, GoNintendo.

Speaking in a Famitsu iPhone special, Hideo Kojima’s confirmed Metal Gear Solid Touch will have an initial launch, topped up with more free levels afterwards.

The game will have, according to this AndriaSang summary of the interview, “20 stages. Of these, 12 stages will be available initially. After a while, Konami will distribute a full version of the game. Those who purchased the initial 12 stage version will be able to upgrade to the full version for free.”

The developer described the game as “simple, but solidly playable.”

There’s more through there, including first details of the iPhone version of Assassin’s Creed.

According to this PS3Hyper story, the latest issue of DengekiPlayStation has a four-page ad teasing what looks to be a PS3 game in the Atelier series, namely Atelier Rorona.

Japanese retail listings are putting the RPG at a June 25 release.

Thanks Kotaku and Blerk.

Wheelman’s gold, Ubi an Midway said this morning, and will release on March 27.

Watch us playing the driving action thing here. We were great.

Press release after the break.

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The latest edition of Qore’s shown Flower as the most downloaded PSN game last month, followed by Noby Noby Boy and SF II’s HD remix.

More on Joystiq.

1. Flower
2. Noby Noby Boy
3. Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix
4. 3 on 3 NHL Arcade
5. Savage Moon
6. Mortal Kombat II
7. Bejeweled 2
8. Burnout Paradise
9. Linger in Shadows
10. Magic Ball

Ray Parker Jr has told Eurogamer that he’s currently working on getting the original Ghostbusters theme into Rock Band.

“We were just talking about that, we’re working on it now,” he said.

“I think they should have Ghostbusters in Rock Band.”

There’s no further detail, but Rock Band people and Ghostbusters people will no doubt be pumped. You could just play air guitar to Ghostbusters, obviously, but let’s pretend that’s not an option.

Valve’s announced plans to launch a Team Fortress 2 scoring system in an effort to flag and delete poor servers from the game.

Basically:

• New servers start with a score of 0 points
• Each time a player connects to a server, it loses 15 points
• For each minute the player stays on the server, it earns 1 point (up to a max of 45 points per player)

“In short,” said Valve’s Robin Walker, “servers that have lots of players joining & leaving rapidly will score badly. Servers that consistently have players join and stay on for long periods of time will score well.”

Really bad servers may be deleted.

Tons more through there.

Resident Evil 5 dev boss Jun Takeuchi will attend the launch of his game at a Seattle store today, the Major reports.

Here are the details.

When: Friday, March 13th from 2:30pm-4:00pm
Where: Gamestop (#4444) in Redmond Town Center (16475 NE 74th Street, Redmond WA. Tel: +1425 895 8331)
Who: Jun Takeuchi, Resident Evil 5 Executive Producer
What: Meet RE5 producers and get your copy of the game autographed.

Nelson’s going to be there from 3.00pm, so make the trip if you’re in the area.

Vin Diesel’s confirmed that Tigon’s been working on an MMO, Barca BC, for the past three years, Destructoid reports.

“My dream game is something we’ve been working on in-house. We haven’t talked about it much because we’ve been mulling over how to do it just right. My dream game is a game that we’re developing called Barca BC,” Diesel said at a press conference this week.

“The reason why it’s my dream game is because it is an MMO and — remember you said funds were not an issue in this scenario, this is obviously a hugely expensive game — but, it’s a massively multiplayer online game where you create an avatar that lives in the reality of Hannibal Barca, the Punic Wars and life 200 BC.”

There’s more through there, including an estimate that we’re not going to see the game for another four years.

There is little better in life than a Nazi zombie. See some of our undead, Teutonic friends going bonkers in the upcoming Call of Duty: World at War map pack in the movie after the break.

The pack, which includes four new maps, releases on March 19.

Thanks, Kotaku.

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EA Sports boss Peter Moore’s shown of Wii Balance Board fitness programme EA Sports Active in the US, as you can see on VentureBeat, and it sounds as though it’s not for the faint-hearted.

From the piece:

The game has a deep fitness program for people who are serious about losing weight or keeping fit. They can use the advice and tools to track their activities and exercise and then design workouts that let them have fun while they’re exercising with the game. You can do things like simulate rollerblading jumps by tying the Wii controller to your thigh and then jumping up and down. You can use a stretch band to exercise your arms and see how precisely you’re following the instructions by looking at your on-screen avatar. The game isn’t as cutesy as Wii Fit and so it may appeal to people who thought the Nintendo game was a little silly.

Jen Riley, an EA spokeswoman pictured at bottom, showed how you can use the Wii controller with the game to shoot baskets, do bicep curls or flex your legs or box. You can design the workout so that it gets harder every day that you do it. You can design the workout to focus on cardio, upper body, lower body, or sports activities. And the game keeps track of your progress and gives you trophies for achievements. It also lets you enter physical activities that you’ve done outside of the game. The game launches on the Wii on May 19.

There more through there about upcoming EA Mobile games, and so on.

PlayStation hardware roared over Japan like Godzilla standing on the Tokyo Tower this week, with PS3 and PSP selling almost 100,000 units between them.

PS3 sales have actually risen since Yakuza 3 launched two weeks ago, so Sony will be pleased and punch. Probably pleaseder.

Data for March 2-8. Last week’s chart here.

• PSP – 59,568
• PS3 – 39,835
• DSi – 32,102
• Wii – 16,560
• Xbox 360 – 14,994
• DS Lite – 11,240
• PS2 – 4,954

Get it from the PS Blog. The tenth edition of Qore’s the main banana this week, but there’s some nice Burnout DLC in there and tons more.

No Patapon 2, though, so be happy if you’re European.

EA’s Eric Brown believes that consoles currently on the market will be around for longer than previous iterations.

Speaking at the Wedbush Morgan Securities conference, Brown said that since two out of three consoles are HD-capable and can render 60 frames per second, we’re at the limit of currently-available tech.

“I myself am not quite sure where we go from here,” said Brown. “There’s just no broadly-available consumer viewing technology beyond HD. You have to be a PC technophile with an ultra high resolution monitor to get past that.”

Brown admitted that even with Wii’s less graphically-enhanced console, the innovative controls prove that “high-powered processors are increasingly less relevant” to a console’s success.

Yet, online capabilities of the PS3, Xbox 360 and innovations in digital distribution prove there is still room for continuing growth on all three platforms.

Because of this, he says we should not expect new consoles anytime soon, but more price drops for the ones already available.

“The point here is that we’ve seen one major price drop thus far in this console cycle; we feel that we have a long ways to go, and a lot more of the unit sales will occur at the lower price points,” he said.

“History holds more [hardware] units translates, times tie ratio, to more software units and software dollars for third-party publishers. Those are the key takeaways in terms of where we see this console cycle at this point in time.”

GamesIndustry has been told by the UK government’s Department for Culture, Media and Sport that it is “fully aware of the issues facing the videogames industry” from overseas competition, but any decision on development tax breaks will be taken by Number 11.

“We are fully aware of the issues facing the videogames industry and are working across Government to explore sector specific incentives, although decisions on tax policy remain a matter for the Chancellor,” said a spokesperson.

“We are in the process of arranging a videogames roundtable which will provide an opportunity for industry to discuss their concerns in more detail and explore possible solutions.”

Tiga’s Richard Wilson wrote to Lord Mandelson on the issue this week, which we posted yesterday and can be viewed here.

UK TV personality Vernon Kay will be recruiting Xbox Live fans to play Call of Duty: World at War with him during the next Game with Fame session.

A special guest will make an appearance as well, not sure who. It’s a secret apparently.

If you want in on the action – which takes place on Wednesday, March 18 at 7.00pm GMT (4.00pm EST) – email your details to the address below, telling Vernon why you want to play with him.

Chosen players will get a return email with all the information you need to take part in the event.

Email the following information to Vernon@gamewithfame.net:

• Name
• Age
• Gamertag

Press release is posted further down.

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