Monthly Archives: March 2009

Take-Two announced the following games for the rest of the financial year as part of its first-quarter financial release today.

Note the GTA IV DLC.

• Beaterator – TBA
• BioShock 2 — TBA
• Borderlands — Xbox 360, PS3, Games for Windows
• Don King Boxing– Wii, DS
• Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars – DS
• Grand Theft Auto IV Second Episode — Xbox 360
• Mafia II –Xbox 360, PS3, Games for Windows
• Major League Baseball  2K9–  PSP
• Midnight Club: Los Angeles –Downloadable
• Content – South Central Premium Upgrade– Xbox 360, PS3
• NBA 2K10 – Multiple platforms
• NHL 2K10– Multiple platforms
• Red Dead Redemption –Xbox 360, PS3
• The BIGS 2 –Multiple platforms

Take-Two just confirmed that the second episode of its 360-exclusive DLC for GTA IV will release this fiscal year.

That means it’ll hit before the end of October 2009.

The news came as part of Take-Two’s financials for the quarter ending January 31.

There was no other detail.

If you pre-order X-Men Origins: Wolverine from Gamestop, you’ll get access to exclusive DLC, Activision announced today.

The content will be four new rooms (Dismemberment Room, the Environtimental Room, the Ladder Challenge, and the Custom Combat Arena), “each of which offers players unique new toys.”

Interested? Get the skinny below.

Also after the break is a brand new trailer for the action-adventure movie tie-in. Presumably released on the same day as the DLC announcement to make you go, “Yeah, that looks great, I think I’ll pre-order it. Might as well, I get some free DLC, too.” Or something.

Go for it. It’s only money.

Thanks, Destructoid.

Games out for every platform imaginable in May.

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The demo for Ninja Blade is now up on Xbox Live for Gold Members. Sorry Silvers, you’ll get yours later on.

The 360 exclusive will be hitting the UK and US April 3 and April 7 respectively.

Check out the first 11 minutes of the demo here.

Behemoth may be showing off “game #3″ at the Tokyo Anime Fair next week, but it will also post the “first ever trailer” for the game via the official site on March 18.

Per the blog, the new project has “proven to be a lot of fun for the people that we’ve shown! Perhaps we can start posting imagery later on and begin a guessing game about the game. It’s like two games in one!”

We’ll see, come next Wednesday.

The official website for Noby Noby Boy has a teaser image posted which suggests that updates are coming soon.

Possible offline four-player multiplayer mode is suggested with the line “Even though it may be offline… I want to play multi-BOY!”, and new music is also implied with “Guiter music are good but music from castanets, triangles, and maracas is something I’d like to listen.”

Yes, the script on the page spells guitar like that.

Namco declined to comment on any updates when approached by Eurogamer, but the game has 47,685 players so far and GIRL has already reached the moon–hopefully that’s enough to give Keita Takahashi ample reason to create more content.

CCP just confirmed that Apocrypha, the latest and most definitely greatest EVE expansion, is now live.

Get logged in and patch away.

The EVE universe just expanded by 50 percent. Should take you at least half a lifetime to have a look at it all.

More detail after the break.

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Bonfire Studios boss David Rippy, has told GI that Ensemble was “victim of its own success” in the RTS genre.

Bonfire was one of the studios to arise from Ensemble’s demise.

“With the cost of creating games so high, studios are almost forced to diversify across platforms,” he said.

“Aside from the financial risk of sticking to one platform or one genre, you also risk being pigeonholed in the industry.”

“Ensemble was kind of a victim of its own success as an RTS shop,” he said, adding: “As hard as we tried, we were never able to have one of our non-RTS prototypes greenlit, largely because we were ‘the RTS guys’.”

More through there.

Turbine has announced the appointment of Ken Surdan as its new VPO.

Surdan will be in charge of worldwide and network operations, project management, customer service and game franchise support.

“Ken brings an extensive e-commerce and consumer facing operations background that will be vital as Turbine scales its global operations,” said Turbine president Jim Crowley.

“We’re really excited to bring Ken’s strong record of accomplishment and his passion for the customer to bear on our rapidly growing business. This powers up the senior management unit at Turbine significantly.”

Sudan has over 15 years of experience in the technology trade, which includes stints at TripAdvisor Media Network, SmartBargains.com and National Leisure Group–an online travel company where he grew the company platform from $80 million to $900 million in revenue.

Press release is posted below.

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Capcom’s put the site live for Dark Void, the upcoming Ed Fries sci-fi thing.

The Airtight game’s a mix of “fast-paced vertical combat mixed with on-foot action,” apparently, and is planned for PC, 360 and PS3.

Thanks, Kotaku. Movie after the break.

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Gamasutra has figured out the sales of all three versions of Guitar Hero: World Tour, namely the standalone game, the complete bundle and the guitar bundle.

From October 2008 to January 2009, the full band kit was purchased by 41 percent of buyers, the guitar bundle by 35 percent, and the standalone game by 24 percent.

Breaking the three offerings down by sales during the same time-frame, the full band kit raked in 61 percent of the profits, while the guitar bundle earned 27 percent and the standalone version pulled in 11 percent.

Full break down is through the link.

Starbreeze has released a developer diary chronicling the production of Assault on Dark Athena.

Video talks bout the new campaign, the remaster of Escape from Butcher Bay, and how the title turned out to be much larger than originally planned.

It’s expected on April 7 for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360–with the PC and PS3 demos arriving soon according to Atari.

Hit the link to watch.

Funcom’s other MMO, The Secret World, is to be shown behind closed doors at GDC later this month.

Ragnar Tornquist will be demoing the game, according to various reports.

GDC takes place in San Francisco from March 22-27.

Insomniac’s next game will be a PS3 exclusive, the developer confirmed today.

The news – about as shocking as night following day – was revealed as part of an announcement about the Californian developer making it onto a list of the best companies to work for in the state.

No other detail on the title was given.

This is the thing Insomniac Twittered about yesterday. Glad that’s cleared up.

Bethesda parent Zenimax said today it was entering the next phase of a large recruitment push in an effort to staff up for a new MMO.

“We’ve added some great people to the team so far and continue to look for experienced, talented developers in all areas to join the team and help us create the next great MMOG,” said Matt Firor, president of ZeniMax Online Studios.

The firm didn’t say how many staff it was looking to hire, or when the game would release.

Press release after the break.

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NPD just put out a press release saying online console gaming has increased from 19 to 25 percent in the US so far this year.

From the statement:

At 50 percent, Xbox 360 remains the console online gaming leader, despite the noteworthy changes among other major console systems. For example, use of Nintendo’s Wii increased from 18 percent in 2008 to 29 percent in 2009, while PS2 fell dramatically and PS3 moved up from fifth place to third place. This is a testament to the strength of Xbox 360, both overall, and particularly in the online gaming sphere.

Online PC gaming declined slightly in the same period.

Full thing after the break.

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Behemoth’s confirmed on its blog that its third game – following Alien Hominid and Castle Crashers – will be shown for the first time at the Tokyo Anime Fair later this month.

From the post:

In an effort to reach out to our Japanese fans, John, Dan and Emil will be flying off to Tokyo next week and will represent The Behemoth at Tokyo Anime Fair March 20th and 21st at booth H-10. We will be showcasing Castle Crashers, Alien Hominid, and… an uber-early version of Game #3!

It appears to be a game about men with square heads and emeralds. Full thing through the link.

Harmonix and MTV Games announced today the addition of fourteen tracks, ranging from metal to country, for the Wii version of Rock Band.

Here’s what you’re getting:

• David Bowie – Moonage Daydream
• Drive By Truckers – 3 Dimes Down
• Garbage – Why Do You Love Me
• KISS – Calling Dr. Love
• Lucinda Williams – Can’t Let Go
• Metallica – Blackened, Ride the Lighting
• Neko Case – People Got a Lotta Nerve
• Old 97s – Time Bomb
• Radiohead – My Iron Lung
• Sonic Youth – Kool Thing
• Steve Earle – Satellite Radio
• The Clash – Train in Vain
• Wolfmother – Joker & the Thief

Each master track will cost 200 Wii Points ($2.00).

Hooray for diversity.

EVE Online latest, massive expansion – Apocrypha – goes live today.

After the game patches, the old client will be replaced with one called Premium Lite: EVE’s universe will be expanded by 50 percent.

Massively has been covering this for quite some time now, and has loads of in-depth information along with videos.

You can also view the very large list of patch notes over on the official website.

EA’s put the open beta for Phenomic’s BattleForge live, meaning any man and his dog can now get involved in testing the card-based fantasy RTS.

Beta players will have access to all 200 cards and all maps in the game. Everyone who takes part will get a bonus, upgraded Firedancer unit to be made available after launch.

You can’t say no to that, can you? Hit this to have a waz. It’s out for PC on March 27 in Europe, March 24 in the US.

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