Monthly Archives: March 2009

Turbine just released the first batch of screenshots for LotRO’s Volume II: Book 7: Leaves of Lόrien.

This will be the first free content update for the game since its Mines of Moria expansion was released last fall.

The screens illustrate Lothlόrien, which has been expanded for Book 7′s storyline.

Quite lovely. Take a gander here.

Team17 has posted some XBLA Worms information on its Facebook page.

Apparently, the new game’s now called Worms 2: Armageddon, and includes Avatar support and vertical levels.

The upcoming PSN Worms game will be an expanded port of the current XBLA offering, with improved physics and 1080p display.

More through the link, along with pretty pictures.

Attention XBL Silver members: if you’ve been holding out on upgrading to Gold, now’s the time to do it.

For a limited time, you can get a Gold subscription for $39.99 per year, a $10 discount.

According to Microsoft, the promotion “gives Silver members a special opportunity to upgrade to the full benefits of Gold membership at a reduced price for a limited time.”

Amazon.com is also offering 13-month subscription cards for $39.99.

Hit the link for more.

CVG has learned from Square Enix that Star Ocean: The Last Hope will be delayed until June in the UK.

Game was expected early this spring, and the US and Japan already have it.

No reason was given for the delay, but we’ve contacted Square Enix to see if we can get to the bottom of it.

Update: Sorry, we boo-booed here. This is a Realtime Worlds ad, and the game’s APB. It’s an old post that’s just been refreshed. We apologise for being so shit. Thanks, TheDifficult3rdAlbum.

A GI job ad posted by a Dundee developer has revealed the company is working on a 360 MMO.

“Our client is one of the World’s leading XBOX360 developers now working on an MMO which is likely to be a benchmark for online action games for next-Gen consoles,” says the ad, which could probably do with a bit of an edit.

Which company? Well, it’s either Realtime Worlds or Ruffian, unless there’s a secret console developer in Dundee. Which there isn’t.

An online Crackdown game? That’d be a shock.

Creative Assembly has released the launch trailer for Empire: Total War.

Lots of red and blue coats shooting at each other, cannon fire, dead horses on the battlefield, naval warfare.

Looks lovely for the RTS crowd, and it’s out now, both at retail and on Steam.

Watch the trailer after the jump.

More »

Rockstar said today that exact figures for day one The Lost and Damned downloads are not to be released.

Yet.

“We don’t plan on releasing numbers at this point”, a Rockstar rep told us. “But [we] will certainly be in touch if and when that changes”.

Microsoft announced last week that The Lost and Damned set a monetary Live record during its first 24 hours of availability.

The GTA IV DLC released on February 27, and follows the exploits of a character in Liberty City’s The Lost biker gang.

It’s the first of two downloadable chapters for the 360 version of GTA IV.

Looks like if you want to play Stormrise on PC you better get an upgrade if you already haven’t: apparently the RTS will be one of the first to require both DirectX 10 and Vista.

“Stormrise has been designed for DirectX 10 and Vista only right from the start,” said Stormrise lead designer Artem Kulakov, who later clarified: “Vista only. DX10 only. No fallback option. We have never suggested this or hinted at it, so it shouldn’t be a surprise.”

“DX10 has offered a lot of advantages over DX9,” he added. “First of all, DirectX 10 allowed us to simplify the rendering engine.

“It matches capabilities of next generation consoles better than DX9, which is important for us considering that Stormrise is a multi-platform title. We had fewer driver-specific compatibility issues with Stormrise compare to our previous games released with DX9.”

Game’s out this month for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360.

Full thing through the link. Thanks, Shacknews.

The lay-offs going on over at Volition with leave the base developer intact, THQ said today.

“[The round of cuts] will not result in any layoffs within the core development teams at Volition,” THQ’s Julie MacMedan told Edge.

“Volition remains a key development studio within THQ and will continue to employ 236 staff.”

Some 86 workers were let go yesterday at the Illinois office, which will soon be closed completely.

The majority – 47 staff – were temporary employees, the rest being full-timers.

Nintendo is still mum on Wii MotionPlus’s release date, but growing rumor is pointing to June.

GoNintendo noticed in the new Nintendo Power Magazine article on Grand Slam Tennis that MotionPlus  is “due out prior” to the game’s release.

Grand Slam is out June 18.

Eurogamer was already under the impression that WMP would have a June launch, but was told by a Nintendo UK spokesperson today that “the release date is still TBC” and the talk was “rumor and speculation”.

Upcoming WMP compatible titles include: Wii Sports Resort, Grand Slam Tennis, Tiger Woods PGA Tour and Red Steel 2.

Looks like the Modern Warfare 2 info “leaked” this morning is complete nonsense after all.

Call of Duty community manager Robert “Fourzerotwo” Bowling just said:

“It didn’t come from anyone who has access to our internal builds and indeed contains several features that are already in CoD4 such as grass camo for snipers. In short, it’s BS.”

There ya have it.

Thanks, Blue.

Got game? If so, you may be able to join Britain’s Royal Air Force and control combat drones in Afghanistan.

PressTV reckons the RAF is trying to save money, and to do that it’s replacing pilots with gamers, of all things.

The Royal Air Force (RAF) announced Saturday that pilots without full combat training will replace top guns in controlling unmanned Reaper planes in ‘frontline missions’ in Afghanistan as part of a plan to reduce costs…

Although a small mistake by the remote-controlled pilot can be lethal for civilians or friendly forces nearby, RAF chiefs, believe that ‘lower grade’ pilots with 30 hours’ basic flying training can fly sensitive missions over Afghanistan…

It appears that RAF chiefs have based their claim on studies suggesting that the best drone crews are often young ‘video-game players’ rather than ‘experienced fighter pilots’.

This has already happened in America apparently.

The PC version of Batman: Arkham Asylum will be a Windows Live title, Microsoft’s confirmed.

This means PC people will be able to unlock Achievements and brag about gamerscore along with the 360 lot.

It’s a single-player title, apparently, and that means no multiplayer Achievements.

EA has said it will announce a new project from the folks who brought you Army of Two next week.

The game’s developers will be giving a presentation on the title March 9, issuing an official announcement on March 12, and impressions will have an embargo lifted on March 16.

No idea what the game is, what platforms it will be for or anything else, so write those dates down, and check back with us.

EA Montreal in the outfit behind Army of Two, and the firm previously hinted that a sequel could be in the works.

Siliconera’s reporting that PS3 RPG Demon’s Souls is voice-acted in English, so you’ll be able to play it despite the fact it’ll never get out of Japan.

The From Software game’s out of stock at Play-Asia at the moment, but we’re sure you could find it if you were enterprising.

Eurogamer posted loads of new shots over the weekend, just in case you need to be persuaded.

MCV’s reporting that Square and Eidos have agreed buyout terms. Finalization on the deal is expected by May.

Square was unavailable for comment at the time of writing.

Following this, trading of Eidos shares will be suspended on April 21st and the cancelling of its share listings is due to occur the following day.

A settlement is hoped to be in place by May 6.

More through there.

The FFXIII site has had a good update, and now sports new shots and a look at three new character.

Team Nora includes Gadot, Lebreau, and Maqui. They don’t appear to be primary characters, as they’re all bunched together while Snow, Lightning and Vanille have their own pages on the site.

There’s a cryptic message from producer Yoshinori Kitase there as well. According to IGN, it says:

“Strategic battles using using XXXXX”

“Summon beasts like Shiva and XXXXX”

“Lightning does XXXXXX to XX and XX…”

We’re not sure we want to know what Lightning does to XX and XX, thank you very much. She looked like such a nice girl.

Shack’s got quite a few new screens of the upcoming Need for Speed Shift.

It’s for PC, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PSP this autumn. Slightly Mad Studios is doing the work.

There’s going to be hands-on stuff on this later today, apparently.

Here are the top titles for the week of February 23 on Xbox Live. World at War isn’t going anywhere, it seems.

Xbox 360 Top Live Titles

1. Call of Duty: World at War
2. Halo 3
3. Call of Duty 4
4. Gears of War 2
5. GTA IV
6. Left 4 Dead
7. Halo Wars Demo
8. FIFA 09
9. Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X: Rio Demo
10. Guitar Hero World Tour

Top Arcade Titles

1. Braid
2. 3 on 3 NHL(TM) Arcade
3. Castle Crashers
4. Worms
5. UNO
6. Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix
7. A Kingdom for Keflings
8. Death Tank
9. Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3
10. The Maw

Original Xbox Top Live Titles

1. Halo 2
2. Star Wars: Battlefront 2
3. Counter-Strike
4. Fable
5. Splinter Cell Chaos
6. Conker: Live Reloaded
7. Doom 3
8. Star Wars: Battlefront
9. Call of Duty 3
10. Burnout 3

Top Community Games

1. RC-AirSim
2. Aquarium HD
3. Bowling X
4. Miner Dig Deep
5. Rumble Massage
6. Remote Masseuse
7. DrumKit
8. TV Calibration
9. Bricks4ever
10. Golden Royal Blackjack

Thanks, Major.

Loads of new shots and bits of artwork have popped up for Terminator: Salvation.

Actiontrip has all the image — 17 of them, to be exact.

Game’s out on May 22 for PS3 and Xbox 360, alongside the film.