Monthly Archives: March 2009

In a post on the US PS boards, Guerrilla Games producer Seb Downie’s confirmed that the firm is looking at potentially changing Killzone 2′s controls.

1. We have not decided if we are going to do anything to the controls. We are investigating.
2. If we change them, we have not said how. No reason to get upset. We are not going to turn them on their head. It would not be sweeping changes.
3. Any potential changes made will be carefully analyzed and tested to ensure they do not negatively affect players who do not experience any issues.

We’ve dropped some questions over to SCEE about this, so we’ll see what happens. Sounds… drastic.

Microsoft’s posted an ad looking for staff for a “new experience in the Halo universe”.

The post’s a lead designer for the internal Halo team and reads:

“Microsoft Game Studios’ Halo team is looking for a strong Lead Designer to help develop a new experience in the Halo universe. This is your chance to contribute to one of the most exciting and creative properties in the entertainment industry.

“The ideal candidate is able to look across all design aspects of the game – core mechanics, UI, pacing, camera, balance, and provide the right solutions at the right time.”

No specifics were given on the title.

N’Gai Croal is leaving Newsweek, according to this Gama report, after 13 years at the magazine and three years on the Level Up blog.

Croal is to pursue a career as a creative consultant to game developers.

There’s a brief interview through there.

Capcom US exec Christian Svensson has told RPS that retail is now no longer as important for PC games as downloading.

Here’s the quote:

RPS: Is digital distribution more important to the PC than retail?

Svensson: For me? Absolutely. No question in my mind. Digital distribution on PC ties directly into our strategy. Capcom is trying to lead in digital distribution, and I would go as far as to say that in the console space we are already the leading software publisher. We’ve had the highest revenue-generating Xbox Live title, we’ve had the highest revenue-generating Wii title, we’re definitely in the top three or four on the PlayStation network. To that end, on the PC side, I’ve spent the past year building up a digital distribution channel that has about twenty different partners. We’re ready on the console side, and we were the first Japanese publisher to do anything on Steam.

There’s tons more through there.

You’ll find a video of the first ten minutes of play from the Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena demo after the break.

The Starbreeze semi-sequel appears to be fantastic from a very brief look. The movie’s shot from 360 code – the PSN demo’s undated as yet.

As expected, the title’s heavy on the atmosphere and violence, as was the Xbox original, and you’re going to be using the shadows a lot to not be dead. You’ll see us learn this lesson by being dead a lot.

It’s out for PC, 360 and PS3 on April 24. There’s 16 grabs from this footage here.

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Ubi just confirmed that the PC version of Tom Clancy’s HAWX has been delayed a week from March 13 to March 20.

No reason was given for the slip.

The game releases for PS3 and 360 on Friday.

If you’re a PS3 owner wanting to get your hands on the Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena demo that went up on Live this morning, best not to hold your breath: Atari just said it’s “coming soon” in a press release.

An Atari UK rep told VG247 that there was “no confirmation” on a date for the PSN demo this morning.

The 639Mb 360 demo’s pretty bloody splendid, so news of a PSN delay is unlikely to sit well.

The full game releases for PC, PS3 and 360 on April 24.

Update: It’s on Live as well, now.

The European PSN just got a demo and the full game release of Watchmen: The End is Nigh.

The demo’s 1.26Gb in size, and the game itself costs £12.99 on the UK PS Store.

After the break. We’ve just just played through the first 10 minutes of the just-released Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena demo, and it’s just as beautiful, violent and unforgiving as we’d hoped.

The screens show drone control, narrative delivery, hand-to-hand combat, destructible environments and more.

We’ll have the video up as soon as we can.

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Here. It’s a 639Mb download. More soon. Thanks, Blerk.

Update – Here’s 16 grabs from the first ten minutes of play.

As you can see on the QuakeCon site, registration for the Texan id show opens on March 6.

You’ll be able to book tickets from 9.30pm EST.

This year’s QuakeCon takes place August 13-16, 2009, in Dallas, at the Hilton Anatole Hotel.

[Update - It's £13 on Amazon. That's a bit stupid. Thanks, tenthousandgothsonacid.]

Play.com is offering LittleBigPlanet for £17.99, which, in the parlance of the gutter, is fucking cheap.

Tesco, not be outdone, has gone even cheaper: how does £17.96 sound?

The Media Molecule award-winner currently costs £40 from both Game and Gamestation.

So you probably won’t buy it from them, then.

Nintendo Power‘s put up first screens and art for A Boy and is Blob, a Wii remake of the ancient franchise.

The 1990 NES game was created by Pitfall! designer David Crane, apparently.

Some knickers are being twisted over this. We hold our hands up: we’ve never heard of it.

Not sure when it’s out.

Gamersyde’s posted a few new screens of Batman: Arkham Asylum, and it’s looking suitably violent.

The game still doesn’t have a fixed release date, but is promised for PC, PS3 and 360 this year.

Go see Thanks, Blerk.

Ubi’s released a new dev diary from Wheelman, this time showing Big Vin riding round Spain on motorbikes.

It’s all very shooty, what with its bullet time thing, and actually looks pretty good in a “blow things up” sort of way.

After the break. We would have put this up last night, but our Flash encoder hates all Ubisoft movies, for some reason.

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Activision CEO Mike Griffith has told Bloomberg that the firm is in buying mode.

“The combination of Activision holding a fair amount of cash and presumably prices being depressed, not only for publicly traded companies, but also likely for new intellectual property licensing rights, should certainly create opportunities,” he said.

Griffith didn’t mention specific targets, adding “we won’t rush to judgment just because we have cash. We will be very disciplined.”

Buy EA for a laugh, Mike. More through there.

THQ’s confirmed to Kotaku that Volition has lost 39 full-timers and 47 staff on temp contracts.

The company said in February it is to drop 600 employees in an effort to trim costs.

“The layoffs include 47 temporary employees who will not be having their service extended,” said the publisher in a statement.

“Unfortunately, fluctuating headcount among the temporary staff is common based on when our games ship. In addition, 39 full-time staff will be laid off.

“All laid off employees (both full-time and temporary) will be given at least sixty days’ notice. We will do what we can to assist them in finding work in the community or elsewhere in THQ.”

More through there.

Blizzard’s put out yet more Diablo III shots, and we’re still looking at the same area as we have been for half a year. We think.

But that’s OK, because it’s Diablo III, and these screens have that spiky monster thing revealed the other day.

On IGN. No release date yet.

So the story goes, A Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 play tester posted up a ton of game features to the game’s suggestions page on Twitter last night, before the info was removed and the perpetrator routinely banned.

This being the internet, someone on NeoGAF chopped it before Infinity Ward did.

After the break. This could all be horseshit. But that’s never stopped us before.

The game’s out at the end of the year. Thanks, Blue.

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SCEA’s John Koller has told MTV that PSP will see non-PSone retro games coming to PSP in the future.

“In general there’s a lot of discussion about [publishers'] back catalogs that will finally find its way to PlayStation Network in the back half of this year,” said the exec.

“PSOne is included, but everything is on the table… We look for some of those big hits from all of the past games in their history and look for ways we can bring them over. It’s not always easy. There’s obviously technical areas that need to be bridged.

“But when those are solved, consumers will see a wide variety of retro games and brand new games coming to PSN.”

Ikari Warriors, please John. Full thing through the link.