Monthly Archives: April 2009

Petroglyph is creating an MMORTS in conjunction with Trion, the company’s announced.

“Trion is thrilled to partner with such decorated and extremely talented game vets as the Petroglyph team,” said Trion boss, Lars Buttler.

“We are very excited about bringing the world’s first truly high-end MMORTS to market and we can’t wait to share with gamers the innovative and fun game design Petroglyph is creating on the Trion platform.”

There’s no date on it, or any of detail for that matter, but this should be worth a watch: Petroglyph staffers worked on C&C, Red Alert, Dune 2, and so on.

Press release after the break.

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EVE pilot DevilDogUSMC has circumnavigated EVE’s galaxy, the 5,000 solar system-strong play area of New Eden.

The journey took four days, taking in 118 waypoints and 502 jumps in a covert ops frigate.

“This was a chance for me to show the rest of New Eden that anything can be done as long as you commit to it and work for it,” said the player, an EVE devotee of five-and-a-half years.

Never underestimate EVE’s core. They’re corier than you are. That is an indisputable fact.

More from Massively.

Raven’s released two proper gameplay movies from upcoming shooter Singularity, showing how the game’s ageing mechanic can be used to manipulate environments and kill enemies. Get them after the break.

You can regrow trees to create barriers and make young men so old they die. It all looks very swish, if you ask us.

The game itself is itself after a nuclear accident on a Soviet island.

It’s out later this year for PC, 360 and PS3.

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More EA media popped up overnight in the form of new Sims 3 screens, as seen on Gamespot.

It’s out in June for both PC and Mac. Lifting virtual weights was never so appealing.

EA’s put out some new Need for Speed: Shift screens, as you can see on Destructoid.

The racer’s out this autumn for PC, PSP, PS3 and 360.

The PS Blog‘s confirmed that a demo for Marvel Vs Capcom 2 will release exclusively for PS3 this week.

Included:

• Two-player local matches
• Six available characters – Ryu, Chun-Li, Strider, Spider-Man, Iron Man and Wolverine
• Seven selectable environments
• Upscaled 1080p graphics
• Widescreen or 4:3 aspect ratio
• Two graphic filter options for character sprites

This is completely awesome. Unless you don’t have a PS3. Hit the link for more.

Gamespot’s posted up a five-minute direct-feed movie of Marvel Vs Capcom 2 from CAPTIVATE. Get it after the break.

The ubiquitous Christan Svennson’s talking over the top of it, and there’s tons of play in there.

There’s an impressions article here.

In addition, IGN’s posted up six videos from the same event.

Get all the screens from the assets disc here.

It’s out this summer for XBLA and PSN.

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Uh oh. BioWare is apparently censoring the words “gay,” “homosexual” and “lesbian” from the Old Republic message boards.

Why? According to moderator Sean Dahlberg, “As I have stated before, these are terms that do not exist in Star Wars.”

At least you’re not alone, Stephen. Just a hunch, but you can probably expect this to get quite ugly.

Thanks, Kotaku.

The Arkham Asylum site’s gone live, including Bat-related downloads, pre-order details and more.

Still no date on it, but watch like a hawk. From what we’re constantly told, it’s “all good”.

It may have been pirated to the ends of the earth and beyond, but Stardock’s Demigod still managed to take third place in the PC chart this week, beating off Tales of Valor to fourth position.

WoW still won it, though. Data for the week ending April 18. For the Steam and D2D charts, check Kotaku. Last week’s chart here.

1. Wrath of the Lich King
2. The Sims 2 Double Deluxe
3. Demigod
4. Company of Heroes: Tales of Valor
5. Empire: Total War
6. Left 4 Dead
7. World Of Warcraft Battle Chest
8. World Of Warcraft
9. The Sims 2 Apartment Life
10. Spore

Capcom’s confirmed that Marvel Vs Capcom 2 will get an update version for PSN and XBLA this summer. There’s a first teaser video after the break.

Quick points:

1. It’s based on the Dreamcast code base – Capcom wanted to being the “best version” into the HD era, apparently.
2. There’s online play – Dur.
3. HD upscaling options – “Crisp,” “Smooth” and “Classic” visual settings will be included.
4. Widescreen – The gameplay area will be in a 4:3 field, while the viewing area will be widescreen. For purists and competitive play, a 4:3 option (with vertical bars on the left and right) will be included.
5. No unlocking – All 56 characters will be available from the start of play.

Get all the details here.

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Nintendo’s Kirby is 17 years old today. The bouncy pink blob made its first appearance in in Japan on April 27, 1992 with Hoshi no Kirby, which released later in the West as Kirby’s Dream Land. Happy Birthday, you daft, weirdy thing.

Celebrate by looking at this GameGirl post of Kirby colouring pages, Kirby cakes and other Kirby “woman” things.

What happened to that Kirby rolling tech demo on GameCube? It still hurts, Nintendo. It still hurts.

UK “stop being fat” initiative Change4Life’s released a new ad designed to get people up and moving, this time showing a dance-mat game as a positive thing to be doing. Watch it here.

The original ad was blasted by the British games industry for showing a kid sat in a chair with a controller saying he was risking death by “doing nothing”.

Best buy a dance-mat, hey.

Colin Campbell’s newly-launched GameBizBlog is offering free recruitment ads for anyone that needs to place them. Get details here.

“Recruitment in the game industry is an expensive and inefficient business,” said Campbell.

“We would like to try to offer something new and valuable. Our plan is to create one place where game industry professionals can see every job that is currently available. We think this offers the best value to readers and to advertisers.”

More through there.

Raven’s Singularity is to be deliver the same experience across all formats, Raven’s told VG247, thanks to the developer’s cross-platform experience and the use of Unreal Engine 3 for the game.

“We are developing across the X360/PS3/PC simultaneously,” said the title’s creative director, Jon Zuk. “Each platform has challenges, but you’ll get the same experience whether it’s PC, 360 or PS3.

“There are no differences between the three, but you have to balance things to the specifications of each platform,” he added. “Fortunately, the Unreal 3 engine is very strong and already working on all of our platforms, so it’s not as big a challenge as it could be if we were creating a game engine from scratch.”

The shooter follows a nuclear accident on a Soviet island, and involves ageing objects with a Time Manipulation Device, or TMD.

Singularity is one of three new IPs launching from Activision this year, the other two being Radical’s Prototype and Bizarre’s new racer, Blur.

It’s out this autumn.

Criterion’s confirmed that Burnout Paradise’s Cops and Robbers DLC will cost $10 on PS3 or 800 MS Points on 360.

It’s out this week, so get ready to do some spending. It’s your duty to buy it, remember.

Thanks, Joystiq.

ESA boss Mike Gallagher has challenged an Iowa State University study that claimed up to 8.5 percent of game-playing American youths aged 8-18 show multiple signs of behavioral addiction.

“As you are likely aware, such a sample is not truly representative of a national population group,” Gallagher said in a letter to Psychological Science’s Dr Robert Kail, who’s publication is to run the study’s findings in an upcoming issue.

“Thus the results cannot be projected onto the broader population of children in this country. And the sampling error of plus or minus 3% that Dr. Gentile cited in the study is also meaningless.”

Gallagher’s letter also notes that Dr Gentile, the scientist behind the paper, later conceded in press interviews that he was unaware his study sampling was not based on a random probability sampling.

“We accept Dr. Gentile’s admission of error at face value, although it is hard to understand how a researcher would base a scientific study upon an assumption about the nature of the group he was studying,” said Gallagher.

You tell ‘em, Mike. Lots more words on Gamasutra.

No, there’s no news from CAPTIVATE yet. You’ll just have to wait to find out what Dark Void’s jetpack sounds like. In the meantime, however, you can watch the video after the break, which includes and intro from IGN’s Jessica Chobot on the beach in Monte Carlo wearing very little.

Yes, Jessica. We can see your ribs. All that calorie-counting paid off.

See for yourself.

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Amazingly, we’re not joking. Zootfly is making a game involving Mr T, Will Wright and some Nazis. From a press release:

The first game will see Mr. T take on Nazis and their gigantic machines in the varied universe of South American rain forests, lost ancient cities, industrial complexes and contemporary military installations. Along with Mr. T and other characters from the graphic novel, the game will feature none other than Will Wright. In this universe, Will Wright is not a top-notch game designer but a top-notch American geneticist who was kidnapped and coerced to work on a diabolic plan. Mr. T and Will Wright will join forces to annihilate the Nazis and their hardware.

We’re a bit stunned, so read Joystiq instead.

Intent’s done another music video involving members of the UK trade to celebrate the MCV Awards. Be warned: this is not for the faint of heart.

Really.