Monthly Archives: May 2009

A few new screens and trailer for Dead to Rights: Retribution have popped up on Shacknews, showing in-game city locations and lots of rain.

There’s some sirens there, too. No sign of the dog, though. More from E3.

According to MCV, the British games market has dropped below £15 million for the first time since 2007.

Based on today’s Gfk-ChartTrack/ELSPA weekly report, the UK market has hit £13.7 million for the week ending May 17, down from £16.6 million the week before.

The weekly value hasn’t topped £20 million since the week ending April 18.

Fantastic. Hit the link for the full thing.

Gamestop’s offering God of War: Chains of Olympus free with PSP purchases at the moment. Bargain.

Especially as Sony’s about to announce PSP-4000 at E3. Rumour, obviously. But it is.

Thanks, Joystiq.

GTTV is to air more Modern Warfare 2 footage this week, according to this Kotaku post.

No detail there, but we’ll let you know once it’s gone up.

Wal-Mart now has machines to take your old games. The US retail monster has has included 77 “Video Game Buyback” stations at various stores, Gama reports.

The machines also carry movie DVDs and video game discs for Wii, Xbox and PlayStation platforms for $1 per day rentals, on top of accepting game discs that customers want to sell.

There’s a bevy of information through there. It’s only a tiny trial, remember: Wal-Mart has 3,656 total US stores.

The latest GTTV Bonus Round has Kotaku’s Brian Crecente, ex-Newsweeker N’Gai Croal and Game Informer’s Andy McNamara chewing the fat about htis year’s E3, due to start two weeks today.

Worth watching. After the break.

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Some new shots of Madden 10 after the break. There’s no more footballier game in the world. Check out the shine on those red helmets.

It’s out in August for all platforms. Apart from PC.

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EA, MTV and Harmonix have now given us the Euro date for Rock Band Unplugged on PSP.

It’s scheduled to hit our shores on June 19th, which is just ten days after the US release.

Full track listing through the link.

Ari Pulkkinen, composer of those catchy Super Stardust HD tunes, is lending his talent to the Trine team, reports Joystiq.

“My objective with the Trine OST was to make something different and unique that would really capture the game’s story, with its little twisted and humorous turns,” said Pulkkinen.

Trine looks pretty cool we reckon, and now it should sound good too.

There’s a soundtrack sample through the link.

EA’s Dean Richards, executive producer on Fight Night Round 4, has told VG247 that the issue of accessibility in Fight Night Round 3 is something that the team have addressed in the new game.

“The accessibility part was a big to us,” said Richards. “So we want to make it so regardless if you’re just a boxing fan or a gamer that you immediately can get in the ring and start throwing punches and get that feel for the game right away.

“The problem with Round 3 was, that you’d have to finish your punch before you could throw the next one. It wasn’t really as responsive as you’d think it is.

“So the first thing we wanted to do was attack that with speed,” he went on. “First of all it was at 30 frames per second now it’s at 60 frames per second which obviously adds a tremendous amount of fidelity in your feel.

“But we also changed the total punch control a little bit to allow body punches and head punches to be comboed more easily.

“To be able to throw fast combos, and to add a little bit accessibility on the total punch control, really adds to that ‘pick-up-and-play,’” concluded Richards.

Fight Night Round 4 is out next month.

According to SI, Sega has confirmed at a press event in London today that Virtua Tennis 09 will release 29th May for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. The Wii version will release a little later in June.

Virtua Tennis 08 was great, so we’re up for this one. Expect more media at E3 next month.

According to NPD data, Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars sold roughly the same amount as it did in its debut month: namely 74,000 units.

This means that life-to-date sales in the US are now 163,000.

Nintendo DS/DSi sold over one million units in America last month.

Thanks, Gama.

The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask will be arriving on the US Virtual Console at some point today.

We (the royal one) got it back in early April along with the Japanese.

So now everyone’s got it, ain’t that grand?

Thanks D’Toid.

A listing for Prima’s official strategy guide for Turn 10′s Forza 3 has gone up on Amazon.de today.

This wouldn’t normally be news, but Microsoft is yet to officially announce the game is being made. The closest we’ve come so far is a video at a Brazilian Microsoft event in late April.

So far there’s no release date for the Prima guide.

Expect more at E3, Shirley.

Tony Hawk: RIDE isn’t just a skateboarding game with a skateboard-shaped platic peripheral you can stand on, no sir. According to Activision’s Rob Kostich, it’s actually a huge leap forward in terms of games and gaming as we know it.

“Tony Hawk: RIDE is a massive step forward for the franchise and the gaming industry as a whole,” he said.

“The skateboard controller will redefine sports games by offering players a true skateboarding experience, hands-free, playing with friends and family at home or online in a variety of different locations.”

Tony Hawk is equally as excited: “This is the game I’ve always wanted to make,” said big Tone.

“Playing on the board is unlike any other game, and I’m excited for everyone to have the chance to feel what it’s really like to experience the true feeling of skateboarding.”

Full press release after the break.

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DJ Shadow reckons that people will be amazed at the amount you can mess around with licensed music in Activision’s DJ Hero. We’ll be so amazed in fact, we’ll actually raise one of our eyebrows.

“I don’t think a lot of the people that made some of the music we’re involved with have ever allowed their music to be so freely messed with, you know what I mean?

“And I think that this game – I definitely think it will raise some eyebrows on that level,” DJ Shadow told Game Informer.

DJ Hero is in currently in development for PS2, PS3, Wii and Xbox 360 and players will control the choones via a plastic deck.

Full thing through there.

Frontier’s David Braben has been added to the roster at this year’s Games Eden event in the UK.

The Elite and Lost Winds creator will be talking about direct-to-consumer opportunities via digital content, writes GI.

Fancy hearing what he has to say? Well then, take yourself up to The Kaetsu Centre, Murray Edwards College, Huntingdon Road, Cambridge from 4pm on Thursday May 21 and you can.

More here.

Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot has reiterated the company’s desire to make special effects for Hollywood movies.

“We want to create the capacity to develop special effects for movies. Those worlds have to merge more and more,” he told the FT.

“We don’t want to make movies, but the expertise we have is key to creating special effects, graphics and animation.”

Guillemot first spoke of Ubisoft’s desire to work on film last June.

Lots more through the links.

EA’s Fight Night Round 4 is almost upon us, and for those of you who haven’t got the rather mouth-watering demo yet, here’s a bunch of new screenshots to look.

Admire muscle men with sweat running down their bare chests after the break.

Game’s out in June.

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Vail Christian High School is teaching its students road safety using none other than Mario Kart Wii.

Apparently, the class is called “distracted and drowsy driving project” and kids use the steering wheel peripheral whilst trying to send text messages etc. and smashing into walls and other motorists.

“The whole focus of Vail Christian High School’s traffic safety project is about distracted driving,” said Kim Greene of the Vail Valley Medical Center.

“With the way Alli is driving, rarely on the road and often crashing into computerized cows, the program seems to be driving home the point,” added Colorado 9 News.

We only needed David Prowse MBE we we were kids.

Thanks, CVG.