Monthly Archives: May 2009

Whatever could this mean? Kojima’s teaser site‘s been update with what looks very much like the number “5″. See for yourself.

There’s a timer up there now as well, pointing to Thursday. Exciting, huh?

Valve’s surpassed itself with its latest Team Fortress 2 movie. This one features the Spy. It’s actually funny. Watch it after the break.

Thanks, Joystiq.

More »

Funcom’s Q1 report for 2009 stated the company pulled in $7 million in revenue, and while that was less than the previous quarter, the company is pleased.

Age of Conan received good news in the way of longer customer subscription periods. New account sign-ups rose compared to Q4, and higher levels of game activity were also reported.

Anarchy Online wasn’t as lucky, as revenues from the game were reportedly declining.

Funcom was also pleased with the initial reaction to its upcoming MMO The Secret World, and between it, AoC and it’s casual sector the company finds itself in a much better state looking forward.

More over on Massively.

The first batch of BlizzCon 09 tickets sold out within minutes of going up for sale.

Not really surprising, is it?

The second batch is set to go up May 30. If you didn’t get yours today, you can always try again then.

Best of luck.

The first bit of artwork for Earth No More surfaced yesterday, and it definitely looks like nature is out to get you.

Described as a “when nature goes wrong” 3d shooter, the game takes place in a small New England town under quarantine because of an outbreak of sorts. Basically plants are taking over the world, the government is trying to cover it up and you and four others must combat it the best way possible.

Multiplayer and co-op will be featured, and it’s currently in the works from Recoil Games and being produced by Radar Group.

The game is slated for PC, PS3, and Xbox 360, but so far, a release date has not been set.

Thanks, Gaming Today.

1UP has listed over 101 free games to play over in its site.

Loads of genres to choose from including adventure, FPS, platformers, puzzlers, RPG, strategy, and WTF.

If you have time to check out the list, you should. It’s Saturday after all and what else do you have to do until you go out on the town?

Via D’toid.

Cryptic Studios has changed the release date for Champions Online from July 14 to September 1.

According to a post on the official website, the developers want the game to have a bit more time for polish and the like before it’s released.

“It is critically important for an MMO to be as good as it possibly can be at launch,” wrote Bill Roper on the site.

“Through our constant dialogue with our vocal and supportive community of beta testers, we quickly realized that in order to implement certain features that we all considered important the development of Champions Online would require more time. So that’s what we’re going to give it.

“Cryptic has a proven track record of releasing solid games and we want to maintain that with Champions Online.”

Good enough.

Thanks, Massively.

Leading up to E3, there is not a megaton of news with anything, let alone MMOs. The week was basically all about screens, delving into crafting systems and character sheets, and general stuff that you can view on any online game’s website. It’s called pre-E3 malaise, and today it’s pretty thick.

However, we have dug through the mire once more to bring you something in the way of MMO news that didn’t hit the front page.

You can catch up on it all after the break.

More »

Rumor that a Bionic Commando sequel is in the works hit the net earlier via a strange Morse Code image.

Once the code is deciphered its reads the following in German:

“Bestaetige Ausfuehrung von Phase Zwei Vorbereitet Aktiviere Projeckt Albatross”

Translated into English:

“Confirm the Implementation of Phase Two Project Prepared Active Albatross”

Apparently in the first Bionic Commando, the purpose of Project Albatross was to resurrect Master-D. Not sure if this means a sequel is in the works or if it’s something to do with the upcoming release.

You can see the full thing over on PerezStart, and the image is posted after the break.

More »

There’s a new video featuring behind the scenes footage of Ubisoft’s Rabbids Go Home after the break.

It’s in French, and while our linguistic skills are a bit rusty, you don’t have to be immersed in the language to see the development process or enjoy the voice over work featured at the beginning of it.

That’s why we posted it anyway. The guy sounds like he sucked down a bunch of helium. It’s great.

Thanks, GoNintendo.

More »

Damnation is now available for pre-purchase on Steam.

Should you lay down the cash for it, you will get a copy of Free Radical’s stealth-action game Second Sight, for free.

Damnation will be available worldwide on May 22.

This is just a friendly reminder, to those planning on attending BlizzCon this year, that tickets go on sale today at 10:00am PST (1:00pm EST).

The event takes place at Anaheim Convention Center in Los Angeles on August 21, and of you haven’t set up a Battle.net account, you need to do so now.

Should you miss out, a second batch will be up for grabs on May 30.

Hit the link for more details.

The Entertainment Consumers Association has hired Jason Andersen as its new Director of Public Relations.

Andersen was previously a public relations consultant for the ECA, and his new duty entails being a media spokesperson for the game consumer organization.

“Jason has been a key member of our team since we launched in 2006 and was an important part of the association’s visibility, positioning and success,” said the ECA’s VP of marketing Heather Ellertson. “His expertise in publicity, knowledge of the industry and passion for gaming and gamers’ rights make him a perfect fit for the ECA.”

Previously, Andersen worked for EA, LucasArts and Sega managing media relations for game franchises such as Need for Speed, Star Wars, and The Lord of the Rings.

More over on GamePolitics.

Reports from many sources were claiming that Killing Floor had some connection issues that were hindering server log-ins.

Tripwire has apparently fixed these issues with a patch which will be applied automatically when logging into Steam.

Here’s just the partial list:

Server Browser

• Fixed the in game server browser not showing all servers
• Fixed the “Perks enabled server” icon not showing up in the server browser
• Fixed some server browser filters not working right. Also added the ability to filter servers by Perks enabled and filter by difficulty
• Added the ability to sort the server list by difficulty
• Servers that cannot be reached because they are behind a firewall will show up with a ping of 9999 in the server browser. This is the cause of most “connection failed” messages
• Fixed the “Stats Name/Password” popup box that was popping up but shouldn’t have been
• Fixed a “Warning” box that was appearing but shouldn’t have been
• Added a message when attempting to host a listen server notifying the user what ports they must have open on their firewall to host the game

The rest of the list can be found here.

Valve opened the public beta for the Left 4 Dead Authoring Tools yesterday.

Authoring Tools include modified versions of the same tools the devs used to produce  the game, and players can use these tools to create their own 3D models, campaign maps, character skins, music and sound effects for the game.

Along with an updated version of Hammer, command line compiling utilities, the particle editor, Faceposer and example maps, props and explosives, the release also includes plug-ins for SketchUp.

The Authoring Tools set is available as a free download for all owners of the PC version and can be found under the “Tools” tab in Steam.

Hit the link for the rest of the details.

3D Realms boss Scott Miller’s said the developer never saw the $12 million Take-Two’s claiming was dropped on the failed development of Duke Nukem Forever.

“No. We didn’t get a penny of that money,” said the exec, talking in this Shacknews comments thread.

“This, along with so much else, is 100 percent spin, being eaten up by those who have no clue whatsoever.”

Take-Two claims that it is owed “millions of dollars” by 3D Realms for breaking an agreement to finish the game.

The publisher also requested a copy of the existing Duke Nukem Forever source and object code “to ensure the code is preserved and remains unharmed during the pendency of this lawsuit.”

More detail and court documents here.

New Team Ninja boss Yosuke Hayashi has told Kikizo that Ninja Gaiden will almost certainly be continued as a series.

“What the gamers are looking for is going to be the next chapter – the future of an outstanding series. We feel that we’re in a position of being able to make that call… That calling is already there – we feel it”.

Tomonobu Itagaki, the previous Ninja Gaiden dev head, said in May 2008 that the second game would finish the IP.

Apparently not. It gets better: next time it’s going to be multi-format:

“We’re going to have to push ourselves to the next level, and we are better off giving both audiences an entirely new game,” Hayashi added.

There’s a full interview here.

In this new developer diary for Batman: Arkham Asylum, Rocksteady’s Sefton Hill provides a walkthrough of the combat system.

The video Hill demonstrates with shows the combative free flow mode, which allows you chain together combat moved.

It’s rather cool, and after the break.

Game’s out in September.

Thanks, 1UP.

More »

Team 17 have released three new trailers for Worms 2: Armageddon.

W2A will feature the return of fire, the electromagnet, and the addition of player reactions which has the worms react emotionally to their current situation.

You can watch trailers for fire, electromagnet and airstrike through GamerBytes.

New Worms 2 Armageddon Trailers,

Starbreeze’s The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena Vin Diesel sold 100,000 units during its debut moth of April.

According to NPD, those numbers are for all platforms and include numbers for March even though the game did not hit shelves until April 7.

Just thought the Riddick fans would like to know.

More through Joystiq.