Monthly Archives: May 2009

Need for Speed: Shift’s E3 trailer just released, showing the BMW M3 GT2.

The game certainly looks the part. Hit the link for proof.

Autumn for PS3, 360 and PC.

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The second lot of BlizzCon 2009 tickets will go on sale tomorrow, Blizzard just announced.

You’ll get your chance to buy one at 10 am PST. Tickets are priced at $125 each and will go on sale at the event’s official site.

The event itself takes place on August 21 and 22 at the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, California.

You’d better pray if you’re after a place: the first bunch sold out in minutes.

Three new game screens popped up this morning for Mafia II.

Eurogamer France has ‘em.

Too bad the game was delayed into the first half of 2010, as it looks rather decent.

Hopefully giving it more development time will give that extra coat of polish Take-Two says it needed.

Hit the links.

EA just officially announced Tiger Woods PGA TOUR Online.

The game is a browser-based affair, and will launch with “several world class championship courses”, including Pebble Beach, TPC Sawgrass and St Andrews. More are promised in the fullness of time.

As reported earlier, the title will replace disc version for PC and Mac.

Price? Expect a “multi-tiered subscription” model. It’s out this autumn.

Get the press release after the break.

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Battlefield 1943 players can get a bonus map for the game via EA’s community challenge, which will unlock when the muliplayer community reaches 43 million kills on PSN and Xbox Live.

The WWII Coral Sea map will be included along with three other maps, Iwo Jima, Guadalcanal, and Wake Island for 1200 MS Points ($14.99) when it releases this summer, and in September on PC.

Coral Sea showcases air battles in the all-new Air Superiority game mode, and it’s an “airplanes-only map.”

More details on all of this are posted in the press release below.

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Dragon Age: Origins will be released simultaneously on PC and consoles October 20.

It was announced on Spike last night via the channel’s E3 special.

During the showing of the game’s CGI trailer, the end of it revealed the date.

Thanks, BigDownload.

Eidos has told MCV that Batman: Arkham Asylum will release on August 25 in the US, and three days later in Europe.

The news will delight bat-fans: the game was pushed into “late summer” at the beginning of May.

Plenty more on this at E3 next week.

Eidos just confirmed its E3 line-up. The publisher’s showing three games in LA next week. And they are:

• Batman: Arkham Asylum
• Mini Ninjas
• Just Cause 2

Press release after the break.

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SOE’s confirmed in this forum post that The Matrix Online’s servers are to be turned off on July 31.

The MMO’s been running up for four years.

“It has been a good run. Where many games have fizzled out before or shortly after launch, by August we will have lived on in our home at SOE for more than four years. To this day, I have never worked with a community as dedicated as The Matrix Online community,” said producer Dan Myers.

Thanks, EG.

Kotaku’s reporting that Tiger Woods won’t be released on disc for PC and Mac this year.

The news comes after an SAI story this morning that pointed towards EA taking a more online approach with the game.

Full thing through there. Don’t be hugely shocked if exactly the same thing happens to Madden and FIFA next week.

You’ll notice there are now two new “things” on VG247. As you’re natural change-fearers, I thought I’d explain.

That E3 banner’s just a link to the E3 category. We’ll be blitzing the LA show next week, starting off with press conferences liveblogs on Monday and Tuesday and segueing into what will undoubtedly be a bewildering fuck-ton of information from the showfloor. Just click Mart’s hands for a big list of everything we post.

The Twitter links are Twitter links. We had to do it some time. There’s one there for normal site updates, and one for me personally. If you want to watch me dribble even more meaningless horseshit into the internet all day, I’m not going to stop you.

Taking note of all these things will make your E3 experience more pleasurable and general life-state more complete.

You? We love you.

Seriously. Platinum’s Bayonetta looks absolutely bonkers. The E3 trailer after the break is irrefutable proof.

She’s a sexy nun, in the name of God.

PS3 and 360 later this year.

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AlienWare’s announced the “all-powerful” laptop it’s been teasing for the last few weeks.

It’s the M17X, and it ships with a brain-melting spec of two 1GB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 280M GPUs, a Core 2 Extreme quad-core CPU and up to 8GB of 1333MHz DDR3 memory.

Hit the link to read and weep. The bottom of the range model costs $1,799.

Ubisoft’s applied for a trademark for “Killing Day”, as you can see here.

What is it? Ubi showed the shooter in the Sony E3 press conference in 2005. It was reported shelved in 2006.

Thanks, superannuation.

Atlus confirmed Trauma Team for Wii this morning, giving the game a 2010 release date for the US.

No European date at all as yet, but there’s probably not much reason to fret.

Get shots from DarkZero.

Dear 2K execs. It’s not the best idea in the world to appear flaky on SKUs for massive games in earnings calls.

The company did just that this week on the subject of BioShock 2. Panicking? Don’t.

A 2K rep told us via email today that the call was “oddly worded” and that the game is “actually out on PS3, 360 and PC on 30th October, just for the record.”

Sorted? Sorted.

Atari confirmed today that Cryptic Studios is at work on remakes of existing IPs for the company.

“Cryptic Studios is working on the development of a series of new games based on Atari’s existing and historically successful IPs,” said the publisher in its yearly financial statement.

Space Invaders MMO, innit.

Atari announced earlier that it lost €226.1 million in the last FY.

Atari said in its yearly financial statement today that the Xbox 360 version of Champions Online will ship in the third quarter.

The PC MMO has been confirmed for a September release.

Infogrames has announced fiscal year 2009 losses to the tune of €226.1 million, compared to a €51.1 million loss in the year previous.

The firm blamed the drop on “exceptional non-recurring expenses related to the restructuring of packaged products publishing, sale of distribution and the transformation from Infogrames to Atari.”

As previously reported, Phil Harrison has now been ousted as president of the company. The new management team stacks up as follows:

• David Gardner, Chief Executive Office and Director
• Jeff Lapin, Chief Operating Officer and Director
• Fabrice Hamaide, Chief Financial Officer
• Jim Wilson, Chief Executive Officer at Atari, Inc.
• John Needham, Chief Executive Officer at Cryptic

The full release is here.

Flee. Before it’s too late. Japan has apparently stopped liking videogames, which accounts for the fact that this week’s hardware sales figures are incontestably rubbish.

Last week’s charts here. Data for the week ending May 24.

• DSi – 33,833
• PSP – 27,536
• Wii – 16,233
• PS3 – 10,932
• DS Lite – 5,631
• PS2 – 4,075
• Xbox 360 – 3,854