Monthly Archives: June 2009

The actor who played Jigsaw from the Saw movies took the stage after Kokima stepped off during the Konami presser at E3. He was acting very creepy, apparently, and voiced his involvement with the game.

Supposedly, the game will capture the “texture” of the movies, and producer Jon Willamson showed off some of the traps from the game. One was the reverse bear trap and it rips heads apart.

Players must also look for clues in the environment to help them survive, with some out in the open and others hidden. These can look like bloodstains which form an image when viewed at a certain angle.

Jigsaw’s apprentices will be helping the sicko out, and will lead players into traps. These minions wear severed pig head masks.

IGN said that the game looks “dark, grim, and exceedingly bloody.”

Of course it does.

Hideo Kojima took the stage during Konami’s press event at E3 this evening and announced Metal Gear games and the Lords of Shadow game.

Nothing real earth shattering, but here is what happened.

• Metal Gear Solid Arcade was announced, and it’s built on the PS3 engine. Comes with special 3D goggles, and is networked so gamers can compete from different arcades. It will release in Japan this year, and Konami is working out now on how to bring it overseas.

• Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker was shown via a video next, and was described as “grim with lots of nuclear war imagery”. Cold War intrigue and the rise of Outer Heaven in Costa Rica in 1974 is mentioned. You will be able to hide under boxes too, apparently, from big men, guns and robot airship-like things. The main character is “Naked Snake”, and it’s set after MGS3 and a true sequel. Kojima did all of the the writing himself and the MGS4 team was heavily involved.

• Metal Gear Solid Rising was next, and showed that Raiden is indeed back. Kojima says it is for next-gen consoles which means 360, PC, and PS3 with no exclusivity.

• The fourth game is the masked one, and what sounded like Patrick Stewart was narrating. Awesome. It’s Castlevania: Lords of Shadow with Jason Isaacs as a cast member. It stars a character called Gabriel whose mask can bring the dead back to life. It’s out in 2010 for both PS3 and Xbox 360. Teaser video was full of “hard action” and Kojima notes that this is a new start for the series. Producer, Dave Cox, came on stage and called it a re-imagining that’s not connected to any of the other games in the franchise. The story is of a hero looking for “revenge and retribution” and is being developed by Mercurysteam, with Kojima Productions supervising.

Kojima says that Konami looked to a global audience when deciding which direction to to go with the Castlevania title, and found that the world “demands bloodthirsty action with men that wield crucifix-whips”.

Kojima then left the stage, being replaced by a trailer for Saw and the actor who plays Jigsaw in the movies.

Big thanks, IGN.

Gamespot got a hands on with Warhammer 40K:S pace Marine during E3, and it seems like it was good experience all around.

“The high-level story of Space Marine will follow your character as he and his fellow power-suited badasses try to stem the tide of an invasion by the green-skinned Orks on a forge planet (the planetary factories where Space Marine weaponry is created). Beyond that overview, we don’t know much else about the story in the game. But, honestly, when the rest of the trailer was filled with action-packed shots of Space Marines and Orks mixing it up in glorious fashion,who really cares about the story?”

We’re jealous quite frankly.

Hit the link for more. There’s loads there.

If we keep crunching all this down it’ll disappear eventually. Get all the news from E3 platform-holder conference from the links below.

• E3 2009 Microsoft press conference
• E3 2009 Nintendo press conference
• E3 2009 Sony press conference

If you want to talk to a Microsoft exec about where Xbox 360 stands right now, there’s probably no better person to speak to than product management director Aaron Greenberg.

The boss has just managed Microsoft’s entire E3 effort as executive producer – he ran Monday’s press conference – but took time to talk to us on at the firm’s LACC booth today.

Breakdown:

• Aaron’s a VG247 fan!
• Whether or not Microsoft won E3
• Why Natal will revolutionize home entertainment
• The question of Metal Gear Solid Rising platform exclusivity
• When we can expect to see Natal
• Natal games well into development
• FFXIV exclusivity
• “Bungie’s going to be doing a lot of work in the Halo universe”
• Aaron on Crackdown 2′s release date
• The biggest blockbusters are on Xbox 360
• Sony motion-sensing is “very derivative” of “Wii experience”
• “The only experience you need with Natal is life experience”

The full thing’s after the break.

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Peter Molyneux just tweeted that his announcement will not be made until midnight EST.

That’s 9:00pm on the coast out there in LA where E3 is ongoing.

Here’s the tweet:

I am afraid there will be no announcement till midnight EST sorry

He said earlier today that he would announce something at E3 that was not game related, but something about himself.

You’re killing us, Pete. Seriously.

Army of Two: The 40th Day was at the EA booth, but not everyone got their hands on it.

Therefore, D’toid has posted its impressions of the “hands-off” demo given at E3. Luckily it already knew what to expect from an earlier demo.

Apparently, it’s a chaotic game with helicopters carrying tanks slamming into buildings, people running for their lives and skyscrapers falling on top of each other while Rios and Salem shoot everything that moves.

Great stuff. Hit the link for more.

EyePet was a Sony conference no-show at E3 this week, but SCEE’s put out some new shots just for the hell of it.

Expect more from Cologne. After the break.

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Gran Turismo will land on PSP October 1, and if that is not enough to excite you, it will feature over 800 vehicle models with over 4,500 paint variations, 30-plus tracks with more than 60 layouts, famous world circuits, city courses and other environments.

Challenge Mode is present throughout 100 events different events where players can progress their rides or get new ones, or play in Arcade Mode.

Online supports 4 players via ad hoc and trade and share unlocked vehicles.

Gamershell has screens of it.

Dark Void allows you to be a pilot that slips through “the Void” into a parallel dimension and the soundtrack and visuals are awesome, apparently.

Joystiq seemed pretty enthralled with its hands-on at E3, and said that the gameplay “reaches levels of freshness few games are able to tap into.”

The screens and video sure do look nice at any rate.

Capcom and Airtight say it will be out for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 sometime this fall.

Protesters picketed the LA Convention Center today over Dante’s Inferno.

Called the Salvationists Against Virtual and Eternal Damnation, the group passed out leaflets to people walking by.

When asked by BigDownload what all the fuss was about considering all the “different depictions of Hell in all forms of art”, a spokesperson for the group said they are just going after each on a case by case basis.

Takes all kinds, we guess.

The Grinder, High Voltage’s Wii-exclusive FPS has you fighting against loads of creatures like zombies, vampires, and werewolves as a professional monster hunter.

D’toid got a brief hands on with the game at E3, and describe it as having a bit of a “southwestern almost cowboy kind of feel” to it, and the demo had over 150 enemies on-screen that could be killed in one big blow.

Fantastic. Sounds like another one of those “frustration” games to put on your list.

Man of the house or lady make you mad? Go play The Grinder, we reckon.

More through the link with tons of screens.

Nintendo President Satoru Iwata has said that the company previously designed a new handheld, but scrapped it, according to an interview with CNBC.

During the chat, Iwata stated that this occurred within the past three years, and it’s not the first time the company has designed something and ditched it.

“In the history of Nintendo, there are several such examples,” he said. “But when we are launching new hardware, the most important is thing is to sustain the momentum. If introducing new hardware won’t do anything to do that, well…”

Probably won’t be the last time either. Not too shocking really, all things considered.

Still, it would be nice to know what it was and what it was all about.

More through the link.

Xbox product boss Aaron Greenberg has told VG247 that Final Fantasy is not an exclusive product to PlayStation 3, but remained coy on whether or not the MMO will launch on Xbox 360.

“My understanding is that it is not exclusive,” he said in an interview today.

“That would be a good question to ask Square.”

He added: “I know that we have a great relationship with [Square]. They provided a number of big titles, including some exclusives like Star Ocean, along with having FFXIII demoed on Xbox 360.”

Square Enix senior VP Shinji Hashimoto has just confirmed to an E3 press event that it is considering “all options” for the game.

“We don’t want to make a copy of World of Warcraft,” a Square rep said.

SCEA boss Jack Tretton said in the Sony E3 press conference last night that the title was a PS3 exclusive, to release next year.

The Nintendo booth at E3 had a pair of Classic Controller Pros for Wii on display.

Strange considering it hasn’t been announced for release outside of Japan.

Reps inside the booth had no knowledge of the controllers being released elsewhere any time soon, but still, they were there for all the world to see.

Interesting.

More over on Joystiq.

While we already new there’d be incentives to play Assassin´s Creed: Bloodlines on PSP if you had the PS3 version of Assassin’s Creed, Ubisoft’s Patrice Desilets added a little detail to the feature at E3 today.

“There will be over 30 weapons in the final game, not to mention the six additional unique weapons you will be able to unlock by playing Assassin´s Creed: Bloodlines on the PSP and connect it to your PS3,” said the developer.

Both games are out later this year.

Thanks, NextGN.

PSP Go! specs have been released, and the shiny new handheld contains more than just Bluetooth.

That’s according to the press release anyway.

Music recommendations,full PSP-1000/2000/3000 support, game sleep function, and a peripheral called Cradle which will allow you to watch stuff and listen to music while the battery charges.

The full thing is after the jump.

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Hideo Kojima will not be directing Metal Gear Solid Rising for PS3 and Xbox 360. Instead he plans to focus on Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker for PSP.

According to Famitsu, Kojima will be designer, director and producer of Peace Walker which he describes as “Metal Gear Solid 5 inside me.”

“I’m not the director. I’m not doing game design either. Although, I do issue complaints (laughs). But, not too much,” he said.

He will, however, be producing Rising alongside Kenichiro Imaizumi.

The Konami press conference is later this afternoon. Maybe we will hear more.

Hit the link for more.

Digital Foundry’s captured some fantastic footage from the Uncharted 2 multiplayer beta. Take the time.

There’s some impressions there as well.

There’s still no date on the game, unfortunately.

Jak & Daxter: The Lost Frontier is headed to PSP later this year.

Eurogamer has screens of it.

Look at ‘em here.