Monthly Archives: June 2009

Lost Planet 2 producer Jun Takeuchi has revealed at Famitsu’s Midnight Live 360 event that a four player co-op demo for the monster-shooter is “coming soon, I guess.”

Whether this means he’s simply speculating that it’s imminent, or the suffix is simply a throwaway comment, remains to be seen.

Lost Planet 2 has no release date as yet but will probably be out for PC and HD consoles sometime in 2010, we guess.

Thanks, Joystiq.

Xbox 360 product boss Aaron Greenberg has said he believes Microsoft’s E3 performance was nothing short of “historic.” He also revealed that he owns a PS3, plays games on it and reckons Sony did a “good job” in LA earlier this month.

“Last year there were so many big games that we showed. We had Resident Evil, we had Gears of War 2, we had all the big blockbuster and people were like, ‘how are you gonna top that?!’ – and we did,” he told Major Nelson during a podcast interview.

“A lot of people thought it was the best E3 we’ve ever had, I definitely think it was historic. We dreamed of opening with The Beatles and closing with Steven Spielberg and it happened.”

“E3, I think, returned to all it’s glory,” Greenberg continued. “[However], it was the first year in maybe five years that I couldn’t get to the Sony and Nintendo conferences.

“I watched on TV both of them in their entirety but yeah, it was insane. I sent one of my staff and he reported back and yeah, it was good, I thought they had a good show, I think Sony did a good job.

“I hope I don’t get in trouble for saying this, but I’m pretty open in that I own a PS3 and I play games on it: I’m a gamer.”

Full interview through the link.

Variety reports the sequel to the Hitman film will “contain story elements from Hitman 5″ and that the aforementioned will be out “in late 2010.”

So if you’ve missed playing a wooden bald man garotting people with cheese wire and storing their bodies under flights of stairs then you can start getting excited.

We’ll contact Eidos and see if we can find out more.

Thanks, Kotaku AU.

In a mini-interview with motor enthusiast site autoweek at E3 earlier this month, Polyphony’s Kazunori Yamauchi has said the release date for Gran Turismo 5 will be announced “soon.”

“We made the announcement today that [the handheld game player PSP GO] is coming out Oct. 1 [with Gran Turismo 5 on it],” told the site in LA.

“We will give the release date of the Gran Turismo 5 soon.”

Yamauchi also reveals that GT1 took seven people five years and GT5 has 20 times that number working on it.

Full thing through the link.

It’s Monday, and what better way to start than to watch ten minutes of excellent looking footage of Rocksteady’s Arkham Asylum… in Polish.

See ‘Bats’ skulking around Arkham’s grounds taking out goons as The Joker’s voice mocks him in the background.

Arkham Asylum is out for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in August.

We can’t wait.

Thanks, Kotaku.

More »

BioWare’s a forward-thinking company, which is why you won’t be able to take a character through Mass Effect 2 then start the game again with your experienced chap, equipment at all. You could do this in the first game.

Continuity’s the key. Mass Effect lead designer Preston Watamaniuk talking on the official forums:

“After finishing ME2 can I take my character and restart a new playthrough preserving that characters gear and abilities.”

The short answer is no.

The reason is progression. We have been working very hard to make sure we design the abilities system to offer smooth progression into ME3 from ME2. Allowing double progression on characters makes that almost impossible. We have to have reasonable knowledge about where a character could end up finishing all content on a playthrough. We also want to offer choice of character build within specific classes.

We replaced that feature with playing after you were done because it preserves progression and allows for smoother downloading of PRC.

Mass Effect 2 ships early next year.

According to this Engadget piece, Hulu’s been specifically blocked on PS3 browsers.

Why? No one knows, but the error message PS3 users now get when trying to access the site doesn’t make it sound like a fault: “Unfortunately, this video is not available on your platform. We apologize for any inconvenience.”

Hulu‘s a big-in-America internet TV thing. Europeans can’t watch, which sucks, because it’s actually really good.

At least American PS3 users are now in the same boat. See how you like it, eh?

WWII RTS Men of War is to expand this autumn with Red Tide, a standalone effort giving the player charge of a bunch of Soviet marines called the Black Coats.

We’re reliably informed that 1C’s game is one of the best current strategy titles on the market. We may even play it to find out for ourselves. We’re that intrigued.

There’s a press release for Red Tide after the break.

More »

Microsoft has announced that Michael Jackson’s legendary music video Thriller is free to download on Xbox Live until the end of today.

The information comes via Microsoft Xbox’s twitter page that reads: “Michael Jackson’s – Thriller music video is currently FREE on Xbox Live Marketplace, until the end of today.”

Sadly, this offer appears to be limited to US consoles only and strangely enough, if you access the song via Marketplace on your console (we’ve got a US account), it says the video currently costs 160 Microsoft Points. However, Xbox.com has it listed for free, so we suggest you use that instead.

It’s a standard definition only affair and therefore is a tiny 173Mb in size.

Update: Whoops: “EDIT- Michael Jackson’s Thriller video was FREE for a short period to only ‘US’ region Live Members. Apologize about the inconvenience.”

Yeah, you read the headline right. eBay’s Deal of the Day is a good one.

Twelve months of Xbox Live Gold membership for $27.99 compared to $49.99.

The deal ends on June 28, has a limit of two per customer, and you must have a US PayPal account.

We just got two ourselves. They make great gifts.

Thanks, Joystiq.

Marvel vs. Capcom 2 will be hitting PSN and XBL in late July.

“MvC2 is not actually coming out on June 29, sorry guys. Not sure where that rumor came from, but it’s going to be closer to the end of July,” said Capcom via Twitter.

Reason it was rumored for June 29 was due to a May financial report released by Marvel.

Just keeping you informed.

Via Joystiq.

Loads this week in MMO news, and some is more interesting than what we have been offered in previous weeks.

FussionFall is getting an expansion for its 5 million users, the EQI&II trademark rumors turned out to be new expansions, Star Wars will be on hand at Comic-Con, and Conan got a new update.

Also, Warhammer and LotRO are celebrating the summer with festivities to make things a bit more zany and fun.

Find out all about these and others after the break.

More »

Rumor has it that Sony wants in on some of the action that iPhone is getting.

According to Japan’s Nikkei business daily (via Reuters), the company will start development on a “cellphone-game gear hybrid” next month and has a team ready to start work on it.

The team’s purpose is to “develop a new product that combines functions of its portable game player and Sony Ericsson’s mobile phones.”

Sony gaming phone rumors have been around for a while, so who knows. Maybe it’s true this time.

Thanks, D’toid.

Geoff Keighley has tweeted that gamers can expect some new footage of Uncharted 2 on GameTrailers TV next month.

Here’s the tweet:

“Great shoot today @naughtydog. Wait until you guys see the amazing cinematic we will premiere, and new single player too. July 9th.”

There ya have it.

An interview with Raven’s Eric Biessman regarding Wolfenstein has revealed that our hero, B.J. Blazkowicz, will remain a man of few words in this installment.

Basically, he will only speak when he feels it’s important.

“B.J. definitely is a man of few words, and while we expanded on this a bit, we also wanted to stay true to the character as defined,” Biessman told GameZone. “While he really wasn’t given a lot of opportunity to speak in the previous games, we knew we wanted to keep B.J. a man of action. With that in mind, B.J. is driven to stop the Nazi menace and isn’t about to wag his tongue at everyone he stumbles upon.

“Instead, B.J. stays the strong, silent type, only talking when he has something that needs to be said. He’s there to do a job, so he remains somewhat shrouded in mystery.”

During the interview, it was mentioned that the Return to Castle Wolfenstein film adaptation is currently in the works. Academy Award-winning screenwriter Roger Avary is providing the script and Samuel Hadida will be producing it.

Just in case you were wondering.

More through the links.

Thanks, Blue.

BioWare co-founder Ray Muzyka has said that the reorganization at EA, putting him in partial charge of the newly formed MMO/RPRG group, has nothing to do with putting one studio above the other.

Instead, it’s about combining forces to make things more efficient.

“Structurally, each of the organizations remains intact. They’re working on the same projects they were working on before, I just have another studio that reports into me,” Muzyka told Gamasutra. “It’s not that BioWare or Mythic is changing; they’re retaining their brands, their unique cultural identities, their projects they are working on. I’m really excited about what we’re doing; we have great people at each location.

“It’s a collaboration opportunity. Each of the groups continues to make the same thing in their [own locations]. But it’s fuelling and enabling more communication, collaboration, best practice sharing, encouraging each other to play each others’ games — but no formal change per se in what anybody’s doing. It’s a recognition that there’s a lot of synergy between them already. I’m going to make sure everyone at each location knows who the others are, and their comparable roles, and to make sure they talk.

“The outward brands that are still very much the consumer-facing identities, the cultural identities, are Mythic and BioWare, and I’m really proud of those two brands. They’re storied brands, they’re award-winning studios. Very much they’re going to be partner studios. There are three BioWare studios already — Edmonton, Austin, and Montreal — and one Mythic studio, but Mythic is very much a strong identity and voice and brand and group. I’m really happy with that.

“That’s the way I want it, that’s the way they want it.”

More through the link.

Thanks, Blue.

Overlord and Mirror’s Edge writer Rhianna Pratchett has told That VideoGame Blog that development studios are starting to take the plot of the games more seriously than in the past.

“Writers and narrative designers are still relatively new positions on development teams.” she said. “This means there’s still a level of uncertainty about how best to use and integrate them. I know from talking to lots of fine people in my field that the writing process can often be done too late, without proper access to the team and under extreme pressure.

“Thankfully, things are starting to get a little better and more writers are being contacted in the first few months of a project’s lifespan, rather than the last few months … A little more variation in concept and content would be nice, as well, which is something writers and narrative designers can help with.”

She does, however feel that the “tuff-guy” syndrome is alive and well in the industry when it comes to gaming plots, and it needs to dump this sort of Hollywood mentality.

“A little more variation in concept and content would be nice, as well, which is something writers and narrative designers can help with,” she added. “Although they have their place and god knows I’ve enjoyed them on occasion, I could do with a little less ‘Gruff guy with super powers/large weapon kicks assss!’ tales.

“The medium has huge potential, so I’m not sure why there’s this constant desire to keep rooting around in Hollywood’s action-movie scrapheap.”

Via D’toid.

Konami’s Tomm Hulett, producer of Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, says the series is an equal opportunity franchise that does not need to be platform exclusive, or have a “home”.

“Silent Hill’s an important franchise to Konami, it’s our premier survival horror franchise, so I’m not sure it needs a “home”, he told Joystiq. “I think a lot of fans have gotten used to it being on the PS2 and we are creating a PS2 version of Shattered Memories for them, but it’s been on Microsoft consoles and everyone likes to be scared, so why should we only allow a certain group of people to be scared?

“I think the Wii allows us to do different things with Silent Hill and the second something stops being scary is when it becomes predictable. I think we need to experiment with Silent Hill, we need to put it on all these different platforms, we need to try new things with the story. Otherwise, it’s just that game where you go through a level once and then it gets creepy, and you go through the level again and half the doors are locked.

“That’s not scary anymore.”

More through the link, via VideoGamesBlogger.

Dragon Age: Origins screens have popped up over on CVG, who just so happened to get a combat demo of the mature fantasy game.

Some show a big dragon spreading its wings and spewing what appears to be supersonic waves of magic in a guy’s face. Then again it could just be really pretty fire with multiple colors.

Whatever it is, it doesn’t look like it will just tickle.

You may have already seen a couple, and some you may not have. Go look just in case.

It’s out in October for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360.

Metroid Prime Trilogy will be released on Wii in North America August 24, and September 4 in Europe.

But you knew that already.

What you may not have known is that the collector’s edition comes in a tin case with an art book, and if you pre-order either it or the regular retail version from GameStop you get a decent looking t-shirt.

Joystiq has pictures of  it.

Looks better than the one we got with the Ghostbusters pre-order at any rate.