Monthly Archives: June 2009

Dante’s Inferno PSP and Xbox 360/PS3 shots after the break. Definitely one to watch, we reckon.

It’s out next year.

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Director Gore Verbinski has told The LA Times that filming Bioshock in the States is simply too expensive and if the film is to go ahead, countries such as the U.K. and Australia need to be looked at for tax rebate reasons.

“The bottom line is it has to shoot out of the States for budget reasons and my schedule may be prohibitive.” he said.

“Big movies are just not being shot in the States. I’m weighing whether I can physically go the U.K. or Australia or one of those other places with a tax rebate for a year-and-a-half.”

Production on the Bioshock movie was ground to a halt in April due to budget concerns.

Thanks, Kotaku.

Those interviewing Polyphony Digital legend Kazanori Yamauchi at E3 tomorrow have been told not to ask questions about Gran Turismo 5, VG247 has learned.

Meaning? Well, presumably that the game du jour for the Sony car kids is going to be GT PSP only.

SCEA’s John Koller confirmed GT was on the way to PSP Go in the “leaked” Qore ep this weekend, and it now looks clear the focus will be on the handheld title as far as Gran Turismo’s concerned.

Sony’s press conference takes place at 11.00am PST tomorrow.

EA has just revealed that Visceral Game’s Dante’s Inferno will run at 60 frames per second and that the game will give gamers the “western world’s most definitive view of the afterlife.” Seriously.

“Built on the same technology as the award-winning Dead Space, Dante’s Inferno will deliver a fast, fluid and responsive combat experience running at 60 frames per second,” says the E3 fact sheet that you can find in its entirety after the break.

“EA’s Dante’s Inferno will take gamers to the western world’s most definitive view of the afterlife as created in the 13th century by the Italian poet Dante Alighieri in part one of his epic classic, ‘The Divine Comedy.’”

Dante’s Inferno ships in 2010 for PS3, Xbox 360 and PSP.

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And we’re off. EA just put out 360/PS3 and PSP screens of Army of Two: The 40th Day.

A few old ones in there, but what the hey. It’s out this year.

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EA has just put out a Brütal Legend E3 09 fact sheet, keeping you abreast of what to expect from the game at this year’s show.

Headings like Action Combat!, A World Like No Other and Titans of Stage and Screen are all in effect, ramping up the excitement in our heavy metal underwear.

Full thing after the break.

Go read.

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It’s called Xbox@E309 and there’s a window whereby you can watch the conference live at 6:30 (make that 6:25)pm BST.

There’s links to everything Xbox 360 E3 related including the official Twitter page, Major Nelson and AceyBongos. What more could you want?

Have a look.

Activision CEO Mike Griffith has revealed that Guitar Hero has sold for more than $1 billion in the company’s pre-E3 conference yesterday.

He goes on to say the install base is now over 15 million and the company is looking to increase those numbers.

Guitar Hero 5 will have more than 20 top 10 hits, apparently and the company is excited about the launch of Guitar Hero: Metallica in Europe.

Thanks, Gamespot.

Hideo Kojima’s site has updated again. That means everyone gets excited again and starts analysing the update to infinitesimals again. This time, the image has a few rays of sunshine peering through the clouds. What does it all mean?

Kotaku reckons it’s a reference to the character Sunny in MGS4. Amazing.

That’s not all however, there’s also a new letter/number: an “8″ or “B.” Incredible.

Thank the lord in heaven we finally find out this week. Or maybe we already have?

Activision boss Mike Griffith told assembled journos and analysts in its pre-E3 presentation yesterday that racing game Blur should attract both the hardcore racing fans, and the mainstream Mario Kart crowd. The difference however, is that Blur won’t be limited to one system.

“The concept of Blur falls in between the hardcore tuner sims and just-for-fun arcade racers,” says the Gamespot transcription of the event. “Mario Kart in particular shows the potential for a well-crafted mainstream racing game.”

“But where Mario Kart was limited to one system, Blur will be multiplatform,” said Griffith.

He goes on to say that Activision wants to do for racing games what Call of Duty did to shooters.

Activision boss Mike Griffith revealed in Activision’s pre-E3 press conference yesterday that “Call of Duty products have totalled sales over 35 million.”

He also revealed, via Gamespot, that World at War has sold 11 million units in just six months, and Modern Warfare has sold at full price for six straight quarters.

Griffith also announced that Modern Warfare 2 pre-sales are already breaking records and the November 10 launch should rank as one of the biggest entertainment releases ever.

So, Call of Duty doing well, then?

Activision company president and CEO Mike Griffith has revealed that we’ll see new James Bond, Tony Hawk, Spider-Man, and Transformers titles in 2010.

There’ll be a Shrek 4 game too, thank God.

The news comes via Gamespot, who listened in on Activision’s pre-E3 presser yesterday.

Activision CEO Bobby Kotick revealed in Activision’s pre-E3 2009 press conference last night that 23 million people are now playing games online with friends.

“The audience is changing,” Kotick tells the audience (transcribed by Gamespot).

“An Activision study found that 12 million people played games online with friends 18 months [ago]. Today it’s 23 million people.”

“Clearly you can see that [gaming] has gone from the solitary to the social,” he added.

Kotick went on to say he feels that new interfaces (read: peripherals) are the reason for this growth and that Activision will be a billion dollar business by 2012.

Attach rates are also on the rise with the average number of games purchased per console sold is up 17 percent over the last cycle of consoles, Kotick says.

Much more through the link.

Kotaku has been reading the latest issue of Edge and discovered that Star Wars: The Old Republic MMO will feature a Smuggler class.

“Ord Mantell is a war-torn world and it’s where the Smuggler starts off, when his ship gets stolen,” says game director James Ohlem to the monthly mag.

“He’s pretty angry; imagine what Han Solo would’ve been like if the Millennium Falcon got taken.”

BioWare’s presence at E3 is well documented so hopefully we’ll get more than just scan (top image) this week.

You owe it to yourselves to sit down for a couple of minutes and watch some new footage of 2K’s stunning looking action sequel, Mafia II.

We’re saying no more.

Game’s out in 2010.

OK, we lied.

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The problem with Twitter is, sometimes what might look genuine is just a 14 year old sitting in his bedroom making stuff up whilst searching for porn torrents, and the following tweet by someone calling itself EpicGamesNews might just fall into that category.

“All set for the big announcement at E3. *MICROSOFT’S PRESS CONFERENCE*” says the tweet.

Well, if it is the musings of bored adolescents, or indeed Epic genuinely announcing a MS E3 reveal, will be no doubt be known later today.

Can we wait to find out? No we can’t.

Activision has revealed via its forums the system requirements for its gruesome open-worlder, Prototype.

No more messin’, here they are:

• Windows® XP (with Service Pack 3) and DirectX® 9.0c or (Windows Vista® with Service Pack 2)
• Video Card: 256 MB 3D hardware accelerator card required – 100% DirectX® 9.0c with Shader Model 3 support*
• Processor: Pentium(R) Intel Core® 2 Duo 2.6 GHz or AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ or better
• RAM: 1 GB of RAM for Windows ® XP / 2 GB Windows ® Vista systems
• Hard Drive Space: 8 GB of uncompressed hard disk space (Plus 500MB for swap file.)
• Sound Card: DirectX 9.0 –compliant sound card
• DVD-ROM: DVD-ROM

Peripheral:

• 100% Windows(R) XP/Vista – compatible mouse, keyboard and drivers
• 100% Windows(R) XP/Vista – compatible 4X DVD-ROM drive or better (600
  K/sec sustained transfer rate) and drivers

*Supported Chipsets for Windows(R) XP and Vista

• All NVIDIA® GeForce™ 7800 256 MB and better chipsets
• All ATI® Radeon™ X1800 256 MB and better chipsets

Radical Entertainment’s super snadbox game is out next week for PS3, 360 and PC.

Thanks, D’toid.

Borderlands art director Brian Martel has been discussing the whys and wherefores of the dramatic change in art style with IGN revealing that UK pop band Gorillaz, Disney’s Pixar and Valve’s Team Fortress 2 gave the team inspiration for the sidestep.

“I think pop culture like The Gorillaz, Pixar, and our own concept art had the biggest impact,” he said.

“But of course Team Fortress 2 is an inspiration for any artist in the industry. Prince of Persia and Mirror’s Edge helped to reinforce our decision to try something radical.”

Martel goes on to say he believes the new style “reinforces the attitude and game play immensely,” and, if we’re being honest, we’re inclined to believe him. Why? Look here and here.

Much more through the links.

Billy Pidgeon, an independent analyst at Game Changer Research, reckons the gaming industry in general would benefit from Sony slashing PlayStation’s price.

“The thing that would really boost the industry in this traditionally slow period would be a Sony price cut. That would really help right now,” he said.

The quote is part of a Reuters article that looks at E3, the various financial aspects of the industry as it stands today and it’s potential economic future.

“If it doesn’t happen, I don’t think the industry is in for rough times,” Pidgeon added. “I do see that, in the fourth quarter, there will be a return to form.”

More through the link.

Twitter king Geoff Keighley has informed the world that Microsoft’s E3 special announcement is “musical in nature.”

“For those of you asking, my sources say the opening is musical in nature,” tweeted Geoff.

We couldn’t possibly speculate. We’ll know soon enough.

Stay tuned.