Monthly Archives: July 2009

Gamekult’s posted some news screens and movies of 5th Cell’s Scribblenauts, showing the DS puzzler’s text input system and a bit of gameplay.

The title won the official award at E3 this year for best original game. Hit the link to see why. It’s out in 2009.

Via NeoGAF and GoNintendo.

EA’s confirmed that more than 5 million kills occurred in Battlefield 1943′s first day, despite the fact the company had to rush a huge amount of servers online to cope with demand.

This is just on 360. Also, there were 29.45 years of gameplay completed on Live in the game’s first live day.

You lot should probably go outside, or something.

While you should keep the salt jar handy, you have to see this. A video’s been posted on YouTube of a thin console with “PS3″ stamped on the side. Watch it after the break.

The quality’s shocking (obviously), but the small clip shows a case, what could be ports, people turning the machine in front of the camera and a final shot of the logo. It looks exactly the same as the previously rumoured shots of PS3 Slim.

We know it’s coming. It is coming. Is this it?

More »

Well, not so much as a tease, but a rather obvious hint as LucasArts twitpic‘ed some Secret of Monkey Island Special Edition artwork accompanied by this rather blatant message:

“For our Monkey fans – an iPhone sized wallpaper. No reason. Wink wink nod nod.”

It’s Monkey Island month this month it seems, as Telltale’s rather excellent Tales of Monkey Island launched last week, and the ‘Secret of’ Special Edition is due for PC and Xbox 360 on Wednesday.

Thanks, Hunam.

Players logging into Battlefield 1943 will notice that their rank has been reset to zero.

This is so DICE can perform maintenance on the soldier profiles.

All kills will still contribute to the Coral Sea challenge, but no word yet on whether they will count towards your rank.

After maintenance is finished, ranks will be back to normal along with badges, which should be in just a few days.

In other words, don’t fret just yet.

Via Santuary4Gamers.

Gaming will have a major presence at Comic-Con in San Diego July 23 – 26.

Here is just some of what to expect should you be attending:

• A panel on DC Universe Online with Jim Lee and Marv Wolfman
• The Saboteur: Rethinking the WWII Gaming Genre woth Pandemic Studios’ lead designer Tom French and art director Chris Hunt
• Batman: Arkham Asylum (with voice actors Mark Hamill and Kevin Conroy)
• Gears of War: The Gears Alliance – Cliff Bleszinski and Gears of War movie scriptwriter Chris Morgan,
• Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 – Stan Lee, game voice-over actors Armin Shimmerman and Fred Tatasciore
  Top Cow: Comics & Multimedia- Marc Silvestri discussing the Darkness film and new game
• The State of MMOs: A Discussion with the Developers – Join Craig Alexander (Turbine), John Smedley (Sony Online Entertainment), Bob Ferrari (Sanrio Digital), and Dave Brevik (Gazillion)
• World of Warcraft: Epic Loot moderated by Cory Jones
• Dante’s Inferno— Jonathan Knight (executive producer, EA), regarding the adaptation of this literary classic into pop culture
• Assassin’s Creed II: Video Games and Hollywood Converge— Yannis Mallat (CEO, Ubisoft Montreal)
• Capcom 2009 Lineup— featuring Jun Takeuchi (Lost Planet 2), Morgan Gray (Dark Void), Daryl Allison (Spyborgs), Motohide Eshiro (Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth), and Masachika Kawata (Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles) and moderated by Capcom-Unity’s Seth Killian.
• The Halo Franchise: What’s Next— Frank O’Connor (franchise development director for Halo)
• Writing for the Computer Gaming Industry—  Chris Avellone (Knights of the Old Republic, Neverwinter Nights II), Anne Toole (The Witcher), Wynne McLaughlin (Star Wars: The Old Republic, Command & Conquer: Renegade), Haris Orkin (Call of Juarez 2: Bound In Blood), and John Zuur Platten (F.E.A.R 2: Project Origin, Ghostbusters)
• Uncharted 2: Among Thieves: The First Active Cinematic Videogame with Naughty Dog

There’s just soooo much!

Check it all out on the official website.

Undead Knights will be released on October 15 in Japan and in North America and the UK around the same time, according to Tecmo.

Apparently, you can use zombies for all sorts of stuff.

You can make ladders outta them, make them siege bases, and fling them as well.

Sounds fun.

More over on Siliconera.

Eidos has tweeted that development is going well on Deus Ex 3 along with another interesting bit.

Here’s the tweet from Eidos Montreal:

“Development on Deus Ex 3 is going well and the Thief 4 team is ramping up!”

Thief 4 was officially logoed and announced in May, and possible screens from Deus Ex 3 popped up in March.

Via That Videogame Blog.

Not loads to tell you this week in the MMO update.  Most news surrounding the genre was big enough for its very own post on the site.

However, to keep things the same, we have thrown all the rest into your usual Saturday post.

Final Fantasy XI players will have jobs adjusted, Runes of Magic has new playable classes, the EVE Online thief speaks out, and Funcom has no plans right now for an Anarchy Online 2.

All this and more through the jump.

More »

EA has formed a new studio named 8lb Gorilla which will focus on mobile games.

Apparently, the team is made up of twenty-something year old developers tasked to create “indie-style simple pick up and play iPhone games” and release ‘em on a monthly basis.

Zombies & Me will be the first game out of the gate and features quick, motion-controlled gameplay where you must lead zombies to areas where the government is dropping missiles.

Loads more through Touch Arcade.

Thanks, Joystiq.

The Call of Duty: World at War patch for PC will include Map Pack 2, according to a post on the official forums.

Last month, it was announced that the map was currently being optimized for PC with updates to follow.

It’s currently being tested, and an update regarding it and the patch are expected next week.

Thanks, Evil Avatar.

Online players rose 22 percent in May with 87 million players in the US alone, according to market research conducted by comScore, while game revenues for consoles in the US fell 23 percent.

These figures are compared to May of last year.

According to the research, online gaming is less expensive and has become an alternative to those cutting back during the recession and gaming in this fashion is growing at ten times the rate of the US Internet population.

Yahoo! Games came in at number one with 19.4 million visitors which constituted approximately 22 percent of the online market.

EA came in second with 18 million visitors, Nickelodeon Casual Games was third with 14.8 million visitors, and WildTangent Network was fourth with 13.8 million visitors.

More figures and a lovely chart are through the links.

Via VentureBeat.

Shigeru Miyamoto has stated in Nintendo Power that Super Mario Galaxy 2 is for veteran gamers and newbies to the series alike.

“I do believe that there is a lot here to appeal to the more veteran and more experienced gamers, and I think it’s a title that they will obviously enjoy,” he told the magazine. “But I really took it into consideration and tried to do our best to create a game that’s accessible to new gamers as well.

“And, you know, we also built it with consideration that we believe that people who played through the first Mario Galaxy have become better players.”

More over on G4.

Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Ultimate All Stars is going to be a Wii title only according to Capcom, because it would easier for the developers to create a sequel than port it to “next-gen” consoles.

“The game is optimized for the Wii system, especially the graphics features, so if we were to port it to PS3 or Xbox 360 we would have to make the game from scratch,” the game’s producer Ryota Niitsuma told Videogamer. “And in that case we might as well just make a sequel of the series on those consoles rather than porting it.”

Not very good news if you were hoping for this.

Hit the link for the rest.

Some concept art claiming to be from the origins revamp of the new Tomb Raider in the works have surfaced.

Fourplayercoop has ‘em.

Apparently, if true, the game is open-world and contains a reworked combat system.

Judge for yourself.

Thanks, Joystiq.

Tales of Vesperia for PS3 will include bikinis and swim trunks.

According to a post on Kotaku, costumes include a “black bikini, an aloha shirt and shorts and an orange two piece with sunglasses”.

There is also a pirate girl in the game, which should make up for the beach clothes.

Follow the link.

Since NPD has decided to no longer release weekly PC sales figures, the world will just have to rely on the digital download charts from outlets such as Steam and Direct2Drive.

Here’s what people purchased last week courtesy of Kotkau:

Steam

1. Fallout 3
2. ArmA II
3. Dawn of Discovery
4. 2K Huge Games Pack
5. Street Fighter IV
6. Left 4 Dead
7. Call of Juarez
8. Overlord II
9. Trine
10. CS: Source

Direct2Drive

1. ArmA II
2. Aion (pre-sale)
3. The Sims 3
4. The Sims 3 (Mac)
5. Dawn of Discovery
6. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
7. Call of Juarez
8. Overlord 2
9. Civilization 4: The Complete Edition
10. Fallout 3

Ju-On: The Grudge has a bit of humor included in the horror game by way of two meters that track your bravery and level of fright.

UGO got hands-on time with the Wii title and after failing a mission, this brief message popped up below the meters:

“A total wuss. That’s what you are. Zero courage. Why don’t you lock yourself in your bedroom and write poetry or something.”

According to an Xseed representative, players must input their gender and astrological sign into the game for customized ribbing should you fail a mission.

Like we aren’t called names enough in our daily lives.

Game’s out in October on both sides of the pond.

Residents or visitors to the UK this summer can hop on a magic bus of sorts when Sony’s Summer Of PSP vehicle comes rolling into a town near you.

Here’s the dates and locations:

• Today – July 12 – Chessington World of Adventures, Chessington, Surrey
• July 24 – 26 – Camp Bestival, Lulworth Castle, Dorset
• August 2 – Underage Festival, Victoria Park, London
• August 3- 9– Chessington World of Adventures, Chessington, Surrey
• August 10-16 – Thorpe Park, Chertsey, Surrey

The brightly colored bus was at Warwick Castle last weekend, in case you missed it, and participants who step foot on the thing can win a family trip to Florida, an outing to Chessington World of Adventures, or a PSP and games.

There’s more information along with pictures of happy children on the EU PS Blog.

Infinity Ward’s Robert Bowling has tweeted that a Prestige Edition for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 will be released, and what it contains will be revealed through an “unboxing” video.

“In final design meeting for the Modern Warfare 2 Prestige Edition (CE). Filming unboxing video of what it contains this weekend!”

Hopefully soon we’ll know what’s in it.

Via MyPS3.