Monthly Archives: July 2009

RPG, shooter: what’s in a name? Not much any more, BioWare boss Ray Muzyka’s told Wired.

“Genres are almost a vestige of the past,” he said.

“In a way, a lot of the best shooters are RPGs as well, because they allow you to have progression, exploration, combat or conflict, and a story.”

He added that the definition of RPG is “broad.”

“The possibility space is almost limitless,” he said. “I see games like Grand Theft Auto headed in the same direction.”

So there you go. Thanks, GoNintendo.

Japanese Nintendo news site Rambling Man’s rumoured a bunch of product dates, including one for Wii Fit Plus. Fancy.

Here you go:

• August 6: Color Changing Tingle’s Love Balloon Trip
• September 17: Forever Blue 2: The Call of the Sea
• September 3: Sloan and MacHale’s Mysterious Story 2
• October 1: Inazuma Eleven 2: The Miracle of the Invader
• October 1: Wii Fit Plus

More on Kotaku.

IGN’s gone live with full details, screens, a proper movie and an interview on what has now been confirmed as a full MechWarrior reboot, and it looks very fucking cool.

The PC and 360 game is set on the planet Deshler in the year 3015, and places players in the role of Adrian Khol, a wayward nobleman who prefers partying over training and studies.

When House Kurita launches an invasion to conquer Deshler, resulting in the death of his entire family, Khol goes mental with his big robot.

We’re psyched. Watch the movie. It includes a mech with a massive skull. Good enough for us.

No date.

If this SixthAxis story‘s to be believed, an English version of Battlefield 1943 is now up on the Japanese PSN.

The game will release in the US and Europe later today.

There’s instructions through there on what you’re looking for.

Juice Games has posted seven ads on the Edge jobs board for staff to work on an “ambitious new racing game.” Wonder what it could be?

The company’s looking for people with “an interest in developing game code for console platforms including PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.”

Juiced 3 confirmed. Thanks, PS3Center.

According to this MTV piece, Batman: Arkham Asylum features a death-saving mechanic along the lines of Prince of Persia’s ever-present female hand.

Apparently, if you fall off a ledge onto some spikes, or what have you, the game slows down and prompts you to hit a button to shoot out your batarang and getting back to where you were.

You can still die, however. So that’s OK.

Mopre through there. Batman: Arkham Asylum will release on August 25 in the US, and three days later in Europe.

DICE had a fun day yesterday, launching the Xbox 360 version of Battlefield 1943 only to watch the game turn into from lag-fest into a game where it was impossible to connect to anything as the hours drew on.

Server capacity has now been increased to almost double the launch amount, so hopefully you’ll find things easier today. The game’s Twitter feed’s here, if you’re looking for constant updates.

Today should be a laugh: EA’s launching the PS3 version later.

Wii Sports Resort’s managed a second week at the top of the Japanese chart, but sales have already more than halved compared to last week. Flash-pan scenario?

Data below for the week ending July 5. Thanks NeoGAF and GoNintendo.

01. [WII] Wii Sports Resort (Nintendo) – 153,000 / 507,000
02. [PSP] Hatsune Miku: Project Diva (Sega) – 101,000 / NEW
03. [PSP] Boku no Natsuyasumi 4: Seitouchi Shounen Tanteidan, Boku to Himitsu no Chizu (SCE) – 57,000 / NEW
04. [NDS] Tomodachi Collection (Nintendo) – 51,000 / 221,000
05. [NDS] Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days (Square Enix) – 14,000 / 477,000
06. [PSP] Monster Hunter Portable 2nd G, PSP the Best (Capcom) – 12,000 / 807,000
07. [PSP] Ken to Mahou to Gakuen Mono 2 (Acquire) – 12,000 / 58,000
08. [PS3] Atelier Rorona: Arland no Renkinjutsushi (Gust) – 11,000 / 59,000
09. [WII] Wii Fit (Nintendo) – 11,000 / 3,444,000
10. [NDS] Sloane to MacHale no Nazo no Monogatari (Level 5) – 9,900 / 149,000

EA Sports boss Peter Moore’s told IndustryGamers that motion tech shown by both Sony and Microsoft at E3 this year will push the sports segment in general, but specifically the fitness sector.

“It’s a huge opportunity for sports,” he said. “We’re already working on it, we’re expecting dev kits to be arriving very soon.

“Both are different technologies – one obviously has a controller and the other one your body is a controller. I think there’s already a lot of learnings we have right now with our Wii [products] and certainly there’s stuff with EA Sports Active that we could apply to both platforms.

“Fitness is a huge play for us and will continue to be a huge play for us, and this just makes the opportunity bigger, to say the least.”

Hit the link for the full interview.

Raven and Acti Blizz have delayed Singularity until the beginning of next year to keep it our of Modern Warfare 2′s all-smashing super-snowplough. Sensible.

“The level of excitement for Infinity Ward’s Modern Warfare 2 coming out of E3 well exceeded our expectations and therefore we have decided to move Raven’s upcoming sci-fi first person action title, Singularity, from 2009 to Q1 2010,” an Acti rep told GameSpot.

“We believe that the March quarter will provide a better opportunity to establish the new cutting-edge action IP as a ‘must-have’ title and clears the way for Modern Warfare 2 to dominate this holiday season.”

There’s no exact new date as yet.

Voodoo Extreme founder Robert “Apache” Howarth is leaving the site to train to be a chef.

The guy’s been around forever. He reckons ten years in this leaving post.

“Besides the fact that I’m turning 36 on Saturday and am blazing my way into a scary new age demographic, I’ve enrolled in the Le Cordon Bleu program at the Scottsdale Culinary Institute, so I can pursue my dream of becoming a classically trained chef,” he said.

Good luck, and all. Thanks, Evil Avatar.

NCsoft’s released new Aion screens, this time showing off the MMO’s Templar, Gladiator, Ranger and Assassin classes. They’re on GamersHell.

We say it every time, but Aion really is beautiful. It releases on September 22 in the US and September 25 in Europe.

BioWare head Ray Muzyka’s told IGN that the please-just-frigging-announce-it second bit of Mass Effect DLC will emerge soon and is “fun” to play. Thank God for that.

“We haven’t announced it formally yet but I think you can expect something in the next little while,” he said.

“Probably some kind of announcement about [the ME DLC]. It’s pretty cool. I’ve been playing what we’re working on there and fans will find it fun.”

The firm said late last month that a first look at the content would “have to wait”.

This isn’t funny, you know.

Realtime World has released its latest APB video podcast, this time including an interview with local tattooists and how they believe the MMO’s tattoo system could actually help with real-life inking.

It’s towards the end of the file. There’s a bunch off faffing around for the first bit.

APB’s out in early 2010.

More »

This SGVTribune article claims that a third Mortal Kombat film is to begin shooting in September.

Chris Casamassa, a karate teacher that play Scorpion in the movies, has apparently let the cat out of the bag in an interview with the organ.

Best news ever. Kinda. Via FirstShowing and Destructoid.

Capcom just clarified yesterday’s news that Bionic Commando would release for PC on July 17, saying the US version will, in fact, hit on July 28.

The previous date was European.

Here’s the tweet, if you don’t believe us.

If you check your Steam account you’ll see that LucasArts’ classics are now up and available for purchase, as promised.

The Dig, LOOM and the old Indie games are a piffling £2.99.

The rest are £12.99, apart from Republic Commando at £6.99.

£3 really isn’t a lot of money. Give one of them a shot, at least.

Dragon Quest IX designer Yuji Horii has said that the hardest part of developing the title was when he had to cut part of the story.

“When I had to cut and rework part of the story, not a large part compared to the rest of the plot, but one that had to be cut out anyway for space reasons,” said.

“We had a ton of ideas in the beginning about what we wanted to do,” producer Ryutaro Ichimuraadded. “But once we got into the summer of 2008, we began revising the plan because we worried there was too much volume, that it’d scare people off. It was a necessary balancing process, but it was really tough.

“It’s scary for a creator to have to cut out his own work from a game.”

The game lands on Japanese shelves July 11.

More over on 1UP.

GamecinemaHD has received some pics of what appears to be the new Xbox Live Dashboard update.

Shots show the arcade rating system, multiple menus for Avatar Awards, Props, and Games on Demand.

Looks rather neat. Go have a look, but keep it in your head as a rumor until an official announcement.

Update – The originals linked here have been removed. CVG has them, though. Thanks, Blerk.

Funcom has announced that players who used to have an Age of Conan account can come back for free.

From now until July 22, former can players re-activate their accounts with no obligations and receive 2 weeks of additional free playtime.

Hopefully all the improvements made over the months and the upcoming expansion will sway opinions on it.

More through the official site.