Monthly Archives: July 2009

Greg Zeschuk has revealed to Eurogamer that Mythic will help out with Star Wars: The Old Republic.

This does not mean that BioWare will help with Warhammer Online, though.

“Ray (Muzyka) and I (have) both played Warhammer, and actually I’ve still been playing it on and off for a while,” he told the site. “So I think for us it’s not to much a popularity boost as just the fact that we can probably bring perspectives to the table that will be new and perhaps helpful to the guys from Mythic in the same way from an online perspective they can certainly share with us.

“To give credit to the Austin team [making Star Wars: The Old Republic], we have a number of serious MMO veterans on there, so it’s certainly not neophytes, but there’s absolutely opportunities to share and learn things back and forth.”

It’s BioWare Day around the globe, apparently. Expect more throughout the day we guess.

Thanks, Massively.

Some screens from Dragon Age: Origins have popped up on the net, showing off the huge blood thirsty Ogre you will encounter during the game.

Yipers.

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

Head on over to Kotaku for a look-see.

The folks over at Joystiq have combed the internet, press releases and who knows what else to compile an unofficial track list for Guitar Hero 5.

It is a rather lengthy list and can be looked over through here.

What we’re curious over is why a voice box won’t be included with the game for the Peter Frampton song.

Seriously. That would be pretty damn cool – as if the Johnny Cash character isn’t enough to make you buy it.

A new Mass Effect 2 video will be debuting on GameTrailersTV  this Thursday night on Spike, according to a tweet from BioWare.

Hopefully it will show something new and very cool.

Once the episode goes live on the GT site, we will be sure to post it for you.

The Champions Online Beta testers will get a level cap extension to 17, with Millennium City open from July 17 .

Beta hours will be extended to last full weekends.

Here are the dates:

• July 17 –20:  Friday morning 10:00 a.m. PDT (19.00 CET) to Monday morning 9:00 a.m. PDT (18.00 CET)
• July 24 – 26:  Same Times
• July 31 – August 10:  Same Times
• August 14 – August 16:  Same Times

Open Beta begins on August 17, and shall remain open twenty-four hours a day until finished.

Fantastic news.

EA’s UK PR team accidentally tweeted that Command & Conquer 4 is now in development.

That or the press release the tweet linked to just isn’t up yet.

Last month, an online survey was sent out asking folks what they would like to see in the next installment.

Keep your eyes peeled.

Via Joystiq.

THQ has released some of the patch notes for UFC 2009: Undisputed.

The upcoming patch should fix the following issues:

• Premature match quitting is the biggest online issue. The Patch will have integrated code that detects who pulls the cable and will assign a Loss as well as a Did Not Finish to that player. The DNF is only counted for the player who executes the disconnection. The DNF rate will be displayed on the fighter selection screen of the Online Ranked Match. When disconnected the Winning Streak is also reset to zero.
• Adjusted Ranked Matches to match up players with better connections, which will improve lag issues
• Adjusted the difficulty of performing submissions against AI opponents to improve the balance of subs vs. striking when playing against the AI.
• Adjusted the Flash KO rate so that they are less frequent.
• Increased maximum number of points awarded in online play from 99,999 to 999,999 and increased the Max Level from 100 to 200.
• Lowered the Winning Streak Bonus Max from 5 to 3.
• Removed the decimal places on the Leaderboard Winning Percentage so it will only show whole percentages.
• Addressed the CAF cheat so the skill levels in CAF cannot be cheated and increased. Also any CAF with unfair point values will no longer be able to be used Online.
• For PS3 users– fixed a bug that causes a freeze during auto-save; whichever controller was used to Press Start on the Title Screen will be identified as the main controller.

No word on when to expect the patch just yet but Neven Dravinski, UFC Producer, says that it will be released soon.

Via Kotaku.

GAME has put the Collector’s Edition of Assassin’s Creed on sale for a paltry £9.98.

The PS3 version usually runs £48.73.

Apparently, everyone knew about this, because it’s already out of stock.

You can always go look anyway.

Thanks, LivePlayStation.

Hudson Soft’s Wii horror game, The Calling has been confirmed and scans from Famitsu prove it.

The game will make use of an in-game cell phone to send and receive texts, take video, and record audio. It’s 70 percent complete, and five characters have been shown so far.

Two of the leaked videos that Hudson pulled a while back are posted over on Cubed3.

The Famitsu scans can be found here and here.

No word on a release yet.

Turbine announced today that Dungeons & Dragons Online: Eberron Unlimited, the free digital upgrade for Stormreach, will launch on August 4 in North America with it going full steam ahead on August 6.

It will raise the level cap, introduce a new player class and add new content, as well as make the game free to play for everyone.

“The DDO Unlimited Beta has been a huge success and we want to thank all of our players who have participated to help us make this the best free-to-play game on the market,” said Fernando Paiz, executive producer of the game.

You can get the full press release with extra details through the jump.

More »

Disgaea 3 will get a Trophy patch on July 16 in the US.

It will add over 50 Trophies but will make your previous game saves unusable.

No word on a European release for the patch, yet, but with the game being out so long and forcing you to start from scratch just for Trophies, we’re unsure how many will care enough to download it.

More through Joystiq.

Namco Bandai Partners has announced that Dead to Rights: Retribution has slipped into 2010.

Bummer.

On the coat tales of that are the following release dates that were also announced.

• September 2009: Katamari Forever (PS3), Family Trainer: Extreme Challenge (Wii) and One Piece Unlimited Cruise 2 (Wii).

• October 2009: Cities XL (PC) and Magna Carta: Tears of Blood on Xbox 360

• TBC: The Witcher: Rise of the White Wolf , Star Trek Online.

Thanks, Eurogamer.

Tales of Monkey Island: Launch of the Screaming Narwhal was released yesterday, and if you want to try before you buy, now’s your chance.

A PC demo has been released and you can get it at the following locations:

• FileShack
• Gamershell
• Telltale Games

Have a go.

Thanks, FiringSquad.

Marcus Tanner, the art director for WipEout Fury, has posted a developer diary over on the US PS Blog, describing the development process of the add-on pack.

He walks you through concept art to production, and shows off some very nice looking environment pieces.

“WipEout Fury is all about the use of bold structural shapes which define the architectural forms,” he wrote. “These structures are oversized so they register with the player as they accelerate past at high speed and their striking shapes become associated as icons of each track. Interlocking modular shapes & overlaid layered surfaces make best use of the lighting by allowing shadows to play over the structures, and sunlight to glint through the gaps.

“This gives the impression of a highly complex and richly populated environment which is enhanced by the use of hyper-real gleaming hi-tech surfaces.”

More through the link.

Korean developer Bluside has released the first shots for the Xbox 360 version of Kingdom Under Fire II.

It’s not a sequel to Circle of Doom, but according to the developer will stay “true to the action RTS tradition of the series that began with The Crusaders and Heroes.”

Game’s slated for the second half of 2010 for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 with DLC to be releases shortly thereafter.

CVG has the screens. There’s also a video of it from 2008 posted after the jump.

More »

Worms 2: Armageddon will eventually be released for Mac, according to Team 17.

No exact release date has been provided, but for now gamers can be satisfied with the Xbox Live release that has scored a 82 percent on Metacritic.

Worms for the iPhone is currently in the works for too. See the video here.

Thanks, Blue, OS X Reality.

BioWare co-founder Greg Zeschuk has said that the love making scene in Mass Effect was blown out of proportion in the media, and feels that it only makes sense to include such content when a mature relationship is part of the storyline.

“I don’t think they need to have them, I think that in certain types of games it makes sense to have them,” he told CVG. “It’s interesting because I think the Mass Effect thing was completely overblown. There wasn’t even really nudity; it was like the side of a leg. I think some of the press took huge advantage of the situation. The reality was that it was the kind of stuff you’d see on evening television.

“That said, I think from our perspective we want to reflect real human relationships. If you’re trying to have a relationship with a character we want to reflect that and the impact of the connection with that character. And if that involves some sort of intimate scenes, we want to provide those for the player.

“It’s based on the fact that this is a sophisticated, mature experience.”

Dragon Age: Origins will have a sex scene in it. No word on whether Mass Effect 2 will have one, but we know that it’s a possibility.

Via D’toid.

Jagex Games Studio announced today that Jon Hare has joined the company as Head of Publishing, with a particular focus on further developing FunOrb.com, Jagex’s gaming website targeted at time-pressed gamers.

“Jon is one of the most highly rated game designers in Europe and has had a hugely successful career developing classic titles such as Sensible Soccer, Mega-Lo-Mania and Cannon Fodder,” said Mark Gerhard, Jagex CEO.

“Jon will be playing a very hands-on role, actively engaged in developing and optimizing all of our games. Jagex has always focused on creating games that we want to play, FunOrb is no different. We have specifically created FunOrb for the time-pressured gamer, people who want a high quality deep gaming experience but only have 30 minutes a day or perhaps even a week to relax and enjoy playing.

“The site isn’t for kids or for mums; it is designed for adult gamers who ask themselves ‘why don’t they make great games like they used to?’.”

Hare has developed more than 30 games on over 20 formats from Sinclair Spectrum to the Nintendo Wii, and was named one of the top 10 Britons who changed the games industry by The Times.

Not sure what’s going on here. GoOnl!ne’s published some quotes from a “SCEE rep” saying Uncharted 2′s “currently scheduled for an October release.”

We checked in with SCEE PR to be told by email that:

“We’ve not announced any official release date for Uncharted. It’s scheduled for an ‘autumn release,’ and we’ll obviously announce an exact date in due course.”

Guess that’s that then. Cologne for more, almost certainly.

Patch 1.5 for The Witcher: Enhanced Edition is now available, as promised.

The download will removed the DRM, you no longer have to have the disc in to play, and issues with blurred graphics and EAX have been resolved.

Additionally, five bonus adventures made by the Witcher community: ‘Deceits’, ‘Blight of the Bogs’, ‘Wraiths of Quiet Hamlet’, ‘The Wedding’, and ‘Merry Witchmas’ are included.

More details and the download can be acquired through VoodooExtreme.