Monthly Archives: July 2009

Turbine has just announced via Twitter that Lord of the Rings Online will host a Welcome Back Week.

From July 9-15, returning players can play for free, and everyone will earn a 25 percent XP bonus.

Sounds good if you are trying to level through Moria or Dol Dinen. Those areas will make you cry.

Check out the official site for more details.

Skate hero Rodney Mullen’s released a set of clips he’s apparently filmed for Tony Hawk Ride. Have a look after the break.

This is from Shred or Die, and there’s no other detail. Still. Awesome, innit?

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Media Molecule’s David Smith has said that new levels for LittleBigPlanet are a high priority, but there has to be balance between new content and creating new tools for the community.

“The community is often requesting new levels from MM, so this is high on our list of priorities,” Smith told Play Magazine. “But we have to balance this against the value of us doing other things such as creating new creative tools or improving the community aspects of the game.

“Seeing all the inventive and beautiful levels made by our community certainly inspires us. We are inspired to make the creation process easier for them and to make better levels that outdo the best of the community.

“I’m glad to say that this challenge is getting harder as the quality of the community levels improve on a daily basis.”

Media Molecule will be present at next week’s Develop Conference in Brighton.

Via NowGamer.

Pre-production artwork for Luc Bernard’s new iPhone game SteamPirates has surfaced over on D’toid and it looks rather nice.

Most information on the game, as well as the title, is tentative at this point but it’s expected to be a high-seas RPG adventure.

This time around though, Luc took a break as concept artist and let his friend David do the artwork.

“I look after all the concept art for the Mecho franchise. I can’t do everything so I have my friend David help me,” he wrote on his Facebook page.

“On SteamPirates,  I took a break as concept artist. I’m just art director on it. I just gave the ideas for the designs of the characters and some concept art bits (like the pirate queen skeleton character), but the ships for example are all from David’s mind.”

Luc’s first iPhone game, Mecho Wars, has done rather well and although there is no date yet, it’s expected to hit WiiWare and DSiWare sometime in the near future.

More through the link.

Two new images for The Last Guardian have been revealed in the latest Famitsu.

The Sixthaxis has scans of ‘em here, so you may wanna have a look.

Start getting excited, if you’re not already.

A digital comic book store is scheduled to land on PSP later this year in Japan.

You may recall that back in March, Sony sent out a survey to gauge interest in the service.

It must have like the feedback because it’s happening, and will compatible with all PSP SKUs.

No word on when the service will hit Europe or the states, but if it does well in Japan, it would not be out of character for Sony to offer it elsewhere.

More over on Exophase.

Eric Lempel, SCEA’s director of PSN operations, has said that the service is no longer playing catch up with Xbox Live.

“I don’t think there’s a lot of ‘catch up’ [with XBL] any more. In some cases, I think we’ve got more, and we’ve got some other things they don’t have,” he told Industry Gamers.

“In terms of strengths, of course we’re still free, and we’re giving you a lot for free. It’s not just free online gaming, but we’ve got PlayStation Home, which is a massive community and application that’s totally free to use. I think there’s a lot we’re doing that in some cases they’re not doing, and I don’t see a lot of things they’re doing that we’re not.”

Lempel also elaborated that Sony did not want to go the Apple route with various software options, especially for PSP.

“Right now our free catalog consists of demos, wallpapers, themes and videos about games. I don’t think we want to degrade the experience you get from a PSP. Because [iPhone] is not a gaming-centric device, I think a user picks it up and says, ‘This is kind of dumb, but I don’t care because I know this device wasn’t intended for games’…. we don’t want to see a bunch of little things that don’t quite make sense or provide a good experience because I think that takes away from what the device is intended for.”

Just for reference purposes only, the amount of people that purchased an iPhone amounted to 3.79 million in quarter one of 2009 alone, which represented 123 percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter.

Thanks, GI.biz.

PopCap just released 10 World of Warcraft-themed Peggle levels – get them here.

The “World of Warcraft” bit is the background image, but still. It’s free.

Off you go. PR after the break.

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BioWare co-head Greg Zeschuk has told Eurogamer that BioWare and Mythic are still two different entities, despite being pulled together into one EA group under Ray Muzyka’s leadership.

“There absolutely is still BioWare and Mythic, we’re not merged at all,” he said, speaking in London last week.

“That’s kind of how it all works. Ray and I, we’ve never operated by telling people what to do, that’s one of the reasons why we have great games: we don’t tell our team how to build Dragon Age. We say, ‘Here are the goals,’ and they go and figure out how they want it to work.”

It was announced last month that Mythic boss Mark Jacobs would be departing the developer, and that Muzyka would be assuming control of the new division.

Monster Hunter Freedom Unite and Monster Hunter Freedom Unite PSP The Best have now shipped more than 3.5 million units between them in Japan, Capcom said today.

The game initially released in March 2008.

The next in the series, Monster Hunter 3(tri-), will ship for Wii in Japan on August 1.

Press release here.

Bungie employee Will Christiansen appears to have released what may be the first footage from Halo: Reach, if this Skoar piece is to be believed.

It’s bare-bones animation of a trooper killing a Jackal, as well as other footage from games Christiansen’s worked on. It’s now been removed from the web, but not before it was transferred to YouTube.

Get it after the break. Rumour, obviously. Thanks, CVG.

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UK publisher Imagine’s announced the launch of the NowGamer Network, linking the already-out NowGamer.com with sister mag sites.

The endeavour includes NowGamer, Play, X360, 360 Magazine and Total PC Gaming.

“It’s early days, but I am going to enjoy watching the NGN grow in traffic and revenues, and I hope to see many third party sites signing up to become part of the network in the future,” said Imagine MD Damian Butt.

PR after the drop.

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Valve unveiled a new Left 4 Dead 2 weapon last night in the form of a good old fashioned cricket bat.

This apparently lets you wear a England cap and twat the shit out of Australian zombies. The dream made real.

The game’s out later this year.

BioWare’s Dragon Age really does exist on consoles. We can now believe: Eurogamer’s played it.

Notes on UI:

So while the PC version has a permanent tray of selectable moves mapped along the bottom of the screen, the console version has opted for something akin to Mass Effect’s menu wheel. But the wheel has evolved: a squeeze of the right trigger pulls up the radial, showing basic actions – things like spells, skills and items – while each selection then pushes you out onto a second ring, where you can make more specific choices, such as which magic attack to unleash, or which trap to set. Bringing up the menu pauses the action, but you can also toggle between two trays of hotkeys mapped to the face buttons for more instant mayhem, while either bumper allows you to slip seamlessly between controlling the different members of your party.

There’s more here.

Dragon Age ships for PC, 360 and PS3 later this year.

Battlefield 1943 is now up on Live, priced 1,200MSP.

There’s a free trial, if you want to try before you buy.

Remember – it’s multiplayer-only. Go fetch!

Joystiq’s rumouring that LucasArts is to release Lucidity, a new IP, to XBLA.

It’s a side-scrolling adventure, apparently, in which players place objects in the path of protagonist Sofi as she navigates the gameworld.

There’s more through there. No date, though.

Wii Sports Resort was the biggest selling game in Japan last month, despite being on sale for less than a week.

The game blew the competition away in the Media Create charts for the seven days ending June 28, as previously reported.

The Enterbrain top ten for June:

1. Wii Sports Resort (Wii): 353,827
2. Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days (DS): 171,242
3. Friend Collection (DS): 170,490
4. Ace Attorney Investigations (DS): 65,863
5. Sloane & MacHale’s Mysteries (DS): 57,359
6. Monster Hunter Freedom Unite (PSP): 51,590
7. Dynasty Warriors 6 Empires (PS3): 49,059
8. Infinite Space (DS): 48,397
9. Atelier Rorona (PS3): 47,456
10. Ken to Mahou to Gakuen Mono 2 (PSP): 45,282

Thanks, EG.

Lego Rock Band will work with “current” Guitar Hero controllers, Traveller’s Tales boss Jonathan Smith has confirmed.

“We’re certainly compatible with all the forthcoming new Rock Band instruments – and in the future you’ll continue to be able to use any instruments which are Rock Band-compatible, as are the current Guitar
Hero controllers,” the boss told VG247.

The game, which releases for PS3, 360, Wii and DS later this year, ended up being a Rock Band product rather than a Guitar Hero one due to Harmonix’s enthusiasm for Lego, Smith added.

“The team at Harmonix have passion for Lego, and really pushed the idea forward,” he said.

“The core Rock Band idea of ‘building a band’ is perfectly aligned with the values and playfulness of Lego gaming.”

Remedy boss Markus Mäki has told VG247 that there’s no timeframe in place for the release of news on Alan Wake’s PC version.

“I don’t unfortunately have a schedule for updates at this point,” the developer said via email.

His comment comes after he yesterday posted on the Alan Wake message boards to say that he “will be making comments in regards to the PC at a later in time.”

Mäki said in the same post that all of Remedy’s efforts are currently focused on the game’s 360 version.

Alan Wake as originally announced as a 360 and PC game in 2005.

SCEA boss Jack Tretton has told Fast Company that those calling for a PS3 price drop need to take a longer view.

“People are having short-term thinking – the platform is not even three years old. It was $599; it’s now $399,” he said.

“The focus on pricing is something we appreciate, but you have to have the conviction and the confidence that you are on the right path for the long term and ultimately you’ll get all the consumers you want.

“You won’t get them all day one, but we’re looking to get them over a 10-year period. It’s going to take different things to get different consumers.”

Come on, Cologne. Hit the link for the full thing. Thanks, EG.