Monthly Archives: July 2009

Bored of the default Vidzone playlists? Fear now. You can now get pre-defined sets loosely formed around “BBQ”, the 90s, “metal anthems” and more, as you can see here.

SCEE also said today that more than 500 new tracks have been uploaded to the free PS3 music service.

Go and listen to the Beach Boys while frying your sausage, or something.

There’s no chance of Red Steel 2 appearing on any other console that Wii, creative director Jason Vandenberghe has said in this fan Q&A.

“Red Steel 2 is Wii exclusive, and Wii MotionPlus exclusive,” said the developer.

“The core gameplay of intense, 1st-person swordplay simply doesn’t function the way we want it to without the Wii Remote.”

When asked if the intention was to create a franchise as big as Rayman or Assassin’s Creed in red Steel, Vandenberghe added, “I would love nothing more than if everyone with a Wii bought and played our game, and then went out and convinced all their friends who didn’t have Wiis yet to buy one and do the same thing.”

It’s out later this year.

Sega said this morning that DS SRPG Bleach: The 3rd Phantom will launch in Europe early next year.

The game’s based on a popular manga, and will spin-off a plot from the franchise’s main narrative.

PR after the break.

More »

Nintendo’s announced “Britain’s Best Brain”, a Five TV programme in the format of the endless, suicide-inducing talent shows vomited all over recent annual schedules.

Contestants will take part in national heats, competing on Wii and DS games including Dr Kawashima’s Brain Training: How Old is your Brain?, Wii Fit and Big Brain Academy.

There’s a list of regionals after the break. If you’re interested, look at this.

Coincidentally, MCV reckons Nintendo’s coughed up £2 million for this.

More »

The British public has bought 24.2 million hardware units this generation, according to data from GfK Chart-Track.

The platform break-down is as follows:

• NDS – 9.1m
• Wii – 5.4m
• Xbox 360 – 3.9m
• PSP – 3.3m
• PlayStation 3 – 2.2m
• DSi – 0.3m

Thanks, GI.

Marvelous is considering porting the likes of No More Heroes and Muramasa: The Demon Blade to Xbox 360 and PS3, Siliconera reports.

In fact, the publisher appears to be looking at moving its large Wii catalogue HD-ward, if a slide in a financial presentation is to be believed.

There’s no detail apart from that, but hopefully there’ll be more soon.

No one ever said becoming King of the Iron Fist would be easy. On top of parting with copious amounts of blood, sweat, and tears, Namco Bandai’s now asking fans to bid farewell to £150.

For that price, you’ll nab a copy of Tekken 6, an art book, and a Hori Tekken arcade stick. And not just any Hori Tekken arcade stick, either — according to Namco Bandai, this thing’s “the best peripheral for any console.” Your hill of colorful plastic objects has a new king.

Or, if sleeping on park benches isn’t really your thing, there’s also the £70 collector’s edition. It comes with a copy of Tekken 6 and a hoodie designed by the game’s art team. Not quite an arcade stick, sure, but it’s still probably the best hoodie designed by Tekken 6′s art team. Probably.

So, which Tekken 6 SKU are you buying?

Thanks, CVG.

Steam’s published a July 2 release date for Frozenbyte’s Trine. Pony up £20 and you’ll be playing it this evening.

You can pre-load now, with the co-op platformer unlocking eight hours from now.

You may as well. You get Shadowgrounds for free if you buy it now.

EG’s running its latest live reader interview today, this time with Doublefine boss and Brutal Legend lead, Tim Schafer.

It all kicks off at 4.00pm BST, but you can start asking questions half an hour early, apparently.

Ask him about DLC. He loves that.

MTV Multiplayer has posted a video of hip-hop’s top of the pops Grandmaster Flash “playing” DJ Hero.

We say “playing” because he spends a combined total of roughly 30 seconds attempting to divine the arcane wizardries behind the controller’s three large buttons before giving up. Not his finest moment, clearly.

As per usual with MTV, the video can’t be accessed if you live in Canada or the U.K. If cruel fate didn’t leave you stranded in one of those no Flash zones, the video’s after the break.

More »

From comments made to Shacknews by StarCraft II lead designer Dustin Browder, it sounds as though the next version of Battle.net isn’t exactly imminent.

“I can’t tell you a whole lot because in reality, anything I say might be a lie,” said the developer.

“We’re still working on it, and it’s kind of up in the air. I kind of wish it wasn’t, but it kind of is.”

Browder said the version used to show the beta build of StarCraft II to the press isn’t even the general direction planned for the final product.

“What you saw today is not where we’re going,” he said. “It’s a version that we have that has a lot of problems that we don’t like.

“It was never meant to be the final version, but we’re getting further and further away from that being close to the final version. We’re trying to do more and more stuff.”

All of which is a little disconcerting. StarCraft II and the new Battle.net were supposed to be a simultaneous released.

There’s a long interview through there.

505′s secured the rights to Grease. As in, the movie. With Rizzo. Undated Wii and DS games are on the way.

This happened yesterday. We must have been drunk, or something.

“Paramount Digital Entertainment is pleased to be working with 505 Games to develop Grease,” said Paramount’s John Kavanagh.

“Grease is the ideal opportunity to reach a broad gaming audience who love to sing, dance and have fun with a party-style game.”

You can insert any one of 500 billion quotes from the film here as a “joke”. Then read the PR after the break.

More »

Acti Blizz boss Mike Griffiths has told IndustryGamers that the sports category is a target for the firm, provided it can take a shot at leadership.

“It certainly has the characteristics of a category that would be interesting to us, but we would have to convince ourselves that we could enter successfully, accomplish leadership and that we’d have something new and different to bring to the party,” said the exec.

“Right now the barriers to entry there are pretty significant, but it is certainly the size of a category that we would be interested in.”

Hear that, Mr Moore? Them’s fighting words. There’s a good interview through there.

Mastertronic’s to release World of Goo at UK retail for PC tomorrow, as you can see in the press release after the break.

The 2D Boy puzzler has 48 levels and is worth your money. End of story.

Hit the link for more.

More »

Microsoft may soon have to pay the piper over a long-running patent infringement case related to Xbox Live, according to this PatentArcade piece.

In 1991, Peter Hochstein and Jeffrey Tenenbaum came up with the idea of communicating live while playing the same video game in separate locations. They patented the technology for doing so in 1994, and sued both Sony and Microsoft over alleged infringement in 2004.

Sony settled out of court in April this year, leaving Microsoft as the only defendant. The latter has attempted to stall the suit’s conclusion by complaining for weeks over a typo and dropping 140,000 documents on Hochstein and Tenenbaum with no index.

Hit the link for more. It’s paying-up time, from the sound of it.

Thanks, Kotaku.

Can we look forward to a brave new direction for the next Wii Zelda? In a word: no.

“I don’t think it’s going to be that radically different,” Shigeru Miyamoto said in the latest issue of Nintendo Power.

The game was semi-announced at E3, and is expected to be revealed in earnest next year.

Thanks, Aeropause.

Following news yesterday that Microsoft was planning in the incorporate ads into Xbox Live in the coming year, Major Nelson’s gone on the record to say the introduction won’t get in your way. Phew.

“I need to let you know that you don’t need to worry about a huge influx of ads across the dashboard,” the exec said.

“One of our core principles is to enhance, not interfere with the gaming experience, and we work directly with our partners to only deliver experiences that are relevant to the Live community.”

Apparently the ads are going to be an “organic” part of the dashboard.

Read the full statement through there.

Rob Halford was on hand at E3 last month to promote Brutal Legend and check out the gaming scene.

He seemed very pleased with the work he did in the game, and commended Tim Schafer for creating something “special”.

“It’s a very unique type of game format and I think that’s what people look for now more than ever, something that is a bit different,” he told Gamespot. “Tim and Double Fine have created something very special here.”

He was also on hand to promote his company, Metal God Entertainment, which started out as a clothing line but is looking at the game environment as something it wants to be a part of.

You can watch the full thing after the break.

Brutal Legend is out in October.

More »

THQ has filed a lawsuit against Jakks Pacific, its World Wrestling Entertainment licensing partner, saying the company was not authorized to extend the WWE contract.

Toy maker Jakks notified the WWE it planned to make good on what it felt was an option to renew the videogame license, which is the foundation for THQ games Smackdown vs. Raw and Legends of Wrestlemania.

THQ has since objected because the company feels Jakks does not have the authority to make the decision for both parties.

Currently, the contract between the three firms is set to expire on December 31, but a renewal would extend it through to December 31, 2014.

This is not Jakks and THQ’s first time visiting a courtroom together. WWE recently lost a courtroom battle with the two, citing antitrust, bribery, and conflict of interest, and THQ has also sued Jakks at one time for royalties over the WWE series.

Via Gamasutra.

Mike Tyson has said that he’s amazed how the graphics have changed in games since his first appearance on a console.

“It’s incredible,” he said. “It’s like the animation is actually like real fighters in there. The movement and the lucidness of the fighters moving their heads is like two real individuals and they’re actually fighting one another.”

He also loves the God of War franchise and Ninja Gaiden, according to a chat the former Heavy Weight Champion had with IGN.

While Tyson appears to be a man of few words, you can read the rest of the interview here, where he mentions on more than one occasion how grateful he feels.