Monthly Archives: August 2009

Ubisoft has sent word that No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle will be released in the in January.

Good to hear. Now just give us an exact date. GameStop says January 26.

In the meantime, while you wait with baited breath, the Wii exclusive has a contest going on where players can submit a custom t-shirt design.

The winner of the contest will be hand-picked by none other than Goichi Suda himself, and the game clothing will be forever immortalized in the game.

Get to designing.

More information can be found here. Full press release is below.

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Level-5 has revealed during its Vision Conference that Professor Layton and the Devil’s Flute will contain a bonus game created by Brownie Brown called London Life.

The fourth game in the series is set to be released in Japan on November 26, and the extra bit of fun is more RPG based, and revolves around making people happy.

It was announced for the cell-phone download service ROID, but surely Level-5 will reveal soon that it’s for the DS version as well. Hopefully at least by the time it leaves Japan anyway.

The event was live blogged by both Andriasang and 1UP, and snapshots of the London Life content are posted over on Aussie Nintendo.

Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box landed on US shores yesterday.

Steam and Direct2Drive released the PC charts for week ending August 22.

Looks like preorders for the Collector’s Edition for Aion are still selling well.

Steam

1. Left 4 Dead
2. Aion Collector’s Edition (pre-order)
3. Counter-Strike: Source
4. Killing Floor
5. Team Fortress 2
6. Fallout Collection (F1, F2, Fallout Tactics)
7. The Orange Box
8. Hearts Of Iron III
9. Valve Complete Pack
10. Osmos

Direct2Drive

1. Champions Online (pre-order)
2. Fallen Earth (pre-order)
3. Aion Collector’s Edition (pre-order)
4. Rise of Flight
5. Civilization 4: The Complete Edition
6. The Sims 3
7. Fallout 3
8. Hearts of Iron III with Sprite Packs Bundle
9. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
10. Neverwinter Nights 2 Complete Bundle

Thanks, Shack.

Darkest of Days has an updated PC demo available that fixes a bug where the game would crash when loading levels.

System requirements for the game are as follows:

Minimum:

• Operating System: Microsoft Windows XP (Service Pack 2)
• Processor: 2.0 Ghz
• Memory: 768 MB RAM
• Hard Drive: 5 GB available hard drive space
• Video: nVIDIA GeForce 6600 or ATI Radeon 9800 with at least 128 MB of video memory

Recommended:

• Operating System: Microsoft Windows XP (Service Pack 2)/Windows Vista
• Processor: 2.0 Ghz or better dual-core CPU
• Memory: 2.0 GB RAM
• Hard Drive: 5 GB available hard drive space
• Video: nVIDIA GeForce 8800 or newer/ATI Radeon 3000 or newer

Game is expected in September for PC and Xbox 360. Get the new demo from BigDowload.

Bungie’s Brian Jarrard has said that the matchmaking system in Halo 2 caused some concern with some of the team members working on the game, as some weren’t too sure it was the right decision.

“I remember matchmaking, when we rolled that out with Halo 2 it was such a big risk,” Jarrard told OXM. “We walked away from the established norm, there were no server lists – we turned the whole thing upside down and it was a big leap of faith.

“Even internally there were a lot of people saying, ‘I don’t know’. But I think it’s really important that that social simplicity, finding people who are similar skill very quickly, in two button presses.

“Even in the beginning, we were watching it very carefully for backlash. But then, over a couple of months people warmed up to it, and now it’s funny to see it come full circle. In a lot of ways its become one of the new standards for how people expect to play online.”

Via CVG.

Microsoft has added Burnout Revenge, NFS ProStreet and FIFA 09 to the Games on Demand service for Xbox 360.

Each will run you $19.99.

Head on over to Major Nelson to get pricing for your specific region.

Mass Effect inspired Avatar goodies are up on Xbox Live Marketplace.

There are around 14 items that’ll set you back anywhere from 80 MS Points ($1) to 320 MS Points ($4).

You can have a look at each offering through here.

Volition has revealed via the official Red Faction: Guerrilla website details for DLC Pack 2.

There is also a video showcasing some of the new features, including some of the 8 new maps and 2 new modes, which are listed below.

New Maps (playable on all but Siege):

• Puncture
• Broadside
• Compound
• Division
• Equilibrium
• Gradient
• Haven
• Remnant

New Modes:

• Bagman
• Team Bagman

The modes were present in Red Faction 2, and your objective in both is to grab or protect the bag, and then keep it for as long as possible.

Both can also be played on all of the non-DLC maps as well, and Volition is planning to release the DLC for PS3 and Xbox 360 on September 17 for 560 MS Points, or $7.00 on PSN.

Hit the link for more, plus the video.

Diablo III lead designer, Jay Wilson, has revealed that even though Blizzard has included parental controls in its RPG, this will not be enough to get a release in some regions. Therefore, the game will have to be edited.

“Regions like Germany and Australia, we will have to change blood if we’re going to sell there. And that’s fine,” he told Wired. “Those are the standards for those regions, and we don’t really have a problem with catering to what they need and what they want. But China’s going to be hard for us. Because a lot of the restrictions there are really… we may not be able to do them. It may not be possible.

“With our relationship with NetEase, we recently got new information about what China really wants, and it’s a lengthy list. It’s really hard for us to cater to. We’ll try. There’s no reason we wouldn’t want to go there, but there is a certain point where we’d have to redo so much of the game that it’s not viable anymore.

“We could have a lot of trouble with China, but it would be our goal to go there. We haven’t decided what regions we’re going into, obviously. It certainly would be our goal to go there, but we will struggle to go to China.”

Considering the fact that Diablo III lets you punch an enemy so hard his skeleton goes flying out of the body, we can see where China would have problem with that. China, is a non-skeleton friendly bunch.

Infinity Ward’s Robert Bowling has confirmed that Modern Warfare 2 players will be able to dual wield sidearms in the game, which is a first for the series.

During a GameCrazy showing of the single-player mode, Bowling showed off the ability – called Akimbo – using two Desert Eagle pistols.

“Now to calm some initial fears of “OMG! Overpowered!” Akimbo is limited and balanced, just like everything in the game,” he said. “It’s limited to sidearms, harder to aim than standard and you can’t go ADS (aim down sights) since you have a weapon in each hand, among other balancing techniques.

“So don’t freak out before you see it in action.”

More over on CVG.

Sony bossman, Shuhei Yoshida, has told Eurogamer that the launch titles coming for the new PS3 motion controller only need one of the motion controller to be played.

“The ultimate goal or wish for us is if you have two controllers, like we demoed at E3, we can do something really amazing,” he said.

“It’s like putting your arms into the TV, like a gaming space, and you have total control of the 3D space in front of you, but because of cost-of-goods and, you know, people have to have the PlayStation Eye camera as well, we are approaching the launch by making sure that all games that we create can be played with one controller and the camera.

“We will also introduce options for if you happen to have more than one controller available. Experiences will be enhanced if you purchase a second.”

During E3, Sony mentioned during the demonstration that up to four wands could be used and recognized by PlayStation Eye at once.

More through the link.

Sins of a Solar Empire’s latest micro-expansion, Diplomacy, will not only be released during winter 2010 but it will also be getting a Beta sometime this fall.

Diplomacy will increase the number of options players can use to take over the galaxy with ambassadorial methods.

A third expansion has also been promised for the title, but there’s no word on when it will be released.

More over on Joystiq.

FFXIII producer Yoshinori Kitase has told VG247 that Sony’s just-announced PS3 price cut fits in well with his game’s release schedule.

“We’re taking it as really good news, actually, because we’re planning to release Final Fantasy XIII this winter in Japan and next spring for both European and North American territories,” the developer said at GamesCom in Germany last week.

“Now that the hardware is becoming even more accessible for players, it’s really good timing for us.”

The PS3 reduction to £250 will mean plenty more beans in Square’s pocket, as FFXIII is scheduled for a sim-ship on 360 and PS3 in the west early next year.

The game is a PS3-exclusive in Japan.

Yoshinori Kitase has said that Square would like to have a playable demo of Final Fantasy XIII at September’s Tokyo Games Show.

“Well, because we’re aiming for a winter release date, we’d like to have users play the game before then,” he told Dengeki. “Timing-wise, since there’s only TGS, we’d definitely like to shoot for that.”

The Japanese PS3 version of the game is currently 90 percent finished, according to reports, and a playable demo of the game came with Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children Complete in Japan.

Via Kotaku.

Resident Evil: Darkside Chronicles has been given a dated by Capcom for November 27 in the UK and November 17 in the US.

Also, it will come bundled with the Wii Zapper.

As you know, the game combines Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil: Code Veronica and has heroes Claire Redfield and Steve Burnside along with Leon “Cool as a Cucumber” Kennedy.

Thanks, MCV.

This is awesome. According to this Times piece, the law governing the sale of classified material in the UK was never enacted. Yep: it isn’t illegal to sell classified games to under-agers in Britain.

“The important thing is that we close this loophole as quickly as possible,” said a Home Office spokesperson.

“No one should see this as a green light to act unlawfully. We will continue to prosecute breaches vigorously once this technical loophole is closed.”

The “error” was only spotted after recent UK games classification changes started coming into effect.

Jeremy Hunt, Shadow Culture Secretary, said: “Much of the problem would have been avoided if they had sorted out the classification of video games earlier, as we and many others in the industry have been urging them to do.”

A trillion facepalms. What a fucking shower.

Update: ELSPA’s told publishers to carry on rating games as normal. No shit. Full thing on GI.

Mass Effect DLC Pinnacle Station is now available Live-wide, as you can see here.

For a mere 400 MSP you’ll get to visit a “remote, top-secret Alliance space station,” and kill the shit out of everything.

The pack appeared by accident on the Swiss and Swedish XBLMs yesterday.

Worried about Bayonetta being too hard? Fret not. Platinum’s included a super-easy mode which allows to players to get through the actioner by pressing the odd button with one hand. Watch the video after the break.

Cheating? It doesn’t matter. It means you can constantly bang on about “having a free hand” and make jokes about having available fingers for anal intrusion.

Which is obviously Platinum’s intention. Bayonetta’s out early next year. Thanks, 1UP.

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Standalone sales of Wii MotionPlus are already close to 1 million in Europe, Nintendo said today.

The peripheral has been bundled with the likes of million-selling Wii Sports Report, but “separate sales” of the add-on “have exceeded 936k sales across Europe since its launch,” according to a press release issued this morning.

MotionPlus launched on June 12 in Europe.

Nintendo just confirmed that Wii Sports Resort has now sold more than 1 million units in Europe.

It was confirmed overnight that the game had hit the same tide-mark in Japan.

The company issued the following image to prove its European point this morning. Look at the blue line rather unfortunately tagged “Wii Sports Resort Cum”.

PR after the break.

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