Monthly Archives: August 2009

Midway Europe head Martin Spiess has bought out the management division of his former employer and will now run the company as Tradewest Games, which published games Double Dragon and Ikari Warriors in the eighties and nineties.

Enfolding the UK and French offices into one, Spiess plans on staying in the publishing business.

“We are very glad to have acquired the rights to such an internationally well-known brand of such tradition in the gaming industry,” Spiess told MCV. “Under the name Tradewest Games we will as of now be acting as a European full service provider in the fields of game distribution and publishing.

“We have access to a wide-reaching global network of game developers and international partners from all relevant areas of the games industry.”

“This is a brand representative of tradition, a name under which a well-known North American game publisher operated between 1986 and 1994,” added a company spokesperson.

More through the link.

Remember when, back in May, Bethesda Europe managing director Sean Brennan lamented about the Wii’s dry-as-a-desert pool of “mature” games? Well, for those who don’t, he also teased the “really big” announcement of a mature Wii game from Bethesda.

VG247 asked Bethesda VP Pete Hines for clarification concerning that title, and here’s what he told us:

“[Sean] was referring to the Wheelspin Wii game Bethesda is publishing in Europe (only) and that is being shown in our booth at GamesCom this week.”

Wheelspin is — if the title didn’t give it away — a racing game. Its goal, in addition to going really, really fast, is to “push the hardware further than any other Wii racing game to date.”

It’s out this autumn, if you’re interested.

Activison has narrowed down the November release for its racer, Blur.

You can expect to see it on store shelves November 3 and 6 in the US and UK, respectively, for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360.

To celebrate, why don’t you check out some screens for it over on D’toid.

The press mailer is after the break

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The first movie trailer for James Cameron’s Avatar movie has popped up over on CVG.

It’s is what you would expect. Full of CGI special effects, half-naked blue being being shot out of the sky by the military, and the prerequisite love story.

Guess there has to be something there to get the ladies to go see it, we reckon.

After the trailer was shown to CVG, a Ubisoft rep told the site: “Wait till you see the game trailer!”

Okay, where is it then?

It’s out later this year for Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, and PC.

Those who preorder Halo 3: ODST from Amazon will get a $10 videogame store credit, plus $5 extra off with coupon code HALOODST, and a $5 Amazon MP3 Credit.

Not too shabby.

The game itself will run you $60, and there’s more over on Joystiq.

Hit the link for more.

Dead To Rights: Retribution has some new screens for it posted over on CVG from GamesCom.

Game looks rather good, and has a “hybrid combat system” allowing for third-person shooting, hand-to-hand and controlling your dog, Shadow.

It’s out in 2010 for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360.

Dark Void’s delay into January had nothing to do with competition, said the game’s associate producer Shana Bryant, but instead it was because Capcom’ wanted to add more polish and a new feature.

The new feature is called Hover up, and was just added to the game a week ago.

What it does, is allows your character to use the jet pack to not only fly, but hover around environments adding new strategy to the game. This ability will have its own meter, letting you know how much longer you can hover, showing depletion and refilling.

According to Bryant, the developers are “play testing it and balancing it now”.

Loads more info on this and the rest of the game is over on Kotaku.

Hideo Kojima has confirmed to IGN that he has several titles in development at Kojima Productions, one of them is a game he has wanted to do for a very long time.

Asked on stuff involving the team at Kojima Productions and a brand new engine for the team, Kojima mentioned: “First of all I can name Metal Gear Solid Rising – that’s going to be on the preparation list. Also there’s a new title that we haven’t announced that I’ve wanted to make for a long time – that’s on the list as well. And also a couple of other new titles we’re preparing now.”

He then went further on to say: “ The one that I said that I’ve been wanting to make – this is a new franchise and a new title. For the other couple of titles, it could be something that you always wanted to have. It could be, or it could be something else. It’s a matter of the timing of when we can get it out. ”

Could we possibly hear something at TGS next month: the new IP or other games? We pray for Zone of the Enders 3.

More through the link.

id Software president Todd Hollenshead has told Shack that the firm may put the single-player and multiplayer modes for the Xbox 360 version of RAGE on separate discs.

“We’ll probably have two DVDs for sure, and then the question is, will multiplayer be on a separate disc or not?” said Hollenshead “It makes no sense for a player to swap that disc in multiplayer, right? That’s fail. They have to keep one disc in during multiplayer, can you just put all the multiplayer content on one DVD?”

Still, the number of discs is not set in stone, according to Hollenshead, which brings us back to something John Carmack  told Game Informer back in July:  RAGE on 3 DVD’s is a problem as the nature of the game won’t really allow for it.

Hmmmm.

More through the links.

Via Joystiq.

Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot and EA Games president Frank Gibeau have spoken of the “exceptional” price cut Sony brought in for the Playstation 3.

“It’s exceptional news, actually. I think the machine is a great machine, with the Blu-ray. I’m happy that they were able to move to that [price point], particularly in the UK,” said Guillemot.

As for Gibeau: “I think it’s awesome. It’s an old line, but it still rings true for us: ‘We make the ammunition for the hardware wars’. So the lowest priced hardware possible is a good thing for us. We want to see as big and broad a base as possible, and the Sony hardware is a good piece of equipment.”

Sony announced the price cut on Tuesday at it’s GamesCom presser. It now retails for £249/$299/€299.

More at GI.

Capcom producer Ryozo Tsujimoto hasn’t quite ruled out the possibility of Monster Hunter 3 jumping ship from the Wii to the PS3 or Xbox 360.

Speaking at GamesCom, the producer said that if it was a “worthwhile” challenge, it might happen.

“We haven’t thought about it yet.”

“We’ve been asked that a lot. As creators, we want to be challenged. If that challenge would be worthwhile for us to work on in the future, then probably,” said Tsujimoto.

But for now, he’s quite content with the game being on the Wii.

Having said that, at the moment, I like working with the Nunchuk and the Wiimote quite a lot. Actually, a lot of the R&D guys told me that you can’t go back to using the classic controller because it feels rigid. We’re very happy with Tri. If there’s a new challenge on a different console, we’ll consider [it].”

Game’s out now in Japan. It’s coming to the West early next year.

Thanks, NowGamer.

There’s a preview of Assassin’s Creed II over on CVG, and while that is great and all, we are directing you there so you can see some new screens of the game.

At least we think they’re new.

The site seems pretty pleased with it so far. It’s always a good sign when people are pleased.

Go have a read and a look.

GameStop has reported its Q2 financial results, and figures show a sales drop of 3.7 percent on last year which brings totals down from $1.80 billion in 2008 to $1.74 billion.

CEO Daniel DeMatteo said that the drop can be blamed on the recession and strong yearly comparisons.

“Looking ahead, as the new title release schedule improves, we expect positive earnings growth in the back half of the year,” said DeMatteo.

Net earnings totaled $38.7 million which is 32 percent drop from last year’s earnings of $57.2 million.

Used game sales increased 19 percent compared to last year, sales of which accounted for 32 percent of total sales for the company with 36 percent of sales by way of new games.

Used game sales accounted for 46 percent of overall profit, with new games making up 21 percent.

More over on GI.biz with the press release below the break.

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Some shots of the GamesCom booth for Star Wars: The Old Republic are up over on Kotaku.

It looks very snazzy. Find them through the link.

The game was shown behind closed doors this week, you’ll hear a couple of previews from it most likely soon.

BioWare’s MMO is still to be dated, but don’t rule out September 2010.

2K has confirmed that Gearbox’s Borderlands will not have a demo released for the game, at least before it launches.

“Everyone is really, really focusing on getting the game done for release … that’s not to say there will never be a demo, just not before launch,” a 2K rep told Joystiq.

Confirmed to have “millions and millions of guns“, Gearbox’s Mikey Neumann previously stated that he didn’t know if a demo would be pre-launch or post-launch, because “there’s a lot of factors there.”

Game’s out October 20.

Joystiq also has new screens for the game which focus on the HUD vehicles.

Before you freak out, no, this isn’t who you think it is.

William Shatner’s lawyers have issued a cease and desist to developers of Shatter, Sidhe Interactive.

It comes due to the developer apparently using Shatner’s likeness in the game as well as using the song “Mr. Tambourine Man” by Bob Dylan as well as the rights to the Captain Kirk of Star Trek.

Studio head for Sidhe, Mario Wynands, replied back saying: “The GameConsole “report” you reference is what is commonly referred to on the internet as a “joke”. The article is a parody of our game, and has no basis in reality in that it does not in any way reflect our intentions for further development of the Shatter IP or relate to any official statement we have made relating to the game.

“We have the upmost respect for Mr William Shatner and the licensing process, and if we had any intent of using rights related to either Mr Shatner, Star Trek, or Tambourine Man (which we do not) we would do so using the appropriate channels.”

All we’re saying is… woops.

Thanks, GAF.

GameZines recently sat down with Visceral’s Richard Briggs during a hands on event with Dead Space: Extraction, where a very interesting point came up during the interview.

“Let me just say that if you’re going to play Extraction, you should play all the way to the end” said the Extraction producer.

It’s all leading one way, baby – Dead Space 2.

More through the link.

Crytek’s put live a second teaser trailer for Crysis 2. It was hinted at just before the start of GamesCom last week.

You can catch it at the teaser site that has gone live as well. Go find that here.

It’s out next year for PC as well as Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 for the first time.

Ubisoft’s announced that it’s to hold a “V.I.P” extended multiplayer beta for R.U.S.E on the PC.

All you have to do is sign up for a Ubi account or sign in, go to the instructions page and get more info on how to sign up. The beta isn’t starting right now, but it will be kicking off soon.

More info on the beta will be forthcoming shortly.

More through here.

The RTS is out next year for PC, PS3 and 360.

Ongoing discussions with Microsoft about how Final Fantasy XIV is to work with Xbox Live are partly to blame for the lack of announced 360 version, producer Hiromichi Tanaka told VG247 at GamesCom today.

“FFXI for 360; at that point PS2 didn’t have a hard disc [and] that was really difficult for us, but Xbox 360 had that from the beginning, so that really helped us. We managed to smoothly move onto 360 from the Windows version, so that was very good to us,” said the developer.

“However, for FFXIV, because 360 has its own policy with Xbox Live that is different from [the] internet, that’s something we’re in discussions with Microsoft [about], to come to an agreement. That’s one of the reasons it’s not going to be launched at that point.”

The “point” being the simultaneous release of the PS3 and Windows versions next year.

Tanaka told us in the same conversation that the words “launch timing” were “cut out” of SCEA boss Jack Tretton’s FFXIV exclusivity announcement FFXIV at E3, and that it “doesn’t mean that we’re not going to have a 360 [version] in the future”.

We saw the MMO in Cologne today. Looks neat. More soon.