Monthly Archives: August 2009

Harmonix gave the business to GamesCom this year in the form of a colossal cacophony of Rock Band news.

First up, the world’s rockin’-est game developer announced that The Beatles: Rock Band has three DLC albums lined up for the rest of 2009, with Abbey Road coming in October, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band in November, and Rubber Soul in December. You’ll also be able to jam to Abbey Road’s full 16-minute B-side as one continuous track. Rock on… and on and on and on.

Don’t think Rock Band and Rock Band 2 missed out on the fun, though. Harmonix announced that Queen, Nirvana, Tom Petty, Elton John, Iggy Pop, The White Stripes, Pantera, Talking Heads, Korn, The Raconteurs and more (!) are taking their tours into Rock Band’s virtual world.

The full press release is after the break.

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Bethesda’s put live three brand new shots of Splash Damage’s Brink.

It has to be said – they look incredi-fucking-ble.

The screens are at Eurogamer.

Nathan interviewed the developer last week at QuakeCon. You’ll hopefully get the interview soon.

There will be no multiplayer Beta for Modern Warfare 2, according to Activision.

Speaking with CVG at Gamescom, the publisher said it had no plays to release a Beta for the sequel, as it it did for the original.

Guess the first one was a big enough hit as it was, we reckon.

It’s out on November 10.

Konami had their GC press conference today and none other then creator of the MGS series, the motherfucking man himself, Hideo Kojima was there.

He was there to demo Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker and it’s co-op abillites for the game.

Kojima started off by showing the brand new trailer for the game, which you can find after the jump.

He then went on to say that, while co-op for the game is not like the recently released Monster Hunter: Freedom Unite, it does require a similar amount of teamwork.

Some of the co-op gameplay features shown in the demo included CPR, walking in tandem, hide in cardboard boxes together and back-to-back shooting. And before you know it, the demo was over.

There is more info at Kotaku.

Meanwhile, Konami have sent us ten brand new shots of the game. Them, and the trailer, are after the jump.

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Are you drunk on David Cage yet? Of course not! You need one more shot of his strongest words, and we’re here to provide that for you.

Speaking at GamesCom, Cage told VG247 that Heavy Rain’s gone beyond the limits of what you’d typically call a “videogame.”

“[It's] something that is not really a videogame anymore. It’s fully interactive; I’m not talking about that. But in the matter of format, objectives, and the way it works, it’s not really a videogame anymore,” he said.

“So all the rules that have been defined by this industry to promote games, like trade shows and demos, you have to ask yourself if it’s really the type of thing worth doing.”

Well, that’s enough Cage for us. We’re off to lose our last three day’s worth of lunches behind a dumpster now. But we’re lightweights. You, though — you want more. We can see the look in your eyes, the fire. Go read the rest of the interview. Do what we couldn’t.

Sega loves us today, so much so it sent over some Aliens vs Predator shots, which are below the page break.

Not near as sexy as Bayonetta, but then again this is two totally different games we’re talking about here.

One is a witch who wears her hair as clothing, the other are beings from outer space that like to kill in the most painful way possible.

Hopefully you see the difference.

Game’s out next year.

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Speaking with VG247 at GamesCom, Quantic Dream’s David Cage said that, while his company might drizzle out a demo of Heavy Rain, it won’t be easy.

“[A demo]’s currently in discussion. So yeah, that’s a possibility. At the same time, though, it’s difficult to find one scene that will represent the game and do justice to it,” he told us.

“It’s like asking a movie director, ‘Can you show me two minutes of your movie that will show what the movie’s about?’ Well yeah, I can show you a teaser, but if I show you two minutes from the movie, it’s very difficult to understand the atmosphere and what’s going on.”

This article’s basically a demo of the full interview. Are you having a hard time figuring out the atmosphere of our chat with David? Then why not read the full thing?

The first game isn’t out yet, but there’s already a possibility of Heavy Rain 2, right?

Don’t count your chickens yet.

Quantic Dream’s David Cage has told VG247 that he isn’t “sure” there will be one. But why is Heavy Rain 2, or for that matter Fahrenheit 2, most likely not gonna happen?

“I’m not sure there will be a Heavy Rain 2. I’m not a guy who does sequels, because, when you work on a story, you have something to say. It’s a response to a moment of your life and what you want to express,” he admitted.

“But it’s the same reason I didn’t want to do a Fahrenheit 2, because I got the feeling I said what I had to say on the story and the characters. And with Heavy Rain, it’s pretty much the same. I feel the same way.”

We’re sad now. And we haven’t played the first game yet.

Heavy Rain is out in 2010 for Playstation 3. Read our full interview with David Cage here.

During an interview with VG247 at GamesCom, the main brain behind Heavy Rain, David Cage, spoke of his admiration for Sony’s PS3.

“It’s incredible — all the things you can do with it. I mean, you can have a video conference. It’s a media center. It connects to your PC and allows you to use your movies and your songs. It’s just insane. I’m not sure when people compare consoles, they compare the same things. It’s a Blu-Ray player. It does so many things. It’s truly a fantastic machine,” he exclaimed.

“And I’m not saying that just because [an SCEE guy] is behind me,” he added. “Honestly, I really think it.”

Obviously, then, it’s not much of a stretch to say that Cage is excited about the recent PS3 price drop. He told us that it’ “is really the right price now.”

Read the full interview for more.

Sega was kind enough to send us over some screens for Bayonetta, which are after the break for both PS3 and XBox 360. Therefore, some may look like dupes, but they aren’t.

See if you can tell the difference.

Shame it’s been delayed into 2010, but at least Sega seems okay with that.

Personally, we’re not. Then again, who are we in the grand scheme of games releases?

Nobody. A big fat nobody. We’ll go cry into our Stella in the corner now.

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Speaking with VG247 at GamesCom, Quantic Dream’s David Cage said that Heavy Rain ducked into 2010 to avoid the holiday season’s own heavy rain of big-name sequels. Obviously, this comes as a huge surprise, as no one‘s ever done this before.

“Sony thought it was best for the game to be released after the Christmas rush, and I can fully understand because, you know, there are so many games at Christmas that would be very good games, but also will be sequels of sequels of sequels. And there are only so many games people can buy at Christmas,” Cage said.

“And when there are already four, five, or six games that people are going to buy anyway, it would have been pity to release Heavy Rain at this date and to compete in that condition. It’s a new IP; it deserves some space and some explanation and some time to explain the game to people.”

Check out our full interview with David for more.

Mythic and Electronic Arts announced that there will be celebration activities for the one year  of Warhammer Online.

Kicking off on August 31 and going through the month of September, there will be weekend-only scenarios, a month long 20 percent experience and renown bonus, special in-game items for all players, veteran rewards, and The Wild Hunt live-event.

“This anniversary marks a major milestone for WAR, the Mythic development team, and our fantastic community of players,” said Mythic’s Jeff Hickman.

“We could think of no better way of marking this occasion than by celebrating our success with our fans for the entire month of September. We’ve got new content to share with the Wild Hunt live event, special versions of popular scenarios, fireworks, Halfling pies, and exploding stout!

“Now that is a party Warhammer style!”

Loads more information is included in the press release past the break.

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Interview by Patrick Garratt.

VG247 recently sat down for a chat with Heavy Rain’s (now self-proclaimed) main man, David Cage. Coming off a strong GamesCom presentation, Cage talked with us about motion controllers, the PS3 price cut, a potential sequel (or lack thereof) for Heavy Rain, a Heavy Rain demo (!) and much, much more.

Tackle this monster interview after the break.

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We must have missed this during our livetext last night. Apologies.

SCEE president Andrew House confirmed during SCEE’s GamesCom presser that the PS3 motion controller will be at the Tokyo Games Show next month.

We assume this’ll be part of Kaz Hirai’s keynote speech during the event in September. Expect the name for it to be announced there too.

Instead, all guests were just treated to a developer’s update for the controller.

Read back what happened at the conference here.

Looks like Halo 3 was knocked out of the top spot on Xbox Live and replaced by its nemesis Call of Duty: World at War.

Wonder if it had anything to do with Map Pack 3 being released.

Head scratcher, there.

Live Titles

1. Call of Duty: WaW
2. Halo 3
3. Call of Duty 4
4. Gears of War 2
5. GTA IV
6. 1 vs 100
7. FIFA 09
8. Trials HD
9. Battlefield 1943
10. Madden NFL 10

Arcade Titles

1. Trials HD
2. Turtles in Time Re-Shelled
3. Battlefield 1943
4. Marvel vs. Capcom 2
5. Splosion Man
6. Castle Crashers
7. UNO
8. Worms 2: Armageddon
9. Magic: The Gathering – Duels of the Planeswalkers
10. The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition

Original and Indie stuff is posted after the jump courtesy of the Major.

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SCEE president Andrew House has told VG247 that anybody wondering why Gran Turismo 5 wasn’t shown during the company’s massive GamesCom presser should look forward to seeing something “very soon”.

“I am not going to make a prediction on that but I think you will see something on GT5 very soon,” said House. We assume that most likely means the Tokyo Games Show.

While the game wasn’t shown during the conference, it is playable on the showfloor. It is also coming to TGS next month. Some new info and menu screens were released last night.

Catch the full interview here.

A new video for Army of Two: The 40th Day is posted after the jump, courtesy of D’toid.

The 2010 title is looking sharp, and full of the expected shooting and free-for-all hectic mayhem you expect from a sequel from such a franchise.

All hail Salem and Rios.

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Sony has cut multiplayer out of LittleBigPlanet PSP in order to get it to work. Despite this, the game is pretty much ready for the handheld.

“The one thing we’ve lost is multiplayer,” the game’s producer, Mark Green, told Eurogamer. “You’ve got full physics systems, you got full create mode, you’ve got all the aspects of LittleBigPlanet – you can upload, download, ad-hoc share with people – but we haven’t got multiplayer.

“It’s a trade-off. The system is physically capable of doing multiplayer, but perhaps not with the full physics system. On the technical side of things you lose a third of the processing power or a third of the system memory just to do multiplayer at all. With those limitations we couldn’t achieve it.

“The PS3 had those three planes you could move around on, but the first thing we asked Media Molecule was whether we could reduce that to two, and they were like, well, most of the levels we built can be played with two anyway, so that’s not a problem.”

Since he and loads of others weren’t fans of the jump handling in the PS3 version, Green said that Sony’s Cambridge studio had improved on it for the PSP version.

Good to know.

GameStop has a nice preorder offering for Bethesda titles Wet and Rogue Warrior.

Order through the retailer and you will get $10 off each game’s price.

This applies whether you preorder Rouge Warrior or WET.

Not a bad deal should you be wanting both.

Thanks, Joystiq.

Just Add Water has announced that its old-school style arcade title, Gravity Crash, is to be made available on PSN sometime around mid-October, and will also be made available for PSP.

The game combines vintage arcade shooter gameplay with vector graphics and has the player piloting a small craft where mastering the flight and combat mechanics against the gravitational pull will ensure success.

Armed with an arsenal of main and special weapons, shield and a carefully watched fuel gauge, players will battle gravity and inertia through 40 different planets – each with its own environmental dangers, enemies and other obstacles.

There are loads of nice PSP screens for it posted after the break that the developers were kind enough to send our way. You should have a look.

Afterward, be sure to visit the redesigned website which has loads more information on both versions.

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