Monthly Archives: August 2009

Some new Demon’s Souls screens popped up on the internet today. Some are new at any rate.

The PS3 exclusive is expected to land on shelves October 6 in the US.

So far, it’s still an import for the UK, but it sure looks worth it despite the scariness of those fire breathing bee thingies.

Head on over to Kotaku and have a look.

Level 5 president and CEO, Akihiro Hino, has explained to Wired why it takes so long for Professor Layton games to make it outside of Japan.

Not only do puzzle differences with Japanese linguistics or customs need to be substituted, but some graphical elements need a bit of tweaking as well.

“Like any game localization, it takes time and manpower to update a Professor Layton title, especially the puzzles and any graphical elements that need adjustment,” said Hino. “We all try to carefully manage this process so that there is not such a long gap between releases.

“Of course, we also want to let each title have time to perform on the market before releasing the next game.

There ya go.

Thanks, GoNintendo.

During a studio tour of Retro Studios in Texas, IGN chatted a bit with president and CEO Michael Kelbaugh about the possibility of a return to the Metroid franchise.

“I think Retro will always be associated with the Metroid Prime franchise and who knows, maybe we’ll do another one someday,” Kelbaugh said.

However, he did note that for now the team was aware it would only be responsible for a trilogy.

Meanwhile, Kelbaugh said that Retroid is working on other projects now in order to “refresh” its development team.

Maybe is always better than no. More through the link.

Via Joystiq.

The Last Stand is upcoming  multiplayer mode for Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War II that will be a free download for players of the strategy title.

GameSpy got a hands-on preview, and the site says that two players will be controlling Heroes fighting off waves of enemies.

There is loads more than that through the link, along with a couple nice screens for it.

No word on when it can be expected, but word has it that it may be sometime in October.

Relic will be showing the new mode off at PAX 2009 next weekend, so hopefully we will know more then.

Eurogamer France a video of it. You should watch it.

Insomniac’s James Stevenson has posted a developer diary of sorts over on the US PS Blog.

In it, he talks about Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time’s exploration and replay value.

Apparently, there will be a Space Radio in the game full of zany commercials, movie trailers, and DJs and some of the news reports will answers questions about the Ratchet & Clank universe, which gives you another reason to tune in.

There’s loads of other stuff discussed like the new space gameplay, and there is even a video of creative director Brian Allgeier chatting about it as well.

It’s all through here. Go have a look.

Infinity Ward’s Robert Bowling has confirmed via Twitter that Oscar winner Hans Zimmer is the composer of Modern Warfare 2′s score.

This is his first video game focused work, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

Reports yesterday had this rumored, so it’s good to get confirmation on it.

You just know it will be one badass soundtrack.

Just like the movie store update, the US PSN content was a bit late, but here it is nonetheless.

Downloadable Games

• Invincible Tiger: The Legend of Han Tao ($14.99)- PSone Classics PS3 / PSP
• CoolBoarders 2 ($5.99)
• Tomb Raider 2 ($5.99)
• SimCity 2000

Game Demos

• WET
• DiRT 2
• NHL 10
• F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin Reborn DLC demo

Add-ons

• Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen Maps & Characters DLC ($9.99)
• LittleBigPlanet Artist Vera Bee Sticker Pack ($1.99)
• Crash Commando Add-On Bundle ($4.99), Heist Map Pack ($2.99), Character Pack 1 ($1.99),Character Pack 2 ($1.99),Character Pack 3 ($1.99)
• Cross Edge Add TP ($1.99), G ($1.99), EP ($1.99), PP 1 ($1.99), PP 2 ($1.99)
• Fight Night Round 4 Champions Pack ($4.99)
• Star Wars: The Force Unleashed Tatooine Mission Pack ($9.99)
• Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2010 Wolf Creek ($4.99)

The usual videos, themes, and Rock Band stuff is listed over on the US PS Blog.

The US PS movie store update was a bit late this week, but Sony has finally released a list of what is on offer.

Looks like HD movies are scarce this week. Total offerings include: 300, Duplicity, Frayed, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, I Love You, Man and Necessary Evil.

HD TV offerings include: Crusoe, Eureka, Friday Night Lights, Mad Men, Monk, Psych, Royal Pains, Saturday Night Live, Season 33 (wow!), U.S. Army Best Ranger Competition, and Warehouse 13.

The non-HD shows and movies can be found over on the US PS Blog.

Looks like some retailers have already sold out of PS3 Slim.

According to a report from Gamespot, local GameStop and Best Buy stores in or around San Francisco started selling the console a bit early, and have subsequently ran out of the fist shipment.

Amazon still has some left though, at least in the States.

Regardless, like most console launches, the merchandise will go fast, so if you want to be able to yell “FIRST!” into your friends’ faces – you better get on it.

Via Engadget.

An official art book for Guild Wars 2 will be released, according to the official GW2 website.

Called The Art of Guild Wars 2, the hardbound book contains 128 pages of work by ArenaNet artists.

Looking through some of the concept art on the site, it does indeed look like a “must have” for Guild Wars fans. Heck, even just straight up fantasy fans should love it.

We have posted a few past the break, but head on over here to have a look at the rest.

Via Massively.

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Batman: Arkham Asylum has been awarded a Guinness World Record for being the ‘Most Critically Acclaimed Superhero Game Ever’.

It has achieved the highest average score of 91.67 from reviews around the world. Cool.

“We are so pleased to be awarding Batman: Arkham Asylum a Guinness World Record,” said Gaz Deaves from Guinness. “It is a fantastic new game and due to the reaction of gaming experts we believe it has a well deserved place in the Guinness World Records book.”

Congrats to Eidos and Rocksteady.

Press release follows the break.

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Activision has announced that Kurt Cobain will be a playable character in Guitar Hero 5.

His likeness, controlled by you, will be performing two of the band’s singles from their 1991 album Nevermind: “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and a previously unreleased live recording of “Lithium.”

“Kurt Cobain is one of the most recognizable frontmen in rock ‘n’ roll history and it’s an honor to have two of Nirvana’s masterpieces included in Guitar Hero 5,” said Tim Riley, Vice President of Music Affairs for Activision. “This is the first time the original recording of ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ has ever been licensed in an entertainment property and we’re thrilled to offer Guitar Hero® fans exclusive access to the unreleased live version of ‘Lithium.’”

Wonder how much of a cut Courtney Love got out of this.

It’s out next month for the usual suspects.

Press release through the break.

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During BlizzCon, Paul Sams, chief operating officer for Blizzard, sat down with IncGamers and talked a bit about how the company has changed over the years, especially with marketing.

“When I think about what we have in store, what we have done, and how big BlizzCon has become, let alone our products – I mean, World of Warcraft has over 11 million subscribers so the marketing and the types of marketing we do have expanded to try and support that.

“With licensing, I always joke with our team that it’s the snacking in between the meals. We don’t put out our videogames that often, we are very focused on making sure that they’re great when they come out so it takes a long time. Because we only put out one or so a year, those licensed products are the snack between the meals so that people who are really geeked up about Blizzard and these franchises have a way to kind of feed that hunger.”

The full interview is posted below the break.

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Harmonix has just tweeted the Rock Band line-up for next week. It’s rather awesome.

Looks like Talking Heads, Rage Against the Machine, and Avenged Sevenfold round-out the list.

Here’s what you’ll get:

• Avenged Sevenfold – Bat Country
• The Jam – A Town Called Malice, Going Underground
• Oasis – Supersonic (Live)
• Rage Against the Machine – Guerilla Radio
• Talking Heads – And She Was, Crosseyed & Painless, Girlfriend is Better, Once in a Lifetime, Take Me to the River

Tracks are to be made available on September 1 and 3 for Xbox 360 and PS3, respectively.

Each will set you back 160 MS Points ($1.99/£.99/€1.49) or 680 MS Points ($8.49/£5.25/€6.59) for the Talking Heads Track Pack.

Bethesda has decided to show off Brink at PAX 2009.

Apparently, the game is going to be shown to the public on the hour every hour all weekend.

Don’t worry though, Doom II, Quake Arena, Rogue Warrior and WET will be on-hand as well, and if you are attending, Bethesda will be handing out swag as well.

PAX takes place next weekend, September 4-6.

More over on D’toid.

Xbox Live’s Stephen Toulouse has said that French Halo 3: ODST players who got copies early will not be banned from playing online as long as it is a legitimate copy they’e playing.

“We will not be banning legitimate customers from Xbox Live who play early”, he tweeted.

Microsoft is still trying to figure out how this snafu happened and have not gone into major detail on the investigation either.

More through Kotaku.

Realtime Worlds has taken on a new 8,000 square foot office in Dundee in an effort to “grow towards a successful APB launch” early next year.

The developer currently employs 265, but plans to grow to 300 in 2009.

APB will be amazing. Go to work for RTW in its smart new office purely on the strength of that.

PR after the break.

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The King of Fighters XII will launch on September 25 for both 360 and PS3 in the UK, Ignition said today.

The new date’s a slip from the previously announced August 28 release. Which is today.

Hand-drawn, blah, fighting monkeys, blah. PR after the break.

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Unless something’s gone a bit wrong dans le Matrix, this teaser page on the Square Enix site probably means the publisher is handling the release of Modern Warfare 2 in Japan.

There’s a “2″ on it: it’s the same font at the MW2 logo. The giveaway is the Activision and Call of Duty copyright info at the page’s base.

We’re checking now.

Cryptic CCO Jack Emmert has described Microsoft’s apparent deadlock with developers over how MMOs are to work on Live as “baffling”.

His comments, made to VG247 in this week’s podcast, mirror those given to us by the FFXIV team in Cologne this month, which said the Square MMO was a timed PS3 exclusive partly because the publisher was in ongoing discussions with Microsoft about how it’s to work on Live.

“Microsoft’s a big company, and they have to work out all the various issues related to MMOs,” said Emmert.

“It just takes time for the big beast known as Microsoft to get moving. I really have no explanation other than that, because it’s as baffling to developers as it is to everyone else.”

Cryptic has a 360 version of Champions Online which is “ready to go,” according to the developer, but the chances of the console game releasing anywhere near its imminent PC counterpart sound distant.

“This year? I don’t know,” Emmert said of the 360 release.

“Right now we’re just talking with Microsoft. Right now the ball is firmly in their court. We’re ready to go, but until we get the go ahead from Microsoft, right now we’re sort of waiting.”

Champions Online releases for PC in both the US and Europe next week.