Monthly Archives: August 2009

Tim Guest, author and Second Lifer, has died of heart-failure at the age of 34.

Guest was a contributor to Martin Stanford’s 7pm program on Sky News,and part of Rivers Run Red who built the Sky News Second Life island.

He wrote loads about the appeal of virtual worlds in Second Lives: A Journey Through Virtual Worlds which was widely acclaimed as realistic and honest dissertation of the realities and potential of Second Life and other virtual environments.

His writing helped ordinary people understand online games and virtual communities, breaking down the barriers and allowing a bit more understanding of the subject.

There’s more over on Massively and Sky News.

Thanks, BraveArse.

Redlynx has released three new gameplay videos for Trials HD.

Game has over 50 tracks in two game modes: Race and Skill. Race emphasizes balance, skill and control as players take-on indoor obstacle tracks with minimum faults, as fast as possible.Skill-mode contains extreme stunt tracks, and explosions, crashes, and injuries cannot be avoided.

The physics-based motorcycle racer is expected to land on Xbox Live on August 12 and will include a level-editor allowing you to create your own tracks and share your work with pals.

Gamershell has all the videos, here.

Microsoft has released loads of avatar clothing pics for the NXE update, which is expected to arrive on 360′s August 11.

CVG has 136 of em for you to look through.

It’s gonna be hard to choose which to get , we reckon.

Plucky Gowans007 over at NeoGAF‘s only gone and rounded up prices for every single Games on Demand title by region. It’s an enlightening read.

Apparently, buying Mass Effect by download in Australia costs 6,000 MSP. That AUS$99, or £51.

Hit the link for the full thing. It’s quite mental. By that, we mean “really expensive”.

Thanks, Kotaku.

Konami’s confirmed to EG that it’s to reissue a heap of its classic PS2 titles in the UK, priced between £10-£20.

Here’s what you’re going to get:

• Suikoden Tactics
• Zone of the Enders: The 2nd Runner
• Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance
• Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater
• Silent Hill 2, 3 and 4

No dates. Hit the link for more.

Japan’s 360 Games on Demand list has been released, and compared to the western one it’s pretty pony.

• Idolmaster
• Idolmaster: Live For You
• Viva Pinata
• Need For Speed: Most Wanted
• Perfect Dark Zero
• BulletWitch
• Fight Night Round 3
• Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Vegas

That’ll teach you to live in Japan, Japanese people. Games on Demand gets added on August 11.

Thanks, OXM.

Trophies. Metal Gear Solid 4. Never the twain shall meet. Or will they? Kojima Productions’ Sean Eyestone, speaking in this podcast, has thrown the whinging masses yet another lifeline.

Just to address one issue that we’ve been getting a lot of comments about. And this is, of course, about trophies.

I just wanna tell everybody out there right now that your voices are being heard and that we’re not ignoring you. We hear everything that you are saying. It’s just that we can’t say anything just yet.

But as soon as we have something to say, we will announce it. So, if we can just ask everyone to just be patient, we will give you an answer. But right now we can’t say anything. So we just ask for everyone’s understanding with that and just ask for everybody to remain patient and we’ll let you know.

What will you all live for when Trophies get added? It’ll be like legalising heroin: all the fun’ll be knocked out of it.

Thanks, Examiner and CVG.

Yesterday was the tenth birthday of the launch of Neo Geo Pocket Color in the US.

The handheld was a short-lived affair, being dumped from both US and European markets in 2000 when Aruze bought SNK.

It was finally snuffed out of existence in 2001, when it was discontinued in Japan.

According to Wikipedia, the machine did about 2 million units – with NGP sales included – and had a properly awesome Metal Slug version. That’s how we remember it, anyway: it was a long time ago.

Thanks, GSW.

Missed this from the Acti Q2 call earlier this week. Company execs said in the chat that all 20,000 Blizzcon tickets sold out in less than eight minutes this year.

The event’s taking place at the Anaheim Convention Center in California on August 20-21.

Are we going? Yes, we are. Hit BigDownload for more.

Microsoft’s confirmed Natal for a GameCom showing via a contest to win a play on the motion tech for a punter and friend.

You need to take a picture of “yourself letting go” to be in with a chance at the prize. Not going to the gym and drinking 20 pints of Stella a day won’t cut it, we suspect.

Full details through there. The competition ends on August 11. GameCom starts on August 19 in Cologne.

The US PSN update for this week’s up on the PS Blog, and it looking very similar to the Euro version.

The Batman demo’s the star, but there’s other big stuff in World at War Map Pack 3 and a Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood add-on.

There’s a Worms demo there, too.

Full thing through there.

World of Warcraft is now almost live in China, but with some caveats. Gama’s reporting that the MMO, which was fully offline for six weeks, is now back up in closed beta but has been visually edited.

MMOsite’s grabbed some before and after screens, and it looks as though the Chinese government isn’t keen on bones and skulls.

Hit the link to see what we mean.

Thanks, Kotaku.

Speaking in your ears time. Below you’ll find the fourth VG247 podcast, featuring an interview with Batman PR rep Gareth Williams on the game’s now-released demo, as well as some detail on the upcoming Championship Manager 2010 and IO’s Mini Ninjas.

The rest is banter about the week’s news, mainly focused on the EA and Acti figures from earlier this week, the StarCraft II slip, EA’s propensity to burn money and Bobby Kotick’s fated comment on raising game prices.

It’s Friday. Hear us laugh. Remember, you can now add a subscription to this in iTunes (or your news reader, or whatever) with this URL – http://www.vg247.com/feed/podcast/.

When Mart’s finished working on a necessary bit of art, we’ll add it to the iTunes Store.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Wii sales were well up in Japan this week on the back of Monster Hunter Tri, from 24,000 units to over 95,000. Substantial.

Last week’s chart here. Data below for the week ending August 2.

1. Wii – 95,357
2. DSi – 73,710
3. PSP – 33,049
4. DS Lite – 12,027
5. PS3 – 8,760
6. PS2 – 3,617
7. Xbox 360 – 3,552

Famitsu’s posted up more screens, character art and detail from Final Fantasy XIV. It’s pretty. So look at it.

The MMO’s out next year.

Americans can now get 30 percent off the The Witcher: Enhanced Edition Director’s Cut via Steam, bringing the price down to $28.

This doesn’t apply anywhere else, unfortunately. Which sucks.

The discount’s available until August 12.

The Batman: Arkham Asylum demo’s now up on Live, Nelson’s confirmed.

It was released for PC this morning and PS3 last night.

Take a look. It’s awesome.

Blimey. Nelson’s confirmed that American 360 users can now buy Live content with PayPal.

You can’t actually buy stuff through your 360, but you can associate your PayPal account with your Xbox.com account and do it that way.

Hit the link for full details. No word on whether or not this is going to make it out of the US.

The second Tales of Monkey Island episode is called Siege of Spinner Cay, and will release on August 20, Talltale’s confirmed.

There’s a background movie on Telltale’s blog. Beware the spoilers though, cap’n.

id’s released some phenomenal Rage shots/renders/concepts at SIGGRAPH in New Orleans. You can view them all in this PDF.

Seriously: bonkers. They’re purportedly screenshots, but our frail minds can’t cope with the leap. The images are from a lecture on “virtual texturing” which includes the term, “Full description beyond the scope of this talk.”

Know why by hitting the link.

Via Shacknews and Kotaku.