Monthly Archives: August 2009

Two new Halo 3: ODST videos were released today, showing off the Covenant’s little creepy Engineers.

Previously only appearing in the Halo novels, these guys can supposedly fix anything the Covenant breaks and this is the first time they have been present in a Halo game.

Cool.

Both videos are posted below courtesy of GameVideos, via D’toid.

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Ubisoft has announced Monster 4×4: Stunt Racer for Wii.

Stop salivating. It’s unbecoming.

“Monster 4×4: Stunt Racer is a game the fans of Monster Truck World Circuit have been restlessly waiting for,” said Tony Key, director of marketing at Ubisoft. “Players will get to experience more excitement, upgraded features and the exhilarating action of steering the world’s most powerful trucks while tearing through new extreme off-road racing circuits.”

New stunts, tracks, alternate routes, controls, upgradeable vehicles and more are jammed onto the gaming disc.

Loads more information is through the press release after the jump.

It’s out this fall.

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Rumors over on the N4G forums state that PS3 cross-game voice chat’s being held back because of EA, which has supposedly threatened to pull support for PS3 should the service occur.

To make a long story short, EA has confirmed to Kotaku that the allegations are false.

“Not no-how, not no-way did that ever happen,” stated Jeff Brown, EA’s vice president of corporate communications. “This is a total fabrication – total nonsense. We think voice chat is an extremely cool feature and added it to Madden/ PS3.

“We support cross-game voice on other systems and would be happy to do that on any console.”

Sony’s senior director of corporate communications Patrick Seybold also responded, stating that the rumor was “frankly not true. ”

Hit the links for the full thing.

Those who preorder Tony Hawk: RIDE through GameStop will get an exclusive code to unlock the Quicksilver All ’80′s Day Level in the game.

According to the press mailer, the level was inspired by the Quiksilver event Hawk won in 2008 and puts players into an ‘80s inspired experience, allowing them to skate on a “full 80’s styled vert ramp, dressed in an authentic Quiksilver retro wardrobe, executing a special, vintage trick list and features an ‘80s version of Tony Hawk himself”. Shew.

The code will also unlock skater Christian Hosoi.

It’s out November 17 and 20 in the US and UK, respectively.

Rumor has it that Hans Zimmer is composing the score for Modern Warfare 2.

According to a listing over on the Gorfaine/Schwartz Agency, the Grammy, Oscar, and Golden Globe winner will provide the score for the shooter.

We’re talking about the fella who composed the music for Pirates of the Caribbean, The Lion King, Gladiator, The Dark Knight and many, many others.

He can’t be cheap. Not by a long shot.

We’ll drop a line to Infinity Ward and see if anyone bites. Until then, it’s a rumor people.

Via Kotaku.

Battlefield 2′s official 1.50 patch will be released this coming Tuesday, September 1, after being in the works for about a year or so.

The patch will add the Operation Blue Pearl map added to the game, widescreen support, the ability to use the Novint Falcon controller and the usual changes and bug fixes.

Players will need to have the previously released map Highway Tampa in order to get the patch.

Euro Forces and Armored Fury will now be included in the free patch, bringing the map total up to eight.

Nice patch, there.

More information can be obtained by visiting the official website.

Thanks, BigDownload.

Yesterday, a trademark for Okamiden was dug up by Siliconera suggesting that Okami 2 may be on the way.

Today, Andriasang’s reporting that 7-Eleven’s e-commerce site shows the September 17 issue of Famitsu containing contents marked “Okamiden.”

According to the site, Okami has been in the news a lot in Japan, with Capcom confirming the Wii version of the game for October 15 and releasing loads of stuff to Japanese press outlets.

The new Famitsu will be released on September 3, so come next week we should know more about this.

Microsoft has released a new Halo 3: ODST video featuring the Firefight multiplayer mode.

It’s below the break courtesy of D’toid.

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Aaron Greenberg has told G4 that the timing on the Xbox 360 price is was completely coincidental.

“Typically these types of price changes are targeted to drive sales for the holiday season,” said Greenberg. “However it is difficult for our retail partners to make these types of changes in November or December so we try to work with them to make these types of adjustments before things get too hectic at retail.”

As far as Sony’s price cut is concerned, Greenberg seems pleased for the consumer even when adding in a well-placed dig.

“I guess as a gamer I am glad I got an earlier PS3 console before they pulled a lot of the functionality like backwards compatibility out,” he said. “At the end of the day lower priced hardware is good for everyone and good for the industry as a whole.”

More through the link.

Naughty Dog’s Christophe Balestra has told Ars Technica that technical hurdles would prevent an Xbox 360 version of Uncharted 2.

“First of all, we fill the Blu-ray 100 percent,” he said. “We have no room left on this one.”

Drake’s Fortune used 30 percent of the PS3′s SPU and Among Thieves used 100 percent.

Also, Sony is the publisher and pretty much Naughty Dog’s Lord and Master, so it would have never happened anyway.

Via Joystiq

UK’s National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts has complied a report, which states that 60 percent of the publishers surveyed in the UK had either slowed, or stopped creation on original IP development.

The report concludes that developers would create more original IP should Parliament create tax credits, with three-quarters of 3rd party development studios admitting that a new IP hasn’t been worked on at all in the last five years.

Over 65 percent of independent studios polled agreed that a tax break would “help them to keep hold of the original IP they produce.”

“Risk aversion by publishers is making it harder for UK developers to be creative and innovative, areas where they have excelled in the past,” said the report. “Executives from publisher head offices acknowledge that this is partly a consequence of increasing risk aversion in parent companies who prefer to focus on well-established franchises over betting on unproven intellectual properties.

“This trend is particularly worrying for the UK video games sector which has traditionally relied on its creativity and capacity to innovate as a differentiation factor against cheaper development territories.”

The full report can be found over on Develop.

Sony’s Peter Dille has said that the company is repositioning PS3 as the “total entertainment solution”.

The massive ad campaigns rolling out in September will focus more on the Blu-ray, movie download capabilities, “mums and families,” and less on games.

“We have been a game company for years and we would never walk away from that, but research confirmed there is a larger proposition under our nose,” the VP of marketing told the LA Times. “We wanted to reposition as a total entertainment solution.

“We felt like we can really own entertainment.”

Marketing campaigns when PS3 was launched toted it as a entertainment hub as well, and according to SCE bossman Kaz Hirai, this cause the console “a bit of an identity problem”.

Via Edge.

Warner Bros has announced that a playable demo for F.E.A.R. 2: Reborn, the upcoming DLC pack for Project Origin, is available now on PSN and Xbox Live.

It’s the single-player campaign with four new levels featuring the aftermath of Alma’s destruction with a point-of-view told from Replica Soldier Foxtrot 813′s standpoint.

The DLC will be made available for purchase on September 3 for consoles and PC. On that day, a patch will be made available as well for all three ports, featuring the new Slow-Mo Deathmatch mode.

Full press release is through the jump.

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Infinity Ward’s Robert Bowling has told GamerZines that Modern Warfare 2 will “not take a page out of World at War’s book”.

The subject was posed when the online magazine asked if Infinity Ward would be returning the favor to Treyarch after the firm admitted its multiplayer was influenced by the original Modern Warfare.

“We’re not taking any pages out of World at War’s book,” he told the site. “We’re crafting a special and unique experience for Modern Warfare 2 players that I don’t want to spoil too much.

“Definitive numbers like max level cap, complete weapon lists, and number of new perks is something I don’t want to ruin and save for when the player ranks up and sees they’re constantly receiving new rewards for it, whether that’s a new weapon, perk, killstreak unlock, or item for their callsign.”

Game’s out November 10. More through the linky-poo.

Analyst firm EEDAR has said that despite price cuts for Xbox 360, no significant boost in sales can be expected for the console this year.

“Forecasting for the remainder of the year, EEDAR does not expect the Xbox 360 to see a significant sales lift over last year’s performance despite its price drop for the Xbox 360 Elite system,” noted Jesse Divnich, director of analyst service at the firm.

“In fact, the consistency of sales would indicate that the $299 price point is a sweet spot for the next-generation home consoles.”

Divnich also stated that he believes Microsoft will lower the price of the Elite $249 within a year’s time along with a $299 SKU bundled with Natal by 2011.

“Over the next year Microsoft will most likely reposition the Xbox 360 Elite model closer to the $249 price point to both pressure Sony and attract potential Nintendo Wii consumers.

“From a strategic standpoint this would then allow Microsoft to introduce the new Natal model in 2010/2011 at the $299 price point and still have an option for consumers cheaper than the Sony PlayStation 3.”

Via GI.biz.

Thanks, reask

Peter Dille, senior president of marketing and PSN, has posted Sony’s new ad campaign for PS3 over on the US PS Blog.

Called, “It Only Does Everything”, the new ads are a new campaign in which Sony “will have direct conversations with consumers about everything the PS3 can do”.

From now through the holiday season, you’ll see and hear about PS3 and what it can do on TV, radio, online, retail and social networking outlets. A total of 9 TV spots will roll out throughout the holiday, each highlighting a different benefit and feature of the system.

The campaign starts September 1 via television, and a sneak peak is posted after the break.

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Microsoft has stated that its earlier announcement regarding Facebook and Twitter on Xbox Live being for Gold Members only was “incorrect”.

According to a MS spokesperson speaking with MCV, the company is still “formulating its plans” for the services.

Granted, it stated: “Xbox Live Gold Membership will be required for Twitter and Facebook when they are available,” so it was no wonder people took it at face value.

Hit the links for more on this.

Rockstar’s released a pair of new wallpapers for The Ballad of Gay Tony: they’re the two rightmost ones here.

The second part of Microsoft’s exclusive GTA IV DLC releases on October 29.

David Cage has defended the striptease scene in Heavy Rain where character Madison Paige strips for a nightclub owner.

Apparently, players can send Madison into the loo to get “dolled up” before coming back out to strip for the nightclub owner, so as to divert his attention away from the employed pole-dancers at the club. Then there is the option to take him in the back and brandish a firearm to get information out of him.

“It was received in a very interesting way,” he told Eurogamer during GamesCom. “I think with this game we go from discovery to discovery. We had a couple of people who felt uncomfortable watching the scene, which is perfect because this is exactly what we wanted.

“You can’t pretend to trigger different types of emotions and just focus on adrenaline and fright and competition and frustration. You need to go through different emotions, and showing this scene in particular was for us a test to see if we can make people feel like Madison, having to get naked to do a striptease in front of this ugly guy, and obviously it worked because people felt very uncomfortable.

“You know, when we thought people would just enjoy getting her naked and have this teenage kind of feel, in fact no, they really felt like they were Madison and they felt very uneasy.”

Hit the link for the rest.

NCsoft has announced that its open Beta test for Aion will take place September 6-13.

Open Beta will retain a level cap for both Elyos and Asmodians characters at 30 allowing players to focus on getting to the same level so they can explore Atreia and the Abyss.

Those who have preordered the game will be “treated” to a Pre-Select and a two day Headstart period which will give players a bit more time to get ahead of the curve before it launched on September 22 and 25 in the US and UK, repsectivley.

Pre-Select will take place on the 18th, and Headstart on the 20th.

Full thing below.

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