Monthly Archives: September 2009

DICE founder Fredrik Liljegren has a new studio called Antic Entertainment, and Digital Extremes’ Mark Mikulec and Jeff Evans are on board as well.

The new teams has announced a new free-to-play title called Junk: Battles, which is an RTS hybrid for web browsers.

In it, you can create a ship and battle other users, garnering ship parts and stats as you progres through he game.

The official site is here should this interest you.

Via Gamasutra.

Looks like the Aion: Collector’s Edition is a very popular game,  a it topped both Steam and Direct2Drive’s charts for the week of September 19.

Batman: Arkham Asylum didn’t do too bad either though, coming in at a respectable second and third.

Steam

1. Aion Collector’s Edition (Pre-Sale)
2. Batman: Arkham Asylum
3. Resident Evil 5
4. Star Wars Jedi Knight Collection
5. Garry’s Mod
6. Left 4 Dead
7. Red Faction: Guerrilla
8. Aion Standard Edition (Pre-Sale)
9. Counter-Strike Source
10. Champions Online

Direct2Drive

1. Aion Collector’s Edition (Pre-Sale)
2. Champions Online
3. Batman: Arkham Asylum
4. Fallen Earth (Pre-Sale)
5. BioShock
6. The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena
7. Need for Speed SHIFT
8. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
9. Majesty 2: The Fantasy Kingdom Sim
10. Aion Standard Edition (Pre-Sale)

Via Shack.

During PAX, Sony sent out a Tweet asking what the public to submit questions to Naughty Dog’s creative director Amy Hennig regarding Uncharted 2.

It looks as though many questions were answered, as you can see in the video below the break and through the US PS Blog.

In the video, Amy talks about all sorts of stuff from the game’s adventure aspects to the power of the PS3 to food, apparently.

Sony also posted a reminder that tonight at 6:30pm EST, you should tune in to G4′s X-Play as the show features a behind-the-scenes visit to Naughty Dog.

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Big Park plans to release a new Xbox Live title this holiday season called Joy Ride which will be downloadable for free and you can continue playing through micro-transactions later on.

In the MMO-ish game, you can use your Avatar to race around in vehicles and explore the game.

To make money, the game will offer “rich customization options through micro-transactions to suit every personality,” according to a press release received by MTV.

Expansions and other downloadable content, including stunt parks, tracks, cars, car upgrades, Avatar clothing and animations, and new events will be made available for it as well.

Sounds interesting to say the least.

More through the link.

Looks like EA has officially announced the two microphone pack for The Beatles: Rock Band.

The two microphone pack for PS3 contains two SingStar mics and is for sale now in the UK for £49.99.

In the press release, Harmonix and MTV threw in a gentle reminder that Abbey Road will be released on October 20, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band in November and Rubber Soul in December.

It’s all after the break.

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According to German site PC Games, Wolfenstein is being recalled due to the swastika being present in the game.

It is against the law in Germany for anything to have a swastika in it, apparently.

A statement from Activision is expected in the coming days, according to the site’s sources, while Planet Wolfenstein has observantly pointed out that since teams from Endrant and Raven have both been laid off, it may complicate creating an edited version.

We will send Activision an email and see if anyone gets back with us.

Thanks, Blue.

Left 4 Dead was patched via XBL today, and it adds improvements to the HUD when you play as a zombie in versus mode.

Also, a timer in the Zombie HUD was added and it counts down the special attack recharge of the other infected that you’re playing with.

There is loads more over on the forums, and talk about he addition of extra achievements showing up in supposed preparation of Crash Course.

Via Kotaku.

LucasArts project, lead David Nottingham, has revealed to D’tpoid was influenced the art direction of the firm’s upcoming XBLA and PC title, Lucidity.

“For Lucidity, we wanted to develop a unique art style that didn’t really feel like anything else and it was developed hand in hand with the story, so that one would complement the other,” Nottingham told the site. “Jeff Sangalli (the art director) and I are both big believers in visual stylization and he was talking about wanting the game to feel like a pop-up book, using multi-planing and 2D cards to help achieve the affect.

“The style was largely developed working with Andrea Rhodes. If you look at her work, you can see a Mary Blair influence but she’s pretty unique. This was kind of a dream project for her as it fit her distinctive art style so perfectly.

“Something else that was cool was the paper texture that was applied to the artwork. There’s kind of a style you see in children’s books where the artwork can look like cut paper. You see this in books like The Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle.”

“The concept of combining 2D and 3D was Jeff’s. He’s been big on that for a while and had wanted to incorporate it into Monkey but was unable to due to the limitations of having to overlay over the original sprite animations.”

There’s plenty more through the link.

Koch Media has announced that Prison Break: The Conspiracy will be released for PC, PS3, and Xbox 360 March 26 in Europe.

Based on the television series, the action/adventure game features agent Tom Paxton who is sent to the Fox River State Penitentiary to find out why Michael Scofield became a bank robber.

The storyline runs parallel to the first season of the series as Paxton encounters several characters that should be familiar to you if you watched the show, and he also experiences some of the key events that happened, but from his own perspective.

Here’s hoping it’s better than the one for LOST.

Thanks, StrategyInformer.

Halo 3: ODST users were polled by OTX regarding what title they’ll be purchasing next.

According to the results of the poll, users plan to purchase three games within the next few months, and Modern Warfare 2, Assassins Creed 2 and Left 4 Dead 2 were the most desired titles.

Most of the top 20 games charted by the group were composed of Xbox 360 titles, but God of War III was a popular response with 18 percent claiming it was to be their next purchase.

Why all this matters, we don’t know. But there it is anyway.

Via Joystiq (IndustryGamers).

Linden Labs has announced that Second Life users have logged over one billion hours in the game along with spending over one billion in-world money on game transactions.

Good Lord that’s loads of time and fake money.

Here are some more astounding numbers, courtesy of the press release posted after the break:

• Users around the world have spent more than one billion hours in Second Life which rounds out to around 115,000 years with user hours growing 33 percent year-over-year to an all-time high of 126 million in Q2 2009.
• Users spend an average of about 100 minutes in-world per visit.
• The equivalent of more than $1 billion has been transacted between Residents in Second Life, who purchase virtual goods and services from one another. The in-world economy grew 94 percent year-over-year from Q2 2008 to Q2 2009. Now at nearly $50 million each month in user-to-user transactions, the Second Life economy is on an annual run rate of more than a half billion US dollars, making Second Life the largest virtual economy in the industry.
• Residents create more than 250,000 new virtual goods every day. There are now more than 270 terabytes of content and this is growing by approximately 100 percent every year.
• More than 18 billion minutes of voice chat have been used since voice was introduced in 2007. Voice minutes grew 44 percent year-over-year from Q2 2008 to Q2 2009, and more than 6 billion minutes of voice have been delivered in 2009.
• 1,250 text-based messages are sent every second, and more than 600 million words are typed on an average day. Roughly 60 percent of active Second Life Residents are based outside of the US, representing more than 200 countries, and the Second Life Viewer is available in 10 languages.
• The total land area of Second Life is now equivalent to approximately 2 billion square meters – roughly the size of the state of Rhode Island. Land in Second Life has grown roughly 18 percent since Q1 2009 and approximately 75 percent since Q1 2008.

Holy hell.

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Former Team Ninja head Tomonobu Itagaki has called the Japanese game market the equivalent of sakoku, which was when Japan closed it’s borders to to the outside world 400 years ago.

“I think that, in time, [the games market] will end up much like the Japanese film industry, you know? I mean it will become similar in terms of its competitiveness in mass markets, its ability to raise funds, and its technological prowess,” he told Kotaku. “I mean, Kojima-san at Konami has been talking about the technological side of the issue for quite some time now, hasn’t he?

“Whether it goes into a major decline or not will depend on the publishers and game creators here in Japan. There’s no point in traveling the same path that Japan did 400 years ago, after all. I’m talking about sakoku, the policy in which Japan closed its borders to the outside world. What the industry is doing right now is just a modern form of sakoku.

“What I’m trying to get at is that you’ve got to be an Earthling first, and a Japanese second.

As far as an announcement regarding the games he has been working on, he said that “it’s just not time to announce anything quite yet”, and added that “my partners and I are working on quite a few bombshells at the moment”.

Good to know.

Expected sometime this winter, Fat Princess: Fistful of Cake for PSP has been previewed and screened over on D’toid.

If you are interested in the PSP version of the popular platformer, you should go have a read at the very least to see what it entails and looks like.

You already knew there was 50 percent more content, but there is a bit more to it than that.

Go on. Hit the link. You know you wanna.

Mad Catz has announced a second round of Street Fighter IV FightSticks and FightPads for this fall.

The new Tournament Edition Arcade FightSticks feature new artwork with character-specific FightPads featuring: M. Bison, Guile, Zangief, C. Viper, Cammy, and Sagat.

Made for both PS3 and Xbox 360, each are rather cool looking and can be seen over on Capcom Unity.

The full press release is below.

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Looks like EA and Popcap are planning to release downloadable games on DSi.

Popcap’s Bookworm will land this month, and Bejeweled Twist in mid-October while Bookworm for DS will launch December 1 and Bejeweled Twist during Q1 of 2010.

EA’s Scrabble and Littlest Pet Shop are coming this fall, while MySims and Sudoku were released yesterday. Downtown Texas Hold’em and unannounced original titles will be available later this fall.

Both press releases are posted below the break in a nice, lovely wall of text.

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SCEA producer, Daimion Pinnock, has posted a video over on the US PS Blog for MotorStorm Arctic Edge.

In Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Making Of: Part 3, viewers will get “exclusive insight into the development” of the PSP title, as they tag along with Bigbig Studios to wild wonderful Alaska.

Also, those that watch will see how the weather influences gameplay, how to customize the experience, how the game integrates into PlayStation Home, and the video also provides details on the Ad-Hoc and Infrastructure multiplayer features.

It’s past the break and also through the link.

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Bethesda has revealed that it’s second Wii game is Medieval Games, and is to be released in November.

It’s a mini-game title from what we can tell, here’s how the press release describes it:

“From battling dragons and storming the castle, to catapulting and archery contests, Medieval Games offers hours of fun for the entire family. Choose from a variety of colorful characters, such as the knight, princess, bard, or wizard as you compete in a variety of game modes. Tournaments and jousting await in this rich fantasy world!”

It’s being developed by N-Fusion Interactive.

More through CVG.

TIGA has called for a national Games Tax Relief to help aid and spur the growth of current interactive developers, following a report from nine English Regional Development Agencies (RDA) disclosing a gap in assistance based on region.

Citing the current system of assistance as “incoherent and insufficient,” TIGA wants a single, region-wide policy to eliminate what it calls the current “post code lottery.”

“While many other countries provide generous tax relief for games production there is no similar tax benefit for game developers in England,” said TIGA CEO Richard Wilson. “More funding should be made accessible through national programmes that developers, irrespective of their geographical location, can benefit from.”

TIGA say that Games Tax Relief would help assist 60-80 titles a year and create more than 1,400 jobs over a five year period.

More through GamePolitics.

Halo 3 is still on top this week, which really shouldn’t surprise anyone that is living and breathing – or not for that matter.

CoD: WaW is still sitting pretty at second, with CoD4 third, and the rest not changing too much over the week.

Live Titles

1. Halo 3
2. Call of Duty: WaW
3. Call of Duty 4
4. Gears of War 2
5. Madden NFL 10
6. GTA IV
7. FIFA Soccer 10 Demo
8. FIFA 09
9. Left 4 Dead
10. Batman: Arkham Asylum

Arcade, Indie, and Original stuff is after the break, courtesy of the Major.

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A video showing off Sacred 2′s Ice and Blood expansion on PC has surfaced over on CVG.

Watching it, you will become privy to the new Cursed Forest area.

The expansion adds more to the world of Ancaria with two new regions and over 30 hours of additional gameplay, but a new playable character is to be made available along with lots and lots of new enemies, items, missions, and weapons.

Cool. Go watch.