Monthly Archives: September 2009

Gas Powered and Stardock announced on its official forums that an update for Demigod will be made available today.

Patch 1.19 fixes loads of bugs, has some changes, and has removed the multiplayer Skirmish mode, but don’t worry – it will still be available for the single-player bit.

Another patch is due out next week and Stardock CEO Brad Wardell has promised more patch updates in the future along with the addition of a mod SDK for the game as well as the possibility of new maps.

It’s all through the official forums.

Bethesda’s production director, Ashley Cheng, has defended Halo 3: ODST’s campaign length on his blog, stating that Microsoft’s marketing machine is almost solely to blame for the consumer backlash and mixed reviews.

“Microsoft and/or Bungie totally bungled the marketing on this. First saying it was a standalone expansion pack, then coming out and saying wait, no, we’re charging full price because – surprise! – we put “more” stuff in it and it’s called Halo ODST now, vs it’s original title, Halo Recon,” he wrote.

“Like Microsoft was ever going to sell this for less than full price. It is a new Halo title, it’ll sell like hotcakes no matter what.

“Because of the waffling, reviewers are now mentioning that Halo ODST may not be worth the price point, that it should’ve been cheaper, etc… Give me a break. First off, most games – especially first person shooters – are anywhere from 5-10 hours. Tops. What makes Halo different from others? You can’t just ping Halo ODST for it.

“I bet if Microsoft hadn’t screwed up the marketing messaging, there would less talk about pricing.

Youch. More through the links.

Via Videogamer.

Microsoft’s giving consumers $50 off of Xbox 360 Elite through a mail-in rebate starting today and running through October 5.

Sorry, this is in the US only.

The rebate page is not up at the moment, but will be later, and the press release after the break has all the details.

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Grasshopper Manufacture’s Goichi Suda has told 1UP that No More Heroes 2 would be the last game in the series on Wii, until the next version of the console is released.

“Looking at the Wii, I think No More Heroes 2 will probably be the last iteration for this current platform,” he told the site. “But there’s probably going to be a “Wii 2″ or other next-gen system from Nintendo at some point, so I was saying that I would want to do another game in the series on the next Nintendo platform.

“I want to continue the No More Heroes series, but I’ve finished the story for Travis. It’s completely finished in No More Heroes 2. So I want to think of a different story — a different character, or something like that within the series — starting on the next Nintendo platform.”

There’s loads more of Suda goodness through the link there.

Microsoft has revealed that its Summer of Arcade promotion for Xbox Live saw a 200 percent surge in revenue over last year, partly thanks to raising the average price of the games included in the promotion.

According to the press release posted below, Trials HD and Marvel vs. Capcom 2 performed so well in each titles’ first week, it joins Shadow Complex as one of the top five bestselling week-one XBLA games of all time.

Last year, three of the five Summer of Arcade games were priced at $10, but this summer, only two of the five were $10 with the other three costing $15 each.

Microsoft also hit a winner with 1 vs. 100 averaging over half a million users during each of the game’d live sessions.

More is past the break, courtesy of Joystiq.

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Harmonix has announced that its 20 song, standalone Metal Track Pack disc for Rock Band has landed in stores for $29.99.

There’s enough metal on it to melt your face, piss your neighbors off, and give you whiplash for a week or more.

Here’s the full bit:

1. All That Remains -Two Weeks
2. At the Gates – Blinded By Fear
3. Black Tide – ShockWave
4. Blue Oyster Cult – Transmaniacon MC
5. Bullet For My Valentine – Waking the Demon
6. Children of Bodom – Are You Dead Yet
7. Evile – Thrasher
8. Godsmack – I Stand Alone
9. The Haunted -D.O.A.
10. Hawkwind – Master Of The Universe
11. I Mother Earth – Levitate
12. In This Moment – Forever
13. Judas Priest – Screaming for Vengeance
14. Lacuna Coil – Closer
15. Lamb of God – Laid to Rest
16. Motörhead – Killed by Death
17. Nazareth – Hair of the Dog
18. Queens of the Stone Age – 3’s & 7’s
19. Rage Against The Machine – Bulls On Parade
20. Yngwie Malmsteen -Red Devil

Dice has released some information regarding upcoming changes to the Gunner in Battlefield Heroes.

Looks like shields will be shareable with teammates, the explosive keg will also slow enemies down, and frenzy fire will also heal the Gunner.

Loads more information is through here, as well as instructions on how to try these changes out on the PTE before it all goes live.

FarCry Files has a new map pack over on its site with twenty multiple game type maps for Far Cry 2.

To makes things easier for you, GamersHell has it available for download through the link.

Go shoot something.

The Hut Group has hit number one on the Sunday Times Tech Track 100.

With it’s third consecutive appearance on the chart, the e-commerce provider has seen sales grow 189 percent a year from £997,000 in 2005 to £24 million in 2008.

“To be ranked 1 is a incredible achievement,” stated the Hut’s CEO Matthew Moulding. “Given the tough economic climate, the huge growth and subsequent listing in the Tech Track is especially rewarding and we’re thrilled we have been able to buck the downward trend.

“The company has grown rapidly and thanks to the demand for competitively priced entertainment products and our new product categories. There is a real opportunity for us to drive the business forward; we’ll continue improve the overall offer and experience to our customers which is our overall goal, this will deliver increased in market share in all the areas we operate in. The recent raft of management appointments within the senior team means we are well on the way to deliver our ambitious target of £90m turnover in 2009 and driving the business to the next stage in its exciting journey.”

The group plans to expand in the coming months, with new sites with four major retailers in the next four weeks.

Press release through the break.

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EG’s reporting that Uncharted 2 will release on October 16 in Europe.

The highly anticipated Naughty Dog adventure hits the US a day earlier, on October 15.

Nelson brings word that Shaun White Snowboarding and Command & Conquer 3 have now been added to 360′s Games on Demand service.

There’s no pricing through there as it varies by region. Looks as though you can’t get C&C3 in the US, for some reason. Take that, Americans.

Yet another movie for the upcoming Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising popped up today, this time showing the game’s fog of war features. Watch it on EG.de.

There’s footage there of smoke, battlefields, smoky battlefields and men creating smoke on computers. It’s all very foggy indeed.

The war sim ships for PC, 360 and PS3 on October 9.

Sony’s confirmed MAG, God of War 3, Heavy Rain, Ratchet & Clank: A Crack in Time and Uncharted 2: Among Thieves for this year’s EG Expo.

The Eurogamer Expo 2009 is being held in Leeds and London, starting up north on October 27-28, before heading to London on October 30-31.

Buy tickets and get more info here.

Either this is bullshit or someone’s just dropped an enormous bollock. A document’s appeared on what looks to be Sega’s PR FTP site detailing a supposed meeting between SCEA and Sega on August 5.

It includes this:

PS2 emulator for PS3 (confidential)

• SCEA wants to sell all PS2 titles on PSN (GTA Vice City/Sonic/etc)
• For co Marketing money show PS3 controller on TV ads – similar to EA Madden Spots, NCAA, etc…

And this:

DC Digital Titles

• If we provide a list of DC titles SCEA will let us know which ones they’re interested in having exclusively.
• If we give them a long period of exclusivity they’ll give us more marketing support.

Sega’s just declined to comment. We’re still waiting on SCEE’s response.

Get the full thing after the break. Thanks, GAF.

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Nintendo just confirmed that three new DSi colours are to release in Europe on October 23.

Metallic Blue, Light Blue and Red will join the current white and black SKUs.

That’s it. Buy all of them. Twice. PR after the break.

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Microsoft said this week that Live gameshow 1 vs. 100 was downloaded 3 million times during its 13-week pilot season, with simultaneous connection figures hitting 114,000 in North America and 81,000 in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland.

General Live sales were up 200 percent thanks to the Summer of Arcade promotion, the firm said.

Shadow Complex and Trials HD both broke records for the most downloads of a single-player game during their respective first weeks on sale, according to MS stats.

More on EG.

Watch it on EGTV. There’s a good chunk of play in there, showing wind-driven helicopter things, snowy bits, water puzzles and more.

No date for the Frontier WiiWare sequel as yet.

There’s a video of Forza 3′s “exclusive” Ferrarris after the break, and extremely pretty they look too.

We’re still a little unsure as to what “exclusive” means as regards the car manufacture and Microsoft’s upcoming race – see here for background – but we’ll do a little nudging.

It’s out on October 23.

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Vooks has posted up the first 15 minutes of Dead Space Extraction. You can get it after the break, courtesy of Kotaku.

For the Wii core, this is a no-brainer. It really does look great. Obviously, this is a massive spoiler, so only go ahead if you need convincing. It’s out next week.

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Direct2Drive’s offering more cheap games this week as part of its fifth birthday celebrations, this time focussing on MMOs and RPGs.

The American’s get PlanetSide’s for $5, as is Neverwinter Nights 2. Brits get Age of Conan, a Titan Quest Bundle and a couple of GTA games.

Hit the links for the bananas full.