Monthly Archives: September 2009

Aion’s will get “at least” one major annual content update going forward, NCsoft has confirmed to VG247.

“There will be at least one major update a year,” said brand manager Christian-Peter Heimbach, talking in an interview published today.

“You know this from our previous titles. We’re currently adjusting on how we’re going to make these available, but there will be free content updates for all players, and we’re looking then at how big the major updates will be.”

The MMO, which has collected a giant 400,000 pre-orders, will go live in the US tomorrow and on Friday in Europe.

NCsoft has long adhered to a system of providing its MMOs with yearly content updates.

THQ’s made Dawn of War II’s first expansion, Chaos Rising, official. Get the the PR after the break.

It’s out next spring and add Chaos Space Marines as a playable army.

The update also includes new single-player and co-op campaigns, a level cap increase from 20 to 30 and new gear.

Read away, strategy fans.

Update: Some shots here. Thanks, TomisH.

More »

Nintendojo’s reporting that a “retailer conference call” confirmed a Wii price cut for September 27.

“Nintendojo can now confirm that such a cut is indeed coming,” said the site.

“Wii will be reduced to $199, effective Sunday, September 27th, and will likely include retailers nationwide.”

Asking Nintendo now. Thanks, Gorman.

In case you’ve been living under a rock, NCsoft MMO Aion releases this week. More than 400,000 people are lined up to play the Korean fantasy import, and it’s looking very much like this is the largest MMO event of the year by a substantial margin.

To celebrate, we had a chat with brand manager Christian-Peter Heimbach at NCsoft’s Brighton office on westernizing the game, plans for the future and plenty more.

After the break.

More »

Motion tech isn’t going to be the PS3 and 360 revolution some may have us believe, Square Enix head Yoichi Wada’s told the FT.

“Present game machines already have a lot of functions: they are a network terminal, a Blu-ray or DVD player, and a gaming machine. Compared to these three pillars, the [new motion] controllers are quite limited, so the impact may be small. They are an extension of the gaming function,” he said.

In the next breath, however, Wada had this to say about Natal: “As a user interface it’s fantastic and I think it will become standard.”

The low-impact, completely ubiquitous gaming UI is expected to ship late next year.

The exec wasn’t finished there, however. He reckons a new Wii’s coming in 2011, with “functionality more like that of Microsoft’s Xbox 360 or Sony’s PlayStation 3, and possibly a different controller,” according to that report.

You go, Yoichi. Thanks, Joystiq.

Need for Speed: Shift’s gone top of the UK charts, knocking Guitar Hero 5 off the top spot.

Data below for the week ending September 19. Last week’s chart here. Thanks, GI.

1. Need for Speed: Shift
2. Guitar Hero 5
3. Colin McRae: Dirt 2
4. Batman: Arkham Asylum
5. Wii Sports Resort
6. WET
7. The Beatles: Rock Band
8. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
9. Wii Fit
10. Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10

Nadeo’s announced Trackmania 2 at a Paris event; get shakycam of the reveal after the break.

It’s going to involve tracks and cars. It looks pretty. Doesn’t appear to contain too many shocks from the movie.

It’s out next year for PC.

Via Blue and RPS.

More »

SCEA PSN boss Eric Lempel has directly contradicted comments made by SCEA senior account manager Justin Cooney on the matter of whether developers are allowed to patch and add multiplayer to PSP Minis.

“You can patch Minis,” Lempel told Destructoid, “but we won’t have multiplayer functions in the beginning.

“Basically, to get these developers on board, and to make it easier to test and get it through the pipeline, we won’t be allowing that functionality for the first stage of Minis.”

Cooner told Gamasutra last week that, according to the site, “PSP Mini digital download games will not be allowed to have wireless multiplayer functionality, downloadable content, or software updates.”

What a crazy, crazy mess. Somebody should write a letter. Minis launch alongside PSP go on October 1.

Still waiting for GoldenEye on WiiWare or XBLA? Sounds as though you should be pulling the flag down to half-mast.

“That was some time ago, my friend,” said a Rare rep, answering a question on the status of a revamp for the shooter in the latest edition of Scribes.

“Fate was against us that day. Destiny conspired to raise the hurdles even as we attempted to clear them, resulting in unpleasant groinal injury.

“I suspect we’re long past the stage where an agreement was on the cards, but you never know. Stranger things have happened… somewhere… probably.”

That’s one scratched off the list, then. XBLA GoldenEye will just have to exist in your fevered dreams.

More art from the now-defunct Ensemble Studios Halo MMO has emerged, this time from the desk of Ensemble-contracted artist Dylan Cole. He recently posted two pieces of concept art from the videogame-heaven-bound Halo title, both of which focus on what Cole calls “Halo Universe City.”

Since “Halo Universe” is capitalized twice on Cole’s page, speculation holds that “Halo Universe” was the game’s title. Or maybe it’s not. Regardless, the concept art is quite a sight, and is well worth a look.

Shame we’ll only be looking, though, and never touching. Oh well.

Tri-Ace has just released a new trailer for its upcoming firepower-powered RPG Resonance of Fate (known as End of Eternity in Japan), and it’s looking pretty awesome.

If you’ve been wanting more stylish, slow-mo shooting in your life, this game looks to fit the bill. There’s also pulse-pounding orchestral music and impeccably coifed anime characters. Basically, it’s more of the same in RPG land, but somehow different. Or something.

Joystiq has the trailer. Go check it out.

Over on Scribblenauts’ Facebook page, 5th Cell is teasing a big announcement for its tiny game.

“Get your rooster hats ready,” reads the status update. “We have a very special announcement coming very soon…”

What could it be? A sequel? New items? More rooster regalia? We have no idea. Do you? If so, why not comment on it? Sure, our word entry field may not bring your every whimsical idea to life, but it’s still kinda neat.

Well, that was quick. After being declared a “big point of discussion” by Sega a mere three days ago, 1UP‘s reporting that Yakuza 3 is now being localized for a Western release. Quite a turnaround time, that.

The news comes from “sources close to the project.”

Great news for all you wannabe Japanese mafiosos if true, but we’re still skeptical. Thus, the “rumor” tag.

Thanks, Gekidami.

Loads of news this week in MMO land, kiddos.

Massively is giving away Beta keys to Star Trek Online, Aion dropped GameGuard and launched its first server, Pirates are everywhere, and Sony is giving you double station cash this weekend.

There is also news concerning Champions Online, EVE, Guild Wars 2, EverQuest, Warhammer, Runes of Magic, and loads of other stuff you can find here instead of searching everywhere.

It’s all past the break.

More »

The embargo on Halo 3: ODST has lifted! We’ve scoured the Internet and found every* review – every opinion, every ounce of knowledge – of the game and posted them all here. Just for you! Have a look-see!

• Kotaku – No score (More blue paragraphs than red, though. That’s good, right?)
• Joystiq – No score
• Giant Bomb – 4/5
• Planet Xbox – 9.3/10
• 1UP – A-
• IGN – 9/10
• Eurogamer – 8/10
• Gamespy – 4/5
• Worthplaying – 9.5/10
• GamePro – 4.5/5
• NowGamer – 6.3/10 (!)
• Gametrailers – 8.9/10
• Gamikaze – 8.9/10
• Edge – 9/10

*This is a blatant lie. If there are more reviews you’d like us to add, just drop us a line.

The first trailer for Fighting Fantasy: The Warlock of Firetop Mountain has landed.

It’s past the break courtesy of FileFront.

The first-person RPG based on the book by Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson is expected to hit DS in time for the holiday shopping extravaganza, and iPhone and iPod Touch are also expected to get versions based on the books later this year.

More »

Zune HD’s free apps require you to view interstitial advertisements before using.

According to Ars Technica, one of the games called Goo Splat has a Kia Soul avert that plays while you wait 17 seconds for the game to load.

The Chess application also includes a video ad for the vehicle, and makes you sit through 30 seconds of it while the app boots up.

For now – if ever- there is not an option to skip the promotional material.

Just so you know. Free app on Zune equals sitting through and advert first.

Via Joystiq.

Valve’s Chet Faliszek has said that the reason it chose New Orleans as the location in Left 4 Dead 2 had more to do with the east coat of the US not being used in games much, this making it a fresh locale.

“We still wanted it to be on the East coast, a bunch of us are from the area,” he told Planet Half-Life. “It’s an interesting place that is not covered in a lot of video games. There’s not a lot of video games that go down to the deep south, through the Savanna and New Orleans. There’s a lot of cool gameplay there, there’s a lot of cool areas. You can be in the swamps, the Savanna or New Orleans, it’s a beautiful city.

“It seemed like a good opportunity to go through there, so we jumped on it.”

Don’t forget that the deep south can be a very mysterious place, what with all the live oaks littered with Spanish moss fluttering in the breeze; the humid heaviness of the air; the thick essence of jasmine and wisteria wafting through your nostrils; toothy zombies just gagging to sink rotting fangs into you.

Great place it is.

Blizzard lead technical artist Julian Love, a Blizzard North veteran, and lead content designer Kevin Martens, had a chat with Gamasutra about all things Diablo III and during the discussion, Martens revealed his opinion on the “PC gaming is dead” mentality that comes creeping through the net ever so often.

The way Blizzard counteracts this, is to keep system requirements low while making sure its games are still marketable.

“The death knell of PC has risen and fallen over the years, and we keep releasing PC games, and they keep doing incredibly well,” said Martens. “I think that there is a market out there for PC games. The latest consoles are great; it’s easy to get the game running and all that. They’re useful.

“But everyone has a PC, and we try to keep our system requirements down as low as possible. That’s one of the ways that we can make sure to appeal to enough people. Some of the really cutting edge games that come out for PC require a brand new video card and probably more RAM at least, if not a new CPU as well. That’s really rare with Blizzard games. I think that’s one of the reasons we still keep doing well.

“The best evidence that the PC market is not actually dying is the 20,000 people that showed up this year at Blizzcon, and the fact that those tickets sold out in one minute flat.

“That doesn’t seem to me, that it’s really good evidence, of a platform with a problem.”

Craig Alexander, Turbine’s VP of product development, spoke today at a panel during GDC Austin called “MMOs to Consoles”, saying that the fifth generation of MMOs will be on consoles and even called it a “superior” platform.

“It’s the 360 and the PS3 where we really finally have the hardware and the storage capacity to develop what we consider more traditional MMOs with lots of content,” he said. “The hardware in the Wii more closely resembles the previous generation than the current one. It’s just not there yet.”

To point out the development steps, he provided slides showing the process – and told attendees that from a developer’s standpoint, working on PS3 was harder than 360, so start with PS3 and go from there.

Here’s why:

• The Blu-ray drive on the PS3 is actually slower in seek and access time than the DVD drive on the Xbox 360. Once the Blu-ray gets up to speed, it can handle large amount of data. Just not in seeking and accessing, which is a pain for streaming when you’re playing something like an MMO.
• The memory architecture is different. When you’re dealing with main memory, you work with “256ish MB” on the PS3 vs “512ish MB” on the 360.
• The tools aren’t as friendly on the PS3. That includes the performance monitor tools, the debugger tools … everything.
• Migrating a project from the Xbox 360 to the PS3 is much harder than moving from the PS3 to the 360.

Alexander feels that since it took MMOs ten years to mature on PC, MMOs will “revolutionize the console in the same way they helped grow the PC.”

Full thing through Joystiq.