Monthly Archives: October 2009

Steam and Direct2Drive are offering digital versions of the regular and Collector’s editions of Dragon Age: Origins on the sites, and both offer goodies not present in the retail version.

The Wicked Oath, a ring that gives your character better critical strike damage and better armor penetration is the goodie on Steam, and Direct2Drive buyers can get the Dalish Ring which increases healing effects and lowers damage for Darkspawn attacks.

So there it is. The choice is yours.

Via BigDownload.

This week on the US PS movie store, those who prefer HD flicks can choose from Batman Forever, Blade, Maverick, Superman: Doomsday, The Good Shepherd, The Hitcher, Sugar and Erin Brockovich.

Land of the Lost and Drag me to Hell both debut for the non-HD crowd.

The usual HDTV shows are present as well, along with a massive offering of non-HD shows.

The full thing is over on the US PS Blog.

Quite a few games were released in Japan this week, and NintendoEverything has the list of games released and how many units each one moved.

As you would probably deduce by the title, Uncharted 2 was tops moving 47,000 units and 70 percent of its stock.

Okami for Wii moved 45 percent of its retail stock, with 19,000 units landing in the hands of gamers.

Here’s the rest:

1. Uncharted 2 (PS3) – 47,000 (70%)
2. Okami (Wii) – 19,000 (45%)
3. Undead Knights (PSP) – 13,000 (48%)
4. BeatMania IIDX 16: Empress/Premium Best (PS2) – 11,000 (54%)
5. Hagane no Renkinjutsushi: Senaka wo Takuseshi Mono (PSP) – 10,000 (43%)
6. Steins Gate (360) – LE 7,100 (58%), SE 3,800 (48%)
7. UFC 2009 (PS3) – 3,900 (60%)
8. Kimi ni Todoke: Sodateru Omoi (DS) – 3,700 (34%)
9. Shounen Sunday & Shounen Magazine: White Comic (DS) – 2,600 (12%)
10. Slotter Up Mania 11: 2027 vs 2027 II (PSP) – 1,900 (54%)
11. NBA 2K10 (PS3) – 1,700 (44%)
12. UFC 2009 (360) – 1,200 (32%)

Pokémon Heart Gold/Soul Silver reclaimed its place at the top of the Japanese all formats chart for week ending October 11.

Since the title hit shelves on September 12, it has 2.5 million sales under its belt.

Wii Fit Plus, number one last week, dropped to number two with 152 000 sales, while Atlus’ Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey debuted at number three with 97,000 in sales.

1. Pokémon Heart Gold/Soul Silver (DS) – 189,000
2. Wii Fit Plus (Wii) – 152,000
3. Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey (DS,) – 97,000
4. Inazuma Eleven 2: Threat of the Invaders – Fire/Blizzard (DS) – 95,000
5. Tomodachi Collection (DS) – 63,000
6. Gran Turismo (PSP) – 40,000
7. Wii Sports Resort (Wii) – 24,000
8. Macross Ultimate Frontier (PSP) – 19,000
9. Love Plus (DS) – 19,000
10. Dragon Quest IX (DS) – 16,000

SCEA has said that third party games are not required to be released via digital format.

Quite a few games released post PSPgo launch hit shelves on UMD and have yet to land on PSN. Because each lacks a digital version, Go users cannot play the titles. This is something that is all in the hands of the publisher, according to Sony.

“It’s up to individual third parties to decide if and when to publish their UMD releases on PSN,” SCEA’s Eric Lempel told Joystiq. “Most, if not all, are on board, as this is a revenue opportunity for them.”

Wile some companies, like Namco, do not have plans for upcoming games to be released digitally, in the past Sony has required all PS3 games to include Trophies – so it may decide to eventually do the same for Go users.

However, at this time, there are no plans to force the issue.

More through the link.

The Japanese hardware sales chart for the week ending October 11, had the DSi tops moving 50,144 units.

PS3 was again at the top of the consoles with 30,000 in sales.

• DSi – 50,144
• PSP – 40,100
• PS3 – 30,896
• Wii – 30,741
• DS Lite – 5,454
• 360 – 3,326
• PS2 – 2,133

Hardware sales in total, week-on-week, fell from 194,522 to 162,794 units.

Some more screens of Bayonetta popped up on the net this morning.

D’toid has ‘em.

The focus this time is more or less on the weapons. We love weapons.

Game’s out next year.

The update list for the US PS Store was a bit late last night, but here it is today, full of stuff.

On sale this week is Ratchet & Clank Future: Quest for Booty at $9.99 for a limited time, so is
Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket Powered Battle Cars, now $4.99.

Downloadable games this week include: .detuned, BUZZ! Junior: Monster Rally, Mushroom Wars, topatoi: The Great Tree Story, and Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation.

There’s a NBA 2K10 demo there as well, along with the following game add-ons: BUZZ! Quiz TV Space Pack, Hot Shots Golf Costume Pack 4, High Velocity Bowling Doug Graves, High Velocity Bowling Ball Pack: Halloween, High Velocity Bowling Ball Pack: Planets, Wolfmother for Guitar Hero 5, Red Faction: Guerrilla Smasher Pack, and a ton of stuff for Rock Band.

PSP users can download the following: SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs Tactical Strike, Manhunt 2, Midnight Club L.A. Remix, Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition, Street Fighter Alpha 3 Max, Astro Boy: The Video Game, Harvest Moon: Boy & Girl, music for Rock Band Unplugged, Innocent Life: A Futuristic Harvest Moon, and Reel Fishing: The Great Outdoors.

The full thing can be found over on the US PS Blog.

Hokuto Musou, the new Dynasty Warriors-style Fist of the North Star game from KOEI, has a short gameplay video out.

It’s over on Eurogamer France.

Not too much is known other than characters and gameplay style. It’s also not announced for anywhere else other that Japan at the moment, for 2010.

Activision has announced that Star Wars Battlefront: Elite Squadron on DS and PSP will land at retail on November 6.

The game lets you and 15 of your friends -if you have that many- fight online on PSP using different Star Wars heroes or customizing your own.

DS supports four people online, but characters are pre-made.

Via Eurogamer.

The rumors of Mass Effect 2 heading to PS3 received another shot in the arm, thanks to a comment made by BioWare’s Jay Watamaniuk during a presentation at Poznan Game Arena.

While demoing ME2 at the event, Watamaniuk slipped up and said it was to hit three platforms: PC, Xbox 360, “and probably PS3.”

According to Polish website Polygamia, which was at the event, Watamaniuk seemed to realize what he said and started to take it back by using the old stand-by: “The studio doesn’t comment on rumors and speculation”.

We’ll send a mail out to BioWare for you, but don’t expect to get more than the extended no comment response.

Via D’toid.

A new video for F1 2009 has been released, showing two pals on a couch playing the game.

Codemasters says that the title will be released for Wii and PSP on November 20.

The video and some pics are over on CVG.

For reference purposes only, F1 2010 for PS3 and 360 will be out early next year.

Nintendodpad’s posted the first Game Informer scan of Epic Mickey. It looks mental.

There’s only one page there, but you get a good idea of what’s going on. Looks a lot more colourful than we expected.

Check it out.

Naughty Dog co-president Evan Wells has told VG247 that Uncharted 2 wouldn’t have been the game it eventually became without PS3′s unique hardware features.

The exec added, though, that differences between PS3 and Xbox 360 games, in the main, are more the cause of developer talent that hardware factors.

“I think the differences that you see between any two games has much more to do with the developer than whether it’s on the Xbox or PS3,” said Wells, talking in an interview published today.

“Great programmers and great artists are going to make a great game. Naughty Dog will continue to push the PlayStation hardware as far as we can.

“We’re fortunate that we get to work on a system that has a hard drive and uses blu-ray for storage. Without these things, Uncharted 2 would have been a very different game. What we were able to do with the Cell processor allowed us to achieve a density of polygons and a fidelity to our effects that would simply not be possible without it.

“But ultimately, if we didn’t have a team of very talented programmers and artists, we wouldn’t have been able to take advantage of the hardware and achieve the results that we did.”

Uncharted 2, the highest-rated PS3 exclusive of all time, is available in the UK from today.

Uncharted 2 ships in the UK today. The superlative bin is empty: it’s the highest rated PS3 exclusive of all time, and one of the best reviewed full stop.

We were lucky enough to get some time with Evan Wells, co-president of Naughty Dog, to talk about the game’s development, how PS3′s unique aspects allowed the team to make the title it did, how the company will now follow on into a third game and much more.

Hit the link.

Interview by Nathan Grayson.

More »

I won the Games Media Legend award at the Games Media Awards in London last night, as well as Specialist Writer (Web). VG247 won the Games Blog award. By the end of it, I got up on stage and genuinely had no words. I’m better at writing than speaking (clearly), so here’s what I would have said given the benefit of hindsight and not having 400 people cheering at me.

More »

Worried that Alpha Protocol’s now official delay is Corporate-ese for “development troubles”? Well quit your blubbering; Obsidian’s Matthew Rorie says the delay’s simply about polish and visibility for the depressingly off-the-radar RPG.

“Just keep in mind that, in the end, this is going to help Alpha Protocol achieve the greatest success possible for it. The game is going to get a good coat of polish to it, and it’s also hopefully going to become more visible to the gaming community at large. So that’s a win-win for everyone. It sucks that it won’t be coming out for a while, but it’ll be awesome when it does,” he said on the official Obsidian forums.

So there you go.

The Miyamoto floodgates have opened. Unless we explicitly say otherwise, you should probably just assume that any headline we post for the next 24 hours is a Miyamoto quote. (Miyamoto247? We think it has a nice ring to it.) This time, he’s talking HD graphics and Nintendo’s stance on them.

“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with pretty graphics, and if I’m a consumer that has an HDTV, I’d want to be able to play my games with nice graphics too. And I think as we’ve seen the penetration rates for HDTV increase, we’re going to see video games and Nintendo’s games move along in step with the progression of technology,” Miyamoto told IndustryGamers.

“But what I don’t think is necessarily true is that the graphics itself is something that’s going to make the gameplay experience better. So we’re still going to focus on the gameplay, but we’ll take advantage of the technology as it comes out.”

Wii HD confirmed. For 2019.

Speaking with Joystiq, Mario maestro Shigeru Miyamoto admitted that – should the opportunity arise – he’d love to bring user-created content into Super Mario’s world.

“This is an area that I have a lot of interest in, and I think that the side-scrolling Mario games in particular are well suited to that idea,” he said.

“Of course the Mario vs. Donkey Kong series is one that’s made in North America by NST, but it’s one that I’ve been involved in and from early on. We did have a lot of discussions about how to enable that kind of level creation in that series.”

“And I think those types of interactive experiences are going to continue to broaden and we’ll see a lot more user-generated content going forward. I’ve always had an interest in those kinds of creative tools, so I will definitely be open to ideas like that in the future.”

Sackboy, you’re adorable and all, but it’s time for a real platforming hero to show you how it’s done. One who doesn’t control like he’s walking through jello.

More through the link.

Being excited about Borderlands’ imminent release is so last week. Now it’s all about the zany RPG-shooter’s upcoming DLC, which looks – to us, anyway – very Halloweeny (tee-hee!). Want to know more? Of course you do! So here’s a description:

“Tasked with keeping the workers of Jakobs Cove alive, Dr. Ned (who is not related to Dr. Zed from Fyrestone) does his job a little too well, creating zombies and other abominations that now run rampant in this region. Players will have to work alongside Dr. Ned as they embark on a quest to cure the inhabitants of Jakobs Cove in this full-fledged expansion filled with new enemies, new quests and rare loot drops.”

$9.99′s the asking price for this co-op undead slaughter-fest. Left 4 what now? We don’t even know!

Giant Bomb managed to scare up a few screens of the creepy crawly content, should you wish to spoil Borderlands’ main course by nibbling at a bit of desert first.

The DLC’s out “later this year.”