Monthly Archives: October 2009

A new live-action video for Army of Two: The 40th Day has been released from EA Montreal.

In it, Salem and Rios are trick or treating and instead of getting candy, they get office supplies.

The video is past the break, courtesy of D’toid.

Game’s out in January for PS3, PSP, and Xbox 360.

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There are ten screens for BioShock 2 over on Eurogamer.

Some look rather new, heck, each one may be new. We’ve seen so many it’s hard to tell anymore.

Go see for yourself anyway.

It’s out next year. You know you want it.

This week on the US PS video store, you have quite a few HD horror flicks to choose from, with the exception of an Eddie Murphy flick. However, that may be horror to some, so to each his own.

The one that looks the most cringe inducing, to us at least, is The Thaw with Val Kilmer. Hollywood just can’t get enough of scary things coming out of the Arctic, and this time a Woolly Mammoth has thawed thanks to Global Warming and releases these slug things that lay eggs under your skin – thus resulting in worldwide chaos. Gross.

Non-HD offerings are full of horror flicks as well, including Children of the Corn. Outlander! Outlander! We have your woman! She still lives Outlander! *shiver*

Here’s the full list of both HD and non-HD offerings.

HD Movies

• Imagine That
• Wrong Turn 3: Left for Dead
• The Thaw
• The Children
• Seventh Moon
• Offspring
• Hannibal Rising

Non-HD Movies

• Children of the Corn
• Hannibal Rising
• The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 Featurette: Making of Pelham
• Wrong Turn 3: Left for Dead
• Year One (Rated)

The list of TV offerings can be found over on the US PS Blog.

Activision has announced that a DLC pack for Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2 will hit November 3.

It features playable characters Black Panther, Cable, Carnage, Psylocke and an unannounced character.

Also included are boosts, and simulator missions for $9.99 on PSN and 800 MS Points on XBL.

The former GameStop exclusive, Juggernaut, will also be available for $1.99 on PSN and 160 MS Points on XBL.

There’s a video of Black Panther in action over on D’toid.

Activision has sent over a list of downloadable tracks for Guitar Hero 5, that will be landing on consoles in November.

Fans of Lenny Kravitz and KISS will be privy to track packs from both, and there will also be a six-pack of free songs from Neversoft bands.

Wii users will be getting a heaping helping of Metallica with tracks from Death Magnetic that are already available on PS3 and Xbox 360.

Here’s the list, with pricing to be announced later:

• November 12: Lenny Kravitz Track Pack – Let Love Rule, Lady, Fly Away

• November 19: KISS Track Pack – Modern Day Delilah, Lick It Up, I Was Made for Loving You

• November 24: Neversoft Thanks the Fans Track Pack – Lemon Frosting by Bunny Knutson, RockNRola by Nancy Fullforce, From the Blue/Point of No Return/T.T.R.T.S. by An Endless Sporadic, Love Holds It Down by Dom Liberati, You Really Like Me by Davidicus, and Guilty Pleasures by Tony Solis

• November 24: Metallica, Death Magnetic Tracks for Wii – All Nightmare Long, That Was Just Your Life, The Day That Never Comes, The Judas Kiss, The End Of The Line, The Unforgiven III, Suicide & Redemption J.H., Suicide & Redemption K.H.

Full PR through the jump.

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Ubisoft’s Canadian division CEO, Yannis Mallat, said during the GameON finance conference that as far as the console version of the Splinter Cell franchise is concerned, it is to remain an Xbox 360 exclusive for the time being.

“Until further notice [it's staying on Xbox 360],” Mallat told GamingUnion. “However, I’m only the one making the games, you should talk to the people in Paris [for confirmation].”

Previous iterations of the franchise appeared on Sony and Nintendo systems after debuting on the original Xbox.

More through the link.

Fallout 3 has just won the Ultimate Game of the Year award at this year’s Golden Joysticks.

More than 1.2 million people voted for games and companies in the 2009 awards: Future’s now claiming it’s the most popular event of its type.

Here’s the full list, robbed from the CVG live blog. Congrats to all the winners!

• Nitro Family Game of the Year – LittleBigPlanet
• Bliss Handheld Game of the Year – GTA: Chinatown Wars
• Retailer of the Year – GAME
• Mobile Game of the Year – Metal Gear Solid: Touch
• Nintendo Game of the Year – Call of Duty: World at War
• MSN Multiplayer Game of the Year – Call of Duty: World at War
• Rampage Soundtrack of the Year – Guitar Hero: World Tour
• Xbox Game of the Year – Gears of War 2
• PC Game of the Year – Fallout 3
• Amiqus Game Developer of the year – Jagex
• PlayStation Game of the Year – Killzone 2
• Publisher of the Year – Activision Blizzard
• Online Game of the Year – Left 4 Dead
• One to Watch – Modern Warfare 2
• Ultimate Game of the Year – Fallout 3

Once again, the US PS Blog posted the update list after we hit the pillows, so we apologize for being a day late.

Anyhow, there’s a PSP sale this week that sees Super Stardust Portable, echochrome, Myst, Brain Challenge, and Unbound Saga up for 50 percent off through November 4, while Manhunt 2’s price has been reduced to $19.99.

Downloadable games this week include: Inferno Pool ($9.99), and Hasbro Family Game Night ($39.99), while demos for Ratchet And Clank Future: A Crack In Time (Ratchet Demo), Fat Princess, and Pro Evo 10 are also available.

Add-on content consists of the Elvira character pack for PAIN, Trivial Pursuit Sports Pack, DJ Hero Extended Mix Pack, and the same Guitar Hero 5 tracks as the Euro update.

PSP Minis available are Zombie Tycoon ($7.99) and Yummy Yummy Cooking Jam ($4.99) while downloadable games include: LocoRoco: Midnight Carnival ($14.99), NBA 2K10 ($29.99), Darkstalkers Chronicles: The Chaos Tower ($19.99), Mega Man Maverick Hunter X ($19.99), Crystal Defenders ($9.99), Petz Dogz Family ($29.99), Petz Hamsterz Bunch ($29.99), Petz Saddle Club ($29.99), and the same Rock Band Unplugged tunes as the Euro update.

PSP owners who would like to play some demos can choose between LocoRoco Midnight Carnival, Jak and Daxter: The Lost Frontier, Crystal Defenders, and Petz Saddle Club, or just get all of them. Who are we to judge you?

The full thing, with themes and the like can be looked over via the US PS Blog.

Awesome. SCEA just announced a God of War III Ultimate Edition for the US, to retail at a cool $100.

It’s “encased in a high-end sculpted replica of Pandora’s Box”. Pre-orderers will get a voucher to download the demo.

What’s in the box? This is what’s in the box:

• The game.
• An art book.
• A director’s cut of God of War: Unearthing the Legend, “a full-length movie documentary depicting the history of the God of War franchise.”
• A God of War Trilogy soundtrack and the God of War Heavy Metal EP.
• Access to the God of War Combat Arena, containing an exclusive environment and up to seven unique challenges, as well as the exclusive Kratos skin, Dominus, all available from PSN.

PR after the break. SCEE just said Euros are to get their own CE. It’s out next March.

Now. You love Kratos. Do you love Kratos to the tune of $100?

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SCEE just said it’s sending out God of War III demo invites for European users this weekend, which is probably awesome.

In addition, the firm just said that PAL users are going to get their very own Collector’s Edition.

“I also wanted to update you on the ‘God of War III Ultimate Edition’ which was announced for the North American market by SCEA,” said the amazingly-named Euro GoWIII chap, Thach Quach.

“No need to panic guys, we are not forgetting you! We will also announce the Special/Collector’s Edition and extensive pre-order plans in place for the PAL region. So watch this space, you won’t be disappointed for sure.”

Good shit, yo. Hit the link for the full thing, and keep an eye out for the magic email.

The game releases next year.

A new demo for Painkiller: Resurrection, weighing in at 1.2Gb, was released yesterday when the game hit shelves.

You can get it over on WorthPlaying.

In it, you play ex-CIA agent William ‘Wild Bill’ Sherman, who must fight in the afterlife after killing the head of an illegal drug operation, innocent civilians, and himself.

There’s a video from GameTrailers of it posted past the break.

Thanks, Rock, Paper, Shotgun.

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Peter Molyneux’s told Techradar that Natal-based Milo & Kate will herald a “whole new area of interaction” in games, with focus coming back on the player as opposed to just being on the screen.

“What we found while making Milo, is that part of the skill of designing this whole new experience is in making people comfortable with the fact that they can be seen,” he said,

“That things can recognise them and see them and have a relationship with them. And we’ve been talking about that for years and years, you know, emotional engagement in gaming… ‘are games art?’… “how can we make people cry and laugh?”

“And then you begin to realise that this is a whole new area of interaction. Which really and truly has hardly even been dreamt of by science fiction writers. So I wasn’t at all surprised by some of those reactions at E3. But it is down to our skill as designers to make sure that people don’t feel creeped out by it.”

Full thing through the link. There’s no date on the game as yet. Natal’s expected towards the end of next year.

Those who have yet to play the juggernaut that is the original Modern Warfare can now do so for a bit cheaper, should they wish to play on PC.

Steam has it on sale this weekend for $23.99 instead the normal $39.99. That’s 40 percent off.

Sale only lasts until Monday, so don’t drag your feet.

More through the link.

Didn’t get on the MAG beta? Want to know what the Zipper shooter actually looks like in action?

Hit the link. We shot this off-screen at the EG Expo in Leeds earlier this week.

PS3-only, out next year. For the record, someone else was playing the game.

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CVG’s running a live blog of the imminent Golden Joysticks – you’ll be able to see it here.

Things get moving at 1pm GMT. That’s GMT, not BST, as the clocks went back last weekend. We’ll do a story on the results once they’re all in.

Sony’s Q2 financials today have taken total PlayStation division losses to $4.7 billion since PS3 launched in November 2006.

The facts:

• FY 2007: -$1,970,923,859
• FY 2008: -$1,079,994,103
• FY 2009: -$577,207,240
• FY 10Q1: -$413,541,667
• FY 10Q2: -$653,333,333

Total loss: $4,695,000,202

All figures come from Sony’s investor relations page.

Note that both quarters so far this financial year include losses from Sony’s Vaio business. Figures for the full fiscal years are losses purely from gaming. Prior to Q1 this year, the division was called “Game”: it’s now known as the “Networked Products & Services” division.

It’s also worth noting the following. These are the losses Microsoft’s Xbox division suffered during the first Xbox’s release. As you can see, they’re not as heavy as those currently being incurred by Sony:

• FY 2002: -$1,135,000,000
• FY 2003: -$1,191,000,000
• FY 2004: -$1,337,000,000
• FY 2005: -$539,000,000

Total loss: $4,202,000,000

Thanks, Psychotext. You can read a full breakdown of where the platform holders stand financially in this NeoGAF post.

Both PS3 and PSP software sales showed growth for the second quarter, Sony said today.

PS3 moved 23.9 million games in the period ending September 30 compared to 21.2 million a year previous.

PSP software was up to 12.9 million from 11.8 million a year ago.

PS2 game sales, however, properly cratered, down from 23.2 million in Q2 2008 to 11.1 million this year.

Get Q2 hardware sales here. The full financial report’s here.

Sony’s shown PS3 hardware sales of 3.2 million for the second quarter – ending September 30 – compared to 2.4 million in the same period last year.

PSP sales, however, were down to 3 million from 3.2 million in Q2 2008.

PS2 really took one for the team: sales were down to 1.9 million compared to 2.5 million in the previous corresponding period.

Sony’s PlayStation division showed a widened loss for the quarter today. You can read the entire Q2 earning report here.

The Sony division responsible for PlayStation and Vaio products – the Networked Products & Services Division – has shown a 24.2 percent drop in sales compared to Q2 2008, down from 465.2 billion yen to 352.6 billion yen.

Losses widened from 40.6 billion yen to 58.8 billion yen for the preiod.

First half sales for the division were down to 599.5 from 859.6 in the previous corresponding period. Losses extended from 36 billion yen to 98.6 billion yen.

Sony is blaming “a deterioration in Vaio PC and the game business profitability,” and, “Deterioration due to a decrease in PS2 hardware and software unit sales, and the impact of foreign exchange rates,” for the figures.

You can see the full report here.

• Update 1 – Q2 PS3 hardware sales well up, PSP static, PS2 in flat-spin out to sea
• Update 2 – Q2 PS3 and PSP software up, PS2 in inverted 15-G powerdive

There’s a Trine demo up on the EU PS Store, according to the system’s European blog.

The co-op fantasy platformer’s full version’s already out for €19.99 and £16.99.

Free is free. So do it. There’s a movie after the break.

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