Monthly Archives: October 2009

SOE’s John Smedly recently set up shop on Livejournal, and – instead of using it to discuss ethics, high art, the curing of cancer or other typical Livejournal topics – he’s decided to focus on videogames. Imagine that.

His most recent entry makes multiple mentions of “PlanetSide Next,” which we’re assuming to be the name of, er, the next PlanetSide.

“To me, Planetside Next means we get a chance to take the essence of everything that was fun in Planetside and make it a lot better. Massive battles on a scale no other FPS will touch. None of this 64 player stuff. REALLY MASSIVE. With much better organization, and a tight focus on making sure the action is always going on, with awesome graphics,” he wrote.

Thanks, Joystiq.

A Taiwanese website‘s got some very official-looking Left 4 Dead 2 posters that appear to unveil the final two Left 4 Dead 2 campaigns. We’re still calling this a rumor, because other sites are doing it, and – you know – peer pressure and all.

Take a look at these things, though. If they’re fakes, the artiste who made them may very well find him or herself working at Valve before too long.

Allegedly, the campaigns are titled Hard Rain (“Come Hell and High Water”) and Dead Center (“Prices Aren’t the Only Thing Getting Slashed”).

Thanks, Evil Avatar.

Update: BioWare’s given this one the “no comment” treatment over on its forums. “We don’t comment on rumors. ” is the official word-emoticon combo. But hey, at least it’s not a “no.”

Update 2: The listing on the Russian EA website has now gone, but the Game page is still there.

Update 3: EA insist both listings for Mass Effect 2 and Left 4 Dead 2 were posted in “error“.

Original Story: Either this is a massive oops or something more.

The Russian website for EA has Mass Effect 2 pegged for a release on the PlayStation 3, as well as 360 and PC.

However, EA Russia isn’t the only act involved: Game Australia also have the game down for a PS3 release next year. Previously, it was only for Xbox 360 and PC.

BioWare has however refused to confirm or deny before if there would be a PS3 version of the sequel.

We’ll contact EA about this, and see if this is just an honest mistake or more.

Thanks, RPGSite.

Pictures taken from the set of upcoming film Battle: Los Angeles have apparently outed Resistance 3. Oops. Take a look on NeoGAF.

If the images are to be believed, the game’s set in New York. There’s a Statue of Liberty on it, and everything.

Looks real. Probably is real. No confirmation, though.

Not a whole lot this week in MMOs that didn’t hit the front page – still, there’s still some news past the break.

Read on to find out more about changes in the Legendary System and Skirmishes to Lord of the Rings Online when Siege of Mirkwood is releases.

Also, while scanning through the bullet organizes updates, you will find information on crew member jobs for Star Trek Online, a release date for EVE Online: Dominion, and how families who play MMOs can keep safety in mind when letting children play online.

It’s all ahead. Click onward.

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Microsoft has cut prices on some of its budget Classics games.

Five pounds off, actually.

So far, this means that for £14.99 you can get: Splinter Cell: Double Agent, Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2, Rainbow Six Vegas 2 and Naruto: Rise of a Ninja.

This was tacked on to the announcement of Grand Theft Auto IV, Midnight Club: Los Angeles and BioShock to being added to the Classics range – just in case you missed it.

Thanks, Eurogamer.

BioWare’s latest developer diary discusses the making of the planet Coruscant – which excites the hell out of us to be honest. That’s our favorite planet, being the Star Wars nerds that we are – at least from a Republic standpoint.

Anyhow, in the video, the developers discuss the creation of the Republic’s capital from “the deepest basement to the tallest skyscraper,” and “from the majestic skyline to the dark and seedy underground levels”.

Both sound about the same to us. Fried potato, backed potato ya know.

Regardless, it’s awesome, and past the break.

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Microsoft has announced that its Facebook, Twitter, and Last.Fm update for Xbox Live will launch November 17 in the UK.

This was spotted on the UK Xbox website.

The public Beta is still slated for gold members during the middle of October.

No word on if the US is getting the services the same day or not, but we’ll send MS a mail so that come Monday, it’ll be waiting for them in their in-box.

Climax has officially announced its much rumored and tentatively titled Rocket Knight, due early 2010 on Xbox Live, Steam and PSN.

It takes place 15 years after the last game, with Sparkster having moved away from Zephyros, the pigs have sided with the opossums to face-off with an army of wolves, and Axel Gear has become the new Rocket Knight.

Brilliant.

There’s a video of it posted past the break, courtesy of D’toid and GameTrailers.

Enjoy. [pic]

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The first trailer for Ignition’s steampunk RPG/adventure game, Nostalgia, has been released.

It’s on past the break.

Looks rather cute and fun. It’s out for DS in October.

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A preorder option has been added to JoWood’s Painkiller: Resurrection page on Steam.

If you reserve the game, you will get 10 percent off the $29.99 price, along with Painkiller Black Edition and Painkiller Overdose.

Both of those titles are available for immediate download upon preorder, and Resurrection is out in late October.

More through Steam.

Looks like besides The Old Republic and Dragon Age: Origins, BioWare has a “next-gen” title currently in development.

Looking over the list and logos of its games, Mass Effect 2 is nowhere to be found on it.

Is this “new next-gen game” Commander Shepard’s long-awaited sequel that was mistakenly omitted from the list or something else entirely?

We have no idea. We’re not psychic, but in cases like this we wish we were.

Instead, we’ll send a mail off to BioWare and see what’s up.

Piranha Bytes has released a hotfix for Risen.

The international patch fixes issues with the gray veil with Nvidia video cards series GeForce 6 and 7.

You can get the patch via FileFront, and The Patches Scrolls.

This week in indie and other games of interest, we have an update on Gray Matter, some free-to-play titles, and a couple demos for you to try out.

Also of note: Iceberg Interactive’s announced the release of the bundle British Horror Pack consisting of Dark Fall: The Journal Classic Edition, Dark Fall: Lights Out The Director’s Cut Edition, and Barrow Hill; Slitherine has digitally released History: Great Battles – Medieval earlier than the physical disc; and there’s a zombie game titled Zombie Driver which has you pulling a Rebecca Gayheart on the undead with your vehicle.

Loads more is through the jump. Be prepared. It’ a massive wall of text and bullets.

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Need for Speed: Nitro screens popped up today over on IGN.

Looks like there’s a car-editor with loads of crazy options.

We like whatever that is that looks like a cross between a VW Bug and a 1946 Austin 10 GS 1.

But we just like cars, period.

It’s out for DS and Wii November 17 and 20 in the US and UK, respectively.

Sony has announced that it’s giving away 10 copies of the Uncharted 2 Fortune Hunter Edition to players who participate in the multiplayer Beta this weekend.

Should you be randomly selected to receive one, you will be able to boast to all your buddies that you have in your hands a limited edition, leather-bound Uncharted 2 box that looks like a antique book complete with an ancient dagger replica.

One edition will be handed out each day until the game launches.

For more information on how to participate head on over to the US PS Blog.

The plotline synopsis for the upcoming Resident Evil movie, Afterlife, has been revealed over on Screen Gems (via ComingSoon).

Sounding like something Don “In a World….” LaFontaine would have spoken for the theatrical trailer, the film synopsis reveals that Alice and survivors are seeking refuge in LA only to be sadly mistaken regarding what awaits them.

Here it is:

In a world ravaged by a virus infection, turning its victims into the Undead, Alice continues on her journey to find survivors and lead them to safety. Her deadly battle with the Umbrella Corporation reaches new heights, but Alice gets some unexpected help from an old friend. A new lead that promises a safe haven from the Undead leads them to Los Angeles, but when they arrive the city is overrun by thousands of Undead and Alice and her comrades are about to step into a deadly trap.

Damn we miss LaFontaine. He made everything better.

Via Kotaku.

Turn 10′s Dan Greenawalt says it would be “very difficult” for another development team to “replicate” what the firm has done with Forza Motorsport 3.

“I’ve got huge respect for Yamauchi and what the Polyphony Digital team does, they’re a great developer. But do I personally feel confident that it would be difficult for any other racing game to do this,” he told CVG. “We run our physics at 360Hz. I don’t know of any other game that does that. That takes a commitment to physics, not just about making sure you have beautiful graphics.

“Forza 2 had great physics and okay graphics. Now Forza 3 has great physics and great graphics, because we learned more about the box. But we still prioritize physics first, not graphics first. That is one of the differences.

“Gran Turismo is a great game and when it comes out I’ll play it. But I think that without the partnerships and without the commitment, it will be very difficult for another team to replicate what we’ve done.”

Oh boy. More through the link.

According to the latest issue of Xbox World Magazine, a disc version of Hydrophobia will eventually be released at retail.

Planned as an three-part episodic release on Xbox Live, Dark Energy Digital says each episode will last five hours and will be released over a 12-month period.

If the game proves popular, DED may release three more episodes.

The game’s size is under 250Mb, which CVG points out is less than the Tour de France XBLA game.

More through the links.

Runic Games’ Max Schaefer has said that he would like to see the firm’s Torchlight released on Xbox Live Arcade.

So far a downloadable title only for PC, the RPG will have online elements added to it at a later date, which is what is keeping the developers from releasing it via XBL for the time being.

“We talk about it a lot. We fantasize about getting the Live version, and that would probably be the one we did… the XBLA one,” Schaefer told 1UP. “We’re really committed to making the MMO version next, and we’re a pretty small studio. We just have one little team.”

It may be a while then, so if this interests you, the PC version lands October 27.