Monthly Archives: October 2009

DJ Hero releases in Europe today, as you can see from the PR after the break.

The game feature 93 mixes and is retailing for between £90-£140, depending on the edition you’re after.

These would probably make great competition prizes.

Hit the link for all the info.

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Are the “Miracle Pack” and the “Apocalyptic Pack” on the way for Left 4 Dead 2? Error’s thrown up by the now-released demo appear to suggest so.

There are a couple of disabled errors in the PC demo that should show up in online multiplayer match after a player fails to load a DLC map the match host has selected for play. They seemingly out what many now believe is upcoming content.

Could be bollocks, obviously.

From Rage3D (which is now broken), via Joystiq.

Update – And here’s the third-party stuff.

Nintendo’s released a full line-up of DS and Wii titles for all major territories, fresh off the back of yesterday’s DSiLL/XL non-shock announcement.

Get the lot after the break, courtesy of Kotaku.

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If this Reuters article‘s to be believed, you’re going to be playing Dead Space 2 in 2010.

“Electronic Arts has a pair of horror offerings for gamers,” says the piece.

“The publisher recently shipped Dead Space: Extraction for Wii, which is a prequel to last fall’s Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC hit. Dead Space 2 is in development for next year.”

The game’s been outed on Linkedin in the past.

In June, then-boss of Visceral, Glen Schofield, told us he wasn’t ready to talk about anything at the EA studio beyond Dead Space Extraction and Dante’s Inferno.

After the break. You’d better get used to seeing the words “Modern Warfare 2″ over the next week, if we’re being honest.

It’s out on November 10.

Update – There’s more here, here and here. Thanks, G1GAHURTZ.

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Ratchet & Clank’s days of running circles around the competition at 60 FPS may be numbered, if a recent blog post from Insomniac studio engine director Mike Acton is any indication.

“I’m really proud of what our art and production teams accomplished in this game. It’s a great looking game, a ton of fun to play and is 60fps,” he began.

But!

“Our community team did some research into the question of framerate. And in particular they found that there was a clear correlation between graphics scores in reviews (where they are provided) and the final scores. And they found no such correlation between framerate and the graphics scores nor the final scores.”

“However it does appear that gameplay scores are also influenced by graphics scores. i.e. Better looking games appear to be more ‘fun’ to reviewers, in general,” he added.

Thus, he concluded, R&C Future: A Crack in Time will probably be Insomniac’s last 60 FPS game. He then resumed his battle against communist terrorist drug lords as an international super-spy – or whatever it is people blessed with a last name that sounds like “Action” do.

If you’d like to see the science behind Insomniac’s shocking discovery, click through the link. See those? Those are graphs. Insomniac means business here, clearly.

Modern Warfare 2 lets you play as a terrorist. There are other bits in there too – something about “defending freedom” and “delivering a swift kick to terrorism’s hindquarters” – but those don’t matter. At least, not according to Australian lobbyist group Australian Council on Children and the Media.

“The consequences of terrorism are just abhorrent in our community and yet here we are with a product that’s meant to be passed off as a leisure time activity, actually promoting what most world leaders speak out publicly against,” council president Jane Roberts told the Sydney Morning Herald.

“If that material was on the internet about how to become a terrorist, how to join a group and how to wipe out people – that would be removed because it would not be acceptable.”

Roberts and her group have demanded that the Australian government re-rate Modern Warfare 2 from MA 15+ to “Uncensored Left 4 Dead 2.” Aka, “probably banned.”

Infinity Ward told us yesterday that the scene in question is skippable, but that obviously hasn’t stopped Roberts and co. from going on the warpath.

Well, we’re sure you all have some words for Miss Roberts. We’ll just leave you two alone now.

Looks like the Walmart exclusive AC/DC Live: Rock Band Track Pack disc released this time last year is no longer an exclusive.

GameStop has the game listed for a November 4 release on PS2, PS3, Wii, and Xbox 360.

The 18-song disc contains all live tracks for $19.99, and the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions have Trophies, Achievements and the tracks can be transferred to your hard drive for Rock Band or Rock Band 2.

Thanks, D’toid.

Streaming media analyst Dan Rayburn has said that a source of his “involved in the project” told him that Nintendo is in the “testing stages” with Netflix.

The source even went so far as to say the service will arrive on the console “very shortly”.

“What I’m hearing is that Nintendo originally planned to bring the Netflix service to the Wii before the end of this year,” he wrote, “which still might take place, but that Nintendo is also considering holding off on the Netflix service until they release their next generation Wii HD unit in early 2010.”

Rayburn also claims to have images of the service, but declined to share the shots with Business Insider, because he didn’t want it to come back to haunt his source.

Michael Pachter said yesterday that Netflix on Wii will be announced “in the next 12 months”.

G4TV has posted a 12-minute walkthrough of the Hard Rain level of Left 4 Dead 2′s Realism Mode.

Apparently, you can switch out health packs for a defibrillator which will come in handy should you die, zombies must be killed with headshots, there are loads more witches, and players will have to be much closer to an item to pick it up.

While this mode has been rumored to be rather hardcore, the video explains that it really isn’t tough, just for people who play together more often.

Watch past the break, courtesy of Evil Avatar.

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Team Fortress 2 has been updated with five seasonal achievements, a new map and exploding pumpkins for Halloween, which will be live until November 2.

Called the Haunted Hallowe’en Special, the new map is a King of Hill called Harvest and is haunted by the “restless spirit” of Zepheniah Mann. Players will freeze in fear should they come into contact with the ghost and there are also the exploding pumpkins we already mentioned.

The full thing is through here, and you’ll notice in the notes that “the mangled corpses of the recently deceased will plague the living with candy”.

We have no idea what that means but it sounds good.

Team17′s John Dennis has chatted a bit about Alien Breed Evolution during the Eurogamer Expo in Leeds, and confirmed three episodes for PS3 and Xbox 360.

“In each episode there’s a prologue level, then there are five single-player levels and they’re really large. Much larger than they should have been,” he said. “There are also two set pieces in each episode. For example there’s one where the ship goes through an asteroid field, there’s debris coming up through the floor and the air’s running out.

“There are also two boss battles in each episode, then on top of that there are three multiplayer levels.”

Dennis revealed that each episode will take “five to eight hours” to complete, and the prologues for each will be free to download.

Still no word on a release or price yet.

Thanks, Eurogamer.

Looks like the US will be getting the larger DSi come Q1 2010.

It was announced earlier today that the bigger screened DSi XL would land in Europe during Q1 2010, and Japan on November 21 for ¥20,000 ($220).

Still no price for UK or US. Hold tight though. It’s bound to come soon.

Via Joystiq.

Xbox Live general manager for Europe, Jerry Johnson, has told VideoGamer that Xbox 360 has the best games.

“I’ll come back and say that Xbox has the best games out there. It’s got the best first-person shooter games out there,” he said. “The exclusives we’ve had over the past years and what we had going into this holiday prove the point that this is still very much at its heart a gaming console.

“There’s nothing we’re going to change with that. You will start to see us, though, do things that are broader marketing and start to expose some of the things that are broader than just first-person shooters.”

“There’s nothing we’re going to change that’s going to not focus on those customers more. In fact, not just this year but in the next year, we’ll continue to do features that are targeted at that hardcore gamer. At the same time we are going to start to do things that appeal to both the hardcore gamer and the broader user, and continue to do things and start to do more targeted at the broader user specifically.”

More through the link.

Via D’toid.

Disruptive Media has announced today that it has released University Avatar clothing on Xbox Live.

There are thirty different ones to choose from with wrist bands, varsity jackets, caps and more starting at 40 MS Points.

Full PR and list of Universities after the break, and if your particular Alma Mater isn’t on the list, there are plans for expanding the list, so fret not.

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Sega has announced that Bayonetta will be hitting store shelves January 5 and 8 in the US and UK, respectively.

Preorder exclusives are to be announced at a later date.

Good to know when to start planning for chaotic gameplay.

Full PR is past the break.

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4A Games’ global brand manager, Huw Beynon, was in London along with the firm’s development team to discuss its upcoming action/survival-horror/shooter/RPG Metro 2033.

Based on Russian author Dmitry Glukhovsky’s novel depicting a postapocalyptic Moscow, the game is expected to be released sometime during 2010 on PC and Xbox 360 and published by THQ.

According to Beynon, like in the book, the player is part of a few survivors who were underground on the Metro during a devastating event that wiped out most of mankind. Because of this, the survivors have stayed underground and have evolved to the surroundings.

There will be different sub-states and alliances along with different group dynamics in different sections, so some hostilities will come into play.

Anyway, stop reading this and watch the interview with IGN yourself past the break.

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Nintendo’s Satoru Iwata has said that despite the company’s drop in profits for the six month period ending September 30 he is positive that the price drop for Wii will help once it moves more units.

“Wii has stalled,” said Iwata during a press conference. “We were unable to continually release strong software, and let the nice mood cool. We were unable to show a new game to become ‘the next thing.’ In the game market, once you’ve lost the momentum, it takes time to recover.

“With the price drop, sales returned to a certain level, but they just did not reach the level of last year around this time. We decided that it would be difficult to sell enough to recover from the poor performance of the first half of the year.

“In order to reach it [20 million units], we’ll have to move quite a large quantity, but it’s a figure we released after having felt the momentum returning [based off the price drop].”

Nintendo’s operating income fell 58.6 percent from the same period last year, with Wii sales falling 43 percent from last year to 5.75 million units, thus causing Nintendo to lower its Wii sales forecasts for the year from 26 million to 20 million units.

More through Andriasang.

Atari and Cryptic announced today that one million superhero characters have been created in Champions Online since it launched in September.

“We are very pleased with the wonderful praise Champions Online is receiving,” said Atari CEO Jim Wilson. “We credit the great MMO fan base and look forward to seeing what players create as the game continues to grow and develop.

“We are working hard on new content and updates that will expand the universe and give Champions fans more to explore.”

If you have not tried it yet, but want to, there’s a free trial weekend starting tomorrow.

Full PR past the break.

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This week on the Euro PSN list of goodies, there are loads of special offers up for grabs, some Beatles: Rock Band content and some decent PSP and PS3 titles.

Demos include Zombie Apocalypse (trial),  Ratchet & Clank: A Crack in Time Krell Canyon and Great Clock, Fat Princess, Dragon Ball Raging Blast, and Trine.

Full thing is over on the EU PS Blog, but here’s a bit:

Special Offers

• Call of Duty 4 Variety Map Pack (PS3) (£3.99/€4.99) (Ends 2nd November)
• SOCOM Fireteam Bravo (PSP) (£9.99/€12.99) (Ends 5th November)
• Street Skater (PSone Classic) (£2.39/€2.99) (Ends 5th November)
• Street Skater 2 (PSone Classic) (£2.39/€2.99) (Ends 5th November)

Playable Content

• Hasbro Family Game Night (£31.99/€39.99)

Add-on Content

• Pain – Elvira Character (£0.79/€0.99)
• LittleBigPlanet – Halloween Mask (free)
• EyePet – Lucky Dip Styling Pack 2 (free)
• Trivial Pursuit – Sports Pack (£3.99/€4.99)
• DJ Hero – Extended Mix Pack 01 (£4.79/€5.99)
• Cross Edge content
• Rock Band: Rob Zombie three-Pack 01, Wolfmother five-Pack 01, Liz Phair, Moringwood
• Guitar Hero 5: All Hallows Eve Track Pack (The Misfits, Marylin Manson, GWAR)
• Beatles: Rock Band: Abbey Road Album, Because, Maxwell’s Silver Hammer, Oh! Darling

Themes

• Apache Gunship Theme (£1.19/€1.49)
• Bloodwork Theme (£1.19/€1.49)
• Fractal Fire Theme (£1.19/€1.49)
• Shades of Autumn Theme (£1.19/€1.49)

PSP Content

Includes the following, plus demos for PixelJunk Monsters and Crystal Defenders:

• LocoRoco Midnight Carnival (Trial free, Unlock Key £11.99/€14.99)
• Crystal Defenders (£7.99/€9.99)
• Super Monkey Ball Adventure (£11.99/€14.99)
• Football Manager Handheld 2010 (£29.99/€.99)
• Rock Band Unplugged: Sonic Youth, Steely Dan

PSP Minis

• Zombie Tycoon (£3.99/€4.99)