Monthly Archives: October 2009

Nier director Yoko Taro’s got a blog. Sometimes, he writes things on that blog. Sometimes, those things are about the Wii’s lack of graphical power. This is one of those times.

According to a post translated by Andriasang, Taro got an eyeful of Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers. And while Crystal Bearers sparkled just enough to get passing marks from the developer, the Wii itself didn’t fare so well.

“Bearers’ graphics are well done,” Taro wrote. “I get the feeling that you could call them the highest level for Wii. However, SD graphics are just painful. This is the limits of the hardware, so you can’t do anything about it.”

“Nintendo should use their profits to make a backwards compatible HD Wii, or release an optional upconverter for the Wii, or give the television industry money to properly handle SD video,” he suggested.

More through the link.

Is Ratchet & Clank among your favorite videogame series? Are you a fan of fancy packaging in general? Or maybe you’d just like to build the coolest box fort on the block. Regardless of your reasons for coveting the upcoming Ratchet & Clank: A Crack in Time Collector’s Edition, it’s looking pretty wicked.

According to the European PlayStation Blog, the box – in a bit of crafty false advertising – isn’t a toolbox of any sort. Nope, no ratchets or clanks here. Just a 3D lenticular cover, an artbook, and a PSN voucher for a special in-game area.

The only bad news? For now, the Collector’s Edition is exclusive to Europe. Other countries are still “TBC,” though, so we won’t be surprised if it washes up on North American shores soon enough.

There’s a video of the box’s nifty 3D effects after the break, courtesy of the PlayStation Blog.

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Earlier today, Dutch gaming site NextGamer was reporting that a Tekken 6 250Gb PS3 Slim bundle was set for a December release in Europe.

According to the site, the image of the bundle could be found on the Sony website, and since we were unable to find this ourselves, VG247 contacted Sony UK for confirmation.

Well folks, it’s not coming to the UK.

“We’re not doing that bundle, and it may be from one of the [other] territories, as we all have different ones,” a Sony UK rep told us.

So there you have it folks. No Tekken 6 bundle for the UK. You’ll have to be satisfied with the ones featuring Uncharted 2 and InFamous instead.

Naughty Dog’s Evan Wells has said that thanks to the multiplayer work done on Uncharted 2, the firm could incorporate online features into all its games in the future.

“We learned a great deal during production and we’re still learning as we move through our multiplayer demo and into launch,” Wells revealed to Game Informer when asked about lessons learned during multiplayer production.

“So I guess one of the things we learned is when you’re working on an online game, the work doesn’t stop once you’ve gold mastered. We also found that your character control has to be even tighter for multiplayer games because players are much less forgiving when being killed by another human being (fortunately this had huge benefits for our single player too).

“We set aside time everyday to have the entire company play the game and we found the feedback we received to be invaluable. We have a wide range of players at Naughty Dog, and we used that diversity to tune the game to be accessible to new online players and hardcore veterans alike.

“Absolutely, Uncharted 2’s multiplayer is just a steppingstone, as I see every game we do in the future having some sort of online feature set.”

More through the link.

Over on Battle.net, there is a StarCraft II Q&A, where the developers answered a few questions on the RTS.

There’s some interesting information in there, most of it you may already know.

What you may not have known, though, is that the game made use of 58 voice actors, and that “terrain sets are named after planets and there will be more flexibility to modify terrain sets in the final game”.

Head on over there now and read all about the post-game lobby and much more.

Thanks, BigDownload.

SNK Playmore has announced that Metal Slug XX will land on PSP December 23 in Japan.

It’s a remixed version of Metal Slug 7 with ad-hoc cooperative play and 70 mini-games.

There’s a video of it after the break, courtesy of Joystiq.

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Microsoft announced during its Open House event today in NYC that a public Beta for Facebook, Twitter and Last.FM integration on XBL will launch later in the month.

Jennifer Puzio-Brookes, entertainment manager for Xbox, revealed the update during a behind-closed-doors session, stating the Beta will land during the “middle-towards-the-end of October.”

Invites to certain members of XBL will be handed out along with early access to the new features for members of the press.

More through MTV Multiplayer.

EEDAR analyst Jesse Divnich has suggested that the reason scores for Wii games have increased by 6 percent this year, is due to a lot of titles not getting reviewed.

Comparing titles released from January to June during both 2008 and 2009, EEDAR concocted a graph showing the number of titles per platform that were reviewed with a percentage showing the amount not reviewed.

“While the Wii has experienced a rise in average review scores (from 60 to 66), this has come at the benefit of critics ignoring some titles that could have possibly dragged down the Wii’s average,” stated Divnich, noting that unreviewed Wii titles weren’t “core-targeted titles”.

Same with the other two consoles.

More through IndustryGamers, via Joystiq.

SEGA has changed the release date on its official website for Alpha Protocol to spring 2010.

You’ll recall it was initially suppose to hit retail in October.

This confirms retail buzz a week or so back regarding a slip for the Obsidian RPG.

We’ll contact SEGA on this once again. Hopefully someone will respond now that it’s official.

Valve has sent word that six titles from EA’s catalog are now available on Steam.

Price range from $9.99 to $49.99 and include:

• Need for Speed: SHIFT
• Battlefield 2: Complete Collection
• Medal of Honor: Airborne
• Godfather
• Godfather 2
• Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3: Uprising.

Might want to check your particualr region just to be sure though.

Crash Commando’s getting a patch update this week on PSN to fix a few issues, implement DUALSHOCK 3 support, and the addition of rumble.

Here’s the list of fixes, courtesy of the US PS Blog:

• Sound fix for issues where various sounds are not being played at all
• Unlock Heist Map Pack fix
• Now unlocks the Heist Map Pack properly when purchasing it within the game’s online store
• Heist cash bag fix
• Corrected detection of when players and other players bots are removed from the game taking the cash bag with them
• DUALSHOCK 3 Vibration support
• Added rumble for player weapons, near player explosions, player vehicle weapons, player vehicle collision impacts, weapon impacts on the player etc.
• To avoid any new text issues the game only acknowledges the on/off setting of vibrations the player can set in the system’s controller settings

This will probably go live on Thurday, but don’t quote us on that.

Some more shots of a LEGO-ized, smiling, David Bowie popped up for LEGO Rock Band on the net today.

You can get a look at ‘em over on GoNintendo.

It’s out for DS, PS3, Wii and Xbox 360 in November.

During an interview with MSNBC – posted below the break – NOA’s Reggie Fils-Aime revealed that the DSi has moved 2.2 million in North America alone.

That’s a massive amount, there.

Reggie also let slip that Walmart is the company’s biggest customer, when asked who its largest retail partner was.

“On a retail basis, certainly from my region which is Canada, the US, and Latin America,” said Fils-Aime, “Walmart is my biggest customer.”

It’s probably because more families shop at the beast of Bentonville than their local game stores, because you can get your potatoes and paper towels alongside the latest Professor Layton instead of making separate trips.

More through the link, via Joystiq.

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Activision and developer Buzz Monkey have implemented the ability to play as your Mii via the Wii version of Tony Hawk” RIDE.

There are also Mii likenesses of the pro skaters featured in the game, along with two levels exclusive to that platform.

A video of Miis in action is posted after the break, courtesy of IGN.

Source: Joystiq.

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The Major has revealed the top titles for the week of September 28 on Xbox Live, and those who keep up with the chart should not be surprised with last week’s results, nor the addition of  ODST.

Live Titles

1. Halo 3
2. Call of Duty 4
3. Halo 3: ODST
4. Call of Duty: WaW
5. Gears of War 2
6. Madden NFL 10
7. Forza 3 Demo
8. GTA IV
9. Left 4 Dead
10. FIFA 10

Arcade, Original, and Indie titles are posted below the break.

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Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising shipped today, so we grabbed the first ten minutes of play from the 360 version in celebration. Watch the video after the break.

Our first impressions are thus: there are lots and lots and lots of commands. Still enjoyable, though. You get to bomb stuff, which is always a bonus.

Watch. Then buy.

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Activision has revealed the soundtrack for Tony Hawk: RIDE, and it is around 57 tracks strong.

It’s out for PS3, Wii and Xbox 360 November 17 in the US, and December 4 in the UK.

Since it is such a huge list, we have it posted for you past the break.

Notable entries include Beck, Bill Withers, Chevelle, Green Day, Queens of the Stone Age, The Replacements, The Stooges, Wolf Mother, and the Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs.

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Remedy Entertainment has filed a new trademark for Death Rally, which means probably what you think it means.

A possible new game in the series, or, according to Superannuation, a re-release via a digital service.

You can view the trademark here.

Thanks, D’toid.

Microsoft’s Robbie Bach, president of the entertainment and devices division, said during the First Annual Microsoft Open House in NYC that gamers had changed their Avatar clothing more than 150 million times.

That’s more than Cher during a Vegas show, we reckon, which is a feat in itself.

According to the math, if you divide that by 20 million Xbox Live users, it means each person has changed its virtual clothes seven times each.

Other figures of note include the knowledge that over 425 million games were “crunched” for matchmaking, and 200,000 games of 1 vs. 100 were being played every weekend.

More through Joystiq.

Call this a friendly reminder, if you will, as Natsume has announced that Afrika is now available in the US on PS3.

‘Bout damn time, we say.

It has over 70 animals in it with over 100 missions, and if you are in the US and want it, check with your local retailer.

Hooray.

Via Press Release.