Monthly Archives: October 2009

According to Nolan North, who was a guest on the latest OPM UK podcast, the voice of Nathan Drake himself stated that Hugh Jackman is on top of the list of actors to play the swashbuckling hero in the Uncharted film.

Stating that he himself would like to be cast as Drake, North admits that just having a part in the film would be enough.

“I would love to do the movie, obviously I’d love to do it as Nathan Drake, but I’ve done film and television and I understand the reality of the business,” he said.

“Jackman is who I’d like to see. I think the producers would like to see Jackman too, because he has that tough guy exterior, but there’s also a lot going on behind his eyes. A lot of emotion and sensitivity on that brusque exterior, and he has great comic timing. He’s a phenomenal actor.

“I just hope I get a part on the movie so I can work with Hugh.”

Loads of Uncharted fans have stated since the beginning that if a film were made of the game, they’d prefer Firefly and Serenity star Nathan Fillion, if only because he looks the part.

Guess we’ll find out once a decision is made.

Thanks, PushSquare.

FreeStyleGames’ Chris Lee has revealed to IGN that the first bit of DLC for DJ Hero will be released today.

Both tracks are set to land on Xbox Live and PSN today, and feature “All of Me” by 50 Cent (featuring Mary J. Blige) mixed with Queen’s “Radio Ga Ga”, and Gorrilaz’ “Dare” mixed with Public Enemy’s “Can’t Truss It”.

The two-pack will run you 480 MS Points ($6.00/£4.08/€5.58) and when released for Wii, 300 WiiPoints ($3).

Come November 24, a three-pack from David Guetta will include remixes of “Sexy Bitch,” “On The Dance Floor,” and “When Love Takes Over”, and will run you 640 MS Points ($8.00/£5.44/€7.44).

More through the link.

Telltale has announced that on November 4, all Wallace & Gromit Episodic Games Available On Xbox Live which coincides with the 20th anniversary of the release of A Grand Day Out, Wallace & Gromit’s first animated short.

Fright of the Bumblebees, The Last Resort, Muzzled, and The Bogey Man all feature Xbox 360-exclusive achievements, HD graphic support, and a custom control scheme 800 MS Points $10.00/£6.80/€9.30 each.

Also on November 4, Telltale’s taking orders for the full season on PC, which includes all four episodes along with special features, and part of the proceeds from the PC version will be donated to the Wallace & Gromit Children’s Foundation in the UK and Penny Arcade’s Child’s Play charity in North America.

Sounds great.

Turbine has sent over some really nice screens for LOTRO’s Siege of Mirkwood expansion.

Looks like when exploring the Scuttledells region, adventurers will be faced with wrights, spiders, gaunt men, and those annoying craban that you just want to smash into mush.

The expansion comes out digitally in December. Have a look past the break.

More »

Warren Spector has said that he would personally like to see more than just a game for Epic Mickey, as the revamp of the mouse harbors loads of possibilities.

These possibilities include comics, films, and turning it into a franchise.

“I’ve had some discussions with people and really, really want to see some comics and cartoons and feature animation built around this,” Spector told Kotaku. “There have been discussions about all sorts of things talking about other possibilities around this project. I really hope it’s going to happen and I’m going to keep beating on that drum.

“I certainly have big plans. Have they been approved? No. But I have had a lot of discussions about what is going to happen next. In my mind it’s already a franchise [and] I really can’t abide the thought that it will be OK or mediocre. We are going after Mario and Zelda, Ratchet and Clank, we all aspire to that.

“I don’t always succeed, but we’re always shooting for the moon. I’m a man of many motos, and one of them is fail gloriously.”

Analysts Michael Pachter and EEDAR’s Jesse Divnich predict that Sony’s next handheld will support UMD – or at least, would not be surprised if it did.

“I think it is possible and likely that the PSP-4000 will support UMD, and I think that Sony will support whichever formats make it the most money,” Pachter told Edge. “It’s an interesting dilemma. Without question, there is room for packaged products and the benefits of digital-only are probably more than offset by foregone sales of UMDs.

“I think that the next version will likely have both, with a disc drive that uses no power if the user is playing a downloaded game. The question is whether it’s too bulky, but my guess is that they can fit some flash in there, or equip the game with a 16Gb memory stick and consumers will be perfectly happy.”

On that front, Divnich feels that Sony would like to drop UMD but it might not be fiscally possible.

“Ultimately, businesses must meet the demand of consumers. If the PSPgo fails to latch on as a standard model for the PSP, Sony has no choice but to continue to support the UMD format,” said Divnich. “If Sony had their way, they would eradicate the UMD standard in favor of digital distribution. Sony’s primary goal with the UMD format was for it to catch on in other media players, unfortunately it didn’t.

“Sony has had horrible luck when it comes to creating media standards, and PSPgo is three years ahead of its time, the same way the PS3 was ahead of its time. Regardless of the success of the PSPgo, ten years from now when the industry is mostly digital, we will look back and single out Sony and its PSPgo as being the first console to push us in the digital direction.”

Rockstar’s Imran Sarwar has said that GTA IV’s downloadable episodes were “part of the plan from the beginning”, and Niko’s story was designed to “make him feel like a small part of a much larger world.”

“Even at the end of [Niko's] story, he’s not the king of the town by any means, ” the associate producer told CVG. “The idea was to use the episodes to reveal the rest of that world, to show some of the characters and events that were invisible to Niko and yet still had a bearing on events in his life.

“I think if we had [put all on one disc] it would have been impossible to focus on each separate aspect of gameplay properly, the stories and the gameplay are inextricably linked.

“We’ve always maintained that Liberty City is the real star of these games, and what makes it truly amazing is that it’s so full of potential as an environment.”

The last bit of DLC for the game, The Ballad of Gay Tony, is out now.

Looks like another 1 vs. 100 season is currently in the works.

According to the development team’s blog, looks like more competitions featuring The One are on the way.

This time around, The One will receive a golden notification and have their status so to “Busy” so as not to be distracted by others trying to contact them and the like as they are singled out to answer questions.

The One will also receive a new entrance instead of just appearing on the stage. Instead, just like on the TV show, players’ Avatars will come down the staircase – and will even strike a pose.

You can read the full thing through the link above.

Thanks, D’toid.

This week’s PS Home update celebrates all things Halloween with all sorts of goodies for the ghoul inside us all.

In Europe, there’s a new Burn Zombie Burn space, five costumes ranging from a werewolf to Frankenstein’s monster, skull earrings, jackets and loads of other stuff you can view on the EU PS Blog, including the Tekken 6 space, and an update to the one for Uncharted 2.

The US gets the Burn Zombie Burn store additions as well, costumes, shirts, and a Tekken 6 full body costume, and an event where zombies will run amok though Home. All this can all be found on the US PS Blog.

Zombie Tycoon has landed on PSP minis via PSN for both the US and UK today.

In it, you take control of a zombie horde as part of your plan for world domination.

You’ll get to toss brains, muck up buildings, beat up mascots and other silly stuff.

It’ll run you $7.99/£3.99.

Video is after the jump.

More »

Sony has confirmed that the God of War 3 demo included with the Blu-ray release of District 9 is for US only.

“That’s for the US only,” a Sony spokesperson told StrategyInformer. “We’ll announce our plans for the [UK] GOW 3 demo in due course.”

Looks like you’ll have to wait a bit longer, UK. Hopefully not much longer, but still, waiting is a bit crap.

Update: There’s shots of the goodies included with the limited edition posted here. Thanks, TomisH.

DICE and EA announced this morning that a limited edition release of Battlefield: Bad Company 2 will land on shelves.

Within it, you’ll find six special gameplay unlocks that give players a tactical advantage on the battlefield, which are as follows:

• Improved Vehicle Armor – An up-armor package is mounted on all vehicle types, decreasing the effect of both explosive and penetrating warheads, significantly improving vehicle survivability.
• Supreme Vehicle Firepower – Additional weapon packages are mounted for the driver of all armored vehicles, greatly expanding the range of targets the vehicle can successfully engage and destroy.
• Vehicle Motion Sensor – Use this electronics warfare package to locate enemy units in direct proximity to the vehicle.
• Tracer Dart Pistol – This magnetic dart attaches to any vehicle surface, allowing squad members to track, lock on, and fire rockets onto moving targets even beyond line of sight.

Two classic Battlefield 1943 weapons:

• M1A1 Submachine Gun – Reliable but heavy this classic weapon is a powerful force in the hands of any Battlefield veteran.
• M1911 Pistol – Highly customized M1911 are favored for its dependability and the power of its large .45 caliber round.

Game’s out March 2 ad 5 in North America and Europe, respectively, for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360. The limited edition will cost the same as the standard version, and will remain available while supplies last.

Full press release is after the break.

More »

Epic Mickey may not remain a Wii exclusive, Warren Spector’s told CVG.

HD versions are “a decision that other people in the Disney organisation are going to make,” the developer said in London yesterday.

Spector added, however, that he’s enjoying single-format work.

“Right now we’re a Wii game and I’m happy to be able to focus,” he said.

“It’s interesting – it’s kind of fun to be able to focus on gameplay and not have to worry about modern shader stuff.”

There’s more through there. It transpired last night that the game started life as a multi-format project. Hold onto the dream.

2DBoy’s gone live with yet more stats from its well-judged pay-what-you-like World of Goo offer, this time showing how the average amount people spent on the game rose and fell with time.

There’s also a table there showing which countries were the most generous. Switzerland was most ready with its wonga, Turkey the least.

MCV’s put its digital issue live, featuring an interview I did with the mag after the GMAs a few weeks ago.

Check my beard out on page 10.

It’s the DSiLL. It’s large. It’s really large. In fact, as Kotaku’s pointed out, it’s the heaviest portable gaming device so far this generation.

The facts:

• 158g – PSPgo
• 189g – PSP-2000
• 189g – PSP-3000
• 214g – DSi
• 218g – DS Lite
• 275g – Nintendo DS
• 280g – PSP-1000
• 314g – DSi LL

Nintendo announced DSiLL this morning. It has a 4.2 inch screens and will release in Japan on November 21. Europeans will get it in the first quarter of next year.

Sony Japan used to be rubbish at listening to western punters concerns about PS3. No longer, according to Insomniac senior community manager James Stevenson.

“The challenge has always been that the [PS3] operating system (XMB) has always been developed in Japan, and at first it didn’t seem like it reacted to the US and European markets,” Stevenson told CVG. “But now it seems like there’s a far better feedback loop in place, which I think was the biggest issue.

“The example that stands out was when they did the update to the look of the XMB – version 3.0 I think. They boxed out everyone’s names and it became really clunky-looking and the community started complaining. I feel like that feedback really made it over to Japan, and that’s something they’re trying to get addressed.

“Two years ago, or a year-and-a-half ago, I don’t feel like there was that kind of response. I now really think that the development group that’s working on PSN is really listening to the community more, and listening to development feedback. So that’s a good thing in the long term, and that was the biggest thing I’m glad to see has been fixed.”

Phew. Glad that’s cleared up.

Sky and Microsoft have put the fact they had to pull 360′s Sky service the same day it launched because too many people wanted it. Good planning, there.

“Sky Player on Xbox 360 launched on Tuesday 27th October and was met with phenomenal demand, with many tens of thousands of customers attempting to sign up within the first hour of launch,” the companies said in a statement.

“Unfortunately due to the unprecedented levels of simultaneous demand, we did not have the capacity to satisfy all service requests and therefore temporarily suspended all access to the service.

“Today, the rollout will be implemented in phases to ensure that consumers experience both a smooth sign-up process and high-quality experience. We apologise to all customers that have not been able to experience Sky Player on Xbox 360, we assure them that this is being rectified and we thank them for their patience.”

Thanks, EG.

Valve’s confirmed the release of Painkiller: Ressurection – get it from Steam for £20.

You play Bill. He’s in Hell. He’s got some guns. You can probably figure the rest out yourself.

Do it, innit.

Nelson’s confirmed the release of GTA IV DLC The Ballad of Gay Tony. It’s your for 1,600 MSP.

The first reviews went live last night. Get them here.

Blurb, should you need it:

The Ballad of Gay Tony injects Liberty City with an overdose of guns, glitz, and grime. As Luis Lopez, part-time hoodlum and full-time assistant to legendary nightclub impresario Tony Prince (a.k.a. “Gay Tony”), players will struggle with the competing loyalties of family and friends, and with the uncertainty about who is real and who is fake in a world in which everyone has a price.

Get dancing, kiddlewinks.