Monthly Archives: November 2009

Microsoft just put out a ridiculous amount of new Crackdown 2 imagery. There are some new screens in there, and a boatload of vehicle, character model and weapon art. Get it all after the break.

No date. Which is a shame. Because we want to play it.

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Update: GameTrailers has just tweeted that the teaser is for the movie. So there ya go.

Original: Geoff Keighley has just tweeted that one of the world premieres during the VGAs will be the TRON movie announcement.

At least we think its for the remake starring Jeff Bridges and Olivia Wilde. It could be a game for all we know.

There’s a video of it through the break. It’s not much.

Still, you know you are pissing yourself over this, seriously. Don’t deny it.

VGAs happen December 12 on Spike.

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NCSoft has released a nine-minute teaser for Aion, showing off visual upgrades, an awesome battle, and a something that may look a bit familiar to some.

It definitely looks like an MMO players naughty dream, honestly. Too bad 16,000 users ruined their future chances of reveling in it.

No word on when the changes will be implemented, but it does not look like something that will happen in the immediate future.

Go watch it on Kotaku.

Atari has relaunched its website, and now you can purchase Atari games through the online store, and more.

If you fancy playing some retro coin-op arcade and 2600 classics, you can do so for free, as well as get info on recent and upcoming releases, purchase merchandise and games via box or digital download, and a whole lot of other stuff.

Some of the free games include: Asteroids, Adventure, Battlezone, Crystal Castles, Lunar Lander and Yars Revenge in complete original form – now with leaderboards.

“Today commences the first stage in Atari’s ongoing commitment to growing its online business with the re-launch of Atari.com,” said CEO Jim Wilson. “Our online roadmap contains a multitude of enhancements and exciting new features which over time will redefine how people play and connect with Atari.”

Check the site out through Atari.

Via PR mail.

Media Molecule has released quite a bit of concept art for LittleBigPlanet.

Each bit is from the early days of development.

It’s all a bit zany and cute, like you’d expect. Go have a look.

Via Kotaku.

Just Add Water’s Gravity Crash is out on PSN today, and to celebrate, the UK dev’s giving away one single, awesome copy on Twitter. Don’t say Sony doesn’t do anything for you.

Want it? The code’s going to be given away on Twitter at 5pm GMT. All you have to do is follow @jawltd and be first in input the code when it goes live. Doddle.

More detail here. If you don’t win, you should just buy it. It’s wicked, and costs £6.29. Like, dur.

Attention gamers who live in New York: If a tornado, horde of zombies, Mecha-Streisand or a plane piloted by John Cusack starts heading in your direction, the state has you covered.

Because you are engrossed in playing MW2 or Harry Potter you would have no idea if such a calamity was about to transpire, therefore, the state plans to start sending alerts via Xbox Live.

State Deputy CIO Rico Singleton, said the plan makes sense, “considering the amount of time our youth spend on video games, and while he provided few details on how the plan will be implemented, he did confirm it is currently in testing.

More through Information Week, via Joystiq.

Crackdown 2 will be awesome, Agent. There’s plenty cleaning to do. Pacific City is dirty, dirty as an ageing hooker’s girdle. It’s stained. It stinks. It’s covered in graffiti, the art of the scummer. Are you a scummer? Can you art?

Ruffian’s launched a graffiti competition just, like, now. You’re being given the chance to draw up some radical opticals and actually get them in the game. Not only that, but you’ll be listed in the credits. You and you scum art. Immortalized in game-land.

Get to it. There’s no date on the game yet, but it looks as though things are getting moving, so you should be pumped. Send your entries by email to compo@gazaxian.com before Wednesday, December 9. Ruffian will announce winners in the following week.

Hit the link for full T&Cs. Good luck!

According to a Seattle Times interview with Red Octane co-founder Kai Huang, Activision may consider a subscription based service for future Guitar Hero DLC.

“That’s definitely one of the things we would love to do,” Huang said. “There are a lot of issues around music licensing. Customers want it. I know I want it. We’re trying to make that happen.”

It may be simpler that way. Pay a monthly fee, like a lot of other music services, and download all you want.

Providing more than 10 songs are put out a month and it’s cheap, it might eventually be the way to go.

More through the Seattle Times, via 1UP.

Assassin’s Creed 2 has sold an excellent 1.6 million units in its first week, Ubi just confirmed, with sales up 32 percent over the original game.

The title’s sitting pretty now, with little left to challenge it in the run-up to Christmas thanks to Modern Warfare 2′s scare tactics.

If you haven’t played it, you should. It’s awesome.

PR after the break.

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Euro 360 boss Chris Lewis is in the zone. The Live zone. Can you toe-step his Live shit? No, you cannot.

“No one can touch us in terms of developing that service, completely reinventing that service in the way that we did last year with the New Xbox Experience update last November,” he told GI.

Microsoft’s focus on software and services this console gen is its own direction, Lewis added: “That was not predicated upon a new piece of hardware. We’re able to deliver that kind of innovation via our Xbox 360 service without troubling the consumer in any way.”

Do not fuck with Xbox Live. Hit the link while you’re not doing that.

Here comes the news. And it’s news about being able to kill zombies in videogames without feeling guilty.

“The reason zombies are so powerful and transcend fantasy is because right now they are the modern, societal guilt-free meat-puppet,” Guild Wars creator Jeff Strain has told Eurogamer.

“We’ve been through the Nazi phase, we’ve been through the communist phase, we’ve been through the terrorist phase. Those were all at various times in history fair game in the gaming culture. Right now zombies are fulfilling that need for us.

“That no-rules, no-guilt mentality is something that people really resonate with,” he said.

Using a zombie as a “guilt-free meat-puppet” could go either way, quite frankly. Semi.

More through there.

Square Enix Japan is to work on Deus Ex 3 cinematics, Eidos Montreal studio GM Stephane D’Astous has told Edge.

“Deus Ex 3 is going to be the first project which will be a concrete product of joint effort between Square Enix and Eidos,” said D’Astous.

“The cinematics — by which I mean any CGI pre-rendered cinematics — are going to be done in Tokyo by Square Enix, and that’s going to be amazing.”

D’Astous added: “It was in April when Square Enix acquired us, and by June, July I was trying to think of a project we could do together. One morning I woke up and I said, we’ll, they’re known for their cinematics, so why not get them involved with those?”

Should be super-cool. Hit the link for more. The FPRPG’s out next year.

Famitsu’s outed Adon and Final Fight’s Cody and Guy as playable characters in Super Street Fighter IV.

The trio last appeared together in Street Fighter Alpha 3, according to this Siliconera report.

Hit the link for shots.

The EU PS Blog is now available in Spanish, for Spanish people and Spanish speakers everywhere. Bienvenidos, etc.

That’s it, pretty much. Three bods from SCEE called Manuelito, Monica and Francisco are running it.

Remember how Tesla apparently outed Gotham 5 yesterday? And remember how Microsoft blanked it?

Ruffian’s just posted the following on its Twitter account:

“Brum brum! Screech! Mmm, I love the sound of a Tesla in the morning.”

Mr Tesla appears to have got his wires crossed. We’ve just had it confirmed by Ruffian that the recording session was actually for Crackdown 2. Some of the Ruffian guys worked on Gotham 4, innit. Tesla and Agents for the win.

Quarterback is toast, etc.

Update: They’re watching, kids.

BioWare’s revealed the final two Star Wars: The Old Republic classes as the Jedi Consular and the Sith Inquisitor.

There’s no detail there, other than the fact that US and European mags are going to be talking more about it all in the coming weeks.

To sum up, then, the MMO will have the following classes:

• Trooper
• Smuggler
• Jedi Knight
• Jedi Consular
• Bounty Hunter
• Warrior
• Sith Agent
• Sith Inquisitor

No date. It’s expected towards the end of next year, though.

A supposedly leaked video of Mercenaries Inc., a multiplayer Mercenaries titles and the only surviving project from the now defunct Pandemic Studios, can be found after the break.

It’s being described as “multiplayer sandbox game,” and is apparently in pre-production at EA LA. The only staffers to make it out of Pandemic have been moved down to LA.

Hit it. Thanks, Bitmob.

Update: It was canned this month, apparently.

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Datel’s taking Microsoft to court over the fact it blocked third-party 360 memory units in its last title update.

“The dashboard update is intended to, and does in fact, disable Datel’s memory cards,” said the company in the lawsuit, filed in US District Court for the Northern District of California.

“On information and belief, Microsoft’s purpose in disabling Datel’s memory cards is to prevent consumers from choosing a Datel product that offers far better value for the price. There is no benefit to consumers from Microsoft’s decision to target and disable Datel memory cards. To the contrary, Microsoft’s actions will leave approximately 50,000 consumers with useless memory cards (and without the ability to access their data on the cards), forestall innovation, and deprive future consumers of the benefits of competition.”

You can read the full suit here, should you feel the need.

The latest Famitsu’s given New Mario Bros. Wii a perfect score of 40/40, as you can see on Kotaku.

It’s the thirteenth game in the mag’s history to take top marks. The rest are:

1. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (1998)
2. Soulcalibur (1999)
3. Vagrant Story (2000)
4. The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker (2003)

5. Nintendogs (2005)

6. Final Fantasy XII (2006)

7. Super Smash Bros. Brawl (2008)

8. Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots (2008)

9. 428 (2008)

10. Dragon Quest IX (2009)

11. Monster Hunter Tri (2009)
12. Bayonetta (2009)

Hit the link for picture proof.