Monthly Archives: November 2009

Five new shots for Star Trek Online popped up today, showing space combat and some Romulan goodness.

Check ‘em out over on Massively.

Game’s out in February.

Gearbox has released an English and German patch for Borderlands on PC.

Patch 1.0.1 fixes server issues, benchmarking, voice chat and other goodies listed below.

• Characters that have lost skill points will have the lost points refunded
• Clients will no longer lose proficiency progress upon leaving a co-op game
• Item cards now display the intended five lines of detail text
• Lilith’s Phase strike and melee attacks from Phase Walk now function as intended
• Voice chat: users can now control volume and individually mute players
• Fixed a bug that sometimes caused CL4P-TP to stop progressing during the introduction
• Server browser population times have been improved
• Server information should now always display the correct plot mission
• Benchmarking feature now works as intended
• Nvidia 3D Vision visuals now render shadows correctly (requires minimum 195.28 drivers, available from nVidia)

You can get the patch from most file sites, and if you pruchased it digitally, when you log in it should auto patch for you as the pyshical patch won’t work on digital versions.

Activision has confirmed that it’s removal of the airport scene for the Russian PC version of Modern Warfare 2 was voluntary after speaking with local counsel.

“Other countries have formal ratings boards that we regularly work with. However, Russia does not have a formal ratings entity,” an Activision spokesperson told Eurogamer. “As a result, we chose to block the scene after seeking the advice of local counsel.”

The company confirmed to VG247 earlier today, that the reports of a Russian ban were erroneous, as a console version of was not eve released.

More through the links.

Microsoft and Turn 10 announced today that it has released the free Hyundai Genesis Coupe Car Pack for Forza 3.

The three pack of cars includes the special Forza 3 Genesis Coupe, the HKS Genesis and the Rhys Millen Racing Red Bull Genesis.

Next month on December 8, the Hot Holidays Car Pack will be released which includes the Ferrari 458 Italia, and more with information on what it contains to be revealed closer to launch.

More information on the Hyundai DLC can be found through here.

Full PR through the break.

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Konami has put it’s collection of iPhone/iPod Touch games on sale for 99 cents each, and if you add in tax it is still rather cheap no matter where you are in the US and Canada.

Here’s the rundown:

• Dance Dance Revolution S+
• Dance Dance Revolution S
• Field Prowlers Police Rush
• Frogger
• Krazy Kart Racing
• Metal Gear Solid Touch
• Power Pros Touch
• Silent Hill: The Escape
• Silent Scope

We are unsure if this offer is available elsewhere, as iTunes only opens up the US store on our end, so check your region’s storefront to make sure before you get too excited.

We’ll send a mail off to Konami just in case though.

Via Kotaku.

Good Lord, what a massive day in game releases. Those with fat wallets will be having a field day, swimming around on the floor with all their lovely games.

The rest with anorexic wallets will just have to pick one and wait on Santa to bring more – or get some from a very giving stranger driving a van. He may look a bit mad with that hair and strange gleam in his eye, but the clown mask beside him on the passenger’s seat with fishing line and surgical gloves says “good times ahead” and you know it.

Here’s a list of the games that are out in the US today with European dates beside ‘em if different:

• Assassin’s Creed 2 (PC in 2010) (Nov 20)
• Left 4 Dead 2
• LittleBigPlanet PSP
• Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles (Nov 27)
• God of War Collection (2010)
• Tony Hawk: RIDE (Dec 4)
• NCAA Basketball 10 (NA)
• Assassin’s Creed: Bloodlines (Nov 20)
• Scene It? Bright Lights! Big Screen! (Dec 4)
• Chaotic: Shadow Warriors (NA)
• Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D’s Tagforce 4 (NA)
• LEGO Indiana Jones 2: The Adventure Continues (Nov 20)
• The Sim 3: World Adventures Expansion (out yesterday actually) (Nov 20)
• SingStar Latino (TBA)
• Planet 51 (Nov 27)

There may be more, and if we missed any, just let us know.

There’s a bit of a depressing rumor floating about today, which states that EA plans to announce the closure of Pandemic later today.

Sources close to Kotaku stated that almost all of the 200 staffers at the LA studio will be laid-off and the rest sent to other teams within EA.

It was also revealed by the source that EA Montreal will take over the remaining IP from Pandemic, which includes putting the finishing touches on The Saboteur.

While we’ve no reason to doubt this, what with EA laying-off left and right, its unconfirmed until EA announces something.

Via Edge.

Activision has just confirmed to VG247 that reports of Modern Warfare 2 being withdrawn in Russian are incorrect.

“Reports that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 has been banned in Russia are erroneous,” said the publisher in a statement.

“Activision only released a PC version of the game in Russia which went on sale on Tuesday, Nov. 10.”

The original story came from GotPS3, a Russian site, which – according to Hellforge – claimed that the game’s console versions had been banned thanks to its Airport Scene.

So there you go. Untrue. Go back to not speaking Russian in a make-believe Russian airport, Russian Modern Warfare 2 PC players.

After the break. It’s basically Twitter, without loads of the normal functions, on your TV. Christmas may only come once a year, but for you, friend, it’s early in 2009.

Guess what the video’s sample tweet is?

Microsoft released Facebook, Zune Video, Twitter and Last.FM for Live earlier today.

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Oh yeah. That’s the stuff. There’s a Dante’s Inferno story trailer up on EG that says “buy me” in as many monstrous boss-shaped forms as you can imagine.

Can’t wait for this. Hit the link to see why. It’s out in February.

Lionhead’s posted a picture of a fan who’s had developer-shaped tattoos. Look.

“Who can beat Brice in the ‘Lionhead’s biggest fan contest?’” asks the studio.

Anyone fancy getting a Peter Molyneux mask tattooed on their face? Where’s your commitment?

EG’s posted up a new Command & Conquer 4 gameplay trailer, and very nice it is too. Great rockets.

That’s it. RTS. On your PC. With XP. On March 16.

Nelson’s confirmed that Facebook, Zune Video, Twitter and Last.FM are now available on 360.

Facebook and Twitter should appear automatically on your dashboard in the new My Community channel. Zune Video is in the Video Channel and Last.FM should now be found under the Music Channel.

Get ready for 50 billion Tweets saying, “Tweeting from my 360.” A great day to look forward to.

Ubi’s released a PC demo of Avatar through the German Coke Zero site. Obviously.

It’ll cost you 1.6Gb to take a look at the Na’vi in action, and you may as well: the game itself isn’t out until December. And yep, the demo’s in English.

Thanks, RPS.

More from Kotaku’s Reggie interview: this time, the NoA president’s reiterated comments made recently to GameTrailers on Wii HD, saying any major hardware update is “far into the future.”

Here’s the quote:

“The fundamental issue in the logic flow is that — and this is what I’m hearing, whether it’s from you or Geoff or Michael himself — is that, gosh it’s such an opportunity to take HD capability and link it with the Wii. And what we have said, repeatedly, is that that’s not the way we at Nintendo do things. The way we at Nintendo do things is, you know, when we will move to a new generation, it’s because there are some fundamental things the [current] console cannot do. What that says is that simply the addition of HD capability will not be the next step for us. There will be more to it. There will be additional capability. There will be additional elements, and, given that, it is far into the future.”

And there you have it. No HD Mario for you until 2050. Tough tits.

EA Sports Active is properly go, if this image on NeoGAF’s to be believed. EA’s opened a retail store complete dedicated to the hit fitness franchise, which, inexplicably, features a black scooter on its floor.

Why? Who knows. EA probably isn’t arguing.

Thanks, GoNintendo.

NPD reckons that 14 percent of all American households pay for “online gaming subscription services”. That’s MMOs, to you and us. And Xbox Live, presumably.

The gobbit comes from research on the state of general entertainment subs in the US.

Someone somewhere must be getting very rich. Not that we’d noticed, or anything.

PR after the break. Thanks, for the heads-up, Kotaku.

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Sony’s announced a Kingdom Hearts special edition PSP for Japan. GameWatch has shots of it.

It’s a PSP-3000, and it’s going to be timed to release next to Birth by Sleep.

January 9, 22,000 yen.

Left 4 Dead 2 is now officially out. Like, everywhere. You can now buy it on Steam, and given the first rash of obviously complimentary reviews, you probably should.

According to the PR after the break, Valve’s sequel offers a “much larger game than the original, featuring more co-operative campaigns, more Versus campaigns, new Survival maps, and the new competitive game mode, Scavenge.”

Just buy it. You really should just buy it. Shut you whining and shoot something instead.

As a note, we actually can’t buy it. The game’s Steam page says it doesn’t unlock for another three days.

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Left 4 Dead 2′s nearly upon us, but you’re no mindless zombie, shambling from hyped-game to hyped-up game. No – when someone else tells you what to buy, you’ll only heed their word if there’s a number attached. Otherwise, no deal. So, in your honor, here’s the Internet’s initial horde of Left 4 Dead 2 reviews.

• Maximum PC – 9/10
• Eurogamer – 9/10
• IGN – 9/10
• Kotaku – nine out of…er, we mean No Score
• GamesRadar – 9/10
• 1UP – A
• GameSpy – 4.5/5
• Destructoid – 9.5/10
• RockPaperShotgun – No score
• StrategyInformer – 9.3/10
• GameTrailers – 8.7/10
• GamePro – 4.5/5
• CVG/PCG UK – 9.2/10

As always, if you find more, let us know and we’ll add them to the list.