Monthly Archives: November 2009

Valve has sent word that the Left 4 Dead 2 demo can now be played by all Xbox Live members.

Yes, even the Silver ones.

The demo is taken from The Parish campaign and is playable by one to four players.

Full thing’s out on PC and Xbox 360 November 17 and 20 in the US and UK, respectively.

Square Enix and Eidos announced today that the reorganization of the two companies’ operations has been completed and will henceforth be known as Square Enix Europe.

“Today marks a major achievement towards the goals we announced in July and represents the creation of an efficient and powerful structure for game development and publishing,” said Phil Rogers, president and CEO of Square Enix Europe. “We have a formidable product-line up which truly showcases the diversity of our exceptional gaming brands.”

Operations are to be run out of the former Eidos office in Wimbledon, which will oversee marketing and sales in France, Germany and the UK, along with management of Beautiful Game Studios, Crystal Dynamics, Eidos Montreal, IO Interactive, and Square Enix London.

Full PR through the break.

More »

Visceral has announced that it’s to release a demo for Dante’s Inferno in December, which has players going through The Gates of Hell – the entire first level of the game.

Great to hear.

There’s a developer video of Heresy – the sixth circle of Hell – below the break, and in it the devs talk about how the place heretics go is indeed full of fire, brimstone, and literally Satan’s backyard.

It’s loaded with poor souls damned to Hell for all eternity, and when dealing with them you can choose to be a “total bastard or a nice guy” – the choice is up to you.

Full PR is also passed the break. It’s out in February.

More »

DICE has said that the PC version of Battlefield: Bad Company 2 will not be a port, but “tweaked and adjusted” to suit it, and there will be a Beta for it as well.

“On the PC, it’s a PC version, which is getting that same treatment,” Gordon Van Dyke told IncGamers, “and then also a little bit more as PC users are generally used to a different type of experience than console users are, and we recognize that and we want to make sure that we give that to the PC market and give the console market more.

“We’re also going to have a PC beta, and we’ll announce more details on that at a later date.”

More through the link.

According to online retailer NewEgg, the Wireless N Adapator for Xbox 360 will go on sale today for $100.

The page even lists the specs:

• Dual Band
• 5GHz: 1×2 (802.11a & 802.11n)
• 2.4GHz: 2×2
• 2(Tx)x 2(Rx)
• 7x faster than ‘G’
• 2x the range of ‘G

It was suppose to come out on November 3, but the site has it listed for release today, and this is first listing we have seen for it.

Then again, we live under a rock, so you are likely to get it elsewhere.

Via Kotaku.

Looks like The Lost and Damned may be heading to PC if an Achievements page over on GTA4.net is to be believed.

Shown through the link there, is a screen grab of the Achievements listed for GFWL.

The Lost and Damned is only available on Xbox 360 as per an agreement with Rockstar, for the present at any rate.

We’ll sent a mail over and see if anyone bites, but if it is a surprise or a secret, don’t expect more than the canned “no comment” response.

Via CVG.

SEGA of Europe has announced a special edition for Bayonetta.

Set for release in Australia, France, Spain and the UK it contains the game, hardcover art book, and a soundtrack disk.

It’s out January 8 for PS3 and Xbox 360.

Activision has shipped a 3 million copies of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 to the UK.

The publisher expects today’s UK launch to break records, hammering GTA IV’s five day UK record of over 900,000 units sold, and 3 million should be enough for the demand leading up to the holiday shopping extravaganza.

It’s not known how the numbers differentiate between PC, PS3 or Xbox but that’s still a ton of copies.

Hopefully, it will be enough for a salivating public.

More through MCV.

Those running around as a superhero fighting other superheros in Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2, already know that Black Panther was introduced as DLC last week.

However, if you are sitting on the fence regarding dropping the 800 MS Points ($10.00/£6.80/€9.30) for the pack that contains him along with Carnage, Cable, Magneto and Psylocke, four new challenge missions and more – maybe the video over on Eurogamer Germany of him will help sway you.

Looks rather fierce, he does.

Steam’s latest sales charts shows two version of Dragon Age: Origins topping the chart, taking the number one and two spot.

Borderlands is still hanging in there at number four, with Torchlight at number five.

We’ll quit prattling and let you read it for yourself now, courtesy of BigDownload.

1. Dragon Age Origins Digital Deluxe Edition
2. Dragon Age Origins
3. Left 4 Dead 2 – Valve
4. Borderlands
5. Torchlight
6. Modern Warfare 2
7. Football Manager 2010
8. Mass Effect
9. Shattered Horizon
10. Aion -NCsot

The celebrate the release of Modern Warfare 2, Activision’s to donate $1 million to set up Call of Duty Endowment (CODE), a non-profit organisation designed to help American military vets get jobs and readjust to civilian life.

Jobless rates among ex-service staff are higher than the average, according to this Washington Post piece.

There’s more through there.

Just Cause 2 has a Bionic Commando-style grappling hook, as seen in the video after the break.

You can even use it to swing up to helicopters. That’s some fancy grappling shit going on there.

It’s out next year. Thanks, Kotaku.

More »

Did you know Vagrant Story was releasing for PSP and PS3 in Europe this week? We didn’t. And yet it’s true. It’s a crazy world we live in.

The dungeon-crawling RPG was first released in 2000, and is a bit of a classic. You’d do well to give it a waz.

Thanks, Spiral.

Update: Bad news. We’ve just been told by Square that the date – taken from the company’s newsletter – is actually wrong. The game’s coming to PSN soon, but not this week. We’ll let you know as soon as the correct date’s announced.

The latest Saboteur screens include a shot of main chap Shaun Devlin shooting down a Zeppelin with a rocket. We like this. After the break.

The rest are good too. Which means you should buy the Parisian WWII adventure on December 8. Do your bit for the Resistance, and all that.

More »

Left 4 Dead has now been patched to include 4v4 matchmaking, meaning you can now search for opposing teams as a group of four.

The update also fixes Crash Course achievement bug. And some other stuff.

Eurogamer has more.

Um. This is a bit odd. As you can see from Steam’s Modern Warfare 2 page, the PC version of Infinity Ward’s shooter is locked up until Thursday.

Why? We don’t know. The game’s now on sale for PS3, 360 and PC. Unlucky if you pre-loaded it on Steam, obviously.

Ubi’s put out its final Assassin’s Creed dev diary before the game ships next week. This one shows Ezio’s house. The one where he keeps all his killing shit.

You can upgrade your villa as you go along, which is lots of fun, according to those that know.

Take a look. Thanks, Joystiq.

More »

The US PS Blog just announced that Netflix is now available for PS3.

If you’ve requested an instant streaming disc for your console, it’s on its way to you, apparently. If you haven’t, go here to get one.

It’s US-only remember. The Euro Movie Store launches next week.

There’s a Netflix-PS3 video after the break.

More »

1 – We went into a cinema on Leicester Square. The event was attended by Goldie and some other people. But mainly Goldie. We were shown the game on the huge screen, had an IW animator chat about injecting “heroin” into multiplayer and got given a goodie bag with a notepad in it. It was more fun than it sounds.

2 – We went and had some food and a bit of a drink.

3 – We turned up at the party. Men everywhere dressed in camo gear. Lots of “celebs,” including half of this, this man and Dizzee Rascal, who played for 20 minutes at midnight. I talked 15 tons of crap, and now sound as though I’ve been eating gravel.

4 – Got the game, got back on a train, went home.

5 – That’s it. Go and buy it. Here’s why.

The reviews embargo for Modern Warfare 2 has just gone up, after a few gun-jumpers going live with their scores yesterday.

Unsurprisingly, the scores are high. If you have any links to add, add them below in the comments.

Today

• MTV – No score
• Eurogamer.net – 9/10
• CVG – 9.4/10
• IGN UK – 9.4/10
• IGN US – 9.5/10
• Giant Bomb – 5/5
• Gamestrailers – 9.5/10
• Joystiq – No score
• 1UP – A
• Hardgame 2 – 9.5/10
• Kotaku – No score
• Gamer365.hu – 9/10
• StrategyInformer – 9.2/10
• Boomtown – 8/10
• Jeuxvideo.com – 18/20
• Gamekult – 8/10
• Jeuxvideo.fr – 5/5
• VideoGamesDaily – 9/10
• GameRadar – 10/10
• GamePro – 5/5
• OXM UK - 10/10
• Game Informer – 9.75/10

Yesterday

• 4players.de – 88%
• GamePro.de – 93%
• JustPushStart – 4.5/5
• GamesonSmash – 4.5/5
• Videogamezone – 91/100
• wearetheinternetz – No Score
• GamingBolt – 10/10
• XboxLife.dk – 10/10
• Eurogamer.de – 9/10

Go. Buy.