Monthly Archives: November 2009

EA has bought social games firm Playfish for $300 million.

It was bought with $275 million in cash, and $25 million in a equity retention arrangement. They will operate under the EA Interactive division.

“Social gaming, with its emphasis on friends and community, is seeing tremendous growth and this is the right time to invest to strengthen our participation in this space,” SVP and GM of EA Interactive Barry Cottle said.

“The industry is undergoing dramatic transformation and joining EA is the ideal opportunity for us to push forward our goals to lead in the social entertainment evolution on a faster and much larger scale,” said Playfish CEO and co-founder Kristian Segerstrale.

Find more over at Develop.

Speaking at the SEMA motor show recently with Autoweek, Gran Turismo creator Kazunori Yamauchi has said that the reason that the release of Gran Turismo 5 in the West is down to “marketing reasons”.

“We will release [GT5] in March in Japan but for other regions, it has not been decided yet,” he said.

“That’s more depending on SCEA (Sony Computer Entertainment America) marketing decisions.”

The game was given a March 2010 release date for Japan at the Tokyo Game Show in September.

From Kotaku.

Over on the EU PS  Blog, sound director for Guerilla Games Mario Lavin has confirmed that the full soundtrack of Killzone 2 is now available on iTunes to buy.

The price isn’t mentioned, but we just checked for ourselves, and it retails for £7.99.

It comes with 28 original pieces from the game’s composer Joris De Man, as well as a remix and a digital booklet containing concept art for the game.

You can buy it here.

Infinity Ward’s Rob Bowling has tweeted that anybody who has a retail copy of Modern Warfare 2, instead of a pirate/modded version, their multiplayer stats won’t be reset.

It comes as last week, Bowling said that a full multiplayer reset was on the cards.

“Any players who purchased a legit retail copy will not be reset or banned. Only modded / pirate versions will be,” he said.

Bowling also confirmed that anyone who got the game early from some retailers, including GameStop, won’t be punished.

“ANY store selling #MW2 early is in violation of street date. There are no “special permissions”. That said, we won’t punish players for it.”

There you have it.

Blizzard’s Chris Sigaty has announced at IgroMir that the planned beta for Starcraft II won’t make it for late this year.

Instead, the producer for the game said it’ll be coming next year.

On Thursday, Activision confirmed that the first episode of the Starcraft II saga, Wings of Liberty, is still on course for Q2 2010.

Thanks, Eurogamer.

Update: The Telegraph has gone live with its review, giving it 10/10.

“All told, Modern Warfare 2 crosses into the must-have category of video games effortlessly. It offers an unmatched shooter experience, a compelling story mode, a slick package of mini missions and a multiplayer which is pretty much unparalleled in depth. It’s sure to satisfy the demands of its fan base, and anyone who considers themselves a fan of shooters in general should definitely pick up a copy. It may be debatable as to whether Modern Warfare 2 is objectively the best release of this year, but it’s certainly the finest game in its genre, as well one of the truly great games of this or indeed any year.”

And the floodgates open…

Thanks, Mafro.

Original Story: The Guardian’s gone live with what appears to be the first review of Modern Warfare 2, giving it a 5/5.

Here’s a snip:

“All in all, MW2 is exactly what fans were expecting. Yes, it carries a hefty price-tag, a shortish single player campaign and only adds a handful of genuinely new elements to the prequel, but you won’t find a more polished, intelligent FPS this year. For non-stop action, superior AI and perfectly balanced weapons, it’s a worthy chart-topper that hammers a nail into any hope of the COD franchise returning to its WW2 roots anytime short of the next round of console upgrades. And, on this evidence, you won’t find too many complaints about that.”

Well kids, you know what to do. Go nuts. Get money. And line up tonight for the midnight launches.

According to a listing on the PEGI website, Michael Jackson’s Moonwalker could soon be released on the Virtual Console for the Wii.

The listing also shows it was rated a 12.

There has been talk of a re-release of the game since Jackson’s death in the summer. Maybe now, it’ll happen.

Thanks, Videogamer.

EA’s released six new shots of EA Sports MMA to go along with the release of the debut trailer, which was released earlier this morning.

Find them after the jump.

No date yet for the PS3/360 cage brawler, other then it’ll be out in 2010.

More »

The first reviews for LittleBigPlanet’s PSP outing have come in from Eurogamer and play.tm.

They both gave the game a 9 and a 90% respectively. Here’s a snip from the EG review:

“In short, the “Play” aspect of LBP PSP is just as good as it is in the PS3 version. In fact it’s better in some regards thanks to the tweaked controls, reduction in the number of planes and more lenient checkpoint system. Most importantly, the environments you get to play through are just as beautiful, the puzzles just as ingenious and the difficulty level just as challenging.”

It’s out on November 17 in the US, and November 20 in the UK. Go get it, innit.

Thanks, Syrok.

Someone’s posted up an 18-minute video of an Alan Wake demo on GT, filmed last week in Russia. Watch it after the break.

There’s tons of gameplay in there, and a good amount on the story.

Spoilers: Alan, a bestselling writer, goes off into the middle of nowhere to get his mojo back. His better half gets kidnapped and he ends up talking to a man in a puffer jacket in a log cabin. From then on, all manner of wacky shit happens. Spoilers over.

The Remedy 360 exclusive has no date. But if people are seeing this much of it, it really can’t be that far away.

Can it? Thanks, Blerk.

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Eurogamer.nl has live six new shots of Left 4 Dead 2.

You would be pretty mad to miss this when it releases.

But when is that? November 20, next Friday, for the 360 and PC.

Wii Fit Plus has gone to No. 1 in the latest UK charts, having entered it last week at two.

Last week’s No. 1, Football Manager 2010, slipped to four in the charts. The top three is rounded off by FIFA 10 and Wii Sports Resort.

Dragon Age: Origins debuted at five.

Find the full top ten below. Last week’s data is here.

We didn’t see this coming…

The Daily Mail has an article on it’s website, slamming Modern Warfare 2. And it only took this long.

One of the quotes from the article has a pop at the game for letting players kill civilians in terror attacks.

“Among the most controversial is a situation where the gamer must decide whether to kill unarmed civilians at a Russian airport in order to infiltrate a terrorist group.”

Labour MP Keith Vaz even has a say on the matter, saying he will air concerns for the game in parliament later on today.

“I am absolutely shocked by the level of violence in this game and am particularly concerned about how realistic the game itself looks,” said Vaz.

Surprise, surprise…

Thanks, MCV.

GAME Modern Warfare 2 pre-orders have started arriving in gamers’ hands, a day before the title goes on sale.

VG247 reader Dannybuoy just Twitpicced his copy.

Many reports are now coming in of retailers in the UK and US having broken the game’s street date, including Gamestop.

Activision said overnight that it “has not given any retailer permission to sell Modern Warfare 2 prior to the Nov. 10 street date.”

ASDA’s claimed on its blog that 600,000 UK punters have pre-ordered Modern Warfare 2 ahead of the game’s launch tomorrow.

Not quite sure what the number relates to – global, UK, whatever – but we’re checking now.

Update: It’s a UK-wide figure.

Codemasters has released a F1 2009 gameplay trailer, showing the final circuit of the 2009 season and the most recent addition to the Formula One calendar, Abu Dhabi.

It shows BBC Five Live commentators David Croft and Anthony Davidson, who was of course a former F1 driver with Super Aguri, playing the game.

Find it after the jump. It’s out next week for the Wii and PSP.

Thanks, TLG.

More »

In case you haven’t noticed, Modern Warfare 2 launches tonight from midnight. And already the supermarkets are at war with each other because of it.

Sainsburys has confirmed that they will dramatically slash the price of the game for the Xbox 360 and PS3 from the RRP of £55, all the way down to £26, while Asda will sell the game for £32 and Tesco will sell it for £25, but only when bought with any other chart title.

Back in October, the supermarkets went at it with FIFA 10.

If you’re boycotting the game in the UK for the price alone, you no longer have an excuse. Get to it, Radiohead.

Thanks, Gamerzines.

Xbox Evolved has live the first ten minutes of Modern Warfare 2.

Find it after the jump.

WARNING: Massive spoilers, so watch at your own risk if you’re looking to stay spoiler-free.

More »

Game Anyone has live a full seven minute direct-feed video of the controversial airport level from Modern Warfare 2.

We have it embedded after the jump. You’ll be able to play this from midnight tonight for the PS3, 360 and PC.

WARNING: Obviously, it has massive spoilers, so don’t watch if you want to stay pure. This footage contains strong violence.

More »

JushPushStart has live the first nine minutes of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare: Reflex to watch.

You can find it through the link. In case you forgot, this is the Wii port of COD4.

It’s out tomorrow, alongside Modern Warfare 2.