Monthly Archives: November 2009

EA’s dropped 30 percent from all its PC games in the US, according to BigDownload, as it’s Thanksgiving today. Amazing scenes.

Not so amazing it you live outside the US, however. You get nothing. Hit that link and see what happens, European people. Sign something, quick.

Thanks, Kotaku.

Update – Obviously, November 26 is today. It’s gone live, apparently.

Namco’s confirmed that the free Tekken 6 DLC rumoured yesterday will release on November 26.

The update includes:

• Improve input response
• Selectable search priorities for ranked matches
• Optimize data transmission between fighters and spectators
• Signal strength bars improved
• Chance to cancel match before it begins after displaying the opponents signal strength

More on GameTactics.

November’s nearly over, and all we have is a measly 1,000 songs. Where’s our sudden influx of Rock Band Network tunes? Well, as it turns out, MTV’s handing us a rain check on that one. A wise man once said that “you can’t kill the metal,” but – if you’re MTV – you can certainly delay it.

“We’re working hard to get the Rock Band Network open public beta release of tools up before the end of the year, with our RBN storefront launching in early 2010. Exact dates still TBD,” an MTV spokesperson told Kotaku.

“The tools necessary for bands to start authoring and prepare their content for review are already live on Creators.rockband.com/tools/download. The open beta launch will add access to the currently private website where all of the RBN community activity and peer reviewing of tracks will take place. People who join the Rock Band Network (bands, fans or otherwise) will be able to play and preview any song before it hits the store, so they should stay tuned for the official launch.”

Well, that’s perfect, actually. We need a bit more time to put the finishing touches on the VG247 theme song. And by “finishing touches,” we mean “find a place where it’s not a violation of copyright law to take ‘Flash’ by Queen and replace every utterance of ‘Flash’ with ‘VG247.’” We’ve got a long road ahead of us, but we’re hopeful.

Looks like Project Natal and Sony’s motion wand have their work cut out for them, as – at the moment – Nintendo’s tiny white console has proven to be the biggest lady killer in gaming history. Speaking at a BMO Capital Markets event, Reggie Fils-Aime revealed that 80 percent of female “primary players” (that is, the main users of consoles in their households) are Wii owners.

In addition, Reggie pegged the number of female primary players in the Americas at 11 million. This means that roughly nine million of them have had their hearts melted by the Wii’s irresistable charms.

As long as Nintendo keeps its female friendly hands off of belching in public, not asking for directions, and – of course – beards, though, we have no problem with this. More women in the gaming world is always a good thing, but the second they start out-belching and out-bearding us, men are officially obsolete.

Thanks, Kotaku.

Those of you who are thinking about hanging up your cape up and tights and quitting the Guitar Hero business might want to reconsider. Speaking with the Seattle Times, Guitar Hero founder Kai Huang gave fans a glimpse into the future of his finger-frying franchise.

“We haven’t made any specific announcements of what we’re doing with new technologies in Guitar Hero 6 and beyond, but one of the areas we’re exploring certainly is camera technology and what you can do — track your movements and maybe have your characters on the screen do certain things you’re doing, or personalize it more so it can look more like you on stage rather than just be an avatar,” he said.

“There are a lot of possibilities that technologies like Natal will bring, and we’re definitely exploring those possibilities.”

Rock Band’s next installment, meanwhile, is aiming for more realism, which almost assuredly means drugs, alcoholism, being stalked by a starving paparazzi that subsists off your soul, and crazy fans who want to steal your clothes and auction them on eBay.

Oh, he was talking about the instruments? You don’t say.

More through the link.

Steam’s having a massive one day only sale, and for today only you can get the following deals:

• Champions Online 50 percent off – $19.99
• Fallen Earth 50 percent off – $24.99
• Dragon Age: Origins 25 percent off – $37.49
• Batman: Arkham Asylum 50 percent off – $24.99
• Far Cry 2: Fortune’s Edition 50 percent off – $9.99
• Osmos 75 percent off – $2.00
• GRID 75 percent off – $7.49

That’s all rather cheap. There’s also a Lucas Arts Premiere Pack, and the THQ Complete pack up for skinny bills.

Check pricing for your area through here.

These one day only sales last until Monday, November 30 and each day there are new games going up for cheap.

Thanks, Mike.

Creative Assembly has announced Napoleon: Total War – Imperial Edition.

The Imperial Edition houses the game, a wall chart full of Napoleon history, a special unlock code for 10 exclusive units (online and standard edition have that bit too), and five exclusive units under the Elite Regiment bundle.

Pricing and availability for the Imperial Edition has yet to be announced for the US.

Game’s out in February, and UK details on this edition are posted below the break.

Thanks, BigDownload.

More »

Infinity Ward’s Robert Bowling has tweeted that the Modern Warfare 2 playlist is getting an update today for all platforms.

Here’s the tweet:

Playlist update coming today. Introducing Hardcore Ricochet: HQ Pro & adding more maps to the rotation of the Free-for-All playlist.

That should make folks happy, we reckon.

Looks like the Uncharted 2 DLC that was tweeted earlier will be released on Friday, along with a Double Cash Weekend.

It’s a new multiplayer mode called The Fort, which is based on the Fortress chapter of Drake’s Fortune.

According to Naughty Dog, it’s a “long rectangular map with wide open spaces and excellent flank routes” with tunnels leading into the basement, a shotgun in the center of the map, and an RPG to the side room in the crypt.

A couple new features were also added to the Multiplayer menu: Leaderboards and a player card.

But wait, there’s more:

When you join a competitive Multiplayer match on Thanksgiving weekend, you’ll be greeted with a slightly different look to our Heroes and Villians. It looks like Drake and Lazarevic had a few too many helpings of turkey (or Tofurkey), green bean casserole and, most definitely, sweet potato casserole.

We also flipped a few switches and bits here and there and not only is Double Cash weekend back, but you’ll be getting 2x the cash from any and all medals you are awarded during the course of a competitive or cooperative match. The per-match limits of $50,000 are still in effect, so if you’re just that good, you’ll be maxing out just about all the time.

There’s a video of it posted below, and more information can be obtained through the Naughty Dog official website.

More »

Ready for Black Friday? Got your riot gear pressed, and your cans of mace unboxed? Good, because it’s all going down the day after tomorrow, and the gaming deals are enough to start a stampede.

Instead of going to loads of different sites – that’s too much work – Joystiq has done the work for you.

The site has “scoured the Black Friday circulars of nationwide retailers and singled out the video game deals” that are sure to make your heart and wallet flutter to the same beat.

Click on the link to see deals from Best Buy, GameStop, Kmart, Sears, Target, Toys”R”Us, and Walmart.

Topware Interactive has announced that it will be the US publisher for Scivelation, the upcoming Unreal Engine III-based third person shooter.

Set for PC and Xbox 360 for Q3 2010, the game’s currently in development at Ukraine-based Black Wing Foundation, and is set in the future with an oppressive government known as the Regime in charge.

The setting and story, according to the PR, was inspired by the works of Orwell, Milton and Dante with addition of running, gunning, sneaking, and driving through a post-Apocalyptic world.

Full PR below the break.

More »

Topware Interactive has announced that Two Worlds II will be released on Xbox 360 during spring 2010.

Here’s the rundown on it:

Two Worlds II returns players to the realms of Antaloor, the high fantasy world of mysticism and awe from the first title, released in 2007. Two Worlds II has been built from the ground up for Xbox 360 with a brand new engine and gameplay mechanics aimed at delivering both hardcore and casual gamers a refreshingly robust role-playing experience.

Rescued from prison by former enemies, the player once again assumes control of the unnamed hero, only to find the world of Antaloor has been forever changed in their absence.

Full PR below the break.

More »

A Cowen Group survey has revealed that game reviews are the “least important factor” to consumers when deciding on which title to purchase.

Instead, according to analyst Doug Creutz, gamers rely mainly on word of mouth and publishers should stop focusing on scoring a high review.

“We believe that while Metacritic scores may be correlated to game quality and word of mouth, and thus somewhat predictive of title performance, they are unlikely in and of themselves to drive or undermine the success of a game.

“We note this, in part, because of persistent rumors that some game developers have been jawboning game reviewers into giving their games higher critical review scores. We believe the publishers are better served by spending their time on the development process than by grade-grubbing after the fact.”

More through CVG.

Vigil’s environment artist, John Pearl, has announced via Twitter that Darksiders has gone gold.

Here’s the tweet:

“After all the hard work and long hours these last couple years…Darksiders has gone GOLD”.

It’s out January 5 and 7 in the US and Europe, respectively.

Check out the video we posted earlier today.

Broadpoint AmTech analyst Ben Schachter has said that DLC for Call of Duty could generate up to $140 million, adding the delicious cherry on top of the Modern Warfare 2 sundae Activison has already netted through game sales.

“As with the last two CoD titles, the game itself should maintain its $60 launch price until the next iteration, but Acitvision will also benefit significantly from the high-margin DLC potential enabled by the packaged product’s success,” he said.

“We estimate that Activison will generate at least $100-$140 million in gross revenue from Call of Duty DLC in 2010.

“Though the company has not announced anything, we would not be surprised to see the content expand significantly beyond simple map packs to include new missions, modes of play, and in-game items. The point is that Call of Duty’s fan base will pay for additional content, and we expect Infinity Ward to monetize that throughout 2010.”

More through IndustryGamers.

Level-5 has announced that a new Professor Layton game is in the works and it’s called The Mask of Miracles.

It’s due next fall in Japan, and is part two in the latest trilogy, following the events in The Specter’s Flute which took place three years before The Curious Village.

While this is great news for Layton aficionados, all it does is make us a very sad panda because the second game was just released this year outside of Japan.

Come on with it.

Via 1UP.

The voice of Nathan Drake himself has said that Uncharted 3 is “assured” to happen, according to OPM.

“Well I know we’re going to be assured a third one,” he revealed. “That would just be financially irresponsible, not to do a third one.”

Thanks Nolan. We were afraid it might not happen, what with the game tanking at retail and all.

Okay, we’re being smarmy. Sorry about that. We love you Nolan. We really do.

Via CVG.

Harmonix and MTV announced today that Rock Band now has more than 1,000 songs available.

That’s a load of DLC right there.

“When we launched Rock Band two years ago, we made a promise to create a music gaming experience that delivered on a weekly basis more songs and artists than ever imagined,” said Harmonix co-founder Alex Rigopulos. “We’re extremely proud to pass this remarkable milestone of over 1,000 songs in Rock Band and will continue to innovate and bring more of the best music to Rock Band players all over the world.”

To date, Rock Band fans have downloaded more than 60 million songs from the Rock Band Music Store.

Next week, a three pack of songs from Nirvana as well as a three pack of songs from Night Ranger will be added to the list on December 1 and 3 for Wii/Xbox 360 and PS3, respectively.

Here’s the list:

• Nirvana – (Come As You Are (Live from MTV Unplugged), Lithium (Live at Reading), Smells Like Teen Spirit

• Night Ranger – (You Can Still) Rock in America, Don’t Tell Me You Love Me, You’re Gonna Hear It From Me

The packs will run you $5.49/£3.99/€2.49 or 440 MS Points, while individual tracks will run $1.99/£.99/€1.49, 160 MS Points or 200 Wii Points.

Via PR mail.

Good news for Final Fantasy XIII folks who participated in the Twitter competition for the 360 version of  the game.

You now have a Chocobo for your Avatar.

Aceybongos said the item code will arrive via email in mid Dec.

Your life is now complete, folks. Live it to the fullest.

Xbox 360 World’s the latest magazine to reveal that Dead Space 2 will be featured in its next issue.

This month’s issue features a teaser image of Isaac with a “2″ on the page, along with text stating: “”One of 2010′s biggest sequels. Next issue.”

Official PlayStation Magazine revealed yesterday that it too will feature the sequel in its next issue, all leading up to a reveal on December 22, apparently.

The cat was let out the bag earlier this month when an EA Redwood job posting revealed the game along with multiplayer.

Via CVG.

Thanks, Blerk.