Monthly Archives: December 2009

Portal’s most prominent “face,” Kim Swift, has left Valve for Dark Void developer Airtight Games.

Swift will hold the title of project lead at the studio, and will “build and lead a team in the development of games aimed at a more diverse audience.”

Airtight boss Jim Deal said her hiring “represents a strategic move by Airtight Games into new and broader gaming markets.”

More on Gama.

Guess what? Unless Visceral’s being amazingly cryptic, Dead Space 2 – announced today – is to have multiplayer.

The EA studio is looking for a “Senior Online Level Designer for the Dead Space franchise on Xbox 360 and PS3.”

Read the full thing here. Did you honestly expect anything less?

Via IndustryGamers and Blue.

Deserty epic Rage is to have money, weird boomerang things and “recipes” used for creating items, id boss Tim Willit’s told NowGamer.

“Rage… has an economy where you are allowed to choose how you spend your money earned through combat and racing,” said the exec.

“You might decide you love the wingstick (a boomerang-cum-shuriken weapon) and stock up on them, or you may feel inclined to purchase parts to build more sentry bots or to keep your armour upgraded and repaired.”

Recipes? All true.

“We’re not quite ready to divulge every engineering item, but the system is one of the things we are most excited about,” Willits added when asked about the game’s custom weaponry system.

“Through your relationships with characters in the game you earn recipes over time. Then you buy, loot, or receive as rewards the different ingredients that each recipe calls for.”

Rage, id’s first original IP sionce Quake, releases next year via EA.

Dead Rising 2 developer Blue Castle Games is starting on a new “action project,” according to a job ad, requiring the successful applicant’s “finger” to be “on the pulse of open world and FPS games like Prince of Persia, Assassins Creed, Halo, and everything in between.”

So that’s everything, then. Read the full thing on Gama.

What is it? We don’t know. And neither do you. This is great, huh?

The Electro Bolt plasmid from the first BioShock’s made it over to the sequel apparently unchanged, if the new gameplay movie after the break’s anything to go by.

It still stuns people so you can shoot them better. There seems to be a particularly tough lady at the end of the movie: you can shoot her in the face with a mini-gun and she doesn’t go down. She’s rough. She’s tough. She’s a bit mental, from the look of it.

The game’s out for PC, 360 and PS3 on February 9. Thanks, BD.

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GTA IV may be simply too large to succesfully carry DLC, Wedbush Morgan’s Michael Pachter’s told VG247, as the majority of owners never actually finish the main game.

Pachter was talking in response to comments made earlier by AmTech analyst Ben Schachter (via Industrygamers and Joystiq), who expressed “concern” about the state of the GTA franchise in general thanks to The Lost and Damned, Gay Tony and other related games failing to match expectation.

“Ben’s right that the DLC disappointed, but I suspect that the reason is that GTA games are so massive that a substantial majority of the GTA audience hasn’t finished the core game, so they don’t feel especially compelled to buy the DLC,” Pachter said.

“GTA IV was at least a 50 hour game (for me, probably more like 100 hours), in contrast to the typical Call of Duty, which is a 6-10 hour game. Almost anyone who bought CoD finished it, and if they liked it (that’s a high percentage), they were interested in DLC. On the other hand, my guess is that fewer than 20% of GTA owners finished the game (100% of VG247 readers, of course), so fewer were interested in DLC.

“I think that is a fair assessment, and don’t think that the slow pace of DLC sales reflects poor performance for the franchise.”

They’re watching, kids. And they know you’re hardcore. No further GTA games are public at this point.

Koei’s just confirmed both the 360 and PS3 versions of Quantum Theory for a spring release in Europe.

A 360 version was unveiled earlier today: the Gears-alike was previously considered to be a PS3 exclusive.

Did you know it had a “shape-shifting battlefield,” four online multiplayer modes and “two-character combination actions”?

Shame on you. Hit the link.

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Avalanche’s latest Just Cause 2 movie shows “the laws of physics on drugs,” according to one of the game’s developers. Looks more like vehicle stunts to us, but we’ll let it go.

What there’s no doubt about is that it’s all looking pretty bloody awesome. The island-based actioner includes over 100 vehicles and what looks to be a large amount of weapons and statues. That’s right: statues.

Hit the link and see. It’s out next year.

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Yet more from Geoff Keighley’s Twitter account. The Spike presenter’s confirmed that UFC Undisputed 2010 will be aired for the first time at the VGAs this weekend.

Woo. We want to see sweat on their sweat this time. And some suggestive thrusting, obviously.

The VGAs take place this Saturday.

Famitsu’s posted more screens of Final Fantasy XIII. They may be new. They’re new to us. To be brutally honest, we haven’t a blind fucking clue any more.

There’s an awesome one there of a man in a veil and a daft hat. It’ll never be better than this.

It’s out later this month in Japan. Europe and America get it in March.

The opening sections of Assassin’s Creed II may have benefited from more action, scriptwriter Corey May’s admitted, and given the luxury of reworking the game’s early hours he’d be looking to beef them up.

“If I could do it again I’d try and ‘sharpen’ it but I wouldn’t cut it,” said May, talking to VG247 in an interview published today. “Ezio’s origins are an integral part of his adventure.”

May said it was necessary for the player to spend time with Ezio as a “carefree adolescent, unaware of his heritage.”

He added: “And it needed to be more than a token five minutes. So in that sense I disagree. But I fully admit that we could have refined the sequence so that it either moved faster or provided the player with more action-oriented activities. This would have likely made a big difference.

“But at the end of the day I think the idea of the beginning of the game is important.”

The slower opening hours of Assassin’s Creed II are the most criticised of the game in general. Hasn’t stopped it being completely awesome, like, but there we are.

Hit the link for the full thing, including comments from producer Sebastien Puel.

Tecmo’s Quantum Theory will release on 360 as well as PS3, the publisher’s told Joystiq.

The new version will release next spring, in the same window as its sibling.

In case you’d forgotten, Quantum Theory really, really looks like Gears of War. Accept it’s made in Japan.

More through there.

Rare’s just stuck up some new Perfect Dark XBLA shots, showing a bit more of Joanna doing the do.

There’s one of a split-screen play there as well. No date on it as yet.

Thanks, TheDutchSlayer.

Total War developer Creative Assembly’s doing more stuff on 360 and PS3, as proven by the studio’s ongoing search for cross-platform staff.

“The successful applicant will be interested in all things graphics related and work as part of the team developing all aspects of a game specific engine for 360, PS3 and PC,” says this graphic programmer ad.

Here’s another. This one’s for a lead engine programmer: “The successful applicant will lead a team developing all aspects of a game specific engine for 360, PS3 and PC with a view to extending the tech to ‘next next’ gen consoles.”

CA’s console efforts haven’t been especially well received to date, with sci-fi RTS Stormrise managing 48 percent on MC for its 360 version (51 percent for PS3), and the earlier Viking: Battle For Asgard taking 65 and 68 for PS3 and 360 respectively.

The outfit’s next announced game is Napoleon: Total War on PC, slated for February.

Thanks, CinemaBlend.

Tim Schafer’s confirmed that metal adventure Brutal Legend’s to get more content.

“We definitely want to do more DLC for both single-player and multiplayer, as well as some tuning patches,” said the developer, speaking to GamePro.

That’s it. There’s no detail. There is, however, a fun interview through the link.

Pro Evolution 2010 was the biggest selling game in Japan last month, according to Famitsu. The sports title moved over 320,000 units.

Here’s the top three:

1. Pro Evo 2010
Launch: November 11
Sales: 321,722
Life to date: 321,722

2. Tomodachi Collection
Launch: July 18
Sales: 308,944
Life to date: 1,709,209

3. Professor Layton and the Specter’s Flute
Launch: November 26
Sales: 301, 290
Life to date: 301,290

Get the full top ten in English on Kotaku.

EA’s finally announced Dead Space 2, as you can see in the PR after the break. It’s confirmed for PC, 360 and PS3, but there’s no date.

Apparently, Isaac’s going to be “taking the fight to the Necromorphs” this time, with new weapons, new characters, and “epic zero-G environments”.

“We’re thrilled to jump back into the series, making the next chapter in Isaac’s journey,” said EP Steve Papoutsis.

“The infection continues to spread throughout space and our hero Isaac Clarke is the only person able to contain it. There are still loads of Necromorphs that need killing.

“In Dead Space 2, not everything is exactly as it seems. Expect plot twists that will surprise you and a huge cast of twisted, disgusting monsters that are sure to scare the daylights out of you.”

Hit the link.

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Famitsu’s reporting that Super Mario Bros. Wii has sold 936,734 units in its first week, beating Super Smash Bros. Brawl, which sold 816,000 titles in the same time-frame.

According to Sinobi, the game managed 422,000 units in its first day.

Hot banana. Thanks, Andriasang and Kotaku.

Wedbush Morgan’s issued his sales estimates for November, predicting that Wii managed to keep its head about 1 million in the US last month.

“We estimate sell-through of 1,050,000 Wii hardware units (down 49% from last year), 650,000 Xbox 360 (down 22% from last year), and 700,000 PS3 consoles (up 85% year over year),” said the analyst.

Modern Warfare 2, New Super Mario Bros. Wii, Left 4 Dead 2 and Assassin’s Creed II will lead the software pack, Pachter said.

Not likely to be any argument there. The NPD releases this Thursday.

Tony Hawk RIDE’s not very good. Look. Hawk himself reckons the scores are hokum, though. The reviewers just didn’t give the peripheral-based game a chance, apparently.

“They were ready to discredit it before they even tried it, and if it didn’t play exactly how they imagined it… then they passed it off,” Hawk told the Sudbury Star.

“I don’t agree with people who say the board’s not responsive,” he added. “I think that they’re just not giving it a fair shake. And I think a lot of them came into it with an attitude that it’s going to suck.

“I know that [RIDE] is super fun, and I think there’s a misconception that I just stick my name on a game,” he said. “I brought this idea to Activision, and I saw it through, I’ve been playing it every step of the way and I am very proud of it.”

Yeah. Thanks, Kotaku.