Monthly Archives: December 2009

Konami announced today that Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker will arrive on US shores May 25.

Yesterday, it was announced that Europe was getting it May 28.

We went ahead and updated that post with both dates, just to be thorough.

The US press release is posted below the break for your reading pleasure.

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Oh the hilarity. NCsoft devs are on a banning rampage in Aion, and the video posted below the break shows how much fun banning can be.

Instead of just quietly banning coin vendors and evil bots, moderators show up on the form of a giant rabbit and squish you or take the form of a fire breathing squirrel and toast your ass.

Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.

See for yourself, courtesy of Kotaku.

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BioWare’s new Facebook game, The Gift of the Yeti, wants to raise $10,000 for Child’s Play and give buyers $10 off Dragon Age: Origins.

What you do is help Santa out, who is sick, by using your yeti to deliver presents within the time limit, all the while avoiding the coppers.

There’s also an advent calendar telling the story, and it’s updated each day along with leaderboards showing who’s ahead.

“Gift of the Yeti is BioWare’s digital holiday card to its fans. We use social networking as a powerful tool to connect meaningfully with our tremendous fan community,” said co-founder Ray Muzyka. “Gift of the Yeti is a fun, engaging holiday present from BioWare to our fans, the first in a series of compelling social experiences from BioWare Labs.”

Each time you play through the game, it raises a penny for the Child’s Play charity, and playing also nets you $10 off Dragon Age through the EA Store.

Check out Facebook for more.

Via PR mail.

EA’s John Riccitiello has told Kotaku that the closure of Pandemic, along with the dismissal of 200 employees, was the direct result of the company’s move towards digital and the Pandemic’s “bloody expensive” California location.

Apparently, it costs “two to three times more” to employ people in California as it does in any other region EA has offices – which includes Montreal, the UK, eastern Europe and China.

“For good or for bad, we are taking down headcount in California because it is really expensive,” he said. “The shift toward fewer titles and the acceleration towards digital is moving faster [than expected]. In a world that used to be all PC, then used to be all console, now it’s neither. It’s not a packaged goods business any more.

“We know the consumer likes the Mercenaries intellectual property, the Pandemic property, some of the key designers and their insights. We’re hoping they’re going to want Saboteur. I think they will. Then we’ll probably sequel that too.

“One of the things I talk to with key people at Pandemic, EALA and Visceral – there’s good and bad… If you’re a capable art director, development director, game designer or producer you can multi-task and have a bigger job than you’ve ever had before, but you’ve got to have the skill of managing teams that are physically not in your neighborhood.

“You can get more done than you’ve ever done before.”

More through the link.

The Nintendo update for Europe this week includes some Earthworm Jim, Mahjong, and some holiday bits as well allowing you to send e-cards.

• Virtual Console: Earthworm Jim 2 (800 Wii Points)
• WiiWare: Mahjong (500 Wii Points), Happy Holidays: Christmas (500 Wii Points)
• DSiWare: Foto Face: The Face Stealer Strikes (800 DSi Points), A Little Bit of … Magic Made Fun: Matchmaker (200 DSi Points), Just Sing! Christmas Songs (200 DSi Points), myNotebook: Red (200 DSi Points)

Have fun with ‘em.

Via Joystiq.

Apparently, some Assassins Creed 2 players are reporting a glitch that traps the player in the Hideout with no way out of it.

The error occurs when players save and shut the console down after finishing Chapter 11. Upon restarting,  the only way to escape the Hideout is to begin the game anew.

CVG has contacted Ubisoft, and until a response is issued, the site recommends you not “quit out of the game”.

Just go play something else until a fix or workaround is announced, we reckon.

More through the link.

Mass Effect 2′s lead combat designer, Christina Norman, has spilled the beans on the game’s Engineer class to IGN, and told the site that the class is more “strategic” and less “brute force”.

“We wanted playing the engineer to have a unique feel to it,” Norman told the site. “We designed the Engineer to play as a more strategic, less brute force, class. Perhaps the most strategic move an Engineer can make is using his powers to gain strength in numbers via Combat Drone and AI Hack.

“Combat Drone is a new power that only Engineers get. When you summon a combat drone it will harass enemies, drawing fire away from you, and knocking enemies out of cover. Your combat drone can die, but you can summon a new one every few seconds. Smart engineers will make sure they always have a combat drone active on their side.

“AI Hack is a power that lets you take control of a mechanical enemy. We’ve improved hack from ME1. It’s now a true “charm” ability — hacked enemies will not turn on you even if you shoot them. Hack also puts a powerful defensive shield on the hacked target, which helps ensure your new pet will survive long enough to be useful. When your pet dies you can always hack a new one, as long as there are synthetic opponents available.

“With Combat Drone and AI Hack, plus his two squad mates, Engineers command a larger team than any other class. ”

There’s a video posted below the break of the Engineer being a bad ass. You should have a watch.

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Nintendo bossman Satoru Iwata has said that N64′s Majora’s Mask was a “turning point” for Nintendo, giving the company a “glimpse” of compact gameplay of the future.

“The ‘Three-Day System’, the idea of a compact world to be played over and over again, came down from Miyamoto-san and one other director, (Yoshiaki) Koizumi-san,” explained Zelda’s Eiji Aonuma in the latest edition of Iwata Asks. “We added that to the mix, and then, finally, we saw the full substance of a The Legend of Zelda game we could make in one year.”

“Actually, I feel as though, back then, we were given a glimpse of the concept that ‘Deep, compact play is one form of the games of the future’,” added Iwata. “I think in that sense, as a product, The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask was a big turning point for Nintendo.”

Those who are not lucky enough to still own a N64 system can get the game via the Virtual Console.

Via CVG.

Level-5 and SCEA announced the North American release date for White Knight Chronicles International Edition over on the US PS Blog.

On February 2, the International Edition will be released and includes the game plus the following additional content:

• Over 50 disc-based online quests. You can complete these quests solo, or cooperatively with up to three other players to gain extra gear and experience.
• Voice Chat.
• The Georama. Build an online village for your character where you can invite friends to complete quests online and purchase unique items and gear.
• Live Talk. Leonard and his companions will have side conversations during gameplay, adding a little more character to your travels through the world of White Knight Chronicles.

We know you’re excited.

More through the link.

Telltale has released a video for Tales of Monkey Island’s grand finale, Rise of the Pirate God.

Called the “Story so Far”, the video recaps the events of the first four chapters in the series, which detail Guybrush spreading the pox of LeChuck, his quest for the voodoo exfoliating La Esponge Grande, and his apparent demise at the hands of his arch-nemesis.

The episode lands on PC December 8, and you can watch the video below.

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John Dennis, Team 17’s design manager, has told RPS that each of the three episodes for Alien Breed: Evolution contains a narrative arc that links all three together, along with its own weapons, environments and aliens.

“Each episode is a stand-alone game that can be downloaded and played separately,” said Dennis. “There’s a narrative arc that links the three episodes together, each episode ending on a cliff-hanger that’s resolved at the start of the next episode. So if people download the first episode, we hope they’ll want to find out how the story carries on in later episodes [and] each episode has three unique maps designed specifically for co-op multiplayer.

“Each episode has a unique selection of weapons, environments and aliens, as well as it’s own set-piece battles and boss encounters, so each one has quite a different flavour. They’re all pretty tense affairs though. It still makes me nervous playing the game on “Elite” difficulty, and I’ve been working on the game since the start!

“I’m not sure what the price for each episode will be: I don’t think it’s been decided yet, but each episode’s between 5-8 hours of play, so I’m sure it’ll be good value for money.”

Dennis also said that the team is working hard on the PC version, so it shouldn’t be too much longer before it is released as well.

Hit the link for the full thing.

EA’s John Riccitiello has said that he wants the revamp of the Command and Conquer series to be a “fundamental renovation”,  not just a game with “cool graphics”.

Speaking with Kotaku, Riccitiello explained the reasons why EA chose Might and Magic creator John Van Caneghem to lead the series in it’s new direction and why it may possibly be released in the future as a digital only format.

“[Van Ceneghem] and I have a shared vision that the RTS category is due for fundamental innovation and not just cooler graphics,” said Riccitiello. “We’ve gotten to the point where you can see the particles around individual grenade explosions inside rooms where windows fall apart. That was never what made RTS good. That was just sort of eye candy on top of a very traditional game mechanic. From when Red Alert and Starcraft sort of defined the genre, it hasn’t moved.

“I’m a believer that the RTS sector is more open to fundamental innovation at a metagame level than almost any genre. I actually think that some of what Playfish does, in terms of iterating games on a weekly basis, Some of what Facebook does, in terms of letting you collectively experience things, have not been stitched together by the game industry in terms of lessons learned there.

“You start applying that thinking to a C&C franchise you get something pretty special.”

There’s plenty more through the link

The main Paris court has ruled against Nintendo in a case over the Divineo Droup creating DS flash cartridges.

According to Maxconsole, the judge suggested that Nintendo intentionally “locks out” developers from their consoles and should be “more like Windows” in allowing developers to create any application they wish for consumer use.

“[This] could have bigger implications for developers and the like because Nintendo is deemed to be ‘illegally’ protecting their system by locking users out”, wrote Maxconsole. “Therefore, developers should not actually require separate development kits and should just be able to develop applications as they wish on retail versions of Nintendo’s consoles.”

Court documents are to be posted later.

Hit the link for more.

Update: We found a better version of the video, courtesy of Joystiq. Watch on.

Original: Below the break is a video for No More Heroes: Heroes’ Paradise.

It’s not a very high quality one, and its in Japanese, but still, there it is anyway.

Still no word on a US publisher just yet, but it’s coming to 360 and PS3 sometime or another.

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BioWare has updated the Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic site with more information on the Jedi Consular.

Here’s what the playable character is all about:

Channeling the power of the Force for strength and wisdom, the Consulars of the Jedi Order cut to the truth of any complicated situation as cleanly as their double-bladed Lightsabers cut down an army of Imperial foes. Whether unlocking long forgotten mysteries of the Jedi, raising armies to fight for the Republic, or engaging in mortal combat with Dark Lords of the Sith, the Jedi Consulars’ deep attunement to the Force gives them all the power they need to rise to any battle with poise and balance.

Check out the updated HoloNet to read all about the Consular and see it in action.

Hopefully, the game’s out next year. We’re crossing our fingers.

NCsoft has released a video for Guild Wars 2, showing five of the distinctive races to play.

There’s the human Defender, the feline Charr, magical Asura, shapeshifting Norn, and the Sylvari which are a new race of plant spirits.

In the video, you may recognize some of the voices: Human- Troy Baker (Fullmetal Alchemist, One Piece), Charr warrior – Steve Blum (Spectacular Spider-Man), Norn – Jocelyn Blue (Invader Zim, Space Jam), Asura -Felicia Day (Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, The Guild) and the Sylvari – Kari Wuhlgren (Wolverine and the X-Men, Aliens in the Attic).

ArenaNet plans to make GW2 a subscription-free MMO “where players create their own personalized story in a richly imagined world where their actions have real consequences”.

Watch the video below. It’s pretty damn cool

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An eclectic mix of tracks are headed your way in the next two weeks, Rock Band players.

First up are songs from Slipknot along with Simon and Garfunkel on December 8 and 10 for Wii/Xbox 360 and PS3, respectively.

• Slipknot – “Duality”, “Psychosocial”, “Sulfur”
• Simon & Garfunkel – “I Am a Rock”, “The Sounds of Silence”
• Lights Resolve – “Dreaming of Love” (360 and PS3 only)

Next we have Green Day, which will arrive on December 15 and 17 for Wii/360 and PS3, respectively, with the following songs: “Christian’s Inferno,” “Last of the American Girls,” and “¡Viva La Gloria!”.

Each track will run you $1.99/£.99/€1.49/160 MS Points or 200 Wii Points.

The Slipknot and Green Day packs will run you $5.49/£2.49/€3.99/440 MS Points for Xbox 360.

Never thought you would see a 60s folk duo on the marquee alongside of punk and masked rockers did you? We didn’t either.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has revealed to the US Congress that the games industry does a better job with responsible marketing than any other form of entertainment advertisement.

Different aspects cited were the large noticeable ratings on packaging, M-rated game ads not being shown before 10pm, and most notable is the fact that 80 percent of retailers are diligent about not selling mature games to minors and “little evidence” exists for inappropriate target marketing.

“The computer and videogame industry leads all others in ensuring its products are marketed appropriately and is the gold standard for others to follow,” said ESA president and CEO Michael D Gallagher.

“Today’s FTC report is a strong acknowledgement and validation that industry-led self-regulation efforts are the best way to provide parents and retailers with the resources and support they need to keep our kids’ entertainment experiences suitable.”

Take that “He Who Shall Not Be Named”.

Via GI.biz.

Loads of HD movies landed on the US PS Movie Store this week, so there is bound to be something for everyone.

Here’s the list:

• 2 Dudes and a Dream
• 2012: Supernova
• A Nightmare on Elm Street
• A Walk To Remember
• August Rush
• Definitely, Maybe
• Driven
• Dumb and Dumber
• Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd
• Eight Legged Freaks
• Food, Inc.
• G-Force
• I Am Legend (Alternate Ending)
• In Bruges
• Music and Lyrics
• National Lampoon’s European Vacation
• No Reservations
• Ocean’s Thirteen
• Paper Heart
• Public Enemies
• Pulse
• Terminator Salvation
• The Art of War
• The Brave One
• The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard
• Toxic Skies
• Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins

TV and other offerings are listed through the US PS Blog.

THQ’s popped over the latest Darksiders movie, this time showing various hellish bosses and the now-expected Omen strings. It looks wicked. Watch it after the break.

UK PR’s also pointed out that the first review, in US mag Play, has awarded the action game 10/10, calling it, “One of the most visually refined immersive and altogether robust video game experiences available on any system.”

Big words. It’s out on January 8 for 360 and PS3.

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