Monthly Archives: December 2009

Some new screens for Metro 2033 popped up over on Shack today.

Each shows 4A’s depiction of Moscow after nuclear annihilation in 2013.

THQ says the game will be out for PC and 360 in early 2010.

Hit the link to have a look.

The MAG Beta ends tomorrow night, and Zipper Interactive plans to enter into the fray with you to give it a proper send off.

Multiple “Zipper” squads will be “waiting for you on the MAG servers” and represent factions Raven, S.V.E.R., and Valor). Just log in, get in the queue, look for Zipper folks, and try to beat ‘em.

If you don’t have a key, you can still get, per the US PS Blog.

Here’s the multiple time zone schedule for Friday.

• Pacific: 6pm-8pm
• Mountain: 7pm-9pm
• Central: 8pm-10pm
• Eastern: 9pm-11pm
• Hawaii: 4pm-6pm
• Alaska: 5pm-7pm

Game’s out January 26.

Microsoft has announced Lips: Party Classics for Xbox 360, which is expected to arrive during Spring 2010.

It contains: “Love Shack”, “Tubthumping”, “I Will Survive”, “Rock And Roll All Nite”, “Wannabe” , “I Think We’re Alone Now”, and “Y.M.C.A.”

Also, just in time for Christmas, after partaking in too much of Aunt Bethel’s spiked eggnog you can jump in front of family and pals alike and start belting out new add-ons: “Papa Was A Rollin’ Stone” by The Temptations, “Right Round” by Flo Rida, “Think” by Aretha Franklin, “Blister In The Sun” by Violent Femmes and more.

Oh, and that’s not  – all holiday tunes are coming, including “White Christmas” by Bing Crosby, “Santa Baby” by Kylie Minogue and “Hanukkah Blessings” by Barenaked Ladies.

You can also make your Facebook photos sing with the new Lips Jukebox, available now for free, which is an online tool puts a pair of singing lips on your photos.

Loads of extra juicy details are through the break, via the press release. Enjoy.

More »

Word on the street, kids, has Michael Jackson actually being one of the composers for the Sonic 3 soundtrack, but he wished to keep his name off the credits.

Just like that Simpsons episode.

According to the official Michael Jackson publication Black & White, the French magazine interviewed composer Brad Buxer who confirmed that he and Jackson worked on Sonic the Hedgehog 3′s soundtrack.

B&W: Can you clarify the rumor that Michael had in 1993 composed the music for Sonic 3 video game, for which you have been credited?

Buxer: I’ve never played the game so I do not know what tracks on which Michael and I have worked the developers have kept, but we did compose music for the game. Michael called me at the time for help on this project, and that’s what I did.

And if he is not credited for composing the music, it’s because he was not happy with the result sound coming out of the console. At the time, game consoles did not allow an optimal sound reproduction, and Michael found it frustrating. He did not want to be associated with a product that devalued his music.

B&W: One of the surprising things in this soundtrack is that you can hear the chords from Stranger in Moscow, which is supposed to have been composed later.

Buxer: Yes, Michael and I had composed those chords for the game, and it has been used as base for Stranger in Moscow.

So, there ya go.

Thanks, Videogame Music Database (VGMDB)

Sources close to Joystiq revealed today that PSP Minis will be playable on PS3 “before” Christmas or at least sometime this month.

The sources claim that the entire selection of Minis, and future offerings, will get a resolution bump as well.

When asked, Sony declined to comment on “rumors and speculation”, so make of this what you will.

Grab the link here.

Game Informer has posted another “things you didn’t know” piece on its website, this time the subject is Borderlands.

Looks like Lilith’s voice was once too sexual, some voices were done by Gearbox employees, creative director Mikey Neumann did some motion capture work, 23 babies were born including a set of triplets – all sorts of stuff.

Here’s the list:

• There were about 64,000 check-ins to make Borderlands.
• Mikey Neumann (creative director) did the motion capture acting for the intro featuring Lilith strutting and blowing a kiss.
• The dog paw around Brick’s neck was his dog growing up. Her name was Priscilla. You can see him as a child with her in the intro cinema to the game.
• Crazy Earl, ClapTrap, Scooter and all of the enemy battle dialogue is voiced by Gearbox employees.
• The player character Lilith went through seven full revisions until the art director was satisfied with the final version.
• ClapTrap was actually the last character added to Borderlands.
• Gearbox uses a proprietary automated build system that runs multiple platform builds nightly in addition to specific builds that are manually triggered by developers. The final shipping build of the Xbox game was number 5,700.
• There was a suggestion to feature midgets attached to cables that other bandits could toss at you.
• A full body explosion will spawn 1 liver, 1-2 kidneys, 1-3 limbs, skull chunks, lots of blood, and other random body parts that have a chance to stick to walls.
• 23 babies were born to Gearbox developers during the course of this game – three of them to a single designer and his wife.
• The Borderlands Official Strategy Guide is the longest strat guide Bradygames had ever written for a single game.
• We had a bug once that Lilith’s voice sounded ‘too sexual’ in the international versions, we let it slide.
• The actress that played VoG appeared in an episode of Las Vegas on NBC.
• “Turtles all the way down” is a reference to infinite regression popularized by Stephen Hawking.

Traveller’s Tales founder, Jon Burton, has said that Sony’s digital games service needs to support cheaper prices or the handheld will go the way of the dodo.

“I own a PSPgo but don’t want to buy LittleBigPlanet, for instance, as I can get it 20 percent cheaper on UMD from Amazon and could resell it once I’m finished with it,” Burton told attendees at the Developer Jury Service.

“But if I download it, I get no discount, and no chance to resell – how annoying is that? I’m betting on Sony making PSPgo games much cheaper than the UMD versions, or the PSPgo will die.”

Tough words, there Jon.

More through PocketGamer.

We’re just coding up the first quarter of an hour of The Saboteur, but while you’re waiting we want you to know that Pandemic’s swansong it’s “hard”. It’s “feckin’ hard”.

Or at least it can be if you want it to be. It has four difficulty settings, going up to Irish strength.

Sean Devlin, the game’s protagonist, is the most Irish thing since leprechauns. To be sure.

Movie soon.

Capcom may have released the final “cinematic” video for Dark Void earlier in the week, but that has not stopped it from releasing another video – this time showing of the “mysterious alternate dimension” known as The Void.

Posted below the break, the video highlights the environments included in the sci-fi shooter, and it looks like a rather interesting place.

Game’s out in January.

More »

Reviews for The Saboteur are starting to go live, now that the embargo has lifted.

It hits Europe tomorrow, and the official release date for the US is December 8.

• We’ll update this post accordingly as more trickle in.
• IGN – 8.2/10
• NowGamer – 7/10
• Eurogamer Portugal – 8/10
• OXM UK – 6/10
• VideoGamer – 8/10
• Wired – 6/10
• Game Informer – 8/10
• MTV – N/A
• Joystiq – N/A

The PS3 version of The Saboteur has a mandatory install of approximately seven minutes.

We know because we’re about to grab the opening sections of the game for you. Except we can’t yet. Because it’s doing its transferring files shizzle.

The Pandemic WWII adventure’s out tomorrow. We’ll have some nice footage up for you in a tick.

Microsoft has announced that Games for Windows Live will get the Games on Demand treatment come December 15.

Soon, you can download games directly onto your PC using the service.

The launch lineup will include Resident Evil 5, Red Faction: Guerilla and Battlestations: Pacific as well as World of Goo and Osmos.

All games can be purchased either by credit card or with Microsoft Points.

Full PR below the break.

More »

A new report complied by the NPD Group has estimated that 82 percent (55.7 million) of kids in the US ages 2-17 play games.

Broken down, 9.7 million are ages 2-5, 12.4 million are ages 9-11, kids between 12 and 14 report spending 10.6 hours a week playing.

Teens between 15 and 17 years of age and females report the least amount of time spent playing.

“The decline in teen usage of video games is likely due to diversifying, maturing interests, which translates into stiffer competition for their mind and wallet share,” said NPD’s Anita Frazier. “In addition to competition from other areas of the entertainment space, more school work, activities, and parent-imposed time limits on gaming are factors which the data suggests may be contributing to this dip in older teen engagement.”

Could also have something to do with cars, girls, and beer. But maybe that’s what the report meant with the “diversifying, maturing interests” bit.

Full thing below the break.

[Pic]

More »

Looks like some day one DLC will hit for The Saboteur when it releases.

You can unlock the DLC via a code with the game called “The Midnight Show,” for free, and it includes extra hiding spots, a new minigame and the “option” to unlock nudity.

Should you purchase the game without the code, you can get the DLC for for $2.99/240 MS Points.

Via Joystiq.

Update: Pandemic just tweeted that the Midnight Show DLC will be available once Xbox Live & PSN update their networks (Dec 4th EU – Dec 8th -10th US).

EA’s John Riccitiello has said that Mirror’s Edge deserves a sequel, but that the developers are still working what to do with the design.

“We’re still working through things like how to best deal with Mirror’s Edge 2,” he told Kotaku. “There are some things we learned about that [first] game. It was, I think, a massively innovative product. To be honest with you, I think it’s a game that deserves to come back.”

“Innovation doesn’t mean it all works the first time. If it did everyone would do it. I think Mirror’s Edge was a fascinatingly original world. Fascinatingly original art direction. Music and sound design was great. I think the gameplay mechanic was a blast, but was intermittent and the levels didn’t work.

“You found yourself scratching at walls at times, looking for what to do. Sometimes you had a roll going, downhill, slide, jump, slide, jump and then you just got stopped. It sort of got in the way of the fun.

“It was like we couldn’t quite decide if we were building Portal or a runner. And I don’t think the consumer was ready to switch it up quite that way. You could say it was a sharp and great innovation. I believe that it was. You have to figure out what to do from here if you want it to be a five million seller vs. a one-million unit seller.

“I’ve had several very lively debates with the dev team. And they are working on it. But there’s a couple of different directions you could go.”

There’s loads more through the link.

While XBL’s Stephen Toulouse has promised to ban folks using the “Javelin” glitch in Modern Warfare 2 until it is fixed, Sony doesn’t plan on following in its rival’s footsteps.

“I don’t believe we are banning people for using the glitch,” a Sony rep told CVG.

Therefore, PS3 users, cheat onward to your heart’s content – but hurry, it will probably be fixed shortly.

More through the links.

GameStop has posted a Star Trek Online Collector’s Edition on the site for $79.99 and it’s expected to ship on February 2 along with the boring ole regular version.

The packaging is metal and contains holograms and other futuristic stuff, with the case probably being made from topaline ore mined from the Xindi-Arboreal colony, but we can’t be too sure just by looking.

There’s also a hardback game manual full of artwork, a metal replica of the badge-communicator, three guest passes for buddies that last three days, in-game uniforms from The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine, and from the new film comes a special in-game item called the Red Matter Capacitor which gives your ship extra energy for a short period.

GameStop has a preorder bonus up as well, that gives the buyer a Constitution Class Starship, access to the open Beta and an early access to the game’s launch.

According to BigDownload, Amazon’s preorder bonus nets you not only access to the Beta, but an exclusive Borg Bridge Officer for the game. Damn it we wants it, we wants it.

The industry is trying to kill our wallets next year, seriously. Too much good stuff.

Europe’s PSN update this week has a Bayonetta demo for you, along with the new DLC for Fight Night Round 4 that allows you to change your boxers – the fighters, not your undies.

OP: Dragon Rising’s new Skirmish Pack also releases today, adding extra multiplayer maps and FTE missions and there’s also five PS3 titles and five PSP titles at reduced prices for two weeks and the Uncharted motion comics.

LBP costumes are available to outfit your sackboy as Assassin’s Creed II hero Ezio Auditore, Santa, and there’s also the Festive Goodies Level Kit.

Head on over to the EU PS Blog for the full thing.

Cryptic has released a new video for Star Trek Online titled “Belly of the Beast”.

There’s space battles in it. You like space. You like battles. Now watch it below the break, courtesy of BigDownload.

Game’s out in February.

More »

EA has announced the first-ever game branded reusable debit card, and it will accumulate EA Sports Rewards.

The reloadable card allows users to get a percent back from every purchase made with it, thus allowing one to redeem EA Sports Rewards Points that can be used to purchase select game titles.

“The EA Sports DebitSmart Visa Prepaid Card is a great opportunity for us to offer our community of loyal customers a new way to purchase and save on their favorite EA Sports game titles,” said said EA Sports marketing VP, Todd Sitrin. “Consumers use the card while making their everyday purchases and are rewarded with EA Sports video games.

“This program is a perfect marriage of encouraging responsible spending while providing a unique reward program.”

It works like a normal Visa debit card folks, usable at ATMs, shops and the like – only it is prepaid. You have to reload it with cash.

Full PR below the break with extra details.

More »