Monthly Archives: December 2009

EA has released a video showing how Flips, its line of interactive children’s books, works on DS.

If you can get over the fact that the lady explaining things to you sounds like an annoyingly happy Scary Spice, it’s rather informative.

Each disc includes six to eight books with titles ranging from Artemis Fowl, The Enchanted Wood, The Magic Faraway Tree, Gingersnaps, Too Ghoul For School, and others which are to be made available on December 4 and will retail for £24.99.

Something for your kids, ya know. Watch on below the break.

More »

Rumor floating about the net has Logitech working on an external UMD drive for PSPgo.

According to a source close to CVG, it will allow users to whip out their UMDs and play them on the digital only handheld.

When asked, Logitech’s UK end said that it was not aware of anything of the sort, but that it might be something the US office is working on.

Those crazy yanks.

More through the link.

Walmart’s going mark-down crazy with game prices by cutting $10 off a whole list of gaming titles until Christmas Eve.

Here’s the list, courtesy of Kotaku:

• Mario & Sonic at the Winter Olympics (Wii) – now $40
• Lego Rock Band (Wii) – now $40
• Rock Band: Beatles (Wii) – now $40
• MySims: Agents (Wii) – now $40
• Tekken 6 (Xbox 360 and PS3) – now $50
• Madden 2010 (Xbox 360 and PS3) – now $50
• WWE 2010 (Xbox 360) – now $50, WWE 2010 (Wii) – now $40
• Batman Arkham Asylum (Xbox 360) – now $50
• Dragon Age: Origins (PS3) – now $50
• Left 4 Dead 2 (Xbox 360) – now $50
• Halo 3:ODST (Xbox 360) – now $50
• Uncharted 2 (PS3) – now $50

Also, those in the market for the newly priced $199 Wii will get a $50 gift card (US) to spend on anything and everything Walmart has to offer its customers.

Go shop.

It’s just been confirmed to VG247 that MCV Online editor Tim Ingham is to head up CVG.

The CVG editor job became vacant recently after long-term word-boss Gavin Ogden decided to move out to New Zealand.

The job’s been advertised internally at Future and has seen many applicants. Looks as though outside was the way to go.

Congrats, Tim. Good show.

Now. Who’s going to get the MCV job?

According to a report over on Gamekyo (per Wearetheinternetz), Sega and Platinum Games are “taking responsibility” for the PS3 version of Bayonetta, and a team at Sony hard at work fixing the game.

When comparisons to the Xbox 360 version were made, the PS3 version was found to sport murkier graphics, longer load times, and bad framerates; therefore the team hopes to “guarantee” a better version of the game outside of Japan.

SEGA responded to the load time bit last month, stating that it was “well aware of this issue” and were “working on a solution”.

Looks like Sony to the rescue, then.

Via D’toid.

Bethesda’s released the first proper gameplay movies of Splash Damage’s Brink, as you can see after the break.

The videos show a mission seen at various shows this year, in which a team of accented gunmen assault a rebel stronghold. It’s serious business.

There’s a lot to see in there. Dev boss Paul Wedgwood is playing, and is seen switching classes and gear and various situations arise. You’ll also get to see just how detailed the environments are, and a general taste of the overall presentation: suffice to say, it’s not shit.

Bethesda said yesterday that Brink will release late next year for PC, PS3 and 360.

More »

Empire: Total War will go into Open Beta on December 7 in order to test out the upcoming multiplayer campaign.

That’s next Monday, so you may want to bookmark the sign-up page, as entrants will be taken soon.

During the Beta, two players can play on the same campaign map either against or with each other.

“After over 6 months of internal testing, we’re happy to finally give all players of Empire: Total War a taste of the future of Total War,” said creative director Mike Simpson. “Information and user feedback gathered from this Open Beta should help us getting the Campaign Multiplayer mode ready to be a regular feature in upcoming titles in the Total War series.”

Steam’s hosting the Beta, but you’ll still have to sign-up through the link above.

More through Boomtown.

There’s a Crackdown 2 teaser video up on GameTrailers. You can view it here.

Twitter King Geoff Keighley has tweeted that during the VGAs, the first gameplay trailer for the title will be shown.

Still no date. Maybe it will be announced on December 12 when the awards ceremony airs on Spike.

After the break. It’s basically the pack art and some cloudy stuff. The first movie will be shown at the VGAs on December 12.

EA today announced that the new Medal of Honor’s to be set in modern-day Afghanistan. It’s releasing for PC, 360 and PS3 next year.

More »

Q-Games’ Dylan Cuthbert has posted a video interview he did with SCEE’s Jem Alexander, discussing PixelJunk Shooter – which will be made available on December 10 via PSN .

In the video, he chats about new liquids, bosses, enemies, how cool the game is, and anti-magnetic suits.

It’s all rather interesting, and you can watch it below the break or through the US PS Blog.

More »

DICE has changed the item pricing for Battlefield Heroes, which has reduced the cost of real money on items, but has upped the cost to rent or buy in-game currency.

All non-cosmetic items, like improved weapons, can still be purchased with BattleFunds (real money) which has been reduced in cost, but Valor Point (earned) have been upped and the item rentals are no longer available for a month, just three days.

According to Ars Technica, a player would have to participate in 50 matches per day to be able to keep a weapon using Valor Points – which will result in players spending more money or grinding more to earn said points.

There’s more through the link, and over on Eurogamer.

EA just confirmed that its Medal of Honor reboot is a modern-day shooter set in Afghanistan. It’s releasing next year for PC, 360 and PS3.

The game centres on the Tier 1 Operator, “a relatively unknown entity directly under the National Command Authority who takes on missions no one else can handle.”

Tier 1 Operator is a real “thing,” apparently, and the dev team’s been working with the unit to “create the most authentic modern war experience.” It’s inspired by real events.

EALA’s done the single-player, while DICE has developed the online side.

The first movie will be shown at the VGAs on December 12.

PR after the break.

More »

Most gamers knew that Mirror’s Edge was coming to iPhone and iPod Touch, but for those that didn’t – consider this a public service announcement.

The game is to be made available for your roof hopping pleasure on-the-go come January.

Here’s the blurb on it:

• The World- A place where information is heavily monitored and law is brutally enforced in an effort to create the ‘perfect’ society.
• Your Mission -Take control of Faith Connors, a member of an underground messenger group known as Runners, as she races to stop a deadly threat that has grown from within their own ranks.
• Survival -  Use Faith’s incredible acrobatic moves to outmaneuver the enemy –run on walls, slide down precarious ramps, ride ziplines, and leap between rooftops. Leave the enemy in your dust.
• Excitement-  – Burn through 14 levels of the fastest, most fluid action imaginable. Dynamic camera angles capture the intense action of this unique game.
• Senses – Immerse yourself in a stylish, graphically rich 3D environment flooded with realistic sound effects and phenomenal music.

TouchAracde has loads more information, along with screens.

Some BioShcok 2 screens were added today over on GameInfoWire.

You should check them out, even if we dunno if the shots are new. There’s so many floating about out there, it’s hard to tell anymore.

Game’s out next year, thankfully.

Nintendo has announced that Glory of Heracles will land on DS and DSi in the US come January 18, 2010.

This is a irst for the Greek mythology series outside of Japan, and it’s written by Kazushige Nojima of Final Fantasy fame.

Set in mythical Greece, it will have the usual Greek fodder, but the RPG takes a fictional approach to the mythology – if that makes any sense.

Anyway, there you have it kiddos. No import needed, it’s finally coming.

No word on a UK version, but we’ve sent an email asking about it.

The full PR is below the break.

More »

A Taiwanese man has “finished” World of Warcraft, but not without a few naysayers screaming the in the background.

According to MMO Champion, the player’s character – Little Gray – completes all 986 achievements, killed 390,895 creatures, racked up 7,255,538,878 points of damage, finished 5,906 quests (approx. 14.62 per day) ransacked 405 dungeons and apparently hugged 11 players.

So why all the negative fuss? According to purists, he has not achieved an event-tied achievement called “BB King”, due to a glitch that awards one extra, false achievement point.

There’s always Cataclysm next year, we suppose. Meanwhile, maybe he should heed the siren’s call of the world outside.

Via CVG.

EA’s chief creative director and Madden co-creator Richard Hilleman has helped build a “high performance hybrid electric supercar” called the CMT-380, that runs on batteries and a turbine engine.

We don’t know how well it runs, but it looks like a lovely addition to our garage – if we had one.

“The CMT-380 is perfect for people who want it all,”said Hilleman. “These kinds of customers value a high level of driving performance but also are concerned about social issues such as reducing greenhouse emissions and limiting our country’s dependence on foreign oil”.

Hilleman worked with Capstone Turbine Corporation to design the car, and it’s expected to be shown to the public this week during the LA Auto Show.

Game makers making cars. What a life.

More through Kotaku.

Valve has released and update that should fix a few issues with Left 4 Dead 2.

Here’s the list:

• Fixed case where game failed to launch in certain machine configurations
• Fixed bug where a burning witch could get into a state where she’s invincible (after Molotoving her)
• Fixed bug where bots would not shoot at Jockeys and Chargers while approaching to save a teammate

The update will be applied when you log into Steam.

Rebellion’s head of design, Tim Jones, has told IncGamers that the PC community helped with the development of Aliens vs Predator, and that the support of said community pushed the team to “deliver everything [it] can with AvP”.

“The PC community is the grass roots that drive us to deliver everything we can with AvP,” said Jones. “They’ve been there with us since the very beginning. We always read the fan forums with interest and are pleased at how often our thoughts on the way the game should coincide with the ideas of the fans.

“That said, there are a lot of wide-ranging (and vehemently held) opinions out there and we have to follow what we believe is our own coherent vision – and we also have to consider our partners at Fox and Sega, of course.

“AvP has a PC heritage so it goes without saying that we take it very seriously as a platform and have no intention of dumbing down. We have developed all three platforms simultaneously as our internal tech allows us to do so.

“It’s been a smooth process and a massive help to have the game at exactly the same stage on all platforms so we’re not having to port over formats at the last minute, as is what often happens in development these days.

“Our PC version will have the same game content as the console versions, but those with state-of-the-art PCs will really be able to show off how beautiful the game looks at high resolutions.”

More through the link.

The Major has announced that you can get pets for your Avatar starting tomorrow through the Xbox Live Marketplace.

Each will run you 240 MS Points ($3.00/£2.04/€2.79) and the choices are: Large Dog, Pug Dog, Dog in Bag, Cat, Siamese Cat, Long Haired Cat, Goldfish, Guinea Pig, Monkey, Bird, Snake and a Pony.

We know which one we want. Giddyup.

Some examples can bee seen through here.