Monthly Archives: August 2011

Purported details of the fanciest version of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, the Hardened Edition, have turned up online.

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Today is the last day of August, which means I am retiring the Star Wars theme I have used for header images for the majority of the month.

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Ubisoft has released a video showing the making of the Encyclopedia, available in the Assassin’s Creed: Revelations Animus Edition. The foreword of the encyclopedia was written by Cliff Bleszinski, and includes artwork from the Cartes Blanches Ubisoft commissioned from various artists and fans. The Encyclopedia features 256 pages with entries on the major characters, events and other important aspects of the Assassin’s Creed universe. Revelations is out on November 15.

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Todd Howard has said he is not much of an “MMO guy,” and Elder Scrolls games are big enough in and of themselves without venturing into online territory.

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Sony has released a gameplay video for Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception, which shows part two of the direct feed video shown at gamescom. It’s the cargo plane bit. Uncharted 3 is out November 1. Watch it below courtesy of Ve3tro. Thanks, Reece.

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“I absolutely am a big Call of Duty fan. Every time a new Call of Duty comes out – I never play the games online, but I play the solo version super fast. My family knows not to interrupt me the day they come out, they know it’s a sacred date for me. I think my favorite visually, of all of the Call of Duty games — even if it’s not as sassy and high tech — is World at War because, that game has some really incredible episodes in Berlin and the Japanese fields. It’s really quite arresting for me, visually, and it was very immersive. But I love Modern Warfare, too.” – Guillermo del Toro on his love of CoD games.

A suit has been filed against Take-Two by a former QA tester, who has accused the firm’s subsidiary, Visual Concepts, of withholding overtime pay and failing to provide appropriate breaks, which are mandated by federal and state laws.

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Vivendi, Activision-Blizzard’s majority shareholder, has posted its financial results for the first half FY11, and it finds the firm with increased revenues and earnings thanks to record digital sales of Blizzard games which are up over 20 percent year-over-year. The firm also noted that ActiBlizz bought back close to 43 million shares of its common stock for $479 million, leaving Vivendi with a 63 percent share in the company. More on Gamasutra.

SEGA and The Creative Assembly have released a video for Rise of the Samurai, the Total War: Shogun 2 DLC slated for September.  The DLC is set 400 years before the Sengoku period in Shogun 2, where players will lead one of six playable clans from the Taira, Minamoto and Fujiwara families during the Gempei War. It contains both single and multiplayer modes, and will run you $9.99. Thanks, EvilAvatar.

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There’s a lot of interesting things of the small variety if you care to take a peek below the break.

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Sony has posted a developer diary for Resistance 3, which serves as a guide of sorts to Chimeran munitions. The last diary in the series focuses on the “high-tech weapons created or influenced by the Chimeran invaders.” The Resistance 3 multiplayer beta, which went live for non-Plus members of PSN this week, ends on September 4 while the game itself hits stores on September 9. Watch the diary below.

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Infinity Ward’s Robert Bowling is featured in the video posted below the break, giving viewers a walkthrough of what to expect during Activision’s Call of Duty XP event, which takes place in L.A. this weekend. Attendees will be able to get their hands-on the debut of Modern Warfare 3′s multiplayer at the festivities, which will include performances from the Dropkick Murphy’s and Kanye West. Will Arnett will be on hand at the event too, showing off a short film he has created which was inspired by the series, and a paintball field will be present as well. Sounds like it will be a fun time for all.

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Sony has announced that the Uncharted Greatest Hits Dual Pack will launch in the US on September 6.

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Famitsu has revealed that the folks behind Fatal Frame are working on a spin-off for 3DS, titled Shinrei Shashin, which translates into English as Spirit Photo.

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Some screenshots for both Persona 4: Fighting Edition and Persona 4: The Golden. The shots follow up the Persona 4 blowout posted on the site earlier. The later, launches in Japan by spring 2012 for Vita, and Fighting Edition will land on PS3 and Xbox 360 in Japan in summer 2012. Thanks, Andriasang.

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Microsoft and Titan Publishing will include a mini-book with pre-orders of Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary through retailer GAME, according to an announcement.

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As if we aren’t feeling old enough as our horrible birthday looms off in the distance like a black, moist cloud just waiting to rain upon the last of our ill-gotten youth, Bethesda announced that today is the 15th anniversary of The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall.

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It must be Tokyo Game Show season. My favorite time of year besides gamescom.

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“We’re driving towards a date, but we’re not announcing a date yet because [we] want to make sure that these services can last a decade. It is definitely tied to the beta test feedback that’s ongoing and so far, so good. You’ve got to have a great launch and as more and more user feedback comes in we make those polishing decisions on what we’re going to get right and nail. The other thing is, the technology of standing these things up and then getting all the server farms to work together, talk to one another, store character records… it’s extraordinarily complex and so we want a very stable experience. We don’t want to happen to us what happened to WoW and a couple of other services where in the first week there were queues trying to get on to the servers, the entire service crashed. So we need to nail and make sure that it’s up 24/7 and it’s high quality. We’re totally focused on quality, so whatever the beta test tells us is what will be the determining variable on when we will hit.” – EA labels boss Frank Gibeau to CVG.

Tommy Rydling, junior product manager at DICE, had posted a description of the Exfiltration co-op campaign in Battlefield 3, which was shown at gamescom earlier this month.

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