Monthly Archives: November 2011

Nintendo’s announced it’ll release a new Wii hardware bundle in the UK to consist of the black SKU announced at gamescom, a black Wii wheel controller and a copy of Mario Kart Wii. The pack will launch this Friday, but no RRP was confirmed today.

“When we first determined that we were going to not go back to Rapture, we, as a studio, said what we wanted to say about Rapture. We kicked around the idea of, ‘What if we were to keep the core principles of BioShock, but everything else really was really up for grabs at that point?’ The first thing we said was what if we went to a very different time period. The turn of the century was very attractive to us and if you looked at the sort of art for that period, especially the sci-fi art, there’s always these images of cities in the sky. And that just really inspired us, and that was really the starting point.” – BioShock creator Ken Levine, reiterating to CVG on why Irrational left behind Rapture for Columbia with Infinite.

Game’s out next year.

Might want to get onboard for this quick: Rock Paper Shotgun is giving away up to 12,000 beta keys for a “free server-stress test” weekend on Star Wars: The Old Republic. When the play will take place is still to be decided, but those who do get a code will need to redeem it by this coming Friday, November 18. It’s on a first come, first served basis, so get to it now. NowGamer‘s handing out the same handful of codes if you miss out on RPS, though.

The BioWare MMO launches on December 20 worldwide.

The ESRB’s rated Dragon’s Dogma, giving a bit of new info for the upcoming Capcom RPG.

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Modern Warfare 3, unsurprisingly, has gone top of the UK charts following its $400 million launch last week.

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More proof that 2012 is the year of Persona 4: Atlus and Marvelous AQL announced overnight that the popular RPG is to be brought to the stage. Called Persona 4 Visuallive, the show, which will let the audience submit chosen names of the typically nameless main character from the game for each performance, will combine special effects and live performances.

The show runs from March 15-20, 2012. More details at Andriasang.

Sony’s detailed an upcoming update for Japanese PS3 PVR player Torne, which will include support for Vita. The new Firmware, which will bring Torne to 3.50, will enable the player to both write video to your Vita and use it as a local playback device. It’s unknown if the Vita support will have any additional features over its PSP brethren, but it’s confirmed it won’t have Remote Play support via 3G. The update will release in December, but it’s unknown if it’ll be hit next to the handheld itself in Japanese on December 17.

Thanks, Andriasang.

Team Ninja boss Yosuke Hyashi has a hell of a reputation to live up to. Brenna Hillier cornered him to get the word on the genuinely hardcore Ninja Gaiden 3.

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Internet sleuths believe they’ve identified the actor behind Grand Theft Auto V’s as yet undetailed leading man: one Ned Luke.

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A number of favourite characters have been revealed for Square Enix’s upcoming RPG rhythm hybrid, Theatrhythm Final Fantasy.

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Award-winning satirical board game War on Terror, which lampoons the US political scene of the early to mid-2000′s, is coming to iOS.

The debut video game from independent, Cambridge-based card and board game creator Terrorbull Games, War on Terror has players vying for world domination, and is expected to hit the App Store on November 25.

Hit the break for a teaser trailer.

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Team Ninja boss Yosuke Hayashi claims Dead or Alive 5 will use the full power of current generation hardware, something none of the “simplistic” fighters of this generation have done.

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Griptonite’s 3DS take on classic Sega property Shinobi has arrived on European shores and is expected in the US this week. Check out the launch trailer through the break.

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Siliconera reports Capcom has confirmed 16-bit era classics Street Fighter II and Strider will appear on both the European and US Wii Virtual Consoles.

Street Fighter II will benefit from a small modern upgrade, allowing for online versus play.

No local pricing or release dates have been announced. Both titles arrive on the Japanese VC in December, for ¥600.

Amanita Design is super keen on the “relaxed” nature of the iPad 2, which will soon be graced by a port of Machinarium.

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DICE plans to do something about the tactical light in Battlefield 3 before any more controllers are snapped in rage.

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Famously eschewed by arachnaphobes even before release, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim contains too many eight-legged beasties for some tastes. Without the benefit of the full creation kit, one clever clog has cobbled together a crude mod that turns all those nasty spiders into much less disturbing bears.

You can grab the mod here; PC only, of course. Skyrim is available now on all three major platforms.

Thanks, Dan!

Stealth Bastard, the first, free entry in a new genre dubbed Tactical Espionage Arsehole, has drawn 35,000 users since its release just one week ago.

Each of those players has died an average of 35 times, which director Jonathan Biddle calls “hardly vini vidi vici”. Presumably he’d like us to die more.

From Fluidity and Explodemon developer Curve Studios, the game boasts rapid-fire stealth action and a bewildering variety of nasty traps. Download the PC-exclusive Stealth Bastard for free from the game’s website.

343 Industries’ Frank O’Connor has laughed off rumours that Halo 4 is to be a launch title of the next Xbox.

“Halo 4 will be on Xbox 360 and use a modified core of the Halo engine,” the studio lead wrote on Neogaf.

The Halo franchise’s role as a flagship Xbox title, along with persistant whispers of upcoming new hardware, had some speculating the upcoming game would be part of a surprise console announcement. Halo 4 is expected in late 2012.

Thanks, That VideoGame Blog.

Tale of Tale’s award-winning interactive experience The Graveyard has been ported to Android. A free demo is available, but you’ll need to shell out $2 for the full experience, which is virtually identical but brings a random chance of seeing an alternate ending; the possibility of the second ending is kind of the point of the thing, so.

Tale of Tale’s oeuvre of atmospheric interactive experiences includes The Path, The Endless Forest, and most recently, Fatale.

Thanks, GameSetWatch.