Author Archives: Mike

Exactly what it says on the tin: the PC version of Ascaron’s RPG, Sacred 2, has been patched to version 2.43.

Download it directly from Ascaron’s site and read the full patch notes over on the forums.

There’s no hint if this is on its way to consoles or not.

Get clicking.

The Star Telegram has revealed that Terminal Reality’s Ghostbusters: The Videogame had a budget of somewhere between 15 and 20 million dollars.

“The videogame has already achieved “blockbuster” status with an estimated 1 million units sold,” says the article.

“Terminal Reality’s videogame was the product of years of planning and execution, thousands of hours of work [and] a final budget of USD 15 million – USD 20 million.”

Terminal Reality boss Randel would love to make a film on the rumoured third film, too: “You can bet that if that movie were to come out, we’d just love to do another Ghostbusters game based on it,” he said.

Thanks, Euro-gamer.

Xbox Live Arcade’s Wednesday game update this week is Twisted Pixel’s Splosion Man: about a guy who constantly blows himself up.

There are 100 levels in all – 50 single, 50 multi – and all this will cost you 800 MS Points.

And that’s that.

Below you can see a new video of Valve’s zombie shooter Left 4 Dead 2 that reveals a couple of new zombie classes.

If you can’t be bothered to watch, one new living dead type is the “Spitter” who lobs his gob at you. The phlegm then attacks the area of the body it lands on: kind of like Mustard Gas.

Nice.

Another zombie class is what Valve calls the “common-uncommons” whom are specific to each level. One type is the “mud-men” who appear in the swamp levels.

Thanks to Kotaku. Video below.

Game’s out later this year.

More »

Australian online retailer JB Hi-Fi is listing The Beatles: Rock Band full band pack bundle at $349 Australian dollars (approx €200/£170).

In case you’ve forgotten, the bundle comes with Ringo’s drums, Paul’s Höfner bass and a mic or two.

John’s Rickenbacker 325 guitar and George’s Gretsch Duo will be sold separately.

Thanks, MyPS3.com.au.

World of Goo developer 2D Boy’s next game will be a WiiWare title born out of its Experimental Gameplay Project, it has emerged this morning.

“The three of us are cooking up a new game for WiiWare, currently ‘in the works’,” Kyle Gabler told Nintendodpad.

“We haven’t mentioned anything about it to anyone, but here’s a clue – the new game from the three of us is based on one of the experimental games from our past.”

The other two – as Eurogamer points out – are Kyle “Henry Hatsworth” Gray and World of Goo programmer Allan Blomquist.

More details on The Experimental Gameplay Project can be found through the titular link.

In today’s video gaming market, there’s a general tendence to move away from exclusivity, and rake in the sales by going multiplatform. Now, GI wanted to know if Ryan Schneider, director of marketing and communications for Sony first-party developer Insomnaic Games, has considered this when he stares down the barrel of Resistance 2 sales figures.

This is what he said:

“Sure, as an independent developer, you do consider those options – but at the same time we do have a great relationship with Sony.

“We’ve been with Sony for a long, long time now, and that’s where we intend to stay for the foreseeable future.”

Why so much Sony love? Schneider explains:

“Sony bends over backwards to work with its development teams. Their product development team is second to none – we absolutely love working with them.

“Their PR and marketing folks are terrific to work with and very dedicated to the cause, and there are some very creative people there.

“We feel very fortunate to have that sort of relationship in place.”

Full interview with Schneider through the link.

Activision Blizzard has revealed that map packs for last year’s Call of Duty World at War have been downloaded 4 million times.

Only two map packs have been released so far, helping the shooter top the 11 million sales mark in June, reports GI.

Don’t fret though, at four new maps are on their way in a third map pack next month.

Awesome.

It’s Microsoft patent Tuesday, it seems. This time, Superannuation has unearthed a patent filed by MS on July 17 for the term “343 Industries.”

The patent stipulates that 343 Industries is for “computer programs, namely, game software for use on computers and video.”

Now, the millions Halo fans out there have probably already got a wry smile on their faces as “343″ is the name given to the character “343 Guilty Spark” in the Halo universe.

Gamespot speculated that 343 Industries sounds “less like a game and more like a label–a label that would be perfectly apt for the internal division of Microsoft Game Studios dedicated to the Halo franchise.”

Microsoft has been contacted by replied simply: “”We have nothing to announce at this time.”

We sense a thickening plot.

All will be revealed in due course.

After the break you can see two intro videos of the deleted scenes that come with the new Gears of War 2 Dark Corners DLC that Cliff Blezsinsky detailed on Major’s podcast yesterday.

It shows Marcus and Dom sneaking around wearing full Locust attire complete with some rather tight, red helmets.

Get ready to rumble on July 28.

More »

After the break you can see quite a lengthy vid of The Beatles: Rock Band that reveals eight new tracks from the rather spiffing-looking rhythm-action game.

The eight tracks are:

• Twist and Shout
• Paperback Writer
• Can’t Buy Me Love
• Eight Days a Week
• Yellow Submarine
• Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
• Within You Without You
• Revolution

Now, if we had friends and drunk copious amounts of alcohol with these fictive beings, The Beatles: Rock Band would probably be top of our most wanted list right now.

Hit the break to find out why.

More »

This is a strange one, but it appears Microsoft has patented the ability to drop-in and out of co-op games – think Gears of War.

Patent #7,559,834 was invented by a James York back in 2002 but it was assigned to Microsoft on July 14th 2009.

It reads:

Dynamic join/exit of players during play of console-based video game

Abstract

A squad-based shooter video game allows players to dynamically join and leave the game, while that game is in progress, without the players having to save and restart the game. When a new player joins an in-progress game, a new squad member is allocated to the new player and the screen is split to present a viewing panel for the new player that depicts scenes from the perspective of the new squad member. When an existing player leaves the game, the screen is unsplit to remove the viewing panel for the exiting player and that player’s squad member becomes part of the squad being controlled by the remaining player(s).

However, if you think that now no other company can use this technique, the patent does strictly say that it is only for squad-based shooters.

Thanks, Kotaku.

Activision has confirmed Carlos Santana will feature in Guitar Hero 5 later this year.

You’ll be able to play along to ‘No One To Depend On’ from his ‘Santana’ album.

To celebrate, Acti put out a couple of images of you to look at. They’re over at Destructoid.

Take a look.

BioWare has released the latest edition of The Old Republic web comic called Threat of Peace.

It’s all about the how the Rodians are shunned how hard times have fallen on the Jedi since the Sith Empire battered Coruscant.

The war still rages on, however, and people are getting tortured behind closed doors.

Interested? Get it here.

Thanks, Massively.

If you’ve still got a copy of Force Unleashed knocking about that you didn’t get the Jedi Temple Mission Pack DLC for way back when, then you’re in luck, as the Major reveals that it’s this week’s Deal of the Week.

In real numbers that means it’s 50 percent cheaper than it was yesterday i.e. 400 MS Points instead of 800. Great.

Go grab it if you haven’t already.

Monolith has put out the the footage that was cut from the end credits of F.E.A.R. 2. You can watch it after the break.

It’s a comedy singing and dancing number and is extremely silly indeed.

Don’t believe us? Take a look.

More »

The NPD Group has revealed that EA’s The Sims 3 was the best selling game for the PC last month.

Unfortunately, the NPD Group no longer distributes PC sales data publicly, but it has revealed the above.

EA said that The Sims 3 sold 1.4 million in June.

Thanks, Edge.

Mortal Kombat co-creator Ed Boon has revealed images of a hidden Mortal Kombat themed basketball ‘kourt’ (Kombat – Kourt – gettit?!) via twitter that was going to be unlockable in NBA Jam and until the man himself said no.

It’s got fire around it and skulls and everything. It’s totally awesome. We’re gutted he decided against it.

Anyway, check out the full image at Destructiod.

Electronic Arts and DC comics have teamed up to reveal that Visceral Games’ Dante’s Inferno will have a six issue graphic mini-series made in its honour with the first issue due in December this year.

The comic is illustrated by Diego Latorre (The Incredible Hulk) and written by Christos Gage (X-Men/Spider-Man, Wildcats), so the prestige is there for it not to be crap.

However, if you’re going to ComicCon this week, you can pick up a special issue #0, and get it signed by the above.

We’re not there. Awesome.

Dante’s Inferno is out for PS3 and 360 in January.

Full thing after the break.

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IncGamers reckon it is. The site is reporting that GAPP – the firm responsible for authorising World of Warcraft – has almost finishing doing whatever it is it does and that the games should go live again in China soon.

Apparently, there’s a bit of violent conduct that needs to be removed and then everything will be hunky dory again.

The MMO that has become somewhat of a cultural phenomenon, has been offline in the region since June 7.