Category Archives: GAMESCom 2009

Sony has released yet another bonanza of screeshots from gamescom, and once again, we’ve put them all here in one lovely post. You still love us for it, right?

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THQ has released the gamescom trailer for Relic’s Warhammer 40K: Space Marine.

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EA Sports is still planning on releasing 360 and PS3 versions of Grand Slam Tennis, division boss Peter Moore’s told VG247, but only when motion controllers have launched for both systems.

Moore delayed the games in August following the release of a MotionPlus-compatible Wii version.

“You will do on the new motion technologies,” Moore said when asked if we’ll see the 360 and PS3 SKUs actually make it to market.

“One thing that becamse glaringly obvious is that once you started playing Wii MotionPlus tennis and then you go back to [traditional controllers].”

Moore added that MotionPlus had “ruined” tennis games on standard controllers for him, but reiterated that the success of EA Sports Active had been an equal part of the decision to slip.

“It’s two things,” he said. “Active is such a powerful platform that we have to bring in resources to take advantage of that and get more stuff coming down the pipe.

“Secondly we’ve decided just to wait for Natal and for the Sony motion controller to come out.”

Natal is expected late next year, while Sony’s motion tech should release next spring.

Moore was speaking at GamesCom in Cologne.

Creative Assembly community manager, Kieran Brigden, chatted a bit with BigDownload during GamesCom and discussed the development of Napoleon: Total War.

Brigden also discusses content by way of some of Napoleon’s career battles, and the ability to play against Napoleon as one of the opposing countries.

Game’s out during the first half of 2010.

The video is after the break.

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Square’s Yoshi Kitase and Motomu Toriyama told VG247 during GamesCom, that downloadable content is being considered for future Final Fantasy titles, but for now, nothing is set in stone for Final Fantasy XIII.

“As far as DLC is concerned, there is no solid plan at the moment for FFXIII,” said Kitase, speaking through his translator. “However, we’ve been listening to overseas fans in Europe and North America and are aware that DLC is very popular and something that people really want.

“So it’s definitely being considered for future projects.”

Kitase stated previously, that should any DLC for FFXIII be released, it would be something along the lines of new items, areas or enemies, and not something that would tie into the story.

At GamesCom, Yoshi Kitase and Motomu Toriyama from Square Enix told VG247 that Final Fantasy games shouldn’t take as long to develop in the future.

During the conversation, we mentioned CEO of Square Enix Yoichi Wada’s comment regarding the firm “taking too long to produce games”, to see if they were in agreement.

Us at GamesCom: Yoichi Wada has said that he wants the development rate to go a bit faster. Is this possible and what is the development team doing to help speed things along for the future?

FFXIII’s Yoshi Kitase and Motomu Toriyama, speaking through a translator: For FFXIII there are a lot of firsts, and because it’s a new console that the teams are working on, it took a little time for the team to get used to everything. Now that they have the engine built for it the basics are covered, so the development time for future projects should be shortened.

Still, it may not be as simple as Wada thinks (laughing).

Hopefully, what this means, is that it won’t take what feels like ten years in between titles.

Fable III drew the most traffic for Eurogamer over GamesCom for a single game, according to this GI piece.

Which is all very nice, but the real story here is the graphs. Just look at that shit. Pastel shades, italics, extended radial spokes on the pie; a new level.

Hit the link to see for yourself.

Assassin’s Creed is a very buyable game. And what happens to buyable games? They get sequels. And sometimes they get second sequels. And sometimes the developers working on them get so engrossed they’re prepared to dump a decade of their careers on one franchise.

“No, not yet,” said Patrice Desilets, Assassin’s Creed II’s creative director, when we asked him if he was ready to move off the IP now the second game is nearing completion.

“I have many different ideas. I’m not ready yet to exploit them. I think I have some juice left in me left to continue this.”

Assassin’s Creed has long been confirmed as a trilogy, and Desilets told us that change of scenery and opportunity to hone gameplay elements keeps his job fresh.

“I’ve been doing Assassin’s Creed games for the past six years,” he said. “It’s tough to be bored.

“I was a bit bored with the Turk crusade and the monk aspect, and everything, but in this there’s a brand new setting. And it’s my first sequel; I never did a sequel before, because I didn’t do any Prince of Persia sequels.

“I love the idea of refining your ideas, the gameplay and what you can do with it,” he added.

“So I’m not bored yet.”

Assassin’s Creed II releases on November 20. We doubt you’ll be bored of it either.

It’s been so long since we’ve seen a single thing from the game, but Rockstar has confirmed that LA Noire is still in development over at Team Bondi.

The news came from a closed doors press conference for the publisher at GamesCom earlier this month, although nothing more was mentioned on the game.

The publisher only talked in depth about future stuff, including Gay Tony, Red Dead Redemption and GTA: Chinatown Wars for the PSP during the conference.

Thanks, PS3Center.

Final Fantasy XIV producer Hiromichi Tanaka has said to VG247 that the MMO’s level system, similar to that of Ultima Online, will “make sense” to players when the game launches next year.

“From MMO history, from the beginning, [games like] Ultima Online had a similar, skill-based system, so we do believe it will make sense to our players,” he said.

“What we’re trying to provide to our players is flexibility. They don’t have to stick to one job: by providing this system they’ll be able to enjoy a variety of classes.”

Explaining exactly how the system’s going to work, the developer added:

“This time it’s not going to be just by killing monsters that you’ll gain experience points, but by using the weapon you hold in your hand, you’ll gain skills for that class. So, if you change your weapon you’ll change your class. You can change your class even between the battles; not during the battles.”

2010 is when you can see this one for PS3 and PC.

Surnames may be introduced help character name transfers between Final Fantasy XI and Final Fantasy XIV, producer Hironichi Tanaka told VG247 in Cologne two weeks ago.

“We’re trying to find a way so people can transfer their names to FFXIV. However, for FFXI we had 32 worlds, and each character had to have a unique name in each world, so if they move to XIV there might be a conflict, so what we’re trying to introduce is surnames for the characters so people can keep their original names but add something else to it to make it more unique,” said the developer.

Tanaka also told us that FFXIV isn’t Final Fantasy XI-2, but steps are being taken to ensure vets from the older MMO can make an easy transition, should they wish.

“FFXIV is not going to be like the second version of FFXI – we’re trying to make a totally new game,” he said.

“However, to help the people that are playing FFXI, we’re introducing similar races… so they won’t feel total strangers to the game.”

FFXIV’s out for PS3 and PC in 2010.

Final Fantasy XIV world Eorzea will have it’s own religion, producer Hiromichi Tanaka told VG247 at GamesCom earlier this month.

Remember children: praise Jebus.

“It will have its own religion. It’ll be a really unique type of world,” said Tanaka of the MMO.

He added: “This time with the world of Eorzea, what we’re trying to achieve is a very unique world. It’s going to be difficult to say whether it’s in the future or in the past. It’ll have some type of sci-fi element to it, and at the same time having medieval elements, so it’s really going to be difficult to say what type of world it’s going to be.”

Game’s out next year for PC and PS3.

Final Fantasy XIV producer Hiromichi Tanaka has told VG247 he’s thrilled famed composer of previous FF musical scores Nobuo Uematsu has taken on the game’s full soundtrack.

“Yes, very pleased,” he said when asked if he’s happy Uematsu’s on board for the MMO.

“I’ve been working with Uematsu since the beginning of the Final Fantasy series. Even when Mr Uematsu left Square Enix, we still went drinking together. We’re good friends.”

Tanaka, speaking at GamesCom, added: “As he’s very busy, we didn’t expect him to do all of the music for FFXIV, but this time he kindly suggested that he would take care of the whole [score].”

Uematsu left Square Enix in 2004 alongside FF creator Hironobu Sakaguchi to become a freelancer composer, although he does tend to contribute pieces since leaving the publisher, including the main theme to Final Fantasy XIII.

Game’s out next year for PS3 and PC.

Lots going on this week. The latest episode in our amazing podcast features Cryptic legend Jack Emmert on the imminent launch of anticipated MMO Champions Online, as well as EG.net dep ed Ellie Gibson talking to Steph and I about the mighty GamesCom.

There’s mention of sausages and sex with aliens in there, as well. What more do you want? Play it in your browser; download it: the choice is yours.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

EA president Frank Gibeau has told GI.biz that the future of music peripherals is a bit “unclear” thank to recent weak sales of Rock Band.

However, he does feel that the stand alone discs sales are still positive, and will bring about a nice finish to the year.

“Plastic’s way down, so a lot of the music category stuff is not as robust as it’s been, and it’s unclear whether a lot of this peripheral activity that’s happening is going to stick,” he told the site during GamesCom. “125, 115, 99 dollar price points for these things – it appears to have gone soft right now in the market place.

“But for standalone software titles that are high quality, from us? I feel good about it. I look at our first half, our Q2, I feel good about our company, our line-up. We’re not as exposed to some of those other issues – year-on-year our Q4 is going to be very dramatic in terms of the titles released.”

More through the link.

RTS is still finding its place on consoles, Gas Powered Games CEO Chris Taylor told VG247 at GamesCom last week, but at one time so were shooters.

The developer, currently hard at work on Supreme Commander 2 for both PC and 360, told us that not all gamers wish to go out and purchase a gaming rig just to play an RTS: therefore, the genre must come to them.

“Think about GoldenEye on the N64. I liked it, but I didn’t love it. Like, I didn’t die for it,” said Taylor.

“It’s like, I thought, ‘This is pretty OK’, but I fought with the controls a little bit. Nobody at that time would have said, ‘Shooters? On consoles?’ Now, some shooters do better on the console than they do on the PC. Halo, for example. Wow, we’ve come a long way.

“I keep remembering that if you can go into that market, and you can solve it, there is an upside there.”

Back in June, Taylor assured fans that more development time and more resources were being poured into Supreme Commander 2 on 360 after the first port received such a lukewarm reception.

Namco Bandai announced during GamesCom that a game based on the movie remake of the Clash of the Titans is in the works for PS3 and Xbox 360.

Somehow we missed this last week, but its expected to land on shelves alongside the film March 26.

Currently in development with Game Republic, the hack-and-slash action-adventure game will follow the movie but expand the universe a bit, like most movie-based games.

More than 100 creatures from Greek mythology are in the game and locations range from ancient Greek monuments to snow and lava rich areas.Expect the usual Greek creature fodder -centaurs, minotaurs, wraiths, dragons, ogres and you just know Medusa will be in it.

Hopefully the centuries have helped heal her issues over her appearance- but don’t count on it.

Via VideogamesBlogger.

Aliens and Predators may have been de rigueur back in the 80s, but they’re just as relevant now as they ever were, AvP dev Tim Jones told us at GamesCom.

“I think it’s still very much relevant to the younger audience,” said the Rebellion man.

“The comics and graphic novels still sell well, and the recent movies, the AvP and AvP2 movies, have reached a wide audience in many respects. They reached a bigger box office than the previous movies.

“I think there’s a huge appetite out there for these characters and the universe we’re exploring.”

Sega’s Rob Bartholemew added that the shooter’s setting has been modernised over the classic films.

“The story itself is set 30 years on from Alien 3 in terms of age and timeline, so marine technology’s moved on,” he said.

“It’s still recognisable, but you’ll notice they they’ve got updated armour, slightly updated weapons. We’re making it more contemporary in this game than… the 80s sci-fi that was inherent in some of the films.”

AvP’s out on 360, PS3 and PC early next year. Hit this for multiplayer details from Germany last week.

Bayonetta won’t be a region-free release, according to this Kotaku story.

That means no importing for you, grey market scum.

Just checking whether or not this applies to both 360 and PS3 versions now.

Here, we have a handful of straws. You’re welcome to grasp at some, should you feel the need.

Us at GamesCom: Will we ever see a remake of Final Fantasy VII?

FFXIII’s Yoshi Kitase and Motomu Toriyama, speaking through a translator: There’s no official project that’s up and running for a remake of Final Fantasy VII at this point. Both Toriyama-san and Kitase-san were involved in the development of the game, however, and it holds a special place in their hearts. They do talk about it on a personal level, like, ‘If we did it it would be like this or like that.’

So, they do talk about it, but there’s no official project yet. But there’s that PSN release that just came out, so if you could play that for the time being, it should be fun.

So there you go. Fin. For now.