Of all the games on display at Namco Bandai's summer media event, none seemed to want more love than Active Life Extreme Challenge. After all, if you'd just watched the above trailer, would you truly be psyched to play it? Well, we've never been the type to pass on a game just because of a silly premise -- if that were the case, we'd never have known the love of 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand -- so we gave it a shot. Turns out it's not half bad.
Sure, you might might be able to play skateboarding, BMX and other extreme sports with a controller, but then you wouldn't look totally goofy -- like we did! Trust us, you've never known humility until you've gotten down on your hands and kneed in front of hundred of other journalists to "rock climb" on a plastic mat.
DICE recently opened up the Battlefield Heroes forums to suggestions for the title of the map you see above. The winner, Noobilator, ended up dubbing this particular area Coastal Clash, and it stuck. The map is still in the development process, and needs more play testing before being deployed into battle, but fans of Battlefield Heroes can look forward to destroying this peaceful little village sometime soon.
If you're trying to experience Battlefield Heroes for yourself, and don't have a beta invite, hit up the beta site. DICE is handing out codes to everyone.
If you're a fan of tabletop war games, you're probably hotly anticipating Cyanide's video game adaptation of Games Workshop's classic fantasy-football mash-up, Blood Bowl. You are also probably pretty old, and have a large, curly beard. Likely a gray or white beard, due to the aforementioned elderliness.
We've got great news for these senescent war game enthusiasts -- in a recent interview with Eurogamer, Cyanide's Antoine Villepreux explained the developer would be glad to tend to Games Workshop's "forgotten IPs that we think deserve video game adaptations." If the wordsInquisitorand Mighty Empires bring haste to your old, old heart, a table-to-TV adaptation of your favorite Games Workshop franchises might be within the realm of possibilities.
Valve and Tripwire Interactive have announced that Killing Floor is now available for pre-order on Steam. Those who pre-order the title before its May 14 release will receive a 25% discount, knocking the price down to a cool $15.00. In addition to the pre-order announcement, a new trailer has been released showcasing the titles zombie-killing action. The game looks to combine some of our favorite shooter features, including six-player co-op and a persistent perk system. Oh, and zombies. Can't forget the zombies.
A recent Activision presser revealed Guitar Hero World Tour's downloadable offerings for next month, and boy, is it one eclectic hodge-podge of on-rails music. One of the packs is free, too! We love free hodge-podges.
May 7: Ferret/Metal Blade Track Pack (Free!)
"Dez Moines" - The Devil Wears Prada
"On Broken Glass" - Chimaira
"Grave of Opportunity" - Unearth
May 14: Pop Rock Track Pack (440 / $5.49)
"So What" - Pink (160 / $2)
"Stop and Stare" - OneRepublic (160 / $2)
"Everything's Magic" - Angels and Airwaves (160 / $2)
May 21: European Track Pack No. 5 (440 / $5.49)
"Disconnected" - In Flames (160 / $2)
"Oh Yeah!" - Housse de Racket (160 / $2)
"Look Good In Leather" - Cody ChesnuTT (160 / $2)
Like always, these tunes can't be downloaded in packs on the Wii -- each song must be downloaded separately for 200 Wii Points (except for the free ones, which are, of course, free). We've got videos for the first three posted after the jump!
You could rename The Munchablesas Eat Everything: The Game and actually have one of the more fittingly descriptive titles in gaming history. Much like another Namco character -- Pac-Man -- the star of this Wii-exclusive game is out to eat anything and everything in sight, even if there's no real point.
Well, there is a backstory about a nefarious vegetable named Don Onion and his band of space pirates ... yeah, you're right, it's best to just focus on the gameplay.
Okay, okay ... you can take off the red & blue glasses. The above video (and the one to be found after the break) are not, we admit, in 3D. Invincible Tiger: The Legend of Han Tao is though. Not as in "polygonal," but honest-to-goodness 3D -- as long as you have the proper equipment.
Blitz Arcade was demoing the Namco Bandai published XBLA/PSN title yesterday on a Samsung DLP display capable of 3D output when used with special polarized glasses. While the game was more or less exactly what we played at New York Comic-Con, it was superficially deeper. The effect worked, even in conjunction with prescription glasses, lending the scenes impressive clarity while doing a great job of delineating the foreground / background planes gameplay traverses between.
Our major gripe -- apart from the fact the mode will only work on certain TVs -- is that it really seemed like nothing more than a novelty. While sharp, it robbed the game of color and detail, leaving behind what reminded us of Sega's old "holographic" arcade games. We applaud Blitz Arcade for trying something different, though; we're just glad it's not the only way to play this stylized beat-'em-up.
Remember when there were never going to be any moreKatamari Damacy games? It must have just been a bad, bad dream, because Katamari (is) Forever. The new game, announced for US release yesterday, was previously announced in Japan as Katamari Damacy Tribute. It's rolling Stateside later this year exclusively for PS3 -- in full 1080p -- and we've seen it in action. Is it more than just crisp graphics and fancy new visual filters? You betcha. Join us after the break for more.
Looking at this examination of GameStop's sales over at Gamasutra, it's hard to not get frustrated thinking about how much money the used game monolith is making on our undying urge to play "the next big thing." Pulling figures from the 10-K filings made each year by the company with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, Gamasutra noticed some interesting figures. Notably among those: "between 41 and 46 percent" of the company's gross profits are coming from used game sales alone.
And how much is the company making, on the dollar, for each dollar they invest in the used game market? According to the analysis, GameStop is making 48 cents on every 100 spent in the used games trade -- a nearly 50% profit margin on a service that accounts for "22 percent to 28 percent of GameStop's revenue."
Though GameStop's plans for world domination weren't explicitly spelled out in the 10-K, we expect to hear more about them in the coming months. Alright, alright -- fine, you got us. GameStop isn't planning global domination ... yet.
As we reported last month, Namco Bandai is "rebooting" (that's cool-talk for "taking another crack at") Dead to Rights, its tale of a cop, his dog and lots of third-person shooting. Dead to Rights: Retribution, as it's known, was shown in non-playable form last night at Namco's preview event -- well, it was being played, just not by us.
We got a look at two levels from Jack Slate and his pooch Shadow's new adventure, one that's full of shotguns in the mouth, ripped-out throats and a glimmer of hope in its melee combat.
Activision picked the wrong day to announce a Wii sports minigame collection, because Sega just outclassed it. Compare the list of sports in Activision's Big League Sports: Summer with Sega's new Wacky World of Sports:
Big League Sports: tennis, beach volleyball, golf, soccer, baseball and football. Wacky World of Sports: furniture racing, card boxing, log cutting, Fierljeppen, mud sliding, tuna tossing, cheese rolling, extreme ironing, and two more. One of the characters is also some kind of Naruto parody, but we don't know whether to mark that as a plus or minus. Wacky World of Sports will be out in the regular world in "late 2009."
We already previewedGomibako back in October at TGS, so when we were given the chance to take another look -- this time under the North American title Trash Panic -- we nearly passed it up. It's trash after all, right? Well, yes. "Gomibako" literally translates to "trash box," and plenty of attendees at Sony's Gamers' Day event walked right by, assuming, "Oh. Tetris with trash. I get it."
It's easy to dismiss Trash Panic as a Tetris knockoff, but this puzzle game has a robust physics engine, whimsical graphics, and Katamari-like inspiration that'll find your trash bin growing with each level -- until it actually sits on top of Earth. As you play, the trash also grows in scale, and you'll graduate from tossing away routine office trash to comets, meteors, space stations, and even aliens.
If this sort of gameplay counted as community service, then the world would be a much cleaner place.
We don't know what's taken Namco so long to bring Tekken 6home -- it was released in arcades November 2007, for crying out loud -- but we can finally say, after a not-really-all-that-unexpected announcement that the game would be appearing on Xbox 360 as well as PlayStation 3 and seeing loads of screenshots of the console version, we've finally played it. On a real, honest-to-goodness PS3. (We checked to make sure the cables weren't running to a hidden arcade cabinet.)
This was our first experience with the game, not having access to an arcade willing to shell out beaucoup bucks for a machine. But we'd played enough Tekken in the past (most recently, Tekken 5: Dark Resurrection on PS3) to be able to get a feel for this new installment. So, what makes it worthy of being one more than five? find out after the break!
This summer, we're gonna party like it's 1997: on our computers, playing Ultima Online. That's right, the ancient MMO is still alive and kicking somehow, and EA has just announced another expansion for it. Ultima Online: Stygian Abyss adds a new playable Gargoyle class to the game, and adds new areas for exploration, including the Gargoyle home of Ter Mur and (naturally) the Stygian Abyss dungeon, which is the "largest dungeon area ever introduced to Ultima Online."
Perhaps most importantly to longtime UO players, the download-only expansion will introduce a few new players curious about the long-running game. New, low-level players for the UO lifers to antagonize.
PAIN has come a long way since launching with just one level, two characters, and no online multiplayer. It's managed to rank at the top of PSN downloads through a consistent stream of content add-ons, which -- you guessed it -- have added new levels, new characters, and online multiplayer. We got our hands on the next update, the "Sore Spots" level pack, and its new characters at Sony's recent Gamers' Day in Los Angeles.
Read on for our full preview and to find out what's coming next from developer Idol Minds. (HInt: A heckuva lot more crotch-related agony.)
Bethesda has pinged our Pip-Boys with word that Fallout 3 has been updated to version 1.5. Don't get too excited, all it does is add the Broken Steel achievements and fix a few bugs. So few, in fact, that we can list them here:
Fixed issue with VATS calculations not appearing properly for perks (PC).
Fixed crash related to altered references between master files.
LOD objects render properly when loaded from DLC worldspaces.
Fixed issue with companion NPCs not loading into cells immediately after player.
Xbox 360 owners will have their Capital Wasteland auto-update the next time they start the game and PC owners can grab the update from Bethesda (Big Download has it, as well). The Broken Steel DLC will be ready to cut out the original game's unnecessary ending on May 5.
US RPG fans, you're getting a dose of JRPG goodness later this year when Namco Bandai releases MagnaCarta 2 exclusively for the Xbox 360. IGN reports a localized version of the Unreal 3 engine-based game will arrive on US shores, and will feature over 40 hours of gameplay, as well as fully-narrated CG scenes. Developer Softmax is returning to create the sequel to 2005's PS2 title, MagnaCarta: Tears of Blood, with Korean artist Hyung-Tae Kim handling character designs for the sequel.
The game will take place on the Lanzheim Continent, which has been ravaged by war, and focuses on the story of Luto, who suffers from Amnesia. The game's battle system features a combination of turn-based mechanics with real-time elements, and players can switch between characters on the fly. You can even customize your party's AI at will.
Head past the break for a trailer that shows off pretty much what you'd expect: Beautiful men and passive-aggressive dialogue. Oh, and magic.
After rumors began circulating that the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions of The Witcherhad been canceled, Shacknews reports that development on the game has been suspended due to "financial issues." Specifically, co-developer Widescreen Games alleges that CD Projekt failed to make a large payment to the company. This comes by way of Widescreen Games director Olivier Masclef, who stated, "After having committed to the project but not being covered financially on it for three months, I [had] no choice."
CD Projekt's joint CEO Michal Kicinski, meanwhile, states that all payments were made according to the game's milestone plan and that the late payments were the result of Widescreen missing its deadlines. Kicinski adds that the decision to put development on hold was "extremely difficult" and that the company is searching for a solution. He concludes, "So no matter what the final decision or solution we will find, please be sure that it will be the best for the game quality, and satisfaction of gamers, which is the most important for us!"
Whatever the real story is, the end result is that The Witcher: Rise of the White Wolf is currently dead in the water.
Longtime Eidos executive Ian Livingstone has been promoted to life president of ... wait, he's the what? Livingstone now holds the title of "life president," following Square Enix's takeover of the troubled British publisher. The executive will continue working in the creative process and "act as a spokesperson for the Eidos group," reports GI.biz.
Livingstone will also continue working with the British government to push forward tax credits and the "skills agenda."
We Googled "life president" because we figured this was some business term we'd just never heard of. Nope, it appears totally made up. The closest thing we could find was the term "President for Life," a title used by dictators -- which is not what's going on with Livingstone ... we think.
Just to make sure Wikipedia and Google hadn't missed anything in their combined infinite wisdom, we decided to contact several major academic business institutions. Harvard and Wharton have yet to return our phone calls; however, Stanford's media relations offered, "I can't think of any academic with serious scholarship wanting to weigh in on this."
Analytics firm OTX Research seems to already be making a name for itself after announcing intentions last month to track game sales. Speaking at the LA Games Conference, OTX's Nick Williams explained the surprisingly weak connection between strong online awareness of a game versus actual, hard sales numbers, citing Sega's recently released MadWorld as a striking example.
Noting the game's top position among IGN.com's games with the "highest level of unique interest," MadWorld came in at a paltry number 41 using OTX's "GamePlan" metric, a system that measures "1,000 gamers on a weekly basis, tracking 400 games at any given time." This translates to a bleak eight percent of Wii owners having even heard of the title, much less purchasing it (that's .32 percent according to April's MadWorld sales data compared with the 20 million Wii owners in the US currently). Hmm, we wonder what that data would look like for Grand Theft Auto's recent foray onto Nintendo's massively popular handheld!
It took an awful lot of numbers right there to explain an idea we've all quietly agreed upon for so long now -- hype and marketing in the "hardcore" gaming world doesn't necessarily equal copies moving at retail. Now, if you'll excuse us, we'll be over here playing BlazBlue.
Ubisoft announced its financial results (PDF link) for fiscal 2008 (which ended on March 31, 2009), and for the most part news (or Newz, if you prefer) is good. Full-year sales for 2008 grew to €1.058 billion, up 14% over last year's €928 million total.
Ubisoft's sales target for the 2009 fiscal year is €1.1 billion. It expects the first quarter sales of 2009 to be weaker than 2008's, due to the relative lack of major releases (Q1 2008 included Haze and Assassin's Creed on PC), with growth to occur in the second half of the year.
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