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Archived News:
Command and Conquer DEN has information about Command & Conquer 4
translated from a preview of EA's upcoming real-time strategy sequel in the
German-language Gamestar Magazine. The story has a bunch of details about the
story and gameplay for those who hate surprises, and an interesting tidbit is
that the lead producer on the project is Michael Glosecki, a member of the QA
team for Dune 2, one of the seminal games in the RTS genre (this story originally incorrectly called Michael the "lead designer," apologies for the error). Thanks Ant.
Telltale Games
announces that
The Bogey
Man, the season finale episode in Wallace & Gromit's Grand Adventures,
is due for release tomorrow. Word is: Last week, I received an email from
a concerned fan wondering whether we had stopped working on (or otherwise
forgotten about) Wallace & Gromit's Grand Adventures due to Tales of Monkey
Island starting its release schedule. As it turns out, we totally haven't! The
final episode of the season, "The Bogey Man", will be released on Wednesday.
Yes, this Wednesday, July 29, 2009.
In the season finale, Wallace finds himself invited to become the newest member
of the prestigious Prickly Thicket country club. What seemed like a chance to
play a few relaxing rounds of golf soon turns into something much more sinister,
as Wallace and Gromit unwittingly wind up in the middle of an ancient dispute
threatening to tear the town apart!
The Splinter
Cell Conviction Official Blog has an update with outlook on the
recently announced delay to the action/stealth sequel (thanks
Mike Martinez). Word is: Splinter Cell Conviction is a very important game for us.
We want to ensure it’s a game that long-term fans and gamers new to the series
equally enjoy when they play it. Previous Splinter Cell games have set the bar
very high when it comes to quality and enjoyment, we are firmly focused on
continuing this with Conviction.
After demonstrating the new vision for the game at E3 2009 we won many awards
and got a lot of interest from fans and press alike. In order to live up to our
own ambitions and your expectations, we strongly feel that giving our teams that
extra time will allow us to present a game to you that will fulfill that
potential. Due to this, we have decided to move the release date into Q1 2010.
This extra time will ensure Splinter Cell Conviction becomes every bit the
fantastic experience we want it to be.
The
Randy Pitchford Interview Video on G4tv.com is a conversation between
Gearbox's CEO and his doppelganger about Borderlands, their upcoming
shooter/RPG. Among other things, Randy describes how the game's stylized art
redesign happened, through what amounts to an insurgency in the art department.
They also discuss co-op support, role-playing, the emphasis on the shooting
aspect of the game, and more. They also touch on Brothers in Arms, and
the distinct possibility they will eventually set the series in a different
conflict than World War II and Aliens: Colonial Marines, which Randy
indicates is waiting on Sega to decide when it will be more publicly discussed.
There's another
video
interview with Randy on Giantbomb.com, and there are also previews of
Borderlands on 1Up,
Destructoid,
Eurogamer
(where they talk about the game
Randy Pitchford is terrified to release),
G4,
GamePro,
GameSpot,
Giant Bomb,
Kotaku,
Strategy Informer, and
Videogamer.com. Finally,
here is a
batch of new Borderlands screenshots.
The
Brian Pass Interview movie on GameTrailers.com talks about Singularity
with the senior producer on Raven's upcoming singular shooter. Brian describes
the choices they are putting in the hands of the player, and the various
interesting uses of the game's Time Manipulation Device (TMD) that can age items
and enemies into dust, or reverse that process, though you don't seem to be able
to revert enemies into babies. The clip includes gameplay footage and an
indication that the game may just be delayed again, as last we
heard Singularity was expected in March 2010, but Brian says to expect it in
spring 2010, but only the last nine days of March are in the spring, making for
a narrow release window.
Shacknews has sales
figures from Direct2Drive and
Steam for the week ending July 25.
The lists offer interesting contrasts and similarities for titles offered on
both services. The best-selling game on D2D for the week was The Sims 3,
and the best selling title on Steam was preorders of Aion Collector's Edition,
while the top selling title that's available on each is ARMA 2.
A new playable demo for World War 2: Time of Wrath is now available,
offering a sample of this just released grand strategy game. The version 1.50a
demo is available on
AtomicGamer,
FileFront, and Gamer's
Hell. There is also a version 1.50a hotfix for the game, offering: "Reduced
GPU usage, some CTD with PBEM fixes and a few other tweaks are included in this
small update." The patch is available from
Matrix Games and mirrored on
FileFront and Gamer's
Hell.
Massively reports open beta testing will begin in September for
Alganon, the fantasy-themed MMORPG in
the works at Quest Online. Update: The game is currently in closed beta,
and we've gotten a clarification on the way to register for the beta, which is
to sign up for an account on the Alganon Website
and opt-in to the beta, and you can increase your chance of being selected before
the beta opens to all by posting to
this forum
thread. Thanks
Massively.
GameHi announces open beta testing is underway for the westernized version of
Sudden Attack, the military shooter
said to be the number one game of its sort in Korea. Here's a bit on testing of
the game, which is scheduled to go live in the fall: For the first time
players will get to try the Property Defense mode in the new map StormVille.
Here each team must find, capture, and defend a specific area for a certain
amount of time, in order to win the game. Unlike rules from other missions, the
characters will respawn infinitely until the objective is met or time runs out.
As well, players will have the chance to experience the game’s most powerful
weapon yet, the MG43. This machine gun is Sudden Attack’s primary weapon,
holding 100 rounds in a clip, the largest rounds in the game so far.
Deep Silver offers a new movie from Risen, the upcoming RPG from Piranha
Bytes. The clip is described as "presenting many different aspects of the RPG,"
and the description also provides you with the tools to impress everyone at your
next symphonic/gothic metal trivia contest, as it says: "The new trailer is
accompanied by the song "The Poet and the Pendulum" from Nightwish, the most
successful symphonic/gothic metal band world-wide." You an find the movie on
ActionTrip,
AtomicGamer, and
Gamer's Hell.
There's an "exclusive firearms training"
trailer for Darkest Of Days on GameTrailers.com, offering the time
traveler tips on how to use the vintage weaponry in the historical conflicts
they will encounter in this alternate history shooter. They also touch on future
weapons, up to, but not including the FMG, which is not covered by your security
clearance.
A new movie is available to celebrate the imminent North American retail release
of East India Company, the historical real-time strategy game centered
around naval combat between sailing ships. The new "Meet the Nitro Team" movie
introduces the Finnish developers behind the project (no translation required,
provided you speak English). The clip is posted on the
YouTube,
AtomicGamer, and
Gamer's Hell.
Two more installments in the series of "graphic novel" movies for Wolfenstein
are now available. The third clip is available on
AtomicGamer and
Gamer's Hell and the
fourth clip is posted on
AtomicGamer and Gamer's
Hell. On a semi-related note, Activision announces Raven's World War II
shooter will be a sponsor of the upcoming premiere of Quentin Tarantino's
Inglourious Basterds: Santa Monica, CA – July 27, 2009 – Activision
Publishing (Nasdaq: ATVI) and id Software have signed-on for the
highly-anticipated Wolfenstein to be a title sponsor of The Weinstein Company
and Universal Pictures International‘s upcoming feature film by Quentin
Tarantino, “Inglourious Basterds.”
As an official sponsor, Activision will conduct a contest for two lucky winners
to attend the “Inglourious Basterds” Hollywood premier at the historic Grauman’s
Chinese Theater on August 10. The prize pack includes two roundtrip tickets for
a four day – three night stay in Los Angeles, two tickets to the premier and two
tickets to the star-studded after party at Mondrian in West Hollywood. Check
http://www.GameSpot.com for contest
details, which begins today.
The assault on the Third Reich kicks-off with the newest chapter of the famed
Wolfenstein franchise hitting U.S. store shelves on August 18, and a second wave
continues the fight with “Inglourious Basterds” going nation-wide in theaters
August 21.
Thanks Mike Martinez and Ant.
Link of the Day:
You
Know What's Bullshit? Printers. NSFW. Thanks Efflixi. Well that's timely.
Steam News announces the
availability of Bionic
Commando, GRIN's platformer sequel, as well as
Bionic Commando Rearmed,
the updated edition of the original side-scroller from back in the day. Not
content to simply let you choose between the two games, they have figured out a
way to tempt you into buying both: "Can't decide which to play? Pick up the
Bionic Commando Pack on
Steam, including both titles, and reach maximum Bionic potential. Players who
own both games will enjoy access to three unlockables in Bionic Commando,
including the "Retro" Nathan "Rad" Spencer skin, a Prototype Weapon and a secret
room in the Fissure level."
The Champions Online Website
has details on open beta testing of Cryptic's upcoming superhero MMORPG, saying
the beta will begin, as indicated, on August 17th and be
administered through FilePlanet. Just yesterday Cryptic announced
preorders are guaranteed a spot in the beta, and now word is: "Starting on
August 5th, the open beta client will be available for download on a first-come,
first-serve basis on FilePlanet. The site will be giving away 50,000 keys to
North America, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand." Update: We have
confirmed with
FilePlanet high command that they will be issuing these keys to their paid
subscribers, so this open beta is less "open" than most.
THQ Reports Record June Quarter Results reports quarterly profits for THQ,
compared with losses in the same period last year, saying they were the
third-ranked independent publisher in the US and UK for the June quarter. The
upswing is largely attributed to UFC 2009 Undisputed, and the retail ass
the MMA game is kicking, with Red Faction: Guerrilla also getting some of
the credit. Word is: "For the fiscal first quarter ended June 30, 2009, THQ’s
net sales climbed 77% to $243.5 million from $137.6 million in the prior year.
On a non-GAAP basis, for the three months ended June 30, 2009, the company
reported net sales of $233.9 million, up 93% from $121.1 million a year ago."
THQ also announces plans to issue $90 million in convertible senior notes,
now that convertible weather is here.
A new patch for the European edition of Trine is now available, updating
the action/platformer to the same version 1.03 as the recent Steam
patch. The EU retail patch is available on
AtomicGamer,
Gamer's Hell, and
The Patches Scrolls.
There's also a version 1.03 patch for the Metaboli version, which is available
from AtomicGamer,
Gamer's Hell, and
The Patches Scrolls.
There's a patch log
on The Patches Scrolls.
Hidden Path Entertainment announces
Defense Grid: The Awakening has shipped to stores in North America.
As promised, the boxed version of this tower defense game
provides a DRM free installation, as well as a code for the Steam edition to
support online features: AUSTIN, TEXAS – July 28, 2009 – Defense Grid: The
Awakening, Hidden Path Entertainment’s critically acclaimed tower defense
strategy game for PC, has shipped to retail stores in North America through a
partnership with Aspyr Media. Gamers who purchase Defense Grid: The Awakening in
stores will receive two products in one package. First, A DRM-free version of
the full game on the included disc allows for local profiles to be created for
saves, achievement tracking and score ranking. For players who want to take
their Defense Grid: The Awakening experience online for Internet leader boards,
online rankings and achievements, a code is included in the box that will allow
them to download the full game from the Steam digital distribution platform for
no additional cost.
Released through digital distribution in December 2008 to tremendous praise,
Defense Grid: The Awakening takes the best features of the addictive tower
defense genre and fuses them with the Gamebryo engine to deliver beautiful 3D
environments, spectacular effects, a dynamic soundtrack and deep strategy
gameplay. Ensuring AAA quality and impeccable game balance is a development team
with a pedigree that includes franchises such as Age of Empires, Half-Life,
Crimson Skies, Homeworld, MechWarrior, and Rise of Nations.
Defense Grid: The Awakening finds humanity struggling against an invasion by a
relentless alien force. The player is tasked with defending key outposts with
the aid of ancient, but powerful, defense towers and an artificial intelligence
construct. Intuitive controls and a range of objectives make it fun for players
of any skill to progress through the 20 story levels, and the dozens of
additional challenge modes. Ten different tower types, each with unique
strengths, allow for multiple strategies as players scheme to take down wave
after wave of invading creatures, each more powerful than the previous.
Defense Grid: The Awakening is rated E10+ (for gamers 10 and older) by the ESRB.
For more information on the game please visit
www.hiddenpath.com.
GameDebate offers system requirements for Tropico 3, the island
dictator sequel that's currently in closed beta testing (thanks Mike Martinez). They say
these are the recommended specs, and minimum stats are not
provided: Tropico 3 System Requirements*
Intel CPU - Core 2 Duo E6400 2.13GHz
Nvidia Graphics Card - Geforce 7600 GT 256MB
Direct X - 9
Ram - 1 Gbs
AMD CPU - Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4800+
ATI & Intel Graphics Card - Radeon X1600 Series
Hard Disk Space - 5 Gbs
* System requirements displayed are based on recommended system requirements and
should be used as a guide only.
Mangled Eye Studios announces Dark
Salvation is complete, and this horror-themed first-person shooter built
on id's Tech 3 engine from Quake III Arena is now for sale. The
Dark Salvation Orders Page
offers two ways to get the game; there's a limited edition boxed version that
includes the game DVD and an audio CD (they say this can be autographed on
request) as well as digitally distributed edition at a lower price. Here's a bit
on the game: "You take on the role of a dead woman named Talia who is given new
life by a magical object of the Underworld called the Spirit Crystal. This
object gives her the power and ability to wield heavy weaponry and cast magic
from each of those weapons."
PC Games Hardware spoke with the folks at Volition about the upcoming
release of the Windows edition of Red Faction: Guerrilla, discussing the
technology powering the shooter sequel and its deformable environments. They
discuss the game's custom engine, features unique to the PC version like Sun
Shafts (God Rays) and Screen-Space Ambient Occlusion, visual quality, advantages
of SLI or Crossfire, the choice of Havok over PhysX for physics, DirectX 9 & 10
support, lack of DirectX 11 support, and more.
Kotaku has an article analyzing comments from Ubisoft boss Yves Guillemot on
addressing piracy. These mostly focus on piracy of DS games, but they also point
out one comment that indicates they may be working on some new internal DRM for
PC games: "Altogether on console, the piracy is low," says Guillemot. "On the PC
the piracy is quite a lot. We are working on a tool that would allow us to
decrease that on the PC starting next year and probably one game this year."
The David
Perry interview Part Two on GamesIndustry.biz continues their conversation
with developer/entrepreneur David Perry about Gaikai and plans to bring
cloud-based gaming to the PC (which Perry calls " a
'wet dream' for investors"). There's also a new
Develop Blog by Perry discussing "The bizarre genesis of Gaikai." Along the
way he speculates that
Gaikai could 'transform games journalism' by allowing game demos to be
linked in previews, even though it seems pretty possible to link to a game demo
in a preview without Gaikai.
MyCrysis has
the release of a new version 1.01 of the Crysis Wars EX modification for
Crysis Wars, the multiplayer component of Crysis Warhead, the
first-person shooter from Crytek. The new version has some additions,
improvements, and a balance tweak, but they say the main purpose of this release
is to clear up some issues in advance of their first content update.
StarcraftWire.net -
The No-LAN Controversy - A Closer Look.
I am excited to see what BNet 2.0 will offer to replace LAN support and I
will not be too quick to judge as I have faith in Blizzard creating quality
games and support (which they have being doing for over a decade). I also
believe that one of Blizzard's reason to have all players participate in
BNet 2.0 is part of their "secret" marketing plan. They plan to monetise
BNet through paid features instead of having a monthly fee for BNet. By
attracting all players, sponsors, and leagues to one single realm and area,
Blizzard can use this system to actually gain money from all their hard work
on the network. Having said that, one might say this is just a conspiracy
theory.
GamesRadar - Marketing bullshit gamers should stop being a part of.
Perhaps we're cynical though. Age of Conan's special edition did at least
come with free beer. Free, fake, digital in-game beer. No, we're not being
cynical at all, are we? Let's face it. This is the same marketing model as
putting toys in cereal boxes to make sugar-rabid 3 year olds choose one
shape of reconsitituted corn shaving over another. Except that you're paying
an extra £15 for the toy.
Working with technology can cause one to anthropomorphize their devices,
inspiring comments like "I think printers hate me," which is something I uttered
more than a couple of times yesterday. I think one of the problems is I keep
getting these all-in-one printer/scanner/fax machine dealies, which suit my
needs, but obviously have more ways to fail. Anyway, over the years my printers
have tended to be cruel to me, and yesterday another went tango uniform, right
as I needed to send a fax (decoding the error message, it was telling me "you're
screwed"), so I am now on my fourth all-in-one in about five years, spanning
three brands and various price points. I think if I suffer another premature
device demise I'll just give up and buy separate a printer and fax. Maybe it's
my fault for overburdening, since we do average about a page a week in printing,
which doesn't even account for the added impact of 10 faxes a year.
R.I.P.: EGM Writer
Passes Away.
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