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Sanyo Releases Four Digital MP3 Voice Recorders
Miramax Nabs ‘Tell No One’ Rights
The White House Comes Up With Flickr Stream
Wilson Audio Sasha WP Speaker Systems

Valve sues Activision over royalties

As some may remember, Valve and publisher Sierra were in a heated court battle for years. The two finally settled the case, where Sierra was to pay Valve royalties of $2.4 million, however, during the court battle, Sierra was taken over by Activision, who took over the debt to Valve.

According to a case filed by Valve last week in the US District Court for the Western District of Washington, Activision owes Valve another $424,000 — an amount Activision clams it withheld because it paid more in royalties on other occasions. Valve thinks otherwise, and wants an additional 1% in interest per month, plus lawyer fees.

Daily Battle – 4/30/09

Game industry salaries rose 7% in 2008
Nintendo unveils Wii video service
New STALKER expansion announced
Left 4 Dead free this Friday on Steam
Sims 3 Gets Big DLC Store, Getting Gamers to Empty Their Wallets for Digital Furniture
Mass Effect iPhone Bound
inFamous – Empire City trailer
Shellshock 2: Blood Trails Game Review–War Is Hell. So Is This Game
Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood confirmed for July
Zoom Game Review–One Big Flat Tire
Bobsledding Come To Wii, Complete With Jamaicans
Dawn of War 2 Soundtrack Released for Free
PixelJunk Monsters Invading PSP
Ghost Recon 4, Splinter Cell Conviction Coming
More iPhone Game Protests
Newest Fable DLC Gets Release Date

Game industry salaries rose 7% in 2008

Game Developer magazine ran their annual survey of the industry and found out that on average, salaries among the workers in the game development industry rose by an average of 7% in 2008. The average annual salaries increased from around $74,000 to $79,000.

GamaSutra has more details here, including a breakdown of the average salaries of different positions in the industry.

Nintendo unveils Wii video service

Nintendo has unveiled a Wii and DSi video on demand service, named “Wii-no-Ma”. The new service was unveiled by Nintendo’s Satoru Iwata in Japan earlier today.

Iwata said that only new content will be allowed, and stations have to provide shows that are “non-hostile”, essentially meaning not too much violence and nudity. The video on demand service will be a new channel on the Wii, while DSi owners will download the software from the DSi shop.

Eurogamer has more details here.

New STALKER expansion announced

GSG Gameworld, developers of the STALKER games, have announced a new expansion, STALKER: Call of Pripyat. This is the third standalone expansion for STALKER, while the title, Call of Pripyat, is a working title and subject to change.

The game takes place right after the ending of the original game, Shadow of Chernobyl, and will include the Pripyat town, Yanov railway station, Jupiter factory, Kopachi village and more, recreated by their true-to-life prototypes. The game will also feature the new X-ray engine 1.6, which should give overall better visuals than the previous installments.

Left 4 Dead free this Friday on Steam

If you don’t already own Left 4 Dead, Steam is offering players a chance to play the game for free starting 12:01AM GMT this Friday. The game clocks in at around 4GB, so you should pre-load the title now so you have time to play tomorrow. The survival horror FPS retails for $39.99 on Steam.

Read (Steam)

Sims 3 Gets Big DLC Store, Getting Gamers to Empty Their Wallets for Digital Furniture

EA is riding on top of the DLC bandwagon it seems, as the company today announced a microstransaction store in The Sims 3, one that will sell in-game items. The company plans on having quite a bit of content available on release day.

The store will make use of SimPoints – a virtual currency bought in lots of 500, 1000 and 2000 points – to let gamers purchase that items such as clothes and furniture.

Additionally, on release day on June 2, gamers can expect Riverview, a second town. It wasn’t mentioned if the town would be free or a premium download.

To get gamers going, the title will come bundled with 1000 SimPoints to get a taste of the store.

Mass Effect iPhone Bound

A survey revealed the existence of a new marketing device for Mass Effect 2: an iPhone game. It’s a stand-alone title called Mass Effect: Jacob’s Story and it’s intended to set up both the plot line and customer lines for the sequel. It’s a top-down shooter with a cartoon based art style and should take about two hours of play time.

The protagonist Jacob Taylor is of course a “biotic powered super soldier” who stumbles across an evil plot to terrorize galactic civilization. Of course he’s probably not going to have much of a chance to stop this plot, because to do so would doom your character in Mass Effect 2 to be stuck on guard duty for the whole game. Jacob’s Story will cost a mere $2.99 and though no release date has been announced a good guess places it at anywhere from a month to a week before the release of Mass Effect 2, since it’s quite obviously set up as a marketing device. The survey however suggests that this title could just be the first, with others set in the Mass Effect universe and possibly even Dragon Age games for the iPhone as well.

inFamous – Empire City trailer

A new trailer showcasing the setting of the sandbox game inFamous was released today. Empire City is portrayed as a vast environment waiting to be explored. The developers of the game, Sucker Punch Productions, are the same people who brought you the Sly Cooper series.

Players will be able to play as Cole McGrath on May 26, 2009 in the United States, May 29, 2009 in Europe and June 11, 2009 for Australia for the PlayStation 3.

Shellshock 2: Blood Trails Game Review–War Is Hell. So Is This Game

As a wise man once said, folks…war is hell.  And if you ever wanted a down to the minutiae idea of what war was like, go get your hands on a copy of Shellshock 2: Blood Trails.

Bear with me–I’m going to explain that one like no tomorrow and you’re going to be amazed by the time I get done.  But first we’re going to have to tackle the plot, and that’s going to just confuse you blind as to why I call this a really accurate simulation of war.

Shellshock 2: Blood Trails, is a Vietnam-war era first person shooter game revolving around the  Walker brothers, one of which went off into the deepest jungles of Vietnam to recover something called White Knight.  The cargo plane carrying White Knight was shot down by the North Vietnamese in a brief aerial battle.  One month after Caleb Walker went into the jungles in an attempt to fetch White Knight, he emerged from the jungles a gibbering lunatic. Thus, when his brother was drafted and sent to Vietnam, HIS first mission was to try and get something–anything!–out of his now-insane brother.  But brother Caleb wasn’t in the talking mood, and by the time brother Nate showed up, Caleb burst his bonds and rushed out of the facility where he was being held. Now, Nate, along with a few other GIs, are left to hunt down Caleb and solve the mysteries surrounding White Knight…including why the dead in Vietnam seem to be coming back to life.

Yes, that’s right, folks–there’s ZOMBIES afoot.  Now, we’re already a little left of center of reality—not even the Viet Cong thought of harnessing the sheer might of the walking dead.  But there’s realism here in that, much like the actual Vietnam War, when you play it, you very seldom have any idea who’s shooting at you and it’s very clear that those in charge of the game really don’t want you to win.  So you see what I mean—it’s very much like the ACTUAL Vietnam War, just with zombies.

Seriously, I played through this sucker and, even in the very first level, I was getting shot at from a whole lot of different avenues and I could barely even tell where the fire was coming from.  By the time I got to the SECOND level, I couldn’t even see the muzzle flashes anymore.  I was just taking incoming fire, as evidenced by brief flashes of white in my heads-up display, for no clear reason from no clear direction.  I was inside BUILDINGS and still getting hit from all sides.  It was as though the very game around me decided that it wasn’t having me continue to ADVANCE, so it was going to shut me down, one way or another.

So despite the fact that they’ve got zombies going on in here, the really amazing part of the whole mess is is that this is almost EXACTLY like what we hear about the Vietnam War.  The only downside is that this not only makes for a really bad experience for pretty much everybody, it also makes for a really lousy game.  There’s nothing worse than trying to exist in an environment where unseen people shoot at you and you have absolutely no idea how or where to return fire.  Bad enough to get shot at, how much worse to get shot at from random directions?

That sums up my experience with the whole thing nicely—this game is so badly flawed that it’s almost unplayable.  There’s absolutely no reason to play this misbegotten wreck, so don’t even try.

Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood confirmed for July

Ubisoft today revealed that Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood will be hitting stores on July 3rd. Techland’s Western first person shooter is set as a prequel to the original Call of Jaurez game.

The game is coming out for the Xbox 360, PS3, and PC systems. For a closer look at the game, check out the debut trailer released back in February.

Read (VideoGamer.com)

Zoom Game Review–One Big Flat Tire

Zoom, one of the latest additions to the Xbox Live community gaming lineup, is a game that’s a fantastic idea but also a game that shows how important it is to execute a good idea correctly.

Zoom is a racing game that puts you, alone, on a track in a high-powered hover racer to see just how fast you can go.  And as the world speeds by around you, you’re out to break your own high score on a nearly continual basis.

This sounds awesome, of course–why would anyone play a racing game if they weren’t out for the vicarious thrill of the simulation of high speed without having to risk their lives doing it in an actual car?  But the problem with Zoom is that it can’t hold its speed, and with sloppy controls leaving you bucking around the track even when you’re not actually accelerating, that’s never a good sign.

So as much as I want to enjoy this particular high-speed thrill ride, it never really gets off the starting line for me.  Even at two hundred Microsoft points, it’s not worth the ride.

Bobsledding Come To Wii, Complete With Jamaicans

It seems odd that the quickest association that comes to mind when you think of bobsledding, a winter sport is Jamaica, a country that has probably never seen snow. That’s the power of the media and to a lesser extent the power of John Candy. Shred Sled has been announced for the Wii and as you might expect, there will be Jamaicans.

South Peak Games is making the title which of course uses the Wii Balance Board as you steer sleds, toboggans, tubes and of course bobsleds in various downhill races. You’ll be racing against the iconic Jamaican bobsled team as you compete towards the World Winter Games (licensing the rights to call it the Olympics would probably have been ludicrously expensive). You can also go head to head against friends, or cooperatively against the computer. The game is set for an Autumn release, in time for winter so that when you’ve had your fill of dragging your real sled up a hill you can recreate the experience in the comfort of your living room.

Thus far there aren’t any in-game screenshots, just a render of the Jamaican team’s coach. His name? Mon.

Dawn of War 2 Soundtrack Released for Free

Today marks the release of the full soundtrack to Relic’s latest strategy title, Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War 2. The download is FREE for all those who want to listen.

The soundtrack was composed by Doyle W. Donehoo and audio lead Jason Ross, with contributions by artist Noah Stacey and others.

You can grab the 20 track, 188MB soundtrack from major download sites, including Relic’s community site for the game.