Archive for June, 2009:
Daily Battle – 6/30/09
Target selling Left 4 Dead for $13?
Left 4 Dead gets patched
Free Thriller Xbox Live music video downloaded 50K times
Sony to allow more companies to produce Playstation products
Ubisoft releases official box art for Assassin’s Creed 2
Blizzard says no LAN in Starcraft II is best idea
Upcoming WoW patch allows faction change
id Software: Doom Resurrection will probably get DLC soon
Sony to release PS3 slim in July?
Next Skate 2 DLC will be Maloof Money Cup
Red Faction: Guerilla to get 3 DLC packs
12″ Akuma statue is awesome, $120
Female Gamers Grew In Last Year
Gears of War: Jacinto’s Remnant continues Gears 2 story
Lionhead Employee’s Wedding Confirms Fable III
NBA 2K10 10th anniversary edition revealed
Wii Sports Resort sells 350,000 in four days
Over 100 million used games traded each year in the US
Fishing Master World Tour Game Review–Calm and Frantic By Turns
Backwards Compatibilty Returning To PS3?
Aspyr And Mindware Announce Mental FPS
Target selling Left 4 Dead for $13?
Just in time for the not-so-exciting patch a blogger over at Examiner has noticed that his local Target was selling the Xbox 360 version of Left 4 Dead for a ridiculously low price of $12. Dumbfounded by this discovering he proceeded to go to another Target and found that the game was also $12.
Now, there’s no telling if this is a nationwide clearance as there have been no official announcements but definitely check out your local Target if you haven’t already picked up Left 4 Dead. This is a deal that’s too good to pass up!
Left 4 Dead gets patched
Valve has recently announced a patch has been released for their much loved zombie shooter Left 4 Dead. Don’t expect much from the patch as it’s mostly bug fixed but regardless it’s not available to download via Steam.
Below are the Left 4 Dead patch notes:
Removed the “Are you ready to play Versus?” confirmation Fixed a crash when using mouse wheel or keyboard to select Campaign chapters Fixed sv_steamgroup_exclusive servers advertising for public lobbies Restored the ability to vote for a new campaign in Versus mode
Free Thriller Xbox Live music video downloaded 50K times
If you’ve read, heard, or watched any form of media in the past couple of days you’ll know that Michael Jackson aka The King of Pop has passed away. To commemorate the artist’s greatness Microsoft decided to offer the music video for his hit single Thriller free over charge during the weekend.
Well, during the 2 days it was offerent MTV Multiplayer reports that the video was downloaded over 50,000 times. They then go on to point out that 50,000 is just 0.25% of Xbox Live’s 20 million subscriber base. Of course, Michael Jackson might be considered a bit old school to the majority of those 20 million.
Nonetheless, Michael Jackson’s legacy shall live on.
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Sony to allow more companies to produce Playstation products
Sony has recently announced that they will be expanding their licensing program thus allowing more third party manufacturers the ability to produce pretty much anything they want for the PSP, PS2 or PS3.
Apparantly if a company decides to enter the licensing program they will have to comply with “qualifying SCE standards and requirements” after which they will be given the technical knowledge behind creating Playstation products. Of course they also get to slap the Official Licensed Product logo onto their products.
Read (Joystiq)
Ubisoft releases official box art for Assassin’s Creed 2
Ubisoft has recently gone ahead and released the official box art for their upcoming title Assassin’s Creed 2.
As you can tell, the box art is very similiar to that of the original game, let’s just hope the gameplay is a bit different. While the game was generally well receieved by critics, the main gripe gamers had with the game was that the gameplay was somewhat repetitive decreasing the game’s replay value.
Regardless of your opinion on the original Assassin’s Creed, Ubisoft is gearing up to launch Assassin’s Creed 2 on November 19th for the Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and PC.
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Blizzard says no LAN in Starcraft II is best idea
There was somwhat of an uproar from the community when Blizzard announced that they would not be featuring LAN support in their forthcoming RTS, Starcraft II.
Below is their reasoning for removing LAN, mentioning Battle.net and piracy:
“We don’t currently plan to support LAN play with StarCraft II, as we are building Battle.net to be the ideal destination for multiplayer gaming with StarCraft II and future Blizzard Entertainment games,” confirms a Blizzard rep. “While this was a difficult decision for us, we felt that moving away from LAN play and directing players to our upgraded Battle.net service was the best option to ensure a quality multiplayer experience with StarCraft II and safeguard against piracy.
“Several Battle.net features like advanced communication options, achievements, stat-tracking, and more, require players to be connected to the service, so we’re encouraging everyone to use Battle.net as much as possible to get the most out of StarCraft II. We’re looking forward to sharing more details about Battle.net and online functionality for StarCraft II in the near future.”
Regardless if its the best idea or not, Starccraft II is sure to be a highly competitve game which means a lot of tournaments. Without LAN tournament organizers are going to have 1 more problem to deal with, bummer.
Read (Destructoid)
Upcoming WoW patch allows faction change
To all of the World of Warcraft players out there which side are you, Alliance or Horde? Regardless, have you ever felt the urge to switch sides but haven’t been able to?
Well, according to an official Blizzard forum poster by the name of Nethaera, you will soon be able to do that:
“There’s still much work to do and many details to iron out, but the basic idea is that players will be able to use the service to transform an existing character into a roughly equivalent character of the opposing faction on the same realm. Players who ended up creating and leveling up characters on the opposite factions from their friends have been asking for this type of functionality for some time, and we’re pleased to be getting closer to being able to deliver it.”
There’s no telling when this patch is set to drop but when it does there is sure to be a bit of chaos in the World of Warcraft.
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id Software: Doom Resurrection will probably get DLC soon
With the release of iPhone OS 3.0, games downloaded from the App Store now have the ability to recieve downloadable content released by the developers.
In leui of this, id Software’s John Carmack has confirmed that there will be a DLC pack released for Doom Ressurection at some point in the near future. He also told Joystiq that in the coming weeks multiplayer add-ons will be released for the game.
Will id Software’s intuitive utilization of the iPhone platform have other big game developers doing the same? Perhaps an iPhone version of Halo? Hey, I can’t dream, can’t I?
Tags: addon, app store, DLC, doom resurrection, id software, iphone, ipod touch, john carmack, Multiplayer
Sony to release PS3 slim in July?
The PS3 slim rumor has been around for some time now with its supposed retail box surfacing in early May. Since then, the buzz has quieted a bit and nothing much has been said about the PS3 slim, until now.
The latest rumor says that Sony is placing manufacturing orders with a Tiawanese company who will supposedly be making the PS3 slim. Furthermore, the orders are said to be ready for delivery by next month.
Are these rumors true? Like always, there is no telling until we hear official word from Sony. Perhaps if these rumors aren’t true we will see a PS3 slim come out when those reported price cuts roll around.
Read (Engadget)
Next Skate 2 DLC will be Maloof Money Cup
EA has recently released word that the next DLC pack for their popular skateboarding game, Skate 2, will feature the Maloof Money Cup and be made available on July 9th for 240 Microsoft Points/$3.00.
The DLC pack will feature the both the park and competition guidelines featured at last year’s Maloof Money Cup:
“Skate 2 has been embraced by the gaming and skateboarding community across the globe, making it the perfect stage for the Maloof Money Cup’s videogame debut,” said Joe Maloof, President of Maloof Companies. “Now players everywhere can experience the world’s greatest skateboarding championship and revel in the high-stakes excitement of the competition for themselves.”
Red Faction: Guerilla to get 3 DLC packs
THQ has just announced that in the coming months Red Faction: Guerrilla will be getting 3 seperate downloadable content packs. This is great news for fans looking to get more out of the game that was released earlier this month.
The first in the series of DLC packs is called Demons of the Badlands and will hit the Playstation Network and Xbox Live on August 13th for $9.99 or 800 Microsoft Points respectively. Demons is reportedly an expansion for the game’s single-player mode that will add new missions for players to explore.
As for the other 2 DLC packs, THQ has said that there will be more information in the coming weeks.
12″ Akuma statue is awesome, $120
A partnership with SOTA toys and God of War III character designer Katon Callaway brings us the above masterpiece, a 12″ Akuma statue. For those who don’t know, Akuma is a popular Street Figher character with his most recent appearance being in Street Fighter 4.
This statue will apparantly be out sometime this September for $120 with statues of Cammy, M. Bison and Guile following suit shortly after. What, no Ryu?
Read (Kotaku)
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Female Gamers Grew In Last Year
No, we’re not saying you’ve gained weight. Really. We just mean there’s more of you. No, not like that. Really you look great we promise. All we’re saying is that the sheer number of female gamers has increased over the last twelve months. It’s not really us saying it either, this information comes from an NPD survey. The percentage of female console players went up from twenty-three to twenty-eight percent, mainly due to the Wii whose use increased by nineteen percent.
The handheld market rose as well with the “heavy usage” category rising by four percent amongst females, which can likely be blamed on the Nintendo DS. The ‘extreme gamers’ (those who play 39 hours or more per week) rise by a whopping four percent. Before all the ‘hardcore’ gamers out there start chiming in about how the Wii and DS are toys, let me remind you how much easier life would be for a gamer if you had a girlfriend/wife who understood your hobby and maybe even encouraged it?
Gears of War: Jacinto’s Remnant continues Gears 2 story
The upcoming Gears of War book, Gears of War: Jacinto’s Remnant, written by Karen Traviss, A New York Times bestselling author (and hack), continues the story where Gears of War 2 left off. We won’t go into details and spoil it for you if you haven’t played the game, but the book is out on July 28th.