Crackdown 2 gets dated for Europe

Microsoft’s just confirmed that Crackdown 2 will launch in Europe on July 9. Since I can’t say anything better than what was said in the press release, check it out below:

LONDON – Monday 15 March – Pacific City needs your help, agents. A new enemy has overrun the city and it’s time to restore law and order by any means necessary when “Crackdown 2″ releases this July around the world. Microsoft and Ruffian Games today announced that the exhilarating, open-world action game will hit the streets on 9 July.

Developed by Ruffian Games exclusively for Xbox 360, “Crackdown 2″ is the sequel to the award-winning 2007 title, “Crackdown.” Offering cutting edge gameplay, “Crackdown 2″ will take multiplayer gaming to unprecedented heights, providing you and your friends with complete freedom to explore, destroy, and play your way as you restore justice to Pacific City.

To celebrate the road to launch, Ruffian Games invites fans to step into the world of “Crackdown 2″ in the first video documentary, titled “Fun with Friends,” from a three-part series exploring different facets of the game.

“Fun with Friends” features interviews with Ruffian Games Creative Director Billy Thomson, Lead Producer James Cope, Senior Engineer David Hynd and Senior Mission Designer Dean Smith as they discuss what it takes to design a living, breathing sandbox world with the most gripping multiplayer experiences yet, including 16-player PVP and 4-player co-op. The video documentary also shines a light on some of the extraordinary antics and mayhem that players can look forward to, including Renegade Orbs and the PVP mode called Rocket Tag, when they bring their personal brand of justice to Pacific City.

via cvg

Ubisoft confirms Splinter Cell Conviction demo

Usually high profile games don’t carry a demo — this is trued for Assassin’s Creed 2, Modern Warfare 2 and many others — but Ubisoft is going the traditional way with Splinter Cell Conviction. They’ve confirmed that a demo of the game will be available on the Xbox 360 and PS3, but they haven’t revealed when exactly. The game ships on April 13.

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Concept art from HL2 Episode 3 leaked?

A tipster sent us what appears to be art work for the upcoming Half Life 2 Episode 3, however, we can’t confirm it at this point (we’re still investigating, we’ll update this page accordingly). Click the image for full view.

Update: We can now confirm that this is not the official art work for the game, rather, it’s concept art from Pene Menn, a Korean artist.

God of War III cost $44 million to make

If you’ll recall, late last month we gave you a look at the top 10 most expensive video game budgets of all time. Well, it seems that God of War 3 would have come in at a close 11th place according ot recent reports.

Director of production development, John Hight has said that God of War III cost the studio $44 million to develop. This may seem like a lot but according to Hight it was “right within budget”. He then went on to tell us that the work was done by 132 staffers, up from about 60 that worked on the previous title.

Since God of War III’s March 16th release date is just around the corner we’ll have to wait and see if sales will top the budget.

via joystiq

New Yakuza 3 trailer

The latest Yakuza 3 trailer takes a look back at the events that transpired in the first two games.

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Splinter Cell Conviction Xbox 360 bundle revealed

Microsoft has revealed a brand new Xbox 360 bundle, which includes a copy of Splinter Cell Conviction, a 250GB hard drive, and two controllers, all for $399 — a great deal, as you might expect.

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Heavy Rain sells 500,000 units in first week

Heavy Rain was one of the most anticipated PS3 games since Killzone 2 two years ago, and it managed to live up to most of ts hype, or at least enough to move a respected half a million copies in its first week, according to VGChartz. However, this is just a speculation from their part — we’ll have to wait for the official sales numbers from Sony and/or NPD.

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Mass Effect 2 “Firewalker” DLC coming next month

BioWare has announced that the upcoming “Firewalker” DLC for Mass Effect 2 will be release late March, and will include 5 new missions plus a new vehicle named “Hammerhead”, which, according to BioWare, is “a heavy assault vehicle that hovers over the battlefield at up to 120 kilometers per hour [75 mph] and features a guided missile system ensuring accuracy even during aggressive maneuvering.” The DLC will be released for free.

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Supreme Commander 2 demo now on Steam

The sequel to one of the finer RTS games over the past few years, Supreme Commander, cleverly titled Supreme Commander 2, has a demo now available on Steam. The full game is slated for release on March 5.

Borderlands 1.30 patch released

Gearbox has updated its popular shooter Borderlands with patch 1.30, which is accompanied by the release of the third DLC, “The Secret Armory of General Knoxx”. The patch includes the following changes:

• Invalid weapons or items can no longer be loaded into the game
• Brick’s Centurion class mods now regenerate health correctly
• Brick’s Bombardier class mods now regenerate rockets correctly
• Roland’s Tactician class mods now regenerate shields correctly and display the correct bonus values
• Roand’s Rifleman class mods now apply damage increase to all machine guns
• Certain powerful legendary item names should now be displayed in the appropriate color
• Opening the bank in the Mad Moxxi DLC no longer prevents other players from moving
• Multiple copies of DLC missions can no longer be obtained
• Corrected some incorrect icons in the ammo vendor
• Fixed a crash caused by killing the final boss while zoomed in with a scope
• The “Careful, he bites” achievement should now properly unlock when playing in French
• Added icons to the server browser that indicate which DLCs the server has installed
• The server browser now displays the name of the DLC a server is playing instead of the plot mission
• Adjusted scrolling in menu options in long server lists
• Added a notification if a player attempts to continue a game saved in DLC that is no longer installed
• Fixed DLC notification dialogs that were not closing properly
• Alt-F4 no longer closes the game if it is not in focus

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Ngmoco acquires competitor Freeverse

One of the most successful iPhone game publishers and developers, Ngmoco, has acquired another successful iPhone developer: Freeverse. Ngmoco recently raised $15 million in Venture Capital funding, and some of the dough was spend on getting Freeverse.

Bad Company 2 getting DLC on day one

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EA has confirmed what we always expected: that those who originally purchased Bad Company 2, instead of getting it used, will be getting a free map pack on day one, which includes two new maps. EA has stated that an additional free map pack for the original purchasers of the game will be getting another free DLC map pack later in March, but if you bought the game used, you’ll have to pony up some cash to get it.

Bad Company 2 PC walkthrough trailer

DICE has released a brand new trailer for Bad Company 2, a walkthrough of the PC version and a showcase of a new multiplayer map as well.

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Ex-Blizzard and NCSoft employees form En Masse Entertainment

A number of ex-Blizzard and ex-NCSoft employees have joined forces and formed En Masse Entertainment. Based in Seattle, the company is a subsidiary of MMO developer Bluehole Studio out of Korea, and En Masse will focus on porting Korean MMO games to the western market, and adjusting for the cultural differences.

Army of Two: The 40th Day DLC coming in April

EA has announced that a new DLC for Army of Two: The 40th Day is coming in April. Called “Chapters of Deceit”, the new DLC will be campaign specific, and will include two campaign levels. The DLC drops on April 1 and will cost $10.

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