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Sony looking into paid subscriptions for PS3 online area

Sony’s Kaz “Riiidge Racer” Hirai said during a presentation yesterday that Sony expects the PlayStation Network for the PS3 and PSP to generate $500 million in revenues this fiscal year, but, he also added another thing, a far more disturbing picture…

Hirai mentioned that Sony was looking into “premium subscriptions” for the online service, much like Xbox Live Gold on the Xbox 360. The PS3’s bit selling point has always been that it’s free to play online, and that may change soon. Hirai is quoted by CVG saying,

“Especially in the online area, we are studying the possibility of introducing a subscription model, offering premium content and services, in addition to the current free services.”

Great. Just as we thought the PS3 was catching up to the Xbox 360.

Serious Sam HD dropping on November 24

The original Serious Sam was one of the great, old school shooters, no realism here, just big enemies and bigger guns. And lots of great humor. The HD upgrade of the game, still developed by good ‘ol Croteam, will be released on PC on November 24, for only $20, and if you pre-order it on Steam, you can get it for $18. Great deal if you haven’t played the original. And you should have!

Frontlines Fuel of War 75% off on Steam

Remember Frontlines Fuel of War? The semi-sci-fi multiplayer shooter that was created by a pack of Battlefield developers? Yeah, we thought so. If you didn’t try out the game before — we can understand if you haven’t — you got a pretty good deal for it on Steam now, as the game is 75% off the normal price, meaning it retails for only $7.50.

Facebook now available on PS3

The latest PS3 firmware update, 3.10, finally adds Facebook support to the console, which includes automatic trophy and purchase updates, which will be posted to your Facebook status (if you want to share that kind of info). Facebook (and Twitter) has been available on the Xbox 360 for a while now, and Sony is looking to add full Twitter support to the PS3 very soon.

Left 4 Dead 2 review

There was understandable outrage when Valve announced a sequel to Left 4 Dead, to be released only a year after the original game, giving a hint that it might be a yearly series, something very untrue to the Valve spirit (which is quite the opposite: quality delays). Is there merit to the criticism and concerns? Has Left 4 Dead 2 too little to offer compared to last year? In short, yes, in long: yes, but it’s still a heck of a lot of fun.

The story in Left 4 Dead 2 (L4D 2) followed the same type of story and gameplay as its predecessor, the main campaign follows four survivors, played via online co-op with three other players, where the point is to escape through a maze and myriad of zombies of all kinds. It’s a style of gameplay where teamwork absolutely counts, in L4D 2, it counts even more. Don’t even think about going solo — you’ll be picked to your bones very quickly. The new campaign follows four new survivors, this time they seem to be more varied with better personality, however the AI is still lacking a bit behind, where they’ll often run in front of you, despite that it’s very clear that you’re shooting a very big gun right next to them. But this, of course, is gone when you play co-op — which you should, that’s the whole point, anyways. Read the rest of our Left 4 Dead 2 review

Dead Space 2 getting online multiplayer?

Job postings are a great way to spy on upcoming products from companies. For instance, a recent job posting from EA looks for a “Senior Online Level Designer,” which should be qualified to “be able to work collaboratively with Creative Director and Online Producer to create extremely fun, satisfying and polished multiplayer levels”. And you know what that means? Yep, pretty big possibility of Dead Space 2 having online multiplayer.

Battlefield Bad Company 2 PC to support DirectX 11

In a rather surprising move, DICE confirmed (via Twitter) that Battlefield Bad Company 2 for the PC will support DirectX 11, which was introduced with Windows 7. The news was announced by AMD, which is in cooperation with DICE to add DX 11. The game will still use the fist edition of the Frostbite engine, while Frostbite 2 will fully support DX 11, and is the engine used in the upcoming Battlefield 3.

Modern Warfare 2 boycott works. Yeah Right.

The above screenshot shows a group of Steam members who joined the group “Boycott Modern Warfare 2 — We want dedicated servers”. As you can see, it’s not really working, as most of them are playing… Modern Warfare 2.

Banned Xbox 360s flood Craigslist

Oh boy, who’d have expected this: after Microsoft banned and bricked a million Xbox 360s, which were modded to play pirated games, XBox 360 consoles are now appearing on Craigslist all over the US, with prices starting as low as $120. While it’s fairly cheap and you might play games offline, you can’t go online with your modded console from Craigslist, and what’ and Xbox 360 without Xbox Live anyway? Oh, and there’s no warranty on modded consoles. Just so you know.

Xbox Live hits 2 million concurent users online

While Xbox Live’s online membership exceeds 20 million (minus one million), but the real milestone was made earlier yesterday, when a whopping 2 million users were online at the same time, most of which were playing Modern Warfare 2 (what else would they play, seriously?). And this news comes after Microsoft banned over a million users from Xbox Live. There’s nothing like large numbers the game companies throw at us. We sure like it.

Fallout MMO screenshot appears

While Bethesda and Interplay are in a legal battle surrounding the Fallout MMO which is in development (at least last time we heard about the game) — which Bethesda think is moving too slow — according to 1UP, the above screen is one of several which were leaked, alongside concept art, which Interplay allegedly submitted as evidence in court, a sign that they’re working on the MMO — a statement Bethesda is contesting.

Modern Warfare 2 PC review

Modern Warfare 2, the most anticipated game of the year, is out and has already broken the sales records. And it’s already showered in rave reviews, so let’s be clear from the get go: this is not one of those reviews. In fact, we were quite disappointed by Modern Warfare 2. Even though we were fans of the first game, the sequel feels a lot like going from a great movie to its sequel: nothing new and much of the same.

Modern Warfare 2 is the Transformers 2 of the video games. A huge blockbuster with plenty of thrills and action, but a confused to no plot, and, for the PC version which we’re reviewing, a crippled multiplayer part. It feels like a genuine overhyped piece of entertainment, which will be swallowed up by fans no matter what, still with all the great ingredients of Modern Warfare 1, but with not much new, not chances are taken by the developer, in fact, it’s far too much like its predecessor, in almost every aspect. Read the rest of the Modern Warfare 2 review

Age of Conan double XP this month

While some games have double XP weekends to attract more players, Age of Conan is having none of that silly thing, it’s got a full double XP month, which lasts until the end of November. Publisher Funcom also announced new incentives to sign up for the game, for instance, subscribe for one month and get 7 extra days, or six months and get a level 40 helmet with a 10% XP modifier (that’s right, 10%! /sarcasm). Full press release here.

Microsoft banning 1 million Xbox Live users

Information Week suggests that Microsoft has banned over 5% of Xbox Live members because they use modded consoles. Since there are just over 20 million Live members, it means over 1 million accounts have been suspended because they use modded consoles, which makes them play pirated games.

Quake Live patched

Id Software has patched several exploits for the free-to-play, browser-based online shooter Quake Live. The patch fixes a series of bugs and exploits, most importantly:

• Fixed demo playback for demos with long file names.
• Fixed the accuracy menu to update properly in Clan Arena.
• Fixed the players-left-alive count to update properly in Clan Arena when an alive player disconnects.
• Fixed banned players’ profile pages to once again report the status of their suspension.
• Fixed issues that had arose with the Match tool-tips.
• Changed ‘cg_gibs 0′ to now entirely disable the death spark effects.
• Changed Cobalt Station – qzdm16’s max player limit to 8 players in CTF mode.

Quake Live is currently in open beta release, a state which it has been since February of this year. There is no word on the actual release of the game, but it seems quite stable as it is. You can check out Quake Live on the official site here.