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Happy first
day of Spring, everyone! Let's all take a moment to bid farewell to Winter, unless you live in
certain parts of the Midwest, where Winter is apparently still all the
rage. While there's nothing inherently wrong with Winter, we feel it lacks the inherent
positivity of the current season. Also, Spring's associated with better stuff, such as Spring
cleaning, Spring break. Spring rolls, and, of course, Coily the Spring Sprite.
Below are our seven favorite gaming related webcomics from this past week. Check them out, then
vote for your favorite after the jump! If we missed out on any notable strips, drop a link in the
comments section!
Well sure, the baddies from Red Steel
2's "Enemies" trailer aren't quite dancing, per se, but there is quite a bit of
fancy footwork going on -- not to mention tons of otherstuff getting cut, as you
might imagine. From the adorably named "Katakara" to the not so subtly named "Ninja," it seems that
Red Steel 2 is full of flamboyantly exaggerated personalities, all of which are ready to
put a sword or bullet through you at a moment's notice. Oh, and if you were wondering how your foes
will stop your combination of bullets and sword charging full speed at them, you'll want to pay
extra close attention at the end there (spoilers: they handle it like jedi).
So, what would
you imagine to be included in a special edition version of Capcom's upcoming pseudo-expansion pack,
Super Street Fighter IV?
Perhaps a FightStick emblazoned with the personas of the game's new characters? That's a pretty
good guess, but the correct answer was, of course, a USB flash drive, a gym bag, a head band, a
Dudley T-shirt and an aluminum water bottle. Sorry! You were so close.
Capcom recently began
taking pre-orders on the "Dojo Edition" of SSFIV, which retails for a crisp $79.99.
Yes, that's double the price of the standalone game -- however, the standalone game won't make you
the envy of all the folks at your local workout center. We think that notoriety would be worth the
extra cash.
If
you're not out walking around on this beautiful day, or sitting in the live taping at the Times
Center in NYC, you should probably get your eyes on
The Engadget Show that's happening live right now! Aside from the MIT Media Lab and OLPC
Project's Nicholas Negroponte, Sony's Dr. Richard Marks will be dishing on the PlayStation Move to Engadget's Joshua Topolsky
and Paul Miller, not to mention Joystiq's very own Chris Grant. Hit the break for the live stream!
We haven't gotten much of an indication of how successful Harmonix's recently launched Rock Band Network platform has been during its
first few weeks in operation. I mean, we'd consider the Rock Band-ification of The Slip's
timeless Guitar Hero classic "Even
Rats" to be a huge success, but we're pretty sure they measure it in dollars and
cents. RockBandAide recently
did a bit of calculation and educated guesswork to come with the amount of cash the RBN has
brought in so far -- according to the site, Harmonix has grossed over $107,000 in sales from
user-generated tracks alone.
RockBandAide also estimate that regular DLC has brought in roughly $161,000 in revenue on the 360
since the Network went live -- a slightly larger sum, though the profit margin on Network tracks is
supposedly much higher than that of regular DLC. The site also compiled the top 20 purchased RBN
songs thus far, which we've posted after the jump. Keep in mind -- these numbers aren't official,
but they're the best we've got to go on thus far.
We never
thought we'd have to slap a spoiler warning on a post about downloadable content for the Left 4 Dead franchise -- and yet, here we
are. The latest
episode of GameTrailers TV revealed an intriguing plot point about the pair
of new chapters for the original game and sequel. We respect that some of you might want to
remain in the dark about the DLC until you finally get your hands on it. For the rest of
you, check out the details just past the jump.
He doesn't know exactly when the third Killzone game will be announced, but SCEA prez Jack
Tretton does know that it's gonna happen. When pushed by GTTV host Geoff
Keighley about a sequel to last year's Killzone
2 on last night's episode, the Sony exec openly answered, "You know, we own Guerrilla
Studios, and uh, they did a great job on Killzone 1 and 2 ... I don't know when
you'll see announcements about it, but I can promise you a Killzone 3." Pretty
straightforward, Jack!
Though he didn't make any promises regarding Killzone for E3, he did additionally note
that the news from Sony out of GDC was
"the icing on the cake," referring to big announcements at E3 this year as "the batter." And if
there's one thing we really, really like, Jack, it's cake batter. You've won this
round.
If
you can't be bothered to wait before getting your hands on Paradox Interactive's Team Fortress
2 meets Tombstone shooter, Lead and Gold: Gangs of the Wild West,
Steam's offering pre-orderers a chance to beat the (gold) rush. A press release has announced that
the full game will hit the Steam store April
8, and that anyone who pre-orders the game will have access to a beta which will run right up
to Lead and Gold's launch.
Haven't been keeping tabs on the title? Check out our write up from our brief time with the game
at
GDC -- and try to be more diligent with your news consumption. We won't always be here to hold
your hand, you know.
The onslaught of great Naughty
Bear media doesn't let up in this new trailer, which does a good job of creeping us
the hell out. It's a parody of that scene from Ridley Scott's Alien and
continues Naughty Bear's unending goal to present itself as one messed up game. Have you
read our impressions
yet? Denmark is a super rotten place in A2M's latest.
Stardock CEO Brad Wardell will take a "sabbatical" after shipping Elemental:
War of Magic later this year. It's not unheard of to take some time off after shipping a
major product in the industry (horrible
example), but Wardell isn't traveling the world. No, instead he's having a full-on geek out:
he's goin' modding.
Wardell explained to Joystiq, "It's more than a vacation. For the past year I've been doing
multiple jobs at once -- running Stardock,
managing external game development, coding on Elemental, building a house, and writing
a book. I typically start work at around 8am EST and work until around 11pm and do this every
day -- seven days a week -- though recently I've been getting in some Starcraft 2 time. But it has averaged around 80
hours a week overall."
The executive explains that he wants to mod Elemental to make all kinds of other games and
get as much out of the Kumquat engine (the company's new game engine) and
Impulse Reactor as possible. Then take those lessons and show it to other developers. He also
plans to work on Civilization V mods,
which uses the same mod program as Elemental. Wardell expressed the time off "won't affect
Stardock's product scheduling at all," he'll still be working on stuff. A lot of that stuff just
happens to be modding.
Mark Methenitis contributes Law of the
Game on Joystiq ("LGJ"), a column on legal issues as they relate to video games:
[Photo by
exothermic] GDC 2010 has come and gone, but
many of the discussions I had with various developers, publishers, attorneys and other great
attendees have actually left me with some curious issues to explore with you here on LGJ.
The first such issue is one that actually relates to the long-known (but always fuzzy) area of the
law that deals with multi-level marketing systems, the more legitimate cousin of what are commonly
known as "pyramid schemes." These are the
slightly more legitimate looking cousin of the Ponzi scheme (most recently in the news because of
Madoff), but nonetheless create a
"business model" doomed to fail. Accordingly, there are statutes in nearly all 50 states and in
many countries barring these types of arrangements.
But why is this relevant to gaming at all? The advent of the referral model picked up by many
social and online games is the potential problem area, and while the model itself may not suffer
the same faults as a traditional pyramid scheme, it could nonetheless violate the laws in that
area. After all, those laws don't contemplate digital goods, which can suffer no scarcity and
basically no cost to product.
We've
recently seen augmented
reality used in some pretty clever ways in the gaming space, but Sony subsidiary ConnectedED
has come up with a way to turn real-time
graphical overlays into an educational tool. Using a PSP equipped with a camera, the "Second
Sight" technology allows tags embedded in textbooks or magazines to cue relevant audio or video
clips directly on the PSP.
The program can also create interactive 3D models which the user can examine by changing the
orientation of the PSP. Check out the video after the jump to see a video demonstration of what
we're talking about, and then imagine how awesome school is going to be in like, fifteen years.
Deviating from
the way we would expect Sega to mark the 32X's 15th anniversary -- by trying really hard
to forget about the 32X, just like every year -- the company has announced a CD full of music from
32X games. The Super 32X 15th Anniversary Album includes what looks to be all the
tracks from Space Harrier, Stellar
Assault, Virtua Racing
Deluxe, Parasquad,
Metal Head, and Virtua Fighter, all as they
sounded on the 32X.
The CD will be released through Sega's Wavemaster label on March 31 for ¥3,625 ($40), which is
more than you should pay for a 32X system.
The latest episode of
PlayStation Network's Pulse revealed the top ten downloaded PSP games for 2010 so far. Perhaps it
should come as no surprise that Square Enix's classic PSone RPGs have topped the list in the first
quarter of the year. Only one mini makes it into the
top 10: Tetris, whose steep $10 price tag apparently hasn't scared everyone away.
1. Final Fantasy VII (PSP/PS3)
2. Final Fantasy VIII (PSP/PS3)
3. Tetris
4. God of War: Chains of Olympus
5. Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories
6. LittleBigPlanet
7. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories
8. Madden NFL 10
9. Gran Turismo
10. Resident Evil 2 (PSP/PS3)
It's official: Aksys Games is localizing BlazBlue: Continuum Shift for
North America. Continuum Shift, the sequel to Arc System Works' high-resolution 2D
fighting game, will be released on Xbox 360 and PS3 this summer. Like the Japanese release, this
updated version adds new
characters.
It also adds new modes, including a Beginner Mode, which simplifies the control scheme, a Challenge
Mode with specific missions for each character, and Legion Mode, a mini-strategy game in which
players fight enemies to gain control of a map.
"If you're not on the hype train this time, you're missing out on the latest greatest 2D game from
Arc", Aksys marketing director Gail Salamanca said in a quote we can't help but pass along, "GET
HYPE, CHOO CHOO!"
Why are we so excited
for PAX East? Well, it's a chance for us to let our
hair down -- well, those of us who have hair that's long enough, or even still have hair ...
let's start over. PAX East's
apparent size for its inaugural year came as a relative surprise to many companies, so the
formal meetings we'd usually have are out and a more "let's see how this goes" attitude is in
effect. Meaning, we get to actually hang out.
Of course, we still have some meetings (i.e. work), but then we also have some fun stuff planned,
like the
Blueberry Muffin Top breakfast and live Joystiq podcast recording. However, for the most
part, we'll be wandering around looking for interesting stuff. Play some games, geek out, probably
grab a couple pints and nachos at The Pour House -- oooo, or maybe Bukowski's, which is one of the
last dive bars left in the city. Anyway, follow our Twitters (noted after the break) and we'll be
sure to holla stuff to check out in and around the show.
If our
comprehensive
video preview of Fat Princess for PSP whet your appetite for more, you'll be glad to
know that the full experience isn't too far away. Fistful of Cake will be appearing on
both UMD and PSN on April 27, promising "new game modes, new maps, a new extended storyline for
single player." And although the single player options have been greatly expanded, multiplayer
remains a big focus for the game, with 8-player Ad-Hoc and Infrastructure support.
The PlayStation.Blog
features a Q&A, a new trailer (posted after the break) and box art. Curiously missing from the
announcement, however, is a price. An SCEA rep told us the price has yet to be "100% confirmed,"
and that an announcement would be forthcoming.
Ahhh, grammar school -- there was nothing quite like trying to hide that GBA under the desk in fear
of Mrs. Rosencrantz confiscating our portal into Pokémon Fire Red. Back then,
handheld games were little more than an obvious distraction in the eyes of our ruler-equipped
teachers, but Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto
plans on changing all of that. Speaking with the
Associated Press in an interview recently, the legendary game developer explained his latest
devotion: bringing the Nintendo DS and Wii into schools. He said that the DS would be making its
way into "junior high and elementary schools in Japan starting in the new school year" (beginning
this April).
Miyamoto didn't get too specific on how his company's consoles would help Japanese students with
their education, only detailing it as part of Nintendo's initiative to expand the audience for
gaming consoles. We have to imagine that the kids won't be using them to decide whether or not
Resident Evil 4 on Wii is the
best version (besides, we all already know that it is). Thankfully for our unborn children,
Miyamoto didn't mention any amorphous plans to bring gaming consoles into North American schools
just yet. Presumably they'll have to play it fast and loose like we did -- keeps 'em sharp!
On the
same conference call earlier this week in which it
talked about its new rewards program, GameStop Executive VP of Merchandising, Tony Bartel, said
that stores currently experiencing Wii and PlayStation 3 shortages probably
won't find relief very soon. While the retailer is always bugging Sony and Nintendo for more units, Bartel said that GameStop "could
sell a lot more hardware than what we have on both the PS3 and Wii platform," and that situation
probably won't change until early summer of this year.
He did say that the Wii is due for a re-supply first, but he believes that both Nintendo and Sony
are "still scrambling to catch up from
the surge" of the last holiday season. But a shortage
like this isn't unprecedented -- as we get closer to summer, we'll probably see new inventory
appearing on shelves, ready to go home to a caring gamer.
Watch as the always unlikable duo of Kane and Lynch (that's
Bruce Willis and Jamie Foxx
to you People magazine types) get reunited on the streets of Shanghai and, before catching
up over a couple cold ones, find themselves caught up in a shootout and chasing a naked person
through the streets. This is just how these guys get acquainted after "a while" apart! Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days
welcomes you to Shanghai on August 24.
Got a great idea
for a hat or weapon for Team Fortress
2? Valve wants to hear about it -- better yet, Valve wants you to make it. The TF2 blog
reports that Valve has already
seen plenty of solid submissions -- items you can get a hold of in today's update. If you're the
creator of one of these items, you'll find a special version waiting for you in your backpack.
Hooray for bragging rights!
And for you budding designers out there, don't just think of it as a way to get some experience
under your belt, but think of it as a service for these guys. Heavy above always had an image
problem (thanks, male pattern baldness!), but now he's feeling good and going out on dates like
every night!
Other notable winners include Flower (Artistic Achievement), LittleBigPlanet PSP
(Best Handheld Game) and Wii Sports Resort (Best Family Game). You can see the full list
of winners by category after the break. Congrats, Bats!
Here's
the thing about Portal: we love it so
much, we want to know everything about it. Like, the dude that came up with that Test
Chamber 14 setup? Yeah, tell us all about him and whether he was upset or proud that somebody
figured out how to get through it in five
seconds. That's why this Game
Informer video is so fascinating.
It's a brief documentary on both the DigiPen students and Valve veterans that created
Portal -- and are subsequently now working on Portal 2. It's like a video diary of completely
attractive and charismatic people you may have a slight unprofessional obsession with. Frankly,
they're our heroes ... even if Garrett admitted to LARPing at one point in his life.
The thing
about Wii MotionPlus is that there haven't been a whole lot of games supporting it. Outside of last
summer's Wii Sports Resort (and
upcoming Red Steel 2 and Flingsmash) there's really only some sports
games utilizing the tech. According to a recent interview with Reggie over at
MTV Multiplayer, it's because Nintendo isn't really pushing for any kind of control scheme from
third parties.
"What's unique with Nintendo is we don't force our developers to stick to a particular type of
control scheme, and you've seen that -- everything from the new Metroid title to be single
remote driven to FlingSmash utilizing the Wii MotionPlus," he said. "So it's all about
what's right for the game." While we're inclined to agree with the latter part, we still wonder why
nothing is using MotionPlus -- especially since it's something that greatly improves the
core functionality of the Wiimote. And considering almost
everyone has MotionPlus by now (or soon will, if they're Walmart
shoppers looking for a great bundle), why not develop with MotionPlus in mind?
As for more MotionPlus games from Nintendo, Reggie teases "more titles that are coming" and that it
"continues to be a core part of what we do." So, the take away is this: even though Nintendo just
released a new piece of hardware, it's not too worried about supporting it with content -- kinda
like every other peripheral the company has ever released. Yeah, we're talking about you, Wii Speak!
Still, good to hear that the game is still going on, considering that we've only seen the barest sprouts of
information about it so far. Maybe Miyamoto should give his team a 30-day time limit within
which to finish the game, and see how they feel about that.
Infinity Ward community
manager Robert Bowling has announced that
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
will host its first worldwide double XP weekend from April 2 until April 5 on Xbox Live, just a few
days after the "Stimulus
Package" maps are set to arrive.
Unfortunately, in conveying this to Joystiq readers -- many of whom are
statistically likely to be interested in the news -- we've expanded a perfectly concise tweet
into a pompous, self-referential article and unfairly reduced the internet's available supply of
letters and punctuation.
It can't get much
clearer: With exactly one week to go before the show kicks off at the Hynes Convention Center in
Boston, "badges for PAX East 2010 are officially, 100
percent sold out," according to a show representative.
Considering the convention center will likely be filled to capacity with "tens
of thousands" of people, it's possible that just being around the show will feel like being
inside. If you live in the Boston area, there's probably going to be plenty of stuff that's PAX
related or co-opted going on, so even if you didn't pick up tickets -- and we totally
warned you this was going to happen -- you may still be able to get your geek on.
The Penny Arcade Expo is mixing things up a bit for its inaugural east coast occurrence -- the annual showcase of independent
games will now focus on local flavors. According to an update on the PAX East site, the
Boston Indie Showcase (which attendees can spot on the show floor at Booth 117) will offer six
games the chance to be prominently displayed at a major gaming event without "eating into their
elusive indie budgets."
Here's a list of the games which made the cut, along with links to additional info.
According to
BioWare, an upcoming DLC pack for Mass Effect 2 -- the Alternate Appearance
Pack -- will feature new outfits for "your favorite squad members." Apparently, you don't like
Miranda, Jacob, Grunt or Mordin, because this pack includes new costumes for Garrus, Thane, and
Jack.
While these new outfits seem like an appropriate fit for the Cerberus Network, this is actually the second
announced premium DLC offering for Mass Effect 2. Available on March 23rd, the pack will
set you back $2 on Xbox 360 or PC. Let's hope the upcoming Kasumi's
Stolen Memories add-on will be a bit more reasonably priced than these costumes.
Great. We're pretty
certain Square Enix is going to make another one of these
videos now. With sales of "more than one million units in North America over the first five
days," Square Enix has good reason for that smug look on its face. Taking into account European
sales, Final Fantasy XIII has
"recorded the largest first-week sales in franchise history."
A number of factors undoubtedly contributed to the record-breaking success of the latest iteration
of the JRPG series. Not only is it the first numbered Final Fantasy game on a current
generation system, but it's also the first game in the franchise to appear on two platforms -- and
two continents -- simultaneously. Finally, it's been nearly four years since the release of
Final Fantasy XII on PS2. Fans were clearly hungry for a real Final Fantasy
fix.
Luckily for Square Enix, there's much, much more Final Fantasy in the works: Final Fantasy XIV is due this year and
Final Fantasy Versus
XIII should be ready by the time Square Enix is done counting all this money.
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Happy first
day of Spring, everyone! Let's all take a moment to bid farewell to Winter, unless you live in
certain parts of the Midwest, where Winter is apparently still 
[
The latest episode of
PlayStation Network's Pulse revealed the top ten downloaded PSP games for 2010 so far. Perhaps it
should come as no surprise that Square Enix's classic PSone RPGs have topped the list in the first
quarter of the year. Only one 
Why are we so excited
for 
The Official
Nintendo Magazine UK is hanging out at 
Infinity Ward community
manager 
It can't get much
clearer: With exactly one week to go before the show kicks off at the Hynes Convention Center in
Boston, "badges for 
Great. We're pretty
certain Square Enix is going to make another one of 
Recommandations
)
and reject those that you are not interested in
(
)
