Shank Trailer – Bloody Marvelous!
Mar 10th
Shank has a lot of people interested...
Whether it's the Penny Arcade-esque imagery, the Streets of Rage gameplay or the metric shit-ton of violence, it just can't seem to hit our desktops/consoles quick enough. The fact it has been picked up by EA Partners is even better.
There's a trailer after the cut from the GDC. It might be loosely considered 'Not Safe For Work'.
Hard Sell – Hothead Games disappointed in Rain-Slick sales
Mar 7th
In an interview with Gamesutra about the signing of DeathSpank to EA Partners (alongside fantastic looking indie bludgeon-em-up Shank), Hothead Games Ian Wilkinson let slip his disappointment in the sales of their recent offering, the episodic 'On the Rain-slick Precipice of Darkness' series, developed alongside Penny Arcade.
Like Giving a Shark a SMG – Mass Effect 2 ‘Firewalker’ DLC soon
Mar 7th
Bioware have teased us with the Hammerhead for a while no... First, they left a wide empty space in the Normandy's hangar. Now Ray Muzykae & Greg Zeschuk have conducted an exclusive interview with Gametrailers TV, during which they get very excited about the Firewalker DLC.
The hovering battle tank will feature in a chunk of fast-paced new DLC due on the Cerberus Network (meaning its free for 1st-hand purchases of the game) soon and will feature missions that involve shooting lots of Geth Colossi & Armatures in their over-sized optics.
Click here to watch the video. Just incase you don't have it yet, our Mass Effect 2 review will be up shortly. Keep your eyes peeled for our thoughts on this years biggest game yet.
Source - Joystiq
Digital Boobs – Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light annouced, not for retail
Mar 4th
Crystal Dynamics are back with a new Tomb Raider game, only it's not actually a Tomb Raider game... 'Guardian of Light' might just signify the abolishment of the Tomb Raider name, which is a strange move to make following the developers attempts to re-introduce the raiding of tombs to the series once again.
Whether it represents a simply re-branding by the new owners (Squeenix) to focus more on the core character or a fork for the series into different (more casual?) territory -similar to the Sonic the Hedgehog Storybook series - is as-yet unknown.
Square Enix Europe have announced that the latest boob adventure-em-up featuring everyone's favourite generously proportioned grave digger is coming to 'undisclosed formats' sometime this year via the medium of the internet!
Yes, that's right, no retail release is planned for Ms. Croft's latest output, although whether that means we're in for an episodic release is as of yet unknown.
Under Siege – IW raided by Activision, heads rolling
Mar 2nd
Infinity Ward, the gurus behind the good (or 'sorta alright', depending who you ask) parts of the Call of Duty series, have been raided by their slave paymasters at Activision.
Reports state that security guards were posted at the entrance to the offices, el-presidente's for life Zampella & West have been sacked for 'breaches of contract & insubordination' and a giant mechanical gorilla unleashed by the former bosses is current terrorising down-town Encino. Of course, the latter may not be true, as reports from the scene are sketchy at best!
Whether this is related to either the handling of Modern Warfare 2's various issues (cheating/hacking, profiteering, controversy, treading on the PC gamers with a facist jackboot and much more) or the possible move of the Call of Duty brand to other divisions of Activision is currently unknown.
Y2K10: PS3 *UPDATED*
Mar 1st
By now many of you will have encountered today's problem with the PS3 and how the hardware clock seems to think it's the 29th Feb and the OS clock is saying it's January 2000.
Here is Sony's explanation and advice:
As you may be aware, some customers have been unable to connect to the PlayStation Network today. This problem affects the models other than the new slim PS3.
We believe we have identified that this problem is being caused by a bug in the clock functionality incorporated in the system.
Errors include:
* The date of the PS3 system may be re-set to Jan 1, 2000.
* When the user tries to sign-in to the PlayStation Network, the following message appears on the screen; "An error has occurred. You have been signed out of PlayStation Network (8001050F)".
* When the user tries to launch a game, the following error message appears on the screen and the trophy data may disappear; “Failed to install trophies. Please exit your game.”
* When the user tries to set the time and date of the system via the Internet, the following message appears on the screen; “The current date and time could not be obtained. (8001050F)”
* Users are not able to playback certain rental video downloaded from the PlayStation Store before the expiration date.We hope to resolve this problem within the next 24 hours. In the meantime, if you have a model other than the new slim PS3, we advise that you do not use your PS3 system, as doing so may result in errors in some functionality, such as recording obtained trophies, and not being able to restore certain data.
As mentioned above, Please be advised that the new slim PS3 is not affected with this error. We are doing our best to resolve the issue and do apologise for any inconvenience caused.
*UPDATE*
Sony 'apparently' now consider the situation resolved, although any 'fix' seems to revolved around letting the console think that the 29th of February 2010 has passed (which is sort-of has) and letting the console re-sync to PSN & correct its time.
We are aware that the internal clock functionality in the PS3 units other than the slim model, recognized the year 2010 as a leap year. Having the internal clock date change from February 29 to March 1 (both GMT), we have verified that the symptoms are now resolved and that users are able to use their PS3 normally.
If the time displayed on the XMB is still incorrect, users are able to adjust time settings manually or via the internet.
...
We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.
More info when known.
Transformative Years – War for Cybertron footage
Feb 27th
The teaser trailer for War for Cybertron didn't give a lot away... The bullshot rendered movie showed everyone where they were intending to go but didn't drop much in the way of gameplay.
As a result, reservations were cast and everyone moved on, leaving everyone firmly divided into either the 'wait and see' or 'it'll be a pile of poo' camp. After all, every other attempt to provide a video game outlet for everyone's favourite Robots in Disguise has been average at best.
Well, now Activision have given us a trailer, which lives after the cut.
New U(I) – Valve Beta test revamped Steam interface
Feb 26th
We all love Steam...
Too a PC gamer, its the electromagical love-child of a best friend (because everyone else hates us because we're apparently evil pirate ninja cowboys) and that nice local storekeeper who used to give you lollies when you were younger (yes, him - no, not his bitch wife who actually hated the idea of children and instigated that 'Maximum 2 youth at once' rule).
Now, Valve, in a long overdue effort to make it much more lovely, have finally rejigged a lot of things wrong with its aging interface.
Topsy-turvy world… – Game on your Mac courtesy of TTG
Feb 13th
For the majority of the Mac owners out there, your gaming fix has been provided largely by one the following:
- a small cusp of developers (notably Blizzard or the odd indie) who realise that OpenGL is actually a better language than DirectX
- a porting company (probably Aspyr *spit*)
- using BootCamp, which begs the question, why did you buy an overpriced and static bit of kit just to play Windows games?
Well, strike me blind, Telltale Games (purveyors of all manner of jolly adventuring randomness) have joined the former and are planning to release their content on the Cult of Steve Jobs Cupertino OS.
Starting with Tales of Monkey Island (available now), the company is planning to release all content on the new platform, with the next game being decided by a community vote, found here. As an added bonus, one lucky guy/gal will be credited on the Mac release of said game, for some reason.
Oh, and if you already own a Telltale Games... er, game, you can/will be able to download it free of charge for your designer desktop.
Press release after the cut. Unfortunately, it's not a talkie - that's being saved for the CD-ROM release.
