Assassin's Creed Sci-Fi Secrets Leaked 06:59 pm
- Robert 'Apache' Howarth
- Games: Action / Adventure
(14 comments)
Veronica Mars Actress Kristen Bell was interviewed by IGN.TV and talks about some crazy, previously unknown sci-fi features in Assassin's Creed:
IGN TV: You also have a videogame you worked on for next year, right?
Kristen Bell: Yeah, I actually have one coming out for Ubisoft. I don't know what the date is; sometime next year. It's called Assassin's Creed. You can check it out at assassinscreed.com. It's actually really interesting to me. It's sort of based on the research that's sort of happening now, about the fact that your genes might be able to hold memory. And you could argue semantics and say it's instinct, but how does a baby bird know to eat a worm, as opposed to a cockroach, if its parents don't show it? And it's about this science company trying to, Matrix-style, go into peoples brains and find out an ancestor who used to be an assassin, and sort of locate who that person is. It's very, very cool, and I've seen all the graphics for it. We just recorded all the dialogue and did all the face scans and body scans, and I'm really excited about it. This is Assassin's Creed we're talking 'bout, right?
Best Buy Hoarding Wii Stock? 06:04 pm
- Robert 'Apache' Howarth
- Consoles: Nintendo Wii
(11 comments)
According to an "internally leaked memo", all Best Buy stores are hoarding Nintendo Wiis until Dec. 17th:
Best Buy corporate cites the following three reasons for retaining Wiis in the newsletter:
--"This is the last competitive weekend for holiday shopping, which encourages a large amount of traffic to our retail stores once customers realize the system is available."
--"Customers shopping for other products will have the ability and be encouraged to purchase the gaming console."
--"The system is more readily available then (sic) other competing gaming systems."
The scan also mentions some PlayStation 3 information, including "SCEA has made an announcement that no other units will be shipped in addition to the units already being manufactured." However, unlike the Wii, PS3s are to be immediately shelved and sold to customers.
Editors Attack GameRankings 05:36 pm
- Robert 'Apache' Howarth
- Games: General News
(16 comments)
Geez, reading the transcript of the latest Gamasutra podcast that has GameSpot's Greg Kasavin, Ziff's John Davison and PC Gamer's Greg Vederman talking about game reviews gives me a not-so-fresh feeling. The topic was supposed to be about game reviews, but they just ended up ranting about how they all hate GameRankings. Kasavin: It's not a highly trafficked site. It's a site that seems to draw much more attention from the industry than from the public.
Davison: There's like a PR assumption that we should all be agreeing, and that we should be working towards conformity, which sort of undermines the whole purpose of an aggregator in the first place.
Vederman: We just recently did a survey, and we were actually surprised, given how much time we spend looking at Game Rankings, how infrequently our readers do it. They are far more likely to listen to us than the aggregate score on Game Rankings, which I wish more game publishers would recognize.
Spore Interview 03:01 pm
- Robert 'Apache' Howarth
- Games: Simulation
(3 comments)
PC Gamer interviewed EA Senior Producer Morgan Roarty about the vehicle editor featured in Will Wright's Spore: PCG: You've played the game all the way through, I hear.
MR: I played all the way through at a sitting—there are definitely bright spots, and some spots you have to be patient around. It's getting better and better all the time, so even though I've played all the way through a couple of times, there's always something new, which is fun. There's always something new to go in to check out, like, "Now we go in and rectangle select in Tribe game." Strategies come online, tuning gets better, new animations come in—you scurry to go and check that out. The recruiting animations got updated the other day and I went and checked out a whole bunch of that.
Crysis Interview 02:26 pm
- Robert 'Apache' Howarth
- Games: Action
(0 comments)
Hexus wrangled up a couple of the Crytek guys at a LAN event to talk a little bit about Crysis. Here's a snip about the game engine: So can you tell us a bit about CryENGINE 2? After all, CryENGINE was something pretty special, you guys just came out of nowhere with FarCry and just wowed everyone… So obviously you guys have now got to do even better this time around… what's going to be in CryENGINE 2? It's obviously physics heavy, so is that your own stuff or have you used third party software for this?
Seb : Well the one big thing which is really wowing the crowd is the destructible vegetation, overall the environment will almost completely interactive. So everything the player does has in impact on the surroundings, so not only can you break stuff and it looks pretty, but it also has an impact on the AI and what they do.
Ben : The aim of Crysis, basically, is to have every aspect of the game making your experience completely interactive. I mean, the precedent we're really pushing with Crysis is that we're making the player have to outsmart and think about how to outsmart everything in the game. So instead of just being a first person shooter where you have to think about your ammo or your health, with Crysis everything around you is usable, you got this suit, you've got different types of ammo, the environment is destructible… So you see some guys over there, you can shoot a tree down and it can kill them… you can use different types of ammo to drop them wherever you want… I think really, to get an idea of how immersive this all is, you have to view it as a whole rather than just components because it all adds to the experience.
New Catalyst 6.12 Drivers 02:20 pm
- Robert 'Apache' Howarth
- hardware: AMD
(4 comments)
AMD has released a new set of Catalyst 6.12 Drivers for your Radeon gaming enjoyment. Here are the release notes. There's nothing too exciting in the changes, but its a good idea to keep current with your video card drivers regardless.
Jade Empire SE (PC) Screenshots 12:46 pm
- Robert 'Apache' Howarth
- Games: Role-Playing
(14 comments)
2K sent over some nice new screenshots of BioWare's Jade Empire Limited Edition for the PC:
(Click to Enlarge!)
   
Obsidian Officially Making Aliens RPG 12:36 pm
- Robert 'Apache' Howarth
- Games: Role-Playing
(20 comments)
The rumors turned out to be true, as Sega announced Obsidian is developing a role-playing game based on its newly gained Aliens rights. SEGA of America Inc. and SEGA Europe Ltd. today announced that Obsidian Entertainment will create a role-playing game based on the Alien film franchise with license from Twentieth Century Fox Licensing & Merchandising. This title will be developed for the next-generation systems and the PC.
Obsidian Entertainment draws upon their wealth of design knowledge creating successful games such as the best-selling Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: Sith Lords and the award-winning Neverwinter Nights 2 to bring the Alien franchise to role-playing gamers for the first time. The role playing game will build upon the distinctive look and feel of the original films while utilizing next-generation technology to create an entirely different and unique Alien experience.
"With Obsidian Entertainment's development pedigree, they were our first choice to bring the Alien franchise to the RPG universe," said Simon Jeffery, President and COO, SEGA of America, Inc. "They are the only developer for us that could effectively combine the Alien mythology with compelling RPG gameplay to create the ultimate Alien experience."
"We are thrilled to be working with the great production and publishing teams at Sega to deliver the ultimate in-depth Alien experience to gamers worldwide," said Feargus Urquhart, CEO of Obsidian Entertainment. "Building an epic RPG with a license as heralded as the Alien franchise is truly a great honor."
Guild Wars Exceeds Three Million Sold 12:28 pm
- Robert 'Apache' Howarth
- Games: Role-Playing
(2 comments)
Hot off the wire is news that ArenaNet's Guild Wars has sold over three million copies to date:
Fuelled by sales of the hit game Guild Wars Nightfall, the latest release in the award-winning Guild Wars franchise, sales for one of the world's leading subscription-free online roleplaying games have surpassed three million units worldwide in a little more than a year and a half. This milestone event was announced today by ArenaNet®, developer of Guild Wars, Guild Wars Factions, and Guild Wars Nightfall, and NCsoft Corporation, the world's leading developer and publisher of online computer games.
"Reaching three million units sold in such a short amount of time is absolutely incredible," says Robert Garriott, CEO, NCsoft North America. "Coupled with the recent news of Guild Wars Factions winning Billboard's Multiplayer Game of the Year, we couldn't be prouder of what the team at ArenaNet has accomplished with the Guild Wars games."
325,000 Wiis Sold In Europe 05:13 am
- Andrew Burnes
- Consoles: Nintendo Wii
(37 comments)
Nintendo has sold a damn impressive 325,000 Wiis across Europe in just two days:
Wii made its highly anticipated debut across Europe on Friday 8th December, with thousands of people desperate to get their hands on Nintendo's new console. As the must-have product for the festive season Wii was an instant hit. Attracting vast crowds and selling out in stores all over Europe in just a matter of hours, a breathtaking 325,000 units were sold in the first two days making it the fastest selling home console in history.
Demand for Wii has been so great that shops all over Europe had large queues forming outside for up to three days before the launch and hundreds of shops opened their doors at midnight on launch day to allow gamers to get their hands on Wii. After just one weekend on sale, shops across Europe sold out of Wii consoles and daily shipments are now arriving across Europe to replenish stock.
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, proved to be a favourite for avid gamers, with 240,000 copies snapped up over launch weekend in Europe, representing 74% of all hardware purchasers. Wii Play was also a big hit with over 50% of people buying the game (which includes a Wii Remote) along with their Wii console.
Laurent Fischer, Marketing Director for Nintendo Europe commented:
"Wii has become an overnight success in Europe with people of all ages rushing out to get their hands on the console. Even at this early stage it is clear that Wii is delivering on its promise to expand the gaming market, with a uniquely diverse audience all keen to experience the sensation for themselves.
For those who were unable to buy Wii during the launch weekend, rest assured more stock is already on its way and we are doing everything possible to ensure that a steady supply of Wii units is shipped to stores across Europe throughout December and into 2007."
Commenting on the launch Tim Ellis, Head of Games, HMV UK said: ""The demand for Wii has been truly amazing, and the official launch at our Oxford Street store was one of the biggest events we've ever staged there. HMV has received a huge amount of customer pre-orders - beyond anything we've ever seen before, including from family shoppers as well as dedicated Nintendo gamers. This suggests that while Wii is obviously one of the must-have items this Christmas, it also has the potential to appeal to a huge mainstream audience over the longer-term."
Wii mania in Europe follows the phenomenal success of Nintendo's console in the Americas and Japan, where over a million units have been sold in just three weeks. In the Americas, where the console launched on the 19th of November, 600,000 consoles were sold in the first 8 days from launch. The Japanese launch saw similar success with around 400,000 units being shipped to stores for launch day and selling out during the first morning on sale. After just a few days of sales in Europe the Wii seems to be achieving similar success.
While Wii enjoyed a hugely successful launch Nintendo DS also had a record-breaking week, with 515,000 units sold across Europe last week, which is not only the highest weeks sales since the console's launch but also the most any console across all formats has ever sold in a week! Nintendo's handheld phenomenon has taken Europe by storm since its release in March 2005, with over 8.5 million consoles now sold across Europe.
Hardware & Tech Nuggets 01:15 am
- Robert 'Apache' Howarth
- hardware: General News
(1 comment)
RPG Vault Goodness 12:59 am
- Robert 'Apache' Howarth
- Games: Role-Playing
(0 comments)
Myth War Online Interview - Part 1 Unigium's colorful persistent state world in an original fantasy setting, now available for free play in the West - Includes four exclusive screenshots
Game Reviews 12:45 am
- Robert 'Apache' Howarth
- Games: General News
(0 comments)
In Other News... 12:30 am
- Robert 'Apache' Howarth
- In-House: In Other News...
(31 comments)
It just took them six weeks, but Arkane & Ubisoft managed to totally patch up Dark Messiah of Might & Magic to the point where it's playing as intended (tm). I hate when games get rushed out before they're ready, but it's great to see them do the right thing and offer great post-release support.
Today's question:
What are some other games that had rocky starts but managed to overcome adversity? On the flip-side, what are some games that had rocky starts, are still rocky, that you would like to see improved?
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