All Topics Gaming older than one year ago

Yoshinori Kitase and Motomu Toriyama drop details on the US version of Final Fantasy XIII.

So that's what they're doing! A pair of job listings on Microsoft's career site have revealed that the mysterious SpawnPoint Studios is currently hiring for a Project Natal launch title. The listings don't reveal any details about the title, though they do ask specifically for someone to "work on a Natal launch title, built from the ground up in MGS / SpawnPoint Studios." The listing notes further that potential employees will work with "a very strong team fresh off AAA titles, starting a new project in a start-up like environment."

This is the most we've heard about the studio since Microsoft's Phil Spencer first dropped its name in a Joystiq interview last year. Spencer then intimated that SpawnPoint was "really doing a lot of the Natal work." Later in the same year, we tried to pry some SpawnPoint info from 343 Industries' Frank O'Connor with little success.

So, SpawnPoint remains something of a mystery for now, though it sounds like we're guaranteed to know more come the launch of Natal. Hopefully, we'll hear something sooner.

[Via VGTribune]

Source - Software Development Engineer-Senior-MGS-Project Natal Job
Source - Software Development Engineer-MGS-Project Natal Job

Ready for a blast from the past (and to the head)?

Singer Leona Lewis plays Final Fantasy XIII on Xbox 360 in this preview trailer!

Pimp out your pad. Kinda.

Developer still planning a release on Sony's platform.

Adventurers, your votes have been tallied and now Atlus is ready to unleash the Demon's Souls polar tendency event for Valentine's Day. Beginning today, Boletaria will shift to Pure White Tendency until next Tuesday. After that, the power of love will morph into its inevitable form of hate and plunge the world into Pure Black Tendency for the rest of the week.

To experience the event, players will need to be connected to the interwebs and it may require logging in more than once -- sometimes the servers hiccup. Happy questing!

A developer diary discussing the single player campaign mode and overall progression through the storyline and player rank. Lead designer Sam Bass, Producer Jim Vessela and Game Designer Jeremy Feasel all weigh in on the new RTS elements that will tie the 15-year long Tiberium Saga together in its conclusion.

It's been a crazy 48 hours, thanks to all of the news coming out of X10. Attendees were greeted with various playable demos, a box full of mullets and, in the case of this post, the above trailer and gallery full of screenshots for Rare's upcoming XBLA port of Perfect Dark. Featuring graphics of up to 1080p and small grey alien sidekicks named Elvis, it's one of the more high-profile games coming to Xbox Live Arcade as part of the Block Party promotion.

A portion of a CVG review… It’s no longer a game for the hardcore, that much is for certain, but what audience is this aimed at? We’re not sure who’s going to get full value from Step & Roll.

Ah, the distinguished mustache of Dr. Wily. I’d love to have one of those bad-boys. I mean, my mustache is pretty good, but it’s nothing compared to what Wily has. Just the sight of it intimidates people!

Namco Bandai Monster Hunter killer tops the charts in first week.

Namco Bandai Monster Hunter killer tops the charts in first week.

Namco Bandai Monster Hunter killer tops the charts in first week.

If you've been downloading demos and premium themes at a furious pace in anticipation of an upcoming 250GB hard drive for Xbox 360, you may want to rethink your data footprint. Speaking to Joystiq yesterday at X10, Xbox 360 and Xbox Live Product Manager Aaron Greenberg told us that the 250GB hard drive is likely to remain exclusive to limited-edition bundles.

"We did it with the Modern Warfare bundle, which, as people know, was a huge success, completely sold out," he reminded us. "We're excited to bring it back with the limited edition Final Fantasy bundle." Greenberg said that the limited nature of the bigger drive is "part of what makes it special."

Greenberg also mentioned that much of the Xbox 360's functionality, like Netflix, Facebook, and Twitter, and even the Zune Video Marketplace, doesn't require storing big files on the hard drive. "That said, we understand that game demos, a lot of the game add-on content does take up space."

"We're always evaluating," he said, "but for now we feel like the 120 is serving us very well as the standard offering, and then having the 250 as a limited edition is a good balance." Keep some space in your browser cache free for our full interview with Greenberg.

Someone has taken their copy of Super Monkey Ball: Step and Roll and tried it with their Cube emulator on the PC, and it turns out that the game runs almost perfectly. Looks like SEGA wasn’t really pushing the Wii with this one! Direct link here (thanks KnucklesSonic!)

Players worldwide gain access to 120 new cards.

It's a return of two classic mascots on the Wii this week, sort of. A good Sonic the Hedgehog game -- and, in fact, one that is kind of Sonic the Hedgehog 4 -- is up on the Virtual Console, with Lock-On tech intact; and Konami's Frogger is doing what he does best (almost dying in traffic). And also there's a game about robots shooting each other, but that doesn't really fit into the theme.

• Sonic & Knuckles (Mega Drive, 1 player, 800 Wii Points)
• Frogger Returns (WiiWare, 1-2 players, 500 Wii Points)
• Overturn: Mecha Wars (WiiWare, 1-2 players, 800 Wii Points)
• Electroplankton: Rec-Rec (DSiWare, 1 player, 200 DSi Points)
• Electroplankton: Lumiloop (DSiWare, 1 player, 200 DSi Points)
• Sudoku 4Pockets (DSiWare, 1 player, 500 DSi Points)
• Let's Golf (DSiWare, 1-2 players, 800 DSi Points)

European Nintendo downloads: Sonic & Knuckles, Frogger Returns, Overturn

The development team talks about the differences between the original release and Blue World.

Meet Victor Coste, he's an old friend of Sam's and he will do anything to help him.