All Topics Gaming older than one year ago

Take another look at this generation's perfect game, and then look ahead at what Rockstar could have in store for GTA V.

PlayStation Home will be getting a near-lethal injection of cuteness tomorrow, thanks to the brand new LocoIsland Estate. Available in Europe for £3.99 (US release TBA), the virtual island features a giant tree house and, even more exciting, a virtual cruise. The Estate also grants access to mini-games, like LocoReverse and a Domingo race.

In addition to the LocoRoco space, PlayStation Home will also be getting a MotorStorm space. The MotorStorm Carrier is a decommissioned aircraft carrier that also features its own mini-games, quests and rewards (just like real-life aircraft carriers!). Check out trailers for both new spaces after the break.

It's been quite some time since we discussed Halfbrick's upcoming XBLA action puzzler, Raskulls. Lest you've forgotten the game, imagine Mr. Driller with platforming elements and plenty of direct multiplayer combat. Oh, and all the characters are skeletons for some reason. Suffice it to say it's pretty colorful and "wacky." Now, Halfbrick is reaching out to its fans to decide on the virtual box art that will represent the game on Xbox Live Arcade. The two possible choices are above and, while we don't want to influence your vote, the one on the right is clearly the better of the two.

If you need some help deciding which art best represents the game, we've embedded a trailer after the break. Once you've decided, head over to the Halfbrick website and cast your vote before the polls close on February 24.

TrackMania gets an upgrade with Wii controls.

If you downloaded the new Resident Evil 5 costume pack today expecting the "Heavy Metal" and "Business" costumes, then you might be a bit disappointed. And also a bit dressed in spiky shoulder pads. Instead of the two costumes advertised, the "Costume Pack 1" actually contains the "Fairy Tale" and "Warrior" outfits that were supposed to comprise the "Costume Pack 2" DLC. Surprise!

"This issue is known by Capcom," the publisher assures the inappropriately attired gamers affected by the issue, "and we are currently working with Microsoft for a solution." As for tomorrow's PS3 release of the costume pack, Capcom told Joystiq that it was "still verifying" which costumes will be included.

The evidence continues to build for a worldwide release of Okamiden. Less than a week after a European trademark appeared for the DS Okami sequel, Siliconera discovered an American trademark for the same thing, filed February 12. At this point, it seems assured that Capcom will localize the game, unless it decides not to do so simply to punish us for presumptuousness.

At the same time, the company filed a trademark for Ghost Trick, another interesting DS game shown at TGS, whose North American release has already been officially announced. Between these two games and Ace Attorney Investigations, Capcom is single-handedly making continued DS ownership worthwhile in 2010.

We’ve known for quite some time now that Ghost Trick was coming to North America and Europe. Capcom told us so in their financial report a few months back. Oddly enough, the trademark for the game name was just filed in the states last Friday. I guess we should be expecting more [...]

Did the sequel surpass or fall short of the amazing original?

Old school RPG love arrives on your PSP.

In January, Ubisoft revealed plans to streamline its DRM policy across all PC titles, making players log in to Ubisoft servers to authenticate any Ubi releases they want to play. At first the idea sounded iffy but Ubisoft's Brent Wilkinson belayed our fears explaining the new process would allow gamers to play on any computer and continue a game's progress through a cloud-based save system.

According to PC Gamer, tests of upcoming Ubisoft PC titles Assassin's Creed 2 and Settlers VII proved how flawed the system actually is. If, for whatever reason, your connection experiences an issue (be it router reboot or a momentary pause in connectivity) any Ubisoft title outfitted with the company's new DRM software will immediately boot you to the main menu of the game. Oh, and all that progress you made after a previous save or checkpoint? That's gone.

But that isn't the worst part: If Ubisoft's "Master Servers" are encountering any errors then all players with working connections logged in to the servers will not be able to play their games until the servers are back online, and losing all unsaved progress if this scenario occurs during gameplay.

There is something to be said about protecting your property from rampant PC piracy, but when draconian concepts such as Ubisfot's new DRM policy are in place, the publisher seemingly punishes the players who do support its wares. The cloud concept is great, but not at the expense of saving every thirty-seconds out of fear that a server on the other side of the world might decide to act up.

[Via Rock, Paper, Shotgun]

I’m thinking this is one of the Alien Vs. Predator games that the industry wants to forget about. It just doesn’t look like a lot of time or effort went into this one!

Get ready to eat some gods.

It's no secret that shmup fans love inflicting pain on themselves. That's why they'll undoubtedly love the news that the upcoming PSN-exclusive shooter Soldner-X 2 will feature a new "Challenge" mode -- as if the game wasn't going to be challenging enough! In this new mode, players will have to complete a variety of tasks in order to earn Trophies, bonus items and additional credits. Considering the near-impossible task of earning a 100 percent in the first game, this new mode is sure to further frustrate and delight hardcore gamers.

Soldner-X 2 will be available on the PlayStation Network some time this Spring.

Major Nelson has released the usual breakdown of Xbox Live activity for last week, February 8-15. On the retail side of things, Modern Warfare 2 still dominates with Halo 3 maintaining second. The Aliens vs Predator demo takes third place, knocking the Battlefield: Bad Company 2 to fifth while Call of Duty: World at War maintains its fourth place position. So, in other words, not very exciting.

The Xbox Live Arcade activity, however, is much more interesting. One look at the list and it's clear how much power the Deal of the Week can have on sales. In the next most recent activity listing (January 25 - February 1), Marvel vs Capcom rested in the number ten slot while TMNT: Turtles in Time Re-Shelled wasn't even in the top 20. Last week, thanks to both games being heavily discounted, Marvel vs Capcom jumped to number two while Turtles in Time Re-Shelled shot directly to number one. Invincible Tiger: The Legend of Han Tao, discounted as well, also broke back into the top twenty, landing in the thirteenth slot.

Whether the turtles will keep the top spot remains to be seen. With Battlefield 1943 knocked down to $10 this week, we're guessing they might be headed back into the sewer.

click to awaken the gallery
BioWare revealed one of the new venues being added for the Dragon Age: Origins expansion Awakening. Kal'hirol was once a dwarven keep, a center of learning and culture for dwarf society. At some point, however, the dwarves were driven out.

BioWare won't say what horror resulted in "the fortress's elite one day [showing] up at Orzammar's great doors, exhausted and in despair over the loss of their home," but we have a theory: a Subway opened up next door, and the dwarves couldn't stand its constant weird baking-bread smell. Either that or some kind of monsters. You can scour our new gallery for any evidence of $5 footlongs.

Contribution to help grant the wishes of children with life-threatening medical conditions around the world.

CompuExpert teams with 777 Studios and Gaijin Entertainment to be the exclusive North American distributor,

If the screens above are accurate, it would appear that Sonic Classic Collection has ditched the multiplayer modes present in Sonic 2 and Sonic 3. Taken from Sega Europe's Flickr account, the screens don't display the option for multiplayer in either game, unlike the title screens on the original versions of the games. Granted, the multiplayer certainly isn't the main draw of either game, it is reasonably entertaining and would be well suited to the DS' wireless multiplayer abilities. For what it's worth, the GameStop listing for Sonic Classic Collection notes the game is a single-player game.

It's not too surprising that the modes were cut, as it would require additional programming beyond simple emulation of the original games. After all, you can't plug an extra Genesis controller into your DS. Still, it would have been nice to see the multiplayer as a bonus mode outside the games. Just to be sure, we've contacted Sega for the final word on the matter.

[Via Aussie Nintendo]

Storm the battlefield as a single-player or with friends online in Tecmo Koei's tactical action opus.

In January, Ubisoft revealed plans to streamline its DRM policy across all PC titles, making players log in to Ubisoft servers to authenticate any Ubi releases they want to play. At first the idea sounded iffy but Ubisoft's Brent Wilkinson belayed our fears explaining the new process would allow gamers to play on any computer and continue a game's progress through a cloud-based save system.

According to PC Gamer, tests of upcoming Ubisoft PC titles Assassin's Creed 2 and Settlers VII proved how flawed the system actually is. If, for whatever reason, your connection experiences an issue (be it router reboot or a momentary pause in connectivity) any Ubisoft title outfitted with the company's new DRM software will immediately boot you to the main menu of the game. Oh, and all that progress you made after a previous save or checkpoint? That's gone.

But that isn't the worst part: If Ubisoft's "Master Servers" are encountering any errors then all players with working connections logged in to the servers will not be able to play their games until the servers are back online, and losing all unsaved progress if this scenario occurs during gameplay.

There is something to be said about protecting your property from rampant PC piracy, but when draconian concepts such as Ubisfot's new DRM policy are in place, the publisher seemingly punishes the players who do support its wares. The cloud concept is great, but not at the expense of saving every thirty-seconds out of fear that a server on the other side of the world might decide to act up.

[Via Rock, Paper, Shotgun]

Take your putting skills to the next level!

Dirty in all the wrong ways.

For a limited time only, Darksiders pack-in code can be redeemed for free copy of critically acclaimed Red Faction: Guerrilla.

As Square Enix developers are prone to do, acclaimed Final Fantasy lead Tetsuya Nomura recently dropped some vague information about one of the handful of Fabula Nova Crystallis Final Fantasy XIII​ games that was announced like, a million years ago (okay, okay -- in 2006). Apparently, due to the display of the world map not being up to snuff, Final Fantasy Versus XIII may not make an appearance at this year's E3.

"We were hoping to debut it at E3, but we're not sure now," Nomura told Famitsu (as relayed by FF-Reunion.net). "For displaying characters on the world map, we were originally planning on using the method used by 'FF#,' with a small Noctus running about on the screen, but that didn't look too great, so we ended up switching to the method used by 'FF#.'" Allegedly, the "#" designations used by Famitsu in the preceding quotation were an effort to mask the particular Final Fantasy installments Nomura was referring to. "Famitsu had to block them out," explained Andriasang.

Nomura also suggested that Versus might be benched for E3 2010 in order to give other Square Enix titles at the show more time in the spotlight. Nomura did not mention Agito XIII in the Famitsu article, but did note that, in terms of other projects, "There are a number of them, along with some for which we need to begin preparations for a reveal." That's right -- forget about finally showing us more of the game that was announced four years ago, bring on Final Fantasy XV!

[Via Andriasang]

If you happen to find yourself in Tokyo on February 27, you're ... really pretty lucky -- and we'll be, oh, so jealous of you. That is, of course, if you ride the Yamanote line to Akihabara and experience Microsoft's celebration of shoot-'em-ups for Xbox 360, known as the Shooting Festa 2010. Excuse us: That's the Xbox 360 SHOOOOOTING FESTA 2010!

Yep, this is an event solely dedicated to shmups. Upcoming and current releases will be showcased, and you can find a full list of what we won't be playing after the break (because, well, our "trip to Japan" quarter jar kinda got emptied the last time we found an arcade filled with retro shooters).

[Via Siliconera]

Solve the mysterious deaths of murder victims in the Forensics missions.