All Topics Gaming older than one year ago

#legal Read the 16-page complaint filed by the founders of Modern Warfare 2 development studio Infinity Ward against Activision, the company that ousted them on Monday. Jason West and Vince Zampella, dismissed by Activision for "insubordination" sued. Lots of details here. More »

It will melt your mind.

New robot game could be on the way for 360 players.

According to IGN, "a source close to the game's development" at Atomic Games confirmed that the studio's controversial FPS, Six Days in Fallujah (based on the real-life Battle of Fallujah), is not just "coming out," but also "finished." There is no clear declaration whether or not Atomic has acquired a new publisher for the title after Konami dropped it last year, nor is there any information on a possible release date.

When last we heard from studio head Peter Tamte back in October, he was still saying his company "remains committed" to the eventual release of Six Days in Fallujah. We've contacted the developer to confirm the anonymous source's claims and will let you know if we hear anything back -- but don't hold your breath.

According to IGN, "a source close to the game's development" at Atomic Games confirmed that the studio's controversial FPS, Six Days in Fallujah (based on the real-life Battle of Fallujah), is not just "coming out," but also "finished." There is no clear declaration whether or not Atomic has acquired a new publisher for the title after Konami dropped it last year, nor is there any information on a possible release date.

When last we heard from studio head Peter Tamte back in October, he was still saying his company "remains committed" to the eventual release of Six Days in Fallujah. We've contacted the developer to confirm the anonymous source's claims and will let you know if we hear anything back -- but don't hold your breath.

EA Sports Active for the Wii, the third-party publisher's sweatier response to Nintendo's best-seller Wii Fit, has earned the company $125 million. Gamasutra reports that at the conclusion of Electronic Arts' fiscal year (which is at the end of this month), the company believes the product will be one of the "top 20-selling ... Wii titles of all time." Of course, with Nintendo's dominance on its own platform, EA Sports Active is likely closer to the 20th position than the first.

Despite some hiccups, EA Sports head Peter Moore says that he and the EA brass are still "great believers in the Wii." He notes that the publisher has seen the most success on the platform with "specific experiences that are built around that consumer." He then announced EA Sports Mall Walker ... kidding!

Ludacris, Omarion and more to be involved in hip hop social gaming experience now live in open beta form on Facebook and the web.

Once more into the 18th Century.

Legendary and current soccer players duke it out in a "raw" version of the world's most popular sport.

It's time for EA to announce the latest Sims 3 expansion: Ambitions. Arriving in June, the pack gives players the opportunity to pull the strings of the helpless electronic dolls throughout their careers. No longer safe from Little Susie's megalomania on the job, the Sims will now do their work as a conduit for an ethically ambiguous puppeteer. Although, we doubt it'll ever get to the visceral level of Five Minutes to Kill Yourself.

Ambitions will apparently include a huge variety of jobs, including solving cases as a detective, hunting ghosts as a (wait for it) "ghost hunter," and "leveraging Build and Buy mode" as an architect. The expansion also includes a tattoo system -- so, go ahead and give your teenage Sim that tribal or barbed wire ink they'll regret every time they take a blurred-out shower as an adult.

New variable resolution complete with widescreen support and so much more.

New publisher to initially develop titles under the Karizmac brand for iPhone and web that reward individuality and personality.

The publisher takes two indie darlings under its wing.

The publisher takes two indie darlings under its wing.

You're prayers have been answered.

#kotakutalkradio Battlefield: Bad Company 2 producer Gordon Van Dyke joined our illustrious hosts, Brian Crecente and Stephen Totilo, in yesterday's episode of Kotaku Talk Radio to talk about DICE's latest video game... and, oh, so much more. More »

Man, we hope your hearts are wearing some light, loose-fitting clothing, because they're about to get warmed. CNN recently aired a video report on mild-mannered Roy Williams, a young man whose love of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is surpassed only by his love of doing awesome, considerate things. Like, for instance, playing Ocarina of Time blindfolded, and writing a guide on how to play the game by only using sound clues, so that a visually impaired gamer living in another country can topple Ganon's tyrannical reign.

Transcribing OoT in this manner took Williams and "three other diehard gamers" two years, but allowed Jordan Verner, a blind gamer living in Ontario, to finish the game for the first time. If that doesn't make you just a little verklempt, then you probably have robot parts where your heart should be.

[Thanks Kevin!]

Square Enix and Gas Powered games deliver the next dimension of real-time strategy games.

You've got to hand it to those PlayStation and GameStop marketing people: They know how to speak our language. Take note, wannabees: If you've got an exclusive God of War III outfit to show off, you could show Kratos flipping out and killing people in it. But why do that when you could show him having a polite conversation with a mythological beast about his ensemble choice? Why indeed.

Fun fact: Kratos has more dialog in this trailer than in God of War I and II combined. It's true!

After only two episodes, it is great to hear that so many of you are enjoying The Tester and making Thursday night viewings of The Tester with your friends in PlayStation Home Theater a weekly destination.

Now, eight contenders remain and in Episode 3, “No Cry in Team,” they face one of the most demanding challenges in the series. This week, it’s all about teamwork. Wielding a giant slingshot and the “TesterNet”, these contenders must prove they can work together when the pressure is on.

If that isn’t hard enough, Mr. David Jaffe is back on the panel. And the cast is definitely out to impress him! Can Amped keep it straight? Will Big D deliver?

You don’t want to miss Episode 3.

And remember, The Tester is available in both Standard and High Definition formats from PlayStation Store and also showing in the PlayStation Home Theater where another free cast T-shirt will be rewarded. The Tester commemorative items are also available in the Theater and Central Plaza kiosks in PlayStation Home.

Thanks again for downloading and watching. Enjoy the show!

Soccer of a different breed is coming your way soon.

#impressions I got a quick look at a pair of EA iPhone games yesterday, one that gave just about the best first impression of EA's spring line-up. That's the Canabalt-ish return of Mirror's Edge. More »

Third game in series available exclusively for the Nintendo DS system.

#ncsoft NCsoft details Aion's version 1.9 patch today, an update dedicated to making the player experience more joy and less grind. We spoke to lead producer Chris Hager about changing the way subscribers play and perceive the popular MMO. More »

Yesterday, early reports from Famitsu magazine brought news of a new game in the Metal Max series, in development for Nintendo DS by Crea-tech. Today, publisher Kadokawa Games opened a teaser site for Metal Max 3, featuring a short video of the RPG in action. As would be expected, it's got tanks. A bright red one, in fact! Screens are up on Famitsu's site.

Metal Max is a tank RPG series whose first localized entry, the PS2 spin-off Metal Saga, was released in North America in 2006 by Atlus. A DS sequel that same year was passed over, leaving the fate of this game in question.

According to 1UP's summary of the Famitsu article, Metal Max 3 stars a character, having just been resurrected by a mad scientst, on a quest to regain his memories. Kadokawa apparently classifies him as "the strongest level-1 character in the history of video games." The game will be released this summer in Japan.

#eapartners Electronic Arts today announced a deal with the developers of Shank and Deathspank to bring the downloadable games to multiple platforms. More »

Expansion pack to award-winning game The Sims 3 allows players to become fearless heroes and ace entrepreneurs.

EA Partners, a division of Electronics Arts, has announced an exclusive publishing agreement with two upcoming indie games -- Hothead's DeathSpank and Klei Entertainment's Shank -- which will allow a much wider (and ostensibly easier) path to distribution for both games. EA claims Shank will be available on Xbox Live, PlayStation Network and PC this summer, while DeathSpank will be available on Xbox Live and PSN with no date yet announced.

"Our mission at EA Partners is to work with the best talent across the game industry, and we are thrilled to extend our expertise to the leading creative developers in downloadable indie games," said EA Partners' outreach director Jamil Moledina. "DeathSpank is engrossingly fun and hysterically funny ... and Shank is an amazing experience."

The EA Partners program has had some heavy hitters onboard, like Rock Band, Left 4 Dead 2, and Brütal Legend, but this marks the first time indie games have been brought into the fold. We've toured through DeathSpank before (with Ron Gilbert himself!), and Shank was just named a finalist at the Independent Games Festival, taking place during GDC next week in San Francisco.

It's interesting to see EA move into the indie arena, much like 2K Games has done with 2K Play (think: The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom and Axel and Pixel), but we'll have to see how it plays out. Hopefully they'll offer both in a Spank 'n Shank special bundle. We spoke with EA's Moledina and both developers, so stay tuned for more info shortly.

If you were paying close attention to Twitter this morning, you might've noticed Ubisoft community developer Aymeric Evennou noting that a R.U.S.E. public beta would be strategically moving itself onto Steam on March 9. More importantly, though, if you were looking way too closely into the French publisher's YouTube video details, it's possible you would've seen this little tidbit about the game's release date: "R.U.S.E. will be available on PC, Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 on June 3, 2010." (June 3, a Thursday, is likely the European retail release date. We've contacted Ubisoft to confirm the North American date.)

From Ubisoft ... ahem ... tricking us into believing the game would see release in Q1 2010, to a private beta last year, and now the announcement that we'll get a chance to play the game next week, it's been a bit of an emotional roller coaster for us over the last year at Joystiq. Thankfully, Ubi also released five minutes of soothing fan service in video form that we've embedded after the break for you (and for our own well-being).
[Via Big Download]

You don't know it yet, but today's going to be a very good day. The PSN has been flooded with new content, including the "Desperate Escape" Resident Evil 5 DLC, demos for Just Cause 2 and Patchwork Heroes, and about 8,000 Karaoke Revolution songs. Click past the jump to see all of this week's offerings!

Choose your platform to view the corresponding release list:
(Note: Continue past the break to view both release lists.)