All Topics Gaming older than one year ago

IGN imagines some crazy concepts.

First look at the next arcade KOF game. Check out the cast of fighters, along with Mai Shiranui.

We preemptively apologize for kicking off PAX East with a real downer, but a job's a job ... so here goes: "There won't be an Episode 3," Penny Arcades Mike Krahulik told Joystiq this morning. "We're actually not making a third episode of the game." Penny Arcade Adventures was originally unveiled at PAX 2007 in Seattle as a four-part episodic series, marking the webcomic duo's first foray into video game creation, as opposed to video game critique. With the first two episodes following in fairly rapid succession - Episode 1 was released in May 2008 with Episode 2 following just five months later in October 2008 - the prolonged absence of Episode 3 has been notable.

"[The game's developer] Hothead has DeathSpank and they have a chance to do something really cool with it," Jerry Holkins, the other half of the duo, said. "And they need to have an opportunity to make it incredible." With a recently announced EA Partners ... uh, partnership, DeathSpank certainly has some weight behind it. But why not create both titles? Holkins says, "They definitely could've done both games. I think they could've made DeathSpank and Episode 3 but I thik Episode 3 would've suffered. I mean, I know it would have suffered. So we'd rather not do it than do it half-assed and so we're going to finish that story but it's going to be on our website."

The infamous ninja franchise is back on the PSP.

#dsixl With the DSi XL hitting this weekend, smack dab between last year's DSi and next year's 3DS, is there a reason you should bother picking up this over-sized portable? Plenty of them, the head of Nintendo of America tells Kotaku. More »

While we wait for Rorona, Gust works more magic on the PS3 through a sequel.

We may not make it out to the East Coast very often, but when we do, we bring the big guns. PlayStation.Blog readers in Boston and New York were the very first in the gaming public to play PlayStation Move this week, as we brought our GDC-announced games out for a pair of community meetups.

On Tuesday, we made our much-requested New York Meetup debut in Tribeca. Despite the crappy weather, fans braved the outdoor line to go hands-on with Slider, Move Party and Sports Champions (all working titles), and to watch Dr. Rick Marks and Anton Mikhailov show off the Move’s capabilities in a series of intriguing tech demos. You can see some of those demonstrations in the replay of last Saturday’s Engadget Show here.

We also honored Ray, our PlayStation SuperFan who’s been to our meetups in SF, Vegas, Seattle, and Los Angeles, despite living in NYC. Now that we were on his home turf, we rewarded him with a God of War III Ultimate Edition for his incredible fanship.

Click here for more pics of the NYC Event.

Next stop: Boston. Last night we kicked off the PAX weekend with PlayStation Move, and I’m still at a loss for words to describe the crowd. Actually, “huge” probably has it covered. Over 300 gamers, fans, and bloggers came out to hang out and go hands-on. GTTV’s Geoff Keighley even turned up to help hand out the prizes (special thanks to Charlie at 2K for providing BioShock 2 and Borderlands PS3 prize packs). Take a look at the pics – Boston knows how to party.

Ray showed up for that one too :-)

In both locations, everyone let us know that they were glad we came out East, and we’re really happy we made the trip.

Now to answer the big question: which Northeast city turned out in bigger numbers? Let’s just say that if Boston and NY meet in the ALCS this year, my money’s on the Sox.

#snkplaymore SNK Playmore is going to keep this King of Fighters thing going, unveiling the latest version, The King of Fighters XIII, in Tokyo this week. The most notable addition? The return of Mai Shiranui, the series' bosomy fan (service) favorite. More »

Monday Night Combat sort of came out of the blue when it was announced earlier this year. At the time, we were impressed by the game's visuals and the promise of class-based shooter action all contained in a bite-sized XBLA form factor. Now, a new trailer has been released and, thankfully, the gameplay is more complex than it appeared at first glance. The mode showcased in the trailer, called "Crossfire," plays out something like a capture the flag or king of the hill mode with a few twists. Each side attempts to breach its opponents' defenses and destroy their "Money Ball" in order to win the match. In order to do this, players upgrade their abilities, place defensive turrets and push through with the help of AI-controlled robots. The trailer shows off several different classes, including a deadly sniper, lithe assassin/scout and a 'heavy' wearing some mean looking mech armor.

Unfortunately, the trailer fails to answer the most important question about Crossfire mode: Will you get caught up in it?

[Via XBLA Ratings]

Zynga's VP of game development on how Facebook will lead the charge to the next generation of games.

What could Spin Six end up being? All we know is that it will hit Wii…or DS…or WiiWare…or DSiWare. No matter what, this title is coming to a Nintendo platform. Downloadable title seems like the more likely option, but that still doesn’t give us any details as to what this game actually [...]

Well, there goes my interest in a WiiWare title long in the works. We’ve just come to learn that Explodemon, which was indeed in the works for WiiWare and other platforms, is now heading to PSN exclusively. The only good news is that this release is exclusive…for the time being. Explodemon could [...]

Five maps, 1200 Microsoft points, one trailer. Watch it.

Direct link/article here I tried to make an original NES mix tape…and by that, I mean CD. It ended up being 6 CDs long, and included SNES and Genesis music as well. I still listen to that set to this day, but I think it’s time to make an even longer compilation!

Rocket Tag is about as awesome as it sounds.

#clips Set to hit the Xbox 360 next week, the downloadable Modern Warfare 2 Stimulus Pack brings with it five new maps and a just a touch more controversy to a studio recently embroiled in discord. More »

Visit Friendship Valley and Hugsville to enjoy pawsome fun.

Funcom has released a new gameplay trailer for The Secret World. The trailer shows off some of the many enemies players will face -- including giant crab monsters, zombies and a squid ... thing -- as well as some of the characters they will meet. As we noted in our impressions of the game earlier this week, The Secret World sets itself apart from most MMOs, using real-world settings and characters. Strange as it seems, even with all this new gameplay footage and information, we still don't know an awful lot about what's actually going on in the game. The only hint we have from the trailer is a reference to "something from the bottomless deep rising to devour us all."

Whatever is happening, at least there are plenty of monsters to kill, right?

Visit Friendship Valley and Hugsville to enjoy pawsome fun.

#gamedesign Yesterday we considered that maybe breaking the rules is the best way to play video games. Because — or despite that — game developers have to set limits. So is this Heavy Rain clip, via reader Syptel, a tolerable limit? More »

Don't you hate it when you're in first place in Mario Kart and then ... BAM! A blue shell makes you lose the race in the final lap? Thankfully, United Front Games is promising better-balanced weapons in ModNation Racers. "No matter how powerful a weapon is, there is still a chance to evade it," the developer explained in a recent post on the PlayStation.Blog. Hopefully, the "chance" won't be as rare as this trick from Mario Kart Wii.

The game isn't meant to appeal exclusively to the hardcore, though. "We also wanted to ensure a tight race, so the power of each stun is scaled based on your position in the race and distance from the player attacking. What that does is allow anyone in the pack to always have a chance," Nick Letzia explained. It certainly is an interesting design choice -- we wonder if it'll work as well as the developers expect when it comes out in May? Check out a trailer after the break.

It's scientific fact that racing games are roughly 200 percent more exciting when the genre's standard asphalt surfaces are replaced with good ol' H20. One of the clearest examples of this was Midway's classic arcade racer Hydro Thunder -- a franchise that's been dormant for over a decade. However, Microsoft Game Studios and developer Vector Unit today announced that they'll soon blow the proverbial dust off the series this summer with Hydro Thunder Hurricane, an Xbox Live Arcade-exclusive sequel to the arcade classic.

Hydro Thunder Hurricane will include a number of multiplayer-oriented game modes, eight super hazardous race tracks and several returning speedboats from the series' original iteration. There's support for four-player local matches, eight-player online matches and a co-operative "Rubber Ducky" mode, which just sounds so intense.

Vector Unit is showcasing the title at PAX East. We'll let you know how it handles.

Did you catch this bit of info from the Nintendo.com listing for Sonic the Hedgehog 4, which we posted the other day? Yeah, I think most of you already know this, but that line of info was posted in error. SEGA has confirmed that the blurb was nothing more than a mistake. Sorry Pachter, [...]