All Topics Gaming older than one year ago

This week's PlayStation Home update promises to be the LittleBig-gest ever. It will add the LittleBigPlanet PlayGround space, which features the King's Snap Happy Photo Challenge, a new Home-exclusive minigame that lets you take pictures to unlock rewards. There's also a Creator minigame that has you building a custom LBP-themed wallpaper for the XMB using a variety of stickers you can place, stick and combine. (Check out the trailer after the break.)

Finally, Qore fans will want to pay attention to this: show hosts Veronica Belmont and Audrey Cleo will be making an appearance in Home to chat with fans of the PSN video magazine. For more details, check out the PlayStation.Blog.

Sony Pictures has been rather successful with its Resident Evil movie franchise, so it only makes sense that the company has acquired the rights for the next big video game movie: Heavy Rain God of War Rollercoaster Tycoon. According to a report by Reuters, the project is being developed as a live-action/CGI hybrid at Sony Pictures Animation, with Harald Zwart, director of the upcoming Karate Kid remake, taking an executive producer role.

Heat Vision adds that David Ronn and Jay Scherick are attached as writers, tasked with adapting the PC game into a marketable movie. Perhaps that should be an easier task than their current project: writing The Smurfs reboot. Considering the original games had no story whatsoever, the writers will have a lot of creative freedom -- as long as they remember to put rollercoasters in it.

[Thanks, Joshua!]

#screengrab The result of leaving a Macbook Air on Media Molecule artist Rex Crowle's desk. As seen on Media Molecule's blog. More »

#dlc Enough whining about the high price of the Modern Warfare 2 Stimulus Pack! It's time to whine about the likely high price of the Modern Warfare 2 Resurgence Pack, due out early next month for the Xbox 360. More »

Overlord, the next content expansion for Mass Effect 2, was apparently revealed yesterday at Electronic Arts' European showcase event in London. According to Gamerzines, ME2 director Casey Hudson described the DLC as "five levels set across one story on one planet," with players battling through a laboratory (and occasionally piloting the Hammerhead tank) to defeat an artificial intelligence. There is currently no price nor official release date.

Hudson also announced that no new squad mates would be added in the DLC, nor would there be in any future DLC. We'll be sure to update as soon as EA makes a formal announcement with more details.

[Via VG247]

#epicgames A death-dealing, results-driven, elite space mercenary who, to be honest, is a bit of a dick, Grayson Hunt doesn't look like a guy who deals in caring, sharing or hand-holding words like "accessible." But his game, Bulletstorm will. More »

PS3 sees hardware and software improvements, but PSP and PS2 drag earnings down.

In what might be the briefest press release we've ever received from a major publisher announcing a new chunk of DLC for an über-successful game, Activision revealed that another set of five multiplayer maps for Modern Warfare 2 will drop on Xbox Live on June 3. We know two things about said maps so far: They're coming in a set called the "Resurgence Pack," and their release will be heralded by two double XP weekends on May 28 and June 4.

Now, that's what we know. What we assume is that the pack will feature a mix of new maps and renovated versions of Call of Duty 4 maps -- perhaps a bit more of the latter, given the title of the bundle. What we also assume is that the "Resurgence Pack" will carry the $15 price tag of the "Stimulus Package" (it worked well enough before). We'll contact people in the know to see if we can squeeze out any firmer details.

#clips If Epic Games' new game Bulletstorm breaks new ground in a familiar, crowded genre, it'll be in the use of melee attacks that aren't as traditional to the first-person perspective. They're the first link in the game's chain of cruel. More »

#epicgames Shooters and summer action movies have plenty in common, not least in how both are commonly pitched: Something and something meet something else. Epic's Bulletstorm, due in 2011, will enter this fraternity with similar references. More »

Epic Games and Painkiller dev People Can Fly have finally taken the wraps off of Bulletstorm, their FPS collaboration for EA, and it's looking like a brutal yet beautiful love note to fans of over-the-top action. Epic's design director Cliff "I created Gears of War" Bleszinski and Bulletstorm producer Tanya "I produced Gears PC" Jessen flew in to San Francisco last week to debut the game. The duo kicked things off with the above trailer before getting into the nitty-gritty details in a live gameplay demo, with Bleszinski steeling the crowd for what he considers to be "a mix of Burnout, Duke Nukem and Firefly / Serenity."

Bleszinski prefaced the demo by saying that, while still very much into the Gears series, "what really gets me out of bed in the morning is crafting a whole new world," something that he's excited to get to do on this project with the team at People Can Fly in Poland. He says he plays the game three to four times a week to offer his feedback, and that Epic's art and production teams in Raleigh, NC work daily with PCF. He said that Epic also sends techs to the developer on a frequent basis to ensure that it is up to speed on Unreal Engine updates.

Whatever they're all doing, it looks amazing -- both from a visual and gameplay standpoint. Blezsinski said that, unlike most modern FPS titles, Bulletstorm "doesn't take itself too seriously," adding that it has the intense action, the headshots and the like, but "does it with a wink and a smile." But what does it do differently? Skillshots. "It's like a cat playing with a mouse before killing it," Blezsinski said of the game's (very cool) core play mechanic, claiming that it takes the scoring system introduced in Unreal Tournament -- killing sprees, double-kills, etc. -- to "the next level."

Cliff Bleszinski is a not an easy man to find. When he’s not Tweeting away, he’s cooped up in Epic Games‘ Raleigh, NC-based studio working on his latest ultra-violent fascination.

This time that fascination is BulletStorm, an off-the-wall shooter spectacle that will grace the PS3 sometime in 2011. Cliff himself is a big fan of PS3 titles like Heavy Rain and the God of War series, and in our one-on-one interview for the PlayStation.Blog, he expressed excitement that BulletStorm will strut its stuff in front of PS3 players.

In the following video interview, you’ll also learn much, much more about BulletStorm’s unusual shooting gameplay and Cliff’s design inspirations. Sure, you can kill. But can you kill creatively? Let’s let Mr. Bleszinski answer that question (and many more!) in his own words.

If you want to see more of BulletStorm’s high-octane shooting, sandbox combat, and carnivorous plants in action, watch the debut trailer below. And be sure to sound off in the comments!

Eyes-on with People Can Fly's next ridiculous game.

Time to break out the awesome and kill with some skill.

#nsfw Bayonetta is one sexy game. The main character, Bayonetta, is encased in a full-body suit made of human hair and struts around in high heels outfitted with pistols. See? That's hot. And is fertile ground for porn parody fan art. More »

#sports Liverpool FC is one of the world's oldest, proudest and most successful sporting teams. It's also on the shopping list of a Chinese video gaming giant. More »

#nintendo3ds Love it or hate it, 3D is making major waves. Nintendo is the latest company to jump on the 3D express by releasing a glasses-free 3D handheld gaming device tentatively called the Nintendo 3DS. More »

#clips Certainly, not all game designers dress like their characters. There is one, however. His name is Toshihiro Nagoshi. He is brown. More »

Pfft, "debuts?" More like soars across a whimsical landscape directly into our hearts. We were pressed for space, okay? Maybe that's why we're so keen to stare at yet another snippet of Super Mario Galaxy 2 -- if we watch this commercial (embedded after the break) carefully, the perpetually cheerful plumber might impart some lessons on space usage. Where does he find all that breathing room?

#masseffect There's more "premium" downloadable content on the way for EA's Mass Effect 2, and while this newest pack doesn't introduce a new character, it does have you playing John Connor over five missions. More »

#sony Sony released today its financial results for the 2009 fiscal year (April 1 - March 31), and where there's results, there's hardware sales figures. More »

Banger racing Hollywood style in Black Rock's explosive racer.

#britain OnLive, the "cloud" service that promises/hopes to revolutionise online gaming by removing the need for a PC or a console, will also be launching in the United Kingdom, it's been revealed today. More »

#film This year's Cannes Film Festival isn't showing just one movie about gaming culture. It's showing two. There's French thriller Black Heaven with its naked bottom and now this, R U There with its awkward elevator propositioning. More »

#toys The Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker figures from Square Enix (who, yes, also make toys) that we first spied earlier this year are now available for preorder. They are both detailed and expensive. More »

#clips This snowy, super short teaser trailer for El Shaddai: Ascension Of The Metatron has appeared on the internet for you and me to look at together. So let's do just that. More »

Codemasters takes us through its official racer.

Codemasters takes us through its official racer.

Streaming games on demand spearheader OnLive has announced a partnership with BT, whereby the British communications firm has taken a 2.6 percent share in the company and will have the exclusive rights to bundle OnLive service with its broadband packages in the UK. "We're really excited about OnLive's potential in Europe, and looking forward to kicking it off in the UK through our partnership with BT," OnLive CEO Steve Perlman said in a post on the company's blog.

"Today we are announcing that BT, the largest broadband operator in the UK, has formed a partnership with and has made an investment in OnLive. We'll be working together with BT to bring the OnLive Game Service to the UK, such that it operates reliably and with high quality over the UK's Internet backbone to BT's broadband customers," Perlman wrote. "I know everyone would like the exact details of when OnLive will be available in the UK, but we are not announcing dates just yet. We're completely focused on our US launch this summer. Once we get the US service up and running, we'll be sharing more details, including when we'll be starting a UK public Beta."

Addressing those in the region who already have broadband service, Perlman said that "UK gamers will also be able to order the OnLive Game Service directly from OnLive to run over any UK ISP," adding that, "What's great about Western Europe geographically is that so many countries are within a 1000 mile (1600 km) radius, which is within the latency limit for a single OnLive data center. We've tested OnLive across all of Western Europe spanning from the UK to Italy and from Scandinavia down to Spain."

The OnLive service is slated to launch in the US this June 17 for PC and Mac users, with an initial lineup of titles numbering in the teens. The company's stand-alone "micro-console" hardware has yet to be dated for release. More details regarding tonight's announcement to follow later this morning.

#valve Never ones to let a bit of charity corner the market for gaming bargains, Valve's Steam service is now offering the "Steam Play Indie Pack", which bundles five great games along with ability to play on both Mac and PC. More »