All Topics Gaming older than one year ago

Remember, I only do one of these posts a day now, and will continuously update this post if/when I come across more HD/max resolution screens/videos.

#blizzard When World of Warcraft expansion Cataclysm launches, it'll bring not only new environments, but new characters as well. Like this female Worgen! More »

#sega Having campaigned for months for a localised version of Yakuza 3, many fans of the series feared that releasing the game so close to other big PS3 titles - like Final Fantasy XIII - would hurt its sales. Nope! More »

#knightscontract ...meets a big ugly dude with white hair. Say "hello" to Knights Contract. More »

Keep in mind that neither of these listings confirm the information they present, but they certainly seem to indicate that something is up. The price on Sengoku Basara is great, but the delay of FlingSmash is puzzling.

#australia Australian Xbox 360 owners will later this year get access to what Americans would call cable television, with a deal struck between Microsoft and Foxtel, a provider of satellite TV. More »

Back in the way back when of 2006, a group of private investors got together and decided to purchase the Acclaim name. Resurrecting the company -- the name's built-in brand awareness was a major factor for the purchase -- the new Acclaim Games aimed to grab its own slice of the casual gaming pie. Since then, it's managed to accrue 15 million subscribers through its website, offering a plethora of free-to-play casual MMOs.

And now casual gaming giant Playdom has gone ahead and acquired Acclaim. The press release (PDF link) highlights Acclaim as the perfect fit for Playdom's hefty catalog of social titles. "Joining forces with Playdom is a natural fit," said Howard Marks, Acclaim CEO and the man who will oversee Acclaim operations for Playdom and have an active role in the parent company's business development division. "Both companies share the vision of connecting people globally through quality social games. Our deep expertise in building multiplayer online games and Playdom's vast player community will help us bring out the next generation of social games."

Exact figures for how much Playdom spent on Acclaim are currently not available.

[Via Big Download]

Source - Playdom announces acquisition of Acclaim Games Inc. (PDF)

Square-Enix has just earned themselves a Guinness World Record, and it’s all thanks to Dragon Quest IX. What is the record for? Could it be related the the amount of sales in Japan? No silly, that’s way off the mark! This record is for “The most popular ad-hoc game feature.” [...]

Looks like we’ll have to wait until tomorrow to find out how one of us can get this awesome board. I don’t even skateboard, but I’d love to have this!

#mac It's because there's money to be made there. Valve disclosed today that in the week since launching its Steam service on Mac computers, 11% of all purchases on the digital shopfront have been made for Apple's platform. More »

#starwars Goichi "Suda 51" Suda, the man behind oddball games like Killer 7, No More Heroes and Contact, has ideas already a-brewin' for Nintendo's next platform, the Nintendo 3DS. His idea? Force training. More »

The OFLC has rated another classic Sunsoft game. I’m not really a fan of Aero the Acro-bat, but maybe the game has gotten better with age. Any fans of this character out there?

- classic mode: play all 30 NBA teams (with three current stars per team), including 2 on 2 boss battles against NBA legends (Magic Johnson, Larry Bird) - Remix Tour, double the length of classic mode, boss battles against other characters, big changes to rules/modes - counter added to the shove move - the player with the ball [...]

- 6 composers: Yoko Shimomura, Yasunori Mitsuda, Manami Kiyota, and the sound unit ACE+ (CHiCO, Tomori Kudo, and Kenji Hiramatsu) - soundtrack produced by Dog Ear Record - ACE+ and Manami Kiyota were asked to join the project by Dog Ear - Manami Kiyota is a singer/songwriter. Previous credits include Glory of Heracles, as well as composing [...]

It's only fitting that Def Jam Rapstar will include exclusive tracks for Europe -- the birthplace of rap. Wait -- what? You heard that right, but before we explain, let's go over the exclusive tracks by region:

• UK -- Tinie Tempah's "Pass Out" and Dizzee Rascal's "Fix Up, Look Sharp"
• France -- NTM featuring Lord Ko's "Ma Benz" and Sefyu's "Molotov 4"
• Germany -- Sido's "Mein Block (Beathoavenz remix)" and Kool Savas's "Futurama"

So, about that rap origin story: Modern rap actually originated during the mid-70s in a suburb of Munich, Germany known as Freising. The heavy beats and lyrical dexterity of the genre were perfected in a small parking lot near the Brennergasse by a group of former tuba players who'd practice weekly after hitting the Weihenstephaner a bit too hard. True story. We swear ...

... Fingers crossed.

THQ fights back against pre-owned videogame sales.

#lego This year's gathering of some of the world's biggest LEGO fans—they call themselves Adult Fans of LEGO—at Brickworld 2010 will combine their brick engineering talents for two major video game themed collaborations, one adorably Call of Duty-themed. More »

#xbla Konami's Time Pilot headlines the latest Game Pack release for the Xbox Live Game Room, which just went live today. It's joined by Asteroids, Space Duel, and four other Intellivision and Atari 2600 titles. More »

Super Mario Galaxy 2 - Overview Commercials, Super Mario Galaxy 2 - Single Player Commercials 2, Super Mario Galaxy 2 - Co-op Commercial 2, Super Mario Galaxy 2 - Game Experience 2, Super Mario Galaxy 2 - Game Experience 3, Wii Fit Plus - Commercial 6, Tomodachi Collection - New Commercials 1, Tomodachi [...]

There's been no sign of Q Entertainment's localized Japanese version of Rock Band since its announcement in 2008. In fact, the title is unlikely to happen at all, according to Harmonix's John Drake, who told RockBandAide that fans shouldn't expect a standalone Japanese edition of the game.

Instead, Harmonix partnered with JRockRevolution to poll that site's users about the Japanese rock bands they'd most like to see added to Rock Band. The GazettE topped the list, followed by Dir en Grey and X Japan (whose "I.V." was included in Rock Band 2's free bonus DLC). J-rock poster boy and ancient vampire Gackt came in at No. 5.

Presumably, these bands are being considered for DLC for the existing Rock Band games, which seems like twisting the knife a bit. Imagine if you were in Japan, waiting for Rock Band, and you read that all your favorite songs were going to be downloadable in the American version.

[Via Destructoid]

#musicgames Music game maestros Harmonix have already promised to "innovate and revolutionize the music genre" with Rock Band 3, but even in the face of that hyperbole, the designers believe "you'll be surprised at just how big this game really is." More »

Get Pay-TV on your Xbox 360 in Australia.

#dlc UFC Undisputed 2010 has joined the "Project $10" bandwagon - at half the price - walling off its multiplayer content behind a one-use code that costs $5 to anyone without it, i.e. those who rent or buy the game used. More »