All Topics Gaming older than one year ago

Turbine and Codemasters to release free-to-play version of award-winning online game across North America and Europe.

#gamescom2010 Many people played Kinectimals at Microsoft's gameplay day in Germany yesterday, but no one played it with as much skill or heart as our own Michael McWhertor. More »

More screens from the upcoming sequel to last years rally racing hit.

Ubisoft today announced the first set of tracks licensed for Michael Jackson: The Experience, the multiplatform dance-n'-sing-along game coming this holiday. Only seven cuts deep, the list was accompanied by the publisher's assurance of "many more" -- eh HEE HEE! -- songs to be revealed:

• "Bad"
• "Beat It"
• "Billie Jean"
• "Earth Song"
• "The Girl Is Mine"
• "Who Is It"
• "Workin' Day And Night"

The Wii Experience is indeed playable for the first time this week at Gamescom, but Ubisoft is focusing its marketing efforts on the company's so-called "proprietary Player Projection" technology -- sham on! -- featured in the Kinect version of the game. As it sounds, and demonstrated in the promo shot above, Player Projection superimposes the player into the game screen via the image captured by the Kinect camera. (It's not be specified whether this common effect will also be featured in the camera-equipped PlayStation Move version of the game.)

If you're hoping to avoid the rather unpleasant experience of falling flat on your face while watching yourself fall flat on your face, then you had best study up on some of MJ's dance tricks. Thankfully, the game will include -- eh hee-hee-hee -- the "Michael Jackson School" mode.

#impressions The line one of the makers of the next Call of Duty uses about the series is that these games are movies we can play. This one will be a war thriller that hides a mystery. More »

Loyalty rewards community program announced.

We're gobbling up this new Okamiden video from Gamescom, but not learning a whole lot more than we already knew. Visuals: Still adorable. Dialog: Still sounds like you force fed a schizophrenic person psychotropic mushrooms and managed to record the sound of their nightmares. Us: Still in love.

Like Fight Club but with Kinect.

Fans attending Gamescom will be the first to play the game that lets them feel the magic of The King of Pop.

#gamescom2010 In this new trailer from Gamescom, SOE lets you be a savior or destroyer of the DC Universe. More »

Release date and first details announced.

Capcom clarified today at Gamescom that the Resident Evil 5 patch that introduces Move functionality will be available on September 19 (the same day Move launches). As previously mentioned, the automatically downloaded patch will only be available for the Gold Edition of the game. If you live in Italy or Spain you didn't get a "gold edition," but Capcom is releasing Resident Evil 5: Move Edition in those countries.

A Capcom representative also let us know that folks playing together will be able to play co-op online or offline with any supported controller configurations (a Move and Navigation Controller pair can play alongside a DualShock 3, for instance). The Move controls (and all the other control options) will be available in the main story, Mercenaries and bonus episodes.

#music "Deadman's Gun" is played during one of Red Dead Redemption's more touching sequences, a lonely moment made lonelier by the gravelly vocals and sparse guitar. It's a little different, though, when played live with a string section and piano. More »

Look, we're just gonna cut to the quick on this one: Fighters Uncaged is a new fighting game for Xbox 360 Kinect and it doesn't look promising. We'll lay it out for you in bullet point format:

• It's a Kinect title due in November and we're just hearing about it now
• It's a fighting game using Kinect - see attached gallery for real-life images of people punching the air with all their might
• It has some truly terrible character design (Exhibit A and Exhibit B)
• There's a typo on the above screen: 'Exausted'
• In order to execute "super strikes" you "need to shout while unleashing your strike," says Project Manager Luc Verdier
• On Joystiq's patented "Start-to-Bandanna'd-Gangster" scale, it earns an impressive score of "0 seconds"

In fact, the only good thing we can see is that it's by a newly created developer named AMA Studios. Yeah, an unproven developer would normally be a bad sign, but get this: They're located in Belgium. You know what else is located in Belgium? Jean-Claude Van Damme. It's a country full of french fries and ass-kicking. Find the trailer after the break.

Konami Europe has picked up the rights to No More Heroes: Heroes' Paradise, the Feelplus-developed HD port of No More Heroes -- but seemingly just the PS3 version and not the Xbox 360 release. To make the news even more baffling, Konami is adding PlayStation Move support. That's right, the motion controls that were replaced in the game's transition from Wii to PS3 are back!

Both previous No More Heroes games were published in Europe by Rising Star Games, which was first a subsidiary of -- and then a content partner with -- Japanese publisher Marvelous Interactive. We're following up with Konami's American branch to find out whether Travis Touchdown will appear in HD in North America. The European release is scheduled for 2011.

Check out the latest from the Kinect game.

#pc Portal 2, delayed from a 2010 release, won't be out that far into 2011. The game will be out on February 9, according to a Tweet from the always-informed Geoff Keighley. He teases more on the game on Game Trailers TV this Friday. More »

See the DS version for the first time.

#screengrab Adorable. By jnkboy, for the 50th issue of Sweden's classy Level magazine. More »

Two more characters have joined Marvel vs. Capcom 3. Neither Viewtiful Joe nor Dormammu are strangers to alternate universes -- Joe jumped into Movieland to rescue his girlfriend Sylvia, and Dormammu is the ruler of his own Dark Dimension. For these two, suddenly being faced with a universe full of new people throwing hadoukens or whatever at them is not a big deal.

Another similarity between the two: Dormammu is primarily a Doctor Strange character (speaking of whom, we'd love to see him make an appearance in this game!) and, well, Viewtiful Joe is a strange character. Look at the size of his head!

The first screens from the new Mortal Kombat.

It seems like it was just yesterday that Ubisoft was still referring to its mysterious, Eric Chahi-led game by its working title, "Project Dust." Oh, what a difference a day makes. Introducing: From Dust, as elegantly illustrated on the above sign adorning a Ubisoft meeting room at Gamescom this morning. Perhaps the just-scribbled-in-Sharpie aesthetic was what they were going for but, in case it was an act of curious vandalism, we asked a Ubisoft press liasion who confirmed that, yes, From Dust is the official, just-announced title.

Unfortunately, the above image is the closest we've been able to get to any kind of announcement from Ubisoft so you'll just have to trust us.

More scenes from the floating city of Columbia.

For most developers, creating a game is a constant struggle between the design-based decisions of the creative team and the marketing-based decisions of the business team. Not at Quantic Dream, where David Cage's role as both CEO and lead designer means that "game design guides everything" at the company. So when Cage says "the game designer decided this, and I fully agree with it," he's actually referring to himself both times, as he pointed out at a talk at GDC Europe this week.

Cage said developing a game like Heavy Rain just wouldn't work in a more democratic development environment, where everyone on the team has equal power and the majority rules on major decisions. "When you want a strong vision, you need a vision holder, you need someone who has the final cut," Cage said.

Two modes and two maps playtested.

#ps3 Killzone 3, which is coming to the PS3 in 3D, is also sporting robust multiplayer. How robust? This robust. More »

The web-slinger returns for another action-packed experience.

Just in time for gamescom in Cologne, here’s a new trailer for SOE’s upcoming PS3 action MMO, DC Universe Online. This trailer reveals some of the over-the-top combat, as well as the powers and movement sets that players can choose from in making themselves the next great legend in the DC Universe — either as its savior or its destroyer.

DC Universe Online is scheduled to launch November 2 for the PlayStation 3. To preorder the game and get some killer in-game items, click the pre-order link at www.dcuniverseonline.com.

Four seasons, one dungeon.

Bill Roper — one of the forces behind Warcraft, StarCraft, and Diablo — defected to Cryptic Studios back in 2008 to work on Champions Online and Star Trek. He has recently stated that he's leaving Cryptic, but hasn't given specifics. More »