All Topics Gaming older than one year ago

You know how sometimes people go "away" for the summer, and then when they come back they look ... totally different? Well, Major Nelson's Xbox Live Avatar didn't go anywhere but has seemingly undergone one such full body makeover -- as evidenced by the above comparison between the bobble-headed likeness (via Xbox Avatar Life) we had come to associate with the Xbox Live director of programming and his current Avatar. It would appear that Major's Avatar and perhaps other "VIP" Avatars are the (beta) test subjects in a forthcoming effort to transform the currently cartoonish Avatars into -- to put it candidly -- virtual figures that would look a lot less goofy in a motion-controlled sports game.

Recently, Rare senior programmer Nick Burton told OXM UK that Xbox Live Avatars would be proportionally redesigned to better connect the physical movements of Kinect players to their on-screen Avatars. Presumably, this "Avatar 2.0" update would occur in time for Kinect's November 4 launch and possibly as part of the expected, annual fall update of the Xbox 360 UI. The new trimmer Avatars are visible in Rare's Kinect Sports screenshots below.

If you're a single male hoping to have some casual sex with a large group of PAX attendees you have, tragically, waited too long. Couples, on the other hand, are still encouraged to break out the Mana-brand personal lubricant, head over to Craigslist and start the revolution.

The Big N's biggest stars -- and a WiiWare surprise -- are fronting at PAX.

The Big N's biggest stars -- and a WiiWare surprise -- are fronting at PAX.

You want more Joe Danger levels, right? Why not get some more multiplayer levels, too? And level editing props? How about support for replays and uploading them to YouTube? You want custom soundtracks? Costumes? Level sharing? Okay, you're getting all of that ... right now.

Hello Games has released a "People's Patch" for their PSN game which adds all of these features, and more. Best of all, all you have to do is launch the game to download the patch. This isn't premium DLC you have to pay for! However, this is but the beginning of future updates for the game. Sean Murray teases on the PlayStation.Blog that "we're also working on much larger packs with new props and game modes. So keep an eye out for those."

Come play the latest from Sony and hang out with our editors.

During Comic-Con a few weeks ago, IGN’s Greg Miller asked me if I had my PSP and Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker with me. As it turns out, I did. Greg, a dude named Dennis Miller (not *that* Dennis Miller), and I then proceeded to take down Metal Gear Rex in an intense co-op match. Oh yeah, this was in the middle of G4’s party.

In that moment, an idea was born.

A few days later, Greg asked if I was interested in getting a bunch of Peace Walker fans together to tackle the hardest levels – the ones that are best handled cooperatively. Sounded good to me. As we began to plan it, we realized that such a group is already going to assemble… next week at Penny Arcade Expo.

So here we are, doing this thing, and you’re invited. We’re renting out Top Pot Donuts in downtown Seattle next Thursday evening and will fill it with new and upcoming PSP games such as Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep, Valkyria Chronicles II, Split/Second, and God of War: Ghost of Sparta.

Also, we have ordered 34 dozen donuts. They’re tasty. Very tasty.

While it’ll no doubt be fun to try out those games, we also strongly encourage you to bring your own PSP for friendly competitive or cooperative matches in games like Hot Shots Tennis, SOCOM Fireteam Bravo 3, and, of course, MGS: Peace Walker. We’ll even lend you a copy if you wanna jump in but don’t already have one.

Are you sold on this yet? Wait, there’s more!

As you sample the games, we’ll be keeping track of the best players, and the top performers will get a special behind-the-scenes tour of our media-only area, where you’ll be able to check out games that won’t be on the show floor like inFAMOUS 2 and the recently announced Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One.

And every attendee will walk out with a voucher to download the demo for God of War: Ghost of Sparta – before anyone else gets to play it. Please tell me this is reason enough to attend.

Still want more? Ok, I’ll give: Greg Miller will autograph your bare chest if you ask politely.

Here’s what you need to know:

• Thursday, September 2, 2010
• Top Pot Donuts (2124 5th Ave., 
Seattle, WA 98121)


• Time: 7:30 – 9:30 p.m.
• RSVP here

RSVP today, and don’t forget to bring your appetite for fried dough – we’ve got 408 donuts and we’re going to make Rey eat any leftovers.

I don’t know if this is just me, but I never thought of Mario’s finger flashing as the peace sign. I always thought it made more sense as the victory sign. Which side of the fence are you on?

#screens Earlier today we told you that the next big Castlevania game might remind you, from time to time, of Shadow of the Colossus or Uncharted. These screens show why: More »

You know, we never thought that our joke about New Orleans' heat (well, fake New Orleans) would hold much water in the reasoning behind Cole's new, jacket-less look in inFamous 2, but it turns out that's a big part of the logic. "New Marais is a city in the south: it's hot, it's humid, there's no way he can keep his leather jacket on, not for 10 minutes. So one of the decisions was to remove the jacket and put him in a T-shirt," Sucker Punch art director Mathias Lorenz said in a recent interview. Another factor, Lorenz says, was the addition of more complex parkour to inFamous 2. "I wanted to show off his body more rather than have his jacket hide his muscles," Lorenz explained.

Alongside the fresh moves, Sucker Punch enlisted the help of a new voice actor who could also do motion capture work for the sequel's 3D cutscenes. Thusly, to make the voiceover work appear more natural, the new look also reflected that voice actor's real-life looks. As we already heard, however, the decision after E3 was to revert Cole almost entirely back to his original, messenger bag-toting form. But why? "When we revealed Cole at E3 2010, we were taken aback by the uproar of fan support for the original Cole," Lorenz says. Though the folks at Sucker Punch weren't expecting such a backlash, "we listened to our fans and went back and took the best of everything to end up with the design we have settled on now." And there you have it -- don't go asking for the jacket to come back, though. It's simply too hot.

A portion of a Dtoid review… If I assume that this is one of the better G.G Series titles, my earlier suspicions that these games are better suited for a collection format are justified. Ninja Karakuri Den is too short and suffers from a dearth of content, yet it’s enjoyable and cheap enough to just barely, [...]

German magazine Maniac has dished out its review to Metroid: Other M, and I don’t think the review score is as high as most people were hoping for. I don’t know how much credit you put into Maniac, but they’ve scored the game at 73%. We don’t have details on the review itself [...]

#tradeins After telling you about Best Buy's new trade-in program this morning, Target dropped us a line to let us know that their new electronics trade-in program will handle game trade-ins as well. Is anyone not offering game trade-ins? More »

CESA, the group responsible for planning the annual Tokyo Game Show, has announced the parties responsible for delivering one of the event's two main keynotes on its opening day, September 16. Microsoft entertainment exec Takashi Sensui and Microsoft Game Studio vice president Phil Spencer will take the stage as TGS 2010 kicks off, delivering a speech titled "Xbox 360's Vision and 2010's Strategy." We can only hope this means we'll get to see Spencer break out into a full-blown Kinect rave.

Sony's Kaz Hirai delivered a similar presentation during last year's festivities, one which was chock-full of news about PlayStation Move and the PSP Go. Hopefully, Microsoft's speech will be equally rife with hot scoops.

This person seems to be playing through the full game and uploading it to YouTube. If you want to see what awaits beyond these 4 videos, keep tabs on the YouTube account! Thanks to Johnny4 for the heads up!

How about a 4-part episodic adventure/puzzle game for DSiWare with a striking visual style? That would be Uacari’s ‘Blackwire’, which they’re hoping to get out late September. Check out the Google-translated synopsis below. 1954. While the race to the moon rages between the major powers and the existence of little green men, stirs the [...]

Nintendo - $34,959m Other PC/Console (w/out Nintendo)

#industry Thirty-eight people were laid off today from Red Storm Entertainment, the Ubisoft-owned studio co-founded by Tom Clancy and best known for the Ghost Recon franchise. More »

At this moment, in this wibbly-wobbly dimension we know as time, LA Noire is still officially expected to launch sometime in the next two months. Given that we haven't seen the game beyond some magazine mentions earlier this year, the release can be considered in doubt -- or the game's stewards are preparing to pull off the greatest blindside launch in this industry's history. Checking in with Rockstar, a representative told us, "We have not updated anything since the last [Take-Two] investor's call."

Amazon and GameStop currently list the game with a February 1, 2011 release date. Rockstar parent company Take-Two is scheduled to report its quarterly financial results next Thursday and will likely update its release schedule then with the anticipated LA Noire delay -- you know, barring that whole blindside possibility.

Is this going to kick the Virtual Boy homebrew scene into overdrive? Is there really a Virtual Boy homebrew scene?! If there wasn’t much of one before, this Flashboy Plus might do the trick. I’d love to see what 3D games basement devs could pull off!

There’s nothing quite like video game magazines. There was a time when the game magazine was your main source of information on upcoming games, as well as reviews and other tidbits. Today, we live in an age where you can get any and all the game info you want at the click of [...]

A portion of an Infendo review… Other M is a weird game. I don’t see it appealing to anyone other than hardcore Metroid fans. Also, I’m not sure the hardcore Metroid fans will enjoy Other M like some of the other games in the series. Some will, but I think the flaws in the game are [...]

Is it time for me to give Aero the Acro-Bat another chance? I remember renting this game back in the day, and I really wasn’t impressed. I just didn’t find the character, locations or gameplay to be engaging. I remember growing bored pretty quickly, but I stuck with it for awhile. [...]

Metroid II was the first Metroid game that I actually finished. It was the reason I went back to the original and completed that one as well. Metroid II isn’t the best Metroid game in the series, but it’s pretty amazing when you consider that it was pulled off on the Game Boy. [...]

#clips In this vignette from Warner Bros Interactive we see the "awesome co-op action" available in the Wii and PS3 versions of The Lord of the Rings: Aragorn's Quest. More »