All Topics Gaming older than one year ago

Team comprised of former Metropolis Software/CD Projekt developers focusing on high-value, high-quality, digitally-distributed titles.

There comes a time in all great directors' careers when they must choose between not another sequel, a video game adaptation and, in recent years, the almost-always-panned (but-oh-so-high-grossing) "reboot." Sam Raimi has apparently gone with Plan D: Disney's Wizard of Oz 3D prequel, reports Deadline.com. In making his choice, Raimi seemingly puts off directing the World of Warcraft movie, to which he's been officially attached since last summer (he abandoned "Spider-Man 4" long ago).

While Legendary Pictures, which owns the WoW movie rights, has yet to reveal its next move, we have to imagine the studio is now in hot pursuit of David Fincher. After all, the director has been heavily applauded for his adaptation of the "Facebook story" and would seem a likely candidate to depict the dramatic significance of a billion-dollar fantasy sustained by socialized grinding.

Wait -- you mean it's supposed to be a live-action Warcraft universe movie? Like with orcs and elves and things? Yeah, we'd totally pick Oz, too.

Spartan Army! The wait for God of War: Ghost of Sparta is almost over. We are less than four weeks away from launch, and we truly saved our best for the very last. Check out our latest “Origins” trailer as it will provide a glimpse of Kratos’s endless nightmares that continues to haunt him. Be sure to watch the entire trailer all the way through as there’s a surprise ending message.

(In case you missed the surprise message at the end, read on!)

For a limited time ONLY, all Specially Marked Boxes of Ghost of War: Ghost of Sparta will include an exclusive downloadable voucher for the Deimos Skin for God of War III.

Re-live the God of War III experience like never before as you get to play as Kratos’s brother Deimos. With enhanced combat damage and the ability to receive 4x the amount of Health, Magic and God Orbs, you are given the ultimate rage-fueled Spartan.

For those that are planning to get the God of War: Ghost of Sparta Entertainment Pack, don’t worry. All the limited two-tone Entertainment Packs will include the downloadable voucher for the Deimos Skin PSPgo owners, similar to the Ultimate Pre-Order bundle, you will be granted with the Deimos Skin during the limited purchase window through the PS Store from November 2nd to November 9th.

So if you haven’t pre-ordered, be sure to do it soon as both the Six-Item Pre-Order Bundle and Deimos Skin are available for only a limited time!

Every End Must First Begin

#clips War never changes, but the players definitely do. Which of Fallout: New Vega's three factions will you cast your lot with? More »

Ladies and gentlemen! Today I would like to confirm that Dead Nation does indeed feature online co-op play! You will be able to team up with your friends either sharing the same couch or via the PlayStation Network against the undead invasion and start blasting thousands of zombies into pieces and piling up the bodies. All of this and much more is included in Dead Nation, check out the Know Your Enemy trailer.

Originally, online co-op wasn’t going to be included as a launch feature, as the schedule and resources didn’t allow it. However, after many late night play testing sessions and long talks with Sony Computer Entertainment, we decided that this was a must-have feature and it would be unfair to you if we launched without it! At this point, our coders went from working 12 hour days to working 16 hour days as well as weekends! Fortunately I think what we came up works really well. Check out these new co-op screenshots and see for yourself!

The online co-op fully matches the offline experience. Enjoy the full co-op experience with hundreds of on-screen zombies, huge explosions, blowing up zombies into a plethora of pieces and bloody entrails scattered around.

In addition to the coders working non-stop, the designers and artists felt it was only fair to throw themselves into the mix and created big gameplay levels with tons of replay value, adding weapon upgrade system and cool weapons to bring a new tactical dimension to the gameplay.

Dead Nation will be released exclusively on PSN. Watch this space for further info!

Surprising revelations from the latest Iwata Asks column.

#xbox360 New weapons, new maps, new characters. Gears of War 3 has them all. More »

Paradox Interactive publishes independently developed Europa Engine project.

Share your love of racing games on Facebook.

Cohort Studios' on-rails, movie-set shooter -- called, you know, The Shoot -- will be available to add to your burgeoning PlayStation Move software collection on October 19. What's even more exciting? On the same day, you'll be able to pick up the PlayStation Move Shooting Attachment, thw peripheral that makes your Move controller look like a totally sweet, Earthworm Jim-esque ray gun.

The Shoot will retail for $39.99, while the Shooting Attachment will cost $19.99. We think that's a pretty fair price for a peripheral that makes it feel like you're actually shooting a gun as opposed to casting spells with the most magical wand -- an important distinction, we think, for a game titled The Shoot.

Pokemon Black & White Get Special DS Systems in Japan

#protest With Supreme Court arguments over the California game law beginning next month, the Video Game Voters Network has devised a way of showing the law's author Senator Leland Yee your support for the First Amendment: Mail him your used controllers. More »

A refined experience.

Blizzard continues to print money.

Stop by to see the PlayStation Move in action on Saturday, Oct. 9 when nearly 370 GameStop stores nationwide will be demonstrating two exciting PlayStation Move games: Sports Champions and EyePet. Learn more about Sony's motion technology and try your hand at an array of competitive sporting events or caring for a virtual EyePet.

#blizzard In October of 2008, Blizzard proudly counted 11 million World of Warcraft subscribers worldwide. In December 2008 the number jumped to 11.5. Now Blizzard updates the count to 12 million, 22 months later. What took so long? More »

ZeniMax Media, parent company of Bethesda Game Studios (Fallout 3, Oblivion) and id Software (DOOM, RAGE), has received a $150 million investment by Providence Equity Partners. This is a "supplement" to an earlier investment of $300 million by the firm, made back in October of 2007.

The money will be used to make games (duh), expand publishing operations (figured), and strategic acquisitions (... interesting). Since Providence's previous investment, ZeniMax re-established the Fallout franchise in the console space and purchased id Software. Along with obtaining several hallowed franchises from the id acquisition, the company also nabbed John Carmack's technical expertise, which now grants Bethesda-published games exclusive use of id Tech 5.

Farm sim meets dungeon crawler.

Ubisoft uploaded a new trailer for Bloody Good Time last week. The trailer is mostly comprised of footage from another trailer, though some gameplay has been stitched onto the end. It also confirms an October 27 release for the violent, cartoonish first-person shooter.

Europe will be able to play Super Mario All-Stars on the Wii -- and, perhaps more importantly, collect some new Mario stuff -- on December 3. Nintendo of Europe announced plans today to release Super Mario All-Stars: 25th Anniversary in the region, in a deluxe package similar to the Super Mario Collection Special Pack coming out in Japan this month.

The new Wii package includes Super Mario All-Stars (SNES versions of Super Mario Bros. 1-3 and The Lost Levels), a history booklet, and a CD with selections from throughout the series, through Super Mario Galaxy 2.

With all the special edition items in Japan and this in Europe, we in North America feel left out of the festivities. We're checking with Nintendo of America about potential release plans for the collection here.

#screengrab 3.5 micron-wide "nano Pac-Man" (actually a re-colored copper oxide cluster) seen by an Italian researcher; image spotted by us during an inspiration to investigate the unrelated news of a Pac-Man that must be played while viewed through a microscope. More »

Blizzard today announced that WoW has topped 12 million subscribers, following the Wrath of the Lich King expansion launch in mainland China just over a month ago and in anticipation of the third expansion, Cataclysm, coming this holiday worldwide.

For a time, it seemed as though World of Warcraft's subscriber base was well on its way to 20 million -- somewhere in the ballpark of Australia's total population. Then, in December 2008, the game reached 11.5 million subscribers, and six months later, the number hadn't changed. It appeared the world's most popular subscription-based MMO had reached its cap.

When Cataclysm is released on December 7, World of Warcraft will have passed its sixth year in operation. And with 12 million-plus paying players? Wow.

#nycc Marvel and Activision today unveiled a new game coming to consoles next fall that casts players as new mutant recruits. More »

Capcom sent out some new media for the upcoming DS adventure Okamiden, the scaled-down sequel to the PS2/Wii game Okami, starring the scaled-down descendant of that game's heroine. Nice how that works out, isn't it? One aspect that isn't scaled down is Chibiterasu's arsenal. The Celestial Brush allows you to restore life to dead things, repair broken bridges and other objects, and even summon cherry bombs with a line-art bomb shape, as seen in the video.

The artwork in our gallery includes two adorable new celestial deities, and a new partner for Chibiterasu, child actor Kagu.

#news Gears of War 3 is getting a public beta early next year, Epic Games revealed at an event this week at their studio. More »

While you will have to wait an extra five months to get the full version of Gears of War 3 at retail, Epic Games is offering up a concession in the form of a free multiplayer public beta. You'll be able to check out the new multiplayer well before the game ships, although Epic has not released the exact date yet. And the extra development time will allow the developer to take full advantage of feedback from players and implement that information into the final version of the game.

"A big part of what we're trying to do is embrace the different play styles that people have, so this public beta is going to be a very big chance for us to throw it out in the wild and see how well we've met the needs of what players want in order to use different tactics," said Lee Perry, senior gameplay designer, Epic Games.

Epic held an open house, showing off its newly expanded digs in Cary, North Carolina and offering a first taste and hands-on gameplay with a trio of multiplayer maps - Checkout, Trenches and Overpass. Each map showcases a different aspect of gameplay strategy: Checkout is set inside a large market; Trenches is a map focused on trench warfare that has a large hill at its central point that leads to a very powerful sniper position; Overpass is a section of street with buildings on one side and a bus stop on the other with a large overpass dividing the two sides of the road.

Who said delays weren't good for something? In an effort to fill the intervening months between Gears of War 3's one-time April 2011 release and its new "holiday season" 2011 release, publisher Microsoft issued the following terse announcement: "We plan to host a public multiplayer beta for Gears of War 3 in 2011 featuring dedicated servers." With all that extra development time between release and the beta, Epic should be able to implement feedback from gamers into the final boxed product.

We don't have many other details regarding the beta, but we do have a preview of the game's multiplayer component, in which lead level designer Jim Brown told us that dedicated servers should level the playing field for gamers and help the dev circumvent the issues Gears of War 2 experienced at launch.

Our development teams have been hard at work creating new motion-control experiences for the PS3 and I’m excited to share that the latest PlayStation Move exclusive is blasting its way onto the scene later this month.

I’m proud to announce that the official North American release date for The Shoot is October 19!

In just a few weeks, The Shoot will cast you as the ultimate action-movie hero. Using the PlayStation Move motion controller, you’ll be able to blast through five action-packed movie sets in this over-the-top arcade shooter. Impress the director with your accuracy by building up combos to activate special powers that will help you take down targets and inflict maximum destruction in your scenes.

Take your experience to the next level by picking up the Shooting Attachment at the same time as The Shoot. Specially designed for arcade-style shooting games, the Shooting Attachment lets you hold your motion controller like a pistol to allow for more intuitive target shooting. Just snap in your motion controller, take aim and get ready for an even more immersive gaming experience.

Be sure to check out The Shoot and the Shooting Attachment when they hit stores later this month, and show us if you have what it takes to be an action movie star!

New weapons, new modes, and a whole lot of bombshells.