All Topics Gaming older than one year ago

Come to Festival of the Masters at Downtown Disney beginning next week and you’ll be able to see and play Disney Epic Mickey. The action-adventure game for the Wii console sends Mickey Mouse on an epic journey of creativity and discovery. As Mickey, you’re propelled into Wasteland, an alternate world made up of Disney’s forgotten [...]

#clpis Is the solution to children playing violent video games bundling Family Game Night with a machine gun, a nine-person shooter, or replacing Niko Bellic with American public radio personality Ira Glass? Watch out: He'll shoot your penis off. More »

We're not firm believers in the "any press is good press" maxim. Just ask the Xbox 360 and its Red Ring of Death which garnered many a headline -- headlines that reminded would-be consumers why they should hold off on purchasing the console. It would appear EA DICE, the developer behind the multiplayer component of Medal of Honor - the Afghanistan-based shooter in which the Taliban murders American troops - has now too learned this lesson.

"The controversy did affect some reviews," DICE's Patrick Liu told Eurogamer. "It stirs a lot of feelings, just the setting. And that does affect people's judgment." While it may have affected some people's judgment, it didn't stop the reboot from moving two million units in just two weeks; not quite Call of Duty numbers, but a healthy start. But back to those reviews: "The game is better than today's reviews are indicating," EA' s Patrick Soderlund previously told Eurogamer.

"We're also competing with ourselves," Liu continued, referring to DICE's own Battlefield series. "Obviously we're competing with Call of Duty. It's a very tricky situation to be squeezed in between those giants." He added that competing against Battlefield "can feel awkward sometimes" and, while plans aren't set for an MOH sequel, he replied both "yes and no" when asked if he'd want to work on one. "It would be cool to continue to develop the franchise. At the same time we have a lot of exciting stuff going on in DICE as well that we have been working on in parallel." We're guessing that would be: Battlefield 3, another installment in the Battlefield: Bad Company series, and Mirror's Edge 2. You are working on Mirror's Edge 2, right, DICE?

I wish I could give you guys more information on Call of Duty: Black Ops. Other than the information that came out last Friday, we really don’t know much about the game. That means that any feature relating to the title contains information that may not relate to the Wii version. With [...]

#event The Nintendo World Store (and former Pokemon Center) hosts a grand-re-opening on Sunday — several days after re-opening — in New York City. They're having a 25th anniversary party for Super Mario Bros., with the promise of Super Mario cake. More »

November release looking more likely.

Filed under: Podcasts It's a return to old favorites on the Joystiq Podcast. Not only does the Big Three make an unprecedented return, but The Big Deal is back too, this week with a focus on Kinect. Plus there's more Vanquish, Castlevania and so much more.

Thanks to Alan Black for this thoroughly centrist photoshop.

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Hosts: Justin McElroy (@justinmcelroy), Ludwig Kietzmann (@ludwigk) and Chris Grant (@chrisgrant)
Music: "Gravity (Don't Let Me Go)" by Jon Black, "Like a Hitman, Like a Dancer" by A.C. Newman
For fans: Joystiq Podcast Facebook group
New to the show?: Listen to Episode Zero
The Do It Line!: 1-(877)-JOYSTIQ

See all of this week's links after the jump.

Internal playable prototype already completed. Sequel coming after Dead or Alive Dimensions.

PlayStation 3 owners get the latest Musou in HD and running at 60 frames per second.

As you can see, this blog post from Itoi reveals that he owns one of the very hard-to-find Earthbound rulers out there. I don’t think he’ll be giving this up anytime soon!

#clips Let's say for some odd reason you want to have both your Xbox 360 Kinect on and your Wii? Why? I haven't a clue, but if you did, would the two systems, which both use infrared, interfere with one another? More »

BioWare co-founders Dr. Greg Zeschuk and Dr. Ray Muzyka have their fingers in a lot of pies (which are made of giant RPGs) -- in a recent interview with Eurogamer, the duo explained how the developer's attention is split across its catalog of franchises. On the subject of Dragon Age 2, the Doctors explained that they're focusing on expanding the universe they've created, rather than telling a chronological story. "It's probably fair to say it's less precise than the Mass Effect trilogy concept," Zeschuk explained.

Speaking of BioWare's spacefaring RPG, Muzyka explained, "We're still working on stuff in the Mass Effect universe actively," with Zeschuk adding, "We have a pretty long DLC plan for Mass. We're still doing lots of stuff there." The Doctors also addressed their tremendously costly MMO Star Wars: The Old Republic, with Muzyka saying "It's a big bet, but it's the right kind of bet to make for EA," and Zeschuk adding "Hey, entertainment's risky by nature." That's certainly true -- just ask The Adventures of Pluto Nash.

Check out the full interview for more of the Doctors' insights on BioWare's upcoming projects.

Keyboard parts playable with five-button guitar controllers.

Every generation has a beginning.

Every generation has a beginning.

Online Beta news
Its been a while since our last Community Update, and the select few invited to our early phases of the online beta has been going wild. Check out some of the new games/levels they’ve made:

MUST SEE – SackFighter Dogfight by Raphaei

Danse Macabre by IceMaiden

Pegged by Chimpanzee

We have a few more phases of the beta planned so if you’re longing to get on the beta stay tuned, and we’ll let you know where to go to get them.

Quick Tweets (Courtesy of LittleBigPlanet Twitter)

Giant Sackboys to feature in the 106th Annual Santa Claus Parade in Toronto on the 21st Nov! – http://bit.ly/cV9wMIless than a minute ago via EchofonLittleBigPlanet
LittleBigPlanet

RT @OPM_UK: Great video of EuroGamer LBP2 Dev session: http://bit.ly/boLE8Gless than a minute ago via TweetDeckLittleBigPlanet
LittleBigPlanet

Let your imagination run wild with our preview of LittleBigPlanet 2! http://bit.ly/bim5p8less than a minute ago via NXT GamerNXT Gamer
NXTGamer

RT: @emogotsaone: I made sackboy out of 400+ pinecones! http://j.mp/d9J2Xkless than a minute ago via Twitter for iPhoneLittleBigPlanet
LittleBigPlanet

Community Contributions
We <3 our fans! And we even have more <3s for fans who love our fans! Check out the latest community activity sharing activities below.

• New Creator Spotlight at LBPCental.com – Nuclearfish
• LBPGalaxy’s useful tricks: Logic tools
• LBPCreateGuide

Amazon handed out $10 credits and, just this week, offered Marvel vs. Capcom 3 for half-off to customers who pre-ordered Dead Rising 2 on Xbox 360 -- all because the retailer couldn't deliver promised Avatar bonus outfits.

Now, Amazon is delivering the Avatar duds.

Two readers have written in to tell us that they've received emails from Amazon, containing the codes for the Dead Rising 2-themed Avatar jackets and Servbot heads originally promised with pre-orders of the game. So if you see one of your friends' Avatars wearing a giant Servbot face, you can be sure their real face will be holding a similar expression, after having just been customer served.

[Thanks Andrew and Colt!]

#life Chris Crawford, whose lifelong dream has been to master the creation of interactive storytelling, turned 60 in late June. He moved the final red bead, the ones marking each day of his fifth decade, to the jar on the left. More »

ZeniMax Media -- parent company to Bethesda Softworks, id Software and, most recently, Tango Gameworks -- has been on an acquisition spree as of late. Today is no exception, as Develop uncovered business records revealing the recent purchase of Swedish developer Machinegames (ex-Starbreeze) after seeing tweets from an alleged anonymous industry insider's Twitter account. The company has seen brand renaming to "ZeniMax Sweden AB," which is way less exciting of a name than Machinegames.

Little is known about the acquisition, or what (if any) games Machinegames had in development before being purchased, though Machinegames' website describes the studio as "a developer of exciting AAA titles for next-gen platforms."

#science Video gamers' desire for more realistic graphics has produced more than just flashy new games; just ask a computational chemist. More »

- free birthday gift - Pokemon Black/White - any Pokemon Center - bring your game to get a Tabunne with a “birthday ribbon” included - you can also get a free sticker and a free Pokemon card game “jumbo” card - two coupons: 800 yen off Pokemon Black or White (you may buy both for a double discount) or 10% [...]