All Topics Gaming older than one year ago

#xbox360 When I first unpacked the Kinect, the new controller-free motion-capture system for Xbox 360, I thought how awesome it would be to play with my daughter. She's 2 1/2 (going on 14). More »

Smooth side-scrolling platformer jumps from browsers to consoles in 2011.

Sci-fi stealth action Title 'Warp' to launch on Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Network, and PC.

According to Activision's early "internal estimates," this week's launch of Call of Duty: Black Ops is the series' largest -- financially speaking -- of all time, accruing $360 million in sales thus far between the United States and the United Kingdom. Accounting for all that money is an approximate 5.6 million copies landing in customers' hands solely on November 9, compared with 4.7 million moved during last year's Modern Warfare 2 launch.

In case you needed further proof that the vast majority of the millions of Call of Duty players out there don't have any idea about that whole Infinity Ward debacle, or don't have any hangups over which studio makes the year's CoD, here it is.

Have you ever seen a couple of alligators like, totally duking it out on some nature show and thought, "Man, this would make for a pretty excellent video game?" We're right there with you -- and apparently, so is Electronic Arts. The mega-publisher has announced Wildlife: Forest Survival, a downloadable title launching next spring on XBLA and PSN, which casts players as one of four woodland creatures tasked with surviving the dangers posed by their fellow beasts.

In addition to this single-player survival mode, players can also play as one of the four animals in a 12-player multiplayer arena match. This sounds all well and good, but let's compare the four playable creatures, shall we? There's a fox, an alligator, a hawk and ... a rabbit. We really can't see how this setup could possibly be fair, unless the rabbits are packing heat. Ooh, maybe this is a Cave Story crossover! See, now we're excited.

Sci-fi stealth action Title 'Warp' to launch on Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Network, and PC.

Time to get fashionable.

PlayStation launches its first regional advertising campaign in partnership with Saatchi & Saatchi to encourage consumers to "Live in a State of Play."

Revolutionary MMORPG from 5th Planet Games and concept art house enters Open Beta today.

It seems the dead-on-the-vine action-MMO APB may get a second shot at life thanks to K2 Network, which just purchased the property for just over $2.4 million, according to GamesIndustry.biz sources. Those same sources say the game may be up and shooting again by year's end.

If you're unfamiliar with K2, the publisher makes a habit of taking in stray US and international MMOs with no place else to go. When Acclaim went belly up, for example, K2 picked up 9Dragons and carefully nursed it back to health. What we're saying, basically, is that K2 is the crazy cat lady of publishers.

Here's hoping they can do something for APB which was scarcely out of kittenhood before it was left in a cardboard box on the side of the road.

According to Activision's early "internal estimates," this week's launch of Call of Duty: Black Ops is the series' largest -- financially speaking -- of all time, accruing $360 million in sales thus far between the United States and the United Kingdom. Accounting for all that money is an approximate 5.6 million copies landing in customers' hands solely on November 9, compared with 4.7 million moved during last year's Modern Warfare 2 launch.

In case you needed further proof that the vast majority of the millions of Call of Duty players out there don't have any idea about that whole Infinity Ward debacle, or don't have any hangups over which studio makes the next year's CoD, here you go.

New title becomes the biggest entertainment launch in history.

#numbers Call of Duty: Black Ops is not just a popular game. It's a very popular game. More popular than Modern Warfare 2 was one year ago, its creators said today. More »

#industry Viacom today said they plan to sell the company behind Rock Band, Kinect's Dance Central and the original Guitar Hero. More »

#shooters The studio behind Chronicles of Riddick is working on a new "AAA title for gamers" using the technology behind upcoming titles Rage, Doom 4 and Quake, Zenimax said today. More »

#clips From "freaks with long dirty hair" and "ordinary people" to "young" and "archeologists but with computers" and "crumbs in their beards", the women of St. Petersburg, Russia tell casual game developer Nevosoft what they think game developers look like. Freaks, sure, but archeologists?! More »

Viacom has announced that it plans to sell Harmonix, developer of the Rock Band series and Dance Central. The mega-corp has reclassified the Boston-based company as a "discontinued operation" in its third-quarter financial and has already changed all future earnings to reflect the sale. The company recorded a $299 million loss in discontinued operations to reflect the change.

We followed up with Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter to help explain the "discontinued operations" situation. The analyst told Joystiq, "I am sure that the purchase price of $175 million is in there -- it would have been carried on Viacom's balance sheet as goodwill. The rest could be other operations (non-gaming), some portion of the earn out that they paid a couple of years ago, which should have been expensed, but you never know, or some portion of the development costs for games not yet released."

[Thanks, Andrew B.]

#japan This week, the 22nd Prize Fair was held in Japan. The event showcases goodies that players can win in Japanese arcades while playing crane games and their ilk. The 22nd Prize Fair? These companies must know what they're doing. They do. Let's have a look! More »

#screengrab By Dave Wilson, as seen on Rampaged Reality. More »

The promised free "Compatibility Pack" for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions of DJ Hero 2 have arrived on their respective digital stores, giving owners the ability to import DJ Hero 1's DLC into the sequel. The game's official Twitter representation announced as much today, clarifying that "some DJ Hero 2 functionality is not supported in this update," specifically listing "freestyle cross-fading, freestyle scratching, and vocals" as the main culprits.

Finally, you can once again lose yourself in the music, the moment, you own it, you better never let it go ... sorry! Got a little carried away for a moment there.

#rumor According to a report on trade site MCV, two "big-name digital retailers" for the PC market are staring down the barrel of financial ruin, while two major British retailers are reportedly considering a ban on games that include Steam integration. More »

#oddities Let's say you were on stage with Mario and Luigi during a Nintendo event at a digital entertainment fair in Helsinki. You lost the competition. Frustrated, what would you do? Dry hump Mario? More »

Here's a deal sure to bring no objections: those who pre-order Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective from Capcom Store can bundle it with the original Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney for an extra $10. The $40 bundle nets you the $30 Ghost Trick and a new copy of the out-of-print Phoenix Wright for cheaper than you'd get it pre-owned at the local gaming Pawn Star.

Phoenix Wright is currently leaving the ace attorney work to Edgeworth, as he prepares for his next big case with Professor Layton. Ghost Trick will be released on January 11.

#ds This is Glory Days, an upcoming DSiWare strategy game from Odenis. If you think it looks like renowned Nintendo series Advance Wars, you're not the only one. More »

#oddities In the West, the Xbox 360 is all about friends. Playing with buddies online, friends lists, making new pals — all of which make this Japanese Xbox Support message all the more sad. More »

The DeSoto you know could've been something very different, as this concept art from Steve Purcell's blog reveals. The image is from Sam & Max Plunge Through Time, a never-released game first announced in 2001 as an Xbox exclusive.

Australian Classification Board outs potential new Sackboy Move title.

#toys Tales of Vesperia, one of the best Japanese role-playing games of this hardware generation, now has one of the prettiest action figures of this hardware generation as well. And yes, I said pretty. More »

A rounded look at a blocky world.

#arcade First revealed at 2009's E3 gaming expo, Metal Gear Arcade is still under development. According to Konami, the game is getting one more "location test" in arcades for the general public. One more? More »