New Modern Warefare 2 Trailer
Xbox owners have something to be excited about.
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Duke Nukem Dead, Forever?
Former 3D Realms employee Bryan Brewer has revealed a video clip of gameplay action at his personal website. You can check it out below:
Following on from the recent and sad news that Duke Nukem creators 3D realms have closed, it has been speculated that Microsoft are planning to buy out the company and release further titles exclusively on Xbox 360. The BitBag have brought up a few interesting facts for gamers to ponder about. The first is about Microsoft and how they gained rights to publish Duke Nukem 3D exclusively on Xbox Live. It wasn’t a straight port either as they offered new content while adding online deathmatch support. Then they state that on May 6th, the 3D Realms website went down, only to come straight back up a day later. This has led to speculation that Microsoft have purchased 3D Realms and that they might have something big to announce at E3 next month. – from here
It’s been a sad couple of days for Duke Nukem developer 3D Realms. Last week, it was rumored and then confirmed that the long-standing PC shooter developer had been shut down, throwing the likelihood of gamers ever seeing Duke Nukem Forever materialize into something playable down the toilet. A few days after the proverbial end of the company, 3D Realms’ Bryan Brewer apparently posted some new leaked footage of Duke Nukem Forever to YouTube. – from Gamespy
Apple ups ante for iPhone gaming – hires XBOX exec
Anybody who said Apple wasn’t serious about gaming can swallow their pundit nuggets right now: They just hired Richard Teversham, Xbox Europe’s (now former) senior director of business, insights and strategy. It’s especially interesting when you take into consideration Apple’s other recent major hire, ATI’s former graphics CTO, the guy who designed the GameCube’s graphics card. For the love of all that is holy and Jobsian, however, it doesn’t mean they’re going to make a MacBoxStationCube 1080—the iPhone (and maybe that tablet/pad thing) is Apple’s gaming platform. 15 of the top 20 paid apps of all time are games. There are over 9,000 games in the App Store. And there are 37 million iPod touches and iPhone out there—still below the PSP’s 50 million and the DS’s 100 million, but consider these are consoles that have been out at least twice as long as the iPhone platform. – From Gizmodo
New Wallace & Gromit Game Released Today, Reviewed
The first in a series of games based on the popular Wallace & Gromit cartoon has been released today for both PC and XBox Live Arcade. The game captures all the style and charm of the cartoon, as players adventure through Wallace & Gromit’s quaint English town, solving puzzles and getting into trouble.
From the review at zmogo:
Based on the innocent and entertaining animated claymation shorts from Aardman Animation, Fright of the Bumblebees is the first in series of episodic games released by Telltale Games. For those that aren’t familiar, W&G is an animated show about Wallace, a bumbling, air-headed inventor of ridiculous contraptions, and Gromit, the dog who begrudgingly puts up with Wallace’s hair-brained schemes and does his best to keep his owner out of trouble.
Like all Telltale fare, such as the Sam & Max series and the Strongbad games, W&G is an old-school adventure game in which you collect items and use them to solve puzzles. For some reason this style of gaming has fallen out of favour since its heyday almost two decades ago, but Telltale is looking to bring it back into the mainstream. And more power to them I say; it’s always bewildered me that adventure games went out of style so badly, and I believe the adventure game genre is one in great need of a revival.
And with W&G, Telltale Games have done a fine job at bringing back this classic style of gameplay. Like any good point-and-click-style adventure game, W&G gives you a problem to solve and a few seemingly useless items, and forces you to put on your thinking cap and come up with a creative solution to the unlikely problems you are faced with.
Halo Wars tops 1 million sale mark
Proving once again the branding power of the Halo series, Microsoft has announced that in the roughly two weeks it’s been on store shelves, Halo Wars has sold more than 1 million copies. It won’t unseat the blockbuster sales of Halo 3, but Microsoft claims the strategy game’s brisk sales make it the “best selling real-time strategy game on any current generation console.” Though Halo Wars creator Ensemble Studios was dissolved by Microsoft, the publisher says it is working alongside Robot Entertainment — a studio formed by Ensemble veterans — to craft new content for Halo Wars, presumably to be released as downloadable content. – From Wired
Xbox Live Bans Lesbian Gamer, Microsoft Apologizes
I find this a riot — people were offended by a profile. What retards.
The Xbox Live banning of a lesbian gamer who self-identified her sexuality created a huge furor on Thursday, prompting Microsoft to characterize its own banning policies as “inelegant.” After identifying herself as a homosexual in her Xbox Live profile, the woman was repeatedly harassed by other players, before Microsoft suspended her account, saying that other gamers found her lesbianism offensive. Microsoft has confirmed that their policy bars “the expression of relationship preference in Gamertag profiles and tags, whether that’s heterosexual or other,” though Stephen Toulouse, Xbox Live program manager for policy and enforcement told MTV that Microsoft is “looking into that policy.” – From Wired
Prototype Trailer
Activision’s forthcoming Prototype is an awe-inspiring free-roaming action adventure in which players can unleash unlimited mayhem.
Halo Wars Screen Shots, Reviews, Trailer
On March 3, Microsoft will release the latest Halo game. Halo Wars, available only for Xbox, can be played by multiple people using the recently-launched Xbox Experience. This should be a massive hit for Microsoft and will fill the coffers big time.
Reviews are starting to litter the Web, here’s an in depth one.
Watch the Halo Wars Trailer:
| Halo Wars – Call to Battle trailer |
Gaming sales out for January – Nintendo rules
January sales are in, and Sony is getting smashed by Nintendo in hardware sales. Microsoft’s sales were respectable, plus software sales were very good. Sony is just getting smacked.
Here are some numbers:
Wii – 679,200
Nintendo DS – 510,800
Xbox 360 – 309,000
PlayStation 3 – 203,200
PSP – 172,300
PlayStation 2 – 101,200
Software does well for both Nintendo and Xbox, with the two systems holding all top 10 slots:
Wii Fit (Nintendo, Wii) – 777,000 units
Wii Play (Nintendo, Wii) – 415,000
Mario Kart Wii (Nintendo, Wii) – 292,000
Left 4 Dead (Valve/EA, Xbox 360) – 243,000
Call of Duty: World at War (Treyarch/Activision, Xbox 360) – 235,000
Skate 2 (EA Black Box/EA, Xbox 360) – 199,000
Guitar Hero: World Tour (Neversoft/Activision, Wii) – 155,000
New Super Mario Bros. (Nintendo, NDS) – 135,000
Mario Kart DS (Nintendo, NDS) – 132,000
Lord of the Rings: Conquest (Pandemic/EA, Xbox 360) – 113,00
The amazing thing is that the Wii Fit sells for $90, meaning upwards of $70 million at retail. Two years after the Wii was introduced, it’s showing amazing legs and still attracting new gamers.
9 XBox Live Arcade Games to Watch For This Year
Zmogo.com has an article up about nine XBox Live Arcade games to look out for this year.
With titles like Braid and Castle Crashers hitting it big last year, one of these games could be this year’s big thing.
From the article:
Nine XBox Live Arcade Games to Watch For This Year
There’s no denying that the videogame industry is becoming a powerhouse, and with that we are seeing more high-budget, blockbuster games coming from massive developers than ever before.
But what about the smaller games, from smaller developers? The games with charm and style and character? The games that take risks and experiment with gameplay styles that big developers might be unwilling to try?
Luckily, with the seemingly unstoppable growth of the industry is coming something of a renaissance for indie-style gaming; online gaming portals like XBLA are not only giving us a way to get the little guys’ games easily, but they’re also giving those smaller developers a way to make a living of their games, by harnessing the profit-making potential of the throngs of console gamers out there.
The result is that some of the smartest, most exciting, most experimental, and most interesting games are making their way to the mainstream. So without further ado, here are nine of those games!
BOUNCE (Tentative title) (Strawdog Studios)
Not a lot is known about the tentatively titled Bounce, other then that it may have cute little cartoon animals in it and may also involve bouncing.
What we do know for sure is that it’s from the same developers as Geon, which is described on its XBox Arcade profile page as a “fast-paced abstract sports game that lets you explore your emotions as you compete against opponents.”
Sound weird? Well, it is. But it’s also a lot of fun. With Geon, Strawdog Studios made a game with the simple gameplay and charm of old-school classics like Pacman or Marble Madness while managing to keep it relevant to today’s gamers. It’s safe to say we can expect some of the same entertaining, frenetic, off-the-wall interpretations of classic arcade-style play in Bounce, which is definitely a good thing.
Why the Wii and Xbox are killing Sony’s PS3
For most of this year, Sony Corp.’s PlayStation 3 videogame console seemed finally to be taking off after a slow start. The PS3, trailing Nintendo Co.’s Wii and Microsoft Corp.’s Xbox 360 consoles, was closing in on the No. 2 Xbox 360, with new games and quarterly sales growth at twice the speed of last year. But early results from this holiday season aren’t promising. U.S. sales of the PS3 fell 19% last month from a year earlier, while sales doubled for the Wii console and rose 8% for the Xbox 360, according to research firm NPD. Analysts say they expect PS3 sales for this month to be flat or lower than last year, while sales for its rivals are likely to rise. And Sony may not reach its goal of selling 10 million PS3 consoles in the fiscal year through March, analysts say. – From Wall Street Journal
So, what are some of the main issues with the PS3? It’s overpriced. Microsoft dropped prices on the Xbox 360 to gain market share, and it worked. Sony is intent on becoming profitable (the right motive) but is doing so at the sake of building momentum. A console that starts at $400 (with only one controller and usually zero games) puts you over $500 before it’s much fun. According to the WSJ article, “U.S. sales of the PS3 fell 19 percent last month from a year earlier, while sales doubled for the Wii console and rose 8 percent for the Xbox 360, according to research firm NPD Group. Analysts say they expect PS3 sales for this month to be flat or lower than last year, while sales for its rivals are likely to rise.” Lack of exclusive games. It’s gotten much harder to find compelling games that are only available on PS3, a strategy that has been very successful in the past. – From CNET.com
Wireless Controller Helps Recover Stolen 360
A Missouri State student was able to recover his stolen Xbox 360 by use of the console’s wireless technology, the student said. The console unit’s wireless controller was still registered to the specific console, allowing the stolen merchandise to be tracked down, said Ryan Ketsenburg, a sophomore construction management major. – from the Standard
Xbox Live Christmas Crash Won’t Happen Again – Right
With Microsoft sporting a cheaper console and the need to upgrade all new Xbox 360s to the New Xbox Experience come Christmas morning, it seems that a repeat of last year's Live crash is imminent.
Not so, says Aaron Greenberg, group product manager for Xbox 360.
“We’ve built a lot of infrastructure, a lot of behind the curtain no one sees,” he said. “This is something that Microsoft is good at.
“We are well prepared for the type of growth we expect this holiday.”
via Xbox Live: Xbox Live Christmas Crash Won’t Happen Again.