March 6th, 2010 by Daren Baldock
In this installment, the Bad Company crew again find themselves in the heart of the action, where they must use every weapon and vehicle at their disposal to survive. In Battlefield: Bad Company 2, the ‘B’ company fight their way through snowy mountaintops, dense jungles and dusty villages. With a heavy arsenal of deadly weapons and a slew of vehicles to aid them, the crew set off on their mission and they are ready to blow up, shoot down, blast through, wipe out and utterly destroy anything that gets in their way. Total destruction is the name of the game, delivered as only the DICE next generation Frostbite engine can.
Here’s a selection of reviews.
1UP (A-):
“Though it occasionally stumbles, there’s one thing that Bad Company 2 clearly demonstrates: DICE has graduated from the “can only do a multiplayer FPS” class and is perfectly capable of making a great all-around game.”
Eurogamer … Read More.
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March 5th, 2010 by xeroxeroxero
Continuing the neo-retro love Capcom has been garnering on fans of late, with Street Fighter 4, Dark Void Zero and Final Fight: Double Impact, is Mega Man 10 which is released today on WiiWare (and coming to PSN and XBLA on the 11th and 31st of March respectively) at 1000 WiiWare points (or equivalent).
Players can expect more of the 8-bit art, ‘classically inspired bosses’ and chip tune sounds of 2008’s Mega Man 9 NES stylings, as well as a plot revolving around an outbreak of Robot Flu, a virus that is causing the metal mechanicals of 20xx to go out of control.
Most gamers though won’t be here for Mega Man’s deep, rich, moving story lines, they’ll be here for the difficulty, and Mega Man 10 looks set to continue the series infamously steep learning curve. Thankfully, those new to the series will find an easy mode … Read More.
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March 5th, 2010 by Adamski UK
Rockband’s current library of over 1,000 downloadable songs is about to grow at a rate of knots as it releases songs created via the Rock Band Network Community.
Using the media of video games, musicians, producers and recording labels can now showcase their work via the Rock Band Store. Xbox 360 owners will be able to rate the songs via the dashboard Marketplace function providing feedback from gamers worldwide.
The artists to make use of the service include Marillion, The Shins, The Hold Steady, The Main Drag, Bang Camaro, of Montreal, Skeleton Witch, 3 Inches of Blood, Lacuna Coil and Stroke 9.
Also of note are Portal “Still Alive” songwriter Jonathan Coulton (Songs: Creepy Doll, Ikea and The Future Soon) and ex Whitesnake and heavy rock Halo 2 theme song performer Steve Vai (Songs : For the Love of God (Live), Get the Hell Out of Here and The Attitude Song).
With in … Read More.
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March 5th, 2010 by Hugo Rune
Intel is expected to introduce a 6-core processor designed to crunch through the most 3D-intensive games in the coming weeks.
Midlife Gamer spoke exclusively to an industry insider who confirmed that the new chip codenamed ‘Gulftown’ has yet to be given a definitive launch date but is certain to ship in the next few weeks. While other sources speculate that the first glimpses of the chip running 3D-intensive games such as Napoleon: Total War could happen at the 2010 Game Developer’s Conference next week. The official roll-out of Intel’s 6-core “Westmere” processors, however, is expected later this month.
The Core i7-980X is distinguished primarily by being Intel’s first 6-core “Extreme Edition” processor based on the chipmaker’s cutting-edge 32-nanometer process technology. Generally, the smaller the manufacturing process, the more circuitry can be packed onto the chip, increasing performance. Most Intel processors still use … Read More.
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March 4th, 2010 by Hugo Rune
As someone who lives in a multi-platform household I often find myself wandering around the games for Mac sections of stores and websites alike. All in all its not a fulfilling experience because the bottom line is that titles for the Mac are a dismal representation of what’s going on in gaming.
But it looks as if that’s about to change.
Doug Lombardi, Valve’s VP of developer marketing, confirmed to MacNewsNetwork that the company is planning to port some of its most popular games to the Mac. And while details remain thin, most in the gaming community view this as a positive step.
One of the teaser images released by Valve makes reference to Apple’s “Get a Mac” ads. Standing in the place of PC and Mac are the turrets from Portal and Team Fortress 2, suggesting that there are good things to come for the Mac.
Posted in News | 5 Comments »
March 4th, 2010 by Martyn Hackett
The best versus match in Modern Warfare 2 this week is being fought with press releases. Following Activision’s firing of Infinity Ward founders Jason West and Vince Zampella at the start of the week citing “insubordination and “breaches of contract”, the pair have now filed suit against Activision.
They claim the charges were a pretext for Activision to fire them and withhold “substantial royalty payments”. Considering that Modern Warfare 2 made half a billion dollars ($550 million, to be precise) in it’s first five days on sale, that could be a pretty big sum.
Interestingly, they may also be laying claim to the Modern Warfare brand, too. Their lawyers refer to “the contractual rights Activision granted to West and Zampella to control Modern Warfare-branded games”. While Activision own the Call of Duty name, could we eventually see a Modern Warfare game from a different studio and publisher?
Posted in News | 9 Comments »
March 4th, 2010 by Adamski UK
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UK based game developer RARE have announced that they are opening up an NEW Project Natal testing facility in the centre of Birmingham in central England.
Central to the development of Microsoft’s new motion sensing technology, RARE have been working on the project from their UK Twycross studio, but they have now expanded their operations to focus on NATAL’s scheduled world wide autumn 2010 release at a purpose facility in Digbeth.
In an interview with GamesIndustry.biz, RARE Studio head Mark Betteridge said:
“First of all, because of the nature of Natal – and it would have been exactly the same with the Wii – to test it properly you need a larger physical space than you had before,”
“…with Natal there’ll be a huge variety in the set-ups that people will have in their homes, so it’s very important that we optimise any title to work … Read More.
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March 2nd, 2010 by xeroxeroxero
The PSP brand has, if nothing else, had a tough time of convincing players to part with their money. Whether it’s the failed launch of Sony’s new digital only endeavour – the PSP Go, the rampant piracy that has plagued the system from its very start, or the dwindling number of quality PSP titles seeing release, one thing is for sure, less and less money is being funnelled into the most powerful handheld on the market. Equally, the market for JRPGs has been dwindling for years now, a genre becoming more and more niche, serving fewer and fewer consumers, for less and less return on investor’s money.
So along comes the Rising Star published, Marvelous Entertainment developed Half Minute Hero regardless, going against rational thought and developing a new IP JRPG exclusively for the least popular handheld on the market. And by god, they’ve gone ahead and made a fantastic … Read More.
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Playing Away – Germany
March 4th, 2010 by Oli-1977
I really had to take my time and think about this. On first glance and for the casual gamer I would say there is not much or any difference in Gaming in Germany and the UK.
Nowadays games seem to be released not only for one country in one specific language but most are multi-language for the whole of Europe. That’s mainly due to the amount of space developers have on the medium (like Blu-ray) and the reduced costs they can produce, if they only need to press one version and do not need to do so many adoptions for each country. Some here in Germany still like to buy games from the UK mainly because the Euro seems to be very strong against the Pound (at least for the time being) and even with the import tax, many games are still much cheaper.
Our Gaming Communities are very similar to … Read More.
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