PC sports gamers are somewhat justifiably unhappy with Peter Moore right now. Earlier this year, the EA Sports executive announced that Madden and many other EA Sports games won't be coming to the PC market this year. But wait, you didn't give him a chance to explain! Well, actually, you did, and he did, but today Moore went into more detail about his division's scaled back PC support. A summary of the reasoning behind the decision:
PC sports gamers are gravitating to consoles.
The PC sports gaming market is gravitating to a downloadable model rather than a "packaged" model.
The PC versions of EA Sports games aren't getting a good enough return on investment.
You PC gamers just pirate everything anyway and we're not going to make a PC version just so millions of you can just steal it! (We may have exaggerated the tone a little bit on this one, but you get the idea).
PC Sports fans can still hold out hope that EA Sports will change its mind, though. Moore hinted that the company might be coming back into the PC space next year with "new, innovative, maybe even less-expensive ways to play all of our franchises on the PC." If there's one thing sports fans should be familiar with, it's squeezing that one, slim ray of hope for all it's worth.
Looks like we'll get to control a god of war War himself and do it with style in Vigil Games' open-world action game, Darksiders: Wrath of War. Considering that Joe "Mad!" Madureira of X-Men and Battle Chasers fame is the developer's creative director, the fact that it's looking smoking hot doesn't surprise us.
This new video of Darksiders features Madureira and Vigil's general manager, David Adams, talking about all of the nifty stuff you can see and do thanks to the game's open world nature. It's worth noting that the video is from the upcoming E3 demo of Darksiders, meaning that we'll get our hands on the game's latest milestone later this month to report on all the nitty-gritty (and pretty-pretty) details.
The inventiveness of the homebrew scene never ceases to amaze us. Take for instance the above video. What you see in it is, in fact, GoldenEye 007 for Nintendo 64 running on a Wii with the "Homebrew Channel" installed.
The poster of the video states that he was able to get the game ROM working with the emulator used by the Virtual Console version of Sin & Punishment. He gives no details on how he managed the feat, mentioning only that the game works "for the most part" with occasional slowdown and a broken borked save system.
Hopefully Nintendo will see this video and, rather than simply order it pulled offline, realize just how much people really want a proper Virtual Console release of the game.
Guitar Hero World Tour is going to let players make their own songs, so it only stands to reason that Rock Band 2 will as well, right? Right? Not according to Alex Rigopulos, the CEO and co-founder of Rock Band developer Harmonix.
Speaking to CNN, Rigopulos states that his company "wanted to do [song creation] right." He adds that Harmonix is "taking a radically different approach" to player-created tracks – presumably he means from the way Guitar Hero World Tour dev Neversoft is handling it – and will "take more time to do it." So, Rock Band 3 with a song creator it is then, right? Right?
Unless the promise of spending time with our pal Ms. Veronica Belmont and another episode of Qore sounds like a nice Thursday night (there's an episode teaser after the break) it might be best to just ignore this week's PSN update. Per usual, the rhythm games add some content and there's also some game videos that might be of interest. With E3 only a couple weeks away, it's understandable that things are a bit quiet at the moment, but we're seriously starting to itch for PixelJunk Eden!
"Well of course they did," you're probably saying to yourself after reading the above headline. "Practically every game on the Xbox 360 has 3D graphics. When is this news from, 1987? HA! HA! *snort*." Don't be such a smartass, hypothetical reader! We're talking about stereoscopic 3D displays, such as those being used by Ubisoft's upcoming Avatar game or Texas Instruments' upcoming DualView TV.
In an excerpt from an interview with GamesIndustry.biz, XNA General Manager Chris Satchell revealed that Microsoft actually looked into using this stereoscopic technology for gaming, but determined the need for special glasses made the idea impractical. "I think it is hard to be mainstream with asking people to wear headgear to play games," he said, thus explaining the failure of Hat Hat Revolution. That said, Satchell hinted at "some very interesting technology being developed that can overcome this obstacle, and it will be interesting to see where this leads." Oh, we all know where this leads, all right.
Just under a month after shipping Don King Presents Prizefighter for Xbox 360, UK-based Venom Games is reportedly closing up shop. Computer and Video Games cites a source at the company, who divulged that Venom staff were informed of the closure Wednesday.
We contacted Take-Two, who published Prizefighter under its 2K Sports label, and were told by a spokesperson that it is currently "assessing the role of Venom Games in Take-Two's overall global studio system," and "in a consultation with the employees of Venom in relation to possible redundancies at the studio."
Well kids, it seems like everyone is holding their cards close to their collective chests as we begin the final run up to E3. That doesn't mean we don't have a few interesting news bits to share though. For one, the Xbox 360 Mega Man 9 evidence continues to pile up, despite Capcom's claims to the contrary. Gears of War 2 news also continues to dribble out, and we're more than happy to relate it to you. Find these stories and more below.
After teasing the images and announcement across the web earlier this morning, McFarlane Toys is finally sharing details of its latest licensed toy lineup: Call of Duty: World at War. Scheduled to be released this fall – alongside Treyarch's latest take on the venerable franchise and McFarlane's other Activision-enabled lineup, the Guitar Hero figurines – the World at War figures can be described with superlatives like "highly detailed," "game-accurate," and "for sale."
Speaking of for sale, four figures will be available for $10 to $15 including the Marine Infantry soldier (includes M1 Garand rifle and bayonet, pictured above); the Marine Corps soldier (packing the flamethrower, just like in the game); another Marine Corps soldier (with machine gun, pistol & holster); and lastly, the British Special Ops soldier (includes adorable accent).
All you Nerds worried about wasting Mounds of time waiting for Viva Piñata: Trouble in Paradise should stop being such Airheads. The anticipated sequel will be Star-bursting onto the scene on Sept. 2 in North and Latin America and Sept. 5 in Europe and the UK. That leaves plenty of Paydays for you Smarties to save up the $59.99 you need to buy it. That's not a Whopper of a price ... much less than the 100 Grands it would take to travel to ... Whatchamacallit ... Mars.
With tomorrow being the day the US became independent from France ... what, England, really? Anyway, Harmonix announced its tracks for next week's Rock Band DLC a day early. We've got a couple songs from the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Rush. "Working Man" was actually released as DLC before, but this version is a master and features an alternate solo.
Check out the videos for these songs after the break. The tracks will be available for download next Tuesday and Thursday for Xbox 360 and PS3, respectively.
Beyond some crappy scans and lots of speculation, real info on the WiiWare return of Mega Man has been scant. Well, GamesRadar just opened the flood gates with its exclusive, proper reveal of Mega Man 9, featuring a hands-on by Nintendo editor Brett Elston and an interview with series creator (and MM9 producer) Keiji Inafune.
Elston reports that Mega Man 9 is ... well, it's essentially an NES game – just as difficult as the original 8-bit installments of the famed series. "Mega Man 9 is easily on par or above the hardest games in the series," Elston says, adding: "Hell, we played for two hours and only made it to three bosses, and even then only beat two." Read on after the break for more new info.
No sooner does Sony (briefly) improve the PS3 user interface with the much-talked-about version 2.4 firmware update, than some at the company feel cocky enough to start badmouthing the competition's interface. Speaking to Next-Gen, PlayStation Network Director of Operations Eric Lempel took the bait, comparing Sony's redesigned PlayStation Store to Microsoft's Xbox Live Marketplace. "I think if I look over at the competitors' UI they may have some issues just displaying content," Lempel said, "and scrolling up and down lists isn't the easiest way to find things." Tell that to McSweeny's, why don'tcha?
Lempel also pointed out that the PlayStation Store interface has "a lot of room with virtual shelf space to put a lot of things," a not-so-subtle jab at Microsoft's recently announced plan to de-list some Xbox Live Arcade games. "Depending on what type of UI you have you can accommodate a lot of titles," Lempel continued, "and specifically with our new store redesign which launched back in April we have a great ability to merchandise a wide variety of titles." That's all well and good, assuming your PS3 is currently working.
Sony has revised a remark made by Eric Lampel that "every game" would eventually feature Trophies. What Lampel likely meant, and what he apparently relayed to GameSpot is that at some point, all new PlayStation 3 releases -- both first- and third-party -- will feature Trophies. Sony has clarified that Trophy patches for existing games are the responsibility of the games' respective publishers and developers, and we should not expect to "ultimately" enjoy a complete catalog with Trophy support.
Insomniac has already pledged its intent to stay focused on Resistance 2, passing up the invitation to add Trophies to its previous titles, the first Resistance and Ratchet and Clank Future. Also joining the "much too late" camp, are Infinity Ward and 2K Games, both releasing statements (here & here) that affirm there are no plans to add Trophies to Call of Duty 4 and Civilization Revolution. (Though we doubt that it will ever be reflected on the back of the box; as it is on our mock-up above.)
Hands-on with Spore. All of it. With Will Wright feeding us commentary.
Everything you could ever want to know about Game & Watch. And a whole lot more.
In-game XMB? Trophies? We take a look at PS3's firmware 2.40
Diablo 3 announced! OMGWTF(hellfire)BBQ!
Highlights from Blizzard's Worldwide Invitational 2008!
Listen to the Joystiq Podcast (because your ears can't read)
