Filed under: Features, Microsoft Xbox, Microsoft Xbox 360, Action, First Person Shooters, GDC

The audio track of GDC is an under-appreciated gem of the conference. Though many of the sessions are highly technical in nature — discussing the use of software tools and compositional elements — enjoying the music and the auditory experience of gaming hardly takes a degree. I sat in on one of these sessions, “Halo 3: An Audio Postmortem”, and was rewarded greatly. Not only did I have the chance to listen to Jay Weinland, C. Paul Johnson, Mike Salvatore and Marty O’Donnell speak on the process of composing for Bungie’s titles, but the audio team brought hilarious outtakes for us to listen to.

Read on below the break for a few words on composing audio for the series, Adam Baldwin’s Halo-style take on Full Metal Jacket, and comedienne Debra Wilson’s take on a angry, ranting, foul-mouthed, lesbian marine. Even better: the Wilson outtakes have apparently never been made available outside of Bungie’s studio before.

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SPONSORED BY: Age of Empires III - Real-Time Strategy Game Control a European power on a quest to colonize and conquer the New World. AOE3 introduces new gameplay elements, as well as new civilizations, units, and technologies. http://www.ageofempires3.com/

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Filed under: Nintendo Wii, Microsoft Xbox 360, RPGs

Namco’s Tales RPG series is a lot like the bus — if you miss one, just wait a moment and another will be around shortly. The series, which got its start back in 1995 with Tales of Phantasia for the SNES, is now set to get two new entries as Namco Bandai announced plans to localize both Tales of Vesperia (pictured) for the Xbox 360 and Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World for the Wii later this year.

While Vesperia was first announced during Tokyo’s Jump Festa event last December, the game’s console destination had been something of a question mark until now. The game, which marks the franchise’s first entry on Microsoft’s console, will feature character designs by series stalwart Kosuke Fujishima of Oh My Goddess! and Gungrave fame, and promises “significant additions” to the series’ action-heavy combat, a facet that has been Tale’s defining feature since hit met points.

For those with a taste for nostalgia, Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World will take place two years after the GameCube original, whisking Wii owners away on a journey wrought with discovery, old friends, and what we’re sure will be plenty of waggle. There’s also talk of being able to “recruit” more than 200 different monsters, no doubt pleasing those harboring an incessant need to “catch ‘em all.”

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SPONSORED BY: Age of Empires III - Real-Time Strategy Game Control a European power on a quest to colonize and conquer the New World. AOE3 introduces new gameplay elements, as well as new civilizations, units, and technologies. http://www.ageofempires3.com/

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Filed under: Sony PlayStation 3, Microsoft Xbox 360

A teeny-tiny Rock Band patch will be available this week which only affects a few DLC songs. Harmonix is apparently doing some early spring cleaning as it fixes some genre tags for songs and one vocal bug. The songs can simply be redownloaded today for Xbox 360 and Thursday for PS3 to receive the new version.

Affected songs and release date:

• Can’t Stand Losing You - Nov. 20
• Roxanne - Nov. 20
• Synchronicity II - Nov. 20
• Police Pack 01 - Nov. 20
• Brass in Pocket - Dec. 18
• Limelight - Jan. 1 (The one with the vocal bug)

Details on how to redownload can be found at the Rock Band forums. Once again, if you didn’t download any of these titles, keep on rockin’.

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SPONSORED BY: Age of Empires III - Real-Time Strategy Game Control a European power on a quest to colonize and conquer the New World. AOE3 introduces new gameplay elements, as well as new civilizations, units, and technologies. http://www.ageofempires3.com/

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Filed under: Microsoft Xbox 360, RPGs

We’ve got to hand it to SouthPeak, which is releasing two (count ‘em) two DLC packs for the (by most accounts) truly bad Two Worlds. That’s a crazy, Bridge on the River Kwai level of dedication that we can’t even begin to comprehend.

If you’re the sort that’s interested (and please, please comment if you are) the packs will each add about 10 hours of gameplay with new multiplayer maps,new co-op quests and new player-versus-player challenges. Both will be 600 points, one pack is coming in March and one is coming in April. We trust most of you will be able to bear the wait just fine. Also, just so we’re clear, we don’t know if these DLC packs represent the expansion we heard about, or if both of you still have more to look forward to after April.
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SPONSORED BY: Age of Empires III - Real-Time Strategy Game Control a European power on a quest to colonize and conquer the New World. AOE3 introduces new gameplay elements, as well as new civilizations, units, and technologies. http://www.ageofempires3.com/

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Filed under: PC, Microsoft Xbox 360

One of our favorite marketing conceits is “average guy makes game,” and it’s out in full force for this announcement trailer of a video game adaption of TV’s #1 crab fishing docu-drama, Deadliest Catch, coming to Xbox 360 and PC. In the extremely media-light trailer, Captain Sig Hansen says he was inspired to “find a team to create a video game based on our crab fishing experiences.”

We’d love to live in a world where burly crab fishermen take breaks from risking life and limb to give us commoners, bodies enflabbened by the succulent harvest Hansen and crew procure, a taste of what being a real man is actually like. Alas, we’d be more likely to believe “Hey, would you crab fishermen like some free money?”

Side note: Does this sound like the sort of game you’d want to play?
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SPONSORED BY: Age of Empires III - Real-Time Strategy Game Control a European power on a quest to colonize and conquer the New World. AOE3 introduces new gameplay elements, as well as new civilizations, units, and technologies. http://www.ageofempires3.com/

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As a general rule, you never know if a new game will be any good until you’ve played it. No matter how great a game’s pedigree, how good it’s pre-release promotional material makes it look, or what the gaming press has to say about it in previews, any game could still dissappoint. Any game, except for Blast Works. If you have ever loved a 2D side scrolling shooter, you need to buy this game, case closed. 

Why?

For starters, Blast Works contains not one, not two, but four complete shooters in one package. More importantly though, Blast Works allows for literally endless levels of customization. If you buy this game and hate it, it’s your own fault for not designing an awesome enough ship and a level to play it in. I know the first thing I’ll be doing when this game drops on May 1st is make my flying Mr Destructoid "ship", an ED-209 boss, (link NSFW due to extreme violence towards Mr Kinney), and a co-responding level for them to exist in. All my pent up deviant shmup fantasies will finally come to fruition. 

[Via Gametrailers]

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Before you read any of this post, I have but one request: take two minutes out of your life and watch the above video. It’s of a crazy Dwight Howard dunk from the NBA All-Star Weekend Dunk Contest, and you should watch it not only for the dunk — which is plenty insane in and of itself — but also for the over-the-top (yet completely warranted) reaction from NBA on TNT analyst Kenny Smith (you’ll know who I’m talking about if you watch the video). And he mentions the term “video game” thrice!

What does this have to do with anything? Well, Dwight Howard went on to win the Dunk Contest, which just happened to be great press for Midway’s NBA Ballers: Chosen One, a street basketball game in the vein of their classic NBA Jam series. You see, on January 14th, Howard was announced as the cover athlete for the game, so it was pretty convenient for Midway that he won. Midway has gone the opportunistic route — they’re heavily promoting the game using Howard’s Dunk Contest win as the focal point of their advertising campaign.

Midway had a heavy presence at the All-Star Game to begin with, including helping NBA Cares (the league’s social initiative program) to refurbish two basketball courts at a New Orleans grade school. They also had some demo kiosks for the game on hand during the weekend. Finally, the game’s website was launched on February 14th in conjunction with the Search for the Next Chosen One contest, which asks for custom player artwork designs for the game with the promise of some NBA-related prizes.

Five recent screens from the game are posted below, in addition to a promotional composite shot of photos from Howard’s ridiculous dunk and some more screens from the game. NBA Ballers: Chosen One is set for release on April 21 for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

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I’ve always hated the phrase "everything but the kitchen sink." What the hell does that mean, anyway? I have to use it here, though. The recently announced Metal Gear Solid 4 PlayStation 3 bundle does include everything but the kitchen sink, and that includes backwards compatibility for your PS2 game collection.

You already knew that the bundle contained MGS4 and an 80GB PS3. Also, DualShock 3? Check. Not bad for $499, right? But a PlayStation Blog reader wanted a bit more value in his bundle, according to MCV. The reader hit the comments section of the PlayStation Blog post with a backwards compatibility question, and he received this response: 

Yes, similar to the Motorstorm bundle, the new MGS4 bundle features an 80GB PS3 with some PS2 backwards compatibility.

As far as hardware goes, that’s just about everything you could ask for in a PS3 bundle. Nice job, Sony. Make sure you have your online component going strong by then, please.

Oh, and I’m feeling pretty good about the June 12th date CTZ mentioned yesterday. VideoGame Forums has scans of the Japanese PlayStation magazine, and the date is all up in those pages. If Kojima and Konami hold up to their simultaneous worldwide release promise, we’ll have this game in our hands in a few short months.

[Thanks, JR] 

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Sometimes, just playing football isn’t enough. The die-hards who crave the ability to micromanage every aspect of the game, just like a real NFL head coach would, need something more than a mere Madden game. So EA, as the owners of the NFL exclusivity license, tried to put gamers in the shoes of head coaches with 2006’s NFL Head Coach, but by most accounts, the game was something of a failure. Not only did it feature many inaccuracies — deadly when you’re trying to create a football sim — it just ended up being boring as well.

In the interim, EA Sports has decided to give it another go. On February 26, they announced the upcoming release of NFL Head Coach 09 (so one would assume that, pending its success, EA will turn it into a full-on franchise with annual installments). The game will provide “a unique NFL experience that gives gamers the power to make decisions that define their career and ultimately the fate of their franchise as a head coach in the NFL”. Tony Dungy, head coach of the Indianapolis Colts, will grace the cover of the game.

Check out the first six screens of the game below, as well as the cover artwork. Frankly, I don’t think they make the game look very fun or interesting, but you might have a different opinion. The full press release from EA can be found after the jump, and more details on the game are available at its official Web site. NFL Head Coach 09 will be out this year for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

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Dark Sector is one of those games I never thought I’d actually play. When it made its debut as a “next-gen” tech demo some five years ago, I was pretty sure it would never see the light of day. As it turns out, I was half right.

Digital Extremes had initially intended for Dark Sector to be set in outer space environments, with a sleek, mechanical protagonist at the player’s control. Later in the production, the decision was eventually made to turn to a darker and grittier feel. The result is something that looks and feels not unlike Epic’s Gears of War, which – one can argue – isn’t the worst thing someone could say about your game.

At last week’s Game Developers Conference, D3 Publisher and Digital Extremes invited us to be among the first to check out some of Dark Sector’s multiplayer modes. The bad news: there are only two of them. Admittedly, multiplayer was not the team’s original focus – I was told the game is 85% single player, with 15% multiplayer they decided to include towards the end of production. Now for the good news: it actually seems like it could be pretty fun in short bursts.

More details (including how much I like it when I can remove limbs in a game) after the jump.

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