Filed under: PC, Microsoft Xbox 360, Business

With excitement still brewing for the upcoming GlaDOS-free follow up to Portal, developer Valve has come forward, throwing its considerable weight behind Xbox Live Arcade while adding that the company is ‘considering’ bringing other titles from its catalog to the service as well. Says Valve’s Doug Lombardi, “We’ll certainly consider it. If you look at what we’ve done on Steam, we try to make all our games available and we’re always reviewing the prices to keep them current. We’d love to do that, but Portal: Still Alive is our first step at doing that beyond the PC.”

While Lombardi adds that the studio currently has no “immediate plans” to test the waters of either the Wii or PlayStation 3, this remains great news for owners of Microsoft’s console, possibly giving those who missed Valve’s boat the first time around a second chance to climb on board.

Read

Popularity: 1% [?]

Share This

Filed under: Nintendo Wii, Microsoft Xbox 360, Action

We’d like to share the game comparison video one person dared to create. One person who goes by the nom de keyboard of “WiiSixty” on GameTrailers, which is fitting since they’ve created a short subject film pitting Resident Evil 4 for Wii against Resident Evil 5 for 360.

The video runs on a bit, but it nevertheless does a solid job of comparing everything from weapon reload animations to door opening animations (helpfully shown above) to the way enemies react when shot. We’ll give you one guess which game’s prettier overall, but we think the gameplay similarities between the two might surprise you. Well, maybe they won’t, since we’ve already talked about just how much won’t be changing from RE4 to RE5.

(Note: Looks like the embeddable video has caught a bad case of the T-virus; you’ll have to hit up GameTrailers to watch it.)

Read

Popularity: 1% [?]

Share This

Filed under: Culture, Microsoft Xbox 360, Action, Business

Gears of War fanboys — especially one we know really well — have been beside themselves over the announcement last weekend of a special Gears of War 2 retail edition bundled with a full-size (non-working) Lancer replica. The only issue is that there’s been a tad bit of confusion over pricing. We spoke with Amazon.com, which will be selling the bundle, and received back these bullet points of information:

• Amazon is the exclusive U.S. retailer of the GoW collector’s lancer.
• Amazon will offer the lancer as a bundle with GoW 2.
• Pricing for the bundle is not yet confirmed.
• A detail page for the product bundle will go live on the site this week and if pricing is still to be confirmed at that time, customers can sign up to get an email notification for when the product is available for pre-order.

We’ll be sure to put up a post when the pre-order for the bundle goes live. We’d rather have fanboys walking around with Lancer replicas than making their own homemade versions with movable parts.

Permalink

Popularity: 1% [?]

Share This

Filed under: Microsoft Xbox 360, RPGs

Lionhead’s head lion Peter Molyneux recently said in an interview with GameTrailers that it took three years to make Fable 2. We note this because in the same interview, he also talks about doing three more Fable games. “We’ve got plans for Fable 3, 4 and 5 actually,” he said. “It’s a big story arc and if you play Fable II you’ll recognize things from Fable 1.” Extrapolating on Fable 2’s development time, expect to see the series continue in 2011, 2014 and 2017, respectively.

Additionally, Molyneux said that Lionhead is working on another, secret project that was the “kind of the result of an experiment that went incredibly well.” He then went on to say that he likes projects that are challenging and made references to the sports genre, which may or may not indicate we’ll see a fantasy RPG based on Brockian Ultra Cricket.

[Via IGN]

Read

Popularity: 1% [?]

Share This

Filed under: Culture, Microsoft Xbox 360, Rhythm

Okay, maybe what controversial private military company (PMC) Praying Mantis Blackwater Worldwide is actually trying to say by airdropping complete Guitar Hero setups to US troops in Afghanistan is “Make music, not war … well, actually, make war too - after you’ve FC’d a few songs.”

The Associated Press reports that James Overton, a Blackwater recruiter, wants to bundle an Xbox 360, projector, and an undisclosed Guitar Hero iteration together in a package that can be deployed as a battlefield moral booster. “Every [military] place I’ve ever been to overseas, they’ve got like backgammon and Parcheesi and chess, and they’re all gathering dust,” Overton told the AP, adding, “But this is the stuff they play at home. And any semblance of home we can give them is best.”

Overton did not disclose who the troops call if their 360 displays a Red Ring of Death as a result of being dropped from the transport plane.

[Via Gamasutra]

Read

Popularity: 1% [?]

Share This

Filed under: Microsoft Xbox 360, Adventure

Someone obviously didn’t get the memo. Joystiq tipster Vincent sent along a photo snapped at his local Target and … what’s that? The new Xbox 360 SKU that’s not supposed to be on sale until “early August?” Sure looks like it. This wouldn’t be the first time the retailer has broken the street date on new Microsoft hardware. Remember the 360 Elite slip? We’ve seen similar reports cropping up this evening, including this one on Penny College (via Engadget). Have you spotted MS’s latest console repackaging at Target (or anywhere else)? Let us know in the comments!

[Thanks, Vincent!]

Permalink

Popularity: 1% [?]

Share This

Popularity: 1% [?]

Share This

Filed under: Arcade, Culture, Nintendo DS, Mac, PC, Sony PlayStation 2, Sony PlayStation 3, Nintendo Wii, Microsoft Xbox 360

And the winner is … gamers! Well, that’s the conclusion we came to after witnessing the sheer amount of top-notch games trotted out at this year’s E3. While we’re finalizing the official Joystiq E3 2008 Awards (coming soon - there was a lot of blood confetti to clean up in the judge’s room) we’d like to offer, for your list-reading pleasure, IGN’s picks for the Best of Show in various categories.

You can read the entire list after the break. Let us hear what you think of their choices in the comments, and, for nostalgia’s sake, check out our award winners (and losers) from last E3.

Continue reading IGN announces E3 award winners

Read

Popularity: 1% [?]

Share This

Filed under: Microsoft Xbox 360, Business

The Entertainment Software Association (ESA) announced today its pack of odious unremarkable games sold to sponsor children’s charities has raked in an astounding $2.6 million. The ESA Foundation, the philanthropic branch of the industry’s lobbing group, will divide the cash among five charities (which we’ve listed after the break).

The charity pack included software donated by Disney, THQ, Ubisoft, Sony Pictures, Microsoft and Pixar. It was sold by 17 retailers and organizations agreed to waive associated fees and royalties, meaning as much cash as possible went to the children. No word yet if something similar will be done this year, but imagine the cash the charities could get if the games were actually good?!

Continue reading ESA’s mediocre game pack raises $2.6 million for charity

Permalink

Popularity: 1% [?]

Share This

Filed under: Sony PlayStation 3, Microsoft Xbox 360, Fighting

We don’t know how you feel about Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe but we’ve gone from absolute bewilderment to an almost embarrassing desire for the full version. If you’re still on the doubters’ side of the fence, we’d like to humbly suggest only that you watch the above video, a boatload of gameplay narrated by your friend and ours, Ed Boon.

It all looks sort of cool, but we have a hard time getting past the part where Superman runs Scorpion through seven walls without picking up the phone to pre-order the game. We can’t even watch it anymore because after call number 9, the guy at Gamestop was starting to get downright rude. What say you on it?

Read

Popularity: 1% [?]

Share This