Filed under: Microsoft Xbox 360

Are you on the fence about the upcoming changes to the Xbox 360 dashboard? Apprehensive about the unceremonious subtraction of your beloved blades? Perhaps it would be wise to check out an interactive demo of the New Xbox Experience (or, as the hip children are calling it, the NXE) that was recently added to Xbox.com. You can get a good idea of what the new layout will look like — though you’ll have to wait until the NXE lands on your 360 before trying your hand at breathing life into your cartoonish, digital representation.

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Capcom has released a fact sheet detailing Resident Evil 5, which contains mostly useless information. One point of note, however, is the confirmation of a March 13 worldwide release date on PS3 and Xbox 360. But you already knew that, so it’s not a point of note.

* Chris Redfield, protagonist of the original Resident Evil and Resident Evil: Code Veronica, returns
* Chris is joined by new character Sheva Alomar, an African special agent tasked with investigating the epidemic
* 2 player co-op on the internet gameplay means that players are not alone in their fight against the horror lurking around every corner
* Simultaneous global release date for both PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 on March 13, 2009
* New enemies bring new challenges: speed and intelligence make adversaries as dangerous singly as they’re in groups.
* An arsenal of weapons at the player’s command to keep the evil at bay, including knives, pistols, machine guns, sniper rifles and more.
* Lighting effects provide a new level of suspense in both harsh light and deepest shadow

With how hot this game is looking, March 13 seems like an age away. Still, at least we’ve 10,000 Resident Evil remakes to keep us going until then. You can read the full fact sheet after the jump. It has facts in it.

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I was a little underwhelmed at this year’s E3 when Nintendo whipped out the MotionPlus attachment for the Wiimote, not because the idea isn’t cool, but it seemed to me that the Wiimote should have been made with this technology built in instead of as a secondary device we would have to plug in. Isn’t motion controlled movement what the Wii is supposed to offer anyway?

Nick Haggar, the producer behind “De Blob“, shared somewhat similar thoughts with MTV Multiplayer last week. From the phone interview:

“I think if we had the MotionPlus to begin out with, maybe the control scheme would have worked out a little bit differently … I think the temptation with having Wii MotionPlus would have been to push it more in a gestural control scheme. While it’s definitely intellectually stimulating from a development perspective to play with those ideas — and I think it does appeal to a set of gamers out there — I think the majority of people that play on the Wii want something very simple that they have the ability to just immediately get their heads around.”

While I might be grumpypants over the idea that I have to plug something into the Wiimote for the ultimate motion experience, I can’t state I would exactly describe it as complex to plug something into the base to make it work. Of course, I’ve been fiddling with game accessories for twenty years now, so it may seem simple to me but overly complex to others. What do you think?

[Thanks, Joe]

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Filed under: PC, Microsoft Xbox 360

You might need to fill that flask, er, “canteen” with more than just Kool-Aid if you plan to make it through the first few weeks of Call of Duty 5 Call of Duty: World At War boot camp. You see, you purchased the “Limited Collector’s Edition,” which includes, in addition to a storage tin (guaranteed to fit other Treyarch games!) and the aforementioned sipping container, the infamous “Day One Advantage.” As if spotting the guy with the ridiculously over-powered machine gun won’t be easy enough, you’ll also be pinned with a “uniquely colored clan tag” identifying your “VIP-status” in on the internet multiplayer. In other words: Everybody kill that guy! Yeah, you.

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When we first got our paws on an early build of Volition’s Saint’s Row 2 in April, we called it “a $200-a-head Las Vegas illusionist performance featuring Pamela Anderson, then Volition’s sequel is a balls-to-the-wall, over-the-top Coney Island sideshow starring a limbless, glass-eating female midget named Senorita Cobrita.”

As it turns out, our first impressions were closer to the truth than even we’d expected. While THQ and Volition didn’t pick up Anderson, they did announce adult actress Tera Patrick as a “special producer” on the game. And while we’ve yet to see any glass-eating, you can play the game as a female with a man’s voice wearing a hot dog suit and clown shoes.

It’s clear that Saint’s Row 2, in terms of its themes and tone, isn’t going to be a serious affair. And that’s a good thing; in trying to find the game’s identity, Volition have taken Saint’s Row 2 in the polar opposite direction of its direct competition, the vehicle stealing title that shall not be named.

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Ubisoft has announced this day that it will be publishing Tenchu 4 exclusively for the Wii in North America and Europe. Acquire, the team behind the original Tenchu, will be developing the title, which will be available in early 2009.

Tenchu 4 continues to deliver the stealth-ninja gameplay that the series is famous for, adding Wii Remote controls for fighting, jumping, and more. The game will feature 10 missions and 50 side quests, and can be played though as the stealthy Rikimaru or the more aggressive (and cuter) Ayame.

The ideal part about this announcement is how presumptuous the press release is: “Tenchu 4 will come to North American and European audiences where it will be well-received by both fans of the series as well as Wii owners who have been looking for an edgy and exciting game.” There you go — ten out of ten, confirmed. You will like this game.

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CVG has a post up exposing the filthy chicanery of Lexicon after receiving some fake DS screens for sidescrolling shooter Ocean Commander. Lexicon Entertainment released ten new screenshots — six for the Wii version, four for the DS — but the DS screens are merely the Wii ones shrunk down and cobbled together.

Of those four, two are in-game. But they’re not of the DS version. Have a good look and you’ll see that they’re both actually identical in every way to two of the Wii screenshots, even down to bullet placement, ship position and score.

Why would there be a HUB in the lower screen of the DS, if the top screen clearly takes HUB duties. Someone will have had to make the effort of shrinking and attaching the Wii screens to a top screen shot to create the intentional DS deception.

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Filed under: Microsoft Xbox 360, Puzzle

With the release of Braid, Jonathan Blow became not only the creator of one of the highest-rated Xbox 360 games of all time, but a household name, at least among gamers. Infatuated as we are with his game, we sent Blow a stack of questions that he was kind enough to answer — everything from why there aren’t many games he enjoys these days to why Space Giraffe is the ideal action game on XBLA.

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It seems like such a personal game and personal story, I’m curious how you felt the day before the game released to the public. Terrified? Excited?

I was interested to see how the game would be received, but I can’t state that I was super-emotional about anything. In terms of public reception — if that turned out badly, well, I thought that it was a pretty good game for my own tastes, so that would just mean that my tastes differ pretty widely from the market’s. Which isn’t necessarily so bad if your goal isn’t to make money. (At the same time, I am pretty glad that the critical reception was highly positive, much superior than I could have expected).

I was definitely relieved that the game was done and was finally getting out there to an audience, though. I had been working on it for a long time.

Continue reading Joystiq interview: Blow unravels Braid in postmortem

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While the PS3’s performance in Japan isn’t exactly boo-worthy, it isn’t rocking quite as hard as Sony might care about it to (although comparing anything to the ridiculous success of the Wii is the ultimate recipe for flaccidity). SCE Worldwide boss Shuhei Yoshida recently commented on the topic at the Games Convention in Germany:

It’s mostly a software thing. Price is important, but relative to the the value consumers perceive. There are lots of consumers, game fans in Japan, that are waiting to spend their money.

What’s happening is that lack of support from the Japanese publishers - not necessarily from intentions but from development abilities.

Long story short — the games aren’t there for all the different types of gamers out there. I love my PS3, but I’m not sure I’d disagree. Here’s an idea, developers: make some RPGs. Lots and lots of them. There are hardly any for the system as of now, and if Japan cares about anything more than rhythm games and sadistic forms of sexual torture, why, it’s RPGs. That recipe worked well for the 360 — why not give it a whirl?

[Via Kotaku — Thanks, Joe “Chipotle” Burling]

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Whenever Famitsu reviews something, it’s news. I don’t know why, but it is! This time around, the world’s most brightly colored and eye-searing magazine has gotten its hands on long-delayed Wii game Disaster: Day of Crisis and given it a whopping 34/40 points.

The game has been on the DL for a very long time before suddenly popping up a few weeks ago and saying “O hai, I’m almost completed!” I was skeptical of such shenanigans, but according to Famitsu’s recommendation, it would seem that Disaster actually won’t be the overdeveloped mess that its production cycle would recommend.

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