Hi guys, I'm actually at work right now so I'll (try to) keep this brief.
The first ever GameBanter podcast, which was uploaded on saturday, has now been approved by iTunes! So all you lovely Apple users out there can now get the podcast automatically, as soon as it's available... Although I'm sure you all knew how iTunes worked anyway.
I'll keep posting the podcasts with the streaming player aswell as direct download links, so those of you who dislike iTunes need not go without daft chatter in your ears. It's my intent to make the podcast a weekly thing, probably getting recorded on Saturdays, though that's not set in stone.
Alright, that'll do for now, back to lovely office work! Have a great Monday folks!
Microsoft's Next Xbox Liva Arcade Promotion Announced
In honour of the XBLA upgrade that will allow Arcade games to have double the achievements, Microsoft is having themselves another of their awesome promotions. This one will be called "Arcade Next" and contains what I would call some hotly anticipated games...
Trials Evolution - 18th April - 1200 Microsoft Points
Bloodforge - 25th April - 1200 Microsoft Points
Fable Heroes - 2nd May - 800 Microsoft Points
Minecraft - 8th May - 1600 Microsoft Points
Between Trials Evolution and Minecraft Microsoft have guaranteed atleast about £20 of my money. Well played Microsoft... well played.
I am SO pumped to play Trials Evolution it's ridiculous
The Minecraft creator may be a multi-millionaire now, but still wants to keep on making games. It seems like now he's got his pockets well and truly filled, he can start doing things to just live out his fantasies, for all our benefits. First he asks Tim Schafer if he can fund Psychonauts 2, and now he's started work on a game that will combine Elite with Firefly, to form a space-based sandbox trading sim with Firefly-style crew interactions and on-board fun.
"I want the space game that's more like Firefly. I want to run around on my ship and have to put out a fire. Like, oh crap, the cooling system failed, I have to put out the fire here.
The goal is to do it the same way I did Minecraft. Just basically have me work on it for a while, and then we'll add people as needed, and try to charge as soon as possible, because it's probably going to be open ended sandbox game as well, so it doesn't need to be completed before people can play it."
I'll be honest, I can't think of a better thing to base a game off than firefly. I am so ready for a game like this I can't wait.
I doubt it will share Minecraft's art style, but if it did I could live with that
One of the surprises at this years E3 was Prey 2. The game, based off a linear FPS that came out in 2006, was going to put the player in the body of a human bounty hunter on an alien planet, in an open-world setting and was noted by almost everyone as looking incredibly interesting, especially considering the average reception the original Prey got, which makes it all the more saddening to hear rumours that the game has been scrapped. The rumour begun after the developer Human Head Studios cancelled 3 scheduled conferences at this year's GDC with no explanation, that news coupled with there being no new info regarding the game surfacing for a very long time points to disaster. Here's hoping it all works out fine, the game had real promise.
Space bounty hunter game neeeeeeeeeeeeeds to be a thing!
GAME's financial troubles have finally reached their peak, with the company's stock today being refused by the market... which I assume is bad. Basically, the company will now have to enter administration, selling everything off to pay any money they owe for rent and shizzle, unless they're bought that is. It seems like Gamestop might be interested, but there are ALOT of GAMEs around, it probably wouldnlt be a cheap aqcuisition. Just get yourselves ready for the insane closing down sales!!!
Say goodbye to the familiar purple shopfront. Gonna be weird...
Star Wars: The Old Republic Having Another Free Weekend
Old Republic had a free weekend last weekend, and it must have been pretty successful because they're planning another. Well, I say planning because it technically starts tonight, in America that is. 10pm in America means probably about 2 in the morning for us, so if you're up then enjoy, and if not just start it downloading before you leave for work and have a go on Firday night. The "demo" will allow you play up until level 15, and is only available to you if you didn't play in last week's free weekend.
I'm a sucker for MMOs and free things, so count me in, Bioware!
One Level Of Bioshock Inifinite Contains More Dialogue Than Entire Of The Original Bioshock
We all know Bioshock Infinite will look to push the envelope as much as it can, but little did we know just how all-out Take Two were going. Bioshock Infinite has the added benefit of being a "buddy" game, with that woman with the (as regular commenter Luke D puts it) "cartoon tits" following the player round and conversing with them. Frankly I find this news the most interesting thing about Infinite I've heard so far. I didn't like the original Bioshock, but this sounds like just the massive difference from those games that could get me interested. We shall see...
It seems like Microsoft are downplaying the fact that there have been rumours of the next Xbox by straight-up saying that there won't be anything new shown at E3, instead chooisng to focus on the 360 and how it was the best-selling console of last year, having it's best year ever. Granted, it makes sense to talk lots about how great the 360 is doing, but hearing there will be no massive new Xbox console news at E3 is a bummer... unless they're fucking with us, which let's be honest, is totally possible.
So long as they don't scale back on the production values, I'm happy.
According to a few unnamed sources, we can be expecting an announcement regarding an Elder Scrolls MMO sometime in May. Supposedly the game will take place WAY before Skyrim and will feature 3 factions represented by a lion, a dragon and a bird of prey. Should be interesting!
If I can be question online and walk past stuff like this, I'll be very happy
The team that made Fallout: New Vegas have suffered some firings recently, which is a massive shame, until you here why. Turns out Obsidian worked on an agreement that meant they received no royalties from game sales, instead getting payed to make the game, with a promise of a bonus if the game received an 85+ on Metacritic. If you visit Metacritic for yourself right now you'll notice the game's average score: 84. Because of this, Bethesda refused to pay Obsidian their bonus, and with no royalties from game sales the company was forced to offoad staff in order to stay stable financially. Not cool. Not cool at all.
[Update] - This image sums the situation up nicely
New Vegas was a good game! Sucks that Obsidian be penalised jobs for 1 single point on Metacritic
St. Patrick's Day Indie Bundle Is A Thing That's Happening... Right Now
I always try to keep you guys informed of all the latest indie bundles, and this one is, definitely, one of those. Hard Reset seems like a bit of a gem alone for that price, let alone with 3 other games. I would advise that you get on that as fast as is humanly possible... or you know, whenever you get round to it.
Diablo 3 has been in development for quite some time now, and it turns out that one of the main contributors to this long development time has been complications caused by Blizzard's attempts to get PvP into the game. They've figured out a solution though, which is: Ship the game unfinished and patch in the PvP later. It sounds ridiculous on the surface but it actually makes sense logically. The game will still have single player and co-op modes working fine and dandy, and it'll mean everybody playing the multiplayer, atleast in theory, will have a certain degree of proficiency with the game already. Whatever gets it in my hands faster!
Awww, I wanna kill massive that massive fire beast!
As of right now if you download an XBLA game it'll have 200 achievement points, but soon, XBLA games will be able to have upto 400 achievement points! For someone who loves achievements this is great news! I genuinely think they impact my enjoyment of a game, so more points means, logically, better games! Awesome!
I got all the points in Pac Man Championship Edition: DX... Jus' sayin'...
Well things don't look good for GAME, as they drift ever closer to simply not existing any more. It's been on the cards for a little while, with Mass Effect 3 not getting sold there for fears EA may not get their unsold stock for thhe game back if the stores closed (a move that will have hit GAMe hard, being that Mass Effect sold a fucking tonne). GAME announced this weekend that if they could not find a buyer for the company then they would go into administration. It's a hard time to be a store like GAME, with the internet being cheaper in almost every sense and shopping around never having been so easy. It's going to be weird not seeing a game shop as I walk around town, but what's done is done I suppose.
Trailer Of The Week goes to Battlefield 3. Granted it may only be for a map pack, but few games look as good as Battlefield 3 does in trailers. So gorgeous!
This is pretty crazy. I remember hearing a while back that Epic were working on making the Unreal engine compatible with Flash players, but I didn't really expect it to work. It's the kind of thing that sounds sounds like magic, until they actually do it. And they have. You can now go and play "Epic ciadel" for yourself. Granted, there's not much gameplay there, just clikcing to move around, but the implications for the future are potentially enourmous. Imagine these kinds of graphics taking the place of standard HTML-style presentation, or of games that can look this good, and are only available on a browser. Flash games just moved forwards about 10 years. Play it for yourself, below.
If you're not watching The Walking Dead then either you're a massive loser, or you just hate things that are popular. If you are watching the Walking Dead though, chances are this will tickle your fancy. A Facebook game will be launching sometime around April and will allow you to send your friends on missions, fight walkers in turn-based combat and even socialise with characters from the show. It all sounds very cool, so long as I don't have to pay 10 Facebook dollars just to reload my shotgun...
Not much to say here other than congratulations to Bioware, and that I'm personally thrilled to see a game other than Call Of Duty DESTROY IT in the sales department. Game must be kicking themselves.
Shepard knows what sells: Violence, explosions and hot, alien sex. Boo ya!
Rumours have been going round recently that Valve may be developing some kind of Steam Box, whatever that may be. Logically that would assume something close to a console that lets you play your Steam games like a console, but Doug Lombardi, Valve's Marketing Director, says that it doesn't exist:
"We're prepping the Steam Big Picture Mode UI and getting ready to ship that, so we're building boxes to test that on. We're also doing a bunch of different experiments with biometric feedback and stuff like that, which we've talked about a fair amount. All of that is stuff that we're working on, but it's a long way from Valve shipping any sort of hardware."
It might make sense one day, but why fuck with what already works? Steam is the best right now, no need to jeopardise it.
At the Game Developers Conference that took place over the course of a few days last week, a far few developers held talks concerning their games and philosophies and such. One of these talks was conducted by Valve Writers Erik Wolpaw and Chet Faliszek. They talked about how the game could potentially have had multiplayer, contained a cool Truman Show parody, could have been a prequel starring Cave Johnson as the antagonist, may have had Chell speaking and may not have even contained any portals. It's all pretty cool, and to be honest, all of those ideas would have been potentially incredible... though I'm glad Portal 2 came out the way it did. It was pretty perfect.
The more I think back, the better Portal 2 was. Fantastic.
Valve sominate the headlines! Well, according to Forbes, the owner of Valve Software (a company worth over $3 billion) has made it onto the rich list. Gabe Newell, co-founder of Valve, is reportedly worth $1.5 billion, making him one of only 1,226 billionaires alive right now. Impressive stuff!
Say Hello To Kara, Quantic Dream's Newest Tech Demo
Heavy Rain developers Quantic Dreamdecided to switch things up after Heavy Rain, creating a brand new engine, one which they say won't be quite as good as Avatar's, but damn close. The video below was taken with version 1 of this newest engine, they're now on version 3, which they say looks even better. Take a look, and see how you like it.
Lionhead Games, makers of games Black & White and Fable, have lost their visionary leader in Peter Molyneux. He set the company up 15 years ago and has become pretty eclectic since, definitely outshining Lionhead itself. He had the following to say on leaving the company:
"It is with mixed emotions that I made the decision to leave Microsoft and Lionhead Studios, the company that I co-founded in 1997, at the conclusion of development of Fable: The Journey.
I remain extremely passionate and proud of the people, products and experiences that we created, from Black & White to Fable to our pioneering work with Milo and Kate for the Kinect platform. However, I felt the time was right to pursue a new independent venture. I'd like to thank the team at Lionhead, as well as our partners at Microsoft Studios for their support, dedication and incredible work over the years."
He's gone onto another company called 22cans, along with 1 or 2 other old Lionhead employees.
"I once caught a fish THIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIS big"
Just a few months to wait for mental zombie-killer Lollipop Chainsaw, as it will launch on June 12th (in America atleast). It looks pretty mental, and with lots of upskirt camera shots... which is fine.
Upskirt booty tooch, chainsaw rainbows, head hanging off the belt... Looks alright!
The Back To Karkand pack for Battlefield 3 came out a few months ago, and we haven't heard about anymore add-ons since then, until today ofcourse. Dice, the developers of Battlefield 3, have 3 more DLC packs planned, each one will have a different theme: "Close Quarters" will add a smattering of small maps to make shotguns OP as fuck, "Armored Kill" will add new vehicles, and apparently the biggest maps in the history of any Battlefield game, and the final pack will be called "End Game" and no details have been revealed about it, but I imagine every weapon is a nuke and every vehicle is the size of the moon. A guy can dream!
Massive gun? check. Alright, let's go shoot face and genitals!!!
Trailer Of The Week is, I'm sure, Mass Effect 3... But I won't be watching it, so instead I'll just watch some people talk about Journey, which still looks fantastic.
Xbox Live Cloud Saves Went Iffy Yesterday, Should Be Fine Now
Not really sure what more I can add to this, other than to say I'm glad it sorted nice and quickly. Picture of Nathan Fillion? Picture of Nathan fillion.
(You ready, guys?....) GOT WOOD?!?! (Did you see it?)
Game Informer have kind of goofed, and put up a page for Assassin's Creed 3 prematurely, showing the final assassin incarnation of Desmond. It looks very much like the game will be set in colonial America possibly with a half native-american assassin, which puts it on home soil for desmond and makes it, in my opinion, all the more likely we'll see Desmond scaling skyscrapers and taking down guys with guns... If there aren't any guys with guns then what has been the point.
Tomohawk in one hand, pistol in the other. Will we finally be rid of stupid fucking wrist blades?!? Please say yes
Haven't used this in a while. Happy Monday!
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