Videogame Source: 03/04/11

Friday, March 4, 2011

GT Academy 2011 starts today in Europe

Who is the best? Part of the European session today the 2011 version of GT Academy, the great competition that selects the best virtual pilots on Gran Turismo 5 and turns them into real drivers at the end of the path. In the first phase of the selections are made on a territorial basis, resulting in a skimming to get to the top 20 riders for each participant in the European section, usually consisting of pairs of countries: UK and Ireland, France and Switzerland, Germany and Austria, Spain and Portugal and the Netherlands and Italy.

ME2: Arrival sighted ... again!

The mysterious Mass Effect DLC 2, titled Arrival, checked out again, this time from inside the box of Dragon Age II. One leaflet shows a view of the earth with the N7 logo and the words "The Arrival Has Begun" in plain sight. You can see in this video. Arrival was "sighted" for the first time a few weeks ago during an upgrade of the PS3 version of ME2.

Someone even managed to find details of the trophies associated with this latest DLC. Despite the lack of official confirmation yet, this third, decisive evidence now seems to have removed any doubt about the arrival of this new expansion, which will (probably) the wait for ME3 lighter.

[GDC 2011] speaks of the birth of Hideki Konno 3DS

Not everyone was convinced of turning 3D Hideki Konno, the famous designer Nintendo said during GDC 2011, that initially the concept of 3DS has met with strong resistance within the company. At the time the designer was responsible for software and was working on Mario Kart for Wii. In the spring of 2008 he had to hand the concept of 3DS because Nintendo had decided to collaborate more closely the hardware and software departments.

Introversion abandons XBLA

Introversion, the team decided not to make more games for XBLA because of poor revenue recorded by Darwinia + on the Microsoft platform. From now on, only offer their full support to the Steam service. "If you yearn to have worked for Microsoft? No, but it is unlikely we will continue to do so," said Mark Morris in PC Gamer.

"[Microsoft] wants a very high standard for games that have come out on its platforms, but the support and sales made from it do not go hand in hand with these claims." The development of Darwinia + has gone on far longer than expected and cost the team a lot Introversion 'fatigue. In a few, however, have rewarded these efforts with the purchase of the game.

Guild Wars 2 - Unveiled class Thief - Pictures

The fast and lethal Thief Guild Wars 2 will respect the historical canons of the class and will have the ability to hide, ringing punch combinations and causing extensive damage. Of course, its speed will cost something in terms of strength and health. Among the skills are Hide, Walking in the Shadows and Traps.

The thief also may contest two weapons and will be deadly in PvP. The arms of the thief • Main Hand: Sword, knife and gun • Hand secondary knife and gun • Two hands arc

Guild Wars 2 (homepage) Guild Wars 2 (wikipedia)

As players spend Xbox 360?

In the UK, the Xbox 360 owners spend an average of 64 pounds a month, Microsoft made it known. 13% of the owners of the console instead of U.S. spends more than £ 100 per month. These are the results of a survey conducted by Microsoft and reported by MCV. The survey was conducted on a sample of 251 Xbox 360 owners with an age between 25 and 34.

84% of respondents played at least three or four times a week, and 41% spend three or four hours every day on video games. The most popular genres are shooters, racing games and RPG.

Xbox (crunchbase) Xbox (wikipedia)

[GDC 2011] The Bitmap Brothers return to earth on iOS

Z, Xenon 2 Megablast, Gods, Magic Pockets and Chaos Engine The After news of the return of Another World, ex-Amiga users have more reasons to rejoice: the GDC 2011 were announced the porting of various historical titles belonging to the catalog of Commodore machine, particularly the historical record of the Bitmap Brothers.

Jon Hare, Sensible Software's legendary symbol of the man and now head of Tower Games, having revived Speedball 2 is going to continue with the port (or remake) games by the Bitmap Brothers: Xenon 2 Megablast, Gods, and The Chaos Engine Magic Pockets are all scheduled to IOS, although no exact details yet.

Blizzard celebrates 20 years

Blizzard celebrates the twentieth anniversary of the company with a movie in which two of the three founders of the developer of World of Warcraft, Michael Morhaime and Frank Pearce, greeted fans of games made by Blizzard. "When we founded the company in 1991 we were only three. We wanted to take this opportunity to thank you all, without your support we would never be able to do this," said Morhaime.

16 players for multi Resistance 3

The multiplayer of Resistance first brought challenges for a maximum of 40 players, that Resistance 2 reaches 60 players. And Resistance 3? It will stop at 16 players, has confirmed the senior Insomniac community manager James Stevenson, PlayStation Blog. Half of the players will fight as Chimera, the other half will play the Humans, they do know the developers, who preferred to focus on the elements "most fun" of the Resistance multiplayer of the first two, those offered by smaller maps.

[GDC 2011] The latest version of Unreal Engine 3 in video

From Awesome Game Developers Conference 2011 comes this footage of the new techdemo shown by Epic to unveil all new in the latest version of Unreal Engine 3. This is not surprising that the models are, of course it is an advanced tech demo, but the quality and density impressive particle effects, smoke, lights.

Also note the yield of the depth of field that now is cinematically. Unreal Engine 3 - Technical Samaritan GDC 2011 Demo

Unreal Engine (homepage) Unreal Engine (wikipedia)

Dark Souls, announced the Beacon Fires

Unlike Demon's Souls, Souls Drak will not be present in different levels, and players who die can regenerate in the Beacon Fires. According to the developers, the Beacon Fires are checkpoints scattered around the game universe from which you can return to games after a game over. The Beacon Fires will also enable other players to join your game and will help restore the energy lost by the protagonist.

WoW patch 4.1 nothing in the Firelands

Blizzard said that in patch 4.1 of World of Warcraft will not be present in any raid Firelands. During the Game Developers Conference, the lead producer J. Allen Brack said that players Cataclysm expansion have not yet achieved sufficient progress for the challenges of the Firelands. "We believe that users are not yet ready for the next raid, we've made some changes and Firelands will be released with the update 4.2.

The new Bungie game is an MMO

Bungie's new project is an action game belonging to the genre of MMO. During a speech at the Game Developers Conference Bungie, entitled "The First Shot You: Networking the gameplay of Halo: Reach" and followed by IGN, the lead network engineer at Bungie, David Aldridge said that it will not be a "World of Warcraft in space", as some sources reported recently.

The Bungie MMO will be published by Activision, publisher of Halo with which the authors have signed a ten-year agreement to develop games within the new IP. The latest game developed by Bungie has been the exclusive Xbox 360 Halo: Reach the last chapter of the series that Bungie has made one of the biggest names in the genre of first person shooter.

Bungie (homepage) Bungie (wikipedia)

Bleszinski: "Nothing between indie and AAA

There is no market for the "end games" media "products that do not belong to the category of self-employed basis or to that of AAA. This is the view expressed by Cliff Bleszinski of Epic Games during a speech at the Game Developers Conference. "mainstream games are dead," said lead designer of Gears of War before making an analogy with the cinema, where according to Bleszinski may have happened almost exclusively blockbuster or independent productions.

Another World Announced to Ios

The platform developed in the 90s by Eric Chah, Another World, will arrive later this year on devices IOS, the developer has confirmed. Originally published in 1991, the game will arrive on the iPhone and iPad in an updated version developed by the French company DotEmu. "I am delighted to be working with my friends and DotEmu Bulkypix with their partner," said Chah.

"The first prototype is spectacular on the iPhone, are doing a great job." The next project will be Chah From Dust, published by Ubisoft that the game will arrive in 2011 on PC, PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Arcade.

IOS (Apple) (homepage) IOS (Apple) (wikipedia)

Retro Studios attacks the former

During the Game Developers Conference, the boss of Retro Studios, Michael Kelbaugh, harshly attacked some former staff members who left the company after the release of Metroid Prime 3 to give birth to a new study. "In the end it was a good thing for us, and if any of you here in the audience, look at what you missed," Kelbaugh said, referring to the platformer Donkey Kong Country Returns.

The go-ahead for the development of new Donkey Kong was made by Nintendo in 2008, and just at that date back some frictions that have led some staff members to leave the study. "Some key elements of the back (in 2008 the art director Todd Keller, design director Mark Pacini, engineer Jack Matthews and formed Armor Studios) left the company to seek his fortune elsewhere, and prevented the study to continue the experiments being conduct ".

Microsoft - Xbox 360 English usage-Poll

Players insatiable According to a survey Microsoft conducted of 251 owners of 360 between 25 and 34 years, the average cost of English players in relation to the Xbox is 64 pounds per month. According to the survey 13% of Xbox 360 owners spend more than £ 100 per month, 83% play at least three times a week and 41% play three or four hours a day.

Apparently the users interviewed play at least seven titles a month and genres are, in descending order of importance, shooter, racing games and role playing. In short, the Xbox Middle English, considering that the estimate was made on only 251 respondents and is not reliable in an absolute sense, is very active.

Unveiled Thief Guild Wars 2

NCsoft and ArenaNet have unveiled the sixth profession in Guild Wars 2 is the thief. Rogues are defined as "deadly in combat," they score points and armor, low life but are fast and can take evasive moves. They can move "by exploiting the shadows, into thin air and steal weapons and items to their opponents." The profession should be an evolution of Rogue Assassin Guild Wars Rogue elements of World of Warcraft.

The dedicated servers Homefront

The commands available dedicated servers for the PC version of Homefront allow more possibilities of customization of the server. Unfortunately we have no options to change spawn times or weapons available. The server can run in mixed mode automatically switches between the gaming. We will also have the self-balancing mode that will level the teams moving players.

Finally, to start a dedicated server, you need not be connected to the Steam client. The commands are available for dedicated servers: Name Server Message of the Day How to Play Limit Internet time limits score (off the LAN) Vac Secured Number of Slots Game Port Query Port Administrator Password game Password Friendly fire No registered vehicles demo Source: SegmentNext

THQ challenge in EA and Activision FPS

It seems that EA and Activision are not only to want to contest the leadership in the FPS, in the fight, in fact, would also fit the Homefront publishers, THQ. "Absolutely," said the vice president of THQ, Danny Bilson, a Videogame Source. "When we started working on Homefront I explained to the boys that if we had used a contemporary setting would have to compete with Call of Duty.

Our mission is this: we need to include in this speech, with games such as Battlefield, Call of Duty Medal of Honor. And I like to think that the objective has been achieved. " "We can beat them? Those are great games that are crazy numbers for years. Our franchise is the debut but so far I would say that everything went well.

100 keys as a gift for beta testing of Wakfu

Multiplayer. it is a contest to get started now to play Wakfu! The new project of the French software house Ankama is preparing to be a leader also on our website. By this time, by accessing to this address you will receive your key to start playing immediately Wakfu beta testing, the original MMO game style cartoon graphics.

There are only 100 up for grabs, so hurry! We remind you that there are no limits to the level or degree but you must have the profile 100% complete to participate. Link to the contest Wakfu

Software testing (wikipedia)

Animales de la Muerte WiiWare leaves

High Voltage announced that Animales de la Muerte, originally designed as an exclusive Wii title, will arrive on PC, PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Arcade later this year. Announced in 2008 for Wii, Animales de la Muerte puts the player in an infested zoo animals are not dead. Three years later, the developer of The Conduit explains the reasons which prompted the study to change their strategies.

[Updated] Black Ops: two new videos on PS3 First Strike

We celebrate the arrival ... With the arrival of the DLC First Strike Call of Duty: Black Ops on platforms PlayStation 3, Activision has released two new trailer for the famous first-person shooter. The first, very original, was created as a kind of music video on the song "Winds of Change" Scorpions ", and shows us a map of Berlin.

The second one, however, refer to the map "Ascension". Found both in the bottom of the news. Call of Duty: Black Ops - First Strike - Trailer "Berlin" Call of Duty: Black Ops - First Strike - Trailer "Ascension"

Mortal Kombat first demo on PS3

The demo of Mortal Kombat will be available from March 8 to subscribers PlayStation Plus All users can try out the new PlayStation 3 game developed by Netherrealm since March 15. The possesssori Xbox 360, however, can get their hands on demo of the game "later". In the trial version of Mortal Kombat include Scorpion, Sub-Zero, Mileena, Johnny Cage, for use in the Living Forest and Arena Pit.

Mortal Kombat (homepage) Mortal Kombat (wikipedia)

Ad and trailer for Red Johnson's Chronicles

A New Adventure for PlayStation 3 The French developer Lexis Numérique presented its line-up at GDC 2011, and was also Red Johnson's Chronicles. This is an adventure that will be available on PlayStation Network in May, lasting 8-10 hours, lots of puzzle elements that somehow make it comparable to the number of Professor Layton for the Nintendo DS.

The trailer, which we describe below, it still shows nothing of the actual game, while providing a nice noir style. Red Johnson's Chronicles - Trailer

PlayStation Store, +70% in 2010

According to Pierre Gravereau Sony America during the Game Developers Conference in 2010, proceeds from the sale of PlayStation Store content has increased by 70% over the previous year, reports Joystiq. One of the factors behind the growth in turnover of the virtual store of the NDP is to increase the number of accounts, a total of 70 million, according Gravereau; also increased by 60% over the previous year the number of consumers who have expenditure on the PlayStation Store.

[GDC 2011] 600 thousand people for the closed beta of Battlefield Play4Free

But no Mac version on the horizon James Salt, senior producer of Battlefield Play4Free said during GDC 2011 that the closed beta of the game could count on 600 thousand participants, although clearly not all online at once. He also explained that for this enormous contribution to the development team decided to start the open beta since April, unevenly, to avoid a one day full of players that can cause crashes.

Announced Mortal Kombat Challenge Tower

Netherrealm said it wanted to bring the classic mode Test Your Might of old in the next Mortal Kombat game in the series. The 300 Challenge Mode levels of Tower will include Mortal Kombat Test Your Might, and Test Your Sight "a twist", tells Netherrealm. The new Mortal Kombat is designed as a return to the origins of the series, after a few steps to empty the IP.

Producer of the game is Ed Boon.

Mortal Kombat (homepage) Mortal Kombat (wikipedia)

Quantic Dream working on two different projects

Completely different ... David Cage, Quantic Dream and soul responsible for the appreciation of the PlayStation 3 exclusive Heavy Rain during the 2011 GDC did a little 'light on what plans does the software house on the medium to long term. Not really going into detail, Cage has established itself as the home development is paying its work on two separate projects (as stated on several occasions), specifying, however, as they are essentially different.

Sony opens up to the homebrew app Move.me

Sony has recently announced its intention to open the doors of the PlayStation Move to all lovers through a special homebrew application which will be rilsciata in the spring. According to what is shown on the U.S. PlayStation Blog, Move. I will give it full access to the device, thereby allowing the free trial.

"We want to see what they will be able programmers who decide to experiment with the Move, the PS3, the PC and the PlayStation Eye," read the blog. "Move. I turned to researchers, professors, university level, students, programmers, developers and enthusiasts. Show us what you can do in areas such as nutrition and physical well-being of children, interfaces targeted at smaller and learning, the therapy physical rehabilitation, physiotherapy, exercise, music and creative arts.

[GDC 2011] Gears of War for PlayStation 3? Epic would do it willingly ...

... but the support of Microsoft so far has justified the exclusive Mike Capps, president of Epic Games, said during GDC 2011 that his team would gladly set of Gears of War on PlayStation 3, but also admitted that Microsoft has steadily been able to convince them to keep the Xbox 360 exclusive. "If we'd come before all the fans of Killzone and Resistance to say that Gears of War is fabulous? Of course you do," said Capps.

Persson: "Piracy is theft"

Markus Notch Persson, creator of the sensational Minecraft, is convinced that piracy is not comparable to a theft. "They are two completely different things," said Persson during GDC, "if you steal a car that will not be anyone's forever, but if it duplicates a game, simply there will be an extra copy in the world." "They say that piracy contributes to reducing sales.

But then even a bad review or a release date not contribute to the same thing." According to Persson real solutions are another "make games that last more than a week" or "consider the development of a videogame as a service". "You can not hack into your online accounts, and look what a coincidence, a game like that Minecraft checking accounts at each login is not among the phenomena of piracy." For the record, just Minecraft last night took home three prizes including the GDC's prestigious "Best Debut."

Resistance 3: first from the multiplayer gameplay

Let '... After the presentation of the gameplay on single player, Insomniac during GDC 2011 has presented the first in-game movie strictly on the highly anticipated Resistance 3. We then give a first look at what will be the multiplayer experience for this exclusive PlayStation 3. Here's the video: Resistance 3 - Multiplayer Trailer

Resistance 3 (wikipedia)

John Romero is given to the "casual"

John Romero, creator of the legendary Wolfenstein 3D, Doom and Quake, has decided to dedicate his next work no more but the hardcore gamer to the casual audience as possible ... to Facebook. "We have worked for decades to hardcore games," said co-founder of id Software site Venture Beat. "Now is the time to think about anything else.

We want to teach the rest of the world how much fun playing video games." Romero will dedicate to future projects with his new team Loot Drop, which will soon publish his first game thanks to funds made available by the publisher RockYou. The goal is to launch four games by the end of the year, which will be marketed by publishers to be defined.

John Romero (wikipedia) John Romero (imdb)

Halo: Reach becomes Games on Demand

All digital ... Through the usual Blog Major Nelson, Microsoft announced that Halo: Reach will join soon the series of titles such as games on demand, ie those products directly purchased and downloaded through Xbox Live. Bungie's masterpiece will therefore be available from next March 15, about a week after Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days scheduled for November 8, always for the current month.

Source: VG247

Halo: Reach (gamerevolution) Halo: Reach (homepage) Halo: Reach (wikipedia)

Patch 1.07 for PS3 Black Ops

Treyarch has released a new patch for the PS3 version of Call of Duty: Black Ops, in conjunction with the release of First Strike DLC. The 1.7 update should fix many of the problems encountered by users in recent weeks and will add in-game shop. In addition, some aspects were balanced gameplay as the power of the sniper rifles and other little things that will delight the most ardent fighters ...

Call of Juarez: The Cartel - Trailer Ad

A modern western The first trailer of Call of Juarez: The Cartel shows us what it means to be men of modern frontier in the west to survive in between Mexico and California. Unfortunately, the video game sessions, but does not show presents three characters who can discuss, in cooperation with three online, the Mexican drug cartel through 16 dangerous missions.

Call of Juarez: The Cartel - Trailer Ad

Call of Juarez (homepage) Call of Juarez (wikipedia)