EA is sending in the experts to salvage Dead Space Extraction, left adrift in retail space last year. Although Extraction impressed critics with its threatening environments and frantic action, it never quite found the audience it deserved on the Wii. The on-rails shooter was an essential component of EA's harsh sci-fi universe, trading engineer Isaac Clarke's high-pressure exploration for a briskly paced series of intense standoffs -- that 480p resolution certainly didn't stop it from being it a Dead Space game.

The PlayStation 3 version's high-definition graphics are a straightforward (if unambitious) improvement, but the wider distribution via the PlayStation Network and through Limited Edition PS3 copies of next year's Dead Space 2 offers the greatest opportunity to connect with new players.

Continue Reading

For a little over two years, CD Projekt's digital distribution platform, Good Old Games, has offered shoppers shelves stocked with DRM-free indie gems and beloved classics. Sadly, it seems the site's run has come to an end -- an update on GOG.com announces "we've decided that GOG.com simply cannot remain in its current form."

CD Projekt might not have given up on the classic archive altogether, as the update later adds, "this doesn't mean the idea behind GOG.com is gone forever. We're closing down the service and putting this era behind us as new challenges await." If you've purchased games on the platform before, don't panic, as the site will soon "put in place a solution to allow everyone to re-download their games."

Update: It's starting to look like the platform's shutdown is just a marketing stunt. Good Old Games spokesman Tom Ohle told us that "as the site says, this doesn't mean GOG is dead. We will have more to share in the next couple of days." A NeoGAF poster dug up a Polish business forum, in which CD Projekt co-founder Michał Kiciński purportedly mentions a conference dated for this Wednesday, adding, "we'll post information about this soon on GOG.com (please do not panic after reading the information contained there.)" We'll keep an eye out for more info.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in!]

If the latest Penny Arcade strip filled you with an interest/mortal fear of Markus Persson's indie sandbox title Minecraft, you'll be pleased to learn that the game is free to check out today (and possibly even a bit longer). On the game's official site, Persson reported, "Minecraft got way too popular for this humble server," leading him to temporarily shut down a few of the game's online services. Luckily for us spendthrifts, Persson decided to institute "a 'free-to-play weekend', or however long this will take to fix."

You'll have to purchase the game and register a new account once things get back up and running, but this seems like a pretty great chance to see what the game's all about without paying for it up front. That is, if you couldn't suss out from the title that it mostly focuses on mining, and then crafting.

El Shaddai is the most bizarre possible amalgam of seemingly random elements: simple, casual-friendly controls, exciting action, thoroughly abstract visuals, side-scrolling platforming ... oh, and Bible stories. And pants. I don't know what publisher Ignition Entertainment envisioned for its first internally produced, original retail game, but there's no way in Hell this was it.

El Shaddai, though, is much more interesting than most of the games at TGS -- you know, those games that show evidence of having been made by sane people.

Continue Reading

Well, you must have seen this coming -- almost all of this week's comics make pithy observations at the expense of Halo: Reach. If you're sick of reading about Bungie's send-off of the Covenant-brutalizing series, you might want to skip this particular Wrapup. Then again, if you do, you might miss out on the one or two comics that aren't about Reach. Decisions, decisions!

Check out our seven favorite comics below, and make sure you vote for your favorite in the poll posted after the jump!

Bummer of a Birthmark Hal (Virtual Shackles)
Dotage (Penny Arcade)
Imaginary Friends (Player vs. Player)
Janitor of the Mushroom Kingdom Part Two (Brawl in the Family)
The Ol' Switcheroo (No Cash Value)
Since 1971 (Of Noobs and Men)
We're Gonna Be Late (Nerf Now)

Continue Reading

The balancing overhauls and new features outlined last month for Starcraft 2 will be implemented this coming Tuesday, September 21, when Blizzard updates the successful strategy title to version 1.1. These new features include support for NVIDIA 3D Vision displays, left-handed hotkey options and new map editor functionality. The full list of features and balance changes can be read over on Battle.net.

The patch will go live during a maintenance period starting Tuesday morning at 5 a.m. until 11 a.m. PDT, at which time the game's online multiplayer modes will be temporarily offline. If you've got a score to settle with a distant rival, you probably shouldn't schedule your grudge match during that downtime.

It was an amazing feat on Treasure's part to fit Bangai-O, a game about intentionally letting the screen fill with bajillions of bullets, onto the DS. I was then extremely interested in seeing how the developer would fare with Bangai-O HD: Missile Fury, an updated sequel to the N64/Dreamcast/DS series on a system that is, for all intents and purposes, free of technical restrictions. As it turns out, despite having much more screen area to stuff with robots and missiles, Bangai-O HD is actually a bit less insane than its DS predecessor.

Continue Reading

The "Games Software Sales Forecast" included in Capcom's latest financial report includes launch windows for a handful of the company's upcoming titles -- the most intriguing of which is Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds. According to the report, the game is set to launch sometime during the fourth quarter of the current fiscal year, meaning Capcom's planning to release it some time between January 1 and March 31, 2011.

Capcom's no stranger to releasing its blockbusters during the first few months of the year -- however, this strategy became riskier with the arrival of this year's first-quarter "second Christmas." As such, the report states that Capcom "will further refine our long-term portfolio by deploying major titles in each quarter of the fiscal year." If only every other game company would be so prudent, we might be able to avoid the crushing load of games we have to wade through during the year's occasional busy release months. How about it, gaming industry?

DISSIDIA 012 [duodecim] FINAL FANTASY may have a bizarre, head-scratching title, but its brand new features make a whole lot of sense. The follow-up to 2008's mash-up fighter offers the most obvious addition for a sequel: an expanded roster, including Final Fantasy XIII's Lightning and Final Fantasy VII's Tifa. However, it also includes a number of other features that make the experience more engaging for fans, and more accessible for newcomers to the franchise.

The original Dissidia met a mixed response from fans due to its rather unique combat system. Instead of copying the model of other fighters -- Nintendo's Smash Bros., or Capcom's Vs. series -- Square Enix crafted a battle system inspired by Advent Children, but still rooted in RPG mechanics. If that doesn't make much sense to you, you are not alone.

Arguably the biggest new feature for Duodecim is the addition of an "RPG Mode" that strips down the combat experience into something that might be a bit more familiar to traditional Final Fantasy players. Unlike the traditional "Action Mode," you lose direct control over your character in this mode, relegated to selecting commands. You'll be able to switch between attacking Bravery and HP, or choosing a more defensive role. It may seem like the game is simply controlling itself, and to a certain degree, it is. However, this mode lets you understand the various mechanics that are at play in Dissidia without being overwhelmed.

Continue Reading

We usually look down on special occasions that were obviously created for the profit of a particular form of big business (we're looking at you, Buccaneer Supplies Ltd.), but we've chosen to celebrate Talk Like a Pirate Day this year. Not by talking like pirates, mind you -- but rather, by purchasing Telltale's entire five-part Tales of Monkey Island series, which has been marked down to $5 this weekend only.

That's a whole lot of seafaring for not a whole lot of money, so we recommend jumping on the offer before it disappears this coming Monday, at which point the game will return to its standard MS-Arrrr-P.

And Yet It Moves, created by Austria-based indie dev Broken Rules, is a wonderful little puzzle-platformer that launched on the PC last year. Now it's available through WiiWare, with updated motion-based controls and additional levels and bonus modes. And wouldn't you know? We've got ten copies of this new version to gift away!

To enter this giveaway:

• Leave a comment telling us one rule that you think should never be broken.
• You must be 13 years or older and a resident of the US only (sorry Canada -- and the rest of the world!).
• Limit 1 entry per person.
• This entry period ends at 12:00PM ET on Monday, September 20.
• At that time, we'll randomly select ten (10) winners to each receive And Yet It Moves for WiiWare (ARV $10.00) via the "Gift" feature in the Wii Shop Channel. Winners must provide their Nintendo Wii friend codes and be able to connect their Wii systems to the internet to receive the prize.
• For a list of complete rules, click here.

---

What is Joyswag? Since we don't keep the games and merchandise we receive for review or promotional purposes, it becomes "Joyswag," which is passed along to our readers. Please note that Joyswag may be in "used" condition.

For more info on our policy, click here.

Capcom's TGS announcement of Spider-Man's addition to Marvel vs. Capcom 3 is a formality. Of course Spider-Man was going to be in there. Nobody's going to put the effort into modeling X-23 and not bother to get to Spider-Man. Yes, Marvel's marquee wall-crawler is back (and we're glad to see him), with most of his moves from previous MvC games intact.

Now, Resident Evil's Albert Wesker, that's a neat surprise. He's really fast! And he teleports! And he has a really nice black trench coat! See videos of both new characters after the break, courtesy of GameSpot.

[Thanks, Paul!]

Continue Reading

The one thing saving Left 4 Dead 2 from being the world's most comprehensive zombie apocalypse survival sim is its liberal use of pain meds and "health packs." In the real world, these things don't have the immediate recuperative effects they do in the video games. If you want a taste of how it'll truly be, you should probably check out this week's mutation: Healthpackalypse.

In this custom Versus play mode on both the PC and Xbox 360, the survivors get no health packs whatsoever. If you're on the Infected side, laugh maniacally as the humans try to make it through without the use of first aid. If you're on the survivor side, well -- better luck next time! It's called "the apocalypse" for a reason, muchachos.

As you would expect, Microsoft's Kudo Tsunoda has expressed an optimistic viewpoint on Kinect's rarely utilized ability to scan real-world objects and incorporate them into games. At a recent Tokyo Game Show demonstration of Kinect Joy Ride, he revealed a small example of how Microsoft-owned developer BigPark utilizes the motion-sensing camera's capture capabilities. It's not quite a scanned skateboard, but it's enough to spur some color commentary.

Kinect Joy Ride features some minor pre-race vehicle customization options, starting with your car's color. If you're dissatisfied with the selection of bold colors in the game, Kinect can take a peek at any item positioned in front of the camera (within a small, on-screen reticle) and transfer its color onto your car. You could apply a dark shade of red (apple), an uplifting purple (GameCube) or a disgusting, sickly white (game journalist arm).

It's worth noting that this technology is hardly new -- you might have used it to capture textures in LittleBigPlanet with a PlayStation Eye -- and the implementation is far removed from Kinect's promotional promises. It's not even a particularly interesting addition in the case of Joy Ride, but right now it's in Microsoft's best interests to shift its conversation with consumers, away from, "What can't it do?" and onto "What can it do?"

Just minutes ago, immediately following the Tougeki fighting game championship finals held during the Tokyo Game Show, Namco Bandai game director Katsuhiro Harada announced Tekken Tag Tournament 2, the first iteration in the Tekken Tag series since the 1999 debut over a decade ago. We had a chance to speak with Mr. Harada following this unveiling, and learned more about the long delay, the game's arcade destination, the current state of fighting games and what's going on with Tekken X Street Fighter.

Joystiq: How long have you been working on Tekken Tag Tournament 2?

Katsuhiro Harada: Actually there was some talk at first of doing this before Tekken 6 came out, but when we discussed it amongst ourselves and the team we felt like we first wanted to make a proper sequel to 6 to see how far we could push the limits of our graphics engine on that hardware before going to Tag.

As you've seen for yourself in the trailer, we have three or four characters on the screen at once so that's simply twice as much power needed than previously for example in Tekken 6. So obviously trying to do that right off the bat earlier on would be much more difficult.

If it's running on the same technology as 6, which came not only to arcades but to consoles, what are your console plans for Tag 2?

Continue Reading

Five of the top six spots on Xbox Live Arcade aren't just Japanese; they are all ports of classic titles. When we asked Microsoft Games Studios VP Phil Spencer about the observation, he said he could challenge the assumption that ports and existing IPs dominate sales on the platform. His ammunition was Limbo, the superb platformer that kicked off this year's Summer of Arcade.

"Our number one Summer of Arcade game is Limbo," Spencer said, "by a long stretch." Other games in the five-week lineup included updates of classic titles like Hydro Thunder and existing – and highly visible – IPs like Castlevania and Lara Croft. "I think there was a time when Live Arcade was about IP that people knew," Spencer acknowledged, while conceding that those games are "always going to be important."

"It's changing though," he said. "I really think coming out of Braid, Shadow Complex, Limbo [...] that it's changing a little bit. We see that in the market, that it's becoming less about iconic IP that people know and it's becoming more diverse." And that's a good thing for everyone involved, including Spencer. "I love Limbo. I think Limbo's probably my game of the year right now." Us too.

Attendees of the Tougeki fighting game tournament in Japan received a special surprise today. Namco Bandai unveiled a brand new Tekken game for Japanese arcades. Tekken Tag Tournament 2 is a follow-up to 1999's arcade original, updated with a new roster and a current-gen graphics engine.

Neither a US nor console release have been announced at the time, but we're certain they're in the works. Even the debut trailer (after the break) states that "other region release dates are TBD."

Continue Reading