Tuesday, March 13, 2012 - 11:49
When Hustle Kings came out for the PlayStation Network, it reassured our faith in video game billiards. Usually, game developers just get something wrong with such a game, like the physics or the gameplay or the fact that, hey, the real thing is better. But somehow, VooFoo Studios managed to capture the feel and essence of the game, while loading it with game modes and online options to keep everyone pleased. (The 3D option didn’t hurt either.) The company has since brought the game to the PlayStation Vita front, but does it still know how to sink the eight ball? The answer is a resounding yes.
Tuesday, March 13, 2012 - 11:29
I remember the first time I checked out Shoot Many Robots. Demiurge Studios had invited me up for a beer in their suite at GDC last year, and there introduced me to P. Walter Tugnut, a Southern shooter with a severe robot issue on his hands. Just with the introduction of a beer and the main hero’s name, I knew that the team was going for a different kind of run-and-gun title with Shoot Many Robots. Now that the final game is here, under the watchful care of Ubisoft, it’s still got the same charm that won me over last year. (And no, that wasn’t the alcohol.)
Tuesday, March 13, 2012 - 10:44
NCsoft has revealed the pre-purchase program for Guild Wars 2, the most anticipated online role-playing game (RPG) scheduled for release in 2012. Starting April 10, players who pre-purchase the Guild Wars 2 Collector’s, Digital Deluxe, or Standard Editions will receive guaranteed entry into all beta weekend events and a three-day headstart prior to launch, giving them the opportunity to be among the first to secure their character and guild names. As a bonus, players who pre-purchase any edition will also receive an exclusive Hero’s Band, which will provide their characters with a broad range of power boosts as they venture into the world of Tyria in Guild Wars 2.
Tuesday, March 13, 2012 - 10:24
EA Sports is promoting its latest Tiger Woods golf game with the help of Shaquille O’Neal. The former star of Electronic Arts’ Shaq Fu game for Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo is now using his kung fun skills against Tiger. Check out the viral video below.
Monday, March 12, 2012 - 17:17
Today marks the start of the NCAA Football 13 My Heisman Cover Vote, which allows fans to cast their vote on the EA SPORTS NCAA Football Facebook page for one of eight Heisman Trophy winners to accompany former Baylor University quarterback Robert Griffin III on the cover of EA SPORTS NCAA Football 13. Developed in Orlando, Florida by EA Tiburon, and licensed by The Collegiate Licensing Company, a division of IMG College, NCAA Football 13 will be available on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 on July 10.
Monday, March 12, 2012 - 16:54
SAN FRANCISCO -- Game Connection announced that independent developer Wolpertinger Games' upcoming title Phobos has won the Game Connection America 2012 Best Selected Project award. Featuring a unique art style and a tense, twisted plot, Phobos provides a highly immersive experience for fans of suspense and horror game genres and is currently in development for major platforms, including Xbox LIVE. Game Connection took place in San Francisco in tandem with the Game Developers Conference (GDC 2012).
Monday, March 12, 2012 - 16:33
SAN FRANCISCO – The Game Developers Conference (GDC 2012) is officially in the record books. The world’s largest and longest-running event serving professionals dedicated to the art and science of making games held to its title of “largest” with a record-breaking 22,500 game industry professionals making the trek to the Moscone Center in San Francisco. That’s a 17% increase in attendance over the previous year’s event. Following the success of the show, organizers have announced that GDC 2013 will return to the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco from Monday, March 25 to Friday, March 29, 2013, – with a call for lecture submissions to open this summer.
Monday, March 12, 2012 - 12:13
Say what you want about Sony’s business model, but the company knows how to make good franchises last. Case in point – Twisted Metal is still running, 17 years strong, with its PS3 release last month. And now we have Wipeout, a racing series that has been around since the very beginning, under the guise of Psygnosis. It’s been hanging around for several years, eventually making its way to every Sony platform, including the PS2 and PlayStation Portable. A while back, it made a grand PS3 debut with the downloadable Wipeout HD, alongside its DLC counterpart Fury. And now, the series once again returns to speed, this time on the PlayStation Vita.
Monday, March 12, 2012 - 11:39
There are a lot of influences that Capcom can easily say it drew from when it was putting together Asura’s Wrath alongside the team at CyberConnect 2. Dragon Ball Z definitely comes to mind, especially with all the rage bursts that seem all Vegeta-like. For that matter, we also spotted a little God of War, Panzer Dragoon, the Incredible Hulk and even a little Mr. Furious from the Mystery Men films (though obviously that’s a small percentage – Ben Stiller this guy ain’t). But somehow it all blends together into a gaming experience that’s more style than substance, yet it’s something that shouldn’t be missed.
Sunday, March 11, 2012 - 22:32
Ever since they made their debut in 1999, the Boondock Saints have been carving out quite a legend for themselves. In that terrific action movie, directed by Troy Duffy and featuring the likes of Willem Dafoe and Sean Patrick Flannery, a pair of fraternal twins set out to rid Boston of criminal types while being kept close tabs on by the FBI. Since then, the Saints have returned in 2009 with a slightly lacking sequel, All Saints Day, though not much else has happened. Still, the effects of the original film are hard to shake, as it’s still quite the favorite for some.
Sunday, March 11, 2012 - 20:57
Last week’s announcement of a new iPad didn’t really surprise anyone, did it? We knew that that Apple would announce a device that would FINALLY take advantage of a retina display. We knew that it would have high definition possibilities. And we called the new camera too, natch. But what we didn’t know was that Chair Entertainment, the company behind the Infinity Blade games, had a killer app waiting in the wings. Guess it’s nice to have one surprise waiting for us.
Sunday, March 11, 2012 - 16:36
SAN FRANCISCO – Nintendo had a strong showing at the Game Developers Conference (GDC 2012). The game maker abandoned Wii U for Nintendo 3DS and featured some brand new games. On display and playable was Spirit Camera: The Cursed Memoir, Mario Tennis and Kid Icarus: Uprising.
Sunday, March 11, 2012 - 15:53
EA SPORTS and ESPN are once again allowing fans to cast the vote for the next Madden cover athlete. The Madden NFL Cover Vote campaign for Madden NFL 13 has officially kicked off. Last year, nearly 13 million votes were cast through ESPNSportsNation.com and ESPN mobile in both companies’ most successful cross-platform activation. Tenth-seeded Cleveland Browns running back, Peyton Hillis, trucked through the six week competition all the way to the ultimate end zone – the Madden NFL 12 cover. EA teased this news at the Madden Bowl in Indianapolis during Super Bowl week. Check out the exclusive video below with former Madden Bowl champ Maurice Jones-Drew, who’s in the running for the cover this year.
Sunday, March 11, 2012 - 14:57
EA SPORTS today predicted that defending champion LA Galaxy will continue its dominance over MLS this year, completing a record-setting regular season and winning the MLS Supporters’ Shield for the third straight year. No team has ever finished first three consecutive MLS seasons but EA SPORTS declared LA Galaxy the winner of the upcoming 2012 MLS regular season using FIFA Soccer 12 on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. Phoenix Suns NBA All-Star Steve Nash talks FIFA 12 in this exclusive interview below.
Saturday, March 10, 2012 - 20:44
Rovio could probably sit around and talk for hours on end about how much cash they’ve raked in with their Angry Birds franchise. Between the games, the stuffed toys, the upcoming movie, the advertising tie-ins, the candy…yes, there’s Angry Birds candy…there’s literally no end to this cash cow. But that doesn’t mean the team has forgotten how to make the games special. And on March 22, it takes the next logical step in the series, by launching the Angry Birds into…well, outer space.
Saturday, March 10, 2012 - 20:02
I always wondered what Spike TV was going to do now that it’s lost its UFC programming to FX Networks. But now, thanks to my stop at 345 Games’ office during Game Developers Conference, I have a better idea. The company is actually teaming with Bellator, an MMA fighting group, for new programming in 2013, and to sort of tie in with that, the publishers of the Deadliest Warrior games are working on a new MMA fighter for download on Xbox Live and PlayStation Network.
Saturday, March 10, 2012 - 20:16
Aspiring videogame designers tee up for Golden Tee Golf’s Design-a-Hole Contest. The winner will be revealed May 10th and takes home a Golden Tee Golf home version. Lots of kids want to become video game designers when they grow up. And apparently, many still want to after they grow up. Just ask Jim Zielinski, designer of the #1 video bar game, Golden Tee Golf.
Saturday, March 10, 2012 - 20:00
Mass Effect 3 fans can immerse themselves even deeper in Mass Effect universe with two new iOS apps, Mass Effect Infiltrator and Mass Effect Datapad, when they hit the App Store this week. As part of the Mass Effect Galaxy at War system, Infiltrator and Datapad allow players to bolster their war assets and influence their single-player game ending in Mass Effect 3, ultimately helping Commander Shepard in the fight to eliminate the Reaper threat and take back Earth once and for all.
Friday, March 9, 2012 - 21:05
SAN FRANCISCO – Tablet games were everywhere at GDC 2012, which also marked the debut (next door) of Apple’s new iPad. On the show floor at the Game Developers Convention were plenty of new Google Android tablets. In a remarkably rapid ascension, media tablets in 2014 will become the world’s fourth-largest application for semiconductors, up from 35th in 2010, rising in just four short years from obscurity to a level rivaling the position of powerhouse chip markets like mobile handsets and PCs, according to the IHS iSuppli Application Market Forecast Tool from information and analytics provider IHS.
Friday, March 9, 2012 - 20:30
Electronic Arts has big expectations for BioWare’s Mass Effect 3. The game publisher has shipped over 3.5 million units of the award-winning game globally and already sold 890,000 copies in the first day at retail. The game has made headlines of late over a pair of controversies. Metacritic has been deleting an overwhelming number of negative user-generated reviews for the game. And the game developer also received some pushback over the game’s homosexual content with the introduction of same-sex male relationships. Previous games have allowed same-sex female relationships.
Friday, March 9, 2012 - 10:04
The story behind Activision’s attempt to revive its True Crime series is an interesting one and, at one point, a sad one. The company hired United Front Games to work on True Crime: Hong Kong, and even announced it during the 2010 Spike TV Video Game Awards show. However, months after its development (and a pretty good E3 showcase), the company chose to cancel the project, feeling it wouldn’t live up to its potential. Now that COULD’VE been a sad story, had Square Enix not picked up the pieces and opted to release the game as an original adventure called Sleeping Dogs. But it did.
Friday, March 9, 2012 - 09:32
When you develop something that’s considered one of the better games out there, it’s often hard to move on to the next project, as most folks will usually demand more of the same or, as tradition usually calls for, a sequel. Kim Swift, the developer of Valve’s uber-hit Portal, has managed to do this, though, as her team at Airtight Studios showed us the other night at the Square Enix event with its upcoming Quantum Conundrum. We gave this delightful little digital treat a run-through in a hands-on demo.
Friday, March 9, 2012 - 09:02
Deadly Premonition is one of those weird cases in the game industry. There’s some stuff that just doesn’t make sense about it, and its production values aren’t as high as other games you’ll find on the market, but somehow you just can’t help but be mesmerized by what it has to offer within its strange little world. It’s been a huge hit on Xbox 360, and now, according to news we’ve stumbled across at the Game Developers Conference, PS3 owners will soon get a turn.
Friday, March 9, 2012 - 08:50
Last night’s Square Enix get-together event at the Game Developers Conference provided plenty of opportunity to hobnob with fellow journalists and some great Square Enix PR folk. But it also provided the chance to check out what was coming up from the company. And while we would’ve killed to give the new Tomb Raider a go, we did get a few other upcoming titles in its place. Among them, some new downloadable content for the company’s top-notch role-playing game, Final Fantasy XIII-2.
Friday, March 9, 2012 - 01:10
Gamers can now stand out from the crowd and let your true performing talents shine. The Maxis label of Electronic Arts announced that The Sims 3 Showtime Expansion pack is now available at retailers nationwide and for digital download on PC and Mac. The Sims 3 Showtime is the newest expansion pack to the wildly popular The Sims 3 and gives players a new outlet to play with life in the glamorous world of Starlight Shores. Also available is the much anticipated The Sims 3 Showtime Katy Perry Collector’s Edition Expansion pack, featuring in-game Katy Perry-themed outfits, props and objects.
