Light It Up

Movie tie-in games generally suck... Now that i've got that out of the way, Tron: Evolution. While the upcoming game will be hitting shelves around the same time as the movie (December) Tron: Evolution and Tron: Legacy will not directly tie in with each other. Why buy a semi movie-tie in game that's likely to suck then? The Collectors Edition of course...

The Collectors Edition of Tron: Evolution comes with a model lightcycle complete with cool bubble display case that also acts as a storage container for the game. If anything i've just said doesn't instantly sell you, then you were probably never gonna play the game anyway.

Bordering On Ridiculous

Gearbox have put out a tweet saying... "Borderlands Game of the Year Edition announced! Game + all FOUR DLCs and bonus map for 360, PS3, and PC. Available in October!"... ... I don't really know what else to add to this, it really says it all. So Borderlands will soon be available from retail complete with all 4 DLC packs, which seems a little ridiculous. I think most of the people who want the DLC for borderlands likely already have at least one or two pieces, so now they're left with the option to continue to download the packs individually from the marketplace, or cough up full retail price to buy a game that comes with crap they already have. I don't see this selling very well, but i guess Fallout 3 managed to make sales using this strategy.

Subscribe This

The xbox dashboard isn't the only thing seeing a change in November. Microsoft are set to increase Xbox LIVE subscription prices. While there doesn't seem to be any info on if there will be any change in Aus prices, U.S. gamers are looking at an extra $10 per year. While this is sure to be unpopular with gamers, November will also see new media and video services brought into effect, so U.S. players will still be getting their money's worth. Presumably most of those shiny new services won't turn up on the Aus marketplace under the usual excuse of licencing issues, so i imagine we won't see the increase, but if it turns out we do, be prepared to renew your subscription in october to save yourself a bit of money.

Be Heard

It's been a while since we've seen a Xbox console update, but there is finally one on the way and its bringing us a whole new level of communication... ok, well it's fixing one that currently sucks. The Xbox currently uses a low bit rate codec to encode voice chat because Xbox LIVE was originally designed to be running on 64k connections, but these days the vast majority of people are running faster connections (at least in most countries that aren't named Australia) so with the Fall Update (which actually comes in Spring for Aussies) we'll be seeing an update to the voice chat system that aims to make the audio a much higher definition. Will this make it possible to communicate in a team game like Halo or CoD without sounding like your mic is wrapped in alfoil? yes... will it reduce the pitch of the billion 12 year old kids on Halo? probably not. The fall Update will likely be released in the first week of November to go with the launch of Kinect, and thus update the dashboard for Kinect control as well.

Inspirational Choir Music Not Included

Next month PC gamers will be able to get their hands on the next installment of the Final Fantasy series. Final Fantasy XIV (14)  follows in the footsteps of Final Fantasy XI (11) in being a cross-platform MMORPG. However, due to some issues between Square Enix and Microsoft regarding the Xbox LIVE system, the game will be making it's way to PC and PS3. The PC version will be hitting shelves in roughly a months time, but PS3 gamers will have to wait till March next year. The whole point of this post though is to show off the shiny new trailer...



I've only just started getting into PC gaming and MMO's in particular, but i'm definitely considering giving this one a go... presuming my computer will run it. If not, look out for me on a realm near you come March. You can find me by looking for the character with a name relating to Scoot or 338... he'll probably also be acting like a noob :)

The End Of An Age

Dragon Age: Origins has been a massive success for Bioware and produced an insane amount of DLC. So with Dragon Age 2 now well into development, the original had to come to an end eventually... but not before the release of one final piece of DLC. Witch Hunt has been announced as the final expansion for Dragon Age: origins and will tie up the last remaining loose end from the main game... What happened to Morrigan. Witch Hunt will be available for 560 MS Points from September 7th.

Rock Out

The track listing for Rock Band 3 has now been officially confirmed. You can check it out by clicking 'Read More' but the short version (rather, my opinion) is that the listing is a rather mixed bunch covering pretty much every genre you can think of (and working in some songs for the keyboardists/pianists out there) but quite a lot of them have already been seen before in the Guitar Hero series. While it could be argued there is still all the DLC already available, it's still disappointing that they can't come up with something better to actually put on the disc, after all, you don't need Rock Band 3 to play the DLC either. Still no official release date outside of America, however EB Games have it listed as the 21st October (which i find unlikely considering the US date is the 26th).

DLC or Achievements

THQ have owned up to an issue with the latest piece of DLC for Metro 2033. Players who downloaded the 'Ranger Pack' DLC have found they can't earn any of the achievements related to the DLC. Unfortunately, the pack was released 3 weeks ago and THQ have only now admitted there is an issue and they are looking into it and ask for gamers patience. Better late then never i guess, but you think they might have actually looked into this during the months they spent actually making the DLC.

Vegas Stakes

Quite a while ago, Midway Studios announced a game that would allow you to take to the streets of Las Vegas and do pretty much anything you wanted, GTA-style. This Is Vegas seemed to be going pretty well but it hasn't been seen or heard from since Warner Bros bought out Midway. That's changed... Word now is that This Is Vegas has been cancelled. There had already been extensive work done on it (including cover art and screenshots) and it's been said that Midway had already dumped over $40 million into making the game, and it would only require another 8 months production, costing about $250,000 a month. If this does prove to be true, it means Warner Bros will be taking a hit of about $50 million dollars... Perhaps now would be a good time to take up that Mortal Kombat movie proposal?

Bloody Sequel

When the next and final sequel to the Saw movie franchise hits the cinemas around Halloween, you should also be able to get a bit more of a Saw fix, because that seems to also be the release date for Saw 2: Flesh & Blood. With that being said, the game has been pencilled in for an October 19th release in America, but there was a considerable wait between the American and Australian release of the first Saw game, and even then that's presuming Konami decides it's worth the money to try to put it past the ratings board and release it here. Saw: The Game got mixed review from media, but i've generally found that gamers who played it generally liked it (although arguably the only people who bought it were already fans of the movies).

Breaking Shadows

If Halo isn't your thing, then dust off your copies of Mass Effect 2 (as if you've put it down long enough to gather dust). The next piece of DLC, 'Lair of the Shadow Broker', will be hitting the marketplace on September 7th and see a familiar ally by your side, as you get to work with Liara T'Soni once more (and continue your romance if that's the way you went in Mass Effect 1). Lair of the Shadow Broker will set you back 800 MS Points.

Remembering The Fallen

Halo: Reach is still 3 weeks away, but that's no reason for Microsoft to wait. The Halo: Reach website is now live and you can enter your mark on the Reach remembrance memorial. Check out the site at rememberreach.com, link to your facebook and you can add a point of light to the memorial... If you look at it and CAN'T already tell what it is, don't bother getting Reach.

Racing Line

Gran Turismo 5 is hitting the PS3 soon, but it looks like Microsoft may be looking to keep a hold of it's racing gamers. The Ratings Board seems to have accidentally outed an 'Ultimate Edition' of Forza Motorsport 3. Currently no details on contents or release date, but it will presumably contain the original game plus a range of DLC... oh, and if anyone actually cared, it got rated G (with a warning that game experience may change online).

Disappointment And Rage Goes Here

Over the last week I've started playing World of Warcraft... I'll just pause here for a moment until the Rage and Disappointment dies down... Done?... Good, let's continue. So, WoW, in the past i've given it crap and much hate for being an MMORPG. Most of this comes from the fact i can't stand having to play games with other people. After a week of WoW, i've come to realise that while parts of it are still rageworthy, and indeed many players of the game are I'll let you finish that sentence), The entire game isn't bad. It's still possible to play solo, in fact the game may arguably be easier solo. Once you look past the MMO aspect, WoW becomes very similar to games such as Morrowind and Oblivion... Yes, i said that, now stop raging and listen... as much of the game just involves trekking across the land (easily as big as the world in Oblivion), slaying monsters, retrieving items and there's even some dungeon crawling you can do by yourself if you so wish. The amount of players running around will vary greatly depending on what server you decide to play on. I'm on a server for noobs, so there will rarely be more than 100 players online at once. In a world the size of Oblivion it means that running into other people out in the wild is pretty rare. Obviously there ARE the dungeons and raids that require you to be in larger groups (anywhere from 5 players to 25) but these are pretty much completely optional. I guess what i'm getting at here is, not everything about WoW sucks, and some people who hated it for being an MMO may actually like it if they give it a chance. I wouldn't recommend trying to download the free trial though, unless you've got several gigs of download limit to spare.

Oh, and for anyone wondering whats coming up, I'm going to be writing something up about the Winter of Arcade (I bought all the games and am going to do a mass 5-in-1 review i guess), I'm going to try to review Mafia 2 and possibly Kane & lynch 2, and there's a heap of new albums coming out so i might try to get some more music reviews up.

Other Stuff I Missed

People may or may not have noticed that i haven't posted in like a week. While Gamescom WAS underway, there wasn't really much new info coming out of it. Lots of screenshots sure, but those can be found with a simple google image search. The few little bits and pieces you may want to know about are mentioned below...

Fans of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed 2 won't have to wait till the release date to get some saber swinging action, as a demo for the game will be released before the game. No exact release date yet, but Lucasarts are apparently just making a few tweaks on it before releasing it.

Valve finally seem to be getting the hang of Left 4 Dead DLC as the next announced item, 'The Sacrifice', will be playable from both Left 4 Dead 1 and Left 4 Dead 2. Apparently the plot will be similar to that of 'The Passing' and see one of the team members bite the dust (or brains?) but who it is will be up to you. If that's not enough for you though, you'll also get your hands on a revamped version of 'No Mercy' from Left 4 Dead 1, complete with all the shiny upgrades of Left 4 Dead 2... So, some new zombies and weapons.

Dust off your turntables as DJ Hero 2 has now been given an exact release date (well, as close as we can get without them specifically giving an aus release date). DJ Hero 2 will be spinning onto shelves (see what i did there?) on October 19th/22nd (North America / Europe)

It's been said that Call of Duty: Black Ops may well take up the challenge of besting Modern Warfare 2's sales record. At the moment Black Ops is outdoing MW2 in the pre-order department, but i hardly think that's anything to go by... Let's wait till the game releases and see how it handles in the hands of gamers first. Oh and i've heard word that Agus (over at The Gamers Pad) is working up a feature article on Black Ops, so i'll link that when it's done)

Finally the arcade version of Scott Pilgrim vs The World is out this week (or like three weeks ago if you own a PS3). Paying tribute to the old look and feel of side scrolling beat'em ups, the game will let you take control of one of four characters to make your way through 7 levels of bad guy beating and boss battles. On the slightly disappointing side, if it matches the PS3 version, there will be no online co-op, but even without it, if the game is remotely as good as the comics or movie, it'll still be epicly epic.

Mister Chief

When Bungie released a picture of what will be available from the armory come launch day for Halo: Reach, people got a little excited over the included picture of Master Chief. Bungie have since confirmed that the included pictures will be unlockable voices to be used in firefight. HOWEVER, it's also now been said that with enough money spent and ranks earned, Master Chiefs MJOLNIR armour will be unlockable too. So while the chief won't himself be in the game, you can still make Noble 6 looks like him and even sound like him in firefight. Already i can hear the sound of people complaining that it still isn't THE Master Chief. To those people i say, then stop whinging, call him Mister Chief if it makes you feel better, and wait for the next game when 343 Studios undoubtedly brings him back for the purpose of saving mankind... oh, and making Microsoft some extra pocket money.

Opening The Toy Box

The first piece of DLC for Crackdown 2, titles Toy Box, has been given details. Toy Box will work much like the expansions to the original Crackdown, with there being a free portion and extra stuff if you're willing to pay a little money (560 MS Points to be exact). The free Toy Box download will give you a new multiplayer mode (Vehicle Tag), a reward for maxing all your agents skills to level 6 (Thruster, it's like a jetpack for your feet) plus access to the now famous Keys to the City mode. Keys to the City mode allows you to do all sorts of things that you shouldn't be able to. Just access the pause menu and add whatever you'd like... Need a weapon? Spawn one. Running out of ammo? check the infinite ammo box. Just want to blow stuff up? check the god mode box and never worry about dying again. For people who want that little bit extra though, the paid part of Toy Box will give you access to two new vehicles (the amphibious, wall crawling Agency ATV and the 4-man Squad Chopper, complete with proximity mine launcher, rocket launcher, twin machine guns and nose machine gun). If vehicles aren't your thing, then check out the 5 extra gadgets you'll get. The Mass Driver is a turreted weapon... that messes with gravity. Portable Launch Pads which allow you to make your own jump pads wherever you decide you need a little extra height, Stickler grenades which bounce along and release smaller explosions with every bounce, the previously mentioned Thruster, and to round it off, Character Mags... yep, Mag grenades which you can attach to characters. Finally to round out the pack and a probably well spent 560 points, Toy Box will include 10 extra achievements and 8 new suit colours. Colours are...

• Peacekeeper
• Terror Firma
• Agent Orange
• May Contain Nuts
• Minti-Sting
• Mega Agent
• Haz Mat
• Dem Apples

Rising Spartans

If you've missed it (yes, this post and indeed, half the ones i've just posted are a day or two behind) Bungie have released the next ViDoc for Halo: Reach. Titled 'A Spartan Will Rise' it takes a look at the members of Noble Team, and the epic mission laid out before them.

Brotherhood Beta Dated

The Assassins Creed: Brotherhood multiplayer beta has now been dated as starting October 4th... but remember it's exclusive to PS3 owners who have pre-ordered the game.

Song Central

Personally, I don't dance. I'd like to believe i make the world a better place by NOT dancing. Other people DO like to dance though, and for those people there is the upcoming Harmonix Kinect title Dance Central... Just so happens a few more tracks for Dance Central have been revealed. Dancers the world over can look forward to dancing away in front of their tv's to...

• Basement Jaxx – “Rendez-Vu”
• Benny Benassi – “Satisfaction”
• Cascada – “Evacuate the Dancefloor”
• Fannypack – “Hey Mami”
• Kool & The Gang – “Jungle Boogie”
• Kylie Minogue – “Can’t Get You Out of My Head”
• Nelly Furtado – “Maneater”
• Nina Sky – “Move Ya Body”
• Pitbull – “I Know You Want Me (Calle Ocho)
• Rihanna – “Pon de Replay”
• Technotronic – “Pump Up the Jam”

Cool, right?

Kinect Casting

When Kinect was announced what was your first thought? Lightsaber duels? OK, yeah, good call... but surely your second thought was casting magic spells... right? If so, then your wish has been granted (magic, right?) as the Challenge Mode has now been announced for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 1, which will allow you to use Kinect to cast spells.

The Second Dragon Age Dawns

Dragon Age 2 is the sequel to highly successful and DLC heavy Dragon Age: Origins... But hopefully i shouldn't need to tell you that. What i do need to tell you is that it has now been dated for release in March 2011. Looks like we'll still be broke long after xmas with the immense line-up of upcoming games now covering every month from September to March.

Crysis Gets Limited

Not rich enough to buy the Nano Edition of Crysis 2? Never fear because the game is said to be launching with a limited edition too, set at the same price as the standard edition, but only while stocks last. While the price tag might be quite lower, you'll also miss out on the backpack and steel case of the Nano Edition, instead receiving a SCAR Weapon Skin and attachment. The Hologram Decoy, allows players to create a hologram of themselves to confuse opponents... where have we heard this before? The Limited Edition will also include a Dog Tag and bonus XP (players will start with enough experience to access all 5 class load-outs immediately).

New Khallengers Appear

Two new characters have been added to the line-up for the new Mortal Kombat title. The line-up previously announced were Scorpion, Sub-Zero, Johnny Cage, Kung Lao, Reptile, Mileena, Night Wolf and Sektor. The two new characters to join the fray are yellow bodied cyborg-ninja Cyrax, and the princess of Outworld, Kitana. Mortal Kombat's return to basics seems to be shaping up nicely, but with the release date currently just set for 2011, there's still plenty of time for things to change.

Portalling Into 2011

Portal 2 has been given a new release date of early February 2011... also, the voice of Wheatley (The personality sphere) has been confirmed as Stephen Merchant (Co-Creator of the british series of The Office and general british comedian).

Shadow Boxing

After the news that Fable 3 wouldn't feature Kinect support at launch, it started to look like Kinect was moving more and more towards the gimmicky game library everyone associates with the Wii. Luckily Ubisoft are going to change that... No, they're not really, but they've announced a cool fighting game for Kinect. Fighters Unleashed looks to be a cross between Street Fighter and UFC and will feature complete Kinect control... Just make sure you're not standing near any solid objects when you play it.

Warriors Line Up

The full tack listing for Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock has now been revealed and it features everyone from Orianthi to Children of Bodom... and yes, Foo Fighters too. Click 'Read More' for the full list...

False Premonition

If any Aussies out there were looking forward to getting their hands on upcoming survival horror game Deadly Premonition you'll have to think again. It seems the minds behind the game decided that the game wouldn't make the cut for an MA15+ rating and they wouldn't edit it down. What worries me though is the original statement saying the game was put to the classification board and denied, however in actuality, Rising Star Games decided not to put it to the board at all. I can understand that they would be concerned the game wouldn't pass the ratings test, but to state they attempted and were denied when they voluntarily chose not to submit it at all doesn't help the ratings situation at all. For those of you who really want to check the game out, it WILL be getting a European release soon, so wait for that, then import it.

STALKER 2...

I couldn't think of a STALKER related title that wasn't overly creepy... That aside, the sequel to everyones favourite Chernobyl based FPS (not like there's any other Chernobyl based FPS's) has been announced. STALKER 2 is currently under development and will apparently be multi-platform. That's pretty much all i've got at the moment, but i'm sure more details will come up soon.

Building Blocks

Bungie have released a massive blog post that includes a list of every item you'll be able to purchase and place in Forge World, as well as the prices and item limits. You'll be able to place up to $10,000 of equipment in Forge World, and the maximum cost for any one piece is $200, so you'll be able to fit plenty in. On top of that, they've shown pics of custom armoured Spartans in the campaign, revealed they've created over 40 assassination animations and showed off the FX filters for Forge World. Rather than try to fit all the info into a post here though, i'll direct you towards the actual Bungie blog post because, well i'm not feeling like trying to retype everything they've announced... The post is HUGE.

Controlling The Fables

A limited edition Fable 3 controller has been revealed. Hitting shelves early October, the control features a face painted with a Fable design created by Lionhead Studios. Check out the pic below.

Housekeeping

Just letting everyone know that i'm trying to make the blog a bit easier to follow and read, so i'm going to try to go back through and add tags to every post. Generally i'll try to tag the game title, month it is due to release, if it is a review, etc. so keep an eye out for those and use them if you're looking for any specific posts (for example, all posts about a particular game, or posts about games releasing in a specific month).

P.S. turns out we're almost up to 300 posts here on The Arkhive, so it may take me a day or two to get every post tagged.

Crysis OFFICIALLY Delayed

I posted a while back (10 days to be exact) to say Crysis 2 would likely be delayed from its end of year 2010 release to a January-March 2011 release. Today it was confirmed Crysis 2 will be hitting shelves March 22nd in the U.S and March 25th in Europe (likely the same for Aus). To make this post slightly more hilarious, i thought i'd point out that i was in my local E.B. games store the day after my previous post and chatting to the staff member. Despite the fact he not only works in a game store but also has Crysis 2 on pre-order, He had no idea there was even any chance of it being delayed. I guess my point here is... Always check The Arkhive for the latest gaming news ;)

Trailers Galore

There's a heap of new trailers that have just recently been released. The first trailer to show gameplay footage of Deus Ex: Human Revolution, The latest F3AR trailer showing the dynamic of the blood brothers (and Alma too), and the launch trailer for Kane & Lynch 2... You'll find them all by clicking 'Read More'. Oh, and although it's been out for a while, i'm throwing in the cinematic trailer for DC Universe Online too because it looks amazing.

EA Bringing Everything But The Kitchen Sink

Gamescom is fast approaching and it looks like the company to watch will be EA who have announced the games they'll be showing when they head to Germany next week. At the EA booth they'll have the following games on display:

• Crysis 2
• Dragon Age II
• FIFA 11
• Medal of Honor
• Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit
• Rock Band 3
• The Sims 3 (Console version)

But on top of those, EA are taking a whole heap that will be shown to press behind closed doors. So look out for details flooding in next week about:

• Bulletstorm
• Crysis 2
• Dead Space 2
• Dragon Age II
• EA SPORTS Active 2
• EA Sports MMA
• FIFA 11
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1
• Medal Of Honor
• Monopoly Streets
• Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit
• Rock Band 3
• The Sims 3 (Console version)

Torn From Rapture

You may have caught one of my posts about the teasing of the upcoming Irrational Games title that was only known as Project Icarus. Well now we have a title and trailer, and much like the story of Icarus, you'll find yourself being taken to new heights, and it probably won't be too safe. The new title is Bioshock: Infinite which sees the Irrational Games team return to the world of Bioshock, however they are no longer content with bringing fear to the bottom of the sea, as it seems like Infinite will take place in a new city... A city floating amongst the clouds. Check out the trailer at whatisicarus.com

Prestigious In Vietnam

The Prestige edition of Call of Duty: Black Ops have been announced, and while you won't be getting another pair of night vision goggles, i'm sure most people will be happy with what you DO get.

The prestige edition will include the game (obviously) in a steelbook case, Four exclusive co-op maps (apparently these will be updated Zmobie maps from Call of Duty: World at War), 'Woods' avatar outfit, Black Ops medal and...  Black Ops RC-XD Remote Control Car with onboard video camera and microphone that sends an audio and colour video feed back to the controller. For those thinking it (and i know some of you are), no, the remote control car does NOT feature an exploding function. Presumably the Hardened version will be the same, minus the remote control car and probably without the medal.

Announcements Incoming

With the amount of games already announced for release over the next few months, i REALLY don't want anything else added to that list. Luckily for me Epic Games and Id Software are preparing to announce new titles but neither should be out till 2011. Epic Games has stated they'll have 'A Bulletstorm sized unveil' at Gamescom in Germany next week, and with Microsoft confirming Gears of War 3 won't be on show at Gamescom, we know this has to be a whole new project. As for Id Software, they'll be dropping details on their next project at Quakecon sometime before tomorrow morning. A comment by John Carmack seems to point out that this announcement will NOT be Doom 4, but rather another title to go alongside their current lineup of upcoming games, Doom 4 and Rage.

New Challengers Appear

Many artists and even more songs have appeared on numerous rhythm games, so it's nice to see Activision are at least trying to find new talent for the Guitar Hero franchise. Announced today are 11 more songs to appear on Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock, and they're all by artists who have never been on a GH game before.

• Anberlin – “The Feel Good Drag”
• Arch Enemy – “Nemesis”
• The Dillinger Escape Plan – “Setting Fire To Sleeping Giants”
• John 5 – “Black Widow Of La Porte”
• Neil Young – “Rockin' In The Free World”
• Orianthi – “Suffocated”
• Queensrÿche – “Jet City Woman”
• Red Rider – “Lunatic Fringe”
• RX Bandits – “It's Only Another Parsec...”
• Snot – “Deadfall”
• Tesla – “Modern Day Cowboy”

Prepare For Robolution

Gearbox today announced a new piece of upcoming DLC for Borderlands... Oops. As previously mentioned the DLC will feature more than 20 new missions and focus around a claptrap revolution that has the vault hunters and Hyperion working together. Claptrap's New Robot Revolution should hit the marketplace in September for a price of 800 Points.

Microsoft Faithless In Kinect?

Microsoft have revealed that Kinect will NOT be able to read sign language as was revealed by its patent. Microsoft have put it nicely by saying not everything they put to patent is brought to market immediately, however sources close to Kinect have apparently popped up saying the ability to read sign language had to be removed when the resolution of the camera was halved during part of a dumbing down process... and here's the kicker, the source goes on to mention the camera was dumbed down to make it cheaper in case Kinect failed to sell well. Seems like even Microsoft are a little doubtful of Kinect's success. Not something you want coming out with Kinect's launch in less than 3 months.

Rumours Forever

I felt the urge to ignore this and not bother with posting it, but i figured i'll post and let the readers decide whether there's any truth to it or not. So sources have revealed to Kotaku that Gearbox (the studio behind Borderlands) is working on developing their next game... Duke Nukem Forever. Yep, Forever has come out of the woodworks yet again and while there is no official confirmation or denial of it yet, the publishing rights DO belong to Take Two (the parent company of 2K Games), so it's not entirely out of the realm of possibility... at least no more than any other rumour about Duke Nukem Forever.

The Outbreak Approaches

Just a quick message to people intending on buying Dead Rising 2, the Australian release date has been shifted forward a week to September 24th. Same deal for Europe, although Americans will still have to wait till the 28th.

Double Fine Brings Us A Treat

The next title to come out of Tim Schafer's Double Fine Studios will be a downloadable game called Costume Quest. Essentially the game tells the story of a little boy/girl who sets out on Halloween to find their lost sister/brother (depending on what gender you choose). Schafer won't be handling the game himself, instead he'll be providing support as Lead Animator Tasha Harris takes over things. The game is still said to have the same familiar style and humour to it though. Costume Quest will see you roaming the streets for some good old fashioned trick or treating before heading into combat against imaginary monsters. You won't be alone however as other kids from the neighbourhood will join you on your quest and fight by your side. To add to the utter ridiculousness of everything, characters will also transform into imaginary representations of whatever they're dressed as, so a kid dressed in tin-foil armour with a trash can lid shield may transform into a fully fledged knight and someone dressed as a robot may transform into a huge mech. It all sounds a bit odd and quirky but what else would you expect from Double Fine. Costume Quest will be hitting the arcade and PSN on October 31st.

Getting Naughtier

For anyone who went out any bought Naughty Bear, here's a little surprise for you... Artificial Mind & Movement have released an extra episode as DLC for the game. Episode 8 is available now at the low, low price of FREE.

I'm Running Out Of Catchy Asylum Titles

First real details are now available about Batman: Arkham Asylum's upcoming sequel, Arkham City. There will be information regarding the story in here, so if you don't want to know, move on to a different post. It looks like the mayoral campaign of Quincy Sharp didn't go so well as he is apparently not mayor or warden of Arkham Asylum. In fact, both Arkham Asylum and Black Gate Prison are no longer in any condition to hold inmates, who now wander an area of the city that Sharp has walled off and turned into... *drumroll*... Arkham City. The city will be under the control of Hugo Strange, but the game will revolve around Two-Face as he attempts to kill Catwoman to swing the population of criminals and villains to his favour. Seems like more than even the Dark Knight could handle... Luckily we'll be well equipped to take on Arkham City's inhabitants, as right from the start you'll be equipped with all of the gadgets gained in Arkham Asylum plus smoke bombs because... Well, who DOESN'T love smoke bombs. Other new features will include the ability to counter two enemies at once, gangs who free-roam the city and are recorded in the criminal database and to add to the whole experience, you'll now be able to take part in side missions (which also includes Riddler Challenges). All this info is thanks to the great people over at the Arkham City Blog who leaked the info from the upcoming issue of Game Informer.

Less Frequent UFC Action?

THQ have revealed that they are considering changing the development period of new UFC games from annually to 15-21 months. While they are yet to decide for sure, it can be assured there WILL be a new UFC game next year, just not sure exactly when. Guess they're feeling confident about their position against EA MMA. Could this be the beginning of the end for copy pasted annual sports games?

Dragon Age Goes Ultimate

Yet more news coming out of the U.S... Gamestop have put up a listing for Dragon Age: Ultimate Edition. No official confirmation or word on what this is, but i can only presume it will be a copy of Dragon Age: Origins, complete with all the DLC. Good news for any Dragon Age fans out there who haven't got around to purchasing the DLC yet.

[UPDATE] Gamestop have since pulled the listing back down...

The Brotherhood Gets More Exclusive

Don't get too excited yet as this seems to be a U.S. only offer, but there is ANOTHER collector's edition of Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood hitting the market. The collectors edition comes with:

• a Doctor Jack-in-the-Box (or Harlequin Jack-in-the-Box for Gamestop shoppers)
• Two extra maps
• Hard Copy Strategy Map of Rome
• Exclusive Art Book
• Bonus DVD containing: Making Of video, Sneak Peek at the AC Comic, Trailers and the Game Soundtrack

Considering Australia is already getting 3 different editions (Standard Edition, Auditore Edition and Codex Edition), i don't think we'll be seeing this on our shores, but you never know.

Kinect Can Read The Signs

The patent for Kinect has now been made publicly available and it reveals that Kinect is more than meets the eye. No it's not going to turn into a robot and try to kill you, however it WILL understand what you're saying if you can speak in sign language. Supposedly the camera will be capable of reading American Sign Language (i didn't even know there was an American version of sign language, oh how naive of me) which speaks volumes for the cameras sensitivity and may potentially bring in a new class of gamers... the educated :D... and you thought i was gonna say deaf.

Teasing Icarus... MORE

You may or may not remember, but i posted a couple of weeks ago about a website that seems to be teasing Project Icarus, an upcoming project from Irrational Games. Well the website (whatisicarus.com) seems to have evolved slightly... There's now a date (August 12th) and the little dot now moves revealing... stuff. It seems to reveal some sort of monochrome circular object, but i really don't know. If you feel like sitting there for a long time and trying to figure out what is behind that little dot then feel free to leave your thoughts or suggestions in the comments section, but for Irrational Games i have to say this. Making a game in monochrome would have been cooler if you released it last month... BEFORE Limbo. Speaking of Limbo, i have been purchasing all of the games featured in the Winter of Arcade and you can expect a nice big write-up about all the games at the end of the promo (about a week and a half from now).

Getting Personal

Surprise, this ISN'T a news post. Just letting everyone know that i'll be getting a PVR (Personal Video Recorder) next week that will allow me to record gameplay footage... Still not entirely sure how this is going to be used in conjunction with The Arkhive, but if you have any ideas of what you'd like to see then make a suggestion in the comments section.

Lara's On Her Own

If you've been purchasing the games in the Xbox LIVE Summer (Winter) of Arcade for all the great online multiplayer they offer, then you might want to hold off on the last release. Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light is the final game to be released in the Summer of Arcade (in about two weeks time) and has been getting many players excited for its co-op gameplay. There's just one problem. Crystal Dynamics have announced that the online co-op WON'T come with the game. You'll still be able to play local co-op and of course, single player, but if you're wanting to play with other friends over Xbox LIVE then you'll have to wait until September when the online co-op gets released via a patch. Crystal Dynamics announced the delay for multiplayer saying they wanted to make sure the online experience was the best it could be before releasing it and also announcing the game will have 5 pieces of DLC (that's Downloadable Lara Croft). 3 Pieces will feature new levels and fresh puzzles, while the last two will take main characters Lara and Totec out of the game and replace them with other "well known video game characters". If none of this bothers you then you can still look forward to the August 18th release and a price tag of 1200 Points.

Better Start Saving

The release date for Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock has been announced... sort of. Europe will get the game on the 24th of October, while the US will get it on the 28th. I presume the Aus release will be the same week. Which is great if you're just looking forward to Guitar Hero. Bad if you're waiting on other games too. Looks like Guitar Hero, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed 2 and Fable 3 will all be shipping in the same week (possibly the same DAY). On top of that we have Fallout: New Vegas and DJ Hero the week before and Kinect a week or two after. Suddenly i'm glad the release for Reach is in September.

Holdin' Out

The unintentional outing of games continues. It seems Microsoft is working on Avatar Superstars Poker, or so the classification decision from the OFLC tells us. No official announcement, thus no release date, cost, etc. but i'd presume it will be an arcade game, and if it's been classified (Rated G, for Simulated Gambling, if anyone was wondering) then hopefully it won't be too far off.

Can't Keep Your Claptrap Closed

Developers are going to have to pay more attention to patch details. Several games have had their DLC outed because of people reading through code, and we now have one more to add to the list... Borderlands. So, Borderlands has a new DLC add-on coming. No idea on the name yet, but Legendrew and various other forum goers at the Gearbox forums have managed to dig up quite a few details about the upcoming add-on. It will contain 21 new missions (9 story and 12 side missions), 10 new locations and a heap of returning characters, plus a new one, labelled as "Interplanetary Ninja Assassin Claptrap"... Yes, i can hear you laughing... No, I'm not kidding... Yes, it is awesome. I'll throw the story into a spoiler section below so if you want to skip over it you can, but if you're interested to know whats gonna happen... well:

» Click to show Spoiler - click again to hide... «

Hyperion creates the Ninja Claptrap to prevent vault hunters from stealing all the loot, however the Ninja Claptrap starts a revolution, freeing his clatrap brethren and rising up against their creators. Hyperion then tasks the vault hunters with bringing down the claptraps, who have now taken it upon themselves to reanimate dead bodies (adding an extra part or two along the way). This means the return of some characters including Dr. Ned, General Knoxx and Commandant Steele.

While this is obviously all still unverified, Gearbox employees have been happy to respond in tweets letting us know how they feel about it. CEO of Gearbox, Randy Pitchford, had this to say, "OMG! You're in our files, stealing our secrets! Interplanetary Ninja Assassin Clap Trap will KEEL you!" and Mikey Neumann, Creative Director for Borderlands, left this, "P.S. Legendrew, if I ever meet you-- I'm punching you in the face. Sure, we'll laugh after, but I'm fucking punching you first."

Back To The Asylum

We've known for a while that Batman: Arkham Asylum 2 was being made, thanks to multiple actors tweeting confidential details by accident, etc. but now Warner Bros. and DC Entertainment have been kind enough to officially announce it, and give us the official title... Batman: Arkham City. Yes, this means what you think it means. Arkham City will take place in a version of Gotham City that has been overrun by escaped psychos and, naturally, super villains. Keep an eye out for Batman: Arkham City late 2011.

Reach's Recreations Continue

Three new maps have been revealed for Halo: Reach. The first is Spire and will be an assault map where Spartans will be tasked with storming a tower against the defensive Elites. Fans of Halo 2 will be happy with the rest of this announcement though, as the other two maps are remakes. Reflection is a faithful remake of Halo 2's Ivory Tower, which i'm sure will make for a fun battleground that will allow for some good uses of Reach's new abilities. Meanwhile, Zealot is a slightly upgraded version of Midship. Zealot is pretty faithful to the original, until you discover the third tier, complete with lowered gravity.

Live Engineering

Have you ever wondered how Xbox LIVE works? Considered what needs to happen for that hard earned achievement to unlock? For anyone who loves technology and how things work, i recommend you check out the Xbox engineering blog which is updated with random information about how Xbox LIVE works and what work goes into the xbox to make it do the wonderful things it does. A must read for everyone who loves all the technical info that makes things tick and is looking to waste a bit of time.

I'm alive...OR AM I!?!

In regards to Scoots recent post, yes I do walk among the living.
Hooray for me.
But that may all come to an abrupt end. See over here at university me and some friends have come up with a new game that when role played seriously, turns out to be so fun it is damn funny.
ZST Or Zombie Survival Training is exactly what it sounds like.

It started when me and two of my friends had a long discussion about how to best survive a Zombie Apocolypse. Realistically. Ultimately I think we'd all want a Lightsaber, I mean those things would take down a zombie like fuckin' no mans business. But realistically there would be so much panic and people scrambling etc...So we thought about it as a logical process. The zombies are your classic zombie, slow moving, able to lunge at a close range, not capable of thought, able to sense/smell/hear human presence and other zombies. And able to relay that information to each other through pheremone release (sort of like a stupid hive mind). So they know where you are, and can let other zombies further away know too, so they can amble over to feast.
After much debate and theoreticals (which I won't go into here unless you really want me too) we decided the best course of action, to see how easy it would be to make a get away, in say our common room at the Hall.
So we acted it out. Panicing survivor, ambling zombies the whole 9 yards.

Now this is probably something that some of you may have thought of or even tried but we took it to a new level…We really thought it out. We started simple...Survivor has to kill zombies (only had two people to act as zombies at the time). It was surprising difficult as we only had the objects in the common room, such as a folder, monopoly box etc and we reasoned that these weren't heavy objects so it would take multiple blows to the head to stop them. After a few test runs we decided it just wasn't enough. It needed more. So we added objectives for the survivor. These were simple but included having to find a phone, (which was hidden somewhere in the room while the survivors eyes were closed - The phone was placed in a logical location that a phone would end up during the chaos, such as on a table or a discarded jacket etc) this phone was for simple telecommunications to aid possible rescue or find survivors. Then we figured they would need to locate some form of container for water/supplies. So we had a bit 2 litre bottle of water also hidden somewhere for the survivor to find. This was for the standard, if you do make it out and you have to run or hide for however long, you would need supplies to last the time. Simple survival logic. We also figured that a survivor would have to find a weapon to deal with the zombies. This was all in a single common room area with lots of objects in it and such, but no real zombie weapon so it relied heavily on the survivors quick thinking skills.
These items could be collected in any order, weapon was usually the first choice as it was harder to deal with the zombies other wise.

So all in all it was possible the most fun I've had in some time and more time for me to refine my zombie survival skills. Keep in mind that this was with only 5 people total, 1 survivor (alternating) and then 4 zombies at max. We realise that we need many more zombies, around 10 or 12 in such a small space would make it much more challenging and fun but regardless.

So I thought I’d just let the internet know that it was awesome and I can’t wait for the next game/training session.

Rawr.

Check Out The New Pad

The Gamers Pad (the awesome new website i'm helping out with) is just going through some final experimentation, but should be up and running some time next week. You can go and check it out now at thegamerspad.net. I've finally been given the keys to the kingdom as well, which included a shiny new email address, so if you've got any thoughts, suggestions, ideas, free shit or hate mail, feel free to fire it over to scoot@thegamerspad.net or just leave me an awesome comment here. Also, if you're wondering what Mike or Steve has been up to, then add them on LIVE (Mike = Grenadist & Steve = Skooba Stevos) or just drop a comment on here somewhere and i'll be sure to shout at them the next time i see them.

P.S. The Arkhive isn't going anywhere, and you can continue to check out all my random news posts and stuff here, but check out The Gamers Pad too, coz you'll find reviews by people other than me, plus hopefully some prizes and competitions soon.

Guitars In The Garden

For anyone who doesn't know, Soundgarden has pretty much reunited... Naturally that's not the entire point of this post though. Activision have announced that Soundgarden's first new song in quite a while will be available on the Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock disc. If that's not enough, gamers in North America will also get their new album, Telephantasm, free with the game... a week before it goes on sale to the general public. Oh, plus for everyone else, you can pick up the entire album as DLC from launch day. I don't know how or why all this came about, but i'd like to believe it's Chris Cornell's way of trying to snatch the title of 'Person featured most times on rhythm games' away from Dave Grohl... Either that or Activision just REALLY loves Soundgarden.

The Year In Crysis

In preparation for the company discussion on quarterly earnings, EA seems to have dropped back the release date on Crysis 2. For all you gamers who wanted that awesome nanosuit backpack for christmas, it looks like you'll have to send santa a new wishlist, because the new release date puts Crysis 2 as releasing sometime between January and March 2011.

Welcome To Fortune City

One of the better things about Dead Rising was the large environment you had to run around and dispatch the undead in. So with the release of Dead Rising 2 approaching, it seems to make sense that people would want to know what sort of area's they'll be dealing with this time. Well, luckily for those people, i've got a full map of Fortune City...

Click the image for full size

It looks like we'll be stuck with a single safe house again, but the number of save points seems to have increased. Generally it seems like a bigger version of Dead Rising 1's mall, with safe house, save points, maintenance access and a heap of individual areas. I'm just hoping they manage to reduce the amount of points where the game needs to load... oh, and improve the friendly A.I., obviously

Fabled Creations

Fable is continuing it's line of odd pre-order bonus's, this time it looks like you'll be able to create your own villager via an online villager creator, then people who pre-order can import their villager into Fable 3. Who you make is up to you though. Future wife? Personal slave? Town idiot? The sky is the limit. Unfortunately there is no word on if this will be available in Australia yet, but for the American version of the village creator tool, go here, and keep checking back for an update when i know what stores you'll need to preorder from if you want to transfer them over.

One on One with Kinect

Ever since Microsoft's Kinect and Sony's Move were brought to light at E3, there has been much debate over which is better and the advantages and disadvantages of each. The most interesting of which has been Kinect's ability to follow movement. I've heard reports that the camera has difficulty following movement, but i've also heard that the camera keeps track perfectly well. So which is it? Well, according to Harmonix (who are working on Kinect launch title, Dance Central) the camera is perfectly capable of reading 1:1 movement with no lag. So if Harmonix is right, then you'll be able to flail around in front of your TV come November and the on screen avatar will be able to keep step with you just fine... Of course this still doesn't make me any more interested in picking up Dance Central. Sorry Harmonix.

One More Reason To GRIN

GRIN was the developer behind such games as Bionic Commando, Terminator: Salvation and Wanted: Weapons of Fate, so it's not really any surprise that the studio has come to an end. Not everything GRIN touched was a complete failure though, with Bionic Commando: ReArmed receiving positive feedback upon its marketplace release, so it's probably not a big surprise that several of the old employees have gone on to start a new company, named Whiteout. The new studio is supposedly working on several new games, including a title that will run on CryEngine 3 and apparently is already working in playable demo form. Whiteout also has plans to return to the digital download market, and with all the new exciting games hitting the LIVE Arcade and PSN lately, it seems like a good time.

Bungie Prepares For War On Cheaters

One of the more inevitable things when it comes to online gaming (apart from high pitched squeals, pointless insults and the occasional meow) is glitches and people generally doing things that weren't meant to be done. Having learnt many valuable lessons from the online community of Halo 2 and 3, Bungie have been hard at work trying to make sure the multiplayer on Halo: Reach is as unbreakable as possible. While they admit many of the people who find ways to cheat the system are just players who are a little too smart and have a little too much time on their hands, they've said that between creating new tools to detect people cheating, and working with the Xbox LIVE team, they're going to be trying their best to find and deal with cheaters to the best of their ability. Exactly how people will be punished and for what is unknown, but i'm sure the banhammer will be in their arsenal somewhere. While not all cheating is necessarily bad (there's always fun to be had while roaming around outside of a map) it's work like this that keeps a game playable online and prevents the use of glitches that make the game unfair (like Gears of War's chainsaw glitch).

Honorable Beta

So many people have been playing the beta for Medal of Honor and many have commented on it's similarity to Bad Company 2's multiplayer (being that the Dice team helped make it). Well it looks like the cross over is set to continue as we now know that people who purchase the special edition of Medal of Honor will also get access to the beta of... Battlefield 3. Not much is known about Battlefield 3 yet, however the beta will apparently be taking place within 12 months of the Medal of Honor release. So Battlefield fans, if you haven't already, go out and pre-order your copy of Medal of Honor now.

Quit Now

Everyone loves a quitter. Quitters are those people who decide of drop out of online games early for any reason, although typically it's because they're losing. It makes the game less enjoyable for everyone else, unbalances teams and most importantly, makes a huge delay mid-game. Well early quitter consider yourself warned. Apparently Bungie have a new set of tools that allow them to monitor peoples stats on Reach so they can spot players who habitually quit early and penalise them. Exactly how you'll be penalised is still unknown but it may actually be possible to remove you from the online population, which i imagine would make it much harder to find a good game.