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PSP Go with its own App Store?

gross.tim — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 19:55:21 +0200

Since the revelation of the brand new PSP Go at the E3 in Los Angeles, it became more and more apparent that Sony is directly attacking its competitor - no, not Nintendo, but Apple and the iPhone.

The iPhone is so popular, probably because of its design and touchscreen, but also due to the App Store. You get thousands and thousands of little software programs, sometimes helpful, sometimes stupid, but mostly fun. And the software is not only handy, but also cheap. Now, can the PSP Go really compete with that?

According to a new rumour, it can indeed. Kotaku reports that Sony is planning an App Store of their own, specifically designed for the new PSP Go. The new marketplace is supposed to offer casual games and other applications for two to six dollars, which is about the price of a normal piece of software in Apple´s own store. Allegedly, the new store will be unveiled at the gamescom in Cologne this year.

If the rumour is actually true, who´d be surprised? The PSP Go is made for little applications, just like the iPhone, because it neglects the support of UMD discs. So it is dependent on downloaded data anyway. But one question remains: How important will non-gaming data be for the PSP, seeing that the brand stands mostly for games.

Tales of Monkey Island with Old Voice Actors - Mostly

gross.tim — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 00:49:59 +0200

Good news for all the Monkey Island purists out there. As Jostiq reports, many of the whole-hearted fans can forget at least some of their worries about possible quality issues of The Tales of Monkey Island. Why? Read on!

In all of the five episodes to come, the developers want to make sure that the fandom will have their fun with the dialogues of the game. And they are going to achive this by gathering the old crew of The Curse of Monkey Island.

So Dominic Armato will, once again, be the voice actor for our most-beloved pirate. And it doesn´t stop there, because Alexandra Boyd will also take over the role of Elaine Marley. Now from the good news to the bad. Both LeChuck and the mysterious Voodoo Lady will not be spoken by the old voice actors. But, as you may have anticipated, Telltale stated that they are very fond of the substitutes they found.

So, all the huge pirate fans out there can cheer about these happy news - or alternatively hold their breath for ten minutes.

Yet another thing. Do you all remember the sad moment at the end of the year 2007, when one of the most popular Monkey Island websites finally shut down? We are, of course, talking about World of Monkey Island. But guess who´s back with an all new blog? Exactly, the very same scurvy pirates who have been writing about the series for so long. You find their new blog, with all the news you need (or don´t need, but will gladly read) right here!

New Monkey Island is announced!

FLOO7 — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 13:50:22 +0200

After a mere nine years, Guybrush Threepwood (Mighty Pirate) returns!

Yesterday, LucasArts announced a new Monkey Island game. The game is developed by Telltale Games (known for Sam and Max, Wallace and Grommit). The name of the new Monkey Island is Tales of Monkey Island. Tales of Monkey Island will be split into five episodes. The first will be available on the 7th of July. Monkey Island will be released for PC and Nintendos Wii!

Telltale also offers a Special Edition, which includes:

A limited Cover
Another Telltale Game (of your choice)
An interview with the developers.

But watch out, this special offer is only available until the 6th of July. here. This is the official Website.

Gamescom: The Exhibitors

FLOO7 — Sat, 16 May 2009 02:34:27 +0200

According to the latest newsletter, the roster of exhibitors who will be attending the gamescom is as follows:

Activision Blizzard
ak tronic
Atari
Avanquest
Bigben Interactive
BigPoint
CAPCOM
City Interactive
dtp entertainment
Eidos
Electronic Arts
flashpoint
GOA
HAMA
HMH Hamburger Medien Haus
Koch Media
Konami
marketpoint
Microsoft
NC Soft Europe
Nintendo
rondomedia
SEGA
SevenOne
Sony
SouthPeak Games
Square Enix
Take 2 Interactive
Tivola
Ubisoft
Warner Brothers Interactive Entertainment

As you can see, quite a lot of prominent exhibitors will be present at the gamescom in Cologne (which is the spiritual successor of the Leipzig Games Convention, but was also its rival for a time). The gamescom will begin on 20 August 2009. You can find more information on the official website.

Battlefield 2 Patch 1.50 Enters Beta

Flo_the_G — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 16:11:16 +0200

It's been nearly ten months now since Electronic Arts announced that they would be releasing a new patch for Battlefield 2. After postponing the release a few times, the beta version of patch 1.50 has now been released. At a size of more than 1.3GB (much of which is probably taken up by the new map "Blue Pearl") there will hopefully have been enough room to fix at least the most severe of those issues that had begun to plague the game.

Patch notes:

============
Battlefield 2 Update v1.50
============
FEATURES
- Additional support for Windows Vista.
- Added Highway Tampa as a required map.
- Added a new map called Operation Blue Pearl.
- Added support for Widescreen resolutions
- Added support for the Novint Falcon controller - http://www.novint.com

GAMEPLAY TWEAKS
- Changes made to both the J10 and F35B to make them more balanced. Please note that the J10 is a superior dogfighter to the F35B and as such these two aircraft will never be equally matched.
- AA targeting tweaked to make it more effective.
- Added checks to prevent "runway grieving".
- Various changes made to prevent cheating.
- Tweaked the hit detection, hits will be more accurate to the model
- Increased the time to go prone after jumping from 0.3 seconds to 0.7 seconds
- Fixed G36E HUD during sprinting to match other weapons.

SPECIAL THANKS
- Special thanks to Blackbird at the TV2 community www.battle.no

Final Fantasy VII on Japanese PlayStation Network

gross.tim — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 12:01:25 +0200

The all-time rpg of many players out there, namely Final Fantasy VII by Square Enix, has now hit the Japanese PlayStation Network for PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable.

The game costs about $15 and is called FF7 International. It is the Japanese localisation of the American version, which added new cutscenes, graphics and included a better spell management system in comparison to the original release.

Now the bad news. There is no information whatsoever about a possible release elsewhere than Japan - at least at this point.

Eidos: Batman Is "Close to Perfect"!

gross.tim — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 11:22:31 +0200

Eidos´ Jon Brooke, head of UK marketing, has recently stated his opinion on the upcoming action game Batman Arkham Asylum. According to him, it will be one of Eidos´ best games ever.

In an interview with MCV Brooke said:

We expect Batman Arkham Asylum to not only be the biggest game of the summer but one of the stand-out games of the year

It’s as close to perfect as we’ve ever come, it looks amazing, plays beautifully and has a rich twisting storyline with enormous replayability. I’m confident enough to say that it will set a new benchmark for licensed games and it’s going to establish itself as one of our best games ever.

Of course you would expect a head of marketing to boast about a project, but this is one huge statement, especially seeing that Activision Blizzard recently stated that their highly anticipated Modern Warfare 2 would be the best game ever. If those statements hold any truth at all remains to be proven.

Google Unravels their Mysterious Data Center

FLOO7 — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 01:55:50 +0200

Google has now allowed a first public view in their data center. You find a video-tour here.

As can be seen in the video, Google has 45 containers, each of which hosts up to 1.160 servers. This adds up to an amazing total of 52.200 servers. To make things even more impressive, each of those servers has its own independent power connection.

World of Warcraft to Save Seals!

gross.tim — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 11:28:24 +0200

The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) might seem like a joke for some people out there. But they are quite often noteworthy, even for video-gamers.

The PETA are now using World of Warcraft in order to put forward a new propaganda campaign against Canadian seal hunters. Their video on the matter draws a parallel between the in-game slaughter of seals by Horde characters and the real-life hunting of seals in Canada.

In its blog, the PETA wrote:

Thrall refused to ban the slaughter of seals, despite multiple requests from the Alliance to do so, because Orgrimmar stands to make a large profit from the fur.

The video is actually quite funny. The Horde hunters are not able to find defenseless little seals, so they write to a GameMaster in order to get them. Check out the video here!

BioWare, Dragon Age and DLC

gross.tim — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 16:12:28 +0200

Greg Zueschuk, Vice President at BioWare, stated the company's plans on downloadable content for their rpg Dragon Age. According to him, their strategy is to deliver such content "in maybe a year and-a-half or two years." The most important criteria for him, however, is the quality.

... it’s got to be valuable. This is one of the most important things that we believe: anything we give to our consumers, like to sell to them, whether it’s smaller or bigger, if you’re selling something to someone it’s got to be good and it’s got to be a certain value for the money they’re paying for it.

You have to remember that video game consumers are some of the smartest, most connected people on the planet. You can’t trick them with anything, so don’t even try. I don’t think it’s so much as to trick them, as it is the strategy behind it has to be fully thought out. This is the reason that with Dragon Age, our DLC strategy is doing it in maybe a year and-a-half or two years, planning exactly when you’re going to do it and how you’re going to do it.

Some of our fans would really like us to extend the world, so it’s going to be something that will make the world even bigger and more interesting. It’s not going to wreck it or break it.

The quality of DLC has become a lot more important recently, especially seeing the huge success of GTA: Lost & Damned. It is not enough to deliver mediocre downloadable content, like some rather unfortunate packs that Bethesda offered for their Oblivion.

Dragon Age: Origins is scheduled for release at the end of 2009 on PC, Xbox 360 and PS3.