Karaoke fans rejoice for the SingStar store is getting its first major update on March 7, according to this post on the Three Speech blog. Last month saw a similar update with 18 tracks, but this month features a whopping 67 songs.
Unfortunately, many of these songs are said to be from previous PS2 iterations of SingStar. Maybe Sony is trying to play it safe and appeal to fans of previous games, but they really need more songs in the store if they want to keep it up. Below is the full list of songs to be included in the update.
* Aha: The Sun Always Shines On TV
* Alice Cooper: Poison
* Big Brovaz: Nu-Flow
* Bill Joel: Uptown Girl
* Blu Cantrell: Hit ‘Em Up Style (Oops!)
* Blur: End of a Century
* Britney Spears: Baby One More Time
* Coldplay: Speed Of Sound
* Crash Test Dummies: Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm
* David Bowie: Heroes
* Dragon: April Sun In Cuba
* Elvira Nickolaisen: Egypt Song
* End Of Fashion: Oh Yeah
* Fairground Attraction: Perfect
* Feeder: Buck Rogers
* Five: Keep On Movin’
* Jamelia:Superstar
* Jamelia: Stop
* Joy Division: Love Will Tear Us Apart
* Lemar: It’s Not That Easy
* Lordi: Hard Rock Hallelujah
* Maria Mena: My Lullaby
* Maxïmo Park: Graffiti
* Maxïmo Park: Going Missing
* Natalie Imbruglia: Torn
* opus X: loving you girl
* Paddy Casey: Saints and Sinners
* Paddy Casey: Whatever Gets You True
* Reamonn: Supergirl
* Roachford: Only To Be With You
* Rooster: Come Get Some
* Roxy Music: Love Is The Drug
* Shannon Noll: What About Me
* Spice Girls: Wannabe
* Spice Girls: Who Do You Think You Are?
* Steps: Deeper Shade of Blue
* Stereophonics: Dakota
* Stereophonics: The Bartender And The Thief
* The Darkness: I Believe In A Thing Called Love
* The Hoosiers: Goodbye Mr A
* The Screaming Jets: Better
* The Thrills: One Horse Town
* The Thrills: Santa Cruz (You’re Not That Far)
* The Undertones: Teenage Kicks
* Trio Rio: New York, Rio, Tokyo
* Whitney Houston: I Want To Dance With Somebody
* Clueso: Kein Bock Zu Geh’n
* Die Fantastischen Vier: Geboren
* Laith Al-Deen: Leb Den Tag
* Laith Al-Deen: Bilder von Dir
* MIA.: Tanz Der Moleküle
* Pur: Abenteuerland
* Revolverheld: Ich werd’ die Welt verändern
* Revolverheld: Mit Dir Chilln
* Alexia: Egoista
* Alexia: Da Grande
* Daniele Silvestri: Salirò
* Fiorello: Viviere A Color
* Litfiba: El Diablo
* Loredana Berte: Il Mare D’Inverno
* Luca Di Risio: Calma e sanguefreddo
* Paola & Chiara: Blu
* Jan Eggum: På’an igjen
* Kaptein Sabeltann: Vi seiler vår egen sjø
* Philip and Sandra: Sommerflørt
* Gloria Estefan: Hoy
* Pereza: Pienso En Aquella Tarde
Take-Two Interactive, home to the GTA franchise as well as other big names, was recently in the news thanks to EA’s bid for acquiring it. EA wasn’t the only one interested in the company, however, as Activision CEO revealed that they had also thought of acquiring the publisher, explaining why it didn’t happen.
“We’ve said that we need a history of profitability, good management, the proprietary technology for a franchise, history of multimillion unit sellers. They would have to be non-dilutive and operating margin accretive,” said Bobby Kotick, Activision chairman. “And, for us, Take-Two didn’t fulfill those requirements. Maybe it does over the long-term for EA, but it doesn’t for us.”
He’s not criticizing EA for taking a shot at Take-Two, as according to him, EA has unique insight into the business and has a “good sense of what its prospects are for the future,” according to Kotick.
Take-Two has had management issues over the past few years. The publisher may be home to many big titles like BioShock and Civilization IV, it’s major bread earner is the GTA franchise.
Continuing to milk the cash cow and annoying gamers even further, EA has announced that The Sims 2: Free Time expansion pack has shipped across North America and Europe. It offers a wide range of new activities, hobbies and careers for the Sims. New life pursuits based on Sims’ interests are also available; all fields in the game, including sports, music, arts, science and film have all been updated with new stuff.
“The Sims 2 FreeTime empowers your Sims with the tools to explore hobbies that are entertaining and that go beyond the every day,” said Rod Humble, Head of The Sims Studio. “Now your Sims have the freedom to discover talents that add stimulating career options, expressive and artistic outlets, and fun leisure time activities. The Sims 2 FreeTime adds depth and humor to your Sims stories, and also appreciation for the experiences that make life enjoyable.”
Pop star Natasha Bedingfield is featured on Free Time’s soundtrack with “Pocketful of Sunshine” which is sung in Simlish within the game. There are also other new international bands in the playlist.
Now, if only I had the “free time” to play the game.
Eidos Interactive has officially announced Battlestations: Pacific, the sequel to last year’s Battlestations: Midway. In development for PC and Xbox 360, the game features a massive US and Japanese single-player campaign, offering a blend of action and strategy. It will feature open-world arenas and fights in the air, letting players relive some of the most hard-fought battles in WWII history. The addition of the Japanese faction adds a new layer to the game, offering gamers a peek at what would have happened if Japan gained the upper hand on the US.
“Eidos is excited to bring an even bigger, more innovative and authentic experience with Battlestations: Pacific,” said Robert A. Lindsey, Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Eidos Inc. “With an all new Japanese faction to explore and fight with, newly expanded multiplayer content, and a slew of new air, sea, and land units, the game takes the Battlestations series to the next level, bringing a completely different perspective to the war over the Pacific.”
There will be a total of 28 story missions, 21 new units and five new online multiplayer modes and maps. No release date was provided.
Paradox Interactive sends word that Lost Empire: Immortals, their 4X space strategy follow up, has gone gold and will be available next month. The E-rated title takes players to the final frontier – the unexplored depths of the universe. Players are tasked with discovering and colonizing planets, researching and upgrading technology, making allies or conquering the neighbors and so on.
The game features a huge map consisting of 5000+ star systems, 6 major races, 28 unique minor races, open-ended gameplay, customizable ships and more. It will be out on March 15.
The MMORPG market is well saturated with quite a few good titles, but is still dominated by World of Warcraft, the reason for which Activision merged with its owners Vivendi to create Activision Blizzard. This is noted by company CEO Bobby Kotick at an investor meeting where he comments that it would take an investment of almost a billion dollars to create something to rival WoW’s popularity, and even then, success wasn’t guaranteed.
“We don’t think that even if we made the USD 500 million or billion-dollar investment to get a product out [to compete with WOW] that we would even be successful doing it,” he said. “When we first started looking at it, it appeared to us like a game in an insurmountable product category… EA, Microsoft, Sony and scores of venture capital investments had been put to work unsuccessfully in trying to develop massively multiplayer games as a product opportunity.”
He commended the guys at Blizzard, saying that they have a model that is “very well-developed” and that they have a “keen understanding of their audiences.”
The Iron Lore Entertainment website carries word that the studio is closing down after failing to secure funding for their next project, citing “several unrelated events” as a major reason. The studio has created the famed Titan Quest action RPG which garnered critical acclaim, as well as Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War – Soulstorm.
The site notes that the talented employees at the studio are now looking for jobs elsewhere and notifies interested parties that they have their own “powerful and flexible engine and tool set” which are open for licensing.
We would like to extend our thanks to everyone who has helped us in the last seven years – our team who moved mountains to create such great games, our publisher THQ who has been a great partner through three product development cycles, and most of all our customers and fans. We owe all of the success we’ve had to you, and our greatest satisfaction has come from creating games that have given enjoyment to the community.
R.I.P. Iron Lore. It was a good run while it lasted.
The Wii has been selling like hot cakes since its launch last year. While many have predicted that the sales would subside, interest in the console is still solid and people are still more likely to buy a Wii than its more powerful, expensive cousins. Keeping that in mind, Reuters reports that the Wii is still outselling the PS3 nearly 4-to-1 in Japan in February.
Nintendo sold a total of 331,627 units of the WIi this month, outselling the PS3 by a huge margin. The biggest sellers this month were Super Smash Bros. Brawl, with 1.33 million units sold, followed by Wii Fit, which sold 309,311 units. No numbers were provided for the PS3.
The newest set of tracks coming to Guitar Hero III reach back to the long-forgotten days of Ska, when string and brass instruments frolicked together in a peppy, upbeat style of music. “Excuse Me Mr.”, “Sunday Morning” and of course their classic “Don’t Speak” will be available later today on the Playstation Store. All three songs that reach back to an era before Gwen Stefani shed her band and proved that there was some truth behind the “Don’t Speak” music video are already available on the Xbox Live Marketplace for the standard prices. All three tracks are the original master recordings.
When it comes to zombie-centric video games it’s hard to beat the Resident Evil series. Just announced on our site is the fact that Capcom is porting Resident Evil 0 to the Wii. Technically you can already play the game on the Wii since it’s was released for Gamecube as well, but this version will have Wii controls if motion sensing is your bag. Unfortunately it’s not going to be coming to anywhere except Japan. Luckily due to the Wii’s lack of region locking on the game discs you can just import it if you’re that jazzed about playing it, but it might be helpful to learn Japanese or get your hands on a translation.
