While we’re on the topic of betas, developer Relic Entertainment has revealed that the multiplayer beta test for Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II will end in a few hours. The full game is due out this Thursday. The beta will shut down at 12:01am GMT on February 18.
“We would like to thank everyone for participating in Relic’s most successful Beta ever,” wrote the studio on the game’s site. “We’ve identified and fixed a tremendous number of bugs and balance tweaks that will make the game considerably better when it ships to stores this week. We literally couldn’t have done it without you.”
They’ve provided a couple of statistics from the beta. This includes a list of most popular heroes and successful races, so if you’re the analyst type, go check them out.
Work on StarCraft 2 is going smooth and is “in the final stretch”, according to lead developer Dustin Browder, also known to the Blizzard community as “Cavez”. He dropped this tidbit while answering frequently asked questions over on BlizzBlues.
“When we know a date (for anything) for certain, we’ll let you know,” he wrote. “We don’t want to lie about the Beta, and we don’t even want to lie about the next Battle Report… Let’s be realistic. Our target dates are not something we hit more than half the time.”
He added that “unless something crazy happens” they are going to start the multiplayer beta this year. This is in line with quotes by Blizzard COO Paul Sam, who noted the beta would be coming in the months ahead.
To celebrate the release of The Lost & Damned on Xbox Live today, Microsoft has added a number of free biker-themed items to dress up your Xbox 360 Avatar in. The new clothes can be found after signing into Xbox Live; they are designated by a yellow star.
New additions include rocker jacket, pixie boots and metal combats, among other things, for guys. Girls get ’60s boots, biker jacket, biker gloves, earrings and wrist bands.
The Lost & Damned is the first of two exclusive expansions for GTA 4, offering almost 10 hours of mission-based gameplay and fresh multiplayer modes.
While the girls were playing with there dolls I was playing with mine, er, action figures. G.I. JOEs were always the coolest action figures on the block featuring their ruggid characters and unmatched aresenal of whoop ass.
Well, EA is apparently working on a game based on the upcoming live action G.I. JOE: The Rise of Cobra. The cool thing about this game, however, is that it doesn’t retell the story of the movie, instead it continues where the movie left off.
EA says the game is on track to hit shelves this August soon after the movie hits, for the Wii, Xbox 360, and PS3, and will feature 12 different G.I. JOE characters.
The Australian Classification Board (formerly the OFLC) is notorious for objecting to video game content, refusing to classify many games due to their adult content (rendering them illegal to sell) while simultaneously refusing to create an ‘adults only’ rating. Most developers simply alter the objectionable content in order to get it onto shelves down under.
GTA IV predictably came across this problem, but due to the sex scenes with prostitutes, not the gratuitous violence. Niko Bellic was still free to frequent ‘ladies of the evening’, but instead of a player-controlled camera the censored version locked the viewpoint on the license plate of the car. The upcoming DLC pack, The Lost and Damned has no such restrictions. The new protagonist, Johnny Klebitz, can treat players to a variety of digital sex acts with prostitutes that they can view from whatever voyeuristic angle they want as the content pack has been given the MA15+ rating as-is.
Though I applaud the ACB for taking a more liberal stance on a censorship issue, I still admit to being baffled by the need for graphic depictions of gratuitous sex scenes.
I didn’t even know people still played the PSP, but apparently enough do for Namco Bandai to release the above trailer for the upcoming Dragonball Evolution PSP adaptation.
The big problem is that they decided to base the game on the movie, and not the anime or manga. Why is this a problem? Well, if you view the above video, Master Roshi looks like a guy with black hair and a hawaiian shirt not Master Roshi.
Microsoft recently announced plans to restructure the fabled Rare due to the current economical climate. But why restructure such a great development studio?
Well, Microsoft says:
“As the entire industry struggles to address the increasing scale and cost of development, we too have felt a need to restructure our current approach so we can speed development and better manage the scale required to create high quality games,” commented Mark Betteridge, studio manager.
It’s also noted that this could possible result in a few Rare employees to pack their bags even though the studio apparently has 4 unannounced titles in the works. This is really too bad, I remember falling in love with Rare ever since the Donkey Kong titles for SNES and the Banjo-Kazooie series for N64. Read (GamesIndustry.Biz)
Push Square has recently put up a great article comparing and contrasting ingame graphics from PS3′s launch titles to more recent titles.
What you see above is their comparison of Resistance: Fall of Man and Killzone 2. As you can see they both look rather stunning, but Killzone 2′s realistic lighting, debris, and general effects really puts Resistance to shame. That’s not all though, they also compare games like Ridge Racer 5 and Gran Turismo 5: Prologue, and Virtua Fighter 5 with Soul Calibur IV.
They came to a verdict that developers are definitely progressing in terms of graphics when it comes to the PS3 in particular. There is still room for improvement though, if what Sony says about the PS3 having a 10 year life span is true, we’re sure to be seeing more and more hardware capabilities unlocked as time progresses.
Retro gaming aficionados could endlessly debate what bygone style was the best. Whatever your favorite eight or sixteen bit genre, if you grew up in the 80s and 90s you’ve probably played one of the many side-scrolling shooters that have come out over the years. The plot is often the same: an invading alien force has decimated the defenses of the human race. Only one hope remains: a pilot who must single-handedly defeat the forces hell-bent on humanity’s destruction.
The R-Type series was a classic in the genre. Featuring creepy organic enemies who came on in endless waves, interesting bosses and some very cool power-ups it was everything the side-scrolling shooter genre could be. It was also devastatingly hard, but then again this was a hallmark of the genre. After all, wouldn’t taking on an alien armada with one fighter be difficult?
The recent remake of the original two R-Type games that is packaged on Xbox Live Arcade as R-Type Dimensions is an excellent bit of nostalgia. One of the cooler features is the ability to swap between the retro 2-D graphics and the new, 3-D updated graphics with the push of a button. Unfortunately the hordes of enemies are just as deadly in either resolution.
Playing through either R-Type game in the standard mode is maddeningly hard. You’re given only three lives and one hit from anything kills you. In some levels the enemies are so thick that it seems impossible to get through. For those of us who aren’t experts there’s the ‘infinite mode’ where you can die however times you like and your performance is based on your score. Unfortunately this takes a lot of the fun out of things as there’s little consequence for dying.
Overall it’s visually amusing and provides a great challenge for the retro gaming crowd, and the co-op feature is fun, but the more casual crowd will find it either too frustrating or too easy depending on the mode.
While we’re on the topic of betas, developer Relic Entertainment has revealed that the multiplayer beta test for Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II will end in a few hours. The full game is due out this Thursday. The beta will shut down at 12:01am GMT on February 18.
Work on StarCraft 2 is going smooth and is “in the final stretch”, according to lead developer Dustin Browder, also known to the Blizzard community as “Cavez”. He dropped this 
To celebrate the release of The Lost & Damned on Xbox Live today, Microsoft has added a number of free biker-themed items to dress up your Xbox 360 Avatar in. The new clothes can be found after signing into Xbox Live; they are designated by a yellow star.
