The newest survival horror title from the excellent Resident Evil pedigree is breaking records. Not for body count, not for the most controversy for early screenshots or anything to do with the content; it’s all about the shipping. Over four million units were sent out in the very first shipment, the biggest first shipment for any game in the series. Hard numbers for the game sales are currently unavailable since it’s been out for less than a week in the western world, but given the popularity of the series, huge shipments and impressive sales figures for Japan (319,590 units sold for the PS3 and 79,157 sold for the Xbox 360) we’re likely to get confirmation soon that the game is selling excellently everywhere.

The game will likely go platinum soon (if it hasn’t already), with nearly half a million sold in the first week in Japan alone and with Capcom announcing that over forty million units for the whole series have been shipped as of now.

Educational games on the Nintendo DS are nothing new, which is no surprise that the British are now getting a game that’ll help them practice on their written driving test. According to the publisher of the game, 40% of those who take the written test in the UK fail, which is where the game comes in.

It features all of the official 1256 driving test questions, and offers a free driving lesson to everyone who picks up a copy of the game, titled: Pass Your Driving Theory Test, and retails for 20 GBP.

New rumors suggest or rather, confirm, that Traveller’s Tales are not only working on a LEGO Harry Potter game, but an Indiana Jones sequel: Indiana Jones 2: Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

The new rumors come from GameIndustry.biz, who picked up an online CV of one of the animators, where both games are confirmed to be in development. The CV also revealed that the developers tried to pitch a game to Peter Jackson, a game that would supposedly be based on the upcoming Hobbit movie.

With the announcement that Trivial Pursuit has been released and catered to all gaming consoles popularly known today, it looks like EA will be making life entirely easier for gamers all over the world. Apparently one thing that gamers hate is specifics on which console would get first crack on certain games and it looks like EA has taken that issue out of the picture.

The EA Play Label of Electronic Arts , Inc. announced the release of a digital version of Trivial Pursuit on multiple digital platforms including the Xbox 360, PlayStation2, Playstation3, and the Nintendo Wii. The Trivial Pursuit video game builds on the original gameplay by adding categories, questions and modes of play.

The Trivial Pursuit video game features three ways to play: Classic, which mimics traditional board game play; Clear the Board, a single-player experience that challenges players to race against the clock to earn multipliers for the highest possible score; and Facts & Friends, a multiplayer mode of play where scoring is based on team responses and guessing the opposing team’s ability to answer their trivia question correctly.

The game’s profile feature allows a player to track and analyze performance statistics, such as the number of games won, a player’s best category, and the percentage of questions answered correctly in each category. This feature also compares a player’s strengths and weaknesses versus those of the opponents.

(Source) Trading Markets

With the first episode out and reviewed, word comes from ESRB that the second episode of the Watchmen tie-in The End is Nigh will simply include more of the same.

The site’s description points out that players will once again step in the shoes of Nite Owl and Rorscharch, taking on bad guys and fighting crime. This time around, they will track down a villain “who has molested an actress appearing in a pornography film.”

There will be a strip club where players will take part in ogling go-go dancers in cages, peep-show booths and a pornographic film playing in the background. ESRB dutifully notes that “although moaning and suggestive dialogue (e.g., "Ohhh, it’s so big!") can be heard echoing from the film, no nudity or sexual acts are depicted."

 
The game that original developers are so pissed about will get a pre-release demo. Codemasters confirmed this news for Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising, noting that the demo will be released prior to the game’s ship date.

Community manager Helios had this to say on the official forums: "Just wanted to confirm that as is the case with almost all of our major releases, OFP: DR is planned to have a demo released prior to launch for all platforms."

Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising is scheduled for release this summer on PC, PS3 and Xbox 360.

As comedian / ventriloquist Jeff Dunham once put it, NASCAR is basically about going fast and turning left.  It’s not too hard to wonder how a racing game, especially one like Dirt, can be one of those games that makes you wonder how a simple racing game can be so spectacularly complex.

There isn’t really a plot involved with Dirt–you’re an offroad sort of racer that competes in a series of races for points, advancing steadily through the ranks of the track drivers and eventually making it all the way to the very top.  Prize purses for these races are obscene–winning the first prize on the very easiest level of the very first race is a hundred and fifty grand for maybe two minutes of work.

And when I said “complex”, I definitely meant it.  Before I even got to my first race, a short little hop on some dirt track in California driving a bulky oversized Chevy Silverado, I got introduced to an enormous and downright baffling array of car options.  I could choose the angle at which my tires canted in increments of about one one hundredth of a degree.  I could vary the impact angle of my suspension, increase or decrease the down force on the car’s chassis, alter the gear ratio, and do any of a dozen other things to my car.  By the time I had finished listening to all the audio help files included with each option, I began to wonder if this was a game or an auto repair manual.  In fact, I began to wonder if I could get ASE certification credit just by playing the game!

And these aren’t just cosmetic options, either–though you do have a panoply of those.  Each alteration you make to your car will change, subtly, the way it handles.  Decreasing the gear ratio, for example, decreases the time between gears shifting, thus giving you faster acceleration by getting to the top gears faster.  But INCREASING the gear ratio gives you a higher top speed by increasing the time between gears shifting, allowing you to build momentum between each shift.  To see me write that last sentence you’d think that I’d been a shade tree mechanic all my life but I assure you that I do not even change the oil on my own car.  My dad does it.  He works extraordinarily cheap and I don’t do that much driving anyway so it’s not much imposition on him.

But despite the massive option overload in Dirt, you have to remember that this is a racing game.  You will, essentially, just be going fast and turning left.  Sometimes, for variety, you will turn right, especially on the road rally tracks.  Granted, you will be able to choose almost to the micron just how fast you go and just how quickly you turn left, but that’s all you’ll be doing at the end of the day.  You go fast. You turn left.  End of story.

If you like that sort of experience, and you can’t get enough of tweaking a car until it runs PRECISELY how you want it, then you will be utterly enamored with Dirt.  Otherwise, keep well away from this dull track runner.

There’s a lot to be said for the casual gaming experience, especially the casual shooter gaming experience.  It’s quick to get into, it’s easy to play, but the experience will often carry you through surprising hours of gameplay as you get into full-on “just one more level” mode.

One game that really does a fantastic job of “just one more level” is Guns n Angel, which not surprisingly I found in the vast array of gaming possibilities that is Newgrounds.

You play as Angel, an adorable tweenage girl with a deep and abiding passion for…firearms.  Seriously, this chick’s got more guns than the Republican National Convention.  She’s going to be running around with Uzis, shotguns, flamethrowers, and that’s just for starters.  She’ll be blasting everything that comes into frame all in the grand and epic pursuit of saving the world, but we really didn’t need that little thread of plot.  This one’s all about the run and the gun, folks, and if you, like me, couldn’t get enough Contra back in the day, then you will be all OVER this one.

If the fact that you even have to pay for Resident Evil 5‘s recently announced Versus mode didn’t enrage you enough, you better look away.

Capcom recently announced that Japanese players will be getting the DLC for 160 Microsoft Points or ¥250 over PSN (about $2.50). This compares to the North American pricing of 400 Microsoft Points and $5.

Sure, Capcom, you explained why the content needs to cost money, now explain why the Japanese get it cheaper!

Read (Joystiq)

There’s seems to be no end in sight for the success of Call of Duty 4. The game, which has sold who-knows-how-many-copies to date, just won 3 BAFTA awards and developer Infinity Ward has revealed that there have been over 15 million unique players online. 11 million were on Xbox Live and another 4 million on the PlayStation Network. No mention of PC numbers here, though.