Harmonix today announced the contents of The Beatles Limited Edition Premium Bundle that will be released alongside the standard version of the upcoming Beatles-themed Rock Band game on September 9.
Priced at $250 in the US, and 199 Euros in Europe, the limited edition will feature the game along with a large-scale replica of the Bass famously used by Sir Paul McCartney, Beatles-inspired and Ludwig-branded drums with classic pearl finish and vintage replica kick drum head, microphone and stand, and finally additional special content.
The music game will feature 45 classic songs from the legendary band, including unreleased material. It is due out on PS3, Xbox 360 and Wii.
In discussing Nintendo’s new Wiimote accessory with a friend, they asked the question of whether or not it’ll work with old games and frankly I wasn’t sure of the answer. Today however I can bring up the topic again with a definitive ‘no‘. Nintendo has announced that they have no plans to make the Wii MotionPlus compatible with any existing titles that do not already feature support for the peripheral.
This isn’t a huge surprise as this would likely be a massive undertaking and that Nintendo likely realizes that few of their first party games could truly benefit from adding in more sensitive control schemes. The sorts of titles that could have benefited from true 1:1 control schemes generally performed poorly enough for other reasons that better controls likely wouldn’t have brought in enough sales to make the effort worthwhile.
I’m not sure when developers realized that people would pay extra for ‘collectors editions’ of games, but they’ve been a staple of the industry ever since. The contents vary from game to game, but ‘making of’ documentaries and soundtrack CDs are common and recently exclusive DLC has become quite popular.
Sony is gearing up their marketing machine for the impending arrival of spartan Kratos’ third console adventure, the aptly titled God of War III, which definitely warrants a collectors edition package. Sony has been polling gamers to see what people actually want from a limited edition set. Some people enjoy physical, tangible objects like tshirts and exclusive figurines while others are only interested in the bonus DLC.
The question that piques interest is when they ask what would prompt gamers to shell out the extra cash for a collectors edition. Along with relatively standard and somewhat boring options like tshirts, exclusive packaging and the like, they mention the possibility of releasing God of War I & II on a blu-ray disc. They also mention including a cinematic movie compilation from the games, either as an alternative to playing through the two previous games if you want to find out the back story or in case getting them to work on non-backwards compatible PS3s turns out to be impossible.
Fans awaited the arrival of the long-over due Fallout 3 with excitement, only to weep when it was announced that Interplay was ceasing work on the game. A tech demo hit the internet which only rubbed salt in the wounds of many but Bethesda swooped in and picked up the rights. While fans are still hotly debating whether or not their take on the universe was well executed or not, others are waiting with the same contained anxiety for the planned Fallout MMO.
When Bethesda purchased the Fallout IP from Interplay they left behind the MMO rights as part of an agreement that hinged upon Interplay beginning ‘full scale’ work on the game by April fourth as well as having secured funding for the development of the title. Bethesda is considering legal action as they claim that Interplay has fulfilled neither of these conditions.
Interplay is denying all of these claims and their work on a game called ‘Project V13′ hints that there might be more going on than Bethesda is aware of. Unfortunately for Interplay if Bethesda goes ahead with legal action and wins, they’ll have lost all rights to the license and that could lead to problems with the financing as MMOs based on a brand new IP have a low rate of success due to the colossal grip WoW has on the market.
Independent filmmakers are getting recognition as more than just broke, overly ambitious film students; independent music has spawned whole new styles and movements and independent game studios are showing that they can do more than just Wiiware and downloadable games. Spiders, a studio founded by the creators of Silverfall and Earth Awakening has released the first round of screenshots and footage for an action RPG for consoles simply titled Mars.
The press release states “it blends the sensation of power and rhythmic aerial battle of beat’em alls with the progression, immersion and storyline of RPG’s in a dark and dreamlike post apocalyptic universe.” It’s certainly dark in the semi-ruined building the first video shows the protagonist running around in. So far nothing seems terribly dreamlike except for the creatures, which are obviously intended to look like creatures from a nightmare but are more likely to put you to sleep than keep you up at night jumping at every shadow.
The game will feature two protagonists, an elite soldier with a ‘dark past’ (who needs to learn the protective value of torso garments) and a technomancer. They say that each character will have their own gameplay due to differing backgrounds, skills and features but presumably they will still be going through the same overall storyline with possible exceptions of a few character specific levels or quests. The intentions for the game sound good, but the screenshots are a bit unimpressive, with the creatures drawing their stylistic inspiration mostly from Clive Barker and HR Giger. The atmosphere overall hopes to evoke feelings of dark dreariness but simply looks dark and red. The game is set to release in 2010 however, so there’s plenty of time for them to polish up the title before it launches on PC, Xbox 360 and PS3.
Microsoft’s SideWinder family has a new member in their fold. The new product is the Microsoft SideWinder X3 Mouse, which combines gaming performance and versatile design at a value price of $39.95.
This ambidextrous, eight-button gaming mouse delivers comfort for either hand along with the performance features fans of SideWinder products know and love, including a 2,000 dots-per-inch (dpi) laser-tracking engine with on-the-fly dpi switching between high, medium and low sensitivity. The SideWinder X3 Mouse is easy on the wallet, but it does not skimp on performance, offering gamers a full set of features and launching them ahead of the competition.
The SideWinder X3 Mouse will be widely available in May for an estimated retail price of $39.95 (U.S.). The mouse is available now for pre-sale on Amazon.com and will ship in May when it is released.
Announced back in 2006, it has been literally years since we’ve heard anything about the Devil May Cry title for the PlayStation Portable.
Unfortunately, it turns out that the game has been cancelled, as revealed by Japanese gaming magazine Famitsu’s game release schedule. The game was removed from the listing, with a small note mentioning the game was canned.
While there is no official word from Capcom about the matter, it is safe to assume that the game will not be seeing light.
Warner Bros. Interactive has released a new Batman: Arkham Asylum video showcasing “The Man who Broke the Bat”, better known simply as Bane. The trailer demonstrates what the character will look like in the game.
Batman: Arkham Asylum will be hitting shelves this June for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC.
Sega confirmed today that Virtua Tennis 2009 will be taking advantage of the Wii MotionPlus technology. The accessory will allow players to have more responsive and accurate control of the game. In this case, players will be able to control their tennis racket more accurately.
How Virtua Tennis will compare to EA Sports Grand Slam Tennis will be interesting, but I’ll be rooting for Sega’s creation, only because the past games have been received so well.
Virtua Tennis 2009 will be hitting the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii, and PC on May 19th.
Harmonix today announced the contents of The Beatles Limited Edition Premium Bundle that will be released alongside the standard version of the upcoming Beatles-themed Rock Band game on September 9.
Announced back in 2006, it has been literally years since we’ve heard anything about the Devil May Cry title for the PlayStation Portable.
