Lots going on at X3F this week. We've got a Dennis Dyack interview, a video hands-on with Galaga Legions and more. Best of all, Fanswag Weekly returns with five XBLA redemption codes for Bionic Commando Rearmed (which is awesome, by the way). Peruse the links below and feed your inner fanboy. We won't tell anyone.
That's right! As Vin Diesel so eloquently points out, he's a wheelman, not an assassin. Of course, this dramatic scene takes place just after he's mowed down countless bad guys and destroyed half the city in a dramatic and collision-filled car chase. It's all a bit frantic, frankly, but at least we have The Wheelman's lead mission designer, Mark Thompson, to guide us through the broken glass and mangled metal. Don't forget to check out fresh screenshots in the gallery below!
We'll be honest: most of the staff at Joystiq has a serious medical condition that makes us physically unable to resist good co-op gameplay. We can't do it. It's a serious condition. There's only two known treatments: 1) massive amounts of mind-altering pharmaceuticals or 2) co-op video games. Sometimes, we're forced to seek out the former when there aren't any co-op games on the ol' release calendar while other times there are games like Mercenaries 2: World in Flames that would appear to provide enough co-op gameplay to keep us drug-free for a long time.
Above you've got another Mercenaries 2developer walkthrough, this time sharing the wonders of the game's co-op functionality. Don't mean to brag, but we've already played it. That means you'll want to pay attention, lest you miss things like "drop-in," "drop-out," "campaign," and "explosion." Say, does anyone have an early copy of Castle Crashers, we're really hurting over here ...
Terrible news for immobile couch potatoes: According to a Square Enix representative, Infinite Undiscovery will ship on two discs when it releases exclusively on the Xbox 360 in September. The real-time role-playing title from tri-Ace marks the first game to be published by Square Enix on an Xbox platform since 2006's space shooter, Project Sylpheed.
Shipping on September 2 in North America, September 5 in Europe and September 11 in Japan, Infinite Undiscovery promises an epic 20-25 hour adventure for the Xbox 360. And that's just while you're busy changing discs.
In an interview with Gears of War 2 lead designer Cliff Bleszinski at X08 in Toronto, Canada, we learned of an upgraded version of the original "Seriously" achievement, first seen in the popular franchise's previous installment. The achievement, "Seriously 2.0," requires 100,000 kills across the single and multiplayer campaign of the anticipated title. Yikes!
Stay tuned for the entire interview where Cliff reveals his thoughts on the single-player experience, Gears of War 2's Horde mode (first revealed at E3 2008), Too Human and, err, his desire to pee. Yeah, he went there.
Harmonix has sent out the first Rock Band Community Zine, which revealed (rather earlier than usual) that Rush's Moving Pictures album will be available to download and play next week. Hopefully the band has been practicing.
Rush - Moving Pictures (880 / $11)
Tom Sawyer (Original) (160 / $2)
Red Barchetta (160 / $2)
YYZ (160 / $2)
Limelight (Original) (160 / $2)
The Camera Eye (160 / $2)
Witch Hunt (160 / $2)
Vital Signs (160 / $2)
Videos for the tracks can be found after the break. The songs will be available for download next Tuesday and Thursday for Xbox 360 and PS3, respectively.
In an interview with Xbox representative Jason Ing, it was revealed to Joystiq that Duke Nukem 3D, developed by 3D Realms, has passed certification and is expected to release "sometime in September." The Xbox Live Arcade revival, which sports the same minimal graphical enhancements as Doom did on the service, is being published by Microsoft and is an exclusive release for the platform.
Did you find yourself driven just a wee bit mad by some of the design decisions in Alone in the Dark for Xbox 360? Well, you're not alone, and developer Eden Games isn't in the dark about what it did wrong.
During a Leipzig Games Convention presentation, the studio owned up to the title's shortcomings, promising that a number of them are being addressed in the upcoming PS3 version. Specifically, the camerawork is different (it's pulled back more, and players will have free control using the right analog stick); the player character, Edward Carnby, runs by default; and the atrociously twitchy car handling has been mellowed out.
While this is good news for PS3 owners still eager to experience the game, they won't be the only ones to reap the benefits of Eden's hindsight and extra development time. It's been announced that an upcoming patch will bring these fixes – and potentially more – to the 360 version, although no firm date has been given for its release (it'll presumably hit when the PS3 game does in November).
Meet 1ickTh3P0l3. He can vote. But why tell him that? When Rock the Vote comes to Xbox Live on Monday (the start of the Democratic National Convention), it won't find the disempowered young citizens eager to be mobilized it's expecting. In fact, the Xbox Live community is a conglomerate of well-organized sub-divisions -- or "clans" -- which communicate through a modified, verbalization of "133t speak" with a large admixture of derisive language; including racial, ethnic, gender, sex, and religious slurs. These nihilistic hatemongers shoot first, typically with rocket launchers, and top it off with a teabag over your dead body. Oh wait, these are just the Xbox Live users under 18. Imagine how the ones of legal voting age spend their nights and weekends ... And you want them rocking what now?
We're not exactly sure how much of MTV Multiplayer's information about transferring Rock Band songs to Rock Band 2 is new, but it gives a tiny bit more detail to the process, which has yet to be fully explained. We knew that the transfer would cost "under $5"and that RB1 would receive a patch the day RB2 released, but we believe the detail about a "password" bundled with RB2 is new ... maybe. Either way, we haven't written about it.
Harmonix's John Drake tells MTV that when the game releases on Sept. 14, the RB1 patch will add an "export" feature to the game. Selecting to export will prompt the user to add a password included with Rock Band 2, after which a payment screen will be displayed. Told you it was a tiny detail!
We're happy to report that when James Bond returns to video games this fall with Quantum of Solace he'll be voiced by our new favorite 007, Daniel Craig. But we're a little worried about how we're going to focus on the game when our undies continue to spontaneously drop to the ground, coaxed off by Bond's baritone brogue! The game will also feature Judi Dench as M and new additions Mathieu Amalric and Ukrainian actress Olga Kurylenko.
... Listen, did we type that part about our undies dropping out loud? No? OK, thank goodness.
Developer Tozai has been noticeably silent with regards to its upcoming take on Brøderbund's early computer platformer Lode Runner, and while our army of robots have once more returned empty handed, the media sleuths at IGN report that a seemingly "largely done" build of the XBLA remake was on hand at the Leipzig's media extravaganza.
The news leaves us wondering just when we'll be able to revisit our platforming roots, though the game's presence on the show floor was reportedly adorned with rather ambiguous signage that simply read "coming soon." We certainly hope so, because with both this and some sort of R-Type title in the works, Tozai has become adept at tugging at nostalgia's heartstrings.
Ubisoft has released video of Far Cry 2's map editor, complete with a soothing narrator who holds your hands through the 5-minute trailer. Quite frankly, we're excited for how intuitive it seems to be, but perhaps that's just wishful thinking that we'll be able to accurately recreate the island from LOST and play out our own scenarios (only with fewer polar bears). Weather and time of day can also be altered. The folks at IGN have detailed impressions of the editor.
It looks impressive, for sure, but remembering Unreal Tournament 3 for Xbox 360, what is unclear right now is how (if at all) console gamers will be able to trade maps.Update: Curse our insomniac ways! Previous entry Far Cry Instincts featured ways to share maps over Xbox Live, so it'd be safe to assume a similar method will also be used for Far Cry 2.
Capcom is showing Airtight Games' Gears of War/Crimson Skies/Rocketeer mash-up, Dark Void, at Games Convention – in fact, it's the very same section of the game that was on display at last month's E3. What's changed, though, is quite important: the frame rate. When we played the game less than 30 days ago, we liked it ... but we didn't like the sheer chugginess of it all.
You can see that things have improved markedly in these three new videos (two more can be found after the break). In them, Dark Void designer, Jose Perez III, details the game's story and concept, vertical gameplay, and flight gameplay, respectively. Airtight still has about a year of development time to make sure the game is, well ... airtight when it ships in '09.
/ $11)
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