Valkyria Chronicles 2 Website Opens with New Screens
Written by from on July 18th, 2009 | 0 CommentsValkyria Chronicles 2 was announced for the PSP in the pages of Famitsu earlier this week , and now, the game’s official (Japanese) site is open for your viewing pleasure. Of course, you won’t get much viewing pleasure unless you can read Japanese, and even then, the only notable content on it right now is a blog post. The good news for us non-Japanese readers, though, is this post also contains some new images of the game. As you can see, Sega has done a pretty good job translating the PlayStation 3 game’s unique visual style onto the far less powerful PSP hardware. The move to the PSP, as producer Shuntaro Tanaka explained to Famitsu , was made “to allow a broader spectrum of users to discover and enjoy what makes Valkyria special.” The game is due for release in Japan this winter, with no U.S. date announced yet. Check out our earlier story for more details, and continue on below for a few additional screens.
Fans Creating New Star Fox Game with Freespace Open Engine
Written by from on July 18th, 2009 | 0 CommentsIn the absence of a new Star Fox game from Nintendo themselves, some super-dedicated fans of the series have taken their stead. In what may end up being the coolest example of trademark infringement ever, a team of hardcore Star Fox lovers are creating a brand-new standalone PC game titled “Shadows of Lylat” using the Freespace Open engine. Naturally, they don’t have Nintendo’s permission to do such a thing, which doesn’t bode well for the future of Shadows of Lylat. That would be a shame, because as you can see in the trailer above, this game looks pretty damn cool. As the FAQ for the project explains ( via Kotaku), Shadows of Lylat “is a fan-made standalone game that runs on the Freespace Open engine. It is not a mod since you do not need Freespace in order to run it.” The game will feature both space and ground battles, three different types of Arwings to pilot, both new and classic enemies (check out the return of one of Star Fox 64’s bosses in the trailer), and even multiplayer modes. What it won’t feature, though, is an exact recreation of the classic Star Fox gameplay. “Star Fox is more of an arcade shooter, while Freespace is a simulation shooter. While the SCP allows us to do many awesome things, we won’t be able to get it just like the original games,” the FAQ explains. It also states it’ll run on Windows, Macs, and Linux, and the only timeframe for release is “when it’s done.”
Braid Creator’s New Project is a ‘Philosophical, Quiet’ 3D Puzzle/Adventurer
Written by from on July 18th, 2009 | 0 CommentsIt was a 2D RPG he was working on at one point, but even then, Braid creator Jonathan Blow cautioned that he could well have moved on to yet another new project in a month’s time. And now, it looks like he did: A couple of job ads have confirmed that Blow’s latest new project is, as he describes it, “a puzzle-exploration game that is philosophical, and quiet, and is being made for reasons other than crass profit motive.” Following the reveal of the project through these ads, Joystiq also contacted Blow for a scant few additional details. Evidently, the concept behind the game is an idea Blow came up with a few months before the release of Braid. However, he was unsure about whether he could pull it off as it’s “a more-expensive, harder-to-make 3D game.” That actually explains why Blow skipped around a number of other projects (like the 2D RPG) before eventually arriving back to this one. Blow also confirmed he only just began “working on the game in earnest” a few weeks ago, and the project is a good two years away from completion. There’s no word yet on whether it’ll also be a downloadable title like Braid, because, after all, there’s no way of knowing what kind of release avenues will exist two years in the future.
Ken Levine’s Latest "Substantially More Ambitious" Than BioShock
Written by from on July 18th, 2009 | 0 CommentsWhile 2K Games is hard at work on BioShock 2 , 2K Boston’s Ken Levine has his own project. A project that he says is “more ambitious than anything we’ve ever done.” “I think that when we think about a project now… When we thought about this project, we accounted for the fact that hiring the staff that we needed to hire would take some time,” Levine told Gamasutra . “And when we thought about the shipping date of the project… We needed a certain kind of length for the title, because we had a scope and ambition in mind which is more ambitious than anything we’ve ever done. Even more, substantially more ambitious than BioShock . And we knew that was not going to happen overnight.”
Jhonen Vasqeuz First To Contribute To BioShock 2 Art Series
Written by from on July 18th, 2009 | 0 CommentsJhonen Vasquez is well-known for his twisted take on entertainment thanks to Invader Zim and Johnny the Homicidal Maniac . Now he’s bringing his unique vision to BioShock 2 . Vasquez’s take on BioShock 2 is the first in an ongoing series of pieces by guest artists. For “The Sisters,” Vasquez wrote that he recruited his nieces as references for the reborn Little Sisters. “Who says kids are good for nothing other than emergency food in disaster conditions? I don’t, because at this point my badass nieces helped out quite a bit for reference,” Vasquez wrote in a guest blog entry .
Left 4 Dead 1 DLC Announcement ‘Coming Shortly’
Written by from on July 4th, 2009 | 0 CommentsIn what appears to be a very concerted effort to reassure fans that the announcement of Left 4 Dead 2 doesn’t mean the abandonment of Left 4 Dead 1 , Valve has announced that details on forthcoming downloadable content for the original title will be released soon. “More info will be coming shortly on the [Left 4 Dead 1] DLC,” said Valve’s Chet Faliszek to Shacknews . Faliszek further confirmed this DLC will arrive in addition to other forthcoming updates for Left 4 Dead, including a promised update to team-based matchmaking. This announcement also comes in the wake of surprisingly harsh reaction to the announcement of Left 4 Dead 2 at E3 last month. Set for release only a year after the original (which is well outside Valve’s modus operandi), it compelled many fans to go as far as pledge to boycott the new game out of concern that it will mean Valve’s abandonment of the original title.
New Splinter Cell To Run Roughly 12 Hours
Written by from on July 2nd, 2009 | 0 CommentsSplinter Cell: Conviction creative director Maxime Beland wants people to finish his game. Accordingly, it looks like Sam Fisher’s latest adventure will be clocking in at around 12 hours. “I want people to play my games and finish them,” Beland recently told Official Xbox Magazine . “We’re going to ship with difficulty levels, at least a normal mode and realistic mode – like we did on Rainbow Six Vegas . And realistic is going to be really fucking hard – you’re going to need stealth, two bullets is going to kill you, the enemies are going to be super-lethal.”
No Room For Mediocrity This Holiday Season, Eidos Says
Written by from on July 2nd, 2009 | 0 CommentsThe past two holiday seasons have not been kind of Eidos Interactive. Kane & Lynch: Dead Men and Tomb Raider: Underworld received lukewarm reviews at best, with sales to match. Eidos president Ian Livingstone says there’s no room for that this year. “A lot of titles have already hit the shelves and there is a deluge planned for Christmas, but I think 2009 will be remembered as the year of ‘roast duck or no dinner,’” Livingstone told GamesIndustry.biz . “There’s a glut of product and in a discerning market there is no room for mediocrity. To make a suboptimal game with a suboptimal marketing spend is a recipe for disaster.”
Battlefield 1943 Dated for Next Week
Written by from on July 2nd, 2009 | 0 CommentsEA set a date for their downloadable World War II shooter Battlefield 1943 this morning, and it’s coming a lot sooner than you may have predicted. The Battlefield 1942 followup should be arriving on the Xbox Live Marketplace next Wednesday, July 8 and the PlayStation Store that Thursday, July 9. It’ll set you back a cool $14.99, or 1200 Microsoft points. It ought to be interesting to see what happens to the number of multiplayer users in Halo 3 and the Call of Duty games over the next couple of weeks. Will DICE’s budget-priced, multiplayer FPS be able to make a dent in the following of the established kings of the genre, or will it simply go under the radar of most mainstream players?
Sony Outlines New Motion Control Details to Developers
Written by from on June 20th, 2009 | 0 CommentsSony dedicated a large chunk of their E3 press conference to their new motion controller , but many questions remain to be answered. As Kotaku reports , Sony has now begun filling developers in on at least a few additional details in a document sent to many of their partners. The document reportedly described the new controller as being suitable to “any games across all genres from casual to core.” It also confirmed that the controller will have rumble functionality built in, and that up to four controllers can be independently tracked by the PlayStation Eye at the same time. Also mentioned in the document is that Sony is currently “looking into the possibility” of combining the new wand with the motion controls already built into the Sixaxis/DualShock 3, such as using “the motion controller as a sword and [the] DualShock 3 as a shield.” One tech demo Sony showed at E3 was using two new wand controllers as a sword and a shield, but this would at least open up more motion control possibilities without forcing PS3 owners to buy two new controllers (and it also sounds like it could become a combination somewhat similar to a Wii remote with a Nunchuk).