For those of you who can't wait for the June 3rd release of The Bourne Conspiracy (PS3, Xbox 360), you can wet your whistle today by hopping on Xbox Live and downloading the playable demo.
Prefer a PS3 demo? You'll have to wait until Thursday for your Bourne adventure.
I'm currently working on the Pigeons section, and will be adding to it all day. If anybody knows where to find the pigeon on the west side of East Borough Bridge, let me know in the comments as it's driving me crazy, crazy I tell you!
Head on over to the newly launched LEGO Indiana Jones website and take part in the treasure hunt to earn yourself Indy wallpapers, stickers, coloring pages, avatars, and ringtones (coming soon).
When you're done downloading, check out the screenshots, the trailer, the forums...oh, there's just so much LEGO Indy goodness, you're just going to have to see it for yourself!
The game is due to set all sorts of sales records and we are very excited to begin playing it in about an hour. We'll be updating the GTA 4 guide frequently, so check back often!
Per usual, you can check in on our growing guide as it's being written. It will eventually include all hidden items and secrets!
The first Silent Hill set to be released on the Xbox 360 and PS3 has both a name and a release month.
Silent Hill: Homecoming is the title chosen for the fifth installment of the creeptastic series, and September is the release month...in Europe. No other release dates have been provided for other regions. My money says those of us in North America will see the game appear mid to late October, just in time for Halloween.
For details of the game, and the poor fool who wanders into Silent Hill this time around, please go here.
The Chicago Transit Authority has chosen to pull Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto IV advertising campaign from the sides of its buses. According to the report from the Fox affiliate in Chicago, the decision came after a particularly violent weekend in the Windy City, where 15 people were shot, and six were killed, due to gang activity.
All I can say is, I hope the city is doing more to squelch the violence than removing these ads, which may be in bad taste, but certainly aren't causing anyone to kill.
It seems that there are few gamers who are hopping mad over EA's downloadable content strategy for Battlefield: Bad Company. You see, the standard game is $60, no shocker there. The "Gold Edition" is $70 and includes five weapons not available in the standard edition.
Those with the standard edition can purchase those weapons as downloadable content. EA claims that the weapons don't throw off the balance of power in multiplayer matches, which begs the question, why include them, and more importantly, why sell them?
Because of this rotten strategy, there are many gamers who are planning to boycott the game altogether. I say let's march on Washington! Or, the LA offices of EA! Yeah!
It's no secret that we're not huge fans of Wedbush Morgan Securities analyst Michael Pachter. While we have nothing against the guy personally, his record for making accurate predictions regarding the direction of the video game industry has been less than impressive. Despite this, he seems to be the go to guy when it comes to the investment realm of video game analysis, which is why we go a little nuts when we hear him say things that don't seem thought out.
Today's Pachter crime comes via an interview on GameTrailer's Bonus Room, where he states that, if EA acquires Take-Two, EA will "have an economic incentive to delay [Grand Theft Auto IV]".
The suggestion is that EA would hold the title until the 4th quarter, when the video game industry makes most of its money. These are the kinds of Pachter-esque predictions that drive us nuts, as they fail to take into account certain unique variables.
If this were any other highly anticipated game, Pachter would have a case. But it's not. This is Grand Theft Auto 4. With its April 29th release date, it's expected to bring in over $360 million in retail sales in the first week. If it is successful, it will beat out Halo 3, which, with $300 million in sales, holds the record for the highest grossing opening day in entertainment history.
Of course, the game's sales won't stop there. This will, most certainly, be the summer of GTA IV (and R.E.M., but that has nothing to do with anything). People will be playing it left and right. My dad, who buys, perhaps, one game every two years, will be playing it. Then, come the holidays, all of those people who haven't bought it, will buy it.
GTA games, particularly those that are supposed to be absolutely ground-breaking (and online), don't die for years (btw, our 2004 GTA: Vice City Game Guide remains one of our most popular). In other words, when it comes to the release of GTA titles, it's not a matter of how much money the company is going to make, it's a matter of when that company is going to begin taking in millions upon millions of dollars. EA likes money just as much as the next company, and they're not going to delay making money in the second quarter, as they'd still be racking it up in the 4th.
As a final note, we should remember that in June of last year, Pachter predicted a delay of GTA IV's original release date of October 16th, 2007. While Take-Two did delay the release, it was due to delays in development. Pachter predicted delays would be due to a desire to avoid competition with other 4th quarter titles. Rather contradictory to his current path of prediction, is it not?
After several delays, Pandemic Studios finally seems confident in providing a solid release date for the highly anticipated Mercenaries 2: World in Flames, as they stuck it at the end of a brand new trailer.
Look to guide your soldiers-for-hire through the jungles of South America on August 31st (Septermber 5th in the UK). These dates apply for all console (PS2,PS3, X360) and PC versions of the game.
On the heels of Pandemic's announcement came one from THQ, letting gamers know there will be another sandbox title to choose from, just days before the release of Mercs 2 (and just a few months after GTA IV. Look for Saints Row 2 (PS3, X360) to hit store shelves on August 26th. Oy.
Truth be told, the past couple of Saints trailers make me wonder if they're really going to be ready for an August release...as one is all audio, the other, a 15 second slide show. Lame.
Don't get me wrong here, because I am as excited as any other gamer for the release of GTA IV (after all, I'm not made of wood). But, is anyone else getting a little sick of seeing trailers that feature no real gameplay? Meh. Maybe it's just me.
Anyway, here's the latest and greatest, via Gamestop.
Let's move past the fact that The Bourne Conspiracy videogame will not feature Matt Damon and is based on Robert Ludlum's novels instead of the films. You past it? OK. Me too.
With that ugliness behind us, we can now all celebrate the announcement from Sierra Entertainment (via Vivendi) that the game will land in North America on June 3rd and in the UK on June 27th. So, get your PS3s and Xbox 360s ready, as Jason Bourne is about to take control!
Note, the above trailer is best enjoyed while playing Moby's "Extreme Ways" in the background.
With less than a month to the launch of what's sure to be this year's biggest game, the insert map for Grand Theft Auto 4 seems to have been leaked. While it's still getting the "rumor" treatment, for those of us living in Liberty City, well, it looks right to us.
You'll see that Lunabean HQ is located in a lovely part of town, on the east side, not far from the beach and in close proximity to Chuck E Cheese! However, the only dog park in the area, Tommy Vercetti Memorial Park, is all the way across town. Alas, don't feel bad. When you can drive 90 miles per hour and pedestrian deaths don't matter, it only takes about 5 minutes to get there.
GTA4 is released on April 29th and we'll start a walkthrough soon thereafter.
It seems "Crackdown" isn't just the name of a popular Xbox 360 game but it's what MS is doing to people who have tampered with their gamesaves to earn a higher gamerscores and get more achievements.
It goes something like this...you see a post on a message board from somebody who is offering to play "Halo 3" for you so that your gamerscore goes up. All you have to do is send him your account info, so he can sign in as you, and paypal him $40.
Well, that's against Xbox Live's terms of use and can get you banned, your account canceled or, in the case of what happened today, can result in the deletion of all of your achievements, set your gamerscore back to ZERO, and make it obvious to other users that you're a cheater (as the graphic above shows).
So, what if you live in a dorm and there is one Xbox 360 where four of you sign in. Don't worry. It's not so much lots of accounts on the same 360 as it is your account on several 360s. Add into that the wizbang technology that MS uses to determine if you're earning stuff a little too quickly and/or tampering with saved game files to undermine the system and you're toast!
On the one hand, I'm of the philosophy, "so what?". It's none of MS's business what I do with my account. On the other hand, fair play makes games more fun.
Update: For those who need Condemned 2 help beyond the current scope of the walkthrough, please post your questions in our Condemned 2: Bloodshot Help Thread in our forums.
Yes, it's been complete for awhile now, but, I just added the Screenshot Version, so I thought I should mention it.
Lunabean's Unofficial Devil May Cry 4 Walkthrough and Strategy Guide (X360, PS3, PC) contains everything you need to master the intricate fighting styles of Nero and Dante in your quest against Sanctus and his minions!
Complete Walkthrough!
Comprehensive Boss Strategies!
Locations of all Blue Orbs and Blue Orb Fragments!
The game is expected to be released in September, just four months (give or take) after LEGO Indiana Jones, which means it will be a HUGE year for LucasArts and traveller's tales. Oh, it will also be a HUGE year for the millions of gamers (myself included), who love the LEGO games.
For more LEGO Batman info, check out the latest article from MTV Multiplayer, which broke the news that we'll be able to play as both Batman hero and Batman villian. Mwahahahahaha!
If you're planning on getting anything done this May, you might want to reconsider or get it done early, as Rockstar is claiming Grand Theft Auto IV, which will be released on April 29, will take you 100 hours to complete.
Now, keep in mind, this is coming from Rockstar, so it's more than likely the 100 hour mark is a bit exaggerated. Plus, Rockstar is talking completion here. That's 100% of the game...something I have never accomplished in a GTA title, as it simply gets too tedious for my attention span...which is why I'm someone who doesn't find the 100 hour claim as a positive. To me, there's simply a point where a single game (offline) is just too much of the same thing.
Mass Effect, the BioWare space epic that is full of complete and total awesomeness (not to mention a benign sex scene that has ruffled the feathers of the anti-gaming media), has been slated to hit store shelves this May. EA will be the publisher this time around, as the company purchased BioWare from Microsoft Game Studios, the publisher of the Xbox 360 version, last October.
According to the press release, here's what we can expect from the PC version:
Optimized controls designed specifically for the PC.
High resolution visuals – Mass Effect for the PC features highly detailed textures, characters and environments.
Fully customizable controls – PC gamers can re-map the control scheme any way they like.
Run & Gun Control – Players can assign biotic powers or skills to ‘hot keys’ allowing them to play Mass Effect with a heavier focus on action.
New decryption mini-game.
New inventory screen GUI and functionality – The enhanced inventory system makes it easier for players to equip and modify their weapons and armor.
Update: For those who need Devil May Cry 4 help beyond the current scope of the walkthrough, please post your questions in our Devil May Cry 4 Help Thread in our forums.
How excited am I for Star Wars: The Force Unleashed? More excited than Nien Nunb and Lando Calrissian when the shield generator on Endor finally went down.
I'm also pleasantly surprised by some quality video game journalism courtesy of Frank DiGiacomo of Vanity Fair and his "The Game Has Changed" feature.
DiGiacomo relates to us his visit to LucasArts massive San Francisco complex, where Star Wars: The Force Unleashed is being developed for the PS3 and Xbox 360 (tentatively due out this summer).
How about this for an excerpt?
By the time the demonstration was over, I was left with the unmistakable sense that LucasArts was on the cutting edge of a huge leap forward for the video-game industry—a technological breakthrough, nearly as revolutionary as the introduction of sound in film, that could finally give gaming the kind of immersive realism that would enable it to join movies and television as a form of mainstream entertainment.