What could it all mean! Mystery and Guesswork abound.
Following in the fine tradition of band tie ins, Rock Band Green Day is shaping up to be a Green Day fan’s dream, even if it is a bit of a niche. The demo has appeared on Xbox Live Marketplace and PlayStation Network, with a little teaser when you exited the demo. The teaser image above show the normal instrument icons, but with one addition.
In case you’re not too hot on musical instruments, the final circle is a keyboard, which could mean that for Rock Band 3 (what seems to be advertised by the image) some sort of musical keyboard device, thingy, will be added to the line up. I haven’t got a clue how the heck you make a keyboard for a rhythm game, as at that point, you’re heading into the area of being far too musical, and not enough game.
But, with seemingly everyone I know either playing or learning to play the keyboard, I’ll probably never get a go, instead being relegated to vocals…again.
If you want to see the teaser on your telebox, go download the demo, which includes the songs Boulevard of Broken Dreams and Welcome to Paradise.
Yes, this was a little sneaky, but they asked very direct questions comparing it to Xbox Live Gold
I suppose it’s time to come clean. Quite a while ago, I was invited to take part in a survey for Sony with gauged how willing I would be to pay for additional PlayStation Network features. I took a screenshot of the survey, and may well receive a letter telling me to take it away, but welcome to the internet.
In either case, it looks like there is definitely going to be a move to some sort of paid service, as prompted by a question put to Andrew House, President of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe on the official blog. When asked, “Will PlayStation Network become a paying service?”, he replied;
I can assure you that the current PSN as you know it will remain a free service. It is something that our competitors don’t offer and something that shows our loyalty to the PlayStation Community. However, Kaz Hirai stated a few months ago that we were looking at a premium service to sit alongside the current free service and that objective has not changed. You’ll learn more about it very soon.
So that started that off, and all the blogs went digging for what features could possibly be coming to this rumoured ‘PSN+’ . Joystiq probably have the most believable guesses about the service, claiming it will be announced at E3, which is happening in three weeks. They say that subscribers will have access to a rotating list of PSone classics and PSP minis, exclusive DLC, PS Store discount, as well as the pretty cool sounding feature that will let you play an hour of a retail game for free, before being prompted to purchase.
As well as game based features, there is also a rumour that subscribers will get access to the Playstation Protection Plan, to look after your consoles should they fall ill. One thing I’m perhaps less psyched about them charging for is cross game voice chat, but this may be to cover server costs and if the rest of the deal was significant enough, it could probably off set the fact you’ve got to pay for that. Joystiq’s sources also say that the rumoured cloud based storage system will also launch with PSN+, with an auto patch feature, allowing you to patch all your games on the system, will be included.
No idea about possible pricing as of yet, with some people throwing around a $9.99 per month figure have been neither denied or confirmed.
Is it a good deal? Well, cost could be a bit steep, but then it does combine quite a lot of features, such as the Protection Plan, that could cost more overall. Obviously, we’re not sure about the feature set, with the only thing I really want to see given to everyone is cross-game chat, but then again, you pay for that in Xbox Live Gold.
And yes, there will be a lot of people sitting in a dorito covered mess in front of their computers claiming that Xbox Live Gold is better value, or PSN overall is worth more, but they are currently arguing about something they know little about. If the feature set that has been guessed at stays, or is improved upon, it could offer an interesting upgrade option for normal PSN users, without segregating those who pay/don’t pay. I like playing games, so anything that lets me do more of that, could be pretty cool.
Set in sunny Normandy: THE Normandy.
After the weird news that Roller Coaster Tycoon is being made into a movie (eek, podcast spoiler), the studio that has fathered 300, The Watchmen, The Dark Knight and a whole other slew of bend-your-disbelief movies, Legendary Pictures, have acquired the film development rights to Mass Effect.
People worried that the movie might just be an onslaught of explosions may be slightly put at ease by the fact the writer of I Am Legend, Mark Protosevich, is writing the flick.
The Watchmen movie adaptation has been praised by critics and hated by the comic-fans. Will we see a similar avenue with Mass Effect?
Watch this space people! For more info, head here: http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2010/05/25/legendary_pictures_mass_effect/
Quick google found this, it's fake, as it's two iPhones glued together
I don’t own a DS, in fact, I haven’t owned a Nintendo handheld since the Game Boy Colour (although honestly, what more do you need). But I have kept on top with what Nintendo has been doing with the it’s Dual Screens, and nearly caved in and bought a DSi, though didn’t, primarily because it just doesn’t do enough.
Yes it tries, with dual cameras, crappy downloadable clocks and picture frames and the ability to upload to facebook, and even a limited web browser. But if I wanted something that can do all of that, I’d buy a smart phone. And they have touch screens. The real reason I would and you should want to buy a DS is for games. Pure and simple, I’ve got a selection of games I’m playing through currently on a borrowed DS and nearly every one is enjoyable and of good quality.
Following the DSi’s release and inevitable sale, there have been rumours, nearly literally, flying about, guessing what a DS2 will be. Well, according to a developer at Nnooo Games, who make DSi games (of which I’m struggling to think of any), they’d like to see multiple-touch on the new DS, so ALL your digits can get in on the action.
According to Creative Director Nic Watt, who was speaking to Official Nintendo Magazine, he said that the benefit would be:
“so you can have more than one person interacting with each screen at a time”
Which sounds like a really weird use of the technology. Unless they are big screens, which will probably make it more expensive than Nintendo likes with it’s price pointing, but this guy has also said he wants ‘cutting edge’ technology in the new DS, despite being a fan of the current, relatively low spec, console. There have also been rumours of some type of tilt functionality, similar to the iPhone, but if all this stuff happens, are they just over-developing what is a fun games console. Maybe we’ll get some concrete facts at this summers E3 conference.
Lightsabres. That's all a Star Wars game truly needs
In the next game in the “War against Warcraft” 0f western MMORPGs, Star Wars: The Old Republic has got a lot of hype around it. Perhaps because of the fact Bioware is making it, who have just had two huge hit titles with Dragon Age: Origins and Mass Effect 2 and that it’s having quite a lot of EA’s cash put behind it. Therefore, EA are also hoping that the Star Wars fans the world over (of which I believe there are quite a few) all sign up and offset the cost.
Whilst analysts are mixed on what they expect Star Wars:TOR to attract, ranging from 500,000 to 1 million and beyond, but EA are not convinced. In a recent industry report meeting, EA have stated that they want to get 2 million paid subscribers, claiming that “it is Star Wars after all”. Considering that there are very few MMO’s which actually can gain enough traction against the likes of World of Warcraft and retain their subscribers, but The Old Republic is no doubt one of the best placed in a long time to do that.
No one knows if IW will last the day at the moment, with an apparently battle between and developer and publisher brewing for months
[There has been three new updates since this post was originally published]
Breaking last night in a story ran by G4, rumours have been filling the net about what is happening at Infinity Ward, developers of the Call of Duty games.
The G4 story explained that, quite dramatically, the studio heads, Jason West and Vince Zampella, of IW had gone missing, apparently summoned to Activision for a meeting. In the mean time, security staff had turned up at their HQ and were not telling the staff anything.
I'm sorry this is such a boring image but, "OMGZ LUK OSX!!!!111!"
Popular game distribution and community tool Steam is rumoured to be heading to a Mac release, following uncovered files in one of the latest beta builds.
According to the image, originally posted in this thread, OSX named files have been found in the latest beta for Steam. Whilst there has been no confirmation of such, there has been various rumours regarding Valve’s status’ towards Apple’s Operating System, as well as toward Linux distributions.
The next big Steam release is moving the engine for browsing the store and community sections away from Trident, used primarily by the Internet Explorer browser and basically, what makes using Steam, even through methods such as WINE so difficult. They are now going to be using WebKit rendering engine, used in Mac OSX for a raft of applications as well as browsers, such as Safari and Chrome. This promises to improve speed, compatibilty and system stability. This is probably the first indicator of moving to other platforms.
Despite looking like a bootlegged image, this is the tech in action
It’s all well and good launching a motion controlling ice cream cone, but it’s a waste of time and resources if there are no games that support it or do it well *cough* SIXAXIS *cough*. Sony’s PS3 motion controller, which still hasn’t got a proper name, is being billed to compete against Microsoft’s Natal and the Wii’s dominance in this area of the market and whilst we’re able to see in theory how it could be used, I’ve not seen it’s usage in a proper game.
And I’ve still not seen it, but hopefully, should I decide to pick up the controller, I won’t have to invest in a whole new library (bearing in mind my Wii Collection already….) of party/waste of time games, but instead will have a whole host of games that will support it straight from off the motion controlled bat…Sorry….
STUNT POSITION! AIR JACK! LOUD NOISES!
It’s an enthralling prospect, Just Cause 2. From someone who played a little bit of the original, it always looked awesome, but only in very short pieces, any longer caused me to just spot every technical flaw that a massive open world game was bound to have on the PS2. However, it had a “Stunt Position”, where the character would jump on the back of the car he was driving a second ago, then took off in a parachute. I think Matt and me described it at the time as ‘awesome madness’.
This is only thing that could possibly be linked back to Battlefront Online (Courtesy of Kotaku)
Few rumours floating around the net today, so may not be that reliable I’ll have you know, that despite all signs of Star Wars: Battlefront III (the battlefield-esque style ones) being dumped and forgotten about, Kotaku have learned that the series may being kept alive in the form of Battlefront Online, an Xbox 360 and PS3 title.
The people behind it are Lucasarts (of course) and Six Slant Games, who made SOCOM: Confrontation and SOCOM: Fire Team Bravo. My only issue with this is I know for a fact that when Confrontation was launched on the PS3 and some would say to this day, the online experience has been terrible. But, I’ll try my best not to put a downer on things, as it wasn’t too long ago where everything looked bleak for the series.
The people behind the first two, relatively successful games was Pandemic, but when they were bought by EA, the license got swished around studios and ended up in the hands of Free Radical. “GREAT!” I thought, being a bit of a Star Wars geek who enjoyed the two previous games, we may get a next-gen version. I was even more encouraged when I saw the effort made by Pandemic on their next-gen license Lord of the Rings: Conquest, which was garbage. Free Radical had all the old Goldeneye team, had produced another favourite series of mine, Timesplitters, and all looked good. Then they released Haze.
Bugger.
By this point, the reputation of Free Radical had plummeted and despite the occasional pieces of concept art for both Timesplitters 4 and Battlefront III being released every couple of months, employees turned up one day to find notices on the doors to go home.
Needless to say, it looks slightly more promising than it did.
