Gears of War Locust Drone Bust!!

Isn’t he cute??

TriForce just announced this puppy to coincide with today’s release of Gears of War 2. This monster (pun intended) bust is on a 1:1 scale at a height of 19″ and weighs 15 pounds!
While it does look a bit scary (isn’t that the point though?) you have to recognize the amazing level of detail on the sculpt which was created by Epic Games art director Chris Perna and painted by Jordu Schell.
Of course for such a high level of details (factor in the Gears hype factor as well) the bust fetches a hefty price of $549.99 (because I’m sure $550 crosses a psychological threshold).

Wednesday October 22, 2008

E3 Overhaul Confirmed

As I posted yesterday, this year E3 will become bigger and hopefully better. It seems G4 was right and Newsweek was wrong since the show will take place Tuesday June 2 through Thursday June 4 and will not be open to public. However audience invites will be more numerous and hopefully will include us bloggers/journalists
Booth size will also be bigger, doing away with the 20×20 feet space limit.

PSP-3000 Woes

The portable console just came out in Japan and apparently people are already complaining.  The problem apparently is coming from the scanlines which are supposed to improve contrast and rendering.
The screens speak for themselves and apparently since the problem is from the new screen there can be no software update. Which means if you don’t like you can re-buy the old one…or wait for a new version.

Gears of War 2 Banned in Germany and Possibly Japan

This trend is really starting to annoy me (and I’m mincing words). You would think that democracies would be smart but this is no different than Book Burning or the Church censorship of the Middle Ages.
These countries don’t shy away from releasing every other porn movie (especially Japan which borders on the underage sex cult) and violent movie out there so what stops them from putting an ‘Adult’ label on the cover and give it a rest???
I guess Germans will have to buy their games on Amazon.uk……ooooohhh maybe the police is going to knock on their door for contraband importation…..
Whatever.

08-08-08 (Hey It’s a Once in a Lifetime Thing Right Here!)

Diablo III Art Director Quits Blizzard

It’s funny to think that a bit more than a month ago the game wasn’t even confirmed. Since then we’ve some very good, if not great, trailers in typical Blizzard fashion. Then some fans were up in arms against what they called a brighter version of the game which looked more like Warcraft III than Diablo (obviously these fans had neither played Warcraft III or been to Lut Golein in a while) and launched a petition for a “darker Diablo III”.
This all seemed at least to me like another wishful thinking endeavor until Blizzard issued a statement earlier this week basically saying “Thank you for your passion about this project but this is what we’re doing and if you don’t like it…tough luck”. And then today we learn the the Art Director on the game, Brian Morrisroe, has quit and is to be replaced.
It appears that the official story is that the two events aren’t related and that he left because he wants to start his own company and the art direction will stay on course as planned. Funny how sometimes things that seem naturally related occur so close to each other and yet there is no connection whatsoever (Gamespot Vs. Jeff Gerstmann anyone?)

More LEGO Games on the Way

Jon Burton, president of Traveller’s Tales, has said that his studio has signed a deal with Warner Bros. to make more adaptations of their franchises. Considering the catalog of the movie studio could we see Superman, Harry Potter or The Matrix in all its cubic splendor soon?

New Suikoden?

Konami seems to be trying to block the Suikoden Tierkreis which should mean that a new game is coming. Whether it is a full-blown sequel, a port of past games on the DS or the PSP, or a different game altogether, remains to be seen.

Gears of War 2 Special Edition with Life-Size Lancer!

Following in the footsteps of Halo 3‘s Legendary Edition which came bundled with a somewhat underwhelming Spartan helmet replica, Epic Games is set to release an edition for $139.99 which will come bundled with the GoW staple weapon. The replica designed by NECA will need 3 ‘C’ batteries and will vibrate, produce chainsaw noise and feature a removable clip as well as adjustable side handle. Geek heaven on the way?

Fable II Pub Games Next Week

Microsoft announced today that the special feature will be available on August 13 for 800 points (you can also get it for free if you preorder the game). The casino type game has an interesting feature which allows you to transfer your gains into the main game when it’ll be released on October 21. This should help people get money since the only ways to gain money in Fable II will be to work or gamble, eschewing the money drops on animals and other unrealistic mobs.

Wednesday August 6, 2008

RetroBeats Session 10 Out!

This week I’m taking care of the fans with a special request episode.
Special thanks to the amazing Youtube show The Music of Video Games which helped me a lot with this one.

Left 4 Dead on PS3?

The last issue of Official Playstation Magazine announced that the game would come out on the Sony console (the game is only scheduled for 360 and PC so far) but Doug Lombardi from Valve denied everything in heartbeat. With so much smoke there must be a fire no?

Gears of Wars 2 Light

In order to appease all the angry people who don’t understand that when a game is rated ‘M’ for mature it means it’s intended for mature audiences and not your 10 year old Epic Games has put an option in the game which will replace all the blood by sparks and remove all beheading and amputations.
A good initiative if there ever was one.

Valve Looking to Be Bought??

In the “Woah!” news of the week Gamasutra interviewed Doug Lombardi who said that while Valve was doing well he would be open to discuss acquisition from other companies.

Warhammer Online Dated and Priced

Mythic Entertainment has finally given an official release date for the game, September 18, which isn’t to far from the speculated date of September 23 that was revealed a few days ago.
The studio also released the price options for the game which are overall pretty standard giving players the option to subscribe for 1, 3 or 6 months for a price of E12.99, E35.97 or E65.94 respectively. there will also be 60 days prepaid cards available for E29.99.
On top of this all the standard version of the game will be available for pre-order for 5 euros starting August 28 and Mythic promised that all these pre-orders will have an early access key for the game. Fear of the Age of Conan backlash?

E3 2008 – Microsoft Press Conference Summary

E3 2008

Today Microsoft held their press conference at E3 and is what I took from it.

• Complete revamp of Xbox Live with avatars. at first glance I’m not sure about the changes but we will have to see it and try it to make sure.

• Netflix is partnering with Microsoft to distribute movies on Xbox Live. To me this is THE announcement that’s worth a million bucks.Combining the cheap format of Netflix with the (almost) instantaneous aspect of Live download is a gold mine.

• The Fallout 3 gameplay felt very underwhelming to me. I’m pretty disappointed as I have high hopes for this game. We’ll have to wait and see some more.

• Final Fantasy XIII will be released simultaneously for PS3 and 360! Now this is another major gain for Microsoft and another blow to the PS3. Sony must be really glad they integrated Blu-ray in their console because otherwise…

• The online Co-Op modes for Resident Evil 5 (releasing Friday the 13th March 2009) and Fable II look very nice. Fable II gives a lot of promise and looks like another nice RPG that people will enjoy playing. Resident Evil 5 continues in the footsteps of RE 4 adding a promising cooperation mode.

• Confirmed release dates of November 7 2008 for Gears of War 2, March 13 2009 for Resident Evil 5, October 2008 for Fable II and September 2 2008 for Infinite Undiscovery (which looks like Lost Odyssey but has a kick-ass website).

• Other announcements counted Guitar Hero World Tour which looked OK but was overshadowed by Rock Band 2 and their announcement that AC/DC will finally be featured on the game. Rare confirmed Viva Piñata 2 and Banjo & Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts. Geometry Wars 2 and Portal 2 are coming to Xbox Live Arcade and a few other details which weren’t that thrilling.

Overall the Microsoft conference was average with mostly confirmations and footage we had seen before. Still it included the big FFXIII slap and some nice new footage of Fable II, Resident Evil 5 and Fallout 3.

You can watch the full coverage of the conference here.