Most Recent: 3DS

Disney raises the 3DS sail with Lego Pirates of the Caribbean

Posted on February 16, 2011 by Ryan Littlefield

Ninajas will be stealthily sneaking into the world of Lego soon, but its pirates that will invading the 3DS and staking a claim for minifigs everywhere. That’s right, a version of Lego Pirates of the Caribbean will be sailing to the upcoming 3DS handheld.

Not only does Lego Pirates feature all the fun Lego gameplay that the previous titles did, but most interesting is the Street Pass feature. Street Pass allows players’ sleeping 3DS systems to interact with each other, where players will involuntarily be involved in “Pirate Duels.” Players will be able to select attacks and blocks to be used while the Street Pass mode is on. This makes the Pirate Duel feature seem like a game of Rock, Paper, Scissors, but with more wit involved. Winners of these duels will be rewarded with experience points, which will unlock additional health and power-up bonuses for their in-game characters. This feature is exclusive to the 3DS’ version of the game.

Lego Pirates of the Caribbean will be simultaneously released on the PS3, Xbox 360, Wii, PC/Mac, PSP, and 3DS in conjunction with the new Pirates of the Caribbean film, due out May 2011.

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Pro Evolution Soccer 2011 3D will be 3DS launch game

Posted on February 10, 2011 by John Scalzo

Konami has announced that Pro Evolution Soccer 2011 3D will launch alongside the 3DS hardware in March. The game will actually corner kick its way into stores on March 25, two days ahead of Nintendo’s new handheld.

Konami promises to give “real depth” to the game of soccer on the 3DS with a unique new view of the field:

PES 2011 3D puts you at the heart of every pass, through-ball and shot, with its unique ‘Player’ camera shadowing the user’s every movement, right in the middle of the unfolding match. Thus, players can see their team mates making runs in the channels and moving into space, meaning PES 2011 3D makes the player an integral part of a successful team. Using the 3D capabilities of the Nintendo 3DS, the camera views also allow the user to visually ascertain how far away a team mate is, allowing for more instinctive long passes and dynamic movement.

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Activision reveals new Family Guy game, X-Men: First Class, “unprecedented” new universe

Posted on February 10, 2011 by John Scalzo

Activision was very busy during their quarterly financial briefing yesterday. In addition to canceling Guitar Hero 7 and True Crime: Hong Kong, the company revealed a few details about their 2011 (and beyond) schedule.

New Activision Publishing CEO Eric Hirshberg did most of talking. He began by reiterating that Call of Duty 8 is on track for a 2011 release and officially announced a free-to-play Call of Duty game for China, which will be released in 2012.

Continuing with the Call of Duty theme, Hirshberg revealed that a new Activision in-house studio, Beachhead, will be creating an “all-new digital platform for the Call of Duty franchise.” The system sounds very similar to Halo Waypoint and promises to “support in-game integration and bring online experiences and console play together.”

Activision also has a slew of licensed games in development for 2011 including three never-before-announced games: Family Guy, X-Men: First Class and Wipeout 2.

A Family Guy game was released by 2K Games to tepid reviews in 2006. X-Men: First Class will likely launch alongside the film in June with the Silicon Knights-developed X-Men: Destiny still on track for a late 2011 release. And for those confused about Wipeout 2, it’s not the futuristic racing franchise, but a second game based on ABC’s obstacle course game show.

Several previously announced 2011 games, including Transformers: Dark of the Moon, a new Spider-Man game, more Cabela’s Hunting titles and a new Bakugan game were also discussed.

Bungie’s New Universe was briefly mentioned, but only to confirm that it won’t launch until 2012 at the earliest.

Finally, Hirshberg announced that Activision will be unveiling “an all-new gaming universes that brings together the worlds of toys, video games and online play.” in two days at the New York Toy Fair. Activision will release the game based on this new universe in the second half of 2011 and calls the franchise an “unprecedented” merging of different media.

Wow. We’ll likely learn more about a lot of these titles at E3.

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EA working on “exciting” new FPS

Posted on February 2, 2011 by John Scalzo

Electronic Arts held their quarterly financial briefing yesterday and their CEO, John Riccitiello, revealed a small slice of the publisher’s 2011/2012 plans. Riccitiello has vowed to return EA to the top of the heap when it comes to first person shooters and he revealed that the company has a secret shooter in the works:

“This year, with the trail end of Battlefield: Bad Company 2 still doing well, Medal of Honor doing well, Crysis and Bulletstorm, we’re clearly going to make more progress on our goal, and that’s before we get to what I think is going to be a very exciting entry later in the year that we’re not yet announcing.”

The briefing also revealed that EA has three games planned for the 3DS launch window (The Sims 3, Madden NFL Football and FIFA Soccer) with a plan to release two of three alongside the 3DS hardware on March 27. This is our first confirmation of any 3DS launch day titles, even if it is still a bit of a guessing game.

Finally, EA used the briefing to gloat a bit. They announced that five of their 2010 releases, FIFA 11, Medal of Honor, Madden NFL 11, Need For Speed Hot Pursuit and Battlefield: Bad Company 2, have all sold more than five million copies apiece. And even though it’s only been available for a week, EA also announced that Dead Space 2 has already sold two million copies, nearly doubling the sales figures of the first game.

Posted in 3DS, News, PC, PS3, Xbox 360 |

Miyamoto confirms Super Mario Bros. 3DS… again

Posted on February 1, 2011 by John Scalzo

The latest Iwata Asks column is all about the 25th anniversary of Super Mario Bros. But after the Nintendo president and his illustrious panel of guests finished talking about the past, Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto dropped some hints about the plumber’s future.

Miyamoto: [I]n the interests of adopting new technology for the Super Mario Bros. tradition, I am now making a new Super Mario Bros. game for the Nintendo 3DS system.

While Super Mario Bros. 3DS remains officially unannounced, this isn’t the first time Miyamoto has talked about a new Mario game on Nintendo’s upcoming handheld. Back in October, during an investor’s Q&A session, he actually revealed that there are two Mario games in development for the 3DS. What makes today’s quote interesting is that, according to Miyamoto, we may be playing a Mario game on the 3DS sooner rather than later:

Miyamoto: I want to show everyone as soon as possible what the new Super Mario Bros. will be like on the Nintendo 3DS.

And we can’t wait to play it. So what are you waiting for Nintendo? Announce this thing already!

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Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance trailer released (Not in 3D)

Posted on January 27, 2011 by Ryan Littlefield

As of this morning, a new trailer for Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance has been released. The trailer displays both cinematic and gameplay segments of the upcoming Square Enix game, both of which look incredibly smooth and polished – at least by the 3DS standards.

While the trailer showcases much of Destiny Island and Traverse Town, it looks like there will be a few new worlds for the player to travel in, specifically the cutscene showing Sora running through what looks like the bell tower from The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

Several new types of gameplay seem to be added as well, as Sora is shown tearing up turf around Traverse Town. It appears as though lamps and obstacles may not just be for show anymore, thereby incorporating more of an interactive action feel to the game.

Despite how interesting KH3DS looks, I’m not alone in saying that it’s time for a full-fledged Kingdom Hearts 3.

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Nintendo 3DS liveblog starting now

Posted on January 19, 2011 by Mike Gutierrez

Nintendo is currently holding a U.S. preview of the 3DS in New York City right now.  The launch event started at 9 a.m. EST and will answer most of the questions still surrounding the purportedly magical handheld device.  Reggie Fils-Aime himself is hosting and plans to give details on the U.S. launch date, pricing, initial library and other news.

The President of Nintendo America has already made some bold claims, that the current era of gaming began with playing Mario in 3D (apparently referring to Super Mario 64) and that this is “the next big step in the modern era of video games, Nintendo 3DS.”  Other announced details are that the system will launch in aqua blue and cosmo black, and that the top screen will be 10% larger than it is on the DSi.  The announcements are pouring out, so you best head over to Kotaku for their ongoing liveblog of the event.

Posted in 3DS, News |

Square Enix reveals all at 1st Production Department Premier

Posted on January 18, 2011 by Mike Gutierrez

I’m not sure who came up with the name for this event, but Square Enix is delivering the goods on their biggest titles today at their 1st Production Department Premier event. Happening this morning (or night) in Tokyo, the event has come with goodies like an incredible new Final Fantasy Versus XIII trailer, and the announcement of, yep, Final Fantasy XIII-2 (which is coming to the PS3 and Xbox 360). Japanese game blog Andriasang liveblogged the event and has all the details on those games as well as Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance and Final Fantasy Type-0 (the PSP game formerly known as Final Fantasy Agito XIII).

This is going to be a powerhouse news day for fans of JRPGs and Japanese games in general, so be sure to stay tuned.

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