Lord of the Rings: War in the North goes forth into stores on November 1

Posted on August 3, 2011 by John Scalzo

Even though most online retailers still list an August 24 release date for The Lord of the Rings: War in the North, WB Games has officially announced that the game will be available in North American store shelves on November 1. Australian gamers will get it a day later on November 2 and the game will be available in Europe later in the week on November 4.

While this delay means gamers won’t be able to lead their fellowship into battle anytime soon, it does give them more time to save up for the absolutely insane War in the North Collector’s Edition, which will also be available on November 1.

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PlayStation Vita will work as controller for PS3 games, have cross-platform play

Posted on August 2, 2011 by Nicole Kline

The PlayStation Vita can work as a controller for the PS3, Sony revealed at the Develop Conference 2011. R&D Manager of Sony Europe, Phil Rogers, said, “”PS3 can send data down to Vita and Vita can display it. You could use the unique features [of Vita] – gyroscope, touch front and back – as a control device for a PS3 game.”

Rogers said that games states can be synced on both devices using the network, and why that matters: “you then have the processing power of PS3 doing that work, Vita [doing] fancy graphics – however you want to do it. You’re not sacrificing the PS3’s CPU to be able to have a rich experience on Vita.”

The Vita will also have cross-platform play, which Rogers has confirmed will be available at launch. They demonstrated with WipEout 2048 on Vita and WipEout HD on PS3, and also mentioned that Hustle Kings will support this feature as well.

And, of course, there’s Continuation Play, in which a player can play on the PS3 and then continue their game on the Vita. “We have a system called Title User Storage, which allows 1MB of data on our servers for games,” Rogers said. “You can save your game on PS3, go over to Vita, pull that data back and swap it between them, so you can play a game at home, take it on the train and continue.”

Ruin, which was shown at Sony’s E3 press conference, is the only game confirmed to support this feature so far, but there are more games in the works (at least one by Hideo Kojima, am I right?). This announcement makes the PlayStation Vita seem a lot more similar to the Wii U’s new controller. There’s also the recent price drop announcement of the 3DS that the Vita will have to contend with when it launches. Dramaaaaaa!

[Source: Eurogamer]

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PS Store Today: Dragon Age Origins, Galaga Legions DX, Warhammer 40000 Kill Team

Posted on August 2, 2011 by John Scalzo

It’s Tuesday and Sony has added three new games to the PlayStation Store today.

Leading things off is a downloadable version of BioWare’s Dragon Age: Origins ($29.99). Also available this week is Namco Bandai’s Galaga Legions DX and THQ’s Warhammer 40000: Kill Team ($9.99 each).

PlayStation Plus subscribers will also be treated to a good week as the PSN game Crash Commando and PSone Classic Destruction Derby are both available for free.

A complete list of all of this week’s additions to the PlayStation Store can be found at the PlayStation.Blog.

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EA Sports Season Ticket now available

Posted on August 2, 2011 by John Scalzo

Leave it to Electronic Arts to take the “online pass” idea to places you never thought it would go. Today, the publisher launched the EA Sports Season Ticket, a new service that’ll provide “premium benefits” in five EA Sports titles (Madden NFL 12, NHL 12, FIFA Soccer 12, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 13 and NCAA Football 13).

The Season Ticket carries an annual fee of $24.99 on the PlayStation Store (or 2000 Microsoft Points on Xbox Live), subscribers will receive four benefits: the chance to download an EA Sports title three days before the retail disc version is available for sale, a 20-percent discount on in-game DLC, premium web content and membership recognition (a small icon next to your username in the game).

So after EA separates you from your $25, you’ll have access to discounts, a snazzy icon for your PSN username/Gamertag and web content like the premium Creation Center packs for FIFA Soccer 12. According to EA, “these packs provide a deeper set of customization tools and abilities within Creation Center to build your own teams and tournaments.”

But the real meat of the program appears to be the ability to download an EA Sports game three days before the regular folks who have to wait for the disc version. But buyer beware, according to EA, the downloadable version of the game will cease to work after the disc version is available in stores.

Come on EA, what is the point of that?

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Sucker Punch Productions picked up by Sony

Posted on August 2, 2011 by John Scalzo

Sucker Punch Productions has worked exclusively with Sony for twelve years, and it looks like the consolemaker has finally put a ring on that finger. The two companies announced today that Sucker Punch would become the latest internal studio at Sony Computer Entertainment. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

“Sucker Punch Productions is one of the most highly acclaimed development studios in the industry and we have enjoyed a wonderful relationship with the company for over 12 years. We are delighted to officially welcome them to the SCE family,” said Shuhei Yoshida, president, SCE Worldwide Studios. “The addition of Sucker Punch to SCE WWS reiterates our dedication to developing world class gaming experiences that can only be found on the PlayStation platform.”

“We’ve enjoyed an incredible relationship with Sony that has allowed us to combine our creative design capabilities with their guidance to make some of the best franchises to hit the PlayStation platforms. Equally important, the relationship with SCE has provided us the flexibility and trust to take creative risks and invent new properties,” said Brian Fleming, managing partner, Sucker Punch Productions.

Sucker Punch released InFamous 2 in June, but have yet to announce their next project.

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Catherine Review: Do Cheaters Dream of Neurotic Sheep?

Posted on August 2, 2011 by Nicole Kline

Catherine is the latest game from the twisted minds over at Atlus, who are responsible for the Persona series as well as a plethora of other bizarre games. An amalgam of strange and uniquely Japanese concepts and story twists, I assumed Catherine would either go down in the history books as a revolutionary game, or fall short and be simply categorized as weird. It turns out to be more of the latter than the former, but still has many redeeming qualities – and compelling reasons to play.

Press Start to Continue →

Posted in PS3, Reviews, Top Story, Xbox 360 | Tagged

True Crime: Hong Kong back in the game, thanks to Square Enix

Posted on August 2, 2011 by Nicole Kline

It seems True Crime: Hong Kong is being given a new lease on life. Square Enix acquired the rights from developer United Front Games, who had ceased development after publisher Activision cancelled the game. The game will be managed by Square Enix London Studios and will continue to be developed by United Front Games, who is based in Vancouver.

Square Enix did not acquire the True Crime IP, and is currently working on re-branding the game. There’s also no word on when the game will be released, or what formats it will be released on. But one thing is clear – Square Enix is very excited about the game. Square Enix London Studios General Manager Lee Singleton said, “It’s one of those games where you don’t want to put the controller down; it’s what we call ‘sticky,'” and also mentioned the “incredible new game engine, rich new story with deep and complex characters, and gameplay features which have simply never been seen at this level in an open world game.”

This is great news. I got a chance to see True Crime: Hong Kong at last year’s E3, and frankly, I was completely blown away by it. I was shocked when Activision cancelled it and said it wasn’t good enough. I am eager to see what Square Enix and United Front Games are going to do with it.

[Source: Gamasutra]

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Ice-T unveils “Gears of War (Horde 2.0: Five Against All)” music video

Posted on August 2, 2011 by John Scalzo

As promised at E3, Ice-T and Body Count have reunited to bring the world “Horde 2.0 (Five Against All),” a new song inspired by Gears of War 3. The song was released alongside this awesome new gameplay trailer for the game’s Horde Mode.

So listen to the song, watch the trailer and get ready to experience Gears of War 3 on September 20.

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