El Shaddai completed, US/EU release date coming “shortly”

Posted on January 31, 2011 by Mike Gutierrez

UTV Ignition Entertainment, Ltd. announced today that their biblical re-telling of the story of Enoch has gone gold, and will be releasing in Japan on April 28, 2011, adding that the European and American release dates “will be announced shortly.” El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron has been in development for three years under the supervision of former Clover and Capcom developers who have worked on Resident Evil, Devil May Cry, and Okami. Inspired by the Book of Enoch from the Dead Sea Scrolls, the game follows a priest looking for fallen angels in order to save mankind from an impending flood. The game will apparently be the first in a new series, as Game Director Sawaki Takeyasu stated “I also look forward to having time to consider the future direction of the El Shaddai franchise.”

El Shaddai certainly has a unique art style to complement its interesting source material. It’s definitely one to watch, given the track record of its developers. The game hopes to cement UTV’s place as a powerhouse publisher, representing “the first of several exciting new blockbuster gaming properties that UTV Ignition Entertainment will reveal over the coming months.”

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Nintendo Download: 1/31/2011

Posted on January 31, 2011 by John Scalzo

This week’s Nintendo Download offers up a quintet of new games for your downloading pleasure. The DSiWare slate includes All-Star Air Hockey, Mahjong, 101 Dolphin Pets and a diary application. Wii owners will get a chance to download Magic Destiny, a guide to astrology and other fortunetelling systems. Demo versions of Racers’ Islands: Crazy Racers and Zombie Panic in Wonderland have also been added to the Wii Shop Channel.

Hit the break for all the details on this week’s Nintendo Download.

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Crytek considers resurrecting TimeSplitters 4

Posted on January 31, 2011 by John Scalzo

Crytek CEO Cevat Yerli recently sat down with CVG to talk about the developer’s working relationship with Crytek UK, which was formerly known as Free Radical Design.

If you’ll recall, before Crytek acquired Free Radical, the company was hard at work on TimeSplitters 4, a new entry in their wild first person shooter series. After the purchase, Crytek put TimeSplitters 4 on hold, renamed the company and set them to work on the multiplayer portion of Crysis 2.

But TimeSplitters 4 may yet live as Yerli told CVG, “Yeah, we have been discussing [TimeSplitters 4], but nothing has been confirmed yet, so let’s see after Crysis 2.”

It’s not confirmation, but it’s definitely a very good sign.

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Mortal Kombat’s new X-Ray feature gives players an inside look, literally

Posted on January 31, 2011 by Ryan Littlefield

Wow. Just wow. As if I didn’t already have enough of a reason to check out the new Mortal Kombat game, NetherRealm Studios showed off their X-Ray fighting technology in a recent video. The X-Ray technology allows players to hone in on critical hits, fully displaying their effective blows. The video showcases spines bending backward and breaking, cracked ribs, shattering skulls, and organs being crushed.

While this addition only ascends the government’s attention to violent video games, it’s high time that Mortal Kombat had this kind of a face lift – through excessive punching of course.

This video also includes the first gameplay footage of Liu Kang from the upcoming reboot. The champ is here and he looks awesome.

Check out the video after the break.

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Daily Scoop: January 31, 2011 – Just another Monday edition

Posted on January 31, 2011 by Nicole Kline

Ah, Monday. Your annoyingness knows no bounds. I’m still exhausted from Global Game Jam, but it was absolutely worth it. We’ll be posting some awesome interviews with local Philadelphia-area game developers, so be on the lookout!

There aren’t too many deals today, I’m afraid. There’s no video game deal of the day over at Amazon. But Buy.com is selling Xbox Live 12 month Gold subscription cards for $39.99, which is a pretty darn good deal. Anyone looking to re-up before tomorrow’s drop of the first CoDBlOps DLC is in luck.

Also, and this is not game-related, but this Rain-Bo shirt at shirt.w00t made me laugh, so I thought I’d share it.

Take that, Monday!

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Weekly Warp-Up: Handheld Wars Episode I

Posted on January 30, 2011 by John Scalzo

No, that’s not a typo. Welcome to the Weekly Warp-Up, your weekly wrap-up of the biggest and the best articles posted at Warp Zoned this week…

Sony’s Next Generation Portable
The public finally got their first glimpse at the PSP2… even if Sony doesn’t want to call it that. And the hardware manufacturer wasn’t shy about showing off the system’s stellar lineup including Uncharted, Killzone, Resistance, LittleBigPlanet, Call of Duty and a lot more. The gameplay videos are just astounding (and really makes my wallet wince when I think about how much the NGP will cost). All told, more than 80 publishers and developers have pledged to support the NGP. You can watch the entire NGP reveal at the PlayStation Meeting 2011 here.

Get Warp Zoned!
Zipper Interactive’s ambitious MAG ignited a lot of interest when it was released a year ago. Giving gamers a 256-player war, it represented a new frontier for console owners in the online multiplayer battle fields. One Year Later, we examine Zipper’s commitment to making MAG a game we’d all want to play through updates, patches and bugfixes. Zipper’s next game, SOCOM 4, was also given an April 19th release date by Sony this week.

Hit the jump for the rest of the Weekly Warp-Up.

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3DS eShop opening in May, to sell 3D Classics

Posted on January 30, 2011 by John Scalzo

The same Nintendo financial briefing that revealed that new Kirby games are in development for the Wii and DS also confirmed a few details about the Nintendo 3DS eShop.

According to Nintendo, the eShop will be available after the 3DS’ first system update, which is scheduled for sometime at the end of May. This update will also enable DSi-to-3DS transferring of DSiWare games and the 3DS Internet browser.

Nintendo president Satoru Iwata told the crowd that the reason for the delay was so Nintendo could create an online storefront that allowed gamers to easier browse the eShop’s offerings. He also noted that he didn’t want any gamers to be “buried” in eShop’s menus.

Another possible reason for the delay was Iwata’s announcement of “3D Classics.” That’s right, games available on the 3DS’ Virtual Console will be given a 3D facelift. Which titles Nintendo has planned for the 3D Classics line is currently a mystery, but we’ll likely learn more as the handheld’s March 27th launch looms.

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Watch the complete NGP reveal press conference

Posted on January 30, 2011 by John Scalzo

Did you miss your chance to attend the PlayStation Meeting 2011 last week? What’s that? It took place in Tokyo and the guest list was very limited so we all missed it? Right… I knew that.

Thankfully, Sony has uploaded a video of the entire thing onto YouTube in six parts. So while the details of the event have been reported on ad nauseum since Thursday, we can all finally watch it for ourselves.

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