It was only a matter of time before Qore got an exclusive demo, and it didn’t take long. Qore Episode 2 was released today and includes the exclusive Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm demo. (I wonder how many diehard Naruto fans fork over the $3 entry fee to play the demo.) It’s also got part one of a three part series on the development of Resistance 2. In other words, I continue to regret having purchased a subscription when Qore was first released.
Qore is pretty much the main attraction this week. You can find the week’s new Rock Band tracks (including one free track) and the free Guitar Hero III Top Gun track that Stephany posted about on Tuesday. Although I wouldn’t recommend grabbing the latter, not unless you want to torture yourself with garbage.
Activision announced today that Guitar Hero : On Tour for the DS has sold in excess of 300,000 units in North America in the first seven days since its launch, making it the largest North American launch for the Nintendo DS in the company’s history by more than a factor of eight.
In addition, Guitar Hero: On Tour’s performance ranks it as one of Activision’s top 5 best-selling launches of any title on any platform in the company’s history.
I guess it had proved to be more popular that I originally thought it would. Someone please pass the ketchup. This crow needs something to make it more palatable.
Here is bit of disappointing news for those who play CoD4 on their PS3.
Infinity Ward has no plans to go back and add trophies to the game. Pulled straight from the Infinity Ward forum, Rob Bowling had this to say regarding the situation:
Hey Everyone -
With the latest Playstation 3 firmware now available, I see a lot of questions regarding how it effects Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.
At this time, we have no plans to patch in Trophy support for Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare for the PS3. Much like DualShock rumble addition to the PS3, the support for these new features have come much to late for us to add it to Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare due to our current production schedule.
We would have loved to have these in the game at launch if the support was available, or shortly after.
If any gamers were looking forward to the possibility of this, I am sorry to have ruined your day.
You could hear my screams of anguish echo through the stratosphere as I opened my email. Somewhere, a poor alien’s ears are bleeding profusely.
Reading the subject line incredulously, thoughts of Meg Ryan begging Goose to take her to bed or loose her forever, and visions of a hot, sweaty Val Kilmer playing volleyball flashed before my eyes. Recalling the scene where Iceman gnashed his teeth at Tom Cruise make my stomach churn, and then, oh the horror! … Tom Cruise in his Ray-Ban sunglasses and leather bomber jacket flying through the streets on his motorcycle… I retched as “Danger Zone” by Kenny Loggins played masochistically through my poor pitiful brain. Repressed childhood memories of my Father blaring the soundtrack over and over again through the 6 ft tall stereo speakers in the living room broke me out in a feverish cold sweat.
After finally collapsing in a heap on the floor and hugging my knees as I rocked back and forth mumbling “You can be my wing-man anytime” over and over again, sanity finally came back over me and I got back into my office chair and finished reading the rest of the email.
Guitar Hero III will be issuing the instrumental theme song from Top Gun as DLC in celebration for The 4th of July - on the 3rd of July for the PS3 and Xbox 360. That is not so bad - I was scared gray-headed that it was the Kenny Loggins track. Seriously, I was.
You can read the full press release after the break and watch a video telling the TRUE story of Top Gun Brokeback Mountain Style - if you dare.
Bobby Kotick, the CEO of Activison made an interesting comment recently when asked by a staffer for The Times if the new merger with Blizzard will create more games with violent content. In reply, Kotick stated:
“I don’t think that you need to have gratuitously violent products. But no company can afford to turn its back on a $45 billion section of the market. They are as important to the business as R-rated movies [restricted to 17 and older] are to films.”
Well, of course. Mature rated games give the adults something more meaty and more defined to the age demographic. I mean, seriously, who wants to play fluffy bunny rainbow garden when you can be shagging hot alien broads, slashing your enemy across the face with a scimitar, gazing down at your dead enemy’s body riddled with bullet holes, and ripping people from their cars and taking off in them? ‘
In the same way that adults want to see movies aimed at more adult themed situations, we also want it in our games. Entertainment is entertainment period, no matter what type of outlet it is, so as long as developers cater to all demographics while at the same time not shortchanging the adults, everyone should be happy.
Finally, more than just one Quantum of Solace screen has been released for the game.
The new Bond game will be run on the CoD4 engine, but other than that, not much else is known about the game except for it being a movie tie-in that will be released sometime around the debut of the movie in theaters.
Since the game is based on the movie, it is rational to assume that the game will pretty much have the same plot elements to it and hopefully Activision will have more updates for us soon, in the meantime, just keep checking back every once in a while.
Channel Flip is hosting a video mini series on Mac gaming. Your video host Katharine is kicking off Mac Gaming 101 with native gaming options for the Mac.
Now, much as we all love our various Mac computers here at ChannelFlip, we’re ready to admit that the issue of gaming has long been a thorn in the side of Apple fans.
But the perception that you have to have a high powered Windows PC for gaming on a computer, combined with a lack of publicity for the growing Mac gaming industry, means that a surprising number of people aren’t aware of what you can achieve gaming wise on a Mac.
Some of the games that can be played on the Mac include Unreal Tournament 3, Neverwinter Nights 2, Guitar Hero 3, The Sims 2: Castaway Stories, Fable: The Lost Chapters and World of Warcraft.
Activision has released a new patch for Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. Official patch version 1.7 fixes an multiplayer exploit which may upset some players. However it fixes the Chinatown Sabotage overtime crash and problems with MP icons showing up in English on multilanguage installs. Here are the v 1.7 patch notes.
Call of Duty v1.7 fixes :
Fixed an exploit that allowed players to access certain console dvars during multi-player matches.
Fixed a crash that could occur when a Chinatown Sabotage match would go into over-time.
Fixed a bug where the MP icons (Bomb, Defend, Capture, etc) were always showing up as English regardless of the install language.
You can grab the patch below. Check out FileFront for Maps Levels and Missions, mods, unofficial patches and skins for CoD4.
Call of Duty: World at War will pit players against enemies that know no surrender and show no mercy. Utilizing the Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare engine, Call of Duty: World at War throws out the rulebook of war to transform WWII combat through a new enemy, new tactics and an uncensored experience of the climatic battles that gripped a generation. As U.S. Marines and Russian soldiers, players will employ new features like cooperative gameplay, and weapons such as the flamethrower.
Call of Duty: World at War introduces co-operative play, bringing meaning to the “No One Fights Alone” mantra with up to four-players online for Xbox 360, PS3 and PC, or two-player local split-screen on consoles.Nintendo Wii will also support a unique co-op mode for two players.
For the first time ever players will experience single-player missions together for greater camaraderie and tactical execution. The co-op campaign allows players to rank up and unlock perks in competitive multiplayer by completing challenges and earning experience points, adding continuous re-playability and team-based gameplay. Whether playing competitively or cooperatively – if players are online with Call of Duty: World at War – they will always gain experience points. Based on a player’s experience rank and rank of the player’s friends, Call of Duty: World at War will scale dynamically to provide a deeper level of challenge.
Check out previous posts on the game here, and look over the other six new screens here.
There’s simultaneous a lot and not very much on the PlayStation Store this week. There’s a new character for PAIN, the painful “I am Murloc” World of Warcraft single for Guitar Hero III, two demos, and all sorts of other stuff. And yet it doesn’t feel particularly substantial, but perhaps I’ve simply become spoiled in a world of multiple downloadable game releases on Xbox Live Arcade, Virtual Console and WiiWare every week. (Of course, you could make the argument that there’s more garbage released on those platforms, but that’s besides the point.)
Rock Band gets a crapton of Weezer and Pixies songs, including a full album from the latter group. As usual, the music is very hit-or-miss, as you like their music or you don’t. Likewise, if you don’t like sports, you probably won’t care for the pair of demos — Hot Shots Golf and Top Spin 3.
Hit the break for a look at the full list of content.
*Sigh* I really should’ve seen this one coming. These days, it seems like Activision is slapping the “Guitar Hero” name on just about everything they can think of. So of course, it’s only natural that they’re releasing some action figures as well. The new line of figures, due out in the fall, will feature the characters of Axel Steel, Johnny Napalm, Lars Umlaut, and the God of Rock. They’re being produced by McFarlane toys, so you can expect an impressive amount of detail along with 15-18 points of articulation. So I guess you can arrange them in different rock poses, while playing your Guitar Hero Air Rocker and using your other hand to play Guitar Hero On Tour and checking with your local store on when they’re getting Guitar Hero: Aerosmith in.
Ideazon’s Zboard standard, gaming and Age of Conan models get a thorough review from MMORPG.
While the verdict on the standard Zboard is less than stellar, the gaming Zboard gets plenty of kudos. The board comes with over 50 key mapping templates for a wide variety of games including Battlefield 2142, Call of Duty 4, EverQuest II, City of Villains, World of Warcraft and Bioshock others (there are in total).
However, according to the reviewer, all those awesome looking Age of Conan Zboards are as good as you might hope. Many of the Conan specific keys for: Say, Shout, Tell, Reply, Follow, AFK, Invite, Kick, Auto Run and various emotes simply don’t function. As if that wasn’t enough to give it an unfavorable review MMORPG has one last shot to take at the AoC Zboard.
I also have to say that Ideazon really missed the boat with this keyboard. I was honestly surprised when I opened the set to find the right hand side inhabited by the invite, kick, inventory, etc. keys. It seemed like a no-brainer to me that an Age of Conan specific keyboard should capitalize on the game’s unique combat system. Instead of having those fairly secondary keys on the right hand side, the designers could have placed the specialized keys on the left hand side and incorporated movement and attacks into a more comfortable configuration than WASD and 12345 currently offer. Directional attacks at the very least should have been represented with specialized keys. They weren’t. Boo, hiss Ideazon, boo, hiss.
With the merger between Activison and Blizzard it was bound to happen sooner or later anyway……
A free downloadable track for Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock is coming to the PS3 and Xbox 360 and it is not just any old ordinary track - oh no - it is “I am Murloc”, the tongue-in-cheek tribute to the beloved race of fish-people by Blizzard Entertainment’s house band, Level 70 Elite Tauren Chieftain.
For those who remember, the thrash metal-style song debuted to attendees at BlizzCon 2005and now living room rock stars will be able to rip it up to “I am Murloc” by downloading it on PSN or XBL starting tomorrow (June 26) in advance of the 2008 Blizzard Entertainment Worldwide Invitational held in Paris, France June 28 and June 29.
According to an article posted on The Financial Times, representatives for The Beatles are currently in talks with both Activision and MTV Games to either create a Beatles-themed videogame, include some of the band’s catalog in with the initial game disc or via downloadable content.
While rumored a while back, a deal like this could see the makers of Guitar Hero or Rock Band writing a huge check, and while an exclusive deal could be worth several million dollars, it would only be fair if both makers could use the songs so that ALL gamers could benefit.
The good news so far though is that according to a person familiar with the talks, an agreement could be solidified within weeks. Apple Corps which oversees the bands’ interests and EMI who owns the master recordings have yet to comment on this, but as soon as we know more we will be sure to inform you the second we do hear something.
Always cautious with these sacred recordings, Apple Corps has loosened up in recent months since Jeff Jones became chief executive, and board members Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Olivia Harrison and Yoko Ono Lennon, have recently allowed Beatles compositions to be used on American Idol. So, I have to ask, which is worse? Letting gamers enjoy Beatles music via their games, or allowing amateur no talent hacks to butcher the classics on live television?
Again, as soon as we hear something we will let you know, in the meantime, keep your fingers crossed.
Via: Financial Times
Thanks for the Heads Up: ManofTeal
They might not be as big as Activision or Vivendi, but the list of companies that have left the Entertainment Software Association. GamePolitics broke the news yesterday of the fifth publisher to leave the ESA this year. Crave is best known for some lesser known games such as the World Championship Poker games and that terrible Bad Boys game.
While they originally obtained the information from a source, GP has since confirmed the news with the ESA. Senior VP Rich Taylor issued the following statement regarding Crave:
We can confirm that Crave has decided not to renew its membership in the ESA. We value each member of our association, but respect their decision. In conversations with Crave, representatives stated that they value their longstanding membership with the ESA and remain committed to the values and goals of the association.
Clearly, the ESA needs to act, and act fast. If they don’t, they aren’t going to have any members left to cater to.
One of the glaring differences between Halo 3 and Call of Duty 4 last year was the lack of an online co-op in COD4. World at War won’t have that problem, though — Activision has announced that the game will have a four-player online co-op on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC, with the Wii also getting a unique co-op mode for two players. The press release didn’t go into any detail on that, though, which makes me wonder if it won’t just be a two-player shooting gallery.
As for the other systems, “The co-op campaign allows players to rank up and unlock perks in competitive multiplayer by completing challenges and earning experience points, adding continuous re-playability and team-based gameplay.” Sounds good, but what if you don’t want to play co-op?
Of course, that might be a non-issue if the game isn’t good, and I don’t have much faith in Treyarch’s ability to create a quality FPS.
All the talk lately about Guitar Hero: World Tour, Rock Band 2, and Rock Revolution has got me thinking pretty hard about what I would like to see in the next installment of these games. Granted, Rock Revolution is new to the music simulation genre, so I cannot really count them just yet – plus, from what we have heard about the game so far, they are mostly covers and that is just kind of lame.
I have always been a music nerd since I can remember, and I love all different kinds, which means I am not ashamed to admit that I enjoy a little Kraftwerk now and then. If you were to look through my collection of 8-tracks (yes, 8-tracks), cassettes, albums, .45s, and Mp3s you would find plenty of mainstream radio/MTV friendly tunes as well as some of the most obscure recordings ever made. I have everything from Patsy Cline to Godsmack, Nightwish to Waylon Jennings, Hank Williams SR to NWA, Robert Johnson to Wagner’s Götterdämmerung, Depeche Mode to Fleetwood Mac, Loreena McKennitt to Luke Kelly and tons of what could be considered trance, blues, new age, traditional, bluegrass or world music. I just love music. The only past time of mine that can compete with my love of all things musical is my love of gaming. Therefore, when the first Guitar Hero game came out, I felt like Whitney Huston would feel getting a diamond encrusted crack pipe for Christmas.
All that said, you would think that it would be very hard to please me when it comes to content for a music simulation game like the ones mentioned above. No, not really, because while I do indeed love all types of music, I prefer anything loud, heavy, and something that would cause a little blue haired lady on the street to wet herself out of fear. Therefore, I usually like the offerings that have come our way via the discs or from downloadable content. However, I think that more could be done to even the playing field a bit so to speak, and how they could do this, is with the much rumored and hard to create keyboard peripheral.
Imagine if you will, the game screen for Rock Band. Picture in your mind what you see when you are playing. If you think that there would not be enough room on the screen with the addition of keyboards, that is not so. The notes for it could go right underneath the vocals, and they really would not have to be that big either. Apparently though, that is not the problem they are having with keyboards, it is the peripheral itself.
Activision has unveiled the first trailer for the upcoming Call of Duty: World At War. As you’re probably aware of by now, this is the game being developed by Treyarch that takes the series back to World War II. The video mostly shows some of the action that’ll take place in Iwo Jima as the Americans and the Japanese battle it out. One interesting thing about the trailer though is that it also has two narrators speaking English and Japanese, lending a bit of credence to the rumors that you’ll be able to play on the Japanese side for part of the game. That might put a unique spin on the genre, but I’m still approaching this title with hesitation.
After a lot of teasing and a few leaks, it looks like Activision has finally revealed the full track list for the upcoming Guitar Hero: Aerosmith. It looks like there are 41 songs total, and as you can imagine, most of them are by Aerosmith. The will progress through the band’s career all the way up to their induction in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The game is set for release in North America on July 29th, and you can read the full list after the break.
Since Guitar Hero: On Tour, the DS version of the franchise, has officially launched, there’s of course a new trailer to go along with it. And, like the past trailers for this game, the video shows some teenagers having way way too much fun with it. Really, it seems like a stripped down version of Guitar Hero that takes away the whole feel of holding a real instrument. But it’ll probably still sell well enough for Activision to line it’s pockets with even more money.
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