Spark Unlimited’s FPS Legendary has a new PC demo up on FileFront. Released for the PC onNovember 25 and for the PS3 and Xbox 360 on November4, Legendary tells the story of Charles Deckard, an art thief who is duped into stealing Pandora’s Box.

When he inadvertently opens it, he releases hordes of beasts thought to be fictional – such as werewolves and gryphons – into an unprepared modern world. A full scale war between man and myth begins, and it is quickly complicated by the actions of powerful secret societies. As the person responsible for releasing this terror, Deckard’s unwittingly become the only person capable of containing it once more and saving civilization from being destroyed by the terrifying creatures.

To get the demo, hit the badge below or visit the game page on FileFront. Have fun killing werewolves.

Infinity Ward has responded to forum users over on Xbox.com when asked why there has not been any information, let alone the release of some of the promised playlists for Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. Apparently this because Infinity Ward is hard a work on the next installment in the series, plus I guess they figure gamers have enough to do with Call of Duty: World at War burning up the charts.

Thanks to Adam over at The Gamer Limit who has kindly posted the discussion from the Xbox. com forums which started when a member was asking where the promised content was:

“Glad to hear you enjoyed CoD:WaW. As for DLC for our games, we did three map packs for Call of Duty 2, ending with an impressive number altogether. For Call of Duty 4, we focused on including as many maps as we could out of box, and had 16 from DAY 1 (adding four more later for a total 20 Maps total).

Personally, I prefer to give the community as much as possible out of the box instead of making them wait and pay extra for them later. However, whenever possible (like with COD2) we continue to make maps if our development process allows for it.

It’s a bit of a catch 22 in gaming. Of course as a gamer you always want more, more more. If you include them out of box (shipped with game for no extra cost) then it’s just ignored and people demand more. If you instead, decide to get the game out and then worry about beefing up the map selection via DLC, people say “don’t nickle and dime me” or “this should have been included in the shipped game”.

Perfect solution, ship with a load of maps (like we did) and also release a lot of DLC (for free). In a perfect world, that would be fantastic. Regretfully in a realistic development environment, it’s near impossible. Unless your Criterion of course, with their magical DLC fairies ; )

In all seriousness though, I hear ya, and We’re always working on improving our development process and planning to ensure that we can deliver more and more community support in the form of updates / DLC and other forms of support for our future games. We have big plans for our future (still currently unofficial) projects.”

The discussion continues after the jump.
Read the full article »

You can’t kill the metal. The metal will live on. Activision tried to kill the metal but they failed, as they were smite to the ground! HA HA HA HA HA!!!!!!!!

After being kicked to the curb by Activision, it was rumored back in August that Electronic Arts would be publishing Tim Schafer’s upcoming action/adventure game Brutal Legend. Today, Electronic Arts confirmed those rumors by officially announcing that they have signed an exclusive publishing agreement with Double Fine.

Hooray! Looks like come Fall 2009 we will all finally be able to load in the game into our PS3 or Xbox 360 and step into the shoes of Eddie Riggs (Jack Black) as he sets forth on a quest to build an army of rockers with only a broad axe, a big block V8 and his faithful guitar in hand.

“This is awesome news!” stated Tim Schafer, President of Double Fine Productions. “The quality and creativity of the games EA Partners has been involved with make it a perfect home for our baby, Brütal Legend. Some people were starting to wonder if the saga of Eddie Riggs would ever see the light of day, but now I think it’s clear that this game, like Metal itself, cannot be killed!”

Yes Tim, it is great news indeed that Brutal Legend will indeed be published by someone. Thank the gods of metal ye non-belivers, because our wish has come true!

Looks like Nintendo executives are rolling around in more money than ever if the NPD numbers for the month of November are any indication. Apparently the Wii sold over two million units in the U.S. which is twice as many as the same month for last year and if you add in the 1.57 million units sales of the Nintendo DS for November, you have some very happy people over at Nintendo.

Hardware and accessories brought in $2.91 billion for the month with console and handhelds claiming $1.21 billion of that figure.

Here are the top selling consoles and handhelds for the month of November:

1. Wii – 2.04 million
2. DS – 1.57 million
3. Xbox 360 – 836,000
4. PSP – 421,000
5. PlayStation 3 – 378,000
6. PlayStation 2 – 206,000

The NPD numbers are in for November, and as far as console sales go, Gears of War 2 dominated the chart with 1.5 million units sold and Call of Duty: World at War coming in a very close second with 1.4 million in sales (for the Xbox 360 version).

Shockingly enough, Nintendo’s Wii Music came in last in the top 10, and while that in itself does not surprise me, the fact that it is even in the top 10 is what I am curious over. I suppose that the company’s stellar ad campaign was what did it, along with unsuspecting parents rushing out to buy the game on Black Friday because all the stores in their area were out of Rock Band 2 and World Tour. They probably thought that their kids would like it just as well, by they will unfortunately find out the hard way come Christmas morning.

Top Ten Games

1. Gears of War 2 (Epic, Xbox 360) – 1.56 million
2. Call of Duty: World at War (Treyarch, Xbox 360) – 1.41 million
3. Wii Play (Nintendo, Wii) – 796,000
4. Wii Fit (Nintendo, Wii) – 697,000
5. Mario Kart Wii (Nintendo, Wii) – 637,000
6. Call of Duty: World at War (Treyarch, PS3) – 597,000
7. Guitar Hero World Tour (Vicarious Visions, Wii) – 475,000
8. Left 4 Dead (Valve, Xbox 360) – 410,000
9. Resistance 2 (Insomniac, PS3) – 385,000
10. Wii Music (Nintendo, Wii) – 297,000

(Thanks VG247)

Rockstar has released three new screens for the upcoming downloadable content The Lost and the Damned for Grand Theft Auto 4. In case you have been living under a rock or have just not been paying much attention, the DLC is set in Liberty City and features a new main character, Johnny Klebitz. While the plot intersects with the storyline of the game, new missions that offer a new way to explore the city along with new multiplayer modes, weapons and vehicles. They have even added addition music to the soundtrack to help freshen things up a bit.

The Lost and the Damned is expected to be released on February 17, 2009. Check back with us as more information is expected to be released between now and then.

Codemasters has released a video for Rise of the Argonauts called Allies. In this video, the viewer gets background on each of the Argonauts and sees them in combat.

Due for release in U.S. next week on December 16, Rise of the Argonauts will be available for the PC, PS3 and Xbox 360. In preparation, Codemasters has released the PC requirements and minimum specs which are listed below.

Minimum:

• CPU: Intel Pentium 4 2.4 GHz / AMD Athlon XP 2400+
• RAM: 1 GB (Windows XP) / 1.5 GB (Windows Vista)
• Video Card: Direct X 9.0c compliant video card with 128 MB RAM and shader model 3 support (NVIDIA GeForce 6 series or better / ATI Radeon X1300 or better)
• Sound Card: 100% Direct X 9.0c compliant sound card
• HDD space: 8 GB

Recommended:

• CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo / AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+
• RAM: 2 GB
• Video Card: Direct X 9.0c compliant video card with 512 MB RAM and shader model 3 support (NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GT / ATI Radeon X1900)

The VGA awards are this coming Sunday (December 14) and on this grand night the official trailer for Uncharted 2: Among Thieves will be debuting. In the meantime, extra details regarding the sequel to Naughty Dog’s swashbuckling hit have surfaced, and even a few scans from the latest issue of Game Informer, which I will not post because of copyright infringement reasons.

Anyway, according to the GameTrailers forum here are some of the details nipped from the piece:

• Melee combat is more dynamic
• Only 30% of the PS3’s power was used with Drake’s Fortune and but will be closer to 100% with Among Thieves
• A demo shown to GI depicted Drake going through a city (possibly Nepal), and he’s stealthily taking out guards and escaping the city
• Nolan North returns as Drake and Chloe Frazer (the new girl)is played by Claudia Black (Stargate SG-1, Farscape)). When asked about Elena and Sully’s return, they were met with “no comment”.
• There are no load screens
• The Sixaxis mechanics were ditched for such things as throwing grenades
• The story is based upon looking for the ships that Marco Polo “lost” while returning home to Italy
• One of the weapons revealed is a rocket launcher that Chloe uses (might only be for the cinematic)
• The score is being composed by Greg Edmonson (same guy from the first one)
• You can now move while aiming behind cover
• Weapons can be used in any stance (running, behind cover, hanging, climbing a wall, etc.)
• Every character fully interacts with the dynamic geometry moving around them, and environments in the background are real parts of the game world. If Drake’s on top of a train, he’s going to be shaking with the train as it moves around. As he gets inside, his move set is going to change, and he’s going to be a lot more secure because the wind’s not blowing.
• The graphics look better than Uncharted 1
• Button sequence cinematics such as the final boss have changed so now Drake is now fully controllable in these parts
• Climbing seems improved upon. You can climb lamp posts now among other new things
• If there is an enemy patrolling a rooftop you’re climbing a wall to, you can pull him off the roof while hanging on the wall.

Sounds great and like loads of fun especially with Claudia Black involved. Man she has a great voice (wink wink nudge nudge bob’s your uncle). If you want to check out what else was revealed, head on over to the forums linked above and the Game FAQS forum here.

The open beta for PlayStation Home starts today, and while not expected to launch completely until next year it has already drawn some raided eyebrows, especially from Microsoft’s Aaron Greenberg– who as we all know is one to always speak his mind with no qualms about the reaction to it. His recent criticism of Sony’s PlayStation Home is no exception, and as a matter of fact he thinks it is outdated.

Speaking with Kotaku, Greenberg stated that Home looks like Second Life for hardcore gamers without broadening the players experience or inviting them in:

“What Home to me feels like is Second Life for hardcore gamers. It doesn’t feel like it broadens the experience and invites people in. When they unveiled it, it seemed innovative. I think what’s happened is now here we are a couple of years later and we feel beyond that. It feels like 2005 tech in 2008. I’m not sure that’s what people want.”

He also went on to say that he feels there is still a “huge gap” between what Xbox Live can offer gamers compared to Sony and while Sony’s service is free, Microsoft will not be cutting the subscription prices for member because they are “”willing to pay for the premium experience”.

Anyone else getting sick to death of Microsoft constantly trying to remind people that they are superior to Sony and berating everything they do? Between that and the back and forth between fanboys for each system, it sometimes makes me wish I did not own an Xbox 360.

Today, gamers logging into Xbox Live looking for some new tunes for Guitar Hero: World Tour are in for a treat with the Nirvana Track Pack. “Silver”, “Negative Creep”, and ” Your Know You’re Right” will individually run you 160 Microsoft Points ($2.00) each or 440 points ($5.50) for the track pack. If you are interested in bands that normally you would not have heard of over here in the States, Activison has also released some bands whose music is popular in different European countries.

German rock band Sportfreunde Stiller re-wrote their chart-topping hit “’54, ’74, ’90, 2006” in anticipation of a 2010 World Cup championship, and after loosing the World Cup, re-titled it “’54, ’74, ’90, 2010” and are bringing it to Guitar Hero World Tour as part of a three song Track Pack. Also included in the pack is the Italian rock band Negrita with “Mama Mae” and French rock band BB Brunes with “Dis Moi.”

Hailing from Sweden, the Backyard Babies, whose Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock on-disc track “Minus Celsius” saw an increase in digital audio downloads after appearing in the game, are back for an encore with “Degenerated” off their 2008 self-titled album. Joining the Backyard Babies in the second three-song Track Pack are Spanish rockers Fito Y Fitipaldis with “Por La Boca Vive El Pez” and Di-Rect who hail from the Netherlands with their track “Johnny.”

The two European Track Packs will be available on Xbox Live Microsoft for 440 and 160 Microsoft Points and on the PlayStation Store for $5.49 or $1.99 individually.