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Dragon's Dogma: The Kotaku Review Taking advantage of an exploit that allowed an unidentified friend to deliver to him the Halo 3 “Epsilon” test version, former Xbox Live user “Scar” found himself on the receiving end of the Live banhammer. After six hours of Halo 3 heaven, his brief flirtation with the unreleased game came to an end. He was hit so hard, his account won’t wake up until the year 10,000 AD, at which point, he’ll have fallen so far behind in his achievement grabbing that he’ll… well, he’ll probably be dead.
Thanks to James and Chris for the heads up.
The official Enemy Territory: Quake Wars community site updated recently with a post full of good news. PC gamers looking forward to next month’s retail release can busy themselves with a demo for the game starting Monday, September 10th. Featuring the map Valley, which some of you may have seen in the game’s public beta, the demo will be at a number of sites, including Yahoo! Games, Nvidia, FilePlanet, Fileshack and more.
Gamers can play online multiplayer against humans or offline against bots as well as host their own online games or LAN shindigs via the Enemy Territory: Quake Wars demo. And speaking of shindigs, it won’t get much more happenin’ than the IRC party scheduled for Monday’s kick off, which will be attended by members of id, Splash Damage and Activision.
The PC system requirements have also been finalised, so check them out, just in case you find yourself in need of a quick weekend hardware upgrade.
Enemy Territory: QUAKE Wars PC Demo Soon – Details Inside! [ET:QW Community]
Japan has pre-TGS countdown fever!! In more exciting Treasure news, publisher ESP (aka Entertainment Software Publishing) has revealed that a Treasure-developed game for the Nintendo DS will be revealed in just five short, agonising days. Hence the countdown clock, one that will beat Sega’s Ryu Ga Gotoku countdown to the reveal by about a day.
Treasure already has two DS games under its belt, a pair of Bleach licensed fighters published by Sega, so they know the hardware. However, this one’s under the publishing wing of ESP, responsible for some of Treasure’s best shmups, including Radiant Silvergun, Bangai-O and Ikaruga. What could it be? Stay tuned! We’ll let you know ASAP.
Treasure X ESP Nintendo DS Project [ESP via GamerCafe]
Gamespot writes today that Ready At Dawn’s original Kratos adventure for the PlayStation Portable, in which it’s expected he’ll stab thousands of things and hopefully engage in a portable threesome, along with some plot-driving something-or-other, is still quite some time off. March 4, 2008 will finally bring about the next chapter in the God of War series with God of War: Chains of Olympus. Despite not having an official date set in stone, it was largely assumed to hit before the end of the year. Seems many asses were made based on that.
PSP owners will have to make do with the UMD demo shipping later this month. More details on that tasty little bonus are available at Gamespot.
Chains of Olympus breaking March 4 [Gamespot]
What do you get when you put Everquest II producer John Blakely, Matt Firor of ZeniMax Online Studios, Mark Jacobs of EA Mythic, Raph Coster of Areae, and GoPets CEO Erik Bethke into one room to discuss opportunities for increasing revenue and reaching new players in the MMO space? From what I saw this afternoon, you get a debate over microtransactions versus traditional subscription payment systems. I attended a panel called “Where are the Biggest Online Gaming Opportunities?” which was supposed to about experimenting with new MMO design and innovative new revenue models, but it quickly became a debate of old school MMO systems versus the new ones. The subject of microtransactions has popped up a lot this week, most notably in the Dave Perry Q&A from earlier in the day, where Perry sings the praises of the ad-supported, microtransaction funded business model.
With Treasure’s Nintendo 64 rail shooter Sin and Punishment: Successor of the Earth recently revealed as a release candidate for the Wii Virtual Console service in Japan, we wondered if we’d (finally) get a proper English language translation of the game. That possibility looks more and more likely as the Australian Classification Board rated the game M for “moderate violence” and “moderate themes” just a few days ago.
Good news for the Aussies, but what about those of us in North America? While the rating doesn’t guarantee a release above the equator, any English language region release certainly lends more weight to a release here. I know I’ve got 1000 Wii Points earmarked, just in case.
SIN & PUNISHMENT: SUCCESSOR TO THE EARTH [Australian Classification Board via NeoGAF]
Tim Schafer’s Double Fine Productions has announced its latest game, one that is definitely not Brutal Legend starring Jack Black as a dead roadie clawing his way from Rock and Roll Hell to Rock and Roll Heaven. No, instead, Double Fine brings us an original IP shocker in Epic Saga – Extreme Fighter an amazingly deep online fighting game that tells the story of “a barbaric hero in an epic fantasy world, fighting his way from Rock and Roll Hell to Rock and Roll Heaven.”
