New Doom 3 For Xbox 360 And PlayStation 3 Supports Head-Mounted Displays 
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Harley Quinn's Revenge Is Batman: Arkham City's Bad New Ending 
High Scores And Egos: There's Always A Bigger Doodle As listed on GameStop’s site. For $US 70, you’ll get the game, a “Collectible SteelBook DVD case”, a small art/character book with foreword by Dude Huge, a making-of DVD, a cheesy photo of Dom and his missus and an in-game item. Which is a “gold-plated” Lancer, that you’ll be able to use in MP matches. In these crazy days of $US 100+ collector’s editions, that’s surprisingly reasonable.
Everything old is new again, as PlayStation 2 release Persona 4 rockets to the top of the Japanese sales charts, with the Wii remake of Resident Evil 0 seeing a rather unimpressive, but still top ten debut. Probably a good call on Capcom USA’s part not to release the title stateside. RE4 Wii Edition this is not.
A handful of new, notable releases chart, including a new Stafi DS adventure, as well as two Western born releases, God of War: Chains of Olympus and Kane & Lynch: Dead Men. Those two appear after the jump.
01. Persona 4 (PSP) – 193,000 / NEW 02. Wii Fit (Wii) – 30,000 / 2,353,000 03. Densetsu no Stafi: Taiketsu! Dire Kaizokudan (DS) – 29,000 / NEW 04. Mario Kart Wii (Wii) – 25,000 / 1,560,000 05. Daigasso Band Brothers DX (DS) – 23,000 / 190,000 06. Resident Evil 0 (Wii) – 21,000 / NEW 07. Derby Stallion DS (DS) – 20,000 / 206,000 08. Hanayori Dango: Koi Seyo Onago (DS) – 20,000 / NEW 09. Gegege no Kitarou: Youkai Daigekisen (DS) – 16,000 / NEW 10. Monster Hunter Portable 2nd G (PSP) – 16,000 / 2,277,000
If grinding reputation with obscure factions wasn’t enough to keep you busy, then 500 or so achievements should do it. Blizzard’s put together a preview page to show off the new functionality, which will debut with the Wrath of the Lich King expansion. According to the page, achievements can be unlocked by tasks as basic as getting a haircut or, if you’re a glutton for punishment, collecting 25 vanity pets.
A new character window will be implemented, allowing you to check out your own glories and those of others. The page mentions that some achievements will come with rewards, but they’ll be “purely cosmetic”.
Player Achievements Preview [World of Warcraft]
At the E3 Nintendo Developer Roundtable that followed day two of the gaming expo, Shigeru Miyamoto and Katsuya Eguchi — the latter is the producer on Wii Sports Resort, Animal Crossing City Folk and Wii Music — spent additional time with the press showing off upcoming Wii wares. The two also fielded a barrage of questions from the crowd.
One question asked of Miyamoto was Wii Music‘s qualifications as a game. You know, a game game. Since Wii Music has no discernible scoring system, no goals and little in the way of those squishy innards that makes a game a “game”, isn’t it just a “musical toy”? That was the question posed by one European journo.
“Yes, that’s right”, Miyamoto curtly replied “And that’s why it’s better than a video game”.
That will, of course, be debatable to the Wii owning masses, especially those who bemoaned the lack of games that appeal to them. The Marios, the Zeldas, the Metroids, the… Kid Icari.
Congratulations, Microsoft. For the first time in the Xbox group’s history, it’s reported a profitable year (previous back-slapping have been confined to profitable quarters), with earnings released today showing the Entertainment & Devices Division (which, granted, also includes stuff like Games for Windows and the Zune) made around $US 426 million during the 07-08 financial year, mostly as a result of increased 360 console and software sales. That sure beats last year’s results, which thanks to the RROD warranty extension saw the E&DD division go $US 1.9 billion in the red. Also included in Microsoft’s report was the fact the company have now sold 20 million 360 consoles, which should provide a nice, clean figure for the company’s post-NPD numbers spin.
Maybe it’s just me, but the word “cock” gets plenty of action in this instalment of Ben Croshaw’s Zero Punctuation. I suppose Alone in the Dark and man parts just go together. Seeing as the word is not often associated with excellence, you shouldn’t have any trouble guessing what Croshaw thought of Eden Games’ survival horror title. Oh, and Atari gets smacked around as well.
Zero Punctuation: Alone in the Dark [The Escapist]
Smell that? That’s the lingering E3 stink. Now that the show is officially over as of 4:30 today, it’s time for the potpourri to replace the order of foot powder and fart. Yep, the California Gift Show kicks off tomorrow, and you know what? Size-wise, it’s way way bigger than E3, occupying Kentia Hall at the Convention Centre. That’s because tea cups and garden gnomes are way more interesting than them video games. You know it.
In the picture, that’s Kotaku’s Mike “Michael” McWhertor, some security guy who wouldn’t let us in and The New York Times‘ Seth Schiesel. Just remember fellas, no photography or sketching.
Among Capcom’s E3 titles was a somewhat mysterious downloadable title called Flock, erroneously pegged early on as a “sheep herding simulator”. I got to have the title demoed for me by Proper Games design lead Geoff Gunning, a cheerful Scotsman, and had the mystery cleared up.
It’s not a sheep-herding sim, but there is sheep herding. There is herding of adorable cotton ball sheep who live in a fluffy, stuffed-toy looking world, grazing peacefully in a patchwork meadow. The stitch-edged, pastoral aesthetic is sweet, gentle, and just a little offbeat, in the context of the quirky and sometimes hilariously grim gameplay.
In typical Sony fashion, their NPD response is heavy on combined sales, heavy on percentage increases. You don’t need to know exact figures, you need to know how much money they’re making, and how much more money it is compared to this time last year! And for Sony, that news is all good, with both hardware and software sales strong across the board.
To recap, MGS4 topped the software charts. And it propelled the PS3 to a big win over the 360, and an even bigger win over their June 2007 PS3 sales, which are up – according to Sony’s crack numbers team – by around 300%. PSP sales were great, PS2 sales were, relatively, great, and all around, it was a good month for Sony.
Cue Jack Tretton, who enthuses “The PlayStation brand is truly hitting its stride on its long-term opportunity across all three platforms”. For the rest of Jack’s take on the June numbers, click through.
