New Doom 3 For Xbox 360 And PlayStation 3 Supports Head-Mounted Displays 
Far Cry 3 And The Stranger In A Strange Land 
Why Robin Makes Batman Better 
Resistance: Burning Skies: The Kotaku Review 
Harley Quinn's Revenge Is Batman: Arkham City's Bad New Ending 
High Scores And Egos: There's Always A Bigger Doodle Either bigger boobs or Star Wars characters did the trick, because Namco Bandai Games has announced that Soulcalibur IV has already sold (not shipped, sold) over 2,000,000 copies of SCIV. The multi-platform game went on sale in the States on July 29th and in Japan and Europe on July 31st. Many people have purchased it.
バンダイナムコ、PS3/Xbox 360「ソウルキャリバーIV」 全世界での累計販売本数が200万本を突破 [Game Watch]
Team Ico’s current project may well be really, really good, but you know what else? It’s also most likely a really, really long way off, with Fumito Ueda telling gamesTM that tiii-iiiaaii-mme, is on his side. Yes it is. I’m not feeling any pressure at the moment because time is not critical yet…Production has not reached the critical stage. The company is very reasonable thanks to my achievements in the past. So, although I do get pressurised, that’s not happened yet [on the current project] , and that’s something I feel gratitude for, that the company gives us the opportunity to focus by giving us time.
Reasonable? REASONABLE? Goddamnit, Sony, you get in there, and you crack that whip. On a related topic, Ueda also said that, given the time, he’d love to someday work on a small-scale game for the PSN. Yes. Given the time.
Team Ico boss: My PS3 game hasn’t hit critical development yet [gamesTM, via VG247]
There’s apparently a big feature article in the upcoming issue of Japanese gaming mag Famitsu that talks Square Enix, Final Fantasy XIII and all that jazz. While scans haven’t hit the internet yet, we’ve heard from several trusted insiders who have seen the yet-unreleased issue. It mentions that FFXIII is going to be out in Japan by next summer and in Europe/USA on both the Xbox 360 and the PS3 by the end of 2009 — which pretty much what we already know.
Here’s the juicy bit: According to the Famitsu piece, Microsoft is footing the bill for Square Enix’s FFXIII breach of PS3 exclusivity contract. No idea how much money that entails or the exact deal Microsoft worked out with Square Enix, but the fact there is not Xbox 360 version announced for Japan is telling. Square Enix does state how porting the game to the Xbox 360 should be easy.
More interesting tidbits: It’s apparently hard to tell which looks better: Star Ocean 4 or Final Fantasy XIII. Also, the company plans to focus more on PSP game development from now on. File this as rumour until proper scans surface.
Following Square Enix’s private bash held over the weekend in Tokyo, GameSpot Japan were handed some new screenshots for all of the games featured during the festivities. Some aren’t strictly “new”, since we’ve seen them before as scans or at smaller resolutions, but you may as well see them as nature intended. Others, like those for Parasite Eve “sequel” 3rd Birthday, are new. That’s Final Fantasy XIII above, with the rest at the link below.
スクウェア・エニックス プライベートイベント「DKΣ3713」にて新タイトル発売時期などの情報発表 [GameSpot, thanks Richard!]
An English translated version of the interview with The Last Guy‘s “developers” speaking Bengali — tongue planted firmly in cheek. The actual developers are Sony’s Japan Studio and responsible for the PSP’s Work Time Fun. Pretty sure they don’t have a goat in their office, either. Well, maybe they do. Who knows.
The Last Guy ‘developer interview’ translated, story revealed [PS3 Fanboy]
New Resident Evil 5 gameplay footage has hit, and man, this game looks good. Damn good.
Gears of War 2 will be providing the option to turn the game into a more family-friendly affair. The “Mature” rated game will ship with parental control options that will change blood into sparks and remove all bad language. “Eat snot and diet”, anyone? Anyone?
Gears 2 given violence filter [MCVUK]
Well, we’ve hit a bit of a brick wall for now. After repeated attempts to get anything from distributor Red Ant, and an expanded “no comment” from Bethesda, it’s unlikely we’ll know what the exact differences are between our version of Fallout 3 and the original. Well, that is until the OFLC report is leaked.
According to Bethesda’s PR dude Pete Hines, the developer does not “publically discuss” the classification of any of its games, which is understandable, if unfortunate. As for Red Ant, it’s like there’s no one home. Anything Fallout 3-related is flat out ignored. Not the most professional approach, but hey, what can you do?
Blizzard have kicked off a new “Recruit-A-Friend” initiative, whereby you – “you” being the WoW player – is in line for a bunch of good stuff if you manage to get a friend hooked on Blizzard’s digital methamphetamine. Get ‘em signed up for 30 days and you’ll get 30 days for free. Get ‘em signed up for 60 days and you’ll get yourself a new mount, the “Zhevra”. Get ‘em signed up and play alongside them, and not only will you both accrue XP 3x faster, but you’ll be able to summon each other from “any point” in the world. As a final pot-sweetener, Blizzard have also announced that “for every two levels of experience your friend earns, they can grant one level of experience to any one of your characters of lower level”.. I had images of a million husbands leading their newb wives gently by the hand, until Fahey reminded me this’ll be clogged up with existing players creating alternate accounts. Which is a shame. My idea was much more romantic.
Sony’s all-about-me blog ThreeSpeech has an interview up with Richard Lemarchand, one of the lead designers at Naughty Dog. Naturally the topic of Uncharted and its trophies came up, but towards the end there’s an intriguing bit on just how much of the PS3′s processing power is utilised by developers at present. Here are the specifics:
“That’s why we think we’re probably only using 30 or 40 per cent of the power of the PS3 right now, and there’s this great, untapped potential. All third-party developers can get the Edge libraries for free and are going to be able to use them in their own ways, to get more and more and more out of the PS3 over the years.”
The original Playstation proved that “old” doesn’t mean “slow”, and the PS2′s done a decent job of carrying the torch. It stands to reason that developers will continue to milk more of everything from the PS3′s hardware, at which point it’ll achieve sentience and destroy us all.
Naughty Dog’s Richard Lemarchand, Co-Lead Game Designer of Uncharted, talks trophies, Edge, cells and studios… [ThreeSpeech]
