Owners of the Xbox 360 version of Team Fortress 2 will be scarfing down sandviches and delivering payloads later this year, as Valve is finally bringing all the updates delivered via Steam to the Xbox Live Marketplace. That means new, class-specific Achievements, new unlockable weapons for the Pyro, Medic and Heavy, new gameplay modes and new maps, all on your Xbox 360.
Valve marketing director Doug Lombardi got that piece of business out of the way just before our latest Left 4 Dead demo, saying that the developer wanted to build up a massive update for Xbox 360 users before delivering. Given that Valve is being forced to charge for the update, they wanted to ensure that 360 owners were getting their money’s worth.
So, how much? The price isn’t final, but Valve is hoping to go as low as possible, aiming for a ten dollar price tag. Not too shabby. Sorry, PS3 owners, no word on when or if Valve will be giving you the same Team Fortress 2 updates.
You know, we didn’t post the last bunch of Operation Flashpoint 2 screens we came across, because they were taking the piss. Too much Photoshop, not enough polygons. This latest batch, however, are a little better. There’s still plenty of shopping on show, but you can now see the slightly jaggy bits at the edge of the soldier’s uniforms, proving at least that it’s some kind of in-game videogame model and not some artist’s impression of an in-game videogame soldier.
Yesterday I got a double dose of Ubisoft’s Far Cry 2, getting a chance to check out the level editing features of both the console and PC versions of the game. While there are noticeable graphical differences between the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions versus the one they had running on a PC you can’t afford, all three versions of the game are shipping with the multiplayer map editor, which should allow even the most novice player to quickly create their own, beautiful Far Cry 2 maps. How quickly? Try around 90 seconds.
Yes, the toolset the developers are providing is that fast. Raise or lower the terrain, slap on a texture, and then paint the grid using the collection system, which automatically applies bushes, grasses, and trees to the landscape. A touch of a button takes you down from an overhead view right into the middle of your map, where you can explore your creation or just shoot holes in it with the provided magical machine gun with unlimited ammo. As someone who likes playing with their games as much as simply playing them, it seems like a dream come true.
We’ve seen this before. It’s like Warhammer. But for Halo. With an accompanying DVD that’s more Nightmare than Bungie. So, is this a good idea? With Halo Wars on the way and better board games on the market we’d have to say no, but then, who are we to tell hardcore Halo fans what they can and can’t blow their money on.
I consider the Sly Cooper series to be a member of the holy trinity of PS2-era platformers, along with Ratchet and Clank and Jak and Daxter. Since the next generation systems have come out, we’ve seen big new IP from both Ratchet’s Insomniac (Resistance) and Jak’s Naughty Dog (Uncharted), and now it’s up to the Sly Cooper creators at Sucker Punch to bring their big new thing to the PS3, and that big new thing is inFamous. It’s a free-roaming action adventure that takes some of the masked bandit’s philosophies and applies them to an electrifying new superhero origin story.
The game begins with a massive explosion that decimates the heart of Empire City, leaving only one survivor – you. As protagonist Cole you must learn to deal with the mysterious new electrical superpowers you find yourself developing as you seek to solve the mystery of the Empire City disaster, a task that proves exceedingly difficult once you realise that all signs point to you being the cause.
In January, we linked to a series that was being kicked off by The Morning News, in which writer Todd Levin would recount the story of his life through the various gaming console’s he’s owned. It was good, good reading. Well, it just wound up, so now’s as good a time as any to link to it again, particularly seeing as he spends half the final chapter dwelling on the same love/hate relationship with this site that we have to fight through every goddamned day while we sip cold coffee, alone, and wonder why the hell we quit our part-time gigs in the video games department of Best Buy to work this dead-end beat. Second Place is First to Lose [The Morning News]
Ubisoft’s new Tom Clancy air combat title is looking damn good. I got a chance to sit in on a demonstration of Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X. – High Altitude Warfare eXperimental squadron – earlier today at the Games Convention at Leipzig, and what I saw was a very exciting title that could finally give the arcade jet fighter crowd a much better reason to dust off their flight sticks than another load of downloadable pink airplanes courtesy of Ace Combat 6.
That’s not saying that H.A.W.X. Won’t have its fair share of DLC, as the presenter at the session indeed mentioned that the game, which is already set to ship with more than 50 aircraft painstakingly rendered down to the cockpit, will be getting even more aircraft in the way of downloadable jets down the line. I asked if they would be getting pink ones, but no one seemed to get the reference.
For a few years now, media company Ziff Davis – who among other things run the 1UP network – have run their own tech show, called DigitalLife, which while focusing on all kinds of consumer electronics also had a strong gaming slant. And yeah, it was no CES or E3, but it was in New York, making it a lot more accessible to east coast types. This year, however, the show’s been called off. Organiser Paul O’Reilly says: The poor economic conditions have created a very different and difficult dynamic for us this year, and we weren’t confident that we could present a show experience that was consistent with the successes of prior years.
He goes on to say they’re optimistic the show can return in 2009, but we’re not doing anything drastic like holding our breath.
Duke Nukem 3D for Xbox LIVE Arcade dated! Well, roughly. Xbox rep Jason Ing tells game site Joysitq that the 3D Realms developed title has passed certification and will be released “sometime in September”. The enhanced Duke Nukem 3D is being published by Microsoft and is a XBLA exclusive. Insert obligatory Duke Nukem catchphrase here.
X08: Duke Nukem 3D coming to XBLA ‘sometime in September’ [Joystiq]
This was kinda lost in the maelstrom of Sony news from yesterday, but is worth pointing out today; Sony have announced two new PS2 SingStar games. One isSingStar: Singalong With Disney, but the second? It’s SingStar: Queen. That’s not some corny title for a “queens of pop” collection or something, either, it’s the literal application. Queen. Freddie Mercury, Brian May, Roger Taylor, John Deacon. It’ll be out later in the year, and will be accompanied by two Queen song packs for the PS3 SingStore, though these will probably just be ten of the better tracks from the PS2 version. Sony, listen, let’s make a deal: you put “Who Wants To Live Forever” on there, and I’ll take back almost everything bad I’ve ever said about SingStar. Almost.
