Not even the brightly shining star power of pseudo celebrities like Kim Kardashian could spark enough interest to make EA’s Facebreaker a hit. The lousy reviews likely didn’t help either, leading to a first month debut of a mere 52,000 copies across both the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions according to U.S. sales data from the NPD Group. According to GameDaily, that’s “disappointing.”
This isn’t the first rather low-key debut for a new intellectual property from EA this year. Boom Blox for the Wii had an unimpressive first month, but the title bounced back to sell pretty darn good. You could probably knock us over with a feather is Facebreaker followed the same pattern.
Fortunately, EA has Madden, Mercs 2, Warhammer Online and Spore to soften the blow. Like a giant pillow stuffed with cash. So soft.
EA’s Facebreaker TKO’d, Sells Just 52k [GameDaily]
Tonight’s episode of Ghost Whisperer, the Jennifer Love Hewitt vehicle about the personal problems of the undead, delves into dangerous territory: the warped TV version of video games. Episode three of the show’s fourth season is titled “Ghost in the Machine,” because there’s a ghost in a machine.
Hewitt, as protagonist Melinda, must enter the world of Virtual Life and send the specter haunting the online game toward the light and away from her hilarious outfit. Based on the preview spot for the episode, after the jump, we expect good times at someone else’s expense.
Yuji Naka’s first proper Wii game at new dev house Prope has been dated for a Japanese release, a milestone we’re celebrating with new screen shots. Let’s Tap, which we played and kind of enjoyed at Tokyo Game Show last week, will hit Japan on December 18, the same week that Prope’s other game, Let’s Catch, hits the WiiWare service.
There are far too many throwaway “visualizers” in Let’s Tap, but I happen to like the concept, despite how impractical it seems. No word from Sega yet when we can expect a North American release, the Westernized renaming of which we’re so looking forward to.
LEGO IP has been successfully appearing on the Xbox 360 for som etime now, so it was only right that Microsoft shoul dtry to reverse the streams and dollop a load of Xboxes in the middle of LEGOLAND Windsor.
Legoland Windsor, if you are unaware, is a theme park where the theme is all things LEGO. It’s in Windsor, not far from the Queen.
Anyway, LEGOLAND Windsor now has an Xbox 360 Gaming Zone, stuffed full of Xboxes. 17 consoles are hooked up to HD displays, all playing ‘family’ games like (hey!) LEGO Batman, LEGO Indiana Jones, LEGO Star Wars, etc. etc. There are some non-LEGO games too, of course. It’s nice to have a bit of variety.
Kongregate, the online community/portal dedicated to playing and developing games, is furthering the “democratization” of game development with Kongregate Labs. Using the simple-as-its-name-implies side-scrolling shmup Shoot! as a foundation, Labs features an ongoing series of tutorials (or *groan* “shootorials”) that help you, the little person, learn how to make your own shooter. You’ll get a primer on designing controls, scrolling backdrops, collision detection and so much more.
And if shooter creation fame isn’t enough to light a fire under you, Kongregate is handing out cold hard cash to the best shootorials-based user created game. Play Shoot! if you want — the fun lasts many, many seconds — but then read on to learn about Flash game development with handy illustrated examples. We’re hard at work on our own “Dude Huge” shmup, currently known as Cliffydius. Watch for it!
Kongregate Labs [Kongregate]
Do you like No More Heroes? I bet you are realy excited about the sequel, No More Heroes: Desperate Struggle, yeah?
I know you enjoyed the TGS teaser and I bet you’d even buy both the gory and non-gory versions of it, wouldn’t you?
WELL YOU CAN’T. Not until the year after next.
Marvellous wont be releasing the game until January 2010 in North America and February/March for the split-personality Euro releases.
No More No More Heroes Until 2010 [Siliconera]
Here it is folks, the trailer all of you Fable fans have been waiting for, the last one – the launch trailer. North America fear not because in just four short days, October 21st, you’ll be able to get your hands on the game and play to your hearts content. Europe will have to wait a little longer to empty their wallets. The game will release there on October 24th or one week from today.
End user licence agreements, who reads ‘em? If I wanted to read, I watch a movie with subtitles. Occasionally, however, it’s important to take note of what exactly you’re agreeing to when you hastily click the “Accept” button. A few recent changes to the PlayStation Network terms of service and user agreement are worth mentioning, we think, especially the one that reads “SCEA reserves the right to monitor and record any online activity and communication throughout PSN and you give SCEA your express consent to monitor and record your activities.” But wait, there’s more!
Hiring proper comic-book genius Grant Morrison to perform script magick on the Area 51 movie does seem like a natural fit – the Midway title’s mix of aliens, conspiracies, the illuminati and genetic mutation are straight up his strasse. The only missing ingredients are drugs and the occult – can he find a way to squeeze them in too?
Morrison is NDA’d from the soles of his shoes to the shine on his head, but he was able to let a few details slip to MTV Splash Page about his plans for the game’s backstory and how movie work differs from comics.
“I have to get to the core of [the plot] , dismantle it, and make it work. It’ll be a totally different view of the aliens and the whole mythology,” said Morrison.
“Comics might be more sophisticated than movies, with many intense layers of ideas that you can go back if you missed one,” he added, “but with movies, you get a wider audience. You get the guy in Milwaukee who doesn’t care about anything, so the idea has to be more simplistic. And it’s one idea. Get anywhere near two, and it’s trouble. You can have to be linear because if you miss something, you can’t rewind.”
Er, yes you can. That’s one of the great advantages of direct-to-DVD releases, Grant!
Grant Morrison Talks ‘Area 51′ Video Game-To-Film Script, Promises New Take On Alien Movies [MTV Splash Page]
Cave’s side-scrolling loligoth shooter Deathsmiles — which I lovingly credit-fed at a Shibuya arcade last week — is coming to the Xbox 360 this Spring, at least in Japan. That’s obviously great news to anyone needing a fix of girls shooting things in 2D, but Cave is doing the release one better with a sexy, high-def upgrade on the visuals.
According to the company’s official blog, Deathsmiles for the 360 is going to see a serious resolution update in a “rearranged” mode, the first pics of which were released just prior to Tokyo Game Show. Now let’s all chant “Please be region free. Please be region free.”
今週は色々ありすぎて… [Cave Blog via Siliconera]
