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Japan. Loves. Monster Hunter. The latest iteration in the franchise, PSP title Monster Hunter Portable 2nd G has shipped 1.5 million copies since going on sale March 27th. Yep, that's 1.5 million copies in the last two weeks. In-cre-di-ble. Monster Hunter? More like, Monster Hit.
MHP2ndG Scores Big [Dengeki Online]
Heeeeyyyyy, it's new British sales data. What do we have this (well, last) week? Seems we have more traditional gamers winning a little ground back on Dr. Kawashima's henchmen, with the inroads made by games like Condemned 2 and Viking: Battle for Asgard so great that Mario & Sonic At The Olympics on DS was nearly pushed out of the top 10 altogether. Onwards and upwards, fight them on the beaches, etc etc!
Citing "sources", British site CVG are reporting that a PSP version of Sony's free-form platformer LittleBigPlanet is currently in development at Sony Studio Liverpool. Sony are obviously keeping quiet on the subject, but with the PS3 and PSP growing more and more interconnected via things like remote play, the possibility of a portable version of LBP that could "talk" to a PS3 version of the game isn't the most outrageous rumour I've heard this week.
LittleBigPlanet coming to PSP? [CVG]
Game designer Peter Molyneux worries. Always. If it's not this, it's that. And if it's not that, then it's that. This time Molyneux is worrying about money. Silly Moly, you work for Microsoft! You are swimming in money!! Still, he offers these concerns:
As a general rule, I hate MMOs. Elves, grinding, enchanted amulets, yuck. Though I've always set aside a condition that, should I ever run into one that's both decent and based on a franchise or IP that I'm keen on, I'd at least dip my toes in the shallow end. Perhaps the only one to potentially meet this condition at this stage is THQ's Warhammer 40K MMO, so it's with a slightly pathetic frown on my face that I hear THQ CEO Brian Farrell saying the project's "probably still a couple of years out". Bummer.
Interview: Brian Farrell, CEO, THQ [paidcontent, via VG247] [Pic]
Evangelion is so popular in Japan that it not only has its own coffee, but its own shameful movie parody. Hello Rule 34! Osaka porn actress Nao Ayukawa takes on the role of "Rei" in naughty movie EVAN AyaX Rei in Ayukawa Nao as she does things. Various things. You might remember Ayukawa from previous roles in Maximum Ayukawa Nao, MAX GIRLS exciting and MAX Pink File Ano Pink File de Hakaseru! Then again, you might not.
EVAN Images NSFW [Akiba Blog]
When Rock Band was released in the US, it cost $US 169, and came with the game, guitar, microphone and drums. Not a bad deal. But in Europe, on May 23? Good heavens. The game won't come in a single bundle. Instead, there's two products available at launch. One is called the "Instrument Edition", which costs £130/€170. It comes with a guitar, drums, and mic. That's it. No game. No, if you want the game as well, it'll cost you another £50/€70. That brings the cost of the game and three instruments to £180/€240. Or, $US 378. Three hundred and seventy-eight dollars. I know, things are always more expensive in Europe, but...damn. Whether it's MTV or EA behind this price, you can take that price, and you can stick it up your arse.
EA clarifies Rock Band pricing [Eurogamer]
PS3 strategy RPG Valkyrie of the Battlefield: Gallian Chronicles is currently slated for the PS3 and the PS3 only. That could change! And you know what, that might even be easy to change. What, considering how the game apparently was planned for the Xbox 360. A former Valkyrie Chronicles staffer (now turned ero-comic artist) writes on his blog:
Still playing Kane & Lynch? Good for you. You're obviously a person who cares not for wild and baseless internet hate campaigns (remember kids, it was neither Kane nor Lynch themselves behind the Gerstmann mess). You're probably also the kind of person who doesn't make a habit of looking a gift horse in the mouth, so when April 17 comes around and four new multiplayer maps are offered on both the PlayStation Store and Xbox Live Marketplace free of charge, do the right thing and snap 'em up, OK?
Free Kane & Lynch Console DLC Due April 17 [Shacknews]
See BioShock designer Ken Levine squint? He's looking at his list of top five games. They are: Civilization IV, World of Warcraft, Heroes of Might and Magic 2, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past and Beyond Good and Evil. Alrighty Kotakuland, let's have your top five!
BioShock Creator Picks [MSNBC via CVG]
Oh boy! Firmware updates! Sony have just announced that they'll soon be releasing firmware v3.95 for the PSP, an update that will undoubtedly take your good PSP and make it better. It'll be bringing two new features to the portable: custom button configuration for PS1 game playback, and the ability to quit remote play with your PS3 but leave your PS3 running. They may sound insignificant in isolation, but remember, the path to a convenient, labour-free modern lifestyle is littered with baby steps such as these.
Ultima and Tabula Rasa creator Richard Garriott loves two things: Space and rattails. Man not only has his own sputnik, but his own rattails. This October, Garriott and his flowing locks will be blasting off to the International Space Station. He plans on making a spacewalk, which would make him the first civilian with rattails to do so. Historic! To commemorate the event, Seiko is creating a titanium spring-powered "Spring Drive Spacewalk" watch, which will be limited to 99 pieces only — at a price! But really, can you put a price tag on a Richard Garriott watch? Yes, yes you can.
Spring Drive [Seiko via Watch Report via BB Gadgets]
Quit rubbing your eyes, kid, this is real! EA have formally, officially and properly announced that Rock Band will be launching in Europe on May 23. The catch? As was pretty much already surmised, it's only appearing on 360, with the PS3, Wii and PS2 versions only vaguely scheduled for "Summer". No official price as of yet (I imagine they'll want to break that probably-awful news gently) OK, we do have pricing, and it takes the piss. Songs will be 160 MS points each, and all downloadable songs currently available in the US will be available from launch, along with nine bonus Euro-specific tracks. Oh, and starting May 27, all new DLC will be simultaneously available in both the US and European stores. Click through for the list of European-exclusive songs:
Voting time! Man, there were a fuckton of great eggs. So many that we don't have the usually lucky seven finalists. We've got 25. All the entries seem self explanatory, so what we've done is create a gallery. Click through to see all the finalists. Here's where it gets different: To vote, write "I vote for this" under the egg picture you like. That's the only thing you should write if you want your vote to count. Do not, we repeat, do not vote in the regular comments section — they won't count! And remember, vote for only one egg. That's right, ONLY ONE EGG. Voting for two or more means Ban Hammer fun. For us, not you.
To recap: Click through the gallery below. If you find an egg you like, vote for it by writing only "I vote for this" below that egg's pic. Voting raps up in exactly 24 hours.
Editor's note: You can view the gallery and vote here.
Giving the decidedly average PlayStation Store a new coat of paint may not be the only changes Sony make to their online services this year. Speaking with GameDaily, Sony's Scott Steinberg has said:
Ack! CREEPY. Human heads are not that big. Found at the Den-Den Town Kotobukiya shop, these are staff-created customised Haruhi Suzumiya Pullip dolls — poses, uniform and everything. There's another nightmare inducing pic of these dolls after the jump. *shiver*
The above clip features not only the announcement that Darth Vader will be playable in the opening level of Lucasart's Force Unleashed, but also word that via the powers of the force you'll be able to pick a wookie up off the ground and wring his garbling, furry neck. Which should be the clip's highlight, but no! That honour goes to Force Unleashed's project lead, Hayden Blackman, who manages to keep the PR team happy by saying that your force powers are "amped up, over the top and in some cases totally out of control" while somehow keeping a straight face. Well done, Hayden.
Just as one contest wraps up (still need to post the finalists — will do shortly!), we've got another. This one is a cosplay contest. But not any just cosplay contest. A radical cosplay contest. Here's the deal: Dress up like an aeroplane. Any type of aeroplane is fine! Pose with a Kotaku sign. Send it to kotakucontestATgmailDOTcom. THAT'S IT. Easy, huh? Bandai Namco has agreed to give away a copy of Ace Combat 6 to the winner. We'll be giving away INTERNET FAME. Contest ends wraps up April 11th at midnight PST. INTERNET FAME lasts forever.
Those first GTAIV multiplayer shots were nice, but these new ones (courtesy of Shacknews), they take a mighty ratchet to my excitement levels and they just ratchet. Them. Up. Co-operative assaults on armoured vans should be enough to whet most appetites, but no. No, they had to go show a mid-air knife fight at sunset.
When we heard that Full Auto devs Pseudo Interactive had been shuttered by Eidos and SCi, we were told that their closure would affect a couple of unnamed projects. What we hadn't been told was that, according to sources who have tipped off Next-Gen, Psuedo had in fact been working on a new Carmageddon game, which Eidos cancelled in February just before the Games Developers Conference. Eidos, what the hell were you thinking? The only thing the world needs more than love, sweet love is a new, current-gen Carmageddon game.
Source: New Carmageddon Killed Off [Next-Gen]
Posted by Logan Booker at 1:40 PM on April 8, 2008
Tipster Shayne says the EB Games has a deal going where you can buy a SixAxis PS3 controller, and for an extra $20, pick up a copy of F1: Championship Edition, Genji, Heavenly Sword, Lair, Motorstorm or Resistance: Fall of Man. Not exactly a knee-trembling line up, but not horrible either.
Shayne reckons that Sony's clearing stock for the Dualshock 3. Considering we have word that a number of other retailers are offering a similar bundle, I'd say it's a fair assumption. The decision you'll have to make is whether a controller plus a game is worth more than a controller that shakes semi-erotically.
After SOME ADULT upstaged four-year old Mini Bash, he spent the rest of the evening, trying to perfect his origami DS Lite. He noticed mistakes in his design — like the lack of a Dpad. What's more, he selected pink paper to match our pink DS Lite. He made seven total, not including the sheet of paper he tried to colour black so he could have a black DS Lite, but then gave up. Not sure why he made seven. Perhaps he thinks if he looks at them all quickly, they'll move. Check back next week when SOME ADULT reads more books than Mini Bash and kicks his arse in counting to ten.
Posted by Logan Booker at 1:20 PM on April 8, 2008
Atari has just announced "Sinister Sightings", a competition to promote the new Alone in the Dark. The objective? To take the creepiest photo you can in the world's least creepy locale - a park.
Okay, maybe parks can be creepy when murderers, hobos and other, less savoury types stalk their finely manicured shrubbery. In any case, it's up to you to make it an unsettling place so your photo is indeed, disturbing.
A winner will be chosen each week via online voting. Each winner will receive a copy of the AITD 5 soundtrack, while the winner with the most votes at the end of the competition will get an Xbox 360.
If you think you have what it takes to put the "Oh" into "Oh my God, there's a weird dude in the park taking photos of me" then be sure to hit the jump.
Working at EA isn't as soul crushing and relationship ruining as it was just three years ago, according to internal survey results provided to GameDaily. You may remember that the work environment at the super-publisher was nothing short of a bleak wasteland not too long ago, during the "EA Spouse" years, the dark times of unpaid overtime, when rank and file employees were unaware of corporate goals and toiled away without "commitment". All in the past. Mostly.
The latest issue of Game Informer isn't quite on news-stands yet, but it is in the hands of subscribers. Said issue has a big feature on Gears of War 2's singleplayer, with all kinds of plot, character and gameplay revelations to be found within, all of which has somehow ended up on the internets.
You may remember the class action lawsuit filed against Activision this past November on behalf of owners of the flawed, mono-only version of Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock. The lawsuit, submitted by Samuel Livingston of California, sought "actual damages, individual restitution, equitable relief, civil penalties, costs and expenses of litigation, including attorney's fees, and all further relief available".
Will we get our first proper look at Resistance 2 for the PlayStation 3 this week? I'm going with "definitely maybe." "yes." GameTrailers TV host Geoff Keighley teases on his blog that the April 11 episode will feature "something special from our friends at Insomniac Games and Sony Computer Entertainment", one of seven exclusives Keighley boasts about.
For those who either missed out on the first line of Shooting Game Historica gashapon or feel the burning in their collector loins to complete the line, please note that National Console Support has commenced with pre-orders for the second batch.
Trauma Center: Under the Knife delivered big time on its promise of all the fun of cutting into human flesh with none of the mess. Now Atlus has announced that the DS sequel, recently announced in Japan, is heading to North American shores July 1st! The game is a direct follow up to the original, with Dr. Derek Stiles and Nurse Angie Thompson returning to deal with the aftermath of the GUILT epidemic. The game features an all-new easy mode for Scrubs-level play, new tools, new procedures, and more than just a little satanic medical magic. Check out the gallery below for unnecessary breast shots, and in case you need something a bit more animated, you'll find the launch trailer tucked away after the jump!
Sure, it may borrow wholesale from Independent Games Festival finalist Crayon Physics by Petri Purho, but Magic Pen is much more multi-platform friendly, requiring but a short download via your web browser of choice. Perfect for those of us not willing to walk from our Macs to our Windows boxes. You'll draw primitive shapes—circles, triangles and rectangles—as well as pins, hinges and swing-arms to move a red ball to each level's flags. It's fun and physics accurate and has a very soothing looping guitar ditty.
Magic Pen [Fizzlebot via Jay Is Games]
Is there more to the design of Portal's end-game boss GlaDOS than previously thought? Game-ism weighs in with its own spoiler-filled theory on why the loopy and sentient computer puts protagonist Chell through such an intense series of tasks in order to ultimately reach her; that is, to kill her, freeing her from her literal and figurative bondage as Aperture Science's maniacal mainframe. It's a fascinating hypothesis that's worth a look, if not only for the sadomasochistic fan-art that accompanies it.
Given Valve's propensity for abstracting the typical storytelling structure out of the game experience, it wouldn't surprise us one bit if GlaDOS were conditioning Chell as a sort of suicide machine. Thoughts?
Still Alive? She's Free. [Game-Ism]
Mastiff's video game adaptation of competitive ingestion, officially licensed by the Major League Eating organisation, will not only justify your Wii purchase and the very existence of WiiWare, it will elevate the medium to an art form. Or it will just be one more scoop of digital detritus on the mountainous pile of Wii shovelware. The jury is out. It features all your favourite people who put a lot things in their mouths, like that Kobayashi guy and Juliet "The World's #1 Competitive Eating Mom" Lee. Enjoy!
Posted by Logan Booker at 9:40 AM on April 8, 2008
Rumour: BioShock 2 Bound For PlayStation 3 (and Wii?)
The Playstation 3 I understand, but the Wii? I hate to think of the compromises 2K would have to make for it to be playable.
Ninja Gaiden II Impressions: Bloodbath
Yes, it has lots of blood. Yes, it's lots of fun.
Demigod Gets Publisher, Slips To 2009
Gas Powered Games' DotA-inspired RTS RPG finds a home. Before you ask, it's not Blizzard.
Eidos Montréal Working On Thief 4
Will they? Won't they? Please, let it be true!
The Jerry Bruckheimer produced film adaptation of Prince of Persia finally has a leading man in Orlando Bloom, according to Hollywood.com. The 31 year old star of similar costume action pictures like The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Troy and Kingdom of Heaven should have no problem fitting into the billowing pantaloons of the Prince, nor should he have any difficulty melting the hearts of gamers with his smoldering good looks. It certainly has never been a problem for me, so he should do alright for himself.
Sounds like 360 Magazine had quite a spread on Fallout 3 for this last issue, with nine pages dedicated to the upcoming Bethesda game. Fallout 3, A Post Nuclear Blog, has a run down of the magazine article as well as a number of scans from it showing off some new screens and art for the game. This is one of the few games that really blew me away at last E3, I can't wait to see how it's shaping up this year.
Fallout 3: The New Pictures At PcGames.de [Fallout 3]
We're not sure that you're ready to enter the world of custom, one of a kind My Little Pony creations, but perhaps the bitter pill of fandom tucked within a meaty treat will help the medicine go down. This unique pony, decked out in Master Chief's Mjolnir armour, is almost exactly how we pictured it in the many fanfics we've read on the My Little Pony-Halo crossover forums and certainly not too rich for our blood.
Job listings for the 2K Marin-led sequel to BioShock hint rather heavily that the sequel (prequel?) will be coming to more than just the Xbox 360 and PC. The team at 2K are looking for a Senior Designer, noting that "Playstation3 experience is required." Also preferred? Unreal Engine 3 experience. BioShock 2 was officially announced last month with a pre-holiday 2009 release date, giving us plenty of time for rumour, speculation and console fanboy pissing matches.
I was pretty wowed by the Apple presentation of Super Monkey Ball on the iPhone last month. The use of the tilt controls for this game in particular seem really intuitive. So any news about it, and games like iPhone Spore, make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
Today Other Ocean announced that they are working with Sega to develop a demo version of the iPhone game.
The Xbox 360 may be getting its own take on the Wii remote later this year, reports MTV News, with Microsoft said to have been knee deep in "X-remote" development since Summer of 2007. MTV cites an anonymous developer who alleges that a motion-sensitive controller is being developed alongside a Mii-like avatar system with the input of developer Rare, who is said to be late on delivering a "unified interface and look for the controller."
The unnamed source provided MTV with a sketch, which our hasty mock up to the left is based on and explains the copious amount of holes.
If true, it reminds us of that other Rare project said to be in the works, the Xbox Live Arcade title with Vision cam support.