Obsidian’s next project after Fallout: New Vegas to be Wheel of Time?
Credit: Joystiq, CVG
You may not have heard much about the Wheel of Time books yet. However, if Red Eagle studios have their way, it will be the biggest fantasy event since Lord of the Rings. In addition to acquiring the license to create films for Robert Jordan’s masterpiece, Red Eagle have also collaborated with Obsidian Studios, famous for Knights of the Old Republic 2, Neverwinter Nights 2 and Fallout: New Vegas to create games for the high fantasy epic for Playstation 3, Xbox 360 and PC. This will not be the first game made from the Wheel of Time saga, a PC game was released by Legend Entertainment back in 1999.

While no timescale for a game has been set, it’s difficult not to imagine that plans are already underway to digitise Aes Sedai for our playing pleasure.

Miyamoto working on new Motion Plus game that is NOT Zelda
Credit: CVG
Shigeru Miyamoto has revealed that he is developing a new Wii game that will use MotionPlus. Speaking at the 13th Annual Japan Media Arts Festival where he received a Special Achievement Award, Miyamoto is reported to have told the audience that he is working on a new motion based game. So far the only Nintendo game that uses MotionPlus is Wii Sports Resort, although Miyamoto is also working on the forthcoming Legend Of Zelda Wii game which will only work with the accessory.

Lego Star Wars III: The Clone Wars Announced
Credit: Joystiq
If you thought you’d seen the last of Master Yoda as a little green block of studs, then Lucasarts and Travellers Tales have news for you; this fall, Lego Star Wars III: The Clone Wars will shipping to retailers. This time the action will be based on the animated series featured on the Cartoon Network and is focused on Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi fighting against the clone armies of General Grievous. To put things in perspective for people who don’t watch the show, the timeline will place you somewhere between Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones and Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. The game will make some notable changes to the series, along with maintaining some of the features we know and love. More details to come.

This week on XBLA
Credit: Joystiq, Major Nelson
The weekly deals seem to be getting better and better which is really inconsiderate as we have enough goodness in Q1 as it is. This week, we have Battlefield 1943 for 800 points. This was already the New Years Eve deal a few weeks back, so it is surprising to see Microsoft bring the price down again so soon. However, if you can’t get enough of WW2 warfare, then this is as good as it gets!

To top that off, this Wednesday, The Misadventures of P.B Winterbottom  comes to the Arcade for 800 points.

Plants vs Zombies on iPhone February 15th
Credit: Joystiq
As of Monday, Plants vs Zombies will be available on iPhone for you to purchase. Popcap games are looking to expand their empire as ever, and this game is certainly attracting a lot of attention.

Need more convincing? Check out our review here.

Ubisofts big announcement is Ghost Recon: Future Soldier. BETA prior to release!
Credit: CVG
Ubisoft said they had a big announcement to give us and they certainly did not disappoint. The highly popular Ghost Recon series is about to get another instalment entitled Future Soldier. With the release date scheduled for the fall, Ubisoft have also announced that they will be releasing a BETA prior to release for public consumption. To top it off, we have a teaser trailer to show you right after the jump.

BAFTA Game nominations announced
Credit: IGN
The BAFTA GAME shortlist has been announced and it will be up to the British public to determine who comes out on top. Last year, Call of Duty Modern Warfare was crowned the winner and while its sequel has a chance to replicate the success this year, it certainly faces some solid opposition.

Here is the complete line-up.

• Assassin’s Creed 2
• Batman: Arkham Asylum
• The Beatles: Rock Band
• Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
• FIFA 10
• Grand Theft Auto Chinatown Wars
• The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks
• Street Fighter IV
• Uncharted 2: Drakes Fortune
• Wii Sports Resort

The results ceremony will be conducted on March 19 where Dara O Brian will be doing hosting duties. Time to get voting!

Final Fantasy XIII not getting DLC after all
Credit: Xbox 360 Achievements
Contrary to my news feed last week, it seems Square Enix have no plans for DLC for FFXIII after all as confirmed by the game’s producer and director.

“Regarding the DLC content, we feel that the final product is 100% enjoyable… it’s the complete package. So we’re not planning any DLC at this time” the duo told the US PlayStation Blog.

As for the cut content from the game, that also seems to be a pipe dream.

“In regard to the rumoured cut content, we feel it was taken out of context,” said Kitase and Toriyama. “There are a lot of ideas that are brought to the table, and then the team takes the best ideas out of those, and the final product is polished that way. There was content that were ‘ideas’ that didn’t make the final content, but the team isn’t looking to release that as downloadable content.”

Despite pictures from the box art which state the game will have content download and earlier reports that report further expansion for the product, it appears that the people who would know most about the game’s future development are saying no.

Street Fighter IV on iPhone?!
Credit: Joystiq
Believe the unbelievable. Capcom are porting Street Fighter IV to iPhone and they’re doing that before creating a port for PSP, DS or even on the Wii! The news itself is quite surprising and enough to make some people’s blood boil. How Capcom can bring a game of this quality to iPhone before considering other formats, could very well be a telling sign of the power Apple’s little touch screen has garnered on the gaming market. How this will come out is anyone’s guess, but expect for it to be quite heavily priced and to sell pretty darn well.

Microsoft ending Xbox Live support for older games
Credit: Joystiq, Neil’s Deals
It’s official. Microsoft will no longer be supporting original Xbox titles via it’s Xbox Live service after April 15th. This includes the ultra-popular Halo 2, which many fans still play religiously, some instead of the even more popular Halo 3. Microsoft’s Marc Widden has this to say re: the change.

“This isn’t a decision we made lightly, but after careful consideration, it is clear this will provide the greatest benefit to the Xbox Live community” Whitten said. “And as we look down the road, we’ll continue to evolve the service with features and experiences that harness the full power of Xbox 360. To reach our aspiration, we need to make changes to the services that are incompatible with our original Xbox v1 games.”

Whether this update was necessary to prepare for the launch of Natal later this year or just to simply increase a person’s friend list remains to be seen. Either way, get in as many games of Halo 2 as you can, it’s nearly time for you to move on.

Fallout New Vegas is coming in 2010!
Credit: CVG, IGN, YouTube
Fallout New Vegas is coming and it’s coming in 2010! Obsidian, the development team behind Knights of the Old Republic 2 and Neverwinter Nights 2  released a teaser trailer this week and gave us a release window of Fall 2010. If you needed any further convincing that Game of the Year 2010 was going to be a hotly contested affair, then perhaps this might give you some perspective.

Got to love Frank Sinatra music being used to promote a computer game. Awesome!!

Project Needlemouse becomes Sonic the Hedgehog 4, the first true 2D platformer sequel in 17 years!
Credit: Joystiq, IGN, CVG
SEGA have finally lifted the lid on Project Needlemouse and given us some specifics. More specifically, the game is going to be Sonic the Hedgehog 4; a direct sequel to Sonic and Knuckles released back in 1993! No more bird collecting and stories about flying carpets, this is Sonic as we know and love it, with 2D graphics borne out with 3D visuals. It’s also been announced that the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions will sport 1080p support.

What’s more, while we’ve met many of Sonic’s friends over the years, the only playable character in Sonic 4 will be the spiky blue hedgehog himself, complete with his old school move set, joined by the homing attack of the more recent games. Sonic the Hedgehog 4′s music will also be familiar to people who’ve played the games in the past, reworking old themes and styles.

SEGA have said that the first episode will release in the Summer for all formats, and will have both Wii Remote and Six-axis support. The game will also enable you to compare speed runs via online leaderboards.

While I’m a little sceptical about the episodic nature of this and don’t quite understand how it will work, this is probably the best news to come out of SEGA in a long, long time. Am I allowed to be excited by news by SEGA? Is that still permitted in 2010?!

Still news in 2010!

Splinter Cell: Conviction dated for April 13th 2010
Credit: Joystiq
We finally get another ‘solid’ date for Splinter Cell Conviction. So solid in fact, that Ubisoft actually carved it into stone! April 13th 2010 will see the NA release of Splinter Cell: Conviction as cast into stone, and April 15th will see its release in the UK. It seems the first month of Q2 is just going to get as flooded as Q1 as a whole. Let’s hope that this one doesn’t disappear back into the shadows again.

Red Faction 4 to be unveiled at E3
Credit: IGN, CVG
THQ gave us a wealth of announcements this week, not least of which Red Faction 4, which they are preparing to showcase at E3 later this year. No real details were unveiled other than a tentative title. Whether it will be a game in the same vein as the original Red Faction games on PS2 or the newer spin on the franchise revealed in Guerilla last year remains to be seen. Either way, THQ seem to have a hit on their hands and they’re not shy in expanding that franchise even further.

Darksiders 2, DeBlob 2 and Saints Row 3 Announced
Credit: IGN
THQ also announced that Darksiders 2, DeBlob 2 and Saints Row 3 are headed into production. It seems THQ is investing its future in sequels and rightly so. Darksiders has been fending well for itself despite its stiff competition in Q1, DeBlob was a sleeper hit on Wii in 2008, many hailing it as the best game Nintendo never made, and Saints Row 2 holding its own against main rival to GTA IV. Great news for fans of all three of these franchises.

Dante’s Inferno DLC announced
Credit: Joystiq
As is the case with most every game these days, EA have decided to extend the Dante’s Inferno experience with some additional downloadable content. However, some of the ideas going into the content actually sound quite innovative and interesting. In March, a Dark Forest Prequel level will explore the story of the character Dante’s return from the crusades to Italy. Then in April come Trials of St Lucia, a co-operative multiplayer expansion with a new playable character and in-game combat editor! The editor allows players to create combat trails and share them online!

No pricing or specific release dates have been announced as yet.

GTA Episodes from Liberty City coming to PC / PS3 on March 30th
Credit: Joystiq
It seems the exclusivity agreement Microsoft have with Rockstar is about to expire, as The Lost and the Damned and The Ballad of Gay Tony are finally coming to Playstation and PC in just over a month. These are two excellent pieces of entertainment that have been hugely successful on Xbox and really added to the experience of an already tremendous title.

Great news for GTA owners and well worth the price of a full retail product for all the content contained therein.

Continuing the legacy!

Next Borderlands DLC  ‘The Secret Armoury of General Knoxx’ details released . Borderlands DLC disc to be released in Feb
Credit: Joystiq
One thing you can say for Gearbox, they certainly know how to support a game post launch. The third piece of Borderlands DLC has been announced with some screenshots. The Secret Armoury of General Knoxx will feature more achievements, more environments to explore and an increased level cap!

Also, later this month, for those who don’t get online or prefer shrink wrapping can purchase the first two pieces of DLC for Borderlands on disc, available for all formats.

Halo Reach not a Natal title
Credit: Joystiq
As we near closer to the Spring and the supposed launch of the Halo: Reach Beta, details are slowly starting to trickle in about the enigmatic new project from Bungie. A series of screenshots found its way onto the web last week, and we know the project is a prequel to the original Halo: Combat Evolved.

This week, we also learned that Halo Reach will be controlled via your regular Xbox pad and will not utilise motion control. But that was to be expected right? I mean, we don’t even have a release date for Natal yet, so how else would we have been able to participate in the beta in the Spring? Still, Bungie’s comments pertaining to this were not an outright dismissal of using the technology. Could there be some features within Halo Reach that use Natal? It would certainly add further stature and validity to a project Microsoft are investing so much time and resource into, and with Fable 3 already announced to be using the tech, surely the announcement of the new Halo game using Natal will boost its sales even more.

Let the speculation continue.

This week on Playstation Network
Credit: CVG
This week on PSN is pretty darn cool. Final Fantasy VIII, the most underrated edition in the series, makes its debut on the marketplace for both PS3 and PSP for the bargain price of £7.99. You can also pick up a demo for the highly anticipated Heavy Rain, an Eye Pet Lucky Dip Pack and an Infamous Giggawat Blade pack, all free of charge.

This week on Xbox Live Arcade
Credit: CVG, Major Nelson, Xbox 360 Achievements
It’s cheap times this week! The deal of the Week is yet another gem. For 400 points, you can pick one of last Summers crown jewels, Splosion Man! It’s already cheap at 800 MS Points, and so it’s ridiculously underpriced at 400 MS Points. Seriously, you can buy a lightsaber for your Avatar for the same price, but don’t buy the bloody Lightsaber, buy Splosion Man!

As for the XBLA release, we have Chime, also for 400 points. Single player game seeks significant gamer for musical puzzle fun. Me: unique, compelling, creative and demanding. You: quick-witted and open-minded with sharp reactions and a deep love of music. Let’s get together and play something beautiful. Featuring music by Moby, Paul Hartnoll (Orbital), Philip Glass, Fred Deakin (Lemon Jelly) and Markus Schulz. To make things even more interesting, for the first time ever that I know of, every sale of this game, 60% of the profits go to charity!

How generous.

KA-BOOOOOOM!!!

The third Behemoth game revealed
Credit: Xbox 360 Achievements
Behemoth, the genius behind the brilliant Castle Crashers and Alien Hominoid, have unveiled their next project, Battleblock Theatre… I know, right? Complete with a new trailer, here is a synopsis of the plot for their latest creation…

“Having shipwrecked on a mysterious island you find yourself both betrayed by your best friend Hatty and captured by the locals. All of this is happening while being forced into deadly performances. This however, is just the start of your problems.”

No word on a release date or price plan as yet.

Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker has been delayed… In Japan
Credit: CVG
While this may not be a reflection on the release date for other territories, the Peace Walker release date has been pushed back in Japan to make a final ‘few adjustments’. Kojima went on record in December to say that the NA release date will be May 28th. However, that release window is certainly looking less likely. Regarding this recent news, Kojima has also gone on record to say the delay is ‘a crime’.

Bioshock 2 Reviews are in
Credit: Metacritic, IGN
The verdict is out on Bioshock 2, and if early indications are anything to go by, it seems Q1 won’t just be remembered for its quantity, but also its quality. PC Gamer gave it 90%, PSM3 gave it 93% saying it tops the original in terms of storytelling and combat and IGN score it with 91%. If you ever had any doubts that this game would not live up to its heritage, early indications seem ready to prove you wrong. Check out Metacritic for regular updates.

Monolith
There will be two schools of thought with the influence of a new developer; they could either keep in line with Starbreeze’s take on The Darkness, or take the game in a new direction entirely, maybe one closer with the comics. If you are looking at the former, Monolith is probably the obvious shout. I mean seriously, who else has the heritage of making dark first-person games that these guys have? The thing that could make this pairing more interesting is that The Darkness wasn’t a game where you nervously worked your way around an environment waiting for the next big scare, it flipped the scenario on its head; you were the horror waiting in the shadows, and it would be interesting to see just how well Monolith could take to that. Unfortunately, with Monolith being a subsidiary of Warner Bros, it’s a move that we’re unlikely to see.

2K Games
The development of The Darkness sequel is shrouded in a mix of ambiguity and contradicting whispers, however one common theme is that 2K Games are reportedly at the forefront of whatever happens, having made the apparent mistake of being the first to accidentally announce its existence. With that in mind it’s not unreasonable to consider that they might handle the development in-house, and why not? They clearly have the teams capable, and what with 2K Boston/2K Austrailia’s excellent work on Bioshock, they already have a game that some might say shares similarities on some level.

Obsidian Entertainment
I was always going to pick the perennial sequel developers wasn’t I? With Neverwinter Nights 2 and KOTOR 2 prime examples of successful stabs at taking on someone else’s tools to continue a franchise, and with a Fallout spin-off already in the works in the same vein, why couldn’t Obsidian do the same for The Darkness? Some might argue that their pedigree comes in the form of RPG’s, but if Top Cow are looking for continuity despite relying on a new developer, then surely Obsidian are easily the best in the business at that.

Rocksteady
The independent London-based studio have been raking in the plaudits recently, thanks to their admirable work on the excellent Batman: Arkham Asylum. I’d love to see what they are really capable of in other areas, say with a different license, and see if they’d show other source material the same level of respect which they showed to the world’s greatest detective. Rocksteady would be a good choice no matter what direction the franchise should take.

So what about you? The cases above are part of my whimsical thinking of who would be a good fit to The Darkness format. The game is already in production, and whoever it might be is already working on it as we speak, so only time will tell if I’m close to the mark or not. Who would you like to see take a stab at it? Who do you think is best placed to take this franchise on? Would you like to see it take a similar direction to that of the original game, or a new direction entirely? Let us know in the comments below!

War… war never changes
For those of you haven’t heard of the Fallout series (slap yourself in the face until you look like a roast ham…*ahem*), here’s a quick history lesson. Fallout 1 and 2 are turn-based RPGs that were developed in the late 90s by Black Isle Studios. Set in a bleak future where most of the planet has been annihilated by nuclear war, you took on the role of someone who had to explore the desolate wasteland of the U.S.A, despite being completely oblivious to what a dangerous place it had become.

Fallout 3 puts you in the Vault suit of The Lone Wanderer; a resident of Vault 101, who wakes up one morning to discover his father has escaped from the seemingly inescapable bunker. What starts as a quest to find your father turns into something much more serious, as you get involved with The Brotherhood of Steel, the grotesque Super Mutants and the shadowy bastards of The Enclave, who are essentially the remnants of the U.S. government.

The plotline of Fallout 3 is pretty impressive. Since the character you play has never experienced the world outside Vault 101, you have to base your knowledge pretty much solely on what other people tell you. The populace of the Capital Wasteland aren’t exactly the most trustworthy chaps around though, so you’ll often find yourself having to make decisions on the word of someone who is more than likely lying to you. It makes for some pretty intriguing plot developments, and I certainly was always motivated to press on and find the next piece of the puzzle.

Welcome to America!

The only real problem with the story is that the factions you find yourself aligning with or fighting against aren’t particularly well developed. While you’ll often be subjected to every individual characters life story, newcomers to the Fallout series will be left in the dark about where the Super Mutants came from, or what The Enclave’s true motivations are. Bethesda also made the decision to turn the Brotherhood of Steel into a basic group of good guys/protectors of the people, which I didn’t really appreciate. Overall though Fallout 3’s plotline is a major plus point in the game, and although it’s a drastic departure from the tone of the first two games, I think it enhances the Fallout universe rather than detracting from it.

Things to do in D.C. after it’s been blown up
One of the biggest successes of Fallout 3 is the world itself. While Oblivion’s game world was generated through a formulaic piece of software, every tree, house, town and cave in the Capital Wasteland has been placed there specifically by a dedicated team of designers. As a result, you’ll find that you won’t have to walk far to find something to do, and every time you do come across a point of interest, it will keep you busy for a long time. On the other hand though, I think the world has been made a little bit too “busy” as a result. It’s supposed to be the end of the world, and coming across a new small pocket a population every five minutes takes away the feeling that you’re one of the last people left alive on the planet.

Despite the population of post-apocalyptic America being pretty dramatically lowered, you’ll find that the bulk of its population haven’t banded together in a bid for survival. In fact most of them are hostile, violent psychopaths, which is where Fallout 3’s combat system comes in. You can play it as a straight real time FPS, but to be honest playing Fallout 3 this way is too quick, unsatisfying and will result in you wasting heaps of ammo.

To get the most out of combat, you will have you to use the Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System, or V.A.T.S, which stops time and allows you to pick a body part to shoot at, giving you probabilities of making the shot before you pull the trigger. It’s a welcome nod to the turn-based combat of the earlier games, and a successful shot will often result in a slow motion playthrough of your target being blown to bits. These action replays are a bone of contention for me, since it gets old pretty quickly watching limbs pop like water balloons, and even the simplest of shot with the worst weapons in the game will result in your enemy’s head evaporating into thin air. While it undoubtedly is funny to watch, I preferred the grittier, more serious gore of the earlier Fallout games to the slapstick bloodiness of Fallout 3.

There are around 15 main quests in Fallout 3. It might not seem like a lot but it will take a couple of hours to work through each one, and the chances are you’ll find yourself being distracted by the many interesting locations dotted around the map. On my first playthrough I notched up just shy of 100 hours of gameplay, which is quite an unbelievable statistic considering I’m sure I missed plenty of content. You’re usually given a degree of choice regarding the way you go about completing each quest, i.e. stealth, hacking or all out combat. However, most of these decisions are pretty insignificant and you’ll often find yourself having to go in all guns blazing more than once in most quests, which is pretty disappointing.

You can almost see the radiation!
Bethesda have done a pretty impressive job with making Fallout 3 as visually appealing as possible, especially considering they are restricted to using nothing but brown, grey and greyish brown throughout the entire world. Fallout boasts some very impressive draw distances, and it really takes your breath away at times reaching some high ground only to look out and see… absolutely nothing. To put it simply, the Capital Wasteland really does look like a land that’s been ravaged by nuclear war, and it looks absolutely stunning as a result.

Hey what does this button... do? Oops

Of course the Lone Wanderer has other areas to explore outside of the desolation of the Wasteland. As nice as it looks, you have to break up looking at nothing every now and then with a cave, dilapidated building or sewer, which are served in droves here. The lighting effects in these sections take me back to the generic dungeons of Oblivion, but the “dungeons” of Fallout 3 are pretty varied and interesting to look at. Again, it all looks very bleak, but anyone who expects to come across a bouncy castle in the Wasteland should play a different game or brush up on their modding skills.

My main complaint regarding the graphics is with the characters themselves, who really could have benefited with a bit more polish applied to their stiff animations. It’s really only a problem with the humanoid characters, and the models themselves are fantastic. Unfortunately, it’s whenever they’re forced to make any kind of motion that they start to look a bit, well… crap. Most movements are jerky and robotic meaning that there’s no real fluidity, while the running motion is particularly reminiscent of Peter Crouch celebrating a goal (he did The Robot for all you non-football fans).

Overall though, manikin-like, soulless NPCs don’t detract too much from the fact that Fallout 3 is a technically stunning game, with some fantastic special effects to boot. It’s a great game to look at most of the time, and I can’t think of anything else that Bethesda could have done to get the most out of a barren desert.

“Didn’t I talk to you five minutes ago?”
As soon as I fired up Fallout 3 for the first time and heard the familiar phrase “War, war never changes” in Ron Perlman’s husky growl of a voice, I had a good feeling about the quality of the voice acting. The big names are a joy to listen to, I particularly loved Malcolm McDowell’s almost embarrassingly patriotic and hopeful President Eden, while Liam Neeson delivers every line with a kind of silky tone that made me go weak at the knees more than once (which I’m in no way ashamed of).

In contrast, the stock NPC’s are very hit and miss, and can really take you out of the moment a lot of the time. There aren’t a great deal of voice actors for the non essential NPC’s in the game, and it kills the immersion a bit when there’s no discernible difference between the megalomaniacal Mr Burke, and the Protectron that roams the Super-Duper Mart. As an aside, whoever did voice Mr Burke needs to buy into the “less is more” school of thought. Imagine Dr Evil from Austin Powers, now multiply the hammy acting by five, add some eeeevil breathy contemplative silences, and then multiply the hammy acting by another five. I was genuinely surprised that he didn’t yell “Soon, all of this be mine, fly my pretties, FLY! MWAHAHA!” after accepting a quest from him.

The backing soundtrack is vintage Fallout. Listening to Billie Holiday or The Ink Spots while traversing the Capital Wasteland just seems right. It fits in perfectly with the retro theme of the Fallout series and also acts as a pretty enjoyable distraction when you’re walking through a particularly empty section of D.C. If the music isn’t your thing, you can just switch it off via your Pip-Boy and have the eerie silence of nuclear winter as your backing track, which to be honest works just as well some 1940’s jazz classics.

Buy it, try it or avoid it?
While most Fallout fans will find that this doesn’t really feel like the earlier games in terms of humour and tone, as a standalone game it’s really pretty breathtaking. The level of content in the game is astounding, but to be honest you can have just as much fun exploring the Wasteland as you can following a specific quest. The fact that I’ve played it for over 100 hours and am still pining for more is testament to just how much has been crammed into this game, and I’m looking forward to a marathon session through Fallout 3’s numerous downloadable content packs (stay tuned for my Fallout 3 DLC review special!)

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