You are looking at Sony's humongous banner draped on the outside of the West Hall at the Los Angeles Convention Center, host once again for the Electronic Entertainment Expo, the biggest spectacle the video game industry has to offer. Our badges are in hand and holders, are appointments for tomorrow are confirmed, and all that remains is to wait for the shows big kick off tomorrow at noon when the doors to the convention halls will be opened to the journalistic masses. We'll see you there!
A name and release date we already knew for Treyarch's next iteration to the Call of Duty series, but what we didn't know (for sure at least) was the when and where the game will take place. Gametrailers TV had their big reveal Friday night with the debut trailer for Call of Duty: Black Ops, and while there were many hints indicating a Vietnam era war game, there were also some more modern elements thrown in than we expected. Take a look for yourself below.
For Gametrailer's breakdown of the trailer, hit the jump
Sick and tired of that boring old white Wii? Jealous that both Japan and Europe have already had their mits on an awesome looking black Wii for months? If you possess such ridiculous insecurities you'll be happy to learn that Nintendo will be offering the Black Wii state side May 9, with a few little bonuses over the plain old white color.
First off, the black model will come with two games. The standard Wii Sports title as well as the sequel, Wii Sports Resort. Guess what also comes with it? A Wii motion plus add on to go with the motion enhanced Wii Sports Resort. All this comes at the standard retail of $200, but one could argue that the Wii is technically $150 since Nintendo is throwing in another $50 game.
The big reveal of Activision's next Call of Duty title was supposed to be saved for tonights Gametrailer's TV, but that hasn't stopped the game's website from launching and inadvertently leaking details for the game. Granted there's no real content currently on the site, but there is the image posted above that confirms a release date and an official title.
From rumors abound on the interwebs we're pretty sure Treyarch's iteration of the series focuses on the Vietnam era, but with a title like "Black Ops" it's obvious that there may be more to the game than smoking doobies in between bouts with the Vietcong. Kotaku has some thoughts that the game may involve additional espionage or cold war related activities, but their guess is as good as any now. Aside from a name, it's easy to see the game is slated for a November release, just as every other CoD game before it.
Titles and release dates aside the bulk of the game's reveal is still slated to happen on tonight's GTTV on Spike TV. Tune in to the station at 12:30 AM or wait for our update when more details come to light.
If you're lucky enough to be in possession of a Starcraft II beta key, and you own one of them expensive looking Apple computers, you can now get to playing Blizzard's long, long awaited sequel on your nice and shiny Apple-computer-by-Apple. Expect some moderate system requirments to make the game run well. My best guess is that if you can run World of Warcraft you shouldn't have too much trouble with Starcraft II.
Beta keys are still being offered by Blizzard and there's three ways to get it. You can go to starcraft2.com and sign up through a battle.net account, get a key from a friend who is already in the beta, or pre-order the game at Gamestop. You could also appeal to heathen gods but you'll likely end up getting a demon spirit with your beta key, and that tends to suck.
Bungie has recently announced on their community blog that they have entered into a 10-year publishing agreement with Activision. From what is mentioned in the announcement, it appears this new partnership is meant to allow Bungie a world-wide recognized publisher with which to release original intellectual property on mulitple platforms:
The groundbreaking alliance will provide Bungie its first such partnership since splitting off from Microsoft in 2007, significantly broadening its global reach by providing the resources and support to develop, distribute and release games worldwide on multiple platforms and devices.
The details of the agreement stipulate that Activision retains the right to publish Bungie games based on new, original IP's which can translate to "no halo on PS3" depending on how you look at it. Bungie also retains all rights to their own content and will remain an independent company from Activision, meaning the possibility of another Infinity Ward/Activision fiasco would be highly unlikely.
It'll be interesting to see what kind of plans Bungie has with this new agreement. With E3 little more than a month away we expect more details to come to light. Stay tuned for more information as it develops.
Don't worry, this isn't more Activision Vs. Infinity Ward news. Treyarch's next addition to the Call of Duty series, which is rumored to take place in the Vietnam era, is going to be oficially announced late tomorrow night on Spike network's Gametrailers TV.
If you want to see the reveal yourself tune in at around 12:30 AM... or you can get some sleep and get the details here the next morning.
Croteam's HD-ifying of the second game in the Serious Sam series is complete and ready for purchase for all you steam users out there. The game features better visuals, new additions to the original campaign as well as a co-op play feature and additions to the game's 16-player multiplayer. All this is available for a meager $19.99.
Hit the jump for a complete list of additions and features in this re-release.
Hoo boy, things are getting very serious with the media debacle that is Infinity Ward and Activision. A group of around thiry-eight Infinity Ward employees have filed a lawsuit against Activision claiming the publisher has not paid the full amount of bonuses and royalities owed to the developer since the release of Modern Warfare 2; going so far as to say that Activision is intentionally holding the developer's payment hostage in order to keep employees working at IW to develop (and subsequently reap the rewards of) Modern Warfare 3.
According to G4TV, the employees taking part in the suit include "a significant portion of the members of the creative team" for Modern Warfare 2. Information filed within the suit mentions that Activision has paid Infinity Ward around $28 million for the game, but is charged for witholding an additional $54 million for 2009's profits, not including amounts yet to be payed for the games success in 2010. In addition to the money owed, the IW employees are seeking anywhere from $75 million to $500 million in punitive damages. The suit also mentions Activision's breach of contract by failing to pay terminated or departing employees their due within seventy-two hours of their end of employment.
The Conduit had a lot of hype behind it. The game's development represented a certain openness to the gaming community. High Voltage saw a problem and wanted to be the first to tackle it; be the first to make a "hardcore" Wii game and realize the dreams gamers had for first person shooters. So we watched, with baited breath as the game developed, impressed along the way by the community's opinions and input. The end result? Aside from great controls, meh.
It appears High Voltage is aware of this as they updated their blog and spent quite a bit of time talking about the Conduit 2. From what they wrote they seem to agree the The Conduit had some flaws; particularly in terms of art direction and an overall lack of gravity to the game's events.
At various points throughout the development of C1 we would discover something new about the technology, build a new graphics feature, and then have to make hard decisions as to whether or not we had time to rework existing art content to take better advantage of the latest features...The result was a game that is fun to play and is solid overall, but never quite manages to excite its audience with inspired visions of a darkly futuristic world that’s being torn apart by aliens.
The post goes on to talk about the developers commitment to not add content to the game unless they are a hundred percent in love with it. They also mention refinements the've introduced to Quantum 3 engine that will further help improve the game's art work. You can check out the rest of the post via the link below.
BNG Crew
