Archive for November, 2006

New Super Smash Bros Brawl pictures, video shows 10 characters

Super Smash Bros Brawl Wii screenshotMore new Super Smash Bros Brawl pictures can be found on the official SSBB page. Masahiro Sakurai, the director of Super Smash Bros. Brawl, updated the page and had this to say:

“So, the Wii has launched. Are you enjoying it? As I sit here writing this, it has not yet released where I am, but I am enjoying it nonetheless! …But not as a consumer. No, I am working with it as I continue with the development of Super Smash Bros. Brawl. All of us on staff are working very hard, but it will be a little while longer before you can play it!

This time, on the movie page, I have added the Super Smash Bros. Brawl movie we created for the Nintendo World 2006 Wii Hands-On events in Japan. Please take a look.” The trailer that unveils more moves & Fox can be seen below.


Good to see the game being reaffirmed for 2007. With it being a year away, you have to wonder how many more videos unveiling an extra character, they will show ;) Seriously though, Super Smash Bros. Melee on GameCube had a character roster of 25 and so far only 10 Brawl characters have been revealed. We’ve got a long way to go.

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Silent Hill 5 in development for PS3? Planning confirmed back in 2004

Silent Hill 2On August 18, 2004, Eurogamer interviewed Masashi Tsuboyama who was the chief designer of Silent Hill 4: The Room. He said that Silent Hill 5 was already being planned for next generation machines, although Konami had yet to decide which one.

He then confirmed: “We’re not sure which hardware we will put [it out on], but [it will be] on the best one, be it PS3, be it Xbox 2… It won’t be on the current consoles.”

Over two years later, this weekend, Jeux-France quotes the UK’s Official PlayStation Magazine as saying Silent Hill 5 is in development for PS3.

Silent Hill 5 is in development, said composer Akira Yamaoka who provided atmospheric and emotional music for the series. He wishes for the game to return to an atmosphere close to that in the second episode of the series, Silent Hill 2: Restless Dreams, thus making it more directed to ‘Psychological Horror’.”

No scans, no official confirmation from Konami, no word on a release date, if it’s multiplatform or if Team Silent is working on the game. We didn’t put the questionmark in the headline for nothing. Via Neogaf

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War World: Tactical Combat goes from PC to Xbox 360 Live Arcade

War World: Tactical Combat (PC)Third Wave Games has announced at the eGames and Entertainment Expo in Melbourne, Australia, that War World: Tactical Combat will be coming to Xbox Live Arcade.

The single- and multiplayer combat game was previously released on PC in 2005 and after almost 10 reviews has a 72% rating on Gamerankings. The game itself is a 3D mech combat game, in the vein of Mech Assault, that featured over 100 levels in the PC version. There are more than 50 different weapons systems, defensive upgrades, and ability enhancements for you to use with your mech. These items include: A mini-gun that could cut a tractor trailer in half in less than 20 seconds; powerful missile launchers; deadly accurate laser cannons, mortar cannons & mine launchers.

Ilovexbla mentions that the game should be out in “around six months” with most of that time being put towards making the assets fit into a 50MB download. You can check out the War World PC demo here.

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Wii Virtual Console games can get updates (online multiplayer please!)

Nintendo WiiAccording to the Q&A section of Wii Shop Channel on the Nintendo Wii, software developers can update already released Virtual Console games free of charge.

To quote: “The ‘Update’ button indicates there are enhancements for the game. If you have already downloaded the game, you may select ‘Update’ to download the enhancements free of charge. Please note, downloading the update may impact the saved game data.”

The Wiire reports that: President Satoru Iwata has in September said this is part of all the expected plans. But it was never officially announced as being progressive updates. While Nintendo had noted there may be enhancements to existing games, no information specified updating games already available and purchased on the Virtual Console service.

Super Smash Bros N64 multiplayerAs for what we want updated: Virtual Console games that have local multiplayer to allow online multiplayer play with the friends on your Wii buddy list! After all, even emulators have been able to do online multiplayer for many years, it would be sad if the real all-in-one console wouldn’t allow it.

Picture playing these classics with the second or more controllers being a friend in another city or country: Bomberman, Mario Kart, Secret of Mana, Donkey Kong Country, Street Fighter II, and Super Smash Bros. *fingers crossed*

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Gears of War Collector’s Edition now cheaper than the normal version at $58

Gears of War - Limited Edition
At the moment Amazon is selling the Gears of War Collector’s Edition for $57.99, eventhough the normal (just the game) version costs more at $59.99. Gears of War was released in the US two weeks ago and is the first third-person tactical action/horror game developed by Epic Games exclusively for Microsoft Game Studios’ Xbox 360.

So what extras do you get in the Collector’s Edition?
* Everything included is enclosed in a collectible metal box shown above.
* Destroyed Beauty, the Gears of War hardbound art book.
* Bonus special features DVD, including:
- An inside look at the making of Gears of War;
- The “Art of Gears of War” trailer;
- Gears of War: The Race to E3.

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Metal Gear Solid 4 interview with Hideo Kojima reveals locations, GEKKOs, Mk.II can be controlled, development info

Old Solid SnakeThe Official Playstation Magazine (OPM) in the UK recently did an interview with Hideo Kojima, head of Kojima Productions, creator of the PS3 exclusive stealth game Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. Prospecter at MSG.org typed it out. The game won’t just take place in the Middle East, but will travel the world. Also interesting is that the GEKKOs (yes the mechs that moo like cows) won’t always attack Old Snake…

OPM: We noticed in the new MGS4 trailer that Snake seems to be shooting soldiers from both sides of the conflict. With graphics getting more realistic do you feel that the moral aspect of gaming is going to become more important?

Kojima: Well, this time Snake has his own rivals and destiny so he’s in a battlefield but sometimes the people there don’t have anything to do with him. So yes, there’s a moral aspect to what Snake should or could do to others that are not really involved in his actions. It’s up to the player, and that’s a deliberate theme this time.

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Yoshi’s Island DS interview, producer hints at new Wii game!

Yoshi\'s Island DSIt’s been a long wait for the millions of fans of the fondly remembered Yoshi’s Island on SNES, now that its sequel on Nintendo DS is out in the US and will be out in Europe on December first, Nintendo of Europe interviews producer Toyokazu Nonaka (Yoshi’s Universal Gravitation, Mario Slam Basketball) to find out more about Yoshi’s big new handheld game…

Nintendo of Europe (NoE): Can you tell us something about the development process? Who created the game and who oversaw its production?

Toyokazu Nonaka (TN): “The game was developed by a company called Artoon. They are a second party developer that we have a lot of faith in at Nintendo. At Artoon’s side, Mr. Naoto Ohshima was the producer, so he could really be seen as the creator of this game.

“Now, at Nintendo, Mr. Takashi Tezuka was the person supervising the project, and he would make sure that all the elements such as level design, graphics and sound were in line to create a true Yoshi game. Mr. Tezuka is the general manager of EAD Software Development Department and he has given me a lot of good advice and instructions, which was very helpful at times when I was feeling a little disoriented! So with him as the senior producer of this game, I would say that the title is really a collaboration of Mr. Ohshima and Mr. Tezuka.”

NoE: Were some of the people involved in the original SNES game also involved in the DS version?
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Resistance: Fall of Man PS3 launch game interview

Resistance: Fall Of ManSony-exclusive Resistance: Fall Of Man is the highest rated PS3 launch game, with nearly 25 reviews it’s currently at 89.2% on Gamerankings. The game is developed by the same company that brought you Ratchet & Clank, but it has a grittier war style instead of the cartoon world in Ratchet. To learn more about the title Siliconera interviewed the team at Insomniac. Here are some of their more interesting answers.

The tale of Resistance: Fall of Man is set in an alternate timeline of World War II. Why did you choose this setting for Resistance: FOM and what was the inspiration for the storyline?

Josh Wall, Writer: The story of Resistance: Fall of Man requires a particular global setting to occur. Our alternate timeline aligns world powers in a specific way to elaborate on various aspects of the Chimeran invasion. In doing this, it was especially important that we subvert history in believable ways. The horror of the story we’ve developed comes from playing off the audience’s expectations of known events.

This relationship between actual events and the Resistance: FOM spin on them draws the player into our world. It allows the player to share the perspective of our protagonist, Sgt. Nathan Hale. At the beginning of the game, Hale walks into an absolute nightmare. To put the player in that position, we had to give them a world they could recognize.

Inspiration for the story was never lacking. We’d like to think of ourselves as being a strong creative engine. At its core, Resistance: FOM is a very human story. The player is one man in an amazing struggle for the fate of Earth. Fortunately for them, they’re the single most important man in that struggle, so they’ll get to see all the fun parts. See…
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PlayStation One downloads for PSP priced

Tekken 2Sony Computer Entertainment America announced the pricing for the original PlayStation titles being made available for PSP on the PlayStation Network.

The first PlayStation One games (no list was given) will be sold at $5.99 and $10.99 (no release was given either). With sizes between 140MB and 550MB they must be downloaded to a PS3 hard drive and can then be transferred to Memory Stick Duo on your PSP.

Here’s what became available in Japan this week:
Resident Evil Director’s Cut (Capcom)
Konami Antiques MSX Collection Vol.1 (Konami)
Konami Antiques MSX Collection Vol.2 (Konami)
Bishi Bashi Special (Konami)
Arc the Lad (SCEJ)
Jumping Flash! (SCEJ)
Hot Shots Golf 2 (SCEJ)
Silent Bomber (Bandai Namco Games)
Tekken 2 (Bandai Namco Games)

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Wii has 16 secret facts you might not know

Nintendo WiiThere was the top 10 Wii facts, followed by the top 12 other Wii facts you may not have known. Now after the Wii launch we’ve found a great list of Wii tidbits that you might not know, but soon will be a secret no more. One of the first, a guaranteed Wii Sports bowling strike, was revealed earlier this week and you’ll see some others show up…

1. In the Photo Channel, you can catch the evil cat that runs across the screen to get tips! It appears in the Fun option, and you can grab the cat with the A and B button.

2. You can have a 194 piece puzzle by holding down the 1 button before selecting any piece amount.

3. If you don’t have an SD card and still want to check out Photo Channel, you can e-mail a .jpg to your Wii Message Board. There is a size limit for any mail you send to it – possibly 1MB.

4. In bowling, you can throw your ball into other people’s lanes.

5. If you put MP3s in your SD card along with your photos, you can change the background music during a slideshow to one of your MP3s.

6. When the message board records your play time, if you don’t exit to the Wii Menu before you power off the machine, it records the play time as “other”. If you properly exit to the menu and then shut off it will record it as the correct game.

7. You can rearrange almost anything on the Wii… like the channels and messages by just holding the A and B.

8. The plasma burnin reduction kicks in the second the Wiimote shuts down.

9. When you get an e-mail, not only does the disc drive light up and pulsate blue, but your Wiimote sends out a little chirp.
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