31 December 2006
by Ferry

The favorite games of 2006

2006 was a great year for gaming and it closed off with a bang when the PS3 and Wii were released. Since we mostly agreed with all the end-of-the-year nominations for game of the year per platform going around; Let’s see what happens when we line up (in alphabetical order) the best game and top ten lists across the internet. What are your favorites & suggestions?

PC: Company of Heroes, Dreamfall, Guild Wars Factions, Half-Life 2: Episode 1, Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy, Medieval 2: Total War, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Sam & Max Episodes.
Mobile phone: FIFA 07 Mobile, Mafia Wars Yakuza, Project Gotham Racing, Sonic The Hedgehog, Splinter Cell Double Agent, Stranded, Super KO Boxing, Tornado Mania.
PS2: Bully, Burnout Revenge, Call of Duty 3, Final Fantasy XII, Guitar Hero II, Kingdom Hearts II, Madden NFL 07, Okami, Winning Eleven 9.
PS3: Resistance: Fall of Man, NHL 2K7, Ridge Racer 7, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 07.
PS3 Download Store: Gran Turismo HD, Lemmings.
PSP: Daxter, GTA: Vice City Stories, Killzone: Liberation, LocoRoco, Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops, Syphon Filter: Dark Mirror, Tekken: Dark Resurrection.
Xbox: Black, FIFA Soccer 07, Hitman: Blood Money, Madden NFL 07, Mortal Kombat Armageddon, Scarface, Splinter Cell Double Agent, Tomb Raider: Legend.
Xbox 360: Burnout Revenge, Dead Rising, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Fight Night Round 3, Gears of War, Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter, Rainbow Six Vegas, Splinter Cell Double Agent, Viva Pinata.
Xbox Live Arcade: Assault Heroes, Astropop, Cloning Clyde, DOOM, Small Arms, Street Fighter II’ Hyper Fighting, UNO, Zuma Deluxe.
GameCube: BatenKaitos: Origins, Chibbi Robo, Harvest Moon: Magical Melody, Lego Star Wars II: the Original Trilogy, Madden NFL 07, Naruto: Clash of Ninja 2, Odama, Spyro: A New Beginning, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess.
Wii: Elebits, Madden NFL 07, Rayman: Raving Rabbids, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Trauma Center: Second Opinion, Wii Sports.
Wii Virtual Console: Bomberman ‘93, Bonk’s Adventure, Gunstar Heroes, SimCity, Sonic The Hedgehog, Street Fighter II: The World Warrior, Super Castlevania IV, Super Mario 64, Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda.
GameBoy Advance: Final Fantasy V Advance, Drill Dozer, Pokemon Mystery Dungeon, Summon Night: Swordcraft Story.
DS: Brain Age, Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin, Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime, Elite Beat Agents, Final Fantasy III, Metroid Prime: Hunters, New Super Mario Bros., Star Fox Command, Tetris DS, Yoshi’s Island DS.

30 December 2006
by Ferry

First video of Worms on Xbox 360’s Live Arcade

Developer Team 17 confirmed last month that the funny multiplayer classic Worms will be coming to Xbox Live Arcade in all it’s 2D glory. Now that it’s being prepared for release in early 2007, the first details are starting to leak:

* Price is said to be 800 Microsoft Points (that’s $10 / €9.60 / £6.80).
* Release date will a few weeks from now, so in January 2007.
* As Microsoft requires, the game will be in HD and 720p.
* Of course it’s playable over Xbox Live, and even better is that the friends beside you complement your friends online in multiplayer matches.
* Play online with headsets and full voice communication.
* Team 17 will release a good mix of content later on, some will be free and some will be chargeable, but you won’t need it to continue playing the game.

I am SO there! Check out the first video of “Worms HD”:
Watch it in fullscreen HD at Gametrailers.

30 December 2006
by Ferry

Crackdown includes Halo 3 beta invitation

There’s an ad for Crackdown in this months Gamepro and in the lower right hand corner it says that if you buy Crackdown you get a free invite to the Halo 3 beta that’s coming early in 2007. According to CAG forumer Trakan the small text below that Halo 3 multiplayer beta quote says it’s only included in specially marked boxes and for a limited time only. So get ready to run to stores when Crackdown is released exclusively on Xbox 360 on February 20th, 2007.

29 December 2006
by Ferry

Harker “the Vampire Slayer” coming to next-gen consoles in fall 2008

From the makers of the popular 2002 Xbox game Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Players this time take on the role of Jonathan Harker, who is on a personal mission to destroy all vampires after his beloved Mina falls prey to Dracula. Watch how he takes revenge in the fall of 2008 in the first trailer.

Gameplay involves a combination of hunting these ferocious killers through exploration, tracking, and gory killing. Developer The Collective has announced the action adventure game for next-gen consoles, so Xbox 360 & PS3.

29 December 2006
by Ferry

Armored Core 4 giving online mech battles on PS3 and Xbox 360

In Armored Core 4 developer From Software reinvigorates the mech action series with all-new storyline, environments, and online capability.

The 10th anniversary of the franchise will be punctuated with a leap to PS3 and Xbox 360 in March 2007 that will ensure the highest quality in both gameplay and visual performance.


Key features are: Article continues »

29 December 2006
by Ferry

Madden 07 sells over 5 million times. No one surprised

Electronic Arts announced that Madden NFL 07 sold over five million copies. That’s no surprise since popular Madden NFL 07 EA Sports game is available for: PS2, PS3, PSP, Xbox, Xbox 360, GameCube, Wii, Nintendo DS, Game Boy Advance and PC.

Since its launch in August, Madden NFL 07 has had a record-breaking season, with first week retail sales of more than two million copies. EA believes, based on its own internal data as well as industry sources, that across all game platforms, Madden NFL 07 will finish as North America’s most popular game of 2006.

In November, Madden NFL 07 launched on the PS3 and Nintendo Wii. Innovative use of the Wii Remote created a whole new experience and made Madden NFL 07 one of the most popular games on the Wii. Madden NFL 07 is also one of the top titles on the Xbox 360. In the first week on that system, players unlocked more than 600,000 achievements and recorded more than two million hours of online game play on Xbox Live.
Article continues »

29 December 2006
by Ferry

First video of PC FPS The Crossing, featuring online crossplayer aka counter-op

First video of PC FPS The Crossing, featuring online crossplayer aka counter-op

The Crossing is an upcoming PC game developed by Arkane Studios with Valve’s assistance. First-Person Shooter game fuses single- and multi-player gameplay. It takes places in a science-fiction setting with human and sub-human/alien teams competing. Civilian bystanders have been seen in urban environments in released media.

Wikipedia believe that The Crossing is a co-op game with an online twist. The “Crossplayer” (NOT Crossplay) gameplay will likely mean one or several people trying to complete the storyline, and other people joining in and replacing the AI as the enemies. This sounds an awful lot like the N64 FPS Perfect Dark, which had a counter-op mode where one player plays the missions as Joanna while the other takes over the role of an enemy and attempts to stop her.

Recently the folks at Gamevideos discussed The Crossing with “Games for Windows” PC magazine editor Shawn Elliott. Tune in here:
If you only want to watch the half-minute trailer, see below.
Article continues »

29 December 2006
by Ferry

World of Warcraft Tuesday maintenance maybe gone, 105,000 accounts surely gone

There was no scheduled downtime on last Tuesday for World of Warcraft. Usually the MMORPG’s servers would be down for a period of about five hours each Tuesday. 1UP reports on Blizzard employee Blue Drysc’s quote:

“In the upcoming weeks, we will be testing the effect of a live maintenance, where regular maintenance tasks are run during off-peak with realms live. - We will perform all necessary maintenance tasks while the realms are live. We are anticipating the possibility that we may need to perform rolling restarts off-peak if we find that a realm restart is necessary; however the downtime for each realm would be less than 10 minutes if it was required.”

In other news WOW reports that in an effort to combat cheating in World of Warcraft “more than 105,000 accounts were closed and over 12 million gold was removed from the game economies in Europe, Korea, and the US in the month of November. The closed accounts were associated with activities that violate World of Warcraft’s Terms of Use, such as using third-party programs that allow cheating, and farming gold and items. These types of activities can severely impact the economy of a realm and the overall game enjoyment for all players.”

29 December 2006
by Ferry

Nintendo of Japan releasing 12 new Wii Virtual Console games like Mario Kart 64, Kid Icarus, Zelda II and R-Type II

Nintendo of Japan announced 12 new Virtual Console titles they plan to release to Japanese gamers in January 2007. This brings the total number of games they can download onto their Wii in that region to a big 62. Hopefully it’s a sign that most of these games from Sega, Hudson & Nintendo will be released worldwide in the following months.

Kotaku translated the list of announced games:

- Ikki (NES)
- Kid Icarus (NES)
- Ice Climber (NES)
- Zelda II: The Adventure of Link (NES)
- Fire Emblem: Seisen no Keifu (SNES)
- Mario Kart 64 (N64)
- Bonanza Bros. (Genesis)
- Gain Ground (Genesis)
- Alien Crush (TurboGrafx-16)
- Moto Roader (TurboGrafx-16)
- R-Type II (TurboGrafx-16) - Oddly, R-Type 3 is out now
- Soldier Blade (TurboGrafx-16)

29 December 2006
by Ferry

Super Mario Bros. Special has more Lost Levels on NEC PC-8801

You have to love mysteries like these! Who knew there was a genuine second Super Mario Bros. “Lost Levels” game? Super Mario Brothers Special, was an 80’s licensed pseudo-sequel to Super Mario Bros. It ran on the obscure Japanese NEC PC-8801 computer, and was created in 1986 by veteran developers Hudson Soft and released only for a limited time. WOS has it for download or you can watch Destructoid’s video of it here:
So while it looks and sounds very much like the arcade/NES original, SMB Special has three major differences:

1. It contains a complete new set of levels, different from both the first game and the Japan-only “Super Mario Bros 2″ which later appeared on the SNES Mario Allstars compilation renamed as the “Lost Levels”.
2. Rather than having a side-scrolling display in the manner of the other Mario games, SMB Special features a flip-screen format which changes the gameplay significantly. For example, a kicked Koopa shell will now rebound off the edge of the screen and come back at you whether there’s an obstacle there or not. Article continues »