Compete at the highest level of street racing with Need for Speed: ProStreet. It’s no longer good enough to simply rule your local neighbourhood you need to dominate on a global stage. Build the ultimate battle machine, take it to multi-disciplinary showdowns and pit your skills and reputation against the world’s best street racers. This is your chance to prove that you have what it takes to be crowned the next street king.
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What are the best-selling games in America, Japan, and Europe (UK) this week? Thanks to Amazon online sales data here are the games that are the most popular now.

Nintendo Wii
North America: 1. Super Mario Galaxy (Nintendo), 2. Wii Play (Nintendo), 3. Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games (Sega), 4. Dance Dance Revolution: Hottest Party (Konami), 5. Game Party (Midway).

Japan: 1. Super Mario Galaxy (Nintendo), 2. Wii Sports (Nintendo), 3. Mario & Sonic at Bejing Olympics (Sega), 4. Hajimete no Wii (Nintendo), 5. Swing Golf Pangya 2nd Shot! (Tecmo).

Europe: 1. Big Brain Academy for Wii (Nintendo), 2. Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games (Sega), 3. Carnival Funfair Games (2K Games), 4. Mario Party 8 (Nintendo), 5. FIFA 08 (EA Sports).

Xbox 360
North America: 1. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (Activision), 2. Assassin’s Creed (Ubisoft), 3. Halo 3 (Microsoft), 4. Halo 3: Legendary Edition (Microsoft), 5. Mass Effect (Microsoft).

Japan: 1. Assassin’s Creed (Ubisoft), 2. Dead Rising / Gears of War — Xbox 360 Platinum Double Pack (Capcom / Microsoft), 3. The Idol M@ster — Xbox 360 Platinum Collection (Namco), 4. Guilty Gear 2: Overture (Arc System Works), 5. Ace Combat 6: Kaihou e no Senka (Namco).

Europe: 1. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (Activision), 2. Halo 3 (Microsoft), 3. Assassin’s Creed (Ubisoft), 4. Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 (Konami), 5. Mass Effect (Microsoft).

PlayStation 3
North America: 1. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (Activision), 2. Assassin’s Creed (Ubisoft), 3. Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune (SCEA), 4. Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction (SCEA), 5. Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock Bundle (Activision).

Japan: 1. World Soccer Winning Eleven 2008 (Konami), 2. Shin Sangoku Musou 5 (Koei), 3. Ratchet & Clank Future (SCEI), 4. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (Spike), 5. Tony Hawk’s Project 8 (Spike).

Europe: 1. Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 (Konami), 2. Ratchet & Clank: Tools of Destruction (SCEE), 3. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (Activision), 4. Assassin’s Creed (Ubisoft), 5. FIFA 08 (EA Sports).

PlayStation 2 Read more…

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Bleach: Shattered Blade for the Wii enables players to wield the Wii Remote and Nunchuk as their weapons: slashing, jabbing, and lunging in furious battles like a real Soul Reaper. Bleach: Shattered Blade offers an exclusive storyline created specifically for the Wii with 32 characters to choose from. Once a new character is unlocked, players can replay the story episodes utilising the characters special moves and weapons adding a whole new perspective to the storyline.

On the Wii, players will be able to inflict enormous damage on opponents with powerful weapons and super power attacks taken straight from the TV series. Characters can summon supernatural allies such as a giant serpent, a samurai titan, or a tidal wave, for battle support. Players can also square-off against their friends in high-speed multiplayer combat in 3D arenas and environments based on settings from the series.

Can Bleach’s blade be reforged on the Wii? Find out in this Bleach: Shattered Blade video review:

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Some more new features have been added to the fall Xbox 360 firmware update on December 4th.

These new additions will follow the previously announced “Family Timer” (which limits the amount of playtime the 360 can have per week or even per day, for parents who want absolute control of what their kid plays), Xbox Originals (Original Xbox games that you can download to your 360 via the Marketplace for $15 each) and a new “Friends of Friends” feature that lets you see your Friends’ Friends list. You’ll also be able to set your name, location and a brief bio as part of a social networking-style addition to the service.

And now the update will also include the Xbox Live Arcade Hits program, which will give us a discount for older Xbox Live Arcade downloadable titles. The first group of Arcade Hits will be: Bankshot Billiards 2 and Lumines Live!, both of which will cost only $10 (1200 Microsoft Points) now down from $15. And Marble Blast Ultra, Zuma Deluxe and Small Arms, which will cost $5 ($400) down from $10.

A new “Inside Xbox” news ticker will appear just below your gamercard on the Xbox Live blade. And it will show any update to the service, including new games added that week. There will also be a number of smaller updates, although none the less significant. You can now view previews in full-screen, and there is support for DivX and Xvid video files. People who were minors when they bought the system but are now adults will now be treated as such, and see their chat and IM features enabled. And you’ll also have the ability to change your Windows Live ID (passport) that’s associated with your Xbox Live account. — Via Joystiq

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In the below video interview with two developers from Insomniac Games talk about creating Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction. In the interview they are asked about things they had to cut from the game, which gives some interesting hints at Ratchet & Clank Future 2 about 2:30 minutes in.

To quote the answer: “There were certain things in the story, characters that I wanted to address more in this part of the story arch that we’re not going to address until a later part of the story arch. So I can’t go into too much of who they were. … For instance the Max Apogee [the Lombax Anthropologist] story arch is something that we were not going into too deep, but we hint at it. And more of the background with the Lombaxes and what happened to them. It’s things we hint at. The Zonie and the history of the Zonian and who they are. There’s a lot of background to the world. If you interact with a lot of the NPC characters, you’ll find out a lot of hints about it.”

Watch what the Ratchet & Clank Future team have to say about their PS3-exclusive platformer game.

Nice to know they will continue the series.

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Have you always been curious how much noise your console is really making, or which of the three consoles is the loudest or quietest? A Finnish magazine has made a comparison of the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Wii consoles, and showed how loud the systems are depending on what they are doing.

Overview ordered from quiet to loud decibels by system:

Wii:
32,3dB — Playing games
22,9dB — Doing nothing

PlayStation 3:
28,7dB — Blu-Ray-movie
35,8dB — DVD-movie
35,8dB — Playing games
23,5dB — Doing nothing

Xbox 360:
38,1dB — HD-DVD -movie
35,7dB — DVD-movie
44dB — Playing games
36,0dB — Doing nothing

Thanks to Suomi for writing down the numbers.

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A while back Disney announced that over the next five years they’d be investing $350 million in video games (consoles and handhelds).

Now Walt Disney chief Bob Iger has said that they intend to video game business and plans to do it by stealing a page from its music strategy. By this he means the way they use the Disney Channel to launch hit soundtracks like those from High School Musical and Hannah Montana. So not only creating original titles out of its dedicated gaming division, but also creating games that spin off from popular movies and TV series.

To quote: “We intend to use [a multi-platform approach] to do exactly what we did in the music business to our video games business, but on a much larger scale. It’s another promising creative engine for Disney.”

At the start of this month Disney said it shipped 2 million units of High School Musical: Sing It!, a karaoke game inspired by the popular Disney Channel original movies. On the way next year are video games from cash cows like Hannah Montana, as well as from movie franchises including The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian and the sequel to The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, which figure to be heavily cross-promoted across Disney properties. The last year they also created a number of online games based on hit movies like Pirates of the Caribbean.

Mr. Iger added: “We are a publishing company on the outside of the video games business. But where they [other companies] may not have a cable channel, or a movie company, or even a record business, or a radio business, or online - we have all of those. We intend to use them fully.” — Via NYpost

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Today Nintendo of Europe (and Australia) added new classic games to the popular Wii Shop Channel. The games went live at midnight CET. Wii owners with a high-speed Internet connection can redeem Wii Points to download the games. Wii Points can be purchased in the Wii Shop Channel or at stores like Amazon UK (Card).

PAL regions this week are the first to get both Baseball Stars 2 on NEOGEO and The Dynastic Hero on TurboGrafx-CD. We’ve included videos of the games for nostalgia’s sake or so you can see if it’s for you.

This week’s new games are:

Baseball Stars 2 (priced 900 Wii Points = €9 / £9.75 / AU$13.50) is a 2-player baseball arcade game released by SNK in 1992.

You can select from one of 18 teams across two leagues - Exciting League (beginner) & Fighting League (expert).

The Dynastic Hero (priced 800 Wii Points = €8 / £6 / AU$12) is a platform-action RPG that’s identical to the Megadrive/Genesis game Wonderboy in Monsterworld…

Except that it features a new intro, different characters, and has an entirely different CD audio soundtrack.

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Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE) announced what new PlayStation Network downloadable games, expansions, demos and videos were released for PlayStation 3 today.

American Games (Demos):
* PAIN - $9.99
* TimeShift multiplayer demo

American Games (Content):
* The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion - Shivering Isles Expansion - $29.99
* MotorStorm - Mohawk Roadhog Bike and Lunar-Tec Buffalo BigRig, new song - $1.99
* Resistance: Fall of Man - Map Pack 2 (Bracknell & Axbridge) - $4.99
* Resistance: Fall of Man - Map Pack 1 AND 2 - $7.99
* Guitar Hero III: Song Packs: Boss Battles Pack, includes The Charlie Daniels Band - Devil Went Down to Georgia, Slash - Original Composition by Slash, Tom Morello - Original Composition by Tom Morello
* Rock Band: David Bowie Song Pack 1 - $5.49
* Rock Band: Individual Songs (David Bowie: Moonage Daydream, Heroes, Queen Bitch) - $1.99 each

American Trailers:
* Ratchet & Clank Future: TOD - “Behind The Scenes - Weapons”
* TimeShift - Video 2

European Games (Content):
* TimeShift demo
* Destruction Derby (PS1 game for PS3 & PSP) - €4.99 / £3.49
* Kula World (PS1 game for PS3 & PSP) - €4.99 / £3.49

European Games (Content):
* MotorStorm - Crazy Samurai & Quick Foot liveries - €2.99 / £1.99
* Resistance: Fall of Man - Map Pack 2 (Bracknell & Axbridge)- €3.99 / £2.99
* Sonic The Hedgehog (Very Hard Sonic Mission, Very Hard Shadow Mission, Very Hard Silver Mission, Boss Attack Shadow, Boss Attack Silver, Team Attack Amigo) - €2.99 / £1.99 each

European Trailers:
* Assassins’s Creed - “Altair was here”
* Blazing Angels 2 - “Racing trailer”
* PAIN
* Smackdown vs RAW 2008
* Uncharted - “Making the game”

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Devil May Cry 4 is one of the most anticipated early 2008 action games, and the demo may be hitting soon.

The demo will clock in at 10 minutes and be a mish-mash of portions from the overall DMC4 story, including cut-up sections from Fortuna City and a piece from the ever-popular icy level that you can see in many of the screenshots from the game.

A boss character called Berial will also make an appearance in the demo.

Speculation had been running on the net though that the DMC4 demo would only be coming to the Xbox 360 marketplace in December, but Capcom has released a statement saying that is not the case. So we can expect it to hit for both 360 and PS3 (the Playstation Network) and according to the statement, we’ll have some news on the upcoming demo soon. — Via CVG

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