General gaming

General gaming


Another South Park Game is Headed Exclusively to Xbox 360

Posted: 12 Jul 2011 10:03 PM PDT

South Park Let's Go Tower Defense Play

In addition to the tower defense title released back in 2009, South Park: Let's Go Tower Defense Play, Microsoft has a deal to exclusively publish a second title based on the South Park brand.

This is according to Prithvi Virasinghe, creative director of 345 Games, who recently spoke with Joystiq. 345 Games is the studio established earlier this year to produce games based on various Comedy Central and Spike TV properties. Deadliest Warrior and Ugly Americans were both planned as games to be out this summer at the time, and I wondered if a South Park game might be next. Joystiq inquired about that very subject and learned of the Microsoft deal.

"Right now, South Park is actually in a first-party deal with Microsoft Studios, who published the first game, and they're doing a second game as well," Virasinghe said. "After that, that first-party exclusivity window expires, and we get a shot of taking that back."

1UP's Dinocroc vs. Supergator Blu-ray Giveaway

Posted: 12 Jul 2011 04:33 PM PDT

1UP's Dinocroc vs. Supergator Blu-ray Giveaway
How To Play

Who would win the fight? Master Chief vs. Marcus Fenix. Akuma vs. Scorpion. Kratos vs. Batman.

There are plenty of imaginary battles we could ponder in our heads, but at the end of the day, there's only one epic battle that really matters...

Dinocroc vs. Supergator.

Peggle, Bejeweled Maker PopCap Now a Part of EA

Posted: 12 Jul 2011 01:40 PM PDT

Plants vs Zombies

Update: PopCap has confirmed the news. On its website, it jokingly listed five new projects/changes that are now (not) in the works: "EA is being rebranded to Poptronic Arts; Sim Zuma: The SwampLife Edition; Peggle: Dead Space - Bjorn's Breakfast; Bejeweled Battlefield Blitz; and Plants vs. ZombEAz: NFL Lockout Edition." It also lovingly put together the Plants vs. Zombies inspired image above.

Original Story: PopCap is to be acquired by Electronic Arts, reports the Wall Street Journal. The deal may end up being worth $1.3 billion; EA will initially pay $650 million in cash and $100 million in shares, according to the report.

EA has been trying for some time now to increase its presence in the casual games space, and this is its biggest move yet. It doesn't come as much of a surprise, as a PopCap acquisition was rumored in late June, with EA as the likely buyer.

3DS Gets Nintendo Video in North America Later This Summer

Posted: 12 Jul 2011 01:09 PM PDT

Nintendo Video logo

Nintendo Video, a 3DS app that delivers free content to the handheld, will be made available in Japan and Europe tomorrow, July 13. North America, meanwhile, will have to continue waiting.

Nintendo Video, like the Spot TV service already available in Japan, will routinely offer free 2D and 3D video downloads. Whereas Spot TV offers daily, original content from Fuji TV and Nippon TV, Nintendo Video will deliver content less often, according to Andriasang.

In Europe, the first offering of content will include 3D episodes of a cartoon series called Oscar's Oasis and exclusive, 3D episodes of a program demonstrating various magic tricks. Videos are downloaded automatically through SpotPass when you're in range of a Wi-Fi access point.

Creating a Truly Horrifying Game Experience

Posted: 12 Jul 2011 12:43 PM PDT

Horror games in the video game industry are without a doubt a niche. Though survival horror games like Resident Evil, Dead Space and Left 4 Dead have dominated the scene, true atmospheric games with lingering effects such as Fatal Frame and Clock Tower have all but faded into obscurity. A successful horror game doesn't simply pit you against wave after wave of grotesque horde of monsters. Instead, it leaves a lasting chill down your spine that can still be felt even after the game is turned off, reverting you to a 5 year old self afraid to walk down the dark hall of the house.

We decided to take to the boards to see how the 1UP Community felt about this topic. We asked them what they thought was important in creating a truly horrifying experience out of a game and here is how they responded

XCOM Now an FPS Because Strategy Games Aren't "Contemporary"

Posted: 12 Jul 2011 12:38 PM PDT

XCOM

It's nice to see the XCOM series being revived after more than a decade away, even if Ken Levine and Irrational Games aren't the ones developing the new game, as was once rumored. Series fans were shocked when the new XCOM was revealed as a first-person shooter; the series began in the turn-based strategy genre, and even when it moved in the direction of real-time strategy, it was still unmistakably a strategy series. The reason that's been abandoned with the new game is because strategy games just aren't in like they once were, in the mind of 2K Games.

Christoph Hartmann, president of 2K Games (XCOM's publisher), spoke with MCV about the subject, explaining, "The '90s generation of gamers all love XCOM and we own the IP, so we thought OK, what do we do with it? Every studio we had wanted to do it and each one had its own spin on it. But the problem was that turn-based strategy games were no longer the hottest thing on planet Earth. But this is not just a commercial thing -- strategy games are just not contemporary."

"I use the example of music artists. Look at someone old school like Ray Charles, if he would make music today it would still be Ray Charles but he would probably do it more in the style of Kanye West. Bringing Ray Charles back is all fine and good, but it just needs to move on, although the core essence will still be the same.

1UP's The Mooniacs Giveaway

Posted: 12 Jul 2011 12:05 PM PDT

1UP's The Mooniacs Giveaway
How To Play

Prizes

With bright colorful graphics and accessible gameplay, The Mooniacs is the perfect summertime mobile game.

Get ready to enjoy Simple to understand with addictive challenges and loads of new downloadable content, because we're giving away The Mooniacs universal app codes (works for iPhone & iPad) all day long!

Here's how to win:

Windows 8 Code Points to Xbox 360 Game Support?

Posted: 12 Jul 2011 11:10 AM PDT

Halo PC CD error

Yesterday Microsoft merged GamesForWindows.com with Xbox.com, something that didn't really come across as a move proving the company takes PC gaming as seriously as it claims it does. Windows 8 is said to feature gaming as a "key component for the whole" operating system, and one way it's rumored to do that is by allowing gamers to play Xbox 360 games on PC.

Reports of this first emerged in May and resurfaced again just recently. It wouldn't be something you're able to do for free -- users would reportedly need to pay for an Xbox Live-style service first. With that subscription active, you'd simply pop an Xbox 360 game disc in and start playing.

Unlikely as it may seem, WinRumors reports that Windows 8's kernel code contains references to things such as "XBOX_360_SYSTEM_CRASH" AND "XBOX_360_SYSTEM_CRASH_RESERVED," neither of which is something you'd expect to see.

BioShock Developer Irrational Has No Plans for a Wii U Game

Posted: 12 Jul 2011 10:20 AM PDT

BioShock Infinite

We know Irrational Games is at work on both BioShock Infinite and an all-new, "core" BioShock game for Vita. Beyond that, you could be forgiven for believing Ken Levine and company are also developing something for Wii U. After all, the third-party sizzle reel Nintendo showed at E3 (which was later revealed to be showcasing games running on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, not Wii U) was prefaced by a variety of prominent industry members talking about Wii U and its controller.

Among them was Irrational's Ken Levine, who said in the video, "A full console experience that's getting streamed... my wife'll be asleep and I put in headphones and play a full hardcore console gaming experience in bed on this smaller screen -- that's a really revolutionary thing for me as a gamer." After several Wii U games were rattled off, like Batman: Arkham City, Tekken, Assassin's Creed, and Ghost Recon: Online, another clip of Levine was played in which he said, "It seems like Nintendo has sort of heard the voices of the hardcore gamer."

He never explicitly talks about developing software for Wii U, and there's a good reason for that. Levine has clarified that Irrational isn't working on any games for Wii U right now.

Burnout Crash is Why Paradise Was Crash-less

Posted: 12 Jul 2011 08:59 AM PDT

Burnout Crash

Burnout Paradise was a fine game, yet it lacked one element that series fans really missed: Crash mode. That's what made ratings board listings for something called Burnout Crash especially exciting, as it had been something fans were deprived of on consoles since the previous title, Burnout Revenge. As it turns out, the omission of Crash mode was a deliberate move and Criterion always intended to develop a Crash-specific game at some point.

"If you played Burnout Paradise, everybody asked me at the time why we didn't put Crash mode in," said Alex Ward, Criterion's creative director, according to Eurogamer. "This was why. It was always our intention."

Paradise replaced Crash mode with Showtime, a mode where players had to bounce their vehicle down the street and off of other cars to earn points. There was nothing outright wrong with it, it just wasn't as much fun as Crash mode, which had players driving their cars into a busy intersection in an effort to create the most devastating and costly crash possible.

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