Editor/Founder:
Jon Christensen
Writers:
Derek Matias
Weston Green
Nick Collins
Kyra Sawyers
I would — along with everyone else at /empire – like to wish you a Happy New Year and hope whatever you choose as your new year’s resolution will come true. Mine will actually be to play more games. Hopefully 2010 will be more action packed than 2009 — and luckily for all of us, so far it sounds like it just might be.
Picture source: Garlar
Tonight is one of the biggest nights in the videogame industry because Spike TV is broadcasting the seventh annual Video Game Awards. While it pales in comparison to such conventions as the Electronic Entertainment Expo; it does give us a glimpse into what games we should expect in 2010 — thanks to the world premier trailers, announcements and surprises during the show. Not only that, it will honor the very best of what 2009 had to offer, by handing out select VMA awards to the outstanding titles of this past year.
After the jump, we will live blog the award ceremony. If all you want to see is the latest trailer, just refresh our homepage, and it will be below this live blog — as we are making this a sticky post until the show ends. (more…)
(Click to enlarge)
When Capcom announced that it would be releasing the ninth installment of Mega Man, they also revealed that it would look like a retro NES title — which is how the blue-bomber first made his mark in the videogame industry. The news was not only an instant success for the publisher, but financially it was a fantastic idea. On the first day alone, Mega Man 9 sold 60,000 copies, reportedly. Which was basically $600,000 in Capcom’s pocket, considering the cost of making the title and not having to box or ship it into stores, and remember it cost $10 a pop.
Naturally, Capcom wants to keep up the momentum that Mega Man 9 had, and according to Nintendo Power, Mega Man 10 will once again return to its roots and keep the 80’s theme. The publication revealed that it will also include the crazy-named bosses like Sheep Man, along with the playable character Proto Man. The magazine also reported that a third character will be playable, however, that has yet to be unveiled by Capcom.
Nintendo Power also had an image that confirms an ‘Easy Mode,’ which should help some of these new gamers, who are just not talented enough to play through the highly difficult Mega Man games.
Pedro Martinez, the pitcher for the Philadelphia Phillies, is set to take the mound for game six of the World Series against the New York Yankees, tomorrow night. The three-time Cy Young Award winner, was the former ace of the Boston Red Sox for seven seasons. Martinez knows from personal experience the heated rivalry between the Red Sox and Yankees, so naturally a reporter decided to ask him if Red Sox fans were pulling for his new team in the Series.
“I know they don’t like the Yankees to win, not even in Nintendo games.”
As a die hard Red Sox fan who grew up near Boston, I have to agree. There have been times when I would play some of my Yankee fans in a baseball videogame. Let me tell ya, it’s pretty heart breaking when I when I loose. Of course… that doesn’t happen much.
Go Phils!
Source: Boston.com
Back in May, we wrote a quick story about a videogame adaption of Spike Jonze film Where the Wild Things Are, and how it will ship when the Movie arrives in theaters. It was revealed that Amaze Entertainment, who is known to develop movie-based games, is working on the game. Judging by their past videogames, I don’t have high hopes for the title.
Today, WB Games has released the first trailer of the game, which actually shows off some nice looking visuals. Sadly, by just watching the trailer, its hard to grasp what kind of game its going to be. But I’m thinking it might just be a generic platformer with some action elements.
No matter how much I loved the book as a child and how excited I am to see Jonze’s vision of the story — I just can’t believe the game is going to be any good… Even with the good visuals. And my non-excitement is simply based off the developers business of making a quick buck.
Blizzard and Legendary Pictures have confirmed that the Spider-Man trilogy director Sam Raimi, has signed on to direct a film based off the popular Warcraft videogame series. Raimi, who also created the Evil Dead franchise, is expected by both companies to use his talent of developing a already fictitious universe and bringing it to life in a believable way onto film.
“At its core, Warcraft is a fantastic, action-packed story,” said the legendary director Raimi. “I am thrilled to work with such a dynamite production team to bring this project to the big screen.”
The production team behind the soon to be big budget film is none other than Charles Roven’s talents. His team was last seen with the ultra-popular and great all-around movie ‘The Dark Knight,’ which was directed by Christopher Nolan.
According to reports, Raimi will first direct and finish the forth installment of ‘Spider-Man,’ which should start filming early next year. From there, Raimi is expected to start and work on the Warcraft film.
This is overall great news for videogame fans like myself, who hope to see good adaptations of their beloved games onto the silver-screen. Let’s be honest with each other, there has yet to be a truly good videogame-movie (Mortal Kombat does not count as a good movie). However, there seems to be a growing trend lately of movie studios finally taking a videogame and trying to make it into a decent film. My prediction is the Prince of Persia movie is going to be the first real good one, but Raimi signing on to direct Warcraft is the first ‘big name’ director to head a videogame film.
Youtube user gamildesign filmed this stop-motion clip which features Donkey Kong kidnapping the Princess and Mario must save her. Obviously it is a homage to the classic arcade game Donkey Kong, but the background is a real-world building, while the characters look like pixel-art running around.
What is even cooler are the pixelated characters — they are made from ‘Post-it‘ sticky pads, which gives them a fantastic 8-bit look. Check out the video up top.
via: geekologie
We here at /gamer would like to wish everyone in America a happy 4th of July and hope everyone had a safe and eventful holiday.
If you don’t live in the States, it’s still July 4th — so I guess you can still celebrate it. Right?
(Photo courtesy from daman-777)
Democratic Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, is doing everything he can to lure gaming publishers and/or studios to move from their current locations to the Bay State. His excitement of the possible economic boom because of the videogame industry, is starting to ooze out of him. During a town hall meeting in Arlington, the Governor talked a little bit about Guitar Hero.
“This is not your father’s [Route] 128. You know that [video game] ‘Guitar Hero’? That was invented here. It was built here.”
Gov. Patrick was speaking about Harmonix who developed the first two Guitar Heros, and they are now the creators of the Rock Band series. We should note that Rt. 128 is known as a technology hub of Massachusetts. While Rt. 128 definitely has its companies along the highway like; Raytheon, Sun Microsystems and Raytheon, Harmonix is nowhere near the route.
Harmonix is located in Cambridge, which is right next to the city of Boston and miles away from Rt. 128.
via: wickedlocal
Up until the most recent one, there have been a ton of awful videogames based off the Ghostbusters franchise. The new game is overall getting good reviews, however, the same can’t be said about most of its predecessors. One of these games was for the Nintendo Entertainment System. Sure, when I was little I enjoyed it, but lets face it — if you grew up in the 80s, most games sucked; even the ones we liked.
The team behind this new version, Terminal Reality, has paid homaged to the NES Ghostbusters. If you play the game and head upstairs in the firehouse and check out the computer-monitor display, you’ll notice an easter egg. It has a black screen with the words and it reads: “Conglaturation !!! You have completed a great game. And Prooved the Justice of our Culture. Now go and Rest Heroes !“ Yes, that is exactly how it reads!
If you have beaten Ghostbusters on the NES, this would have been the last screen you would have seen after the game ended abruptly. In fact, this was ridiculed so much, the Angry Video Game Nerd devoted a few minutes on this exact screen.
You really have to give kudos to Terminal Reality for putting this hidden message in the game, it certainly made me chuckle.
Source: Kotaku
Lets all face it, many Wii haters dislike the system because of its continue marketing towards the casual gamer. For the most part, it seems as though Nintendo has completely separated itself from the hardcore demographic. And E3 2008 certainly didn’t help with that perception, although 2009’s showing was a tad better.
With that said, Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime, spoke about the bad taste some gamers have received as of late with the Wii. According to him, the hardcore gamer will be switching over to the Wii this year, and when that happens — they will buy into games like Wii Fit Plus.
“We think we [can] win over the Halo audience with something like The Conduit, a multi-player, online, shooting experience, or Dead Space Extraction. And you know what? Once those people buy into Wii, they’ll go buy Mario Kart or Wii Fit Plus.”
First, I want to make sure all of you understand that I do not hate the Wii. But if Nintendo truly believes that ‘The Conduit‘ and/or Dead Space Extraction is going to win over the Halo audience, they’re going to be disappointed. I’m impressed with what High Voltage has done with The Conduit considering the limitations of the Wii’s hardware, but in order for the ‘Halo’ audience to switch games, The Conduit would have to be a superior game. And I’m sorry to say, I don’t see that happening.
While Dead Space Extraction looks like a decent ‘rail-shooter,’ in the end that’s all it is — a rail-shooter. I don’t expect people who play Halo to an extreme level, switching their beloved first-person shooter so they can play Dead Space Extraction, and have a limited gameplay experience.
And oh, there is no way in hell that these same people (as a whole) would go out and purchase Wii Fit Plus. Mario Kart maybe, but definitely not Wii Fit.
Come on Reggie, couldn’t you have answered the question with a more constructed B.S. reply?
Guess what, we don’t have to wait until Tuesday to see the first images of the heavily rumored PSP GO! thanks to the PlayStation Network newsletter Qore, pictures of newly designed handheld have been leaked onto the internet.
Most of the gossip surrounding the features of the unit did become true. The PSP GO! will include a screen that will slide upward and feature the same button layout, also there will be no UMD slot-drive and the only way people can play games is to download them using the PSN Store. The only thing missing from the rumors is the touch screen interface.
A video was also leaked online, which we embedded after the jump, that confirmed three unannounced PSP entries; Metal Gear Solid, Jak and Gran Turismo. However, no images or video has been revealed for the games themselves.
While the unit certainly looks snazzier than its predecessors, I’m not terribly impressed with the new look. It looks to much like the artist rendition that has been floating around the net for sometime, which is a little unoriginal in my book.
Although I have one bigger complaint already, why not include two freaking analog sticks, and why is the only one it includes, still small!? I just think this is lazy development on their part. I would have loved to play some great first-person shooters on the handheld, but without two analogs, I don’t see that happening.
It should be noted that Sony does not intend to make the PSP GO! a replacement to their existing models, it is for now — an upgrade.
Even though Sony has continually said that the PSP GO! was not in development, the truth has finally come out. And I wonder; how much longer Sony will keep whomever leaked the video employed?
After the jump, check out more images and the video for the PSP GO!
With E3 less then a week away, companies that will be attending the show are starting to release their line-up’s for the show. These lists will not show any of the secret games so don’t act surprised when you read them.
ARMY OF TWO: THE 40th DAY (PS3, PSP, Xbox 360)
Battlefield 1943 (PC, PS3, Xbox 360)
Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (PC, PS3, Xbox 360)
Brütal Legend (PS3, Xbox 360)
Dante’s Inferno (PS3, PSP, Xbox 360)
Dead Space Extraction (Wii)
Dragon Age: Origins (PC, PS3, Xbox 360)
EA SPORTS Active (Wii)
EA SPORTS Grand Slam Tennis (Wii)
FIFA 10 (DS, Mobile, PC, PS3, PSP, Wii, Xbox 360)
Fight Night Round 4 (PS3, Xbox 360)
G.I. JOE The Rise of Cobra (DS, Mobile, PC, PS3, PSP, Wii, Xbox 360)
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (DS, Mobile, PC, PS3, PSP, Wii, Xbox 360)
LITTLEST PET SHOP ONLINE (Web-based)
Madden NFL 10 (PS3, PSP, Wii, Xbox 360)
Mass Effect 2 (PC, Xbox 360)
MySims Agents (DS, Wii)
NCAA® Football 10 (PS3, PSP, Wii, Xbox 360)
NHL 10 (PS3, Xbox 360)
Need for Speed NITRO (DS, Wii)
Need for Speed SHIFT (PS3, PSP, Xbox 360)
The Saboteur (PC, PS3, Xbox 360)
Spore Hero (Wii)
Spore Hero Arena (DS)
The Sims 3 (iPhone, Mac, Mobile, PC)
Source: AltPlusF4.com
Proof: World of Warcraft would be 100 percent more adorable if it included Sackboy. Or would this be called a level 80 Blood SACKelf Warlock? You know what? I honestly don’t care…
Anyway, it’s damn cute, right?
The credit goes to maggie wang and her co-worker. Now, if only I could make something as cool as this, then my life would be complete.
