Today is a red letter day for gaming. For the first time in gaming history (Well, gaming history that I can recall. Give me a break; I’m writing this while I’m at work.) a title’s release date has been pushed forward. EA announced today that their upcoming survival horror game Dead Spacewill be arriving in the states on Oct 21, a full 10 days before its original Halloween release date. European consoles will get the game on Oct 24. Unfortunately, European PC gamers are getting the short end of the stick with the original Halloween release date.
While Halloween is a more fitting time for a spooky survival-horror game, I’ll gladly take a game ahead of time.
Hit the jump for the full press release. Continued…
EA and Pandemic studios must really want to the word about Mercenaries 2: World in Flames out there. They have been promoting the hell out of it; with today taking the mother load. Starting at 6:00 AM PST, EA will take over the Mobil at 8489 Beverly Blvd in Los Angeles. What can you expect from the EA take-over? First off all the attendants will be dressed up as mercenaries. There will be various promotional material all around the gas station. Lastly, they will be giving away free gas. That is right folks, FREE GAS.
I can’t even imagine how much this is going to cost EA. Living in Ohio, I’m used to paying around $3.70 for a gallon. In LA I have a feeling its a whole lot more. It is going to be interesting to see if this promotion affects Mercenaries 2 sales. I really do hope that EA makes a profit off of Mercenaries 2 so that they can have more promotions like this in the future.
Mercenaries 2: World in Flameshits stores this Sunday, Aug 31. It is coming out on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 2 and PC.
Read: Hey, LA, Mercs 2 Will Buy You (Real) Gas Today.
The folks over at Harmonix must be making some bank from all the DLC they release for Rock Band. Why else would they announce six new albums to arrive in the coming months after Rock Band 2 launches. The six upcoming albums are:
- Foo Fighters - “The Colour and the Shape”
- Red Hot Chili Peppers - “Blood Sugar Sex Magik”
- Jane’s Addiction - “Nothing’s Shocking”
- Megadeth - “Peace Sells… But Who’s Buying”
- Stevie Ray Vaughn - “Texas Flood”
Lastly there will be a No Doubt best-of album, pieced together with Rock Band 2 in mind. There has been no word as to what order the albums will be released in or how much they will cost.
For some reason, I have a feeling that EA and Harmonix are going to do very well this year if the keep releasing DLC like this.
Read: New Full Albums Announced For Rock Band 2.
If you guys are like me, you are probably tired of squandering your lunch break by rushing out to your local games stores to pick up a new game on release day. Well Amazon.com has you covered. Today Amazon announced that this holiday season, they will be starting a “Release-Date Delivery” service for games.
What does the “Release-Date Delivery” service entail? For a $5.98 shipping cost, Amazon will make sure that your game will arrive on your doorstep the day it gets put on shelves. A pretty neat service, if you ask me. Now if only they would implement a way to deliver games at midnight so I wouldn’t have to deal with standing outside advertising the fact that I am a nerd.
Read: Buy A Game On Amazon, Get In Release Day.
Today bore some bad news fans of zombies and release date puns. Left 4 Dead, which was originally slated to come out Nov 4, has been pushed back 16 days to Nov 20. The good news is, that Nov 20 is the tenth anniversary of Half-life, so I guess there is some sort of tie-in to be made.
If you haven’t been following this game, Left 4 Dead is a multiplayer co-operative survival horror first-person shooter game by Valve. It will be arriving on Xbox 360 and PC. According to Wikipedia, “Left 4 Dead pits four human playable or AI controlled survivors of an apocalyptic pandemic against hordes of zombie-like, aggressive “Infected”. The Survivors’ goal is to help each other make it through various scenarios to safety. The Infected are controlled by an AI that dynamically balances difficulty and mood depending on the players’ progress and situation. In an alternate game mode, human players can control up to four mutated Boss Infected with special abilities and cooperate to stop the Survivor players.”
It always aggravates me when games get pushed back; especially ones that look this damn cool. I don’t know about you guys, but I like to plan out in advance which days I’m going to be “sick”. I guess 16 days isn’t that long of a wait. It could be worse; something like 28 Days Later. Eh…Eh…Am I right?
Read: Left 4 Dead Out On November 20.
Every now and then I find a piece of news that makes me glad I’m a PC gamer. Today Valve announced that the Xbox 360 version of Team Fortress 2 will be getting the updates, that us PC gamers have had for a while now, “later this year.” The update will include all the new guns, achievements, maps and game modes. As if the wait wasn’t bad enough, Microsoft is making Valve charge money for the update.
Currently no price has been set, but Valve has stated that they wanted to keep is as low as possible. In all reality, expect something in the $10 range.
There has been no word on if the update will make it’s way to the PS3.
Now I don’t mean to gloat, but the PC never gets more love that consoles do. Us PC gamers always have to wait longer for games to come out on our chosen platform, and when they do arrive, they turn out to be crappy PS2 ports. So please forgive me if you are a Xbox 360 TF2 player.
Read: Team Fortress 2 Updates Coming To Xbox 360 Later This Year.
A lot of people have been talking about Rock Band 2’s ability to copy over Rock Band songs. Today Harmonix wanted to put an end to this discussion by describing how this process will take place.
1. On September 14, the day Rock Band 2 comes out, a patch will be released for Rock Band. This patch will add the “export” command to the Rock Band menu.
2. Select “export” and enter a code that comes with Rock Band 2. In addition to entering a code, you will have to pay a small fee. Harmonix says that it won’t be over $5.
3. Once you pay the fee, all the songs that are allowed to be copied to the hard drive will be.
So far this feature has only been announced for the Xbox 360 version of Rock Band 2. I’ll be sure to write something up if any PS3 news arises.
Read: How To Get Your Rock Band 1 Songs Into Rock Band 2.
Yesterday I wrote up a little ditty about how Sony came out and officially stated that all instruments from Guitar Hero World Tour, Rock Band 2 and Rock Revolution would be cross-compatible. Not to be out done, Microsoft did the same today.
On Microsoft’s Gamerscore Blog, Chris Paladino wrote: “For the record, we also do that, so consider this an official announcement.
All the instruments from Rock Band 2, Guitar Hero: World Tour, and Rock Revolution will be cross-compatible.”
Again, this news makes me oh so happy. I love not spending money on stuff I already have.
Read: Microsoft - All Our Instruments Cross-Compatible Too.
Over the past couple weeks there has been much speculation about the pricing of the upcoming Xbox Live Arcade title Castle Crashers’. Today Behemoth, the developer of Castle Crashers’, announced that stle Crashers’ will cost 1200 Microsoft points ($15).
If you haven’t been keeping up with it, Castle Crashers’ is an action RPG/ side scrolling beat ‘em up. The game features “20+ levels, over 20 bosses, High Def gameplay, 4 player Xbox Live support, over 20 character to level up, Xbox Live multiplayer Areans, and Animal Orb helpers.”
This is definitely a game worth picking up. It hits Xbox Live Marketplace this Wednesday, Aug 27.
Read: 1200 Points, Behemoth Forums, PAX, and TGS.
Today IGN released an article where they announce seven new tracks for Guitar Hero World Tour. The tracks include:
- Airbourne – “Too Much Too young…”
- At the Drive-in – “One Armed Scissor”
- Black Rebel Motorcycle Club – “Weapon of Choice”
- Bob Seger – “Hollywood Nights”
- Dinosaur Jr. – “Feel the pain”
- Silversun Pickups – “Lazy Eye”
- Survivor – “Eye of the Tiger”
Dinosaur Jr. and At the Drive-in have me questioning my Rock Band loyalty. Good thing I don’t need to buy the 5 piece drum set, so I can buy both.
Read: Guitar Hero World Tour Rides the Crazy Train.
Lately, my news posts have been shying away from Rock Band DLC announcements. Today, I hope to start the tradition again. Dubbed the “Roadrunner pack”, this weeks Rock Band DLC brings a hearty dose of metal with an abnormal pricing scheme. The songs included are:
- “Runnin’ Wild” - Airbourne
- “Clouds Over California” - DevilDriver
- “Constant Motion” - Dream Theater
- “My Curse” - Killswitch Engage
- “Aesthetics Of Hate” - Machine Head
- “Sleepwalker” - Megadeth
The individual songs are priced 80 Microsoft points ($1) for the first month, then they will be repriced at 160 Microsoft Points ($2). Rockers can also pick up the whole pack for 480 Microsoft points ($6), but that, like the songs, only lasts for one month. After times up, it will 800 Microsoft points ($10).
Personally none of these songs fall into the sub genres of metal that I like. Come on Harmonix, give us some Agalloch or Hammerfall.
Read: Rock Band Weekly: Megadeth, Machine Head, Killswitch Engage, Dream Theater, DevilDriver, Airbourne.
In this months Stuff Magazine there is a preview of Guitar Hero World Tour. In said preview, nine tracks are revealed along with five artist confirmations. The songs are:
* “Are You Gonna Go My Way” — Lenny Kravitz
* “Beat It” — Michael Jackson
* “Bullet With Butterfly Wings” — Smashing Pumpkins
* “Everlong” — Foo Fighters
* “Hot for Teacher” — Van Halen
* “In The End” — Linkin Park
* “Light My Fire” — The Doors
* “Never Too Late” — The Answer
* “Obsatcle 1″ — Interpol
* “One Armed Scissor” — At the Drive-In
* “Purple Haze” (Live) — Jimi Hendrix
* “Rebel Yell” — Billy Idol
* “Santeria” — Sublime
* “The Wind Cries Mary” — Jimi Hendrix
In all reality, most of these tracks were known or rumors. It is always nice to have multiple sources verify information, though.
Read: Stuff Magazine reveals new Guitar Hero World Tour tracks.
