BitSnark

After nine years of giving Xbox gamers a controller with a poorly designed d-pad, Microsoft has today announced a redesign of the 360 wireless controller.

The new design features concave analogue sticks, smoothed face buttons and most crucially, a raised d-pad for hopefully improved fireball and dragon punch motions.

The pad will release in the US along with a play and charge kit for $64.99.

No EU details have been confirmed as of yet.

You can get a peek at the new pad below:

Atari Europe, in conjunction with Cryptic Studios have announced the development of Dungeons & Dragons: Neverwinter; a new title in the Neverwinter franchise that was first started on the PC by Bioware back in the hazy days of 2002.

Strange perhaps, is the choice of developer in this instance. Cryptic Studios who brought us MMO titles Star Trek Online and City of Heroes amongst others, seems like a bit of a leftfield choice to develop the game. With their expertise almost exclusively coming from MMO development, it’ll be interesting to see how the final game turns out.

Due in Q3 2011 for the PC, the title allows gamers to become one of five classic D&D classes and join forces with friends or the computer AI to create parties to tackle quests, dungeons and the overaching story. Additionally, a user-friendly content generation system called Forge is also promised.

The story of Neverwinter itself is built upon the forthcoming novel trilogy release from longtime D&D author R.A. Salvatore; with the first book ‘Gauntlgrym’, releasing on October 5th this year and providing the narrative foundation for the Neverwinter game.

No media has been released yet regarding the title, but it’ll be one to keep an eye on.

Vanquish, the hyper-kinetic sci-fi third person shooter offering from Bayonetta developer Platinum Games, is getting a demo next Wednesday for both PSN and Xbox Live users.

Boasting an extended prologue sequence and a boss fight, the demo should at the very least be a moderately accurate example of the stupidly fast third person gameplay and immensely flashy sci-fi stylings that we’ll come to expect from the final game.

I’ll stick up some impressions from the demo as soon as I can.

Update:

Microsoft has gone on record with gaming website Eurogamer to say that Kinect WILL ship with voice activation features when it launches in November. The confusion appears to stem from the fact that a number of non-English dialects are not currently supported by the device.

Phew!

Original Article:

Microsoft today dropped a fairly large bombshell on all of those folks who intend to put down £129.99 on a Microsoft Kinect; there will be no voice control or video chat at launch with Marketing manager for Xbox Live EMEA Robin Burrowes saying: “We will be announcing when voice control will be turned on in due course.”

Ouch.

Considering that the voice activation and integration feature was one of the MAIN REASONS why people perhaps would have pre-ordered the peripheral in the first place, you can begin to understand the consumer ire at having a key feature stripped out of the unit on launch day.

Broken promises before a launch are never a good portent of things to come.

The ball is in your court Microsoft. Make us happy.

EA and Hothead Games must have thought that we needed a lot more ridiculously humourous, hack ‘n’ slash action after their release of Ron Gilbert’s Deathspank earlier in the Summer.

They must have also thought that we needed quick, very quick, because EA and Hothead Games have confirmed that a sequel to the not even two-month old DeathSpank, will arrive on XBLA & PSN distribution platforms on September 21st for 1200 MSP and £9.99 respectively.

Hothead Games Director of game development, Vlad Ceraldi had this to say regarding the title:
“We’re taking action RPG fundamentals and adding loads of new creatures, environments, weapons and characters, while continuing to push the envelope with our signature humour,”

Holy shit that was QUICK.

Lucasarts have today confirmed that a demo will be forthcoming for 360, PS3 and PC formats ‘sometime’ prior to the game’s release on October 26th.

The news of a demo for the title comes in the wake of the PSP version being cancelled recently and the pre-emptive and hugely foolish cancellation of a third title in the Force Unleashed franchise.

Alledgedly, a big component of these developments at Lucasarts is recently appointed President Paul Meegan, who according to a number of Lucasarts sources has propogated a work culture within the company that has resulted in ‘morale and productivity being at all-time lows’.

I mean, doesn’t the guy have any common sense? Star Wars: The Force Unleashed sold over five million copies and is considered to be the single most commercially successful Star Wars videogame ever created. Meanwhile, it’s sequel will likely do as well if not better, so I put the question to you; from a money perspective at least, being a money grabbing, suit wearing bastard, why would you NOT want a third installment in a multi-platinum selling franchise?

A contender for Mr. Kotick’s crown of most disliked suit in the games industry?

Yeah, I think so.

As an aside though, I did have some fun with the original Force Unleashed title despite it’s numerous glitchy shortcomings and flaws, so I’m somewhat interested to see how many of those rough edges (if any), the sequel has managed to rub out.

Apparently one motion controlled fighter launch title wasn’t enough this year, since Ubisoft have today announced Fighters Uncaged for Microsoft Kinect.

The game will allow players to replicate 70 different strikes inspired by a number of different martial arts. Additionally, players will have 21 arenas with which to do battle and in-depth practice and workout modes for the calorie sweating fiends out there.

With a focus on Thai-boxing which includes elbows, knees and high arching kicks, the idea is an interesting one at the very least, even if the trailer doesn’t look very good.

At all.

The title is due to be launched alongside Kinect on November 10th.

The trailer can be seen at the link below:

A nice little bit of support for Sony’s motion control hopeful came in the form of an announcement by the company, outlining the fact that Sega’s Virtua Tennis 4 was a timed exclusive to the PS3 format and would be fully compatible with Move.

In addition to this the title also boasts full 3D support and is expected to be released in 2011.

No other details were provided at this juncture regarding the title.

Well, not much to say really – the news is in the heading.

But still… This Is Good News.

🙂

Marking the third installment in an already impressive series for the PS3, ultra busy developers Insomniac today confirmed that Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One would hit arrive on the PS3 at a date to be determined.

With a focus on co-op play and solving puzzles as a team, players can take control of Dr. Nefarious, Ratchet, Clank, and Captain Qwark as they strive to work together to defeat a common enemy. Weapons and items may be shared between players and in a similar fashion to how it was incorporated in the Lego titles, there will be drop-in and drop-out play as well.

No other details are known at this time, but just like their other announced franchise continuation Resistance 3, hopefully we’ll hear something sooner rather than later.