BitSnark

Coming a lot sooner than many of us thought (especially when confronted with the intentionally shady ‘early 2010’ release window), EA & Bioware have confirmed that the game will release on 360 and PC formats on January 26, 2010 in North America and just three days later on January 29 in Europe.

A number of special pre-order schemes have cropped up for folk in the US who pre-order the game but nothing concrete has been scheduled for EU/UK gamers as of yet.

With the game not even on shop or e-shelves yet, developers Gearbox have already gone into detail on the first DLC pack for their post-apocalyptic FPS/RPG/Diablo hybrid. Entitled, ‘The Zombie Island Of Dr. Ned’, it is intended this will be the first of many DLC packs for the forthcoming title.

According to the press release, the good doctor in question was charged with keeping the workers and miners of Jakob’s Cove happy and healthy. Cue the B movie eventuality and as luck would have it, his ‘care’ has gone somewhat awry, turning the poor folk into a horde of flesh feasting zombies and making it your task to wipe out the horde and retake the cove in the name of cash, loot and mindless slaughter.

Due later this year, The Zombie Island Of Dr. Ned will set 360 owners back 800 MSP and PS3/PC gamers £7.99.

Swirling around the internets of late has been the rumour that Dyansty Warriors developer KOEI would be developing an entirely new title based on the popular ultra violent Hokuto No Ken (Fist of The North Star) anime franchise. The rumour was further bolstered by a mysterious teaser trailer depicting a woman dressed in white, standing atop a ruined building in a post-apocalyptic landscape with a flower falling serenely through the air.

Today Famitsu can claim to lay the rumours to rest with an exclusive scoop on the KOEI developed Fist Of The North Star title now known as Hokutou Musou. Echoing the mass beat-em up gameplay of KOEI staple series Dynasty Warriors and Samurai Warriors, Hokutou Musou allows players to choose characters from Fist Of The North Star lore such as series hero Kenshiro and take them on a round tour of popular scenarios in the series’ story, all the while laying body exploding beatdowns on the armies of thug fodder that stand before you.

Beyond this, precious few other details have been revealed. For the rest we will have to wait until the title receives its full unveiling tomorrow.

For the longest time, i’ve found myself disenfranchised with the motonony of KOEI’s uninventive mass-battle titles but I am a massive Hokuto No Ken fan and if anything will get me excited for one of their ‘Warriors style titles again, it’ll be this license.

In a somewhat surprising move, Play.com has one-upped other retailers by slashing the price of Sony’s newest handheld down to £149.99 from an unreasonably lame suggested price point of £224.99, just seven days after the machine launched.

Whilst this is good news, it still does not make the handheld a must-have for folks who already own a PSP; primarily due to the fact that there is no way to transfer your existing UMD collection to the PSPGo, thus completely screwing up the upgrade path for existing owners.

For everyone else, it looks like that not being an early adopter actually paid off. For those of you who did buy the machine at launch however…

That’ll learn you.

***UPDATED***

Well, that didn’t last long. It appears that Play made a boo-boo and have ‘rectified’ the price back to £199.99; a price point that is still completely ludicrous.

Just to let you guy sknow, that the Brutal Legend demo is now available for download in EU regions after getting pulled from XBL one week ago.

Impressions shortly 🙂

Earlier today, Capcom announced Super Street Fighter IV; a standalone release which builds upon the existing title by offering up to eight new fighters and a boat load of gameplay and balancing tweaks.

At present only SSF2 Native American alumni T-Hawk and newcomer Juri are confirmed to be in the title, but Capcom has promised ‘several more’ characters in addition. T-Hawk appears to be a very faithful 3D reproduction of his 2D persona, complete with devastating throws and Tomahawk dives. Newcomer Juri on the other hand, appears to be a tae-kwondo user; not at all that dissimilar to Kim Kaphwan from SNK’s King Of Fighters series or Hwoarang from the Tekken titles.

Much speculation has been cast on not just the additional characters but the new gameplay features too such as classic Street Fighter II bonus stages and the ability for every character to have an aerial ultra move to complement their existing one. There will be more on these features as and when the details come out, but what we do know is that the title is slated to arrive in Spring 2010 on PS3 & 360 not as a massive DLC package, but instead as a budget priced re-release.

Oh, and those of us who have the original SFIV (and that should be anybody with a pulse), Capcom have promised some secret goodies for us if we hang onto our copies.

First, a little background folks.

Released way back in May 2003, Planetside was a trailblazer; an online MMOFPS, the title allowed players to choose opposing factions with different vehicles, weaponry and abilities with the aim of taking over the opposing factions territories in a set of on-going persistent worlds. The experience was further bolstered by the fact that players were able to level their characters to unlock new skill trees, which in turn allowed access to bigger and better vehicles and equipment or specialised skills such as sabotage or demolitions. On top of all this, players could gain command levels (a feature most recently seen in Sony’s forthcoming online FPS MAG) which allowed them to specify objectives for all to see, organise supply drops and co-ordinate devastating satellite strikes on the enemy.

A recent email sent out to current Planetside subscribers (yes, they still exist) strongly suggests that a sequel to the MMOFPS shooter is on the cards. Entitled ‘Help Us Design The Next PlanetSide Game’. the e-mail invited readers to partake in a survey to highlight what aspects of the current Planetside they liked or disliked and also what new stuff they would like to see in a sequel. In addition to this, SOE chief John Smedley said recently ‘Planetside fans will be happy. We have big things planned in the next 12 months. We’re working on something new that’s really cool’.

Current users of the original Planetside have little to fear in the near-term however, as Smedley reassured them that the original will still be supported for some time to come with additional content and a new patch which gives full Vista compliance.

Bring on the future.

In what can only be seen as a major kick in the balls for people looking to upgrade from their old PSP to the new PSP Go, Sony have announced that due to ‘legal’ and ‘technical’ reasons, there is no programme in place to allow the trading in of a UMD copy of a game for it’s digitally distributed equivalent.

In a statement to gaming website Kotaku, a spokesperson for Sony said “We were evaluating a UMD conversion programme, but due to legal and technical reasons we will not be offering the programme at this time,”.

I’m sorry Sony, offering three free games from an (old) selection of sixteen titles is *no* substitution whatsover for people being able to bring across their existing library of games to their new PSP Go console.

What a way to dump on your loyal PSP auidence.

As a sweetener of sorts to entice those existing PSP owners to upgrade to the new shiny UMD-less PSP Go, Sony have announced an incentive scheme whereby gamers can redeem a special voucher to claim three free downloadables from the following selection of games:

Buzz!: Brain Bender
Buzz!: Master Quiz
Daxter
Echochrome
Everybody’s Golf PSP
Killzone: Liberation
Lemmings PSP
LocoRoco
MediEvil
Patapon
Pursuit Force: Extreme Justice
Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters
Resistance: Retribution
SOCOM: US Navy SEALs Fireteam Bravo 3
Syphon Filter: Dark Mirror
Syphon Filter: Logan’s Shadow
WipEout Pure

Not a bad offer, but I think we would all much rather prefer some kind of concrete UMD conversion tool for our existing game libraries.

The offer is intended to run between the dates of October 1st 2009 and March 31st 2010.

Tim Schafer’s face melting, metal-to-the-f’n-nine’s latest is now officially demofied on the Xbox Live Marketplace.

Shred that download folks 🙂