Show your Rebel pride, your Imperial allegiance or your carefree bounty hunter love with new The Empire Strikes Back-themed Avatar gear, adorable enough to force almost any Star Wars fan to drop Microsoft Points on virtual clothing.
To celebrate the 30th anniversary of The Empire Strikes Back, LucasArts is exploring new money making opportunities in the form of Xbox Live Avatar gear. Lightsabers, mini-Tauntauns, novelty Yoda hats… it’s all here! Even Bossk gets some love.
The following Avatar items, including that somewhat creepy-looking Chewbacca outfit, will be available on Xbox Live starting Thursday, May 20th, the day before Empire turns 30. – kotaku
Infinity Ward spawned one of the bigger controversies in gaming last year when they announced the PC version of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 would use peer-to-peer matchmaking in lieu of traditional dedicated servers. That’s a history that won’t be repeating itself with Call of Duty: Black Ops, though, as Treyarch president Mark Lamia has confirmed they’re sticking with dedicated servers. Read the rest of this entry »
Activision has announced ‘Resurgence Pack’, the second pack of DLC maps for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. The second wave of DLC will arrive on 3rd June. Activision confirms that Resurgence Pack will feature five maps but doesn’t mention what these maps will be, leaving open the possibility that old Modern Warfare maps could make up part of the package. Stimulus Package was the first DLC for Modern Warfare 2 but received criticism over its inclusion of tweaked Modern Warfare maps and its 1600 Microsoft Points price-tag. Activision hasn’t confirmed how much Resurgence Pack will be. If you ask me, it smacks of Activision trying to milk the cash cow a little too early. I’m not really ready for any new maps quite yet, are you?
Its been a busy week for the team at Steam. Not only have the punched out a Steam Powered
app for the Mac, but they
are also giving out a free copy of Portal for both PC and MAC clients. Sweet!!!.. wait.. waait.. i see some strings attached. Yes the cunning marketers at Steam are only allowing Portal to run for free until 24th May, after that you can elect to pay for it.
But hey.. Good news for Mac gamers with the new client for Steam, and a chance to have a play with portal isnt all that bad. So tune in and grab a copy soon.
Sony Computer Entertainment New Zealand has announced a new milestone in the history of the Gran Turismo franchise: the inclusion in the forthcoming Gran Turismo 5 for PlayStation 3 of all three courses of the Nurburgring, Europe’s most iconic racetrack. For the first time ever, players will get to race the Grand Prix course, the Nordschleife and the 24 Hours course – making the new game the undisputed champion of racing realism.
Fans and spectators at the Nurburgring 24 Hours race this weekend will have the chance to be the first to get hands on with the new courses in GT5 on a bank of trackside PS3 units. As the real life drivers get to grips with the nerve-wracking twists and turns of spots like the Flugplatz, the Bergwerk and the terrifying blind bend of the Caracciola Karussell, racing fans can be right there with them, speeding around the Nurburgring behind the wheels of the world’s most realistic virtually-rendered supercars. And in a twist that brings racing and gaming closer together, GT fans should also keep an eye out during the race for Gran Turismo creator Kazunori Yamauchi, who will be on the real-life track at the wheel of a Lexus IS-F, as part of the World Car Awards team. Read the rest of this entry »
Today Ubisoft announced new product details for Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood, the next iteration of the critically acclaimed, multi-million unit selling franchise. Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood will ship Christmas 2010 for the Xbox 360 video game and entertainment system from Microsoft, the Playstation 3 computer entertainment system and the PC. Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood is a worldwide production effort led by the Ubisoft Montreal Studio in collaboration with Ubisoft studios in Singapore, Bucharest, Québec City and Annecy (known for developing Splinter Cell Chaos Theory’s Multiplayer).
The critically acclaimed single player experience of Assassin’s Creed is back and better than ever as Ezio returns in a powerful struggle against the powerful Templar Order. Now a legendary Master Assassin, he must journey to Rome, centre of power, greed and corruption to strike at the heart of the enemy. Defeating the corrupt tyrants entrenched there will require not only strength, but leadership, as Ezio commands an entire Brotherhood that will rally to his side. Only by working together can the Assassins defeat their mortal enemies. Read the rest of this entry »
Like most highly-anticpated new releases, Fallout New Vegas will be getting its very own Limited Collector’s Edition (above). The version packed with bonuses will be available on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC. Bethesda announced the extras included today, and we’re definitely noticing a gambling theme.
The package will include seven “Lucky 7″ poker chips, which in the game represent the major casinos found in the wasteland. A special “Lucky 38″ platinum chip will also be included, which seems to have some story significance. The gambling items are rounded out by a custom deck of New Vegas cards, with its own characters. The press release teases that players can use them to play traditional card games, or Caravan, which was created for New Vegas. Other, more traditional CE bonuses include a hardcover graphic novel from Dark Horse comics, and a documentary DVD with making-of features. Read the rest of this entry »
Kotaku has been sent an image of the Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood’s placeholder box art, presumably by a rogue GameStop employee. Ubisoft confirmed the image as legit, officially revealing the next title in the Assassin’s Creed series starring Ezio Auditore de Firenze, and in turn confirming the veracity of a handful of details contained on the back of the temporary box art. The blurb reads, “Live and breathe as Ezio, now a legendary master assassin, in his struggle against the Templar order. Lead your own brotherhood of Assassins and strike at the heart of the enemy: Rome. And for the first time, take part in an innovative multiplayer layer allowing you to embody an assassin of your choosing and define their killing style.” Read the rest of this entry »
In addition to the deep single player campaign and robust online multiplayer components of Red Dead Redemption, we are also very happy to finally reveal the game’s co-op mode, which will be released FREE in June simultaneously for both consoles via Xbox LIVE and PlayStation Network, respectively.
The Outlaws to the End Co-Op Mission Pack will feature six all-new cooperative multiplayer missions to play with 2-4 players. This will be a completely free download that we will have ready for you to download and play at some time in June. Read the rest of this entry »
Though the last few entries in the series have proven disappointing, the Medal of Honor franchise once stood as one of the top first-person shooters out there. So what went wrong? Gamasutra sat down with EA Games president Frank Gibeau, who shared his thoughts on the series’ failures, as well as what he hopes to correct with this year’s game.
“I think any franchise that’s been around for a long time, they get in a rut, they become over-annualized. They run out of innovation,” explained the EA exec. “The team pounds on a game every year, and they get tired, they run out of time and effort to be innovative and try and take some new risks. That was my view on how the franchise has fallen.”
Gibeau doesn’t pin the blame solely on yearly sequels, however. “I also felt like the online component wasn’t getting enough attention,” Gibeau confessed. “Any shooter worth its salt is going to be really breakthrough in its online play, and I think Battlefield: Bad Company is a good example of that, I think Modern Warfare 2 is a good example of that, I think Halo clearly is a good example of that. The power of a franchise in the shooter category is in the online component and modes.” -1up
There is something about me..