The upcoming update for Gears of War 2 is set to dish out a few new achievements for avid players and gamerscore collectors, seven to be precise. Each of the new achievements will be multiplayer based, focused on winning matches on the Flashback and Combustible map packs, with a total of 175G up for grabs. These new achievements can be seen in the list for Gears of War 2 now.
To celebrate the launch of the highly anticipated Killzone 2 for PS3, Sony have gone and revealed a bundle including the expected smash hit. Though no confirmed release date has been confirmed, it should be announced shortly by Sony. The bundle will cost £299.99
EA Mythic is the next part of the massive EA business to be taking the hit of the bad financial times. Following the dropping of the Pandemic studios in Brisbane, the Warhammer developer Mythic will see 21 Customer Services employees, half of the QA team and all playtesters leaving the company.
It seems nobody is safe from the credit crunch disaster.
Nintendo's Wii Fit has managed to reclaim it's UK #1 chart spot, rising from being 12th in the ranks the week before. Seeing an 18 percent rise in sales, stores are supposedly managing to keep up with the increased demand from customers. (Where I work has had two Wii Fit since it was released.)
The chart looks like this;
1. Wii Fit
2. Call of Duty: World at War
3. The Lord of Rings: Conquest
4. FIFA 09
5. Wii Play
6. Need for Speed: Undercover
7. Mario and Sonic at they Olympic Games
8. Guitar Hero: World Tour
9. Carnival: Funfair Games
10. Dr. Kawashima's Brain Training
Halo 3: ODST is set to take a much more stealthy approach, rather than the rag tag run and gun approach you see most players taking in previous Halo games. The combat also has taken a fairly different approach to Halo 3, in a more tactical fashion.
"The silenced SMG is just one of the tweaks to the Halo 3 sandbox that make ODST a stealthier experience -- one that, at least in the open environment of nighttime New Mombasa, rewards a more measured approach to combat."
"As a non-Spartan, you'll need to be careful about the fights you pick, especially when you're on your own."
"Brutes in ODST are much more interested in self-preservation than they were in Halo 3 which makes for terrific, multi-layered encounters."
"You need to think before you engage -- decide how you want to take apart an encounter before diving in or you'll get into trouble pretty quick, especially on higher difficulty levels."
For fans of rooftop running Mirrors Edge, DLC has been dated for January 29th. It'll be a time trial pack, which will be available for all three versions of the game (360, ps3 and pc). The DLC will see you running through seven new worlds specially re-designed for time trial mode, trying to obtain the fastest times possible.
The pack will set you back £6.99 and 800 points respectively.
Personally, I think it looks one of the block filled Counter Strike Source levels people love so much. Maybe that's where they got their inspiration from...
The notable game selling business GAME has decided to team up with a new business partner, SwapGame, to offer a new service to GAME customers. Whereas you only used to buy games, they will now offer a monthly rental service, allowing up to 2 games per customer. There will be no late fees induced, similar to LoveFilm.com, and will be able to rent new games out as soon as the previous rentals have been returned.
"We spent a lot of time talking to customers, to find out what services they want from us and how we can help them enjoy more games and get great value."
A release date has been given to the up-coming DLC for Bethesda's hit RPG, Fallout 3. Going by the name 'Operation: Anchorage', it will be available for download on January 27th on Xbox Live and Games for Windows Live for 800 points. The new update available for Fallout 3 will be required in order to play this add-on.
Bethesda Softworks has released a patch for it's hit game Fallout 3. Looking to fix an array of bugs, from rendering issues and npcs reviving themselves from the dead. This update is already available to download.
New Features
* Trophy support. (Playstation 3)
Bug Fixes
* Friends notification no longer causes the game to pause. (Playstation 3)
* Fixed occasional crashes during loading and waiting.
* Friendly or neutral NPC health bars, when taking damage, no longer flicker repeatedly.
* Fixed issue where certain NPCs would occasionally disappear from the game.
* Fixed issue where dead NPCs would occasionally come back to life.
* Fixed rendering issue with the Gatling Laser gun's tracers.
* Fixed issue where the haircut menu would occasionally not appear properly.
* Added ability to remap your VATS and pip boy buttons.
* Fixed rare load/save issues that would cause NPCs to behave incorrectly.
* Fixed issue where quest objectives would occasionally not update properly due to talking activators, intercoms and conversations.
* Using Radaway from the Pip-Boy's Status Menu repeatedly no longer crashes the game.
* Player no longer gets stuck in level up menu if their skills are maxed out.
* Fixed issue where multiple followers would occasionally not load into an interior.
* Fixed rare issue with getting stuck in VATS mode.
* Fixed rare crash with fighting NPCs with corrupted data.
* In game radios will now play properly if player was listening to the radio in the Pip-Boy first. (Playstation 3)
* Fixed rare crashes while loading and saving games.
* Fixed rare issue where player would fall through the floor while in VATS.
* Fixed occasional crash after scoring a critical hit in the head with a Railway Rifle.
* Prevent NPCs from inadvertently dying from falling.
* Fixed occasional issue where the controller would stop working properly.
* Fixed crashes related to repeatedly equipping and dropping clothing and armor into the world.
Quest Fixes
# Fixed several instances where quest item stayed in inventory permanently after completing quests.
# Fixed an issue where the distress message would occasionally not play in Trouble on the Homefront.
# In The Waters of Life quest, the Citadel gate will open properly if the player fast travels away after exiting the Taft Tunnels but before reaching the Citadel gate with Doctor Li.
# For the Home Sweet Home quest, the broken protectrons in Big Town become active at the proper time.
# In The American Dream quest, fixed specific issue which prevented the player from accessing their belongings in the locker by the door if they left the room first.
# Fixed infinite caps exploit in Strictly Business quest.
# Fixed rare instance where Dad would have no valid dialogue during The Waters of Life quest.
# Prevent issue during the Finding the Garden of Eden quest where player would fade to black, instead of traveling to Raven Rock, while in combat with a follower.
# Fixed several XP speech exploits with certain NPCs.
# Fixed XP exploit with a robot in Fort Bannister.
# Fixed issue where player's controls can become locked permanently during The American Dream.
Nintendo is already having a top notch start to 2009, with console sails still topping the tables. The newly released DSi in Japan ended the week on January 4th with a very impressive figure of over 180,000 hardware sales.
Lucky owners of left for dead that own it on the PC will be treated to a patch for the zombie holocaust survival fest next week, courtesy of Valve. Unfortunately no word on a patch / update for the 360 version yet.
"For the patching, the real key is to patch more often and not wait for everything to accumulate," Faliszek posted. "Because of a perfect storm of events, this patch got larger than we would have liked and that really snowballed the time it is taking.
"The problem on the PC side was a few large bugs affected other systems that we were going to rewrite on the pc so we ended up waiting to fix a whole class of bugs instead of just individual bugs. The patch should be out this week.
"Sadly Microsoft has nothing to do with the PC patch... that delay is all us," he added. "The PC and 360 will be patched independently not sure where people picked up that exploit/bug fixing was tied together. Only the DLC will be simultaneous."
Activision are making rather bold claims that their smash hit Guitar Hero 3: Legends of Rock has reached a major milestone of $1bn in sales, and claims that it is the first title to do so. Launching on all 3 current gen consoles and PC back in 2007, it's said that the DLC available over XBL and PSN has dramatically increased total revenue.
A strange piece of news; EA has gone and made a pair of sneakers, to tie in with the up-comming launch of Skate 2. Going by the name "RVM Skate 2", they will be appearing in the U.S later this month in Zumiez stores, later followed by a world wide release.
FIFA is holding steady at the #1 spot in the Game Sale Charts in the UK again this week, for the second week running. Beating Activision's Call of Duty: World At War by only 400 sales, it was certainly a clsoe one, with Need for Speed: Undercover staying put at 3rd.
The top 10 is as follows;
1. FIFA 09 (EA)
2. Call of Duty: World at War (Activision Blizzard)
3. Need for Speed: Undercover (EA)
4. Wii Fit (Nintendo)
5. Wii Play (Nintendo)
6. Guitar Hero: World Tour (Activision Blizzard)
7. Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games (Sega)
8. Quantum of Solace (Activision Blizzard)
9. Lego Indiana Jones (LucasArts)
10. Mario Kart Wii (Nintendo)
Golden Signals has come up with a fairly nifty device which allows you to stream just about anything through your TV. Costing a small $50USD, it'll bag you the software to install onto your pc, allowing you to stream movies, music, pictures and just about anything else you can think of through your TV, including the sound.
Activision and Hasbro Toys have announced a video game tie-in to the upcoming summer blockbuster Bat...