EA’s answer to Resident Evil has been officially stuck with a Halloween release date for both Europe and North America.
Cash-grab in an undercapialized genre, or pants-crappingly scary romp through an admittedly cool looking alien infested space station? We’ll see when the game launches on October 31st.
For the curious, there’s a trailer up on GameTrailers and a preview over at EuroGamer (the “strategic dismemberment” is particularly compelling).
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Triggerheart Exelica is a vertically scrolling shooter in the classic tradition which features a unique enemy capture mechanic. The game was originally released as an arcade title in Japan, followed by a Dreamcast port which is widely regarded as one of the last great Dreamcast shooters (a noble lineage, to be sure).
Get your shmup on this Wednsday at the standard price of 800 points.
7 new screenshots after the jump:
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Bungie has posted a quick QA session on their site revealing a few details of the first map in the upcoming Legendary Map Pack for Halo 3, as well as the first 3 screenshots (after the jump). The map is set in some abandoned ruins in Africa, features a greenhouse room and is relatively small. Should make for a good quick & dirty slayer map.
The Legendary map pack is scheduled to arrive this spring.
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Microsoft has just announced that starting today, community created games built in XNA Studio will begin to be made available for download to all Xbox Live users. The service will launch with 7 user created games which will become available, free of charge, later today.
Wildtangent announced today that they will soon be launching their new gaming platform, “Orb”. They bill their platform as a way to close the gap between PCs and gaming consoles by providing a full screen user interface and gamepad support, as well as digital delivery of both PC and console games.
THQ and Sierra online are on-board for the first batch of games being made available. From the press release: “The WildTangent Orb will launch with popular AAA titles from Sierra Online including 3D Ultra Mini Golf, Assault Heroes, Battlestar Gallactica and Switchball as well as popular PC titles from Sierra Entertainment. THQ titles will include Juiced 2 Hot Import Nights, Company of Heroes®, Company of Heroes® Opposing Fronts, Red Faction®, Red Faction® II, Full Spectrum Warrior®, MX vs. ATV Unleashed, Full Spectrum Warrior Ten Hammers®, Titan Quest, Warhammer® 40,000 Dawn of War Gold and Warhammer® 40,000 Dawn of War Dark Crusade. Also included in Orb will be more than 55 enthusiast titles from THQs Valusoft.”
The platform will be at least partially ad-supported, with the first advertiser being telecom bigwig Sprint.
According the the press release, Orb will come preinstalled on “every major-brand consumer PC in the U.S., including HP, Gateway and Toshiba”.
The service is set to launch on April 12th.
The WildTangent Orb will feature the same full-screen user interface and game pad-enabled experience that other leading game consoles offer. Additionally, it will leverage the superior hardware performance and connectivity of the PC, the world’s most popular and pervasive online gaming platform.
“The WildTangent Orb turns any modern PC into a full-featured game console more powerful than any next generation game console including the Microsoft XBOX 360, Sony PS3 or Nintendo Wii,” said Alex St. John, CEO of WildTangent. “Now enthusiast gamers can download and play popular console games they love on the most ubiquitous gaming device available today: the PC.”
St. John today encouraged the nearly 20,000 attendees at the annual Game Developer Conference in San Francisco to follow the lead of THQ and Sierra Online into online game distribution of their AAA console titles.
“Enthusiast gamers are spending a tremendous amount of time playing games on their PCs,” said Michael Pachter, managing director of research at Wedbush Morgan Securities. “While traditional consoles will continue to have their place for the foreseeable future, the market has become highly fragmented and modern PCs have the media capabilities and market share to represent the largest contiguous enthusiast gaming audience console publishers can reach.”
Starting in April, 12 million WildTangent gamers will be offered a free upgrade to the WildTangent Orb game console, when it will be released publicly for the first time on www.wildtangent.com. In the second half of 2008, WildTangent Orb will come pre-installed on every major-brand consumer PC in the U.S., including HP, Gateway and Toshiba.
“Sierra Online is continuously looking for opportunities to offer its popular and award-winning titles to game enthusiasts in the format they prefer to play them,” said Ed Zobrist, president of Sierra Online. “Those who enjoyed playing our AAA tiles on console, as well as PC gamers will be eager to get their hands on some of our most desirable console titles on the PC.”
The WildTangent Orb will launch with popular AAA titles from Sierra Online including 3D Ultra™ Mini Golf, Assault Heroes™, Battlestar Gallactica™ and Switchball™ as well as popular PC titles from Sierra Entertainment. THQ titles will include Juiced™ 2 Hot Import Nights™, Company of Heroes®, Company of Heroes® Opposing Fronts™, Red Faction®, Red Faction® II, Full Spectrum Warrior®, MX vs. ATV Unleashed™, Full Spectrum Warrior Ten Hammers®, Titan Quest™, Warhammer® 40,000 Dawn of War Gold and Warhammer® 40,000 Dawn of War Dark Crusade™. Also included in Orb will be more than 55 enthusiast titles from THQs Valusoft.
“THQ is committed to making its games available to gamers in the most convenient ways possible including online distribution,” said Adrienne Lauer, national sales director of Market Development in the Americas, THQ. “We are excited to make our games available for the WildTangent Orb and offer our AAA games to enthusiast gamers online.”
Wii Fit Gets European Release Date
Wii Fit, Nintendo’s fitness-themed pseudo game has been a runaway success in Japan and will be seeing release April 25 in Europe, according to a recent press release.
Not content with controller-throwing carnage, you’ll now be able to precariously balance yourself on a tiny board and possibly send your entire body hurtling through the screen.
Sadly, North Americans will have to hold their horses until May 19th.
Wii Fit comes bundled with the Wii Balance Board, an accessory developed exclusively for the Wii console that will have a far-reaching impact for all who use it. It’s innovative, exciting and most of all fun and simple for all to use. It is a pressure sensitive, wireless balance board that goes on the floor – so someone can stand on it in front of the TV. It senses weight and shift in balance in any direction and therefore by standing on the Wii Balance Board during activities allows players to follow along to movements ensuring they have full control of the on-screen activities. This allows personal improvement goals to be set to effectively help you and your family to train and stay fit…
Increasing your awareness of the importance that fitness has on everyday life and keeping yourself and family motivated should be easier with Wii Fit. The programme allows up to 8 people to track progress and monitor performance. Once you insert the Wii Fit Disc into a Wii console, a new channel - Wii Fit Channel can be added to your Wii Menu system. Once the Wii Fit Channel is added it enables users to not have to insert the Wii Fit Disc into a Wii console in order for the Wii Balance Board to scale your weight to calculate your BMI, measure the center of your bodily balance and conduct a balance test in order to calculate your Wii Fit Age. It also allows you to monitor how long you did which category of exercise for in one day, all in the comfort of your own home and without the need to keep inserting the Wii Fit Disk into your Wii console each time.
There are 4 training categories including Aerobic Exercises, Muscle Workouts, Yoga and Balance Games that will help you and your family to develop bodily balance control ability, burn fat in the body, help tone and condition muscles, as well as help increase aerobic stamina. Discover over 40 different activities within these training categories such as Hula Hoop™, Ski Jump, Press-up Challenge, Rhythm Boxing, Rowing Squat, Lunge and classic Yoga poses such as Half Moon, Tree and Crocodile Twist. With all this on offer and much more, Wii Fit along with the Wii Balance Board introduces an accessible and intuitive programme for all the family to enjoy
Through Wii Fit’s training programme, helpful tutorials and encouragements from your on-screen fitness trainer, who will change his or her verbal instructions depending on how you actually perform, and the included Wii Fit Channel, you will continue to have endless fun whilst having the satisfaction of knowing you are aiding yourself, and your family, on towards a path of a healthier lifestyle.
Wii Fit comes bundled with the Wii Balance Board and launches across Europe on April 25th 2008.
Gamestop has posted an updated release date of August 3rd for all versions of the new Alone In The Dark game, except for the PS3, which is still listed at the beginning of next year.
As always, take this with a grain of salt until an official date is announced.
Sega Europe has officially announced the title of the upcoming, Bioware-developed Sonic RPG “Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood”.
They also confirmed that the title will be out at some point in 2008 for the Nintendo DS.
I know! What a tease! To placate you, there’s a handful of new screens and the press release after the jump.
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Activision has filed to protect the trademark “DJ Hero”, applying to “Computer game software and related instruction manual sold together as a unit; interactive video game programs; computer game discs; downloadable software for use in connection with computer games; video game controllers; Interactive video game comprised of a CD or DVD sold as a unit with a video game controller”.
While this isn’t proof that the game exists as an actual project, but it does give us an idea of what’s on Activision’s mind. I wouldn’t be surprised if we hear more details soon.
Via Trademork, trademark application here
Tomy has announced the official release date for Naruto: Ninja Destiny as February 26, 2008. Aspiring ninjas please refer to the press release below the jump.
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