Amid swirling rumors of a PAX reveal, Gearbox has finally confirmed that they've taken the reins on Duke Nukem Forever. Gearbox founder Randy Pitchford delivered the news today, just as word hit the Wall Street Journal and eager gamers lined up at PAX to try the game for themselves. A live stream from 2K is still (as of now) showing off footage of the hands-on players.
"The approach and investment and process at 3d Realms didn't quite make it and it cracked in the end," said Pitchford in the WSJ interview. "With Gearbox Software we brought all of those pieces together. It's the game it was meant to be." The report claims the game is expected to ship in 2010, and Pitchford says it's in the "polishing" stage. But they're still working on a launch plan so he's hesitant to commit to a date.
Over three dozen musical artists are re-recording some of their current and upcoming songs for inclusion in The Sims 3 on consoles and the latest Sims 3 PC expansion pack, Late Night. They're re-recording their songs because they won't be sung in English, but in the Sims' language of Simlish.
A press release making the announcement quotes a number of the artists, many of which point out that they had fun but also found it challenging or weird to sing in Simlish. "Singing in Simlish was one of the hardest things I've ever done, but it was a blast!" said Travie McCoy. Flo Rida said of his decision to contribute to the game, "I'm always trying to find new ways to reach different audiences with my music and The Sims 3 was a perfect way."
The console versions of The Sims 3 will be released on October 26, the same day the Late Night expansion will be made available to owners of the PC version of The Sims 3.
Following comments made by Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter suggesting that Mafia II was unlikely to be profitable, Take-Two has come out and stated that it not only expects the game to be profitable, but that it's "off to a great start."
"Mafia II's average Metacritic score of 74 is well below expectations, and consumer interest appears to be waning, as the game's position has dropped in many best-seller lists in its first week," Pachter recently said (via Gamasutra). "With six years in development, we believe the game is unlikely to achieve profitability."
Gamasutra reports Take-Two CEO Ben Feder countered such claims during an investors call, saying, "We're very proud of the game." He later said, "Based upon the initial launch, we expect this to be another profitable title for Take-Two." Sales figures have yet to be released, though the release of NPD sales figures for August later this month should give us some indication of how well Mafia II sold. Its release so late in the month (August 24 in North America) could hurt its chances to rank highly, however, especially with Madden topping sales charts, according to EA.
Telltale has officially revealed the identity of its mystery game, titled "Poker Night at the Inventory." It stars Tycho, Max, Strong Bad, and the Heavy as they gamble over iconic items from their own respective worlds. The blog teases that Max, for example, gets excited over the prospect of winning the Heavy's gun -- which we're sure the Heavy won't like one bit.
The new teaser image (above) doesn't shed a lot of light on the subject, but if you're attending the Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) this weekend, you can get a first-hand look at it. Telltale will be showing it off at at booth #3509. As an added incentive, if you pre-order the game, Telltale will give 25% off other purchases at the Telltale store.
Not quite sold on Eskil Steenberg's one-man-MMO-show Love? What if it were completely free? That's exactly what's going down this Friday, as the developer just announced a free weekend for the procedurally-generated online game.
Beginning tomorrow, September 3 at 1:00 a.m. Eastern, you'll be able to download the Love client from the game's official website. From there you should have free access to the game servers until around 7:00 a.m. Eastern on Monday.
Before Irrational Games decided to make BioShock Infinite, it was testing prototype ideas that might show up in a few different 2K games. We chatted with Ken Levine in the latest stop on our Cross Country Game Tour (above), who said that the eventual decision to make BioShock Infinite relied on some of the concepts that had come before.
"We finished BioShock, and we really didn't know what was going to be next," he said. "We actually prototyped a bunch of stuff... kinda decided it wasn't [right], and sat in a room and said, what else is interesting us? The idea of doing another BioShock game came up, but we knew if we were going to do that it wasn't going to be a game in Rapture."
The game streaming service OnLive is preparing a set of new promotions to bump its subscriber listing as we head towards the holidays. This Labor Day weekend, the service will offer all of its cloud-service games at 50% off. In addition, the company is extending its "Founding Members" program to the end of the year, which gives a free first year and an optional second year for about five bucks.
The company also announced that it will be rolling out a beta program of Wi-Fi connectivity for the service, so users will no longer need to have a hard-wire. The press release didn't mention an exact date for the new feature, only that it is coming out sometime this month. "Wi-Fi support has been the most requested feature among OnLive members, so we made it a top development priority and were able to role out a beta version ahead of schedule," said COO Mike McGarvey in the press release.
OnLive will have a booth at PAX this weekend, showing off the service along with the new Wi-Fi feature. Those interested in seeing video game streaming for themselves can find it at booth #3446.
Recently Capcom made clear their intentions to significantly reduce the time between releases in their major franchises, and it looks like they're following through. Speaking to Spanish website 3DJuegos (via NeoGAF), Keiji Inafune, global head of production at Capcom, said they intend to put Resident Evil 6 on the fast-track to retail shelves.
"Given the great success which led to us Resident Evil 5, we want Resident Evil 6 to hit the market as soon as possible," Inafune said. "In fact, Capcom will have news about this soon..." If that's in fact the case, it seems likely we may hear something at Tokyo Game Show, which kicks off on September 16. It's a venue big enough to seem appropriate for the first Resident Evil 6 announcement, and there's really no other big gaming event taking place any time soon after that.
We already know at least one thing about Resident Evil 6, which is that Resident Evil 5 producer Jun Takeuchi won't return to spearhead the title. But otherwise, for now we'll look ahead toward TGS and hope we do indeed get some news on the game.
Valve sure knows how to keep its audience guessing. Company co-founder and managing director Gabe Newell recently sat down with the UK's PC Gamer magazine and discussed what's on the horizon for the Half-Life developer.
"I can guarantee you people are going to be surprised at stuff we do. That isn't going to stop any time soon," Newell told PC Gamer (via CVG). "I'm just laughing because... people will be shocked again."
He continued, "We have three pretty big surprises in the next 12 months at least."
Curious what Telltale has in store for Marty McFly and friends? USA Today's Game Hunters blog snagged some early details on the upcoming Back to the Future games from the Sam & Max developer.
The USA Today article confirms that 71-year-old Christopher Lloyd is set to reprise his role as Doc Brown in Telltale's episodic series. Original Back to the Future trilogy screenwriter Bob Gale is also on board to work on the plot for all five of the planned episodes.
Expect plenty of references to the films, including the DeLorean, Hill Valley, and even characters modeled after the original actors. But don't hold your breath for a Michael J. Fox voiceover; the man who was McFly has yet to be confirmed for Telltale's games.
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