Tuesday, August 31st, 2010 | Posted by Gavin Greene | 2 Comments

Atlus, the company behind the Shin Megami Tensei brand and its many sub-series (Persona, Devil Summoner, among others), will soon fall victim to a streamlining effort by its parent company, Index Holdings. With the goal being to shift business to its “profitable core areas,” Index Holdings will keep the Atlus brand will remain intact for now, though the fate of its current products like Catherine is currently unknown. Due to the near-finished nature of many of its potential releases, the analysts at Elder-Geek predict the company will remain, at least until the end of the next fiscal year. Atlus will soon put out an official press release detailing how this will affect publishing, but had no current comment when contacted.

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Saturday, August 28th, 2010 | Posted by Gavin Greene | No Comments

The highest selling title on Xbox Live’s Indie label (just surpassing 300,000 downloads), John Silva’s I MAED A GAM3 W1TH ZOMB1ES 1N IT!!!1, is branching out its brand to several high-end companies. First, Silva’s Ska Studios has announced a partnership with clothing retailer Hot Topic to produce a fan-designed t-shirt scheduled for release this September. The shirt will only be available through Hot Topic’s online store.

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Saturday, August 28th, 2010 | Posted by Gavin Greene | 1 Comment

The massive 105-song setlist for Activision and FreeStyleGame’s upcoming DJ Hero 2 has been revealed. In celebration of the event, the Facebook page for the game now features a “name that mix” challenge that presents users with a mixed video and the opportunity to guess which individual songs made up its components. Prizes include tickets to performances of the game’s featured DJs and professional mixing equipment, among others. The contest runs weekly from now until September 21st. The game itself will launch on October 22nd for Playstation 3, Wii, and Xbox 360.

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Saturday, August 28th, 2010 | Posted by Gavin Greene | 4 Comments

With the black-lash against its required eye-wear almost as strong a deterrent as its price, electronics companies have found it difficult to market the current model of 3D TVs to the public. In an approach similar to Nintendo’s 3DS, in fact using the exact same technology on a larger surface, Toshiba has responded to this problem by developing the first line of 3D TVs to not require any sort of glasses. Set for a pre-Christmas release in Japan, the line consists of three models, each projecting light in a wide spectrum (a “light field display”), allowing multiple users enjoy the stereoscopic effect from multiple angles without eyewear.

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Saturday, August 28th, 2010 | Posted by Gavin Greene | No Comments

You can already activate and use several Xbox Live Dashboard features on your Windows 7 Phone, full phone-to-console gaming in real time is deep in development. Speaking at the X10 event in Toronto, a representative from Microsoft described the future functionality, including hints at PC-Phone interactions taking place over the Xbox Live infrastructure.

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Saturday, August 28th, 2010 | Posted by Gavin Greene | No Comments

Konami Digital Entertainment has recently announced that the release of the second video game based on the horror series from Twisted Pictures, will release slightly before the seventh film in its inspired franchise. Saw II: Flesh and Blood will launch on October 19th, ten days prior to Saw 3D‘s (previously Saw VII) October 29th release. Taking place again between the first and second films, players will be put in the role of Detective Tapp’s son, Michael, who must force his way through new traps and puzzles in order to investigate his father’s death. The game will launch on the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360.

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Saturday, August 28th, 2010 | Posted by Gavin Greene | No Comments

The digital release of games based on Tom Cruise’s old films continue on the Playstation Network. In addition to the recently delayed Top Gun, the film that introduced us to Cruise’s relationship with Nicole Kidman will be getting a video game makeover sometime later this summer. A stock car title bearing not only the Paramount Pictures’ license, but NASCAR’s, is being developed exclusively for the Playstation Network by Piranha Games.

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Saturday, August 28th, 2010 | Posted by Gavin Greene | No Comments

If you head over to www.bioshock.com, you won’t be finding Little Sisters or Rapture. Instead, Name Administration Inc. (a Cayman Island Company), the owners of the domain have made it into a link hub to topics regarding Earth Science and Eco Tourism. This hasn’t sat well with the folks at Take-Two Interactive (who put Bioshock‘s information up on www.bioshockgame.com), publishers of the game series bearing the domain’s name. The company has accused the current domain holders of “cyber-squatting” on the digital property, a case which an arbitration panel at the World Intellectual Property Organization recently dismissed.

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Thursday, August 26th, 2010 | Posted by Randy Yasenchak | No Comments

Tale of Tales, the developers of The Path, Endless Forest and Fatale, has released a free version of Vanitas on their website.

Vanitas was originally released on the iPhone and iPod touch and it launched at the Art History of Games symposium in Atlanta, Georgia on February 4, 2010. Vanitas is a wooden box with small objects in it. Every time you open the box, you see three new objects. The different combinations form compositions that remind of “Vanitas” -or “Memento Mori”- paintings from the renaissance and baroque periods.

Vanitas is available to play within your web browser, but it does require a plug-in from Unity.

Thursday, August 26th, 2010 | Posted by Gavin Greene | 5 Comments

The oft-requested setlist from Harmonix’s latest musical opus is upon us, boasting over 80 tracks across 4 decades and even more genres. Rock Band 3 will release on October 16th, 2010 for the Playstation 3, Wii, and Xbox 360.

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Thursday, August 26th, 2010 | Posted by Gavin Greene | 3 Comments

While its time in the console spotlight was short, the Sega Dreamcast’s longevity has been anything but. While among the most beloved of the cult consoles, its fandom isn’t the only thing that has kept the Dreamcast alive. Independent developers have been making new games for the consoles up until this year, a full decade after the consoles original launch, one such company being Redspotgames.

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Thursday, August 26th, 2010 | Posted by Gavin Greene | 1 Comment

The developer behind Wii Party, Nd Cube, has just had the majority of their stake purchased by Nintendo, effectively becoming a wholly acquired subsidiary of the company. The Big N holds 96-percent of the company’s stock, this coming a few years after many Mario Party vets jumped on the company from Monegi, another majority-hold company, this time between Nintendo and Hudson. Nd Cube previously worked on F-Zero: Maximum Velocity for the Gameboy Advance and Tube Slider for the Gamecube.

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Thursday, August 26th, 2010 | Posted by Gavin Greene | 2 Comments

After languishing for three years in development limbo, Surreal Software’s This is Vegas was officially canceled. CVG reports the game had racked up $50 million in costs, and still required 8 months to a year of more development before completion.

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Thursday, August 26th, 2010 | Posted by Gavin Greene | No Comments

Zynga was having such a good year. What with huge investments and successfully avoiding being just another wholly acquired social gaming company, 2010 was looking to be the Year of Zynga. But the casual developer’s flagship title, Mafia Wars, has hit multiple road-blocks in the past couple of days.

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Wednesday, August 25th, 2010 | Posted by Robin Meijer | 1 Comment

With the release of Dragon Age 2 set for a release in March 2011, BioWare has announced that it will release the final piece of downloadable content for Dragon Age: Origins on September 7th. BioWare indicates that this content will serve as the conclusion of the Dragon Age: Origins storyline.

The dlc-package will be known as “Witch Hunt” and continues the story of Morrigan, a major character from the original game. Almost a full year after the events from the original game, Morrigan returns to Ferelden and apparently becomes involved in the theft of an important Dalish artifact. BioWare indicates that players will be able to confront Morrigan in an attempt to get answers from her, take revenge, or reunite with a lost love.

The content will be made available on September 7th for PC, Playstation 3 or Xbox 360 at a price of 560 Microsoft points or $6.99 on Playstation Network. A set of screenshots of the upcoming DLC is included after the jump.

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