A doomsday comet, surrounded by smaller chunks of debris, is on a collision course with Earth. A strange magnetic field around the comet seems to be driving most of the planet’s weak-willed creatures crazy, and smaller bits of debris are smashing into the jungle near Bonk’s home. Bonk must undertake a perilous journey that will take him to the very center of the planet to save the world.
Bonk. Is. Back! Hudson’s loveable caveman makes his long-awaited return and has brought his enormously giant head with him!. Story Mode can be played solo or Co-Op in this Classic 2D platforming in a 3D world. An entire new adventure with Bonk as he swims, bites, climbs, jumps, runs, and head-butts his way through jungles, deserts and volcanic caverns. Get ready for an all new adventure on Xbox LIVE Arcade, Playstation Network and Wii in Spring 2010!
In Dragon Age: Origins, players take on the role of a Grey Warden, one of the last of an ancient order of guardians who have served as protectors throughout the centuries. Only they have the power to unite the shattered lands, defeat the Archdemon and drive back the darkspawn that threaten to destroy the world. Players will interact with many interesting characters who may join them in their quest, and they will choose whether these characters become friends, foes, or even a romantic interest. Featuring a deep and compelling story where every choice can have a dramatic impact on the game, Dragon Age: Origins is set to release on November 3, 2009 in the US, for the PC and Xbox 360 and later in November for the PLAYSTATION 3
Leading videogame publisher, SouthPeak Games, announced today a new Nintendo DS title, Crime Scene, scheduled for release this holiday season. Crime Scene puts players in the role of a detective, giving them a full arsenal of police tools to solve crimes and ensure justice is served.
“People love a good ‘whodunit’, so we’re about to give them a bunch of head-scratching crimes to solve,” said Richard Iggo, VP of Marketing at SouthPeak. “Whether you are a fan of police dramas on TV, classic detective fiction, or just tricky puzzles, Crime Scene allows players to take part in their own tense, high stakes investigation and get involved in forensic work.”
Crime Scene turns Nintendo DS into a weapon of justice. Players are tasked with combing through crime scenes and untangling suspense-filled scenarios by using the stylus, breath and voice features, and their own eye for detail to condemn wrongdoers. All the police tools are at the players’ disposal as they study bodies, take blood samples, collect fingerprints, use voice recognition software, identify murder weapons, conduct DNA analyses and more.
Crime Scene is scheduled for release in Holiday 2009. For more information, visit www.southpeakgames.com.
The next gen Starwars title featuring Dark Vadars secret apprentice is now at the low low price of $9.98 at amazon.com. Now this is amazon’s deal of the day promotion so it’ll be gone today. What’s more interesting is that downloadable content for the game just released online for the same price. Have yourself a new experience for $20.00?, act now. Link
PopCap Games has announced they will be releasing the Peggle Nights expansion for Xbox Live arcade. It will add 60 new Single-Player and 60 new multiplayer levels to the original Peggle game to serve your ball-bouncing addiction. New Peggle Master and new achievements are being added as well.
The expansion is slated to be released this fall, for 800 Microsoft Points, or $10. Lookin’ forward to more Peggle madness.
Batman’s Latest Adventure Now Available at Retail Stores Nationwide. Batman: Arkham Asylum™, is available for the PLAYSTATION 3 and Xbox 360. Developed by Rocksteady Studios and based on DC Comics, Batman: Arkham Asylum offers players diverse gameplay that pushes the envelope for all action, adventure and superhero games and exposes players to a unique, dark and atmospheric adventure taking them to the depths of Arkham Asylum.
BATMAN finds himself trapped inside the confines of Gotham’s psychiatric hospital for the criminally insane, The Joker has set a trap for the Dark Knight and has conspired with the deranged inmates to eliminate Batman once and for all. Gotham City’s most notorious villains, including HARLEY QUINN, BANE, KILLER CROC, POISON IVY and SCARECROW, also add their own share of Chaos in the asylum. Adding to the authenticity of the game are veteran animated Batman voice talents Mark Hamill and Kevin Conroy, who reprise their roles as The Joker and Batman respectively. This has been an immense collaborative effort and we’re extremely proud of Batman: Arkham Asylum,” said Lee Singleton, General Manager, Eidos Game Studios. “From the reactions we have already received, we truly believe it will not only stand out as one of the games of the year, but establish itself as one of those rare action adventure games you simply cannot forget.”
Owners of the PLAYSTATION 3 version of Batman: Arkham Asylum will be able to take control of The Joker in eight Challenge Maps as he battles wave after wave of enemy do-gooders. The Joker Challenge Maps are available now as free downloadable content through the PlayStation®Network. In addition, the PLAYSTATION3 version of the game unlocks the Batman: Arkham Asylum Batcave Outpost in PlayStation®Home, an exclusive personal space available to those who purchase the game for PLAYSTATION3. The Batcave Outpost comes complete with the BATMOBILE, BATWING, and tons of other great features, allowing fans to call the BATCAVE their own home within Home.
Batman: Arkham Asylum is available for $59.99 and the Games for Windows LIVE version of the game will be available on September 15, 2009 for $49.99. Pick your copy up today.
For so many years now, Nintendo has always dominated the handheld market. Ever since the Gameboy first launched in 1989, other companies have repeatedly tried to compete against the wildly popular device, and all have failed to even put a dent in the big N’s market share of handheld gaming. In fact, few devices even came close to being a threat to the Gameboy and its successor, the DS, with the exception of one: Sony’s PSP. When first announced, the PSP had a lot of hype surrounding it-there were rumors that it would be the next walkman, and that it would overtake Nintendo’s firm grip on the handheld market. Arguably, the PSP never fulfilled these goals and hardly ever became as popular as the DS. Even so, it was the closest anyone has gotten to being a threat to Nintendo-until perhaps now with a device that’s already in the hands of millions people all over the world.
When first launched, the iPhone was a huge hit-people lined up for hours to purchase it, and there were many shortages in the first few months (sound familiar?). However, the big complaint at the time was that there was no way of downloading 3rd party applications. This problem was fixed when the app store launched alongside the iPhone 3G, about one year after the first iPhone was released. Following these launches was an explosion of third party developers creating new apps for the device, including games. Titles ranging from puzzle games to adventure games, and even third person shooters, were soon cluttering the app store, and people were buying them thanks to the very competitive pricing. With the average game being somewhere around $8, few people could resist buying them, and this pushed developers even more to make bigger and better games. Even certain games that were only developed by a single person would become so popular that they would make national news, like the developer behind the game ishoot. Ironically, this explosion of gaming has been fueled not only by techies and gamers-but by everyone. From the business man to the soccer mom, everyone has at least a few games on their iPhone.
But does all this popularity mean the iPhone is a threat to the DS? After all, it’s still a phone right? Would anyone actually label the iPhone a threat to the DS? Yes-Nintendo would. In an interview several weeks ago, Nintendo exces specifically said that they consider the iPhone as being a threat to the DS’s market share of portable gaming. Perhaps they should feel a little nervous. After all, to date there are 21 million iPhones out in consumers hands, and all of them are capable of downloading any game. In fact, the statistics from Apple show that there are over 13,000 games available to download from their app store, and that games are usually the most downloaded apps over any other type.
To give a testament to the iPhone’s popularity, Sony recently announced that the PSP will have new “mini” games that will come in at under 100MB. This new type of game that Sony’s marketing is literally what the iPhone’s app store has been providing for over a year now. The PSPGo itself even looks similar to the iPhone when its closed. Sony understands that there is a market for portable casual gamers, and with the new PSP, they’re obviously trying to capitalize on this. However, it remains to be seen if they’re too late to the party.
Getting back to the iPhone, you could argue that popularity-wise it seems to have an advantage, but what about the games themselves? Surely games on a phone can’t be anywhere near the level of quality to that of an actually gaming devices? You might have been right a year or so ago, but this is a truth that is slow fading away with more and more developers pushing the iPhone’s hardware. Games like Brothers in Arms, and Resident Evil Degeneration look pretty close to what a DS title would look like, and Assassin’s Creed for the iPhone is literally the same game that was released on the DS. Perhaps in the future more DS games will be ported to the iPhone, especially now that developers know the money that can be made.
The iPhone is capable of some impressive graphics
However, an even bigger reason why the iPhone could overtake the DS is because of the casual games. Something that the DS has always pushed was that it was great for casual games, and now another device has come along and has become extremely popular in the very same department, and possibly even more casual and with an even bigger reach than the DS’s. Today, you are much more likely to see someone playing a game on their iPhone than a DS, and for good reason. The device is almost as powerful as the DS, and is much more accessible to non gamers, with the current trend the iPhone could potentially take away sales from the Big N and do what countless other companies before it couldn’t do before.
The awaited Mass Effect DLC is here which includes a new space station and 13 combat scenarios. This DLC is said to give you 2-3 hours of game but requires Spectre status to even start the mission.
It will also access three new achievements for it, bringing the total points to 1200. Here is the official link here
Ok, so we know this news is relatively old, but I figured it was worth posting. As most of us know, Rare’s Nintendo 64 classic, ‘Perfect Dark’ was announced by Major Nelson via his Twitter profile back in June. We also have very sparse details on the re-release; 1080p resolution, more stable framerate, achievements, leaderboards, the usual features for all Xbox 360 games.
Now, we have screenshots, story details, and more up on Rare’s website. Check it out at www.rareware.com!
It’s rare to see new elements in a FPS (first person shooter) keeping gamers away from the addictive gameplay of Halo and Call of Duty. Luckily Section 8 brings new features to the table and a little extra. LVLONE sat down with SouthPeak and went hands-on with some of the multiplayer maps that will be in the game.
Focusing heavily on multiplayer, Section 8 pits two teams, up to 16 players, for each side. Squads will break up teams into smaller groups, making it easier to organize a plan of attack on your enemy; while each team can use various tactics, if successful will gain them a range of points during a match. Players will be able to choose from different classes, geared towards specific roles to strengthen the squad or players can create their own soldier. Players are allowed two primary weapons consisting of numerous guns, two secondary components varying from a combat knife, grenades to other tools and passive skills, which use points to upgrade armor, attack power, etc. When you finally pick your class you will be given the option to drop in with your squad or free drop. Unlike most FPS’s this will let you simply drop into any part of the map. When in the battlefield players will earn money for kills, objectives and taking over bases, this will then allow you to call upon different deployable units for aiding in the match. Gun turrets, supply units, mech’s and tanks can be used, the items drop in just as you would from the sky, while units such as tanks and mech’s will come in from a support plane that can take longer for it to appear. This potentially puts players on the defense for their plane to keep from getting shot down while they bring down your item.
Besides killing your opponents, missions can be activated during a match and can increase your points and money. We got a chance to play Convoy and VIP, Convoy will have your team transport a heavy vehicle from one part of the map to another, while the opposing team will get alerted of the mission, and you will have to stop them. VIP will give your team a commando classed AI character that can defend the base for a limited time, helping a team when they are being heavily attacked. Everyone from the start of the match has a number of skills that can be used and recharged. Players can lock on to a target, use a jetpack, and can go into a hyper drive that makes it faster to get around the map. Maps vary from small to large depending on the amount of players. Like the Battlefield games the largest (if not all) of maps get scaled down when wanting to use a smaller player cap size.
Our overall experience with Section 8 was that it had a lot going for it, and maybe to much going on for some players to digest. Graphics are detailed, maps are large and there’s enough meat in the multiplayer that had us playing for hours. If you’ve played Tribes, Battlefield or even Quake Wars then you’ll feel right at home with this one. We’ll give you our review and look for this when it releases September 1st, 2009 for the Xbox 360 and PC.
