Monthly Archives: February 2010

Latest Nintendo downloads 2-15-2010

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Beef up your Nintendo Wii or your DSI with the latest downloads. Check out what’s going on.
WiiWare

Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney®: JUSTICE FOR ALL
Publisher: Capcom Entertainment, Inc.
Players: 1
ESRB Rating: T (Teen) – Blood, Mild Violence, Suggestive Themes
Price: 1,000 Wii Points™
Description: Phoenix Wright is back as the second game in the popular Ace Attorney hand-held franchise comes to the WiiWare service. As Phoenix Wright, you’ll play through four shocking new cases in first-person perspective. The game features two unique game play modes. In Investigations Mode, you’ll survey crime scenes, interview witnesses and gather evidence. You’ll then present findings, listen to testimonials and examine witnesses in Court Mode. JUSTICE FOR ALL also includes a new “Psyche-Lock” feature that allows Phoenix to use a line of questioning to reveal inconsistencies in witness testimony.

Art of Balance
Publisher: Shin’en Multimedia
Players: 1-2
ESRB Rating: E (Everyone)
Price: 800 Wii Points
Description: Grab your Wii Remote™ controller and build a balanced stack in this physics-based puzzler, featuring 100 levels that challenge not only your skills but also your imagination. The game is easy to pick up and hard to put away. Play alone or invite a friend to grab a second Wii Remote controller and drop in at any point for co-op play. There’s even a dedicated two-player split-screen “versus” mode for extra fun.

WarMen Tactics
Publisher: CALARIS
Players: 1
ESRB Rating: T (Teen) – Blood, Violence
Price: 800 Wii Points
Description: In the year 2013, civil unrest across the globe has prompted world leaders to merge the police and military into a single force called the Department of Control. This force is opposed by a resistance made up of former military members who refused to join the Department. Marco is one of them, and the game tells his story. Join Marco as he is deployed on a mission to destroy scrambler devices placed around the city. Created to reflect the realities of urban warfare, the game requires players to take cover behind walls and other obstacles as they strive to defeat enemies and advance to the next post.

Nintendo DSiWare

Spotto!
Publisher: Nintendo
Players: 1
ESRB Rating: E (Everyone) – Mild Cartoon Violence
Price: 200 Nintendo DSi Points™
Description: Meet Spotto, a plucky duck on a mission. Ill-behaved ghosts have kidnapped Chikkie Wowwow, President Wowwow’s daughter. Spotto, being the world’s foremost Bombirdier, must follow these ghosts to a haunted house and use his trusty bombs to blast the baddies. Take control of Spotto, adjusting his aim with the stylus and trying to toss bombs into the ghosts’ mouths in 50 “explosive” stages. Along the way, you’ll avoid obstacles (or use them to your advantage), find powerful Super Bombs to inflict even more damage and even encounter a frighteningly large ghost or two. With multiple modes of play and numerous solutions for successfully blasting ghosts to pieces, this is one haunted house you’ll want to visit often.

Spaceball: Revolution
Publisher: Virtual Toys
Players: 1
ESRB Rating: E (Everyone) – Mild Fantasy Violence
Price: 500 Nintendo DSi Points
Description: Spaceball: Revolution will put your intelligence and skill to the test as you solve puzzles in a futuristic environment. Copy the figures that appear on the top screen, using energy balls that make the boxes correctly change color. It won’t be an easy task. Different obstacles will be thrown into your path, challenging you to polish your aim and think rapidly. Fifteen different levels are waiting for you in Spaceball: Revolution. Are you up to the challenge?

Scrabble Classic
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Players: 1-4
ESRB Rating: E (Everyone)
Price: 800 Nintendo DSi Points
Description: Scrabble, one of the world’s most popular board games, is enjoying a tremendous surge in popularity, both online and in the real world. Scrabble for the Nintendo DSiWare service allows you to play this exciting game in both Single Player and Multi-Player modes.

Real Soccer 2010
Publisher: Gameloft
Players: 1-4
ESRB Rating: E (Everyone)
Price: 800 Nintendo DSi Points
Description: Real Soccer is back for the most exciting season yet. Choose from more teams than ever before and compete in new stadiums around the world. Lead your team to victory on the field and make tactical decisions as the coach.

Prehistorik Man
Publisher: Interplay
Players: 1
ESRB Rating: E (Everyone) – Mild Violence
Price: 800 Nintendo DSi Points
Description: Life is hard for Sam the Prehistorik Man. With three-and-a-half hours of work each week, there’s barely time to fit in all the sleeping, eating and cave-painting that needs to be done. When greedy dinosaurs guzzle his village’s winter food source, Sam gets mad. Armed with his best club and his powerful hunter’s voice, Sam needs your help to proceed through 22 levels of food-gathering and dinosaur-bashing. With fast-paced action, hundreds of secret areas, weapons and unlikely vehicles to find, you’ll need to be smart. Well…smarter than Sam, anyway.

Virtual Console

Sonic & Knuckles
Original platform: SEGA Genesis
Publisher: SEGA
Players: 1
ESRB Rating: E (Everyone)
Price: 800 Wii Points
Description: Sonic, the world’s fastest hedgehog, continues his adventures in this fourth installment of the Sonic The Hedgehog™ series. This time, he buddies up with his former enemy, Knuckles the Echidna, in order to defeat the evil Dr. Eggman (a.k.a. Dr. Robotnik). At the end of Sonic The Hedgehog 3, Dr. Eggman’s ultimate orbital weapon for global domination, the Death Egg, was badly damaged in an epic battle with Sonic. The Death Egg, losing power rapidly, hurtled back down to the planet below and crash-landed on the mysterious Angel Island again. Now Sonic and Knuckles must put a stop to Dr. Eggman once and for all before Eggman and his no-goodniks find the secret to Angel Island’s floating power, the Master Emerald. This game features Lock-On Technology, which allows you to play as Knuckles in other Sonic titles available for the Virtual Console, including Sonic The Hedgehog 2 and Sonic The Hedgehog 3, as long as these titles are part of your Virtual Console library.

Microsoft X10 Conference Highlights

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Annually, Microsoft has their X10 conference to expound the coming year of everything Xbox. This year’s is arguably one of the biggest yet, and Microsoft would be the first to tell you. I could talk and talk and tell you everything about myself but I will just get straight to the details of the conference:

One of the biggest franchises for Xbox is Halo and Microsoft touched on this topic with a video and an open beta date. Starting May 3rd, the multiplayer beta for Halo: Reach will go public. Access to the beta can be had through the Halo 3: ODST Multiplayer disc. Phil Spencer, the Corporate Vice President of Microsoft Game Studios, says that “Bungie is proving the impossible possible by eclipsing even its own untouchable standards with Halo: Reach.” Here’s what he was talking about:

Next, Microsoft announced that those who reserve Crackdown 2 will get a code to download four exclusive suits of Agency-Issue armor in Gold, Brushed, Red, and Blue Metal. Those will look great while climbing a mile-high building to jump from.

Microsoft talked about their Xbox 360 launch exclusive that everybody has been patiently waiting for, Alan Wake. The developer, Remedy Entertainment, is known for taking their sweet time with Max Payne but anyone who’s played it knows the results were completely worth it. The psychological action game currently has a May 18 launch date for North America and will release three days later on the 21st in Europe. Like Crackdown 2, those that pre-order the game will receive exclusive content at launch. This includes avatar gear, an Xbox Live theme, and a “making of” video. The game also got an accompanying video:

Capcom‘s Dead Rising 2 had an appearance at X10, where Microsoft pointed out that Xbox Live will have exclusive downloadable content for the game at launch. There was a video too:

Something nearly any average gamer will appreciate is that downloadable content for Modern Warfare 2 is confirmed to be coming, and in Spring. Even better for Xbox 360 owners is that owners of the system will have access to the DLC first.

Alan Wake is not the only game that has made a name for itself through delays; next on that list is Splinter Cell Conviction, which has missed release dates more than I could count. But again, it does not really seem to matter as Ubisoft’s showing of the game at last year’s E3 shows nothing but promise. Anyways, Microsoft was sure to re-iterate that consoles copies of the Tom Clancy game are Xbox 360-exclusive. North American gamers will see it on Xbox 360 and PC shelves on April 13th, on April 16th in the UK, and on April 28th in Japan.

Some of the bigger exclusivity news of the past couple months has been that Squaresoft’s Final Fantasy XIII will not be a Sony exclusive and is coming to the 360. At X10, Microsoft one-upped this news by announcing an FFXIII Xbox 360 system bundle, which will be available at the game’s launch of March 9th. The bundle includes a whopping 250 GB hard drive, two wireless controllers, downloadable avatars exclusive to the console and a standard edition copy of FFXIII. Various retailers in North America, Australia, and New Zealand will also sell limited edition FFXIII Xbox 360 faceplates.

Over the past few weeks, Lionhead Studios creator Peter Molyneux has been talking up Fable III and how he’s made an earth-shaking design feature that will probably “piss off fans” of the series. He might have announced that feature at X10, but I’m still waiting for any kind of rumble. Halfway through Fable III, players will become king and rule over the land of Albion. Here’s the X10 feature video for Fable III:

Finally, Left 4 Dead 2 is getting an add-on called ‘The Passing’. This add-on has the cast from L4D meeting up with the cast from L4D2, with new single-player, multiplayer, and co-operative gameplay. Valve is targeting an early Spring release.
Left 4 Dead 2 The Passing

Final Fantasy XIII XBOX 360 hardware bundles announced

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For all you Chocobo maniacs, The FINAL FANTASY XIII XBOX 360 Bundles – the Special Edition and the Elite Bundle – are available to preorder now, and will be available to buy in-store from 9th March, while stocks last. You’ll get some goodies with them. Here’s what’s going on.

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500x_500x_ff_13_xbox_360_01 500x_final-fantasy-branding

Anyone who pre-orders the Special Edition Bundle will receive a Limited Edition Faceplate created by legendary character designer Tetsuya Nomura. Ok, that’s pretty cool. But it doesn’t stop there.

The Special Edition Bundle includes:

  • XBOX 360
  • a 250GB Hard Drive engraved with the FINAL FANTASY XIII name,
  • two Wireless Controllers,
  • downloadable Avatar items (exclusive to the Special Edition) comprised of 1 x Rosch Outfit, 1 x Nabaat Outfit and a Chocobo pet for your Avatar,
  • and a copy of FINAL FANTASY XIII, the forthcoming adventure in the multi-million-selling series.

The Elite Bundle includes

  • XBOX 360
  • a 120GB black Hard Drive,
  • one Wireless Controller and
  • a copy of FINAL FANTASY XIII.

I’m so confused. I thought being “elite” was being “special.” Oh, well.

There’s no pricing, yet, but I’m betting this will not be cheap.

The King of Soul Coming to Rock Band

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Today Harmonix and MTV Games announced next week’s downloadable content for Rock Band. The DLC includes five songs from Otis Redding, All Time Low, Alphabeat, Brian Setzer, and The Chemical Brothers. These songs will be available on February 16th for the Xbox 360 and Wii, and on February 18th for Playstation 3. Otis Redding’s contributions include “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay,” “Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa (Sad Song),” “I’m Sick Y’all,” “I’ve Got Dreams to Remember,” and “Love Man.” These are accompanied by All Time Low’s “Weighless,” Alphabeat’s “Fascination,” Brian Setzer’s “Stray Cat Strut,” and The Chemical Brothers “Let Forever Be.” The press release from Harmonix made no mention of whether or not the recording of “Stray Cat Strut” is the Stray Cat’s version or is the recording by the Brian Setzer Orchestra.

These tracks part of the “Otis Redding Pack 01″ on Xbox 360 and Playstation 3, as well as being available on those two systems and the Wii as individually purchasable tracks. The complete pack will be priced at 680 MS Points ($8.50) on Xbox 360 and at $8.49 on Playstation 3. The individual tracks can be bought for 160 MS Points ($2.00) on Xbox 360, for $1.99 on Playstation 3, and for 200 Wii Points on the Wii.

More information on Rock Band can be found at http://www.rockband.com.

New Guitar Hero DLC Now Available

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As Activision announced at the end of last month, the Breaking Benjamin Track Pack is available today for download. The pack includes the songs “Sooner or Later,” “Until the End,” and “Give Me A Sign.”

The pack is priced at 440 MS Points ($5.50), $5.49 for PS3, and for 550 Wii Points on Wii. Each song can also be purchased individually for 160 MS Points ($2.00), on PSN for $1.99, and on the Wii for 200 Wii Points.

On February 20th from 1-3 PM EST, Xbox Live users will be able to Game with Fame with Breaking Benjamin on Guitar Hero. If you want to a chance to this, you will need to download their track pack for the game and add this Gamertag: BBGWF

Also now available for Xbox 360 Guitar Hero owners is the Guitar Hero VIP Pass, which will allow users to download tracks without a game disc in the drive. The pass can be found here or on the XBL Marketplace.

More Guitar Hero information can be found here.