Opinion coming: I mean, whatever.

There’s some nice write-ups at Kotaku, but the Move announcements smell like more motion-controlled crap mini-games. How is it that something like this can launch four years after the Wii came out, and the first batch of games are still goofy Wii 1.1 junk, with titles like “Move Party”? And could that photo be any more Wii-like?

Sure, the interior tech is improved over the stock Wii Remotes. It damn well better be, since it’s 2010. It also requires a PlayStation Eye camera, which almost no one owns, so get ready for expensive bundles this holiday season.

Sure, there’s no doubt one amazing upcoming game that will manage to combine HD graphics with motion controlled gameplay and not seem like a cheap Wii knockoff. Maybe it will be God of War Presents Kratos and Friends Brutal Olympiad Featuring Archery.

Sure, I haven’t touched it yet so what do I know about how fresh it feels.

But none of that changes the fact that this is a follow-the-leader reaction, issued primarily to remove a bullet point from Nintendo’s marketing plan. Sony’s new attack could be “We have this same crap now too, so you can stop buying that ugly standard-def unit with the bullshit online service.”

I’m all for video game systems evolving over time, but where’s the Move’s great leap forward? Depth perception? No tether cord? Like the Wii Remote+Nunchuk, the Move will be limited to certain types of games and certain types of control schemes… and if you do not enjoy those specific types, you simply won’t be buying a Move. Sounds like our highest hope for the Move is a high-def port of Madworld. The best part about the Move is, unlike the Wii, you at least have a kickass “traditional” controller available by default.

Don’t even tell me that shooter fans are going to get in line for this, since similar control schemes were tried on Wii and roundly ignored. Does anybody really think that the SOCOM audience is going to prefer to play the fourth installment with Move controls?

Thus far, I like the proposed LittleBigPlanet Move integration. And I’m waiting for the big REVISED EYEPET announcement where they add a bunch of Move controls to the delayed virtual pet. But Move Party? No thanks.

I first heard about it from Game Informer, but the news is everywhere. Somehow, somebody, something done broke the PlayStation Network. Which, obviously, means network-enabled games are not going to run at the moment… but not-so-obviously means some you-thought-they-were-offline games like Heavy Rain will not boot. Duh-whoops!

While it’s back to Animal Crossing for me, I thought I’d pose the question… What awful, unloved, ancient PSN game will we all get for free for having lived through Sonypocalypse 2010? Calling All Cars? Super Rub-a-Dub? Post your picks in comments and give us a good reason why.

I suppose that just because something is puerile doesn’t mean it is bad.

IGN described Darksiders as a combination of God of War and Legend of Zelda. They’re right. The combat is a mashy blitz of jumps and slashes, and you have to collect heart pieces in order to amp your life bar. Thus far – and I’ve made it to the release of Samael – it’s OK. Aside from looking at the map to track down treasure chests and weighing the next attack combo, there’s not a lot of thinking involved.

However, Darksiders is the kind of game where they have a sword named “Chaoseater” and you’re supposed to think that’s badass. Still.

That’s what gets me. The game is draped in the kind of juvenile My First Dungeons & Dragons mythology that makes me doubt any group of adults could have once sat in a room and plotted this unironically. The setting for Darksiders (why is it called “Darksiders”?) is a war between Heaven and Hell. Naturally, the angels are all glowing wings and radiant armor. The demons are grotesque amalgamations of gore and embers. You play as War, one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, who actually serves a master greater than than of Heaven or Hell: the Charred Council, who is tasked with keeping cosmic balance between the two. Basically, if either Heaven or Hell steps out of line, the Horseman are supposed to keep the peace.

War looks to me like he stepped right out of a 1990s Marvel Comic, by way of World of Warcraft. You know. Bionic limbs, gigantic weaponry, scarred face, dark hoodie, grumpy disposition. It’s just all so eye-rollingly pre-fabricated. And you’re expected to soak in the gushing blood and macho posturing and swoon over how AWESOME it all is. I mean, that giant DEMON just stepped DRAMATICALLY towards the camera and ROARED!

Look, I was there. If you could find my high school writings, you would find pale fantasy stories featuring characters with names like “Xander Foulwill.” (True story.) But today we’ve so many like-minded mega-violent swords and sorcery games that never advanced beyond that ninth grade Creative Writing class. At least Bayonetta had the wherewithal to come in from a campy angle.

The good news is that it is fun. From a “I’m Just Here For The Button Mashing” point of view anyway. You march through the map, slicing up zombies and bats and angels and beasts, often triggering single-button kill moves. Collecting the game’s currency – souls, natch – allows you to buy more moves and weapons. To add to the Zelda connection, there’s the emo version of Navi: a preening, sneering sidekick voiced by Mark Hamill. You can also buy empty bottles.

I will say that I like the game’s setting thus far… a post-apocalyptic New York covered with a century of dust and overrun with warring angels and demons. That’s been the one bright spot in the lacquer of badass gravel-voiced character designs. I hope the game doesn’t suddenly pull a Half-Life and change the setting to Boring Awful Fantasy Fire World Zone.

At the Bioshock 2 conference call that we covered a week ago, there was a question that I did not get answered, and that was about DLC.  I wanted to know if 2K Games was going to add additional content not just for the multiplayer, but for the single player campaign as well. 

Today, we got our answer, as 2K Games has announced a list of new DLC content for both single and multiplayer components, starting with the Sinclair Solutions Test Pack.  The Sinclair Solutions Test Pack is a set of new maps and two new characters for Bioshock 2 multiplayer, at a cost of 400 Microsoft moon bocks for PC and Xbox 360, or $4.99 on PS3.  Single player content will be coming in the near future as well, but it has not been announced what that content will be.  Check the jump for the full 411 and a couple more screenshots.

2K Games Announces Extensive Downloadable Content for BioShock® 2

New single player and multiplayer additions enrich the Rapture experience by adding a wealth of new content and features

New York, NY – February 22, 2010 – 2K Games announced today an aggressive post-launch downloadable content plan for BioShock®2 that extends and enhances the single and multiplayer experiences by adding more glimpses into the award-winning world of Rapture. Downloadable content will be made available soon beginning with the Sinclair Solutions Test Pack, available this March from the Xbox® LIVE Marketplace for the Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft and Games for Windows-LIVE for 400 Microsoft Points and from the PlayStation®Network for $4.99. Future expansions into the world of BioShock 2 are slated to arrive over the coming months and will continue to expand on the stories of the denizens of Rapture.

“The fans who waited in the snow, rain and cold for the midnight launch of BioShock 2 have spoken and their message is that Rapture still has many fascinating stories to tell,” said Christoph Hartmann, president of 2K. “Downloadable content is a key part of our efforts to continue to entice the fans that have made 2K a household name – we intend to deliver single and multiplayer content that respects and expands upon one of the greatest fictional worlds ever created.”

Sinclair Solutions Test Pack, the first of several planned downloadable packages, contains a number of customization features that will allow players to further their character’s development in BioShock 2’s multiplayer modes and provide a deeper multiplayer experience. The pack includes:

•Rank Increase to level 50 with Rank Rewards

•New playable characters Louie McGraff and Oscar Calraca

•20 new trials*

•A third weapon upgrade for each weapon

•Five additional masks*

*Some items are only available after a player achieves a rank of 41 or higher.

In the coming months, 2K Games will also be publishing downloadable extensions of the single player experience that provide new insight into the world of Rapture. These packages will include more narrative, new tools and new challenges that extend the lore and fiction of the failed Utopia under the sea.

About BioShock 2

BioShock 2’s multiplayer modes provide fans with an engrossing prequel experience that expands upon the fiction of Rapture’s origins. Set during the year before Rapture’s descent into chaos, players assume the role of a Plasmid test subject for Sinclair Solutions, a key provider of Plasmids and Tonics in the underwater city that was first explored in BioShock. Players will enter into areas from the original title as they struggle to gain superiority and fight for survival in franticly paced battles.

The single player mode serves as a sequel to the original game and provides fans with an unsettling storyline, dazzling visual design and the evolution of the genetically enhanced shooter gameplay. Set almost a decade after a grueling civil war consumed the once magnificent city of Rapture, evil reverberates through the halls and a wickedness once thought gone forever returns along the Atlantic seaboard. An unspeakable series of kidnappings from local seaside communities by an unseen monster leads to the repopulation of Little Sisters in Rapture’s failed utopia under the ocean. Players must step into the boots of one of gaming’s most iconic characters, the Big Daddy, as they traverse through the fallen city, fending off attacks from an army of genetically modified Splicers, while searching for escape and the key to their survival.

BioShock 2 is available now for the Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft, PlayStation®3 computer entertainment system and Games for Windows and is rated M for Mature by the ESRB. For more information on BioShock 2 please visit www.bioshock2game.com, www.cultofrapture.com and www.somethinginthesea.com.

2K Games is a division of 2K, a publishing label of Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. (NASDAQ: TTWO).

About Take-Two Interactive Software

Headquartered in New York City, Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. is a global developer, marketer, distributor and publisher of interactive entertainment software games for the PC, PlayStation®3 and PlayStation®2 computer entertainment systems, PSP® (PlayStation®Portable) system, the Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft, WiiTM, Nintendo DSTM, iPhoneTM and iPod® touch. The Company publishes and develops products through its wholly owned labels Rockstar Games and 2K, which publishes its titles under 2K Games, 2K Sports and 2K Play. Take-Two also distributes software, hardware and accessories in North America through its Jack of All Games subsidiary. The Company’s common stock is publicly traded on NASDAQ under the symbol TTWO. For more corporate and product information please visit our website at www.take2games.com.

“PlayStation” is a registered trademark of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc.

Windows, the Windows Start button, Xbox, Xbox 360, Xbox LIVE, and the Xbox logos are trademarks of the Microsoft group of companies, and “Games for Windows” and the Windows Start button logo are used under license from Microsoft.

All trademarks and copyrights contained herein are the property of their respective holders.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

The statements contained herein which are not historical facts are considered forward-looking statements under federal securities laws and may be identified by words such as “anticipates,” “believes,” “estimates,” “expects,” “intends,” “plans,” “potential,” “predicts,” “projects,” “seeks,” “will,” or words of similar meaning and include, but are not limited to, statements regarding the outlook for the Company’s future business and financial performance. Such forward-looking statements are based on the current beliefs of our management as well as assumptions made by and information currently available to them, which are subject to inherent uncertainties, risks and changes in circumstances that are difficult to predict. Actual outcomes and results may vary materially from these forward-looking statements based on a variety of risks and uncertainties including: our dependence on key management and product development personnel, our dependence on our Grand Theft Auto products and our ability to develop other hit titles for current generation platforms, the timely release and significant market acceptance of our games, the ability to maintain acceptable pricing levels on our games, our reliance on a primary distribution service provider for a significant portion of our products, our ability to raise capital if needed, risks associated with international operations, and the matters relating to the investigation by a special committee of our board of directors of the Company’s stock option grants and the claims and proceedings relating thereto (including stockholder and derivative litigation and negative tax or other implications for the Company resulting from any accounting adjustments or other factors). Other important factors and information are contained in the Company’s Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended October 31, 2009, in the section entitled “Risk Factors,” and the Company’s other periodic filings with the SEC, which can be accessed at www.take2games.com. All forward-looking statements are qualified by these cautionary statements and apply only as of the date they are made. The Company undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

Holdonasec, Media Molecule… it’s damn near March! It’s LittleBigLate to be reviewing the 2009 DLC landscape, eh? It’s also a little weird to be talking about how “new and exciting” 2010 will be, when we’ve already been through two months of naught but some LBP PSP DLC tossed into our hoppers.

Still, December’s Pirates/Water add-on was hot stuff, and your video is another typically pleasant stroll through your garden. So get us some new content and we’ll be good and psyched again. (Note that the White Knight Chronicles DLC is coming this week.)

You can check out MM’s video after the jump.

Source: LittleBigPlanet.com

GAME> Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time (2009)
SYSTEM> PS3
SOURCE> Joystiq, February 2010

And our global fascination with all things bancho continues unabated.

Outstanding Achievement in Animation
Outstanding Achievement in Art Direction
Outstanding Achievement in Visual Engineering
Outstanding Achievement in Gameplay Engineering
Outstanding Achievement in Original Story
Outstanding Achievement in Original Music Composition
Outstanding Achievement in Sound Design
Adventure Game of the Year
Outstanding Achievement in Game Direction
Overall Game of the Year

Other games that won awards include Batman: Arkham Asylum (3 awards), Scribblenauts (2 awards), and even Flower picked one up.

Want to see what other titles wowed the judges? Hit IGN’s list for the details.

There’s always a new game on the horizon. We get teasers, we get screens, we read previews and reviews and then – sometimes – we see enough to convince us to actually buy the game afterwards. It’s the great big circle of life. No, wait – that was The Lion King. My bad. I mean the circle of gaming.

I’d been aware of 3D Dot Game Heroes – a faint, dull throb in the back of my brain. I’d read a little about the Japanese release, and I’d seen a screen or two. And because I’m me, I’d kind of shrugged – meh – and moved on. There are prettier games. Smarter games. Funnier games. Sure, it looks fun – novel, even. But nothing special. Right?

Wrong. To see just how wrong I was, join me after the break …

3D Dot Game Heroes is a classic case of not judging a game by its pixels. But thanks to a brief web presentation by Atlus earlier today (well, tonight in my time zone), I have now seen the error of my dismissive meh-ing. An intelligent, nostalgic action-adventure, 3D Dot Game Heroes not only nods back fondly at the 8-bit games of yesteryear, it jumps up and down and SCREAMS for their attention.

To begin, we see firsthand how one can design one’s own 3D hero in what appears to be an intuitive 3D grid. Better yet, if – like me – you have the pixel design skills of a dead donkey, you can select from a gallery of cute little characters who are ready to grab their unfeasibly-gigantic sword (no peni-sorry, I mean, sword envy in this game, my friends) and kick ass.

What smacks you over the head with obviousness is the game’s similarities to Zelda et al, a deliberate and tongue-in-cheek homage to the RPG games we veterans grew up, with according to Atlus PR Manager Aram Jabbari. Dungeon levels, weapons, dash boots – hell, even crab-like overworld enemies – all of them carry a wisp of nostalgia. The bright, vibrant overworld carries all of the hallmarks we’ve come to love, including puzzles, combat and easter eggs, and all the environments look vaguely familiar, as though we’ve been here before at another time, another age, maybe another game. The screens simply don’t do it justice. And whilst you’d expect a pixel world deliberately themed around the technology of yesterday to sit on its laurels when it came to visuals and gameplay, it actually doesn’t. 3DDGH runs away with the PS3’s technology to provide dynamic, immersive environments.

In addition to the main narrative, there are a number of mini-games, including Blockout, Dash Circuit and Block Defense. There are surprises, jokes and puzzles galore. Whilst you may be able to complete a straight-run in 10-12 hours or so, to finish up completely – including all the side quests and easter eggs – you’d need to invest three times that much.

Without getting my hands on a preview (*cough*), it’s difficult at this juncture to talk in any detail about gameplay. But right now, there’s little to criticise. I’m not sure how this’ll translate to the young(er) generation, for you might have had to have been there to first time around to fully appreciate some of the in-jokes and references, but Atlus remain confident that anyone – without any prior RPG history – can pick this up and have fun. And I’m inclined to agree.

Regrettably, at this time it seems unlikely that the game’s going to ship with any interesting pre-order specials, which is a shame because the soundtrack – a delightful 8-bit blend oh-so-similar to that other RPG – is incredible. But as the game still aspires to retail for a shockingly-reasonable $39.99 – yes, that’s a brilliant new game entering the market at $39.99 – I’m happy to strip off the bells and whistles. This game doesn’t need gimmicks to sell. Trust me – just look at the 105 loading screens (which are proudly displayed in a gallery) to see what I mean.

Scheduled for a NA release on 11 May 2010, 3D Dot Game Heroes is a PS3 exclusive. And it is much, much more than just a bunch of pixels.

There’s been so much hype – and rumour – about Microsoft’s and Sony’s ventures into motion control, it’s hard to decipher the fact from fiction. This, I hope – a GDC 10 session entitled Introducing the PlayStation 3 Motion Controller – should finally help Sony put the rumours to rest.

Informally entitled ‘The Arc”, Sony’s motion controller is . . . well, exactly what you see in the picture: a stick with a ball at the end. But SCEA’s Platform Research Manager David Coombes and Kirk Bender intend to illustrate to delegates on 11 March 2010 that it will enable developers to “to create new game play experiences, by allowing players to interact with their console in high definition using their bodies.”

So . . . exactly like the Wiimote does already. Obviously.

It’ll be the first time we see the controller since it debuted at last year’s E3. What do you think of it?

Via Destructoid

So, my Stateside friends. Who’s got ahold of Heavy Rain then?

Sources suggest that whilst some retailers – specifically Blockbusters – may not be selling the game as of yet, they have been putting the game out for rental. Which means that it might be time to dust off your Blockbusters card and check out your local store, right?

And while we have a few more days to wait in Europe (sob), UK fans – and those people still on the fence – get to sample gameplay beyond the demo and try out the game on release weekend. From Friday 26 February until Sunday 28 February, you’ll be able to spend some quality time with the game at the following stores:

- HMV Edinburgh
- HMV Manchester
- HMV Leeds
- Gamestation Edinburgh
- Gamestation Birmingham
- GAME Nottingham

(Thanks for not coming to Wales. AGAIN. Pft.)

Finally, gaming site 9lives have released footage of the Heavy Rain voice cast in action. Enjoy!

Sources: examiner.com | 9lives.be | Playstation Blog EU