The Casual Gamer

First real, tiny screen of Sony’s ‘Massive Action Game’

Written by admin on July 22nd, 2008 in DS, Gaming News, PS3, Wii, XBOX 360.

Filed under: Sony PlayStation 3, Action, Online

Here, in all its compressed glory, is the first actual screenshot of Sony and Zipper Interactive’s 256-player MAG: Massive Action Game. We say “actual” because it was clear to anyone with eyes that Sony had pulled another Killzone 2 with the MAG video debuted during its pre-E3 press conference. In other words, it was all pre-rendered.

MAG senior producer Rade Stojsavljevic posted the shot to the official PlayStation blog, calling it “a sneak peak from one of [Zipper’s] internal play sessions.” Stojsavljevic also said that the dev has used its experience working in online games with the SOCOM franchise to create an entirely new server architecture for MAG capable of supporting its, well, massive amount of players.

Nyko FrontMan guitar compatibility chart

Written by admin on July 22nd, 2008 in DS, Gaming News, PS3, Wii, XBOX 360.

Filed under: Sony PlayStation 2, Nintendo Wii, Microsoft Xbox 360, Peripherals, Business

Click to embiggen

During E3 we spoke with third-party peripheral manufacturer Nyko about its line of FrontMan guitars and which games the different versions were compatible with. We did a quick and dirty post on what we were told during the E3 madness, but Nyko just sent over the chart above, which, admittedly, is much easier to understand.

For first-party guitar compatibility, check out our Guitar Hero / Rock Band guitar compatibility matrix v2. We’re sure to have v3 available as soon as we confirm Rock Band 2, Guitar Hero: World Tour and Rock Revolution guitar compatibility.

Virtuoso Mission: Satriana, Vai tracks hitting Guitar Hero III

Written by admin on July 22nd, 2008 in DS, Gaming News, PS3, Wii, XBOX 360.

Filed under: Sony PlayStation 3, Microsoft Xbox 360, Rhythm

Activision is set to add three new tracks to Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock’s downloadable setlist. Songs from true guitar heroes Joe Satriani (above) and Steve Vai will be available to download this Thursday, along with another from Buckethead, the guitarist best known to gamers for the GH2 track “Jordan” and rock listeners for wearing a KFC bucket on his head while playing. (Though likely not for having worked on the Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers: The Movie soundtrack.)

The DLC - aptly titled “The Virtuoso Pack” - has yet to be priced, but three song GH3 sets have historically cost 500 MS points (or $6.25 from the PlayStation Store). Here are the specific tracks, complete with video links for your memory-jogging pleasure:

“Surfing with the Alien” by Joe Satriani
“For the Love of God” by Steve Vai
“Soothsayer” by Buckethead

Rumor: Oldman confirms Dark Knight game, G4 pulls video

Written by admin on July 22nd, 2008 in DS, Gaming News, PS3, Wii, XBOX 360.

Filed under: Culture, Business

Far be it from us to tell Electronic Arts how to run its business, but one would think that announcing a long-since-leaked game based on a hugely anticipated movie which just so happened to premier the very same week of the industry’s largest press event would be - what we in the video game blogging business call - “a no-brainer.” But, then again, we’re not Electronic Arts so, despite being first rumored and then leaked by IGN over a year ago, Pandemic’s totally secret adaptation of The Dark Knight did not make its debut during the serendipitous collision of E3 and Batman-mania last week.

As if EA’s counter-intuitive marketing plan wasn’t funny enough, an interview on G4 with Commissioner Gordon himself, Gary Oldman, revealed - surprise! - that a game was indeed in development. Oldman stopped short of naming developer Pandemic or EA, but we all know the score; in response, G4 had the video removed from YouTube as well as their own site. Our favorite part from the interview teaser reel? When Oldman says, “It’s hard to make a movie like this under the radar.” You know what, we were just thinking the same thing about games …

Source - IGN forums
Source - YouTube video (since pulled by g4 Media, Inc.)

Quake Arena trailer shakes up web games

Written by admin on July 21st, 2008 in DS, Gaming News, PS3, Wii, XBOX 360.

Filed under: Mac, PC, First Person Shooters, Online, Video

First it was Quake Zero, then it became Quake Live, and now we have a fresh new look at Quake Arena, id’s free-to-play, browser-based iteration of Quake III Arena. As you’d expect, the visuals are decidedly simple, but still stylish nonetheless. We noticed a few instances of gameshow-like billboards peppered throughout levels; while they simply read “Quake Live” in the video, it’s likely these are placeholders for in-game advertising.

The trailer beckons viewers to QuakeLive.com for more info, but the site is still serving the sole purpose of a gateway for beta signups. From what’s shown in the footage, it will eventually become a very robust matching and ranking component of the game. With QuakeCon kicking off in just a couple of weeks we expect to find out more details soon.

Mahalo Daily talks arcade games with Wiebe, Walter Day, Joystiq

Written by admin on July 21st, 2008 in DS, Gaming News, PS3, Wii, XBOX 360.

Filed under: Culture

Not content to sit idly by while we party in their headquarters, the crew of Mahalo Daily was busy filming an episode of their daily video podcast while the Blueberry Muffintops rocked out in the background.

But, as luck would have it, another video game event was happening just down the street in Santa Monica, where would-be King of Kong Steve Wiebe was attempting to reclaim the high-scoring King Kong title. Mahalo Daily checked in on favorite arcade games at both events; keep your eyes peeled for totally super celebrity guest sightings like Wiebe, Walter Day, and Rosco “Totally Joking About Q*Bert” Miller.

Today in Joystiq: July 21, 2008

Written by admin on July 21st, 2008 in DS, Gaming News, PS3, Wii, XBOX 360.

Post-E3 Impressions Wrapup
Joystiq E3 eyes-on: inFamous
Joystiq E3 eyes-on: Monster Lab
Joystiq E3 eyes-on: Sonic Unleashed
Joystiq E3 eyes-on: Stormrise
Joystiq E3 hands-on: Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway
Joystiq E3 hands-on: Flock
Joystiq E3 hands-on: flower (PSN)
Joystiq hands-on: Mega Man 9
Joystiq E3 hands-on: Red Faction: Guerrilla
Joystiq E3 hands-on: Resistance Retribution
Joystiq E3 hands-on: Tom Clancy’s EndWar
Joystiq E3 hands-on: What’s Cooking? With Jamie Oliver

… And we’re back to the grind! We’re still finishing up some of the impression backlog and some other post-E3 shenanigans, but more or less it’s a return to normalcy. The screenshot above comes from the first Batman video game, circa 1986. Check out the highlights for today:

Joystiquery
E3 2008 news roundup
The Joystiq Free Game Club: Kongai
Joystiq interview: Bethesda’s Todd Howard on Fallout 3
Law of the Game on Joystiq: Non-Disclosure Agre3ments
The unbearable smallness of E3 2008, in pictures

News
New games this week: Final Fantasy IV edition
Major Nelson continues to clear up New Xbox Experience
Gears of War prequel novel gets new name, author, release date
EA extends Take-Two takeover offer to Aug. 18
Uncharted and Warhawk Home spaces snapshots
Gley Lancer, Super Fantasy Zone shoot up Virtual Console
Sega confirms Sonic and the Black Knight, Spring 2009
Pirates find The Key of Dreams on WiiWare
Target cards reveal possible LittleBigPlanet release date
Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop coming to Wii this winter
Jade Empire now an Xbox Original
Konami releases full MGO problem report, issues apology
Jimi Hendrix joins Guitar Hero World Tour
This Wednesday: Go! Go! Break Steady and 1942 jointly strike XBLA
Show of hands: Left 4 Dead box art gets a thumbs off
First video of Sony’s The Last Guy
Video of how Netflix works on Xbox 360
Puzzle Quest update to infect XBLA this Wednesday

Culture & Community
Witness the on-stage Rock Revolution press conference failure

Puzzle Quest update to infect XBLA this Wednesday

Written by admin on July 21st, 2008 in DS, Gaming News, PS3, Wii, XBOX 360.

Filed under: Microsoft Xbox 360, Puzzle, RPGs

Those jewels you’ve been collecting are about to get a whole lot more infectious, as D3Publisher announced that its player-christened Puzzle Quest expansion, Revenge of the Plague Lord, will infest Xbox Live Arcade this Wednesday, July 23.

Develped by Puzzle Quest devs, Infinite Interactive, the update will offer a virulent mass of new content, including 25 new quests, 50 new spells, 40 new items, and four new heroes, as well as the ability to build up characters to level 60. In addition, Revenge of the Plague Lord will also add three new Achievements to the popular puzzler, giving us plenty to feed our fever until we look to the skies next year.