Portal 2 demo continues, parts 2 and 3 released
Valve has released the promised second and third parts of Portal 2’s seven-part — all to be released this week — E3 demo today, showing another two additions introduced to the puzzler sequel, excursion funnels and faith plates, in action.
Catch the first part, which introduced Wheatley the personality sphere, here.
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XBLA next week: Monkey Island 2, Blacklight, and DLC
This week’s additions to Xbox LIVE Arcade, Puzzle Quest 2 and Ancients of Ooga, aren’t even out yet and already we’re being told what’s next in the release queue.
Wednesday, July 7 will see the following new stuff: Monkey Island 2 Special Edition: LeChuck’s Revenge (800 Microsoft Points), Blacklight: Tango Down (1200 MSP), and new downloadable content for Worms 2 Armageddon. This “Battle Pack” includes six weapons, thirty missions, Survivor mode, and more for 400 MSP.
Toy Soldiers is also getting an add-on in “The Kaiser’s Battle.” Hitting June 30th, this DLC allows you to play as the French, introduces an “experimental” boss, and contains more multiplayer/Survival mode maps.
I don’t know that I have ever bought any extra content for a downloadable game, XBLA or otherwise. That said, I appreciate the effort being put into keeping these games alive.
Dead Rising 2 Release Date Unveiled
The release date of Dead Rising 2 has been unveiled. The successor to the popular Xbox 360 zombie game will be launched in September 28, 2010. For your info, the original release date was sometimes in August 2010, but it has been pushed back for a moment for some last moment polishing. [DigitalBattle]
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Sequel to Metro 2033 in Development
THQ has revealed that a follow up to Metro 2033 is currently in development, which will also be playable in 3D. Danny Bilson, VP of core games at THQ, told CVG about the sequel– titled Metro 2034.
Like the first game, 2034 is also based on a novel by Russian author Dmitry Glukhovsky. Just by looking at book reviews of his sequel, we can get a sense of what’s in…
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Madden 11 Introduces The Sponsored Player Ratings Category
Earlier today a brand new rating was spotted in Madden 11. The rating category in question is to be known as “Swagger”. The image above, originally posted on the official EA Sports forum, shows that not only is it a new rating but it has been officially sponsored by Old Spice.
GoMadden noted that the NFL and Old Spice had partnered up earlier this year to identify which teams in the league had the most swagger and a relationship such as that with a sports league oftentimes leads to inclusion in their respective officially licensed games. So having Old Spice as one of the advertisers in Madden 11 would not come as a surprise but the method being used is definitely unorthodox.
Essentially the swagger number is a confidence rating, however it is being identified officially as a “swagger” rating due to the promotion with Old Spice. Making plays on the field will result in a boost to performance in subsequent plays and those individuals with high ratings in the category would receive the biggest benefits from performing well.
Advertising has become more and more prominent in sports games these days but it would be a reach for this particular instance to actually bother anyone even as absurd as the idea of it would seem. The ads that popped up pre-snap in Madden 10 were certainly more intrusive. Those appear to have been removed for Madden 11 so if the trade-off is sponsorships of ratings or ads in different places most would probably be ready to accept that resolution.
Dance Central DLC ‘more complex’, pricier
Post-release downloadable content for Harmonix’s Dance Central will carry a price tag higher than the $2-per-song approach taken with Rock Band, project lead Kasson Crooker has told Joystiq.
Developing additional content for the currently Kinect-only dancer brings with it “complexity” that makes the process “significantly different,” he says.
“Because [Dance Central DLC] comes with a brand new unique routine with the three difficulties, we have to: engage the choreographer, find the song, license the song, come up with a routine, get them into a [motion capture] suit, shoot all the choreography, integrate the animation, build the filter system, the flash cards, the [voiceover] for ‘Break it Down’ — it’s a pretty elaborate process that is not only a lot more expensive, but a lot more time consuming.”
Details on the add-ons’ pricing will be revealed closer to the early November launch, Cooker also said, also revealing that Harmonix is unlikely to adopt a weekly launch schedule for DLC, at least at first.
Milo demo from last year not planned as a game
Remember that really creepy demo of Kinect when it was first unveiled as Project Natal last year? I’m talking about the one with the kid who fished and made everyone watching him feel vaguely uncomfortable. At the time, we were under the impression that this was going to someday be a retail product.
Not so, according to Aaron Greenberg. Australian TV program Good Game asked the Xbox boss about the Milo demo, where he stated that the demo still existed and had been refined but there were no plans to make it a game.
It’s funny how I’d managed to put Milo completely out of my mind. I didn’t even notice his absence at E3 until this mention of it. It’s also interesting to note that there wasn’t anything on display that demonstrated the same level of technical wizardry. Makes you wonder what happened to some of the grander ideas, like the item recognition, and whether we’ll see them again.
28 June 2010 E3 2010: World Exclusives part 2 [Good Game via Kotaku]
