Star Ocean 4 - the RPG sequel surprisingly previewed by Square Enix last Christmas - will be released (exclusively?) for the Xbox 360 console in 2009. According to Famitsu, the announcement was made at a recent Microsoft event in Japan, although some speculate that a delayed and enhanced PS3 version is all but inevitable - much like with Tales of Vesperia, another awesome looking Xbox 360 RPG confirmed for the PS3.

Following the event, Square Enix producer Yoshinori Yamagishi did make a comment regarding the game's exclusivity, but a clear conclusion is nowhere to be found at this time:

"We cannot announce anything on that. We can say that it will be released first [on the Xbox 360]. Whether we'll release it on the PS3 is undecided. We may release it, we may not."

The complete title of the game will be Star Ocean 4: The Last Hope, and the story will take place a few hundred years before the first Star Ocean. Below we posted some new high-res screenshots, and of course we couldn't miss this cool new trailer. Make sure you don't, either!

Tired of chasing around little sisters on your old, rusty, and filled with God knows what bodily fluids keyboard? Fear no more, friends, for both PSM and Electronic Gaming Monthly combined (they are a sort of Captain Planet) will feature cover stories in their next issue, regarding the fact that Bioshock, the game that put “pedo” into “pedophile” (except Japanese visual novels, of course), is paying a visit to Sony’s next-gen console.

So, what will this version bring new to the table? I guess, nothing much. Some graphical improvements here and there, tweaks, blah blah, but I expect nothing groundbreaking. Just the fact that you will mindlessly steer through Rupture via a gamepad, not a keyboard. Fascinating. According to EGM, we should see this new Bioshock out on the store shelves somewhere around the 2008’s holiday season.

Personally, I’m pretty curious, as always when it comes to ports, about the controls. Really.

As we like to say, when we are actually sober and NOT disregarding other people’s opinions, “tastes may vary”. And they may vary a lot. Styles vary, also. Big time. So I tend to find it a bit strange when two big bad ass producers, like Bethesda Softworks, and the younger, much fresher, not yet infested with the “my idea is better than yours” syndrome, Splash Damage, decide to join forces, in an attempt to… well, to do some stuff. What stuff, we have yet to discover. They probably don’t have a clue about it, either.

It’s useless to mention what Bethesda is famous for, but I will restate what it will be Infamous for. Fallout 3. The game that, according to my awesome Nostradamic predictions, will suck so much ass that even the greatest ass sucker in the world will have to bow down and let others do his job. As for Splash Splashidy Splashie, their recent title, Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, along side with their very deep friendship with id Studios, says it all.

They obviously intend to do some serious business regarding the gaming industry, but the actual details regarding their future project will not be revealed as soon as it may seem. Let’s just hope for something big, something nasty, and for the love of God, please, no more Oblivion crap. Fallout 3: Oblivion Copycat is enough to fail for ten years to come, already.

Arigatou, 1UP.

The first gameplay footage from the Gears of War 2 campaign was revealed this week, and for the past couple of days, Microsoft has been shoving more materials down our throat. It may sound like a lot, but in fact it's just a bunch of uber-high-res screenshots issued yesterday, and today they re-released the Gears of War 2 'assault' trailer, but without Cliff Bleszinski's commentary. In case you can't make out anything during the intense non-stop action, here's what the trailer is all about, in CliffyB's own words:

"The Locust are back, and they're meaner than ever. And they brought with them a force that can essentially sink entire cities; and it's not just a little emergence hole, it's an entire city going down at once. So humanity's back is against the wall, and we need to strike back against these guys. So the way that we do that is by taking these trucks called Derricks, and we tow these devices called Grind Lifts into Locust-occupied cities. The COG guys get in the Grind Lifts, they barrel down into the depths of the underground, and they fight back against these bad guys."

Both the trailer and the screenshots below are taken from the same level, called "Assault" (the third chapter), from the first act in the single-player campaign.

Five years ago, this title alone would have been enough to make me hop around like crazy in excitement. Now, I couldn't give a rat's ass anymore. Not because the announcement was innevitable, nor because I've become a grumpy gamer. But simply because my rusty computer may never run Doom 4 at a decent frame-rate. If it will be a PC title at all...

Ok, so this is the part where the "real" news begins, normally. Except that there's not much left to say, other than "production has begun on Doom 4", as id bluntly puts it. Sure, they have more filler text in their announcement, but they don't give any estimate release date, no target platforms, no nothing. Just a tiny, subtle hint:

"DOOM is part of the id Software DNA and demands the greatest talent and brightest minds in the industry to bring the next installment of our flagship franchise to Earth", said Todd Hollenshead, CEO, id Software" (ed. - our bolding)

Bring Doom back to Earth, eh? Well, why not. It's not like it matters if we're shooting demons on Earth, Mars, or some other planet, as long as we're locked inside dark buildings most of the time. Damn, I really hope they'll shed more light on Doom 4, literally, and bring back the bloody colorful massacres from the early days of Doom and Doom II.

Despite the usual trend when it comes to recent games, it seems that Prey 2, along with all those asshole-like doors and… wall grafitti, will not come to all the consoles and their mother, when it will eventually ship. More exactly, the guys at Radar Group stated that the sequel to the 2008’s would-be-shooter will find its way to the PC and Microsoft’s X360. So no PS3, at least for a while, though it is hard to believe that such a title would not take advantage of some sales boost with Sony’s console being so overrated.

Details on Prey 2, Earth No More, Incarnate and other two “unknown” projects can be very well spotted on Radar’s website, along with Casey Linch’s statement on The Game Reviews, according to which the game’s developer is still Human Head.

Well, if you are interested in a FPS that denies you DEATH in any possible way, Prey may be a thing for you. And I bet that Prey 2, too.

That Zerg trailer was all fine and well, but a bit more detail never hurts. So here is the latest double-pack of StarCraft II screenshots issued by Blizzard this month, showing more diverse gameplay environments.



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 Continue reading 'StarCraft II Screenshots'...

We all know RPGs are almost on the brink of extinction – and I mean true RPGs, deep story, memorable characters, rapeable Ladies Aribeth, and stuff like that, not some junk food hack and slash that mindlessly (though sometimes, pretty addictive) set you up in a dungeon crawling with sponge blobs, pink rabid bunnies or giant weeds that seem to have an issue with your well being.

The last really good one to hit the market was Bioware’s Mass Effect (and we are still waiting for that PC “port” to make us drool even more), amongst others. As much as we have enjoyed it, we just couldn’t stop that saliva coming out when we heard Greg Zeschuk, BioWare’s general manager, bragging on the MTV channel about how great Mass Effect 2 will be.

First of all, we’ll have more side quests. More and better, he says. Quests that are actually worth doing, not just skip them for that main plot that needs solving RIGHT NOW.

"Side quests can sometimes be left on the side, so to speak. Pardon the pun. But a lot of times it's even just getting that whole game done, that whole first shot [that is important]. We look at Mass Effect 2 as incredibly exciting. Just the amount of effort and knowledge and know-how that went into building the technology for the first one is huge, and [we now have] the chance to actually make things a little bit richer."

Secondly, we’ll get the same treatment here as we’ve got in most BioWare/Black Isle sequels, more exactly an enhanced world, the solving of various technical issues that may (or may not) appear at some point or the other, basically, a truly revamped content that will make the player have an instant erection. What can I say, words are good, they have always been. Hopefully, this is not some media bullshit.

Gamespot scoop.

It all started as a (well founded) rumor. It ended with an official announcement. So, yeah, basically we’ll get more Bioshockin’ services in the fall of 2009, according to the girls at Take Two. Just as promised, actually, because they stated before their hungry desire to release one Bioshock title once every two years…

What we know so far is that the game will, indeed, be manufactured with great care and no trembling hands by the newly formed 2K Marin Studio, where a bunch of Bioshock developers gathered not to be pissed off by the lesser beings inside Take Two that like to share useless opinions with the rest of the world. Even though it was first rumored that brainmaster Ken Levine will not work on this project, Take Two confirmed that, well, he will, either it is his choice or not.

While Bioshock was a great game, maybe more popular than great, it still reeked of casual putrefaction. Hopefully, more little sisters, Japanese ones, this time, will fix the obvious flaw of respawning like a retard, that made the game look much too easy. And silly.

Scoopz0r.

- The 360+ MB Crysis patch 1.2 is finally up for download. But it has issues. And also some dedicated (albeit beta) nVidia drivers.

- "We have no plans to have in-game advertising in StarCraft II", says Blizzard via Blizzplanet. Well, they have no plans for announcing the next Diablo game today, either. But that doesn't mean it's not there...

- Dark Sector has just gone Gold, and is now ready for releasing in North America this March 25 on the PS3 and Xbox 360.

- Capcom dismisses Resi 5 date rumours, the ones placing the release of Resident Evil 5 in October 2008 (just before Gears of War 2). So it might only come out in early 2009.

- Huxley, that MMOFPS nearly gone vaporware, was featured this week in an IGN preview saying that Webzen plans to release the PC version by the end of 2008, followed about six months later by the Xbox 360 version (which will take place 50 years later, but will still have "cross-platform interaction" with the PC version, oddly enough).

- Each game from the Orange Box package - Portal, Team Fortress 2, and Half-Life 2: Episode One + Two - will be available as separate PC titles at retail on April 9, as confirmed by Valve on Joystick. Too little too late.

- Europa Universalis III: In Nomine announced for this summer (or some time before it). It's like an expansion for another expansion, since it will require the Napoleon's Ambition add-on, and the idea for it was born on Paradox' forums. Sounds... promising...

- Various WiiWare games were announced lately, but the vast majority of them look like pure, double-distilled shit. One exception is LostWinds (which we covered last month), and another one will hopefully be Lit - a 3D horror action-puzzler coming from WayForward (Contra 4, Shantae), which I found out about on Gamasutra.

- The U.S. Air Force wants 300... Spartans? Moonkins? Nope, PlayStation 3 consoles. Awoo! Awoo! Awoo! They're supposedly "conducting a technology assessment of certain cell processors", and the PS3 is perfect for playing while on-duty their top-secret research.