Gamernode: Latest Game and Console News

Cryptic Studios reveals Star Trek Online

There are many IPs that people would love to see an MMO for. One of these IPs is Star Trek. With its vast characters, large expansions of planets and intergalactic travel, fans of the show wouldn't mind living in such a universe if they were given a a chance. It is good to say that Cryptic Studios has officially announced Star Trek Online and unveiled a website for the MMO that is still in development.

The developer has also released a handful of screenshots and promises to reveal gameplay footage at the Las Vegas Star Trek Convention on August 10. For those of you unable to make the trip, Cryptic will be streaming the presentation online for everyone to see. 

Is Star Trek worth a dive in the sea of MMOs that we have today? Do you think it stands a chance to carve a niche in the industry an...

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OWR: Soul Calibur

Welcome to One Word Review, GamerNode's unique take on videogame critique. Every Sunday, we will present a single game, reviewed with but a single word from each of a handful of reviewers.

You may not always find our words in your standard dictionary, but we have faith that you will catch our meaning, nonetheless. Videogames are so often rated, reviewed, and discussed to exhaustion, so while some may call OWR a creative way to be lazy, we call it succinct, sincere...and fun. We love reader input at GN, so be sure to throw your own OWRs in the comments section, too.

With Soul Calibur IV hitting store shelves this week, GamerNode is taking a look at the game that kick-started the weapons-based fighting franchise back in 1998 for today's OWR. It's been called "brilliant," "staggering," "glorio...

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Soul Calibur IV: Vader on 360, Yoda on PS3?

Star Wars fans may have been happy to learn that Soul Calibur 4 will feature console-specific playable characters Darth Vader and Yoda, but the inability to pit them against one another in mortal combat is likely to have left a bittersweet taste in many gamers' mouths.

Well that taste may not linger very long, as it is rumored that Darth Vader will be available as downloadable content on the Xbox 360 and Yoda will be getting the same treatment on the Playstation 3. We don't know if these downloads will be free or paid just yet, and what we do know remains unconfirmed by Namco, Microsoft, or Sony. This video is pretty clear, however:

[via GamersReports]

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Home to be delayed again?

Warning PlayStation 3 owners, Home may be delayed for a third time. While not confirmed by the Sony camp, a recent interview with Kaz Hirai is sure to have fans worried.

In the interview Mr. Hirai reflects on the last two Home delays and explains why he felt they were in the best interest of the product and the fans it would be reaching. Mr. Hirai feels it is better to release a fully featured and complete product as opposed to one which is half done. If Home is good enough, no one will complain once it finally hits.

"As I've said on numerous occasions, I'd much rather make sure we take the time to have a great service rather than rush something into the market - only for consumers to say: 'This is not enough for me.' I want to avoid that. If we have the right service, it doesn't matter wh...

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Miyamoto believes developers should focus more on ...

Shigeru Miyamoto, the legendary creator of Mario, Donkey Kong, and Zelda, has finally shared the secret ingredient that has made his games so successful; improving people instead of technology.

According to Miyamoto, designers today are too obsessed with having their games run on the newest engine and capturing the attention of players with ultra-realistic graphics.  According to Miyamoto, they should, instead, be thinking "about things such as health or mental improvement, rather than technology itself."  Humans, he thinks, should be the inspiration for games, not high resolution or polygon count.

Miyamoto has a point here.  It seems today that developers care only for the graphics they output.  Looking at Miyamoto's titles, however, we can see that, even though his games do not necessarily...

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UK prisons ban inmates from playing games

A UK Prison Service directive has been sent out that will ban most prisoners from playing violent video games.

But if inmates can achieve the highest levels of Incentives and Earned Privileges for good behavior, they'll still be able to play games.

According to statistics, the UK Government spent more than 10,000 pounds ($19,900 US) on 80 PlayStations and 15 Xboxes for young offender institutions.

In addition to prisoners who have earned the highest EP (earned privileges), those at risk of suicide will also be allowed to play video games.

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Resistance 2 beta now going worldwide

Insomniac says that the upcoming public multiplayer beta for Resistance 2 is going to be worldwide and not regional to just North America as originally announced for PSN's exclusive Qore (paying) membership service.

Insomniac said:

"For all of you folks outside of North America are up in arms because Qore is NA only, please don't worry. This is one of many ways to get in, and we plan to make the beta available in all territories, as we need to test all servers and worldwide play. Further details on how to get into the beta will be forthcoming."

This is good news for all PS3 fans. It may also be an indication that the original plans for making the public beta exclusive for Qore users would have shot Insomniac in the foot as subscriptions to the service are minuscule when compared against the ...

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Half off sale at the PlayStation Store

Sony is trying to lure the PS3 faithful into downloading game titles from the PlayStation Store. How? For a limited time only, PSN will be offering several downloadable games at half off.

Until July 31, the following games will be available for the price of only $4.99 per game (normally $9.99 each).

Pain: A game where you "get points by stringing together painful collisions and inducing chaos in the environment. It's the funniest game in town!"

High Velocity Bowling: In this bowling game, the SixAxis controller actually serves a purpose! You'll use the controller "...to simulate a genuine bowling swing with real lane environments, providing a truly next-gen bowling game.

PixelJunk Monsters: "Inspired by the popular and addictive "tower defense genre, PixelJunk Monsters takes the simple real-ti...

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Exec says consoles going the way of dinosaurs

Alex St. John really likes to talk about stuff. For those who don't know (and I didn't know until this morning) he is the head of WildTangent, an online gaming network. He recently spoke in Seattle at the Casual Connect conference calling the console market "extremely fragile."

He also told Edge Magazine that the "notion of the console wired to the big TV--its time is up." The evidence for his theory is based on laptops changing the computer market. Ninety percent of people have enough power to do what they need to do with a laptop. He predicts as more people have laptops they will be gaming on their laptops.

He goes on, saying:

"...kids can play anywhere, or they plug in a gamepad and plug into a TV for that 'immersive' experience. People in our generation might cling to that idea of th...

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E3 2009 confirmed! My predictions...

Worry not young ones. Despite what seemed like a lackluster event this year, what with no new hardware announced (microphones don't count Nintendo), and some companies talking about a movie that's not due out until 2011 for half an hour (Capcom!) the ESA has confirmed that E3 will be returning next year.

Hooray!

Like Janus I think we need to look back on E3 2008 and bid it adieu, while looking forward in anticipation for E3 2009. An ESA rep told Edge Magazine Online, "As we do every year, we're beginning the process of surveying exhibitors and attendees to determine potential changes to the Summit."

And changes do indeed occur. In 2006 there were upwards of 60,000 people at E3. This year, that number was closer to 5,000. Now you can check my math here but that's a 91% decrease in atten...

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Bionic Commando swinging to consoles next week?

For those of you who have been following, Capcom is working on two--not one, two--completely unrelated Bionic Commando games due out in the next few months.

They're also working on two Street Fighter games that are unrelated and while that is also interesting, today we are talking abut Bionic Commando.

While the all-new adventure dubbed Bionic Commando has a release date set for January, Capcom has been silent on when the remake of the NES classic will hit the PSN and Xbox Live Arcade. While I presume it will be driving the hype train before the IP is relaunched next year, I didn't think it would be coming until November.

This site (which will translate from probably well-written Japanese into only slightly coherent English) talks a lot about a whole bunch of stuff having to do with the re...

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E3: Resident Evil 5 hands-on

"Resident Evil...Five."

I don't know if Capcom's next entry into the long-running survival horror series begins that way, but I do know that after playing the game in Capcom's suite on the second floor of the LA Convention Center last week, it's definitely one of my most anticipated phrases of the current console generation.

Those of you who have been following the game, watching the videos, and looking at screen shots can probably tell that Resident Evil 5 has a lot in common with its predecessor, Resident Evil 4. The game uses the same over-the-shoulder perspective that has become standard in more than half of the third-person action titles released since RE4, and focuses more on fast-paced, high-intensity combat than the methodical exploration and conflict avoidance of older Resident Evil...

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Splinter Cell: Conviction delayed once again

Sam Fisher is so good at going under the radar it now looks like it is affecting his games...literally. Splinter Cell: Conviction has been uncharacteristically absent at the last few Ubisoft events. Rumor is the entire game is receiving a tweaking before being shown to the public again.

With the direction the Splinter Cell series was heading I'm not going to complain. While Double Agent was fun, and had the best iteration of the Splinter Cell multiplayer experience, the rest of the game felt lacking. With Conviction straying even further from the core that made the Splinter Cell games so good and so popular, some extra time can't be a bad thing.Naturally, Ubisoft is giving their own explanation beyond the reworked story to appease the fans. Who can blame them? Turns out Ubisoft considers C...

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Metal Slug 7 DS video and release date

Metal Slug 7 for the DS has a release date and will be launching on November 18 in North America and September for Europe.

If you've played any of the Metal Slug arcade games, you'll be happy as a slug as you can play this game when you're standing in line for a movie, waiting for your boyfriend/girlfriend to finish shopping or just enjoy blasting the stuffing out of the baddies.

Interestingly enough, Metal Slug 7 will not appear in arcades which means the DS version is an "exclusive."

New features will include:

* 7 levels altogether (without branching paths) * Two new vehicles, the Slug Truck and Slug Gigant * Slug truck works similar to the Metal Slug * Slug Gigant is a heavy, giant robot capable of massive firepower * The return of Combat School Mode (originally from Metal Slug X) * All-ne...

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"Contactless" battery charger for Wiimote coming

Electronics manufacture, Sanyo, has announced that it is the first company to offer an officially licensed charger for the WiiMote, which we assume, means Nintendo will make sure the thing works before putting its stamp of approval on the device.

Other charging units, not licensed by Nintendo, have reportedly melted the cases of the controllers while charging. Not a good thing.

The replacement rechargeable battery pack for the controller uses eneloop cells, which draws its power from magnetic induction rather than electrical contacts. This will be great for all those WiiMotes that have those thick silicon case protectors on them--you won't have to remove it to charge your controller since no contact needs to be made with the battery pack and the charging unit.

The cost of a one-unit charger ...

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Kyle plays indie game levelHead at E3

Independent games looked great at this year's E3 Media & Business summit, in a few cases outshining nearly all of the "popular" stuff in terms of creativity and design. One such title was the Linux-only levelHead, created by artist/game designer Julian Oliver.

This game was so impressive that we couldn't help but to shoot some footage on the lowest-fi recording equipment we could find (my point-and-shoot digital camera). Kyle is playing the game while I describe what's going on. I apologize in advance for the amount of background noise on the show floor, but this game is just too cool not to show off.

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Dead Space feature-length cartoon trailer

I think it's safe to say at this point that EA is not interested in making another ho-hum clone out of their upcoming survival horror game, Dead Space. A great showing at E3, good marketing support, an animated comic series, and now a feature length cartoon that acts as a prequel to the events of the videogame all tell us that EA is standing firmly behind this product.

That's good, because from what we played at E3, the actual game looks to be a fine gaming experience. Here is the official trailer for the straight-to-DVD Dead Space: Downfall. Surprisingly, it doesn't look terrible at all.

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Hirai counters "360 will outsell PS3" statement

Sony Computer Entertainment president Kazuo Hirai recently chatted with MCV, and in between discussion about PlayStation 3 SKUs and Home, he countered Microsoft senior vice president Don Mattrick's E3 claim that the Xbox 360 would outsell the PS3 this console generation.

Hirai's response was simply that Microsoft's definition of the term "generation" may be different from Sony's, and he reiterated Sony's plan to support the PS3 for a long, 10-year lifecycle.

"The key word there is this 'lifecycle' or 'this generation.' As you probably know, we're working on a ten-year lifecycle, we've said that since day one and we've proven it with PSOne and PS2. I guess Don is saying they're also going to be embarking on a ten-year lifecycle, then? If they are then that's terrific, but I've never seen them...

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Mattrick: Sony and Nintendo have been on vacation

Microsoft's senior vice president Don Mattrick obviously feels pretty strongly about his company's products, and he isn't afraid to tell the press about it. What's more is that while talking to MCV, he not only claimed "victory" at this year's E3 Media & Business Summit, but was also quick to take a few jabs at the competition.

"I think we got more than 12 months' work done, and others went on an extended vacation. Hopefully they got some good vacation photos, because they sure weren't showing up at work.

Of course I'm going to be biased, but so far what I've heard is that Sony and Nintendo have disappointed. And Microsoft has been leading, innovating and driving a very comprehensive global program.

We're building momentum and we're on a scale that no other consumer electronics company or en...

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The "Don't Tell!" Award - Nintendo

Welcome to You Win! This GN feature has been put together to honor not only the best and the brightest in the videogame industry, but also the most useless, incompetent, and just plain foolish.

GN will be looking at industry news, announcements, game releases, retail, politics, marketing, corporate shake-ups, critics, and anything else that could possibly inspire us to create and bestow a brand new (and extra shiny) custom award as often as possible. The frequency of new "winners" is entirely up to how consistently awesome or despicable everyone chooses to be.

Today's award goes out to a company that is infamous for it's closed-mouth/tight-lipped/keep-it-secret philosophy regarding upcoming games and company announcements. Nintendo's history is full of secrets, big and small, but sometimes (...

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