Gamernode: Latest Game and Console News

September 8th WiiWare/Virtual Console releases

Another Monday, another round of WiiWare and Virtual Console updates.

Whether Nintendo adds one game, ten games, or none at all, GamerNode will be here every Monday with the official details - titles, platforms, ratings, pricing, and even a taste of some corny marketing copy - keeping you up to date with everything from the online Wii scene.

Without further ado, the games:

WiiWareGroovin' Blocks (Empty Clip Studios, 1-2 players, Rated E for Everyone, 800 Wii Points): A music-based game like no other, Groovin' Blocks adds innovative musical game play to an addictive action/puzzle game foundation. Play to the rhythm of the music to increase your score, and try to hit "Superbeats" to double your multiplier. Go for the high score in each of the 27 stages as you collect stars to unlock 15 level...

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360 120GB HDD heading for another price cut?

Two things that you'll usually hear complaints from in the Xbox 360 community concern the dreaded Red Ring of Death, and the high price of the add-on 120GB hard drive.

There can't be anything done for the RROD blues at the moment, but there is relief for the $180 priced drive.

Amazon is selling the 120 gig drive for only $149. That's still not exactly a bargain when off the shelf drives cost less than a hundred bucks, but a $30 price drop is better than none at all.

Microsoft has stated in the past that the expensive drive was due to proprietary features and software that needed to be loaded.

Since Microsoft has enacted price drops across the board for all of its Xbox 360 line, could another price drop for the 120GB drive be near?

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Peter Moore says he dropped the F-Bomb on Sega

Peter Moore is a real character in the game industry. He tells you what's on his mind, he is a true gamer, and he's been a major force in video games for years. He recently disclosed to Esquire magazine that when he was a top executive at Sega, he said to Yuji Naka, game developer and creator of Sonic, "F**k you."

We leave it to your imagination to fill in the blanks.

The F-Bomb came when Moore was in a boardroom meeting with Naka and other Sega brass. At the time, the Dreamcast was hemorrhaging heavily due to competition from Sony's PlayStation 2. Moore was trying to show the managers that Sega needed some major overhauls to stay alive.

He recounts what happened at the meeting year's back, and related how he formed and video taped the reactions of focus groups to evaluate what they though of...

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Chrome is hot but its EULA is not

In just over a day, Chrome has captured 2.5% of the browser market, at the time of this writing, according to statistics gathered by clicky.com, a web analytics company. Internet Explorer and Firefox, sit comfortably, and safely at 58% and 31% respectively.

While there is no need for the top two browsers to panic, a 2.5% market share in just one day is nothing to sneeze at either. Chrome is steadily creeping up on Safari, the third most used browser on the Internet, and it has already surpassed Opera and old-time users of Netscape.

No doubt, the "instant" success of Chrome has a great deal to do with its distribution strategy. Google is the biggest search engine on the planet and underneath the search page logo are these understated words:

"New! Download Chrome (BETA) - the new browser from ...

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Yes, the Wii CAN be discounted

A phrase that has not been associated with Nintendo's Wii is price cut. Since the release of Nintendo's insanely popular Wii, the company and retail outlets have seen no need to lower its price; demand is still outrageously high.

But the Wii has finally been discounted. Woolworths in the UK has lowered the Wii's price from £179 ($316) to £159 ($281). A savings of 20 pounds ($35).

The retail chain is also extending this price cut to Wii bundles. The offer is good for one week.

The move by Woolworths to lower the price of the Wii is a tactic to bring in more foot traffic. Some observers are cynical and see it as a strategy to increase the ailing store's bottom line before the quarterly business stats are turned in. One observer on MCV noted:

"I was stunned by this move, what is the point... It...

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Dead Space to ship on October 14

Originally scheduled to ship on October 21, EA has just announced that they're pushing up Dead Space's release date. The sci-fi horror title will now ship October 14 on the Xbox 360 and PS3, a full week before the original date. (The PC version will still ship on the 21 - sorry PC gamers.) This marks the second time Dead Space's release has been pushed forward, as the game was first slated to release on Halloween.

One of the most anticipated games of the year, Dead Space takes place aboard an immense mining ship, the USG Ishimura. It has come into contact with alien life in a distance star system, and when communications with earth are suddenly cut off, engineer Isaac Clarke is sent to repair them. Obviously, things don't go as planned and he finds himself thrust into the middle of a livin...

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Akella acquires Disciples brand

One of the most revered PC series has just switched hands. Today, Akella announced that they have signed an agreement with Strategy First to obtain full ownership of the Disciples brand. Created in 1999, Disciples was one of the first games to combine strategy and RPG elements, and was a huge step forward in the turn-based RPG/strategy genre according to most industry insiders.

Before they got the rights to the series flat-out, Akella was already working on the next installment in the series, Disciples III: Renaissance.

"Working on such a well known brand is big responsibility for us. We are confident that our new project, "Disciples III," will meet the expectations of the legendary series fans. We are going to develop the Disciples brand, invest in it heavily, and produce a really good ga...

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Call of Duty: World at War multiplayer beta in Oct...

Everyone seems to have loved Call of Duty 4, and despite some hesitance at the mention of Treyarch, the next installment in the CoD series should prove to be quite a hit financially. But how will it function as a game?

Well, you'll be able to find out this October, as the upcoming Call of Duty: World at War is opening up a multiplayer beta nearly a full month before its November 11 release date for both the Xbox 360 and PC.

Recently Call of Duty: World at War faced some controversy when Treyarch presented Olympic champion Michael Phelps with an early copy of the game (which later was found out [off camera] to be an empty box serving as a pre-order). Some criticized the move of making it look like they were handing out an early copy; some criticized the move of trying to gain popularity by ...

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Halo 3 Mythic's new achievements

Just before PAX, pictures leaked of a behind-closed-doors Bungie room with a screen showing the title "Halo 3 Mythic." Apparently an online-only menu, almost nothing is known about the game. Was it the cancelled E3 announcement? Is it just a work-in-progress placeholder? Is it a surprise collaboration between Bungie and EA Mythic? The title is shrouded in so much mystery people aren't even sure if it's real, and Bungie's claim that it's "Nothing worth notice" doesn't do much to dissuade thoughts of possibility from running rampant.

While not much is officially known about the add-on/expansion/whatever-it's-officially-called yet, thanks to people at PAX who happened to check their Dashboard at Bungie's booth we do know that "Mythic" will add an additional 30 achievements to the game. Based o...

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Realtime Worlds cracks down on Crackdown DLC

Many gamers who purchased Crackdown also paid for the DLC that was offered not too long after the game was released. In the DLC package were new weapons, cars, new gameplay features, and new cop abilities.

Since then, fans have been clamoring for more DLC, but Realtime Worlds, the developer of Crackdown, says there won't be anymore.

Chris Dye, community manager at Realtime Worlds said:

"Unfortunately from a Realtime Worlds perspective there will not be any additional DLC for Crackdown; the company has moved onto our next Project, APB, and is 100% committed to that and other projects yet to be announced, and as such we are not in a position to work on any new Crackdown content."

Perhaps they can't work on any DLC at the moment because of time commitments, but that doesn't necessarily mean the...

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Analyst: Spore will sell 2 million copies in Sept

Will Wright's Spore has sprung forward and Lazard Capital Markets is forecasting that the galactic evolutionary adventure game from Electronic Arts will sell 2 million copies in the US during the month of September.

EA is hoping that Spore will infect the gaming masses and serve as a springboard for yet another franchise that will go on for years to come. Will Wright, for one, hopes that Spore will even be more massive in scope than The Sims.

"We're going to be much more intelligent about harvesting other market opportunities for Spore than we were with The Sims, which as big as it was in the game space, pretty much remains in the game space. Longer term, I think the brand of Spore potentially has a wider net to cast than The Sims did," he said.

Lazard Capital also expects Warhammer Online, E...

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Can you resist the Resistance 2 Special Edition?

Well, well, well, another special edition. But wait, this one is for Resistance 2 for the PS3.

I enjoyed Resistance: Fall of Man, thoroughly, and hearing about an SE for R2 made me cringe just a little bit...another wallet draining edition? After the initial non-shock wore off, the goodies packed with this version started to make me drool just a bit.

R2:SE will feature the game, of course, in your choice of box art, a bonus DVD packed with behind the scenes videos, a preview of the Resistance novel, "Resistance: The Gathering Storm, an in-game Wraith multiplayer skin, a double-sided art book, a digital copy of issue number 0 from Wildstorm on Resistance, and last but not least, a 5.5 action figure of your favorite bad guy, a Chimera Hybrid.

All this will set you back $79.99. Expect the specia...

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Google releasing new shiny browser: Chrome

We're not totally certain if this is a good idea or not, but considering that Google is worth about $157 BILLION, we suppose entering the browser market won't affect them too much if their new Chrome doesn't make it.

Starting this week, Google is releasing its beta version of Chrome in over 100 countries. According to techmeme, the browser will feature:

* Open source code. * Include a JavaScript Virtual Machine built from scratch * Tabs will be movable. * Have auto completion in the address bar. * Privacy features * Will fend off phishing and malware attacks.

Well, so far, nothing really earthshaking about Chrome. But why did Google launch a new browser that will be hard pressed to find its niche in a world full of Internet Explorer and Firefox?

Google said, "On the surface,...

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Australia breaks Spore street date

After years of playing third fiddle to the rest of the world, finally Australia was going to be given first shot at a major title courtesy of EA and Maxis' Spore. Set to release on September 4 down under (and September 7 in most of the rest of the world), Australians were ecstatic... And, blew it.

Reports have been circulating all day from gamers in Australian naming several stores which have broken the street date, releasing Spore early. One obvious side effect? The Aussies have leaked Spore to the Internet. While it's impossible to get the full Spore experience (since you need to be online and no one can be online without being perma-banned before the game's release), I'm sure the issue has caused EA to question their decision to release Spore first in Australia.

I'm still waiting for a...

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PS3 to have exclusive Mirror's Edge DLC

For a while there were reports that Mirror's Edge would be a PS3 exclusive; then people said it would be a timed exclusive; now, those have been put to rest and a new tidbit has arisen from the falsified ashes.

After a few days of confusion, Sony and EA have finally come out and made statements on the issue of Mirror's Edge, and revealed that while the game won't be a PS3-exclusive by any means it will feature exclusive DLC available only on the PlayStation Network. (Karma, PS3 GTA4 owners?)

No one knows yet what form the exclusive content will take, and whether or not the PC and 360 will get their own exclusive goodies. Still, I'm sure PS3 owners will be glad to hear that finally they'll be getting something their 360-owning brethren will not - and with a non-Sony title.

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Ubisoft: Europe > US

Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot told GamesIndustry.biz in an interview that Europe is now the company's biggest territory-not the US.

"First, our money - the pound or the euro - is very strong and because of that the turnover from those countries is heavier than they used to be," he explained during an interview at Games Convention. "So for Ubisoft turnover Europe is actually more important than the US now, and by more than 5 per cent. It's become a very strong market for us."

Guillemot gave credit to newer games being more inviting towards more casual gamers, and Ubisoft titles like EndWar which is "totally changing the industry."

Not mentioned in his spiel on how awesome Europe is for Ubisoft are how many copies of the Imagine series Euro gamers are inexplicably buying, what this mystery Ubiso...

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Behind the scenes of Legendary, episode 5 of 6

We are inching ever closer to Legendary's September 30th release date, and with the fifth of six behind-the-scenes videos of the game, we are also nearing the end of this revealing series.

In this penultimate video of Gamecock and Spark Unlimited's mythological first-person shooter, the team describes the choices behind the game's conceptual design, enemy AI, and characterization.

Hit the jump to watch the video.

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September 1st WiiWare/Virtual Console releases

Another Monday, another round of WiiWare and Virtual Console updates.

Whether Nintendo adds one game, ten games, or none at all, GamerNode will be here every Monday with the official details - titles, platforms, ratings, pricing, and even a taste of some corny marketing copy - keeping you up to date with everything from the online Wii scene.

Without further ado, the games:

WiiWare

My Aquarium (Hudson Entertainment, 1 player, Rated E for Everyone, 500 Wii Points): With swaying aquatic plants and fish idly swimming about, My Aquarium is a relaxing Wii experience that allows you to enjoy a virtual aquarium in your spare time. Whether freshwater or saltwater, you can select from over 40 popular types of fish, including favorites like the Ocellaris clownfish, the freshwater angelfish and the Asi...

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OWR: Viva Pinata

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.

Today's One Word Review is of a game filled with animals...who are filled with candy. The sequel to Viva Pinata comes out this week, so GamerNode is taking a look back at this original surprise hit.

Despite its cutesy exterior, m...

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The future: Square Enix...Tecmo?

Get ready to add to the growing list of mergers, acquisitions, and conglomerations of videogame companies, because mega-publisher Square Enix is looking into taking over Tecmo, Ltd.

Square Enix announced today that the company has submitted a proposal to the Tecmo board of directors, outlining a friendly take over bid, in which Square Enix would acquire a majority of shares of Tecmo common stock.

The proposal includes a clause stating that consent shall be either granted or denied by the Tecmo board of directors no later than September 4th, 2008. More details can be found below.

1. The reason to submit the ProposalVideo games have been globally recognized as a major entertainment genre, and have now become an industry receiving considerable attention in terms of its market size and growth p...

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