Peoww News

In yet another Gamescom press release, Ubisoft have announced a Tintin game to accompany the forthcoming film.

Coming as it does from Ubi, expect a proficient if sterile movie tie-in hamstrung by dogged adherence to the major plot events that take place throughtout its cinematic counterpart.

We hope there’s plenty of thinly veiled allegory criticising Belgian colonialist policy but doubt it’ll come to pass. After all, most people think that The Congo is where Um Bongo comes from rather than an unfortunate country left in the lurch by the resource stripping that took place in the first half of the last century.

An action adventure aping the Uncharted/Tomb Raider series is likely, no doubt interspersed with mechanics from other Ubi games.

The Adventures of Tintin: The Game is due in November, widely discounted in December. Ian

Peoww News

Dear Microsoft Game Studios,

When you cancelled 1 vs 100 back in the day, a gaping void was left in your community gaming schedule. Also, it was one of the few online games I was actually good at. I even won an XBLA game courtesy of a 7th place. It didn’t matter that I already had the game, I’d actually won something by virtue of having a head chock-full of useless facts.

So hopes were high when you released the compulsively addictive Full House Poker. An easy, if grindy max ensued. I even managed to max the accompanying free Spring 2011 Texas Heat DLC pack without much trouble.

So pray tell, why is the subsequent Summer 2011 Texas Heat DLC with the same set of achievements proving such a tough nut to crack? I managed to win a Hot Pot for one achievement. I even placed in the top 20% in one session to qualify for a gold medal and the associated achievement. But did it pop? NO IT BLOODY DIDN’T.

I tried playing again on Tuesday, only the servers didn’t seem to be accepting players which is worrying. Even after a cleared system cache it didn’t play ball.

What I’m really trying to say is don’t put in time sensitive achievements that are prone to not unlocking.

If the end of this season comes around and I’ve not managed to at least get the 5m cumulative chips achievement, I’ll be joining the queue of people at Eurogamer to shit in your hair.

Love,  Ian

Peoww News

Quelle horreur! Among the many announcements at the industry jizzfest Gamescom, was the unveiling of a new FIFA Street installment. Trailer here. It looks bloody horrific.

After the cel shaded monstrosity that was whorey favourite FIFA Street 3, EA seem to have ditched the 4 making this a wanky reboot, much like the forthcoming SSX.

He looks even more ridiculous in real-life.

Still, since most of the development team upped ship post-FS3 development and went on to make the excreble Pure Football (FIFA Street on full sized pitches with online multiplayer hosted by Ubisoft on what appears to be a Pentium II), they probably figured that they’d farm it out to some poor saps who joined the company with high hopes.

It looks like they’ve ditched the cel-shading and the caricatures (Peter Crouch’s already exagerrated features being a previous highlight), opting instead for recycling of player assets from the flagship main FIFA series. Also gone are the favela-style arenas, seemingly replaced with more realistic pitches including indoor wooden boards.

Either way, it’s probably going to be horrible. As long as it has the same TA ratio for what amount to easy achievements like it’s predecessor and pseudo-sequel, I think there’ll be a market for it among gamerscore whores.

We predict it’ll be less than twenty quid within two months of release, the clout of EA being the only factor for it not dropping sooner. The obligatory hateful DLC is bound to follow soon thereafter. Ian

Peoww News

Microsoft have announced at Gamescom that Double Fine’s XBLA tower defence-mech-Schafer ‘Em Up, Trenched, will finally be getting a European release in September under the new monicker Iron Brigade.

As per our previous news story, the delay can be attributed to a Portuguese boardgame called Trench holding the trademark for a videogame. Though the odds of us ever seeing such a game, let alone it being any good are probably pretty slim.

Iron Brigade is expected to be released in September, though schedule clash with so-called triple-A titles probably won’t help its sales figures any. Ian

Peoww News

According to this Eurogamer interview, Gears of War 3 will support stereoscopic 3D. This is exciting news for the 1% of chumpsearly adopters who’ve actually invested in 3D televisions.

He's in ur base, killing ur mans.

I had to check, but ‘conventional’ 3D viewable on a normal HDTV is referred to as anaglyphic 3D, so this little guy would be fine with his lovely old-tech blue/red glasses if he didn’t shell out for a new fangled 3D set.

Significantly, Barkham City will support both stereoscopic  & anaglyphic 3D, the latter as demonstrated by Rocksteady’s Goatee edition of Barkham Asylum. We surmise that may mean the possibility of a similar implementation in Epic’s forthcoming threequel.

Ah, Zombies (Ate My Neighbors [sic]), now there’s a game crying out for an XBLA redux. Are you listening Konami? Make it happen. Oh and make sure it doesn’t munch scat like Monster Madness did. Ta. Ian

Peoww News

Valve have unveiled the next incarnation of obscenely popular (in 2003) Half-Life mod Counter-Strike, subtitled Global Offensive.

Apparently the downloadable title will feature new maps, characters, and weapons and delivers updated versions of the classic CS content (de_dust, etc.).

I doubt I’ll be able to replicate my one-man wrecking ball trick that used to be my speciality once upon a time, where I’d hang back a while until the first skirmish had taken place, pick up a weapon from a fallen comrade and proceed to tear the opposing team a new orifice one by one. My reflexes aren’t what they were and frankly, I haven’t played CS in years.

CS: GO is being developed by Valve in co-operation with Hidden Path Entertainment. Who just happen to have been the main custodians of CS Source‘s ongoing maintenance in recent years, so at least they’ll be familiar with the source material and hopefully not bodge it.

It also transpires that it’ll be playable at the forthcoming Eurogamer Expo (as well as PAX) so expect a hands on around that time. The game itself is due to ship in early 2012.

The real question is, will console gamers actually give a damn about it? Or will they barely look up from their spittle flecked controllers while playing Blears of War 3 or Modern Blahfare 3? Maybe if it’s priced at 800MSP, which let’s face it is pretty unlikely. Ian

Peoww News

Word reaches us of a £14.99 (€19.99) pricepoint for Ubisoft’s forthcoming PlayStation3 port of Child of Eden (our 360 review here). No doubt this has nothing to do with the that the K*n*ct-enabled version only sold 34,000 copies in the US during its first month.

It goes without saying that PS3 owners get the now obligatory Move support as well as the likelihood of additional 3D support for those of them that believed the hype and bought into first-gen 3D televisions.

Hopefully Mizuguchi’s  visually stunning photosensitive-seizure-em-up will sell a lot better than the 360 version did, as it’s by no means a bad game. The average punter just didn’t know what the hell it was.

I have to confess not having played it for a while. Though that has more to do with the fact I did that Bean Dive so now barely have time to focus on any of the 34 games I started, let alone one in particular. I’ll get back to it someday, I promise. I’m sure the lure of achievements will tempt me back.

Child of Eden is due to be released for PS3 on September 23rd. Ian

Peoww News

In a move that’s probably not going to surprise anyone aware of Activision Blizzard’s standard revenue generation practices (I feel dirty even saying that), they’ve unveiled a doozy to rival their forthcoming Call Of Duty MW3 Elite service. In an announcement on their website, the Blizzard tentacle of the drooling multidimensional behemoth that threatens to consume everyone that lies quivering before it; it’s corporeal form represented by the entity known to us as Kotick; unveiled the forthcoming Diablo III beta. Contained therein is information regarding an in-game auction house. Fine you may think, it’ll be just like in WOW where you trade with in-game currency.

Now here’s the kicker, they’ll allow you to list items for actual cash money. I guess they’ll call it ‘monetising the transaction’ on their annual balance sheet. Hypothetically you could get a random drop of a rare item your character class can’t use and as opposed to previous versions where you could sell the item to a merchant upon returning to town, this time you can put it up on the in-game auction site for either virtual or cold hard cash.

The beauty of the system (from Blizzard’s point of view at least) is that you’ll pay to list the item you want rid of, the person buying the loot has to pay too. And once you’ve got the money, if you then buy another item with the balance of your account they get more cash, only swapped around from the selling point of view. The crux being that Blizzard will get paid four times in this process. When you multiply that by the many thousands of transactions that’ll no doubt take place upon the game’s launch, that’s a whole stack of cash Blizzard will add to their coffers.

I’d not be surprised if this were a dry-run for a similar system to be implemented in WOW. As a correspondent in this webcast put it, you’re effectively gold farming for Blizzard. Ni hao! Ian