Peoww News

Three years has passed since the last numbered SoulCalibur made it’s debut on next-gen systems. Since then, many important fighting game franchises have returned to the fray, and Namco-Bandai are undoubtedly hoping to capitalise on renewed popular interest in the genre with newly announced SoulCalibur V.

Set seventeen years after the events of SCIV, in which some dude called Algol got twatted by Yoda (in what I consider to be the canon ending), Sophitia’s son Patroklos, along with older versions of the regular cast (GILF Ivy, anyone?) and potentially a few cameos from other, more bankable series, have to uncover, quote, “the enigma as to why the swords have become short swords”.

Intriguing story developments aside, the gameplay promises to be “lighter, sharper, and more elegant” (how that applies to a character like Astaroth, I can’t imagine), while “combos will be easier to perform, and the moves will be easier to pull out.” As a unrepentant noob when it comes to beat ’em ups, this is a change I can welcome. Now, if only they’d address my biggest gripe with IV – the fucking atrocious character design.  Adam

Peoww News

Look at this!

Hardware sales (previous week)
PSP – 57,379 (50,479)
3DS – 42,979 (50,710)
PS3 – 27,453 (28,973)
Wii – 10,249 (11,808)
DSi LL – 9,706 (9,760)
DSi – 9,566 (8,604)
Xbox 360 – 1,789 (1,963)
PS2 – 1,996 (1,862)
DS Lite – 629 (730)
PSP go – 696 (616)
The PSP outsold the 3DS in Japan last week.  Fucking what?!  Actually, this list does have all fifty eight revisions of the DS on their seperately and only one type of PSP, so Ninty are still coining it in with the DS (although surely everyone in Japan owns at least five DS units?).

What’s slightly more remarkable is the country’s need to buy consoles during a huge natural disaster.  Rich

Peoww News

Remember the ’90s?  I do and all I can remember is fucking revisions of Street Fighter II.  That only stopped when Street Fighter 3 came out and that wasn’t much better.  Well, Super Street Fighter IV (Street Fighter IV with a few more characters and a slightly worse set of menus) is getting a DLC update.  The ‘Arcade’ pack offers a few new characters (Evil Ryu and Oni Akuma are confirmed) as well as some game balancing tweaks.

So a couple of palette swaps and hopefully a much-needed decuntening of Seth?  That’s a patch, Capcom.  Expect to pay through the fucking nose for this shit.  Rich

Peoww News

LA Noire (Rockstar’s upcoming GTA-from-the-other-side-of-the-thin-blue-line-’em-up) is continuing the precedent set by Red Dead Redemption, by offering multiple retailer-specific preorder bonuses. Those who preorder through Play.com will receive a traffic desk case (sounds fun), while GAME customers will gain access to a vice case, along with ability enhancing suits from other outlets.

Now, I’m already of the opinion that preordering a game before you’ve had chance to read a review is generally a bad idea, and ransoming singleplayer content from a narrative-heavy game to entice such behaviour is pretty sleazy. What makes it worse, though, is dividing the content between competing retailers, making it practically impossible for collectors (exactly the kind of people who do preorder) to own the complete product.  Adam

Peoww News

We loved The Darkness.  Not the shitty, ironic rock band that idiots took at face value but rather the natty little FPS featuring our boy Alvarez from Oz demonically taking out mobsters in New York.  For an early 360 title it was quite the triumph, although the multiplayer achievements could literally fuck off.

Anyway, whatever.  Darkness 2 has been confirmed.  Different devs this time and apparently less exploration (I don’t remember The Darkness being at all sprawly).  Could be amazing.

Oh… what’s that?  Cell-shaded you say?  FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU…

Peoww News

After greedily exploiting the popular but utterly stupid Guitar Hero craze, Activision have decided to can it, and the pointless DJ Hero series too.  This comes after disappointingly low sales of their Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock title and a similarly poor performance by Rock Band 3 indicating that the age of playing songs you don’t like very much on a Fisher Price guitar are over.

Thank fuck for that.  Still, don’t expect the ridiculous torrent of DLC songs to end any time soon.  Not with unconverted tracks by fucking Fallout Boy still waiting to be sold.

Peoww News

It is PEOWW’s contention that football games peaked with EA’s Euro 2008 game. It brought in all of the really good stuff that is now part of the main FIFA games and everything since then has just been EA treading water. After all, if you’re simulating a sport nigh-on perfectly, what can you do next?

Player stories.

“It’s about creating a football world you immerse yourself in, thing like, you know, the Rooney story [when he said he want to leave Man Utd and then signed a new contract]. [That’s] definitely interesting to us” says FIFA creative director Gary Paterson.

Just. Fucking. Stop. EA.

Peoww News

Microsoft’s daily deals continue.  Today we have Hydro Thunder at the stunningly good price of 400M$P.  It’s normally 1200M$P and is a wonderful game as highlighted HERE in our sexy review.

Peoww News

Today only.  Castlevania: Harmony of Despair is 600M$P (down from 1200M$P).  Tempt-oh?  The game did fairly averagely in our REVIEW but it did seem to keep Peowwsters everywhere entertained with its online mode.

Also, in unrelated news all the DLC for Battlefield BC2 and Burnout Paradise seems to be reduced, possibly permanently.

The Battlefield: Bad Company 2 contents that are discounted are:

• Bad Company 2 VIP – 800 MSP
• Onslaught Mode – 400 MSP
• Assault Kit Short-cut Pack – 400 MSP
• Engineer Kit Short-cut Pack – 400 MSP
• Medic Kit Short-cut Pack – 400 MSP
• Recon Kit Short-cut Pack – 400 MSP
• Kit Short-cut Bundle Pack – 1200 MSP

The Burnout Paradise contents that are discounted are:

• Burnout Paradise Big Surf Island – 560 MSP
• Burnout Paradise Cops & Robbers – 400 MSP
• Burnout Paradise Party – 400 MSP
• Burnout Paradise Toy Car Collection 1 – 400 MSP
• Burnout Paradise Toy Car Collection 2 – 400 MSP
• Burnout Paradise Toy Collection – 400 MSP
• Burnout Paradise Legendary Cars Collection – 400 MSP
• Burnout Paradise Boost Specials Pack – 400 MSP

(news stolen from TrueAchievements)

Peoww News

Microsoft’s daily deals continue.  Today’s offerings are three films that we can’t even be bothered to list, a ‘countdown to 2011’ theme and the chance to buy Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light for 600M$P (from 1200M$P).

We were lucky and snagged it for free thanks to a tip-off from Savygamer‘s Lewie Procter and to be honest it bored us a bit. But for around a fiver, it’s an okay deal.