Peoww News

After teasing the announcement a few weeks back, Ubisoft have released a trailer for the aptly-titled TrackMania 2: Canyon, featuring TrackMania larks (i.e. lots of fast cars, loops and loose physics) in a canyon. Suffice to say, I came.

Currently a PC exclusive, due to it’s heavy reliance on user generated content, it’s expected to be released late 2011. If you haven’t sampled the delights of this modern-day Micro Machines, there’s a free version of the original available to download through Steam.

French developer Nadeo also have ShootMania and QuestMania in the pipleine, and if they bring as much joie de vivre to the FPS and RPG genres as they have to racing, then… tres bon!  Adam

Peoww News

Oh dear.  When a hacker exploit becomes the most popular story on the BBC News website, you know it’s bad and this, the latest of Sony’s fuck ups, is as bad as it gets. After goading the hacking community with their claims that the PS3 was unhackable, the PS3 got hacked to fucking bits by angry hacker/rapper(!) GeoHot, leaving it possible for gamers to play pirate copies of games if they ran a bit of code via a USB stick.

Well since then, it’s gone from bad to worse for Sony and their Hindenberg of a console. Last week, they were forced to take the PlayStation Network down, without explanation, for days (six and counting so far) and details are only just emerging that the reason for this is that their users’ details had been compromised. Names, addresses, log-in details and possibly even credit card details may have all fallen into the hands of nefarious hackers.

So if any of our PS3-using chums have ever signed into PSN, they might want to consider changing their passwords for other services such as emails, websites and whatever. Unless you fancy seeing some Russian hacker calling himself Dataspunker or something assimilating their lives.

‘Played Sony. Rich

Peoww News

With Sonic’s 20 year anniversary fast approaching (not that Sega needs an excuse or anything), a new, next-generation Sonic game has been announced for late 2011, apparently taking us across his “three defining eras” – the Robotnik era, the Eggman era and the current, post-Cream the Rabbit era.

Similar to Sonic Adventure 2, stages can be played with either Modern, green-eyed Sonic or Classic, chubby Sonic, with appropriate moves depending on the era. It certainly looks like classic Sonic (more so than Sonic 4, at any rate) and 2010’s Sonic Colours was well received, so let’s just hope Sonic Team seeks to emulate the good times, rather than the bad.  Adam

Peoww News

Various souces (we’re stealing from this one) are suggesting that Nintendo could be announcing a new console at this year’s E3. Details are sketchy/non-existant but expect motion control and proper graphics. If the graphics are better than the 360/PS3 it’ll sell fucking trillions probably.

Which’ll be good for Nintendo seeing as how we haven’t heard word one about the 3DS since the week it got released and are guessing they, like all handhelds, have all reverted to their natural state – hidden away in a desk drawer or something. Rich

Peoww News

Capcom’s original Dead Rising might well be one of PEOWW‘s favourite Xbox 360 titles but we don’t half wish they’d fuck off now.  We were less than impressed with the exceptionally lukewarm Dead Rising 2. Mainly thanks to it being the same game as the original but dumbed down for the masses and with the most broken online component ever.

Well now they’ve announced Dead Rising 2: Off The Record, a retelling of the story but with Frank West (the Johnny Knoxville-esque paparazzi from the first game and the XBLA title Dead Rising: Case West).  Ugh!  Let it go, Capcom.  Or at least patch Dead Rising 2 so that we can finish the multiplayer shit.

As PEOWW‘s own Matthew says “Capcom: “Dead Rising 2 was shit, so we’re retconning it and replacing the dull, generic character with Frank West.”

No release date has been given but rest assured, when it gets released we probably won’t bother with it.  Rich

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

Yes it is. It’s a magic number; at least, that’s what the producers of newly announced threequels for the Serious Sam and Ninja Gaiden series are hoping.

The trailer for NG3 is short and vague, as is the fashion these days, and features world’s least stealthy ninja Ryu Hyabusa noisily stabbing a man in broad daylight (tut) and getting blood all over his gammy arms. With half-man, half-biscuit, all-awesome series creator Tomonobu Itagaki having long-since left Team Ninja, I fear the series will falter without his self-assured direction. But then you could argue that already happened with NG2, so whatever.

Meanwhile in Croatia, Croteam confirmed Serious Sam 3: BFE (Bright Friendly Environments?) for release on consoles and PC this summer. The game is apparently a prequel set in 22nd century Egypt and looks bloody gorgeous. Along with Bulletstorm, Bodycount, Duke Nukem Forever and (potentially) Postal 3, SS3 could be the hightlight of 2011’s resurgence of more lighthearted first-person shooters. God knows the genre could use a bit of levity.  Adam