Wii Gaming News

This isn’t the very first time we’re hearing about Far Cry 3, but it’s been a long time without any word from Ubisoft. While hardly a formal announcement, Ubisoft writer Kevin Shortt told The Official PlayStation Magazine (via CVG) that, while he isn’t personally working on Far Cry 3, “I know the team are and what I’ve seen looks pretty exciting.”

That doesn’t leave us with any indication of what to actually expect in Far Cry 3. We did get a clue last summer when, prior to the release of Far Cry 2, Ubisoft Montreal’s Patrick Redding said they had a “commitment to the African setting” for the next Far Cry game. Redding noted (via VG247), “There are still things we want to do with the African setting, and I think it’s safe to say we’ll continue to explore it. That said, we might find something new and compelling about the Antarctic setting that wants us to make the next game there, but honestly, we’re still at the preliminary stages.”

It’s entirely possible they’ve changed their minds since then and the game is now set in outer space, but it does at least give us some insight into what Ubisoft Montreal had in mind early on in the development of Far Cry 3.

Typically, a new PC doesn’t come with anything noteworthy pre-loaded on the system. Annoying programs branded by the computer manufacturer’s name, some crappy games, maybe an anti-virus program — more than likely, nothing you’ll actually be excited to see when you first boot up your computer. Alienware is looking to provide something on its systems that gamers will actually be interested in — namely, Steam, and a copy of Portal.

Among the Alienware computers you can expect to find Steam and Portal pre-loaded on are the Area-51 and Aurora desktops, as well as the M15x and M17x laptops. Portal is only $20 now and Steam is free, so it’s not as if this is somehow going to mitigate the cost of an Alienware computer. Still, it’s a good addition to any PC gamer’s library.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past few years, you’ve undoubtedly heard of Shaun White. With a self-branded videogame franchise and three Olympic gold and X-Games titles under his belt, he has once again teamed with Ubisoft to bring snowboarding to the masses. With its charming aesthetic and cheeky cast of characters, <a href="/do/gameOverview?cId=3171122" title="Shaun WhiteShaun White Snowboarding: World Stage provides an amusing snowboarding distraction for those who might not want to spend hours falling on the snow just to experience the thrill of flying through the air or careening down a mountainside.

Instead of watering down the experience of its current-gen brethren, Ubisoft created a completely different game when the first Shaun White Snowboarding games were released last winter. By utilizing the Wii’s strengths, Road Trip proved to be the best of the three versions; the jittery “lifelike” animations were replaced with bright and cartoony graphics, the finicky control scheme with a simple but effective combination of button presses and flicks of your wrist. Road Trip was simple to pick up and play and was instantly gratifying; gravity-defying spins and grabs were no further away than simple movements of the Wii Remote.

Nevermind family, food, and football — Tekken fans truly have something to be thankful for this week: Namco Bandai has revealed plans to release a title update for Tekken 6. It’s coming to both the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions of the game this Thursday.

The upcoming patch will address a number of the issues people have had with Tekken 6′s online play. Read up on the full list of multiplayer tweaks below:

• Improved input response: improvement of the game’s responsiveness to button / command inputs;
• Selectable search priorities for ranked matches: players will be able to set search priorities for opponents in ranked matches based on comparable rank or connection quality as well as location;
• Optimized data transmission between fighters and spectators: fight data will be optimized in order to reduce the bandwidth load on the host’s console;
• Signal strength bars: the signal strength bar will reflect connection quality more accurately;
• Chance to cancel match: players will be able to cancel the match before it begins once the opponent’s signal strength has been displayed on ranked matches.

Despite Mercenaries developer Pandemic being shut down just a week ago, a new Mercenaries game called Mercs Inc. has been announced today. More than likely, EA had no intention of making an announcement about the game at this point, but the video above (which leaked earlier today) undoubtedly forced their hand.

The announcement didn’t actually reveal much of anything about the game, unfortunately. But between the video and the description written by the video’s original poster (via Bitmob) of a “multiplayer sandbox game,” it looks to be a new Mercenaries game with a heavier emphasis on multiplayer than what we saw with the simple two-player co-op mode found in Mercenaries 2. According to Bitmob, “two dozen or so” former Pandemic staffers who weren’t laid off have headed to EA LA to continue working on the game.

“We are very excited to announce a new installment in the popular Mercenaries series because it demonstrates our continued commitment to Pandemic’s rich catalog of intellectual properties,” said EA senior VP Nick Earl. “From the studio at EA LA, a core creative team is forging new ground and conceptualizing new ideas for this exciting franchise.”

Looks like Square Enix hopes to see a return on that Eidos investment sooner rather than later; the publisher announced this morning that Just Cause 2 will be hitting store shelves on March 23, 2010 — just before the end of the fiscal year, incidentally.

Along with Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days, Just Cause 2 will be among the first major Eidos properties to come out of the company following this year’s acquisition by Square Enix. Will it make a bigger splash than the original Just Cause? Developer Avalanche Studios has had over three years since the first game released, so it should be interesting to see what they’ve learned since then.

Technically, we’re a few weeks passed the fifth anniversary of the release of the first Killzone — the PS2 original was released on November 2, 2004. But with developer Guerrilla Games located in the Netherlands, they’re treating the European release date of November 26 as the true five year anniversary of the franchise. To celebrate, they’ve temporarily slashes the price of the Killzone 2 DLC currently available on the PlayStation Store, bringing down the price of the Flash & Thunder pack to just $2.99, and the Map Pack Bundle is now $9.99. Both deals will last until December 10, at which point you’ll have to go back to paying full price.

This weekend will also be host to a double XP weekend; any and all games played from November 27 – November 30 will land you twice as much experience as they normally would. That extra boost will come in handy for this week’s retro tournament which will use only the Beach Head and Southern Hills maps from the second DLC pack.

And all this week, for the real Killzone fans out there, Guerrilla will be hosting a variety of events on the official Killzone website at Killzone.com. In addition to side-by-side comparisons, pitting the Killzone 1 versus its sequel, two Guerrilla staffers will be playing through the first Killzone and offering up some reflections while playing the game five years after its release.

It’d be an understatement to say I was a fan of the original Phantasy Star Online. While my classmates in high school would often blame their poor marks on lengthy football practices or alcohol-fueled social events, the reason for my own slipping grades was less typical: My level 100 HUcast ate my homework.

Nearly a decade later, Phantasy Star Zero on the DS manages to stir up some of that long-dormant obsession. It looks and plays like a lost sequel to the classic Dreamcast dungeon crawler, but that vintage feel also stands out as its most glaring flaw — with its high-maintenance camera, imprecise controls, and lousy user interface, Phantasy Star Zero could easily pass for an action-RPG from 2001. And even though it’s packed with all-new environments, enemies, and characters, I can’t help but feel like this is the same game that I played in lieu of studying for Chemistry exams.

Namco Bandai has come up with a unique promotional tie-in for Splatterhouse, to say the least. They’ve just announced a partnership with Globe International Limited to produce a shoe based on the upcoming remake.

Apparently, this new shoe was “designed as a testament to Splatterhouse’s gory, intense, and horror movie-like tone.” It’ll feature the Splatterhouse logo “splayed across the vulcanized outsole siding in blood red, along with faux splattered blood detail all over and a Skull icon hit.

According to Namco Bandai, all of this will “tie in the game’s iconography in a moody yet playful way.”

New Super Mario Bros Wii has gotten a lot of attention for its Super Guide feature, but apparently Microsoft has been planning a similar helping hand for a year. Siliconera reports that the company’s game platform strategy director Andre Vrignaud has filed a patent for user-submitted game guides over Xbox Live. According to the patent, the system detects where a player is stuck, and accesses a database with user-made tips for that section. Given the innate desire of experienced gamers to brag, and the inconvenience of stepping away from your TV to access a FAQ, it seems like a win-win. And since it would be controlled through the Xbox Live interface, Microsoft wouldn’t have to manage a new guide for every individual game.

The authoring features allow users to capture screenshots and video clips, and to use a digital pencil to mark them. It also may allow for audio commentary and tags, and developers can submit their own guides that will take precedence over user-created guides. There are obvious problems to be ironed out. Handing users a digital pencil is bound to lead to phallus-laiden guides if there isn’t some form of quality control, and audio commentary could lead to all sorts of slurs. Not to mention, smaller games may be overlooked by the majority of the guide-making community, so a player getting stuck in a little-known title would simply stay stuck.

Right now this is only in the patent phase, so there’s no telling when, or even if, the guides will show up. But if Microsoft gets the kinks worked out, this would be another step towards marketing the Xbox 360 towards less experienced gamers, a move we already know they’re keen on with Project Natal.