We have an excerpt from EGM's interview with lead artist Brian Horton and lead designer Jason Allen of The Collective, as well as a video preview of the game with the first footage and a video interview featuring Konami's Akira Yamaoka. Read on for the interview, and head over to our Silent Hill 5 video page for the video preview and Yamaoka interview.
EGM: As a Silent Hill fan, when I heard that a Western team was taking it over, automatically skepticism, trepidation... "How are they going to destroy my beloved franchise? What are they going to do to it? Is it going to be a first-person shooter?" But instead of that, I think you guys -- from what I've seen -- are staying true to the original heritage but evolving it. What was your approach to making this game?
BH: On an art side, obviously we want to maintain what everyone... I mean everyone knows that Silent Hill is known f... More »
Never ones to circumvent a controversy, Take-Two ruffled more than a few feathers with the inclusion of exceptionally talented football star and questionably acquitted murder suspect OJ Simpson in All-Pro Football 2K8. The move was made all the more controversial, considering Simpson could be assigned to the fictional Assassins team, knife-wielding mascot and all.
In August, Reuters reported that Simpson was to fork over royalties paid to him for his appearance in the game to the family of Ron Goldman as part of the still-outstanding $33.5 million civil suit judgment against the Juice. However, at the time, it was not revealed, exactly, how much Simpson received, though he was also ordered to turn over any legal documentation associated with the deal.
Sleuthing through the contract between Take-Two and Simpson, TheStreet has discovered that OJ received $50,000 for lending his likeness to the football sim. Simpson was paid in two installments, with $25,000 ex... More »
We recently sat down with the Soul Calibur IV development team, had a chat about the game, and discovered that its main programmer has been with the team since the very first game, allaying any fears we may have had about whether the latest game in the series was in good hands.
We spoke at length about how the new game will compare to the team's previous efforts such as Soul Calibur III -- which while popular, was generally received as an unbalanced effort -- and what players can look forward to as we learn more about IV leading up to its release next year.
1UP: Can you tell us about SCIV's play style? Is it more like Soul Calibur III's design, or back to the old-school, hardcore mechanics of SCII?
Katsutoshi Sasaki, director: We have returned to the design flow of SCII. SCII is the most popular and well-known, so we returned to that style here.
Nvidia Corp. not only plans to refresh its lineup of performance graphics accelerators this year, but also intends to introduce its 3-way SLI multi-GPU technology aiming extreme performance enthusiasts. But will the new triple SLI technology truly become a high-performance solution, or will share the destiny of Nvidia quad SLI?
According to a slide published by Expreview web-site, which is presumably from Nvidia Corp.’s roadmap, 3-way SLI is Nvidia’s new “ultimate gaming platform”, which will offer ultimate performance in three-dimensional games. ATI, graphics product group of Advanced Micro Devices, also plans to offer 3-way CrossFire multi-GPU technology, however, one of the graphics processing units (CPUs) in such configuration will be able to compute physics effects in case the game supports this capability.
Initially Nvidia plans to enable triple SLI support for the top-of-the-range GeForce 8800 GTX and Ultra graphics cards, however, eventually i... More »
Three is a trend, or so the saying goes among journalists. So what are we to make of the steady exodus of highly acclaimed developers from the warm embrace of Microsoft Game Studios into the arms of others? Last Thursday's news that Electronic Arts had acquired BioWare Pandemic from Elevation Partners for nearly $800 million marked the third time in just three weeks that a top developer of multiple Xbox games has jumped ship. First, on September 26th, Activision announced that it would be purchasing the previously-independent U.K. studio Bizarre Creations, which made four Project Gotham Racing games for MGS between 2001 and 2006. A week later, rumors began to mount that Bungie—the brightest light in the MGS firmament by virtue of its three best-selling Halo games and the only one of the three Killer B's actually owned by Microsoft—had repurchased its independence from the Redmond giant.
The rumors proved true, and by the end of the week, both parties released statemen... More »
High monthly TV bills could well be a thing of the past! Jalipo, the online web TV platform for premium content, has just announced details of a few more pay-per-minute live broadcasts offered to viewers through its (here we go) "unique and easy-to-use" micro-payment system. Shows include next month’s Joe Calzaghe and Mikkel Kessler superfight at the Millenium Stadium in Cardiff, and Scotland versus Italy in the Euro 2008 qualifiers.
Well, Jalipo is testing the service’s functionality via the PS3 this week. A contact informed SPOnG earlier today, that, "given that Sony uses a standard web browser, there should not be any major problems, and if we discover we have to tweak our code to make it compatible, we will schedule this in for the near term. The hi-def TV output is of course no issue whatsoever. In terms of costs per minute, the content owner sets the price according to the value they perceive it is worth and therefore all I can do it give you some examples... More »
According to reader Todd, there are quite a few customers are finding their "Orange Box" games have been deactivated by Valve because they bought them from a seller that wasn't authorized to do business with US customers.
The seller made the mistake, but the gamers are paying the price. Todd says:
This complaint is about Valve, a PC video game company which makes games like Half-Life 2. This effects many thousands of customers. They recently released a product called the "Orange Box", which is a bunch of games. All their products are activated online via unique serial numbers through the Steam service.
Many of us bought the product (and hence, the serial numbers) legitimately online via well known international game stores, as they sell them significantly cheaper than American stores.
We were able to activate the products without a problem. One week later, Valve, via the Steam program, inactivated all Orange Box games (after they had... More »
Microsoft has paid $240m (£117m) for a 1.6% stake in Facebook that values the hugely popular social networking site at $15bn (£7.3bn).
Facebook spurned an offer from Microsoft's rival Google, which was also keen to invest the site.
Microsoft will also sell internet ads for Facebook outside the United States as part of the deal that took several weeks of negotiating.
Microsoft already provides banner advertising and links on the US site.
Mark Zuckerberg started the online social networking site in his Harvard University dorm room less than four years ago.
Mr Zuckerberg, 23, has indicated he would like to hold off on an initial public offering for at least two more years.
He rebuffed a $1bn takeover offer from Yahoo last year.
In a huge step for pro gaming, the Cyberathlete Professional League has announced today they will be giving away $1 million in total prize money for an open Halo 3 competition at the Extreme Winter Championships taking place Tuesday, Dec. 18 to Saturday, Dec. 22 at the Hyatt Regency in downtown Dallas, Texas.
CPL founder Angel Munoz gave GGL all the details on this monumental tournament for the year’s hottest-selling game, the Xbox 360’s Halo 3. Here is official word from the CPL regarding the announcement and how anyone can take part:
The Cyberathlete Professional League® (CPL®) announces that it will host a $1,000,000 “Halo® 3″ Xbox 360™ competition at the Extreme Winter Championships taking place Tuesday, December 18 to Saturday, December 22, 2007 at the Hyatt Regency in downtown Dallas, Texas.
The winner of the $1,000,000 “Halo 3″ Xbox 360 competition will receive a $250,000 instant cash payout at the CPL Winter event. Other... More »
With BioWare's Mass Effect a few weeks from release, the recent purchase of BioWare and Pandemic by Electronic Arts seems brazenly timed. The reactions from all corners defy classification, and in their most common form equally defy serious analysis and unbiased discussion. Electronic Arts, burdened by a tumultuous and controversial history, has become an entity which many people criticize and condemn by default, its dealings automatically perceived as some extension of corporate evil defined by nefarious misdeeds and malicious motives.
Vilifying Electronic Arts is virtually a pastime for most bloggers and forum posters, and so common as to be nearly cliché. How the BioWare/Pandemic deal might affect future products and franchises is a debate of pessimistic one-upmanship, and the consensus is this will be a bad thing for gamers. However, these conclusions often lack any compelling evidence beyond "if EA is involved, it must be bad."
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