General Game News

[mrbasehart]

Heh.  From Joystiq:

We don't live in Brazil, but from what we hear, it's not one of the most gamer-friendly places out there. Piracy runs rampant and whenever any kind of controversial game releases, citizens usually find their government won't let 'em play it. But, hey, things are kinda looking up!

Reader Renato wrote in to us saying the PS2 has finally officially released in Brazil and that consumers can get it from the Sony Style store now ... for the low, low price of 799 BRL (about 461 USD). That's right, Brazilians no longer need secure safe passage for emigrating consoles or pay ridiculous sums of money to third-party distributors and can instead pay ridiculous sums of money directly to Sony for a locally-supported PS2! Isn't that awesome?

$461 for a PS2?!?!  Holy Toledo!

[iv3rdawG]

The Bayonetta demo is really fun. Very old school hack and slash game made by Sega, lots of fun combos to pull off. Should be a good time.

[iv3rdawG]

Silent Hill composer departs Konami - Report

By Tom Magrino, GameSpotPosted Dec 2, 2009 11:59 am PT
Notable musician and producer Akira Yamaoka said to have left publisher after 16 years following completion of Shattered Memories.

Next week, Konami will try its hand at the tepid M-for-Mature market on the Wii with Silent Hill: Shattered Memories. Billed as a reimagining of the 1999 original, Shattered Memories picks back up with Harry Mason as he searches the eerie town of Silent Hill in an effort to find his daughter. Aptly enough, the remake will apparently be the last installment in the franchise helmed by longtime Silent Hill producer and composer Akira Yamaoka.

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6241873.html

[jewishcarpenter]

Boo! All the good things about Silent Hill have been slowly drifting away the past few years. Another nail in the coffin.

[mrbasehart]

Yeah, the sound design on those games is tremendous, although seeing as he became a producer on the series when it started to go downhill, maybe it's for the best? *shrug*  I still actually like SH3 and SH4 though.  I haven't even seen Homecoming or Origins.

[Compound]

Huh.

Hellgate Tokyo is on the way.

For those who don't remember it, Hellgate London was an FPS/RPG done by the folks behind Diablo set in a London invaded by demons. (Think of Borderlands, except not quite as well done. ) It's best remembered because of an insane subscription model for the multiplayer game which just didn't work. Flagship went under. The developer griped. time passed. And now it's unexpectedly back, resurrected by the Koreans. (Where apparently the game  still has active servers.)

Huh. This is almost as unexpected to me as a sudden announcement of Duke Nukem Forever's imminent release would be. I hope it hits US shores as I did like the single player bits of Hellgate.

[MWolf]

I remember playing Hellgate London! I remember Paying the subscription for it -grumble grumble- It was a good game but it didnt have much replay value. And online only consisted of a single player game (no duels) with more people...

[mrbasehart]

So the Spike Video Game awards just happened, and some games got announced!   Some were obvious - Halo: Reach, Medal of Honor - but there was one surprise (in terms of how soon it is, at least) - Arkham Asylum 2!  Apparently the teaser shows the streets of Gotham, so....a city-wide thing next time?

Oh, and Uncharted 2 won Game of the Year.

[MWolf]

I just received a promotional Chocobo Avatar Pet for the Xbox360 =) Its not as cool as I thought but hell its a Chocobo!

[iv3rdawG]

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/splwp7h85OE&amp;hl=en_US&amp;fs=1&amp;" target="_blank" class="new_win">http://www.youtube.com/v/splwp7h85OE&amp;hl=en_US&amp;fs=1&amp;</a>

[Vent]

Gawwhhd, I really don't miss those enormous hitboxes.

In other news, 20 years ago to the day marks the release of the best game ever created for the NES, and one of the best and most iconic games of all time, Super Mario Bros 3.



http://www.gamesradar.com/f/super-mario-bros-3-20-years-later/a-2010021210412332034

[MWolf]

And you can still buy it on Nintendo Wii! Along with Super Mario World. 

[Pak-Man]

For everyone who, like me, spends a lot of downtime at work playing old NES games at http://www.virtualnes.com, they just unrolled the virtual gameboy! http://www.virtualgbx.com

[spaceforarent]

Steam is coming to Mac, with Half-Life, Left4Dead, and supposedly Portal 2 being available.
http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2010/03/steam-mac/

There's a lot of information in that article, too much for me to outline right now.

[Johnny Unusual]