via Joystiq




NeoGAF poster Ephemeris snapped the photo above showing that Metal Gear Solid 4 auteur Hideo Kojima will be at the Virgin MegaStore in Times Square NYC on June 11, signing copies of the game for a midnight launch. We contacted the Virgin MegaStore's games department this morning just to confirm. The conversation went like this:


We're just curious to see if Kojima does a mega-signing in Japan for the opening there and then bends time backwards (by crossing the date line) to get to New York. That would be hardcore. ...

via Eurogamer


Are you good at Guitar Hero III? Not by the standards of a man named Daniel Johnson, you're not, because if you were you'd be the world record holder. He's broken the world record for a Guitar Hero III score, is what we're saying.

He scored 890,971 on the Xbox 360 version of the game doing the "Through the Fire and Flames" song by Dragonforce on Expert level. That's completely insane. The previous record-holder was a guy called Chris Chike, who scored 880,920 in March.

According to Guinness, who were on hand to record his achievement, Johnson was competing at a Guitar Hero 24-Hour Marathon presented by Blockbuster in Dallas. The idea was to drum up awareness for Education is Freedom, a non-profit foundation that does something to do with children. We didn't bother to learn.

If you're interested in videogame world records, incidentally, be sure to check out The King of Kong, a documentary about two guys competing for the Donkey Kong world record. It's brilliant and out on Region 2 DVD on 16th June.

Or you could buy the Guinness World Records Gamer's Edition 2008, which features contributions from a number of Eurogamer regulars. Just in case you ever wanted Wikipedia in hardback. ...

via Eurogamer


Nintendo has released a solitary new game onto Virtual Console - Andrew Braybrook's C64 classic Paradroid.

Priced at 500 Wii Points (GBP 3.50 / EUR 5 approx), it's a classic, top-down science-fiction shooter and one of the first to feature eight-way movement controls.

As those with fond memories will recall, in Paradroid you use an "Influence Device" to take out robots on a spaceship, linking with them and completing a circuitry mini-game to take them over and destroy them.

Often hailed as one of the best C64 games ever, it's also been the recipient of a 9/10 score on Eurogamer Retro courtesy of Kristan, who called it a game of "rich intelligence, and enigmatic grace" - I know how that feels.

Its arrival also brings to a close (or so it would seem) the latest round of the Hanabi Festival - a brave exercise in digging up foreign console games and bringing them to the West, or an unconvincing excuse to bloat VC prices, depending on how you look at it.

Whatever your perspective, we've been privileged to stumble semi-enthusiastically through Metal Slug, Cho Aniki, Puyo Puyo 2 and Break In, and Gley Lancer, Star Parodier and Digital Champ while it went on.

Look out for our review of Paradroid's re-release in the next Virtual Console Roundup. ...

via Engadget


Well, that didn't take long. Just as the mini-brouhaha over N-Gage games being tied to handsets was starting to percolate, Nokia has now come out and said that users will be able to take their games with them to a new handset after all, eventually.

According to Nokia communications manager Oskar Södergren, some "miscommunication" on Nokia's part is apparently to blame for users being left up in the air on the matter, something that apparently led to some "mixed messages" being passed around inside Nokia as well. He went on to add that Nokia has in fact "been working on a way for this to work since the relaunch, but it is taking some time for everything to fall into place." ...

via Eurogamer


Nintendo has revealed that its annual E3 press conference will take place in the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood on Tuesday, 15th July at 9am PST, which is 4pm BST unless we're being stupid.

However, Nintendo Germany issued a press release earlier today (cheers Kotaku) adding that the company will not be at Games Convention in Leipzig a month later.

Nintendo's E3 press conferences are always good fun once the videos of grandmothers and dogs playing Wii Sports are finished and Reggie's put the graphs away. Last year saw the unveiling of the Wii Zapper, Wii Fit and Mario Kart Wii, and release dates for Super Smash Bros. Brawl and Super Mario Galaxy.

Past triumphs also include the one where Shigeru Miyamoto stormed the stage with a sword and shield to celebrate The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. With most of the first wave of big Nintendo releases - Mario, Mario Kart, Zelda, Metroid, Smash Bros, etc - now on the market or thereabouts, it will be interesting to see what Nintendo does.

Naturally, Eurogamer will be in attendance on 15th July, and we'll be bringing you the usual LiveText coverage.

We will also be at Leipzig's Games Convention, even if Nintendo won't. The company said it didn't have a problem with the GC event, but it just wasn't a good fit this year. Apparently they'd rather cart the Wii around school fetes and things like that. "Following the E3 Media & Business Summit 2008, Nintendo will start a nationwide roadshow to also inform its media and retail partners as early as possible about the newest games," Nintendo Germany's Dr. Bernd Fakesch helpfully elaborated. ...

via Computer and Video Games


Publisher Nobilis has revealed that it will be releasing a brand new Moto Racer game for DS later this year.

The original Moto Racer was a PlayStation and PC game released in 1997. It combined both dirt and street bikes into one comprehensive package. Lovely.

A number of sequels followed until developer Delphine Software International went bust in 2003.

This time developer Artefacts (we don't know either) has taken over the production and promises to be faithful to the original concept.

It will feature four different disciplines: Moto GP, Traffic, Freestyle and Supercross, and support six player multi-player mode using WiFi.

Take a look at the video to the right. Don't be fooled by the archive footage stuff at the beginning - there's actual gameplay footage in there after a bit. ...

via Eurogamer


While out on news patrol earlier we completely missed an enormously conspicuous press release lying unconvincingly across some flattened grass trying to fit a giant spinning ration box into its overflowing utility belt: it said that Hideo Kojima and Yoji Shinkawa will be at HMV's Oxford Street, London store on 2nd June.

They will of course be there to celebrate the release of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots later in June - 12th June, to be precise - and in the absence of boxed copies of the game will be signing HMV-exclusive game sleeves.

The duo will be there at 12 noon, but the organisers note that "access to meet Mr. Kojima and Mr. Shinkawa will be strictly limited", so "300 sleeves will be available from the store on the day of the event from 9.00am", and only people with sleeves will be allowed to queue. You can have a sleeve if you pre-order the game at HMV, which involves a GBP 5 deposit.

Still, we imagine 300 or so of the series' loyal fans will be ready to spend that much and do that much standing around waiting. If we were feeling uncharitable, we might point out that they spend far more time sitting around doing nothing while playing the Metal Gear Solid games. But we're not uncharitable, as you know.

As mentioned, Metal Gear Solid 4 is due out on 12th June, and is exclusive to PS3. We've already played it and finished it, and you can read our post-completion hands-on preview elsewhere on the site. Sadly though, we're tightly bound by an NDA so you will have to wait until closer to release to read our verdict. Look out for it. ...

via Computer and Video Games


We know the Metal Gear Solid series is famous for its long cut-scenes, but this tops everything! Metal Gear Solid 4, the latest instalment in Hideo Kojima's seminal stealth series, has cut-scenes (note the plural) that approach the 90 minutes mark.

troubled with time keeping, that's the length of a feature film.

The news comes from PSW magazine, who's been and finished MGS4, and then promptly whispered in our ears about the shocking 90-minute cut-scenes. The latest issue hits newsstands today, by the way.

We were expecting long story sequences (MGS2 approached the 45 minute mark in one) but an hour and a half of cinematics was unexpected.

The good news is that you can now skip or pause the scenes. Hands up though, how many of you are actually going to sit through the full 90 minutes?


Issue 108 of PSW is on sale now. ...

via Eurogamer


Shane Kim has said that a future version of Project Gotham Racing could be developed by Forza Motorsport developer Turn 10.

Speaking to Kikizo recently, Kim said, "Our goal is to roll the studio so that they can do more creative execution within the racing space. So you can imagine a future where they would develop a new version of Project Gotham Racing."

Nothing is set in stone, he said, but he did add that "after four versions of PGR, it's really important for us to take a fresh creative approach to it and to really think about what we want the next version of PGR to be if we do that".

PGR began life in another guise, Metropolis Street Racer, on Dreamcast with Bizarre Creations, who went on to steer the series through four critically acclaimed Xbox platform-exclusive iterations.

However, with the developer's acquisition by Activision, announced last September, Microsoft had to rethink. "Project Gotham Racing is a signature racing franchise for Xbox 360 and Xbox Live and we plan to continue the series but we have nothing further to announce," the company said at the time. ...