Action role-playing game The Lord of the Rings: War in the North will be released in November, Warner Bros. has announced.

This bloody, limb-loosing game takes a trio of adventures - human, dwarf, elf - on an adventure parallel to that made famous by Tolkein's book and Peter Jackson's films.

You'll head north to the snowy lands of Gunabad and face the forces of arch-villain Agandur, Sauron's "crulest ally", according to the LOTR: War in the North website.

Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance dev Snowblind is at the helm, crafting a loot-happy action-RPG that relies heaviliy on co-op, either with AI bots, friends in the same room or friends online.

Lord of the Rings: War in the North was announced in March 2010, and so appears to have had a healthy amount of development time.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...h-release-date ...

Update: EA Sports has explained to Eurogamer why the EA Sports Season Ticket is only available on Xbox 360 in Europe.

"While we have not reached an agreement for the program with Sony Europe," EA said, "we're pleased to be able to offer EA Sports Season Ticket for both PS3 and Xbox 360 in North America and Xbox 360 in Europe."

Original story: The vision EA Sports vice president Andrew Wilson presented to Eurogamer of a paid subscription service has come true - EA Sports Season Ticket has launched.

For an annual fee of $24.99 or 2000 Microsoft Points, you'll get early access to EA Sports games, discounted DLC, premium web content and membership recognition.

You can subscribe through Xbox Live today. EA Sports Season Ticket is available on PS3 in North America only.

On Xbox 360, download and launch the EA Sports application and "follow the prompts" to take part. On PS3, search for EA Sports Season Ticket. The first EA game to support the Season Ticket will be Madden NFL 12, which launches this month.

Future Season Ticket games include FIFA, Tiger Woods PGA Tour, NHL Hockey and NCAA Football.

Season Ticket holders get access to EA Sports games three days before release via digital distribution. Once the game hits shop shelves, the digital version will disappear and you'll have to go to a shop and buy the title. All your Achievements and Trophies carry over, and you'll have had a crucial head start on the competition.

The small print: "Digital download is available at 6pm EST four days before launch to ensure subscribers get a full three days to play following the download time. The digital version will time out when the product is available at retail."

All DLC will be knocked down 20 per cent for Season Ticket holders.

All EA Sports games will pack 'premium web content' that Season Ticket holders get for free. This will begin with the Creation Center packs for FIFA 12. These offer better customisation tools with which to build teams and tournaments.

Season Ticket holders will also stand out by brandishing a special and exclusive badge on EA Sports profiles and in game.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...ption-launches ...

You could use PlayStation Vita as a controller for PS3 games, Sony has revealed.

This Wii U-like capability was explained by Sony Europe R&D manager Phil Rogers at the Develop Conference 2011.

"What could you do with all of this?" Rogers asked a room of developers and Eurogamer. "Here's a few boring technical ideas: you could drive a display from a PS3 game, for example.

"PS3 can send data down to Vita and Vita can display it. You could use the unique features [of Vita] - gyroscope, touch front and back - as a control device for a PS3 game.

"You can run software on both devices and use the network to sync the game states. And that's pretty good, because you then have the processing power of PS3 doing that work, Vita [doing] fancy graphics - however you want to do it. You're not sacrificing the PS3's CPU to be able to have a rich experience on Vita."

Rogers said this was "a fairly new idea", and encouraged developers to talk to Sony if they have any ideas for it. "Most of the time we'll be OK with it," he said.

Another thing Vita can do is cross-platform play. This was demonstrated with WipEout 2048 on Vita talking to a bespoke compatible build of WipEout HD on PS3. The two games connected via PSN and, after a lengthy wait for the Vita version to load, worked together seamlessly. The PS3 version had a visibly higher frame-rate and was the better looking of the two games, although the difference at a glance was minimal.

Rogers mentioned that pool game Hustle Kings will also support cross-platform play. He also confirmed Vita Remote Play support for platform launch, whenever that will be.

"At launch we're going to have some PSN features that work across both platforms."
Phil Rogers, manager, Sony Europe R&D
"At launch we're going to have some PSN features that work across both platforms," said Rogers. "You could access data on each side and access scoreboards, for example. We're building on that.

"Obviously we had to bring certain things on and make sure that servers work against all the features and it doesn't break the PS3 experience, because there's a lot of PS3 users.

"For launch we'll also have Remote Play, which does look good on Vita - I saw an early version of it running recently."

Remote Play allows the Vita to receive encoded video output in real-time from PS3.

One of the more ambitious and alluring PS Vita capabilities is called Continuation Play. This allows a PS3 game to be played and then taken on the move on PS Vita.

"We have a system called Title User Storage, which allows 1MB of data on our servers for games," explained Rogers. "And that can be accessed on both platforms; you can access that same data.

"You can save your game on PS3, go over to Vita, pull that data back and swap it between them, so you can play a game at home, take it on the train and continue."

"You can save your game on PS3, go over to Vita, pull that data back and ... take it on the train and continue."
Phil Rogers
Rogers said Ruin, a Diablo-like action RPG, was the only announced PS Vita game that currently uses Continuation Play. "But there's probably a few that we've seen via the support site that we can't talk about," he teased.

"The feature is there," he added. "We've told developers that you can use Title User Storage to push the game data across."

The connection between PS Vita and PS3 will be handled via Wi-Fi and through the PlayStation Network.

"The important thing to note, and people always forget this, is that the Network exists; you don't need fancy cables, you don't need to have that there," said Rogers. "You're connected over an access point; send IP to each other - it just works.

"We did support USB, but [there's] not really much more point for that - wireless is fairly decent."

Further down the line, Rogers said developers will be able to retroactively patch-in support for Vita in existing PS3 games.

He also said Sony was making a concerted effort to encourage developers to use these new ideas arriving with PlayStation Vita.

"There's a push from our third-party team for encouraging licensees to be having those features [cross-platform, continuation play] in game," he said.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...ps3-controller ...

Tokyo Game Show, the next major industry clambake following Gamescom in Germany later this month, has announced some of its tent-pole talks.

As detailed on Andriasang, Square Enix CEO Yoichi Wada will take to the stage at Tokyo's Makuhari Messe on 15th September to discuss "The Essence of Game Industry Revolution" in this year's keynote address.

Wada will then be immediately followed by Sony double act Shuhei Yoshida and Yoshio Matsumoto with their ambiguously titled "All About PlayStation Vita" presentation.

No word from any other publishers yet on what their plans are for the show.

Last year's event saw some fairly significant announcements, including debuts for Capcom's DmC and Asura's Wrath, Yakuza: Of the End from Sega, and a fistful of M.I.A core-orientated Kinect titles from Microsoft.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...to-keynote-tgs ...

MobileMe's impending demise just got one step closer, folks. Apple's updated iCloud.com to now sport an official login page with what we're assuming is Cupertino's rendition of a CNC-machined aluminum unibody badge. It looks like those of you rocking iOS 5 or OS X 10.7.2 and who've also created an iCloud account are probably already busy frolicking through email, editing contacts and slinging calendar events all from the comfort of your browser. Those services already existed under its predecessor, but it looks as if Cupertino has spruced 'em up with fresh paint jobs. A screenshot from MacRumors also shows the addition of an iWork section, which we'd surmise means the previously siloed iWork beta now has a new place to call home. We couldn't get past the migration step with our trusty MobileMe account (disappointing proof is after the break), but you're more than welcome to tap the more coverage link and have a go yourself.

http://www.engadget.com/2011/08/01/a...cing-for-extr/ ...

A native Skype app for the iPad has finally appeared, opening up your Apple slate for voice and video chatting with others on Macs, PCs or even TVs. It's not listed as an update to the existing iOS app, but as a separate Skype for iPad download that's only shown up in certain countries so far -- at first we couldn't find it on the US iTunes but it finally appeared after some searching. Just like Skype for iPhone, everything works over both WiFi and 3G, but one key difference is the ability to instant message during video calls. Check after the break for the full release notes and the demo video that leaked in June.

Update: So, we've just taken the app for a quick spin via a 3G to WiFi call and it's laid out very nicely -- maintaining the familiarity of its desktop client. Getting a video chat started was quick with acceptably clean audio and mostly consistent video streaming (aside from an occasional freeze-frame). Whether you're in landscape or portrait mode there's access to recent conversations, and you can even start conversations within your current chat; we'd say that the former works out better for getting around, although it does make it hard to stay in frame. Overall it feels like a souped-up version of the iPhone release, and impressions aside, the gallery down below should give you a better look at what to expect.

Update 2: Just as suddenly as it appeared, it has now been yanked from iTunes stores everywhere. A Tweet from the official account says it went live "prematurely" -- your guess is as good as ours as to when it will return.

http://www.engadget.com/2011/08/01/s...ith-voice-and/ ...

What's in a logo? These days, it's everything -- it's one of the most recognizable symbols a company can have, and it appears Microsoft isn't taking its emblems lightly. Over the course of the past week we've noticed an interesting trend: the Windows Phone branding has shed the circle-based icon in exchange for a square-shaped variant, appropriately reflecting the platform's "tile" look and minimalist theme. We first thought this was a fluke when we peered at the new logo at Fujitsu's IS12T event last week, as though it were a localized version made for Japan; as it turns out, however, this is indeed an official change across the board. If you need more proof than the source link below, yesterday's press invite for Nokia's Gamescom party features the new squared variant as well. We're still holding out for a green robot-shaped logo, but this will have to do for now.

http://www.engadget.com/2011/08/02/w...-to-be-square/ ...

Thought Android was killing it in the US? Try the rest of planet Earth, bud. The latest from our friends at Canalys has Google's mobile OS on 48 percent of smartphones worldwide, or nearly one out of every two sold. Mountain View's stratospheric rise came at someone's expense, and it looks like Nokia's the loser here folks, which corroborates the data from last week's IDC report. Espoo's foibles are troublesome in a market that grew 73 percent year over year, especially when Samsung shipped 421 percent more handsets than it did a year ago. As a result, the Korean company has surpassed Nokia in smartphone marketshare, just like its rival in Cupertino. Despite the rampant growth, the research firm suspects Sammy could have done better, noting that it had failed to capitalize on Nokia's "weakened state around the world" with its "global scale and channel reach." We'll see if Samsung takes Canalys' constructive criticism to heart in Q3, but while you wait, you can read the full report after the jump.

http://www.engadget.com/2011/08/02/c...ng-couldve-do/ ...

Nintendo boss Satoru Iwata has said the firm acted early with its announcement of the drastic 3DS price cut because it needed to accelerate sales BEFORE the holiday shopping season.

"We feel that those who have experienced the system appreciate its attraction, but this appreciation has not necessarily been expanding at the speed which we had expected," he said. Nintendo, he added, hopes that dropping the price now, rather than waiting for the holiday season like normal, will hopefully accelerate sales enough to take full advantage of the key titles coming up (Super Mario 3D Land, Mario Kart 7).

"Without creating such a circumstance, we would not be able to realize explosive sales in the year-end sales season," he said. He's also hoping the move will coax in developers who are on the fence. "Software publishers are currently reviewing which development teams will work on which projects, and the results of which shall be launched next year and beyond. Removing their concerns on the sales of Nintendo 3DS hardware will be very critical for us to be able to enrich the applicable software in the years to come."

"Even though we understand this, for us to elevate Nintendo 3DS to be the platform that can sustain our business, we have concluded that we need to take the best possible measure we can take now, even at the cost of short-term profitability," said Iwata.

The decision to slash the price of the 3DS less than six months into its lifetime wasn't part of Nintendo's original strategy, but Iwata said it would help retailers plan for the end-of-year sales period and encourage developers to stick with the platform. The company will now reportedly make a loss on every 3DS sold.

http://www.computerandvideogames.com...d-sales-iwata/ ...