via mcv

Italian publisher Black Bean has signed a distribution deal with Koch Media for its upcoming, and now officially licensed, Superbike World Championship 07.
The racer will arrive on PS2 and PSP in Q2 this year, and subsequently on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC in Q4 this year.

Milestone Interactive, the team behind the original Superbike games, is developing the new title, and the addition of the official licence means the racer will now boast real world riders, bikes and circuits.

Of the deal with Koch, Black Bean’s UK MD Chris Mehers stated: “Milestone’s ability to produce stunning bike games combined with a powerful licence and Koch Media’s marketing, PR and sales skills will, I’m sure, deliver great results for all concerned.”

Koch MD Craig McNicol added: “We are delighted to sign such a strong licence. The motorbike genre holds much potential and the combination of the great game and the best licence will surely excite trade and gamers alike.” ...

via gamespot

Tom Clancy's fictional ghost squad has been deployed all over the world, "cleaning up the streets," so to speak. This week, the super soldiers went back to some familiar territory--the Web.

Ubisoft announced that the official Web site for Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 went live this week, with the usual accoutrements. Visitors to the site can grab some GRAW 2-themed wallpapers for their PCs or screens of in-game footage, or check out some trailers of the game.

Also available is the latest Developer's Diary, which focuses on the environments in the game. In it, the developers talk about the differences in the game's two major locales--Juarez, Mexico, and El Paso, Texas--and the importance of keeping the environments as real as possible.

Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 is rated T for Teen and will be released in March on the Xbox 360 and PC. PlayStation 2 and PlayStation Portable versions are also in development.

More Info ...

Phil Harrison and 1up's Luke Smith had a chat about the current positioning of the PlayStation 3, and it makes for some interesting reading. A quietly confident Harrison discusses the future of game distribution online, their attitude towards competition in the console market, and clarifies a few things about the potential for PS3 price cuts. The previous discussion about price cuts was apparently a big misunderstanding.
"PH: Well, do you know what [Takao Yuhara] said was, cost reduction, not price drop, and there's a big difference between cost reduction and price drop. So, that I believe is where the confusion came from. Obviously, we are investing our money in making PlayStation 3s cheaper to manufacture -- that's part of our business plan. 1UP: You're not going to pass the savings along? PH: When we can, when there are savings to pass along to the consumer, we would obviously choose to do that. That's the business model. 1UP: Wait? You guys are doing this to make money? Really? PH: That's videogame hardware 101."

via /. ...

via engadget



It may not throw as much caution to the wind as the Nintendo Star-mote we spotted a couple of months back, but this so-called "Pongle" Wii controller concept from Hayes Urban eschews its fair share of modern video game conventions nonetheless, hearkening back to simpler video gaming days instead. It's not all old school, however, with an integrated gyro adding some motion sensing to the standard twist and turn action, and a built-in speaker providing a "more immersive experience." Of course, the chances of it ever actually turning up in a form we can get our hands on are pretty slim, which is all the more saddening given our sudden craving for a game of Breakout. ...

via ign

If you think all mech games involve painstakingly building your machine from the ground up to create the most dominant, slow moving, walking tank around, then you're only half right. While FromSoftware's latest mech game stays true to its roots with a huge number of customization options, the gameplay itself is fast and furious bringing a welcome sense of mechanized action to the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Snail-like death machines be damned, Steel Battalion this is not.

Upon starting the game, we found ourselves thrust into a virtual room for a brief tutorial. After going through the motions and learning the basics, the tutorial tops off with a mock battle. It was pretty simple stuff and a good example of how the streamlined controls make piloting one of these metal monstrosities an easy task. The two triggers are used for boosting about with the right one for quick dodges and the left for longer fuel burns. The two analog sticks are used for motion and aiming while the face buttons are reserved for firing the weapons themselves and using the over boost.

full article at link above ...

The Japanese game industry is seeing some interesting times, with the Wii and DS dominating the sales charts while Sony's platforms falter. Famitsu recently asked analysts with Japanese firms Daiwa Securities, Nomura Securities and Mitsubishi UFJ Securities to share their thoughts on how things are shaping up for the game market as the 2007 fiscal year winds down.

Daiwa Securities' Eiji Maeda pointed to Gundam Musou and Virtua Fighter 5 as key software titles for the end of the fiscal year. He believes that sales of these two titles are important for the PlayStation 3 as a whole, and that other software manufacturers should be paying attention to them. Nomura's Yuta Sakurai also made mention of Gundam Musou as a key title for the end of the term, but added Monster Hunter Portable 2nd to the list. He feels that this game will push PSP hardware.

Everyone seems to be down on the PS3 and up on the Wii. Maeda believes Sony won't be able to get actual sales of six million PS3s by the end of the term. In contrast, he believes Nintendo will be able to ship out six million Wii units (2 million to Japan, 3 million to America, 1 million to Europe) and that the demand for the system won't die down for some time. Sakurai believes Sony's worldwide PS3 shipments will reach the 4.5 million mark, and stop there, while Nintendo will be able to ship 6.5 million systems. He also feels that the Wii supply problem won't clear up by the end of the term.

UFJ's Hiroshi Murakami thinks that the current retail state, where PS3's are readily available and Wii is nowhere to be found, will continue for a while. The Summer of 2007 will be the biggest fight for the PS3, he believes. Murakami believes strongly in the scenario of the PS3 being the number one system 3 to 5 years from now, and expects this state to come into view at the end of 2007.

Outside of the next generation, the analysts offers some interesting thoughts on the DS. Sakurai believes that the system saw its Japanese sales peak in 2006 and that sales will gradually go down from here on. However, he believes that the system's flame was lit in Europe over the holiday season, and that 2007 will be the breakout year over there. Murakami believes that while the DS's success will continue throughout the term, the end of 2007 is a bit unclear. There's the possibility that the light users will move away from the system. He feels that Dragon Quest IX will be the big test.

via ign ...

The Japanese game industry is seeing some interesting times, with the Wii and DS dominating the sales charts while Sony's platforms falter. Famitsu recently asked analysts with Japanese firms Daiwa Securities, Nomura Securities and Mitsubishi UFJ Securities to share their thoughts on how things are shaping up for the game market as the 2007 fiscal year winds down.

Daiwa Securities' Eiji Maeda pointed to Gundam Musou and Virtua Fighter 5 as key software titles for the end of the fiscal year. He believes that sales of these two titles are important for the PlayStation 3 as a whole, and that other software manufacturers should be paying attention to them. Nomura's Yuta Sakurai also made mention of Gundam Musou as a key title for the end of the term, but added Monster Hunter Portable 2nd to the list. He feels that this game will push PSP hardware.

Everyone seems to be down on the PS3 and up on the Wii. Maeda believes Sony won't be able to get actual sales of six million PS3s by the end of the term. In contrast, he believes Nintendo will be able to ship out six million Wii units (2 million to Japan, 3 million to America, 1 million to Europe) and that the demand for the system won't die down for some time. Sakurai believes Sony's worldwide PS3 shipments will reach the 4.5 million mark, and stop there, while Nintendo will be able to ship 6.5 million systems. He also feels that the Wii supply problem won't clear up by the end of the term.

UFJ's Hiroshi Murakami thinks that the current retail state, where PS3's are readily available and Wii is nowhere to be found, will continue for a while. The Summer of 2007 will be the biggest fight for the PS3, he believes. Murakami believes strongly in the scenario of the PS3 being the number one system 3 to 5 years from now, and expects this state to come into view at the end of 2007.

Outside of the next generation, the analysts offers some interesting thoughts on the DS. Sakurai believes that the system saw its Japanese sales peak in 2006 and that sales will gradually go down from here on. However, he believes that the system's flame was lit in Europe over the holiday season, and that 2007 will be the breakout year over there. Murakami believes that while the DS's success will continue throughout the term, the end of 2007 is a bit unclear. There's the possibility that the light users will move away from the system. He feels that Dragon Quest IX will be the big test.

via ign ...

via IGN

SEGA has some of the most well-known and classic franchises in all of gaming. The company is currently working on bringing some of these classics to current platforms and reinvigorating them for a new generation of fans. One of these franchises is Crazy Taxi, the fan-favorite, arcadey series that first appeared on the Dreamcast back in early 2000.

The goal of Crazy Taxi is extremely simple - pick up a passenger and get them to their destination as quickly as possible. Rinse and repeat. That describes the Taxi portion of its name, but it's the Crazy part that made it fantastic fun. The city is your playground, and you needn't obey any rules getting your fares to their destination. Cruising through oncoming traffic, smashing into other vehicles, catching air off of one of the game's numerous jumps or cutting through a shortcut here and there are all part of the game. Crazy Taxi 2 changed cities, added a Crazy Jump for hopping your car into the air at any time and introduced a number of new and addictive mini-games.


Currently slated for release sometime this summer on the PSP, Crazy Taxi: Fare Wars will put gamers behind the wheel of a taxi once again, all in classic form. A mixture of the original Dreamcast releases of Crazy Taxi 1 and 2, Fare Wars will allow players to select which game they want to play and drop them right into either classic. The games are direct ports of the Dreamcast games, though SEGA will be putting on a little extra polish to give it some added visual flair, like specular lighting on the cars, environment maps on the buildings for nice reflections and some enhanced particle effects.

Beyond the visual upgrades and some enhanced jukebox options, the games will be identical to their Dreamcast counterparts. The PSP's control setup is almost exactly the same that we saw on the Dreamcast, minus having buttons instead of triggers for L and R. This means that no concessions had to be made for any of the game's mechanics and all of the classic moves are still to be found within, like the Crazy Boost or Crazy Slide.

Crazy Taxi: Fare Wars will also introduce some multiplayer functionality for play over Ad-Hoc. SEGA is keeping mum on exactly what modes we'll see here for now, though we do know the game will be limited to two players and that you'll be able to choose what features from each game that you want to use (you can turn on Crazy Jump for us in the first city, for example).

The build that we had a chance to play yesterday was in a pre-alpha stage and didn't feature any of the planned visual upgrades. The framerate also ran at only about 70% of the target rate, though it was still reasonably smooth. While the game was certainly playable, the unoptimized framerate meant that it was difficult to pull off some of the moves as we had to slow our finger movements down to match the game speed. We're told this won't be a problem in the final release however.


Aside from these slight issues, the game immediately brought back memories of our Dreamcast favorite. Shortcuts and such came right back to use, and our fingers ached to perform some of the special moves even though we thought we'd forgotten them ages ago. Assuming that SEGA can pull this one up to speed so that it plays a tad cleaner, we're looking at a better-than-the-original port here.

Crazy Taxi: Fare Wars is currently scheduled to ship sometime during the summer. Given the game's somewhat early progress, SEGA doesn't want to pin down an exact timeframe yet, but we should be picking up passengers and carting them off to the baseball stadium sooner than later. ...

via ign

One of the many franchises that SEGA is working on rejuvenating on the PSP is its air combat classic After Burner. Scheduled for release at the end of March, After Burner: Black Falcon is a return to the arcade series of yesteryear with controls, speed and visuals that perfectly match the original that we sunk hundreds of quarters to play back in the good ol' days. We covered the game's single-player portion in our hands-on last month, but we recently had a chance to spend some time with the game's multiplayer modes.

Black Falcon will feature both cooperative and competitive multiplayer for play over an Ad-Hoc local network. With support for up to four players in the competitive Mad Cow mode (and two for the co-op), SEGA is aiming to provide gamers with a brand-new way to experience its classic franchise.

Though we were only able to play through a single mission, our initial take is that the cooperative play is a great deal of fun. Seeing your buddy boost ahead of you, perform a barrel roll and then take out a line of enemy jets is a pretty cool sight to see, almost as rewarding as when you're the one pulling off the Maverick-inspired stunts.

The host's game dictates which missions will be available to the players, and the host will be able to save any progress you make, enabling you to play through the entire story cooperatively. For points and cash, the host is able to set whether everything is split evenly between the two players or whether all of the winnings will go to the host - useful if the host is a new player and needs some quick cash to get up to speed.

Both players will share a total of six lives per level. That is, if one player dies five times but the other manages to survive the entire mission, you'll be able to finish. Black Falcon also uses rubber banding to keep both players reasonably close together so that the action stays hectic.

The competitive Mad Cow mode is something like the Oddball mode from Halo. One player will start in possession of the cow, which is actually tethered to the bottom of his or her jet and looks rather silly (in a good way). Points are racked up for every second someone can keep the cow, while the other players attempt to take out the carrier. Doing so will earn the cow for the player, and that person will start racking up points.

The person carrying the cow will regenerate health over time, helping them keep it longer, and they're able to fire off an EMP charge behind their jet in order to take out people behind them. This takes the place of the roll maneuver, so they need to manually dodge missiles as they come in.

Mad Cow seems like an okay bit of fun, but we're not sure how much strategy is involved here so it may wind up getting old pretty quickly. When we snagged the cow we just kept boosting forward while moving from side to side and dropping EMP charges. Being as you can't see what's going on behind you, this is really your best option. You can throw on the brakes and let your opponents fly right by and then attempt to take them out from behind, but this seems more risky than anything else. Still, we only had time for one round of Mad Cow so we'll see if it's more fun when we can sit down and really dig into it.

After Burner: Black Falcon is currently slated for release on March 20th, so get your thrusters warmed up. ...