via gamesradar

Blacksite: Area 51 is the confirmed codename for developer Midway's second extraterrestrial actioner, due to crash-land on PS3 and Xbox 360 in the summer, complete with blinding visuals, superb squad controls and super-smart AI.

Taking its name from a covert military term, this fresh foray into the successful Area 51 universe is aiming for a political-flavoured twist to its alien-based plotline. A 'blacksite' is somewhere the military operates while denying the place actually exists, and also often refers to secret CIA prisons operating outside the law, used to interrogate suspected terrorists.

All this points towards classic B-movie themes like invasions, cover-ups and, of course, lots and lots of grotesque alien invaders. This time around you'll be fighting The Reborn, towering creatures that are the result of flawed human/alien experiments. Take a look at the screen below for a teasing glimpse of these gangly nasties.

With Area 51 destroyed, Blacksite takes place above ground in normal towns and cities surrounding the disaster zone left by the previous game. This mix of wild, unreal beings stalking you through dusty, small town Nevada only heightens the game's world-gone-weird atmosphere. And, while you soak up the mood, your squad of brainbox team-mates can watch your back.

Midway has gone all out in the pursuit of AI reliability. Squad mates have their own personalities, which should enhance your attachment to the poor lads, and convincing voice-work gives you a window into their morale - when things are good they'll be deadly effective but if the situation gets really sticky your buddies will lose combat effectiveness and accuracy. ...

We reported last week about The Godfather coming to Wii later this year, and now we've got a trailer explaining exactly how the motion controls will affect the game.

Judging from the footage up on the movies tab above, you'll be mimicking such moves as bat swinging, car driving and head-splattering. Up to this point, all the Wii motion activities have been wholesome and fun for everyone - now we've got to wrap our hands around disobedient thugs' necks and squeeze until the sweet release of death embraces their battered bodies. Could be fun but how do you act out 'extort'?

The dude playing Blackhand Edition in this video seems to be intentionally keeping a straight face, trying not to look too excited about acting out a head butt or throwing someone off the second floor balcony. Just let it loose, man - it's only a matter of time before someone finally notices that Wii games are having the kiddies act out violent moves.

Will these subtle changes be enough to play the game all over again? Maybe, but as far as new content goes it looks like the PS3 version (dubbed The Don's Edition) comes out ahead.

Video at Gamesradar ...

via gamesradar

A brand new Ghostbusters videogame appears to have been revealed in a series of movies, and include a CGI Peter Venkman uttering the immortal words "Who you gonna call?" The movies, which have been uploaded to video community site YouTube over the weekend, are attributed to a developer called Zootfly, who works primarily on Xbox 360 and PC games.

The clips include footage of Ecto 2, a sportier take on the wailing Ghostbusters car, hurtling down a city street; some proton gun, phantom blasting action; a closer peek at Ecto 2 in several colours; and the Peter Venkman news footage, crediting the Ghostbusters with saving the world for a third time.

Billed as "a Ghostbusters game prototype," it's obviously in the very early stages of development - Venkman looks super-rubbery, while the environments are a bit cardboard-looking. The action sequence, though, shows some exciting potential, reminding us of the relentless foot-pounding shootery in Gears of War. Cruel hoax or fan-pleasing reality? We'll find out soon.

Video links via link above ...

The avalanche of info on EA-developed SSX Blur for Wii has snowballed into such a flurry of images and video that it can only be described using cheap snow-based metaphors.

Best of all, this stuff concerns exactly how the controls work. We even get a glimpse of one uber trick that'll have you drawing hearts on the screen as if it were your old Kylie poster.

And because some of you idiots can't stop launching your Wii remotes through televisions and injuring loved ones trying to perform an actual tennis serve, we should probably mention that you don't actually stand on the controller.

Movies and Screens at Gamesradar ...

via gamesindustry

The Wii remote controller has much more potential than is currently being seen in the first crop of Wii games, according to the development team at Ignition Entertainment.

But while some have argued that a portion of games using the motion sensing device rely on timing rather than gesture recognition, Ignition's studio manager, Ed Bradley, points to the fact that if it's fun in the first place, players won't care what technology is behind the game.

"Personally I think the controller is capable of translating actions far more complex and energetic than most players are interested in performing even in the privacy of their own homes," said Bradley, in an exclusive interview with our sister site Eurogamer.net.

Bradley points out that developers should never lose site of the real goal - giving players a unique gaming experience - rather than create something technically impressive that adds nothing to the final gameplay experience.

"It can certainly spew out a lot of useful info. The tricky bit is making meaningful use of it all," said Bradley.

"At the end of the day developers want players to have fun rather than impose clever mathematics on them, so if it turns out to be fun only using a simple subset of the controller's gizmos then why worry about how "proper" it is?"

The developer has been working on Mercury Meltdown Revolution for the Wii since it first pitched the idea to Nintendo at E3 2006, giving the company plenty of time to get to grips with the various Wii control methods.

Even so, Bradley revealed that early versions of the game worked well with the Wii controller, an area the developer knew would be crucial to the games success.

"This was something we earmarked a lot of time for as it's vital that it's done properly," he said. "Then to our surprise it ended up being more straightforward than we anticipated."

"It's surprisingly natural and easy to make the transition to the new control method. We've spent a lot of time tweaking dead-zones and acceleration and stuff like that but I'd say the control method worked 90 per cent perfectly the first time we tried it," he revealed. ...

Cheaters, cheat with ease, thanks to weltall and the latest revision of CWCheat. It’s available in two builds, one of which allows you to load the database from a different location (cwcheat-gamecompatibility.prx); this will hopefully prevent games like Socom from crashing. Otherwise, below is the full 0.1.6 Revision G changelog:

* fixed the code type D1 there was a little bug [POPS]
* brightness reworked a bit now it should be more responsive [ALL]
* brightness is now saved and loaded from file 0 = disabled 1 = 25% 2 = 50% 3 = 75% 4 = 100% [ALL]
* fixed a little glitch in the id reading function which made cwcheat show om or rom when the executable was named PSX.EXE. Now PSXEXE is showed [POPS]
* added xploder code types 90, 70 and 00 [POPS]
* now it’s possible to read gme memorycard (no save support ATM) press R to exchange gme< ->mcr [POPS]
* added a build which loads codes from the kernel partition you can use that as a temporary fix for games which have problems with the volatile partition (like socom and nfs)[GAME]
* added back support for 302OE emulator memory cards now it’s automatically detected if it’s the 303OE emulator or the 302OE one
* prx for psp games is updated to latest functions [GAME]
* added 32bit search support for builds with GS/AR support: the output code will be a two line code [POPS]
* All was moved to ms0:/seplugins/cwcheat/ so the dh folder isn’t needed anymore [ALL]
* battery temperature is now showed [ALL]
* other things [ALL]

0.1.6 Rev. G is compatible with 3.03 OE GAME (cwcheat.prx) and POPS (cwcheatpops.prx), meaning you’re able to cheat just about every PSP and PSX game with this release.

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via weltall ...

A lame pathetic geek by the name of 'Sc00p' earlier released a TROJAN, claiming it brought avi-plugin divix and xvid support to the PSP. Luckily this was spotted this in good time to identify its danger. As Dark_Alex reminded us whenever an unknown dev is believed to be releasing a super application, 99% of the time its a hoax.Please if you come across this applictaion DO NOT DOWNLOAD OR RUN IT !!!! ...

After consideration, we have revised the rules for signatures, now they can have larger filesizes. With this allowance however, we will start being less leniant with violators and those who violate it will be given an infraction just like breaking any other forum rule. The new section of rules regarding signatures is as follows:

6: Sig pics can not be bigger than 520x120 pixels, and 75kBs in size. This size limit applies to the entire sig, not to any individual image in it. A full sized sig (120 px) cannot have more than 4 lines of text with it. For sigs without images, the text the sig contains should not be larger than the largest allowed sig with text. The staff reserves the right to take down any sig they deem unacceptable.

You can read this and the rest of this forums rules here: http://www.dcemu.co.uk/vbulletin/ann....php?f=112&a=4 ...

via gibiz

It may be best known for bringing its hit Japanese franchises such as Resident Evil and Devil May Cry to the West, but Capcom is determined to stamp its mark in Europe ? by originating and creating new IP with local development teams.

"We're looking to expand our business by creating Western content above and beyond what's being created in Japan," revealed Mark Beaumont executive VP of North America and Europe, speaking exclusively to GamesIndustry.biz.

"We've begun an initiative of creating next-gen product for North America and Europe that will show up in the market place in 2008."

And although the company has just expanded Beaumont's remit to cover consumer software in Europe as well as North America, the firm insists the publisher's European division will remain autonomous.

"At the same time we are absolutely focused on the European business being a stand alone entity that can be successful in its own right. All of the efforts that are going on in Capcom are looking to allow us to grow in this territory specifically," he said.

Capcom has already toyed with a similar strategy in the past - resulting in the poorly received Without Warning from Circle Studios. However, the company believes a renewed push to create original content for the PlayStation 3, Wii and Xbox 360 will help expand into new genres not usually associated with the publisher.

"That is part of our initiative to grow product and broaden our portfolio. To work with the best available talent to create new experiences that people haven't seen before," revealed Beaumont.

"Our Western development initiative is not going to focus on horror products, because we already have them."

"As we look at new genres for Capcom and other products we want to create, we'll be looking to work with developers who have really strong skills and a track record in creating that kind of content," he added.

It's not all original products for 2008, with Beaumont promising familiar franchises will return, as Capcom looks to take a bigger portion of the videogame sector in all regions.

"In 2008 we'll have new versions of existing franchises and new titles that are original IP. We're really starting to ramps things up and become that much more significant in the marketplace," he said. ...