Filed under: Gaming News | Tags: Burnout: Paradise, Codename: Cagney, PS3, Xbox 360?
Yeah I didn’t think this was coming yet. My (Region 3) copy of Burnout: Paradise arrived earlier this week so up until now I haven’t been looking at much Burnout stuff lately but anyway it’s out and it adds a hell of a lot of new features to the game including custom soundtrack support for PS3 (yay no more Avril Lavigne!).
Here’s what this massive (385MB) update is doing for you complete with spiel from Criterion:
Today, we’re able to finally unveil the release date for the Cagney software update!
This is our 3rd and most ambitious software update yet! It will be available for free at 09:00am UK time on Thursday 10th July ‘08.
If you’ve missed the stories we’ve run so far, you can hit the Cagney tab at the top of this page and see all our Cagney blog entries in one place or check out the following summary of features:
3 New Freeburn Game Modes:
• Road Rage
Up to 8-player team event. One team must race through a series of Paradise City checkpoints. The other team must stop them.
Cue incredible chases and battling through the city, tons of voice communication as players co-ordinate their efforts.
• Stunt Run (vs)
Pull stunts to score points – hit barriers, billboards and ramps; ace barrel rolls, flat spins and massive airtime to score big. Everybody competes to simultaneously reach the biggest total. Hit your rivals to kill their scores and gain multipliers.
• Marked Man
A player is selected at random and everyone gangs up to take them down. The Marked Man scores for reaching the end point intact and taking anyone down along the way.
70 New Freeburn Challenges
• 70 new timed multi-part Freeburn Challenges
• Leaderboards for these challenges that log your best time (as well as those people who did it with you)
Vehicles
• Hunter Olympus
• A secret Criterion Car!
New liveries
• Rossolini Tempesta Dream
• Two fan-created liveries – the Oval Steel Racer and Inferno Hippie Van
• Two secret Criterion liveries!
Ranked Race Changes
• Too much to report in this blog entry but click here for the full breakdown!
Custom Soundtracks
• Custom Soundtrack support on PS3
Other high-priority fixes and updates
• If you’re in a 3 or more player challenge and a player drops out, the remaining players can still complete it (subject to it being a challenge that can handle this!)
• “Previously” section on the search games list now displays Challenges, Today’s Best and Freeburn game modes, making it loads easier to decide which game you want to join
• You can now view Leaderboards and Options in an online game
• You can now mute other online players in the show players screen
• You can now mute yourself if you have a PS3 Eye/Eye toy
• We’ve increased time-out for online races, and if all players complete the races within the timer, then you go straight to results
• The Airfield has been changed to help with the drivability of the area and make it a little easier to complete the hoop challenges
• Online cars now show damage – roll up to the start in a half-destroyed Hunter Cavalry and everyone else will see it!
• Added a stronger display message if you rule all of Todays Best
• The Easy Drive menu & Challenges page now loops from top to bottom
• Fixed the navigation system so that it takes into account the next check point in a race
• Fixed traffic not reappearing in Freeburn after a no-traffic race
• Fixed online races using Lawrence Road – it’s been reporting finish distances with a little inaccuracy
• Revised 30+ car resets following crashes
• All new sound effects added for Easy Drive
• Driving backwards in Road Rage now ends the event as it does in Marked Man
• Option to invert camera axis for the look around camera on right stick
• Online player information made accurate on the instance a player goes through a checkpoint in races
• If you set VOIP mix to zero it is now saved correctly
• 1080i support for “almost HD” sets – PS3 only
• Improved the Standard Definition rendering on PS3
• New highlight to show the player in Today’s Best
• Easy Drive fades out if it’s unused for 20 seconds
• Boost chaining no longer possible by drifting in open areas
Filed under: Gaming News | Tags: DS, Gordon Ramsay, Hell's Kitchen The Video Game, Wii
‘Hell’s Kitchen The Video Game’. Just what you want to hear. No? Not me either. Is it me or does Ubisoft like making crappy video games of TV series? That’s a lot of questions but I bet we’ve all got the same answer. Yeah it might be coming to Wii & DS but this was so ridiculous that I had to post it. Apparently that game offers a three tiered challenge whilst you’re watched over by a virtual Gordon Ramsey. I wouldn’t think that Ramsey would allow himself to be tied in with such a potential piece of crap but I guess it’s a paycheck. He did say this:
“I had a great time doing the voice for my own animation,” said Gordon Ramsay. “Being in a video game is a new experience for me and I’m very pleased with the results.”
I guess if he wasn’t pleased almost everyone would know about it by now but money does do strange things to people. You can read the rest of the deets over at Kotaku.
It’s still a bit crazy and does sound like a piece of crap but who knows it could (definitely won’t) be good.
Some more Mirrors Edge stuff. There’s some new screens and a new trailer that’ve just surfaced. Shame the trailer’s just an animated thing but those screens definitely look really cool. With Heavenly Sword’s writer on board it should definitely have a good story. Let’s just hope the gameplay’s good. Don’t those water effects look cool.
You can check out the rest of the images and view that trailer over at Kotaku
DICE and EA have revealed that the writer and ’story designer’ for Mirrors Edge will be Rhianna Pratchett who also worked on Overlord and Heavenly Sword. Mirrors Edge, which is expected to be released this winter, follows the story of Faith who is trying to help her sister who’s been framed for murder.
Seems a bit farfected for something that looked like free running around a Spanish anime world but it did (and still does) look very cool. I’ll be looking out for this one.
Pratchett Said:
“It was a great experience working with the team at DICE to help breathe life into Faith; her world, relationships and backstory. My heroines and heroes have always been the ones who were ordinary, but through the events of a story, became extraordinary. Faith is skilled, but she’s certainly not a superhero. She has her flaws, like all of us. In short: she’s real. That’s her appeal”.
It’s been talked about for ages and even revealed that it’s coming out for PSP this year by SCEE. But now it’s been revealed in Japanese magazine Famitsu. The details were translated by 1Up and it seems like it’ll follow the original formula but obviously with new music, new bosses and a bunch of new stuff. Obviously there’s some new features one of which is that your Locos can now swim. Which I guess is pretty cool. I didn’t play the original but it could be one of those on the list.
Filed under: Gaming News | Tags: Blue Castle Games, Capcom, Dead Rising 2, Zombies
Now I never played the original Dead Rising (no 360 ya see) but it was always the game that was quite likely to make me get a 360 because it looked so damn cool. Capcom announced that a new Dead Rising game was coming but no specifics were mentioned. Now it looks like the team who worked on The Bigs for 2K Sports will be developing the game. Not only that but a video of the Art Director on Blue Castle games possibly shows the original Dead Rising sitting on his desk a hint maybe.
This tip also said that the new Dead Rising would be set in Las Vegas (or at least a Las Vegas sorta place). The Blue Castle website has this sorta teaser which will hopefully reveal something about it. I’m definitely hoping for some kinda online co-op campaign that’d be sweet!
Filed under: Gaming News | Tags: 007, Activision, Casino Royale, James Bond, PS3, Quantum Of Solace, Treyarch, Xbox 360?
A new bond game never really excites me, they always seemed a bit crappy. This time it’s Treyarch developing and the game is being built on the Call Of Duty 4 engine and I have to say it looks amazing. The 1st person/3rd person hybrid camera mode seems to work really well. The game looks great, the gun models are as good as COD4 and the environments look really cool and polished. It a word it’s amazing.
The story is said to take place across the Casino Royale and Quantum Of Solace movies which definitely offers up some interesting stuff right there (parkour minigame anyone?). Not only that but it gives the devs a lot more to work with.
The only thing i’m worried about is the quicktime sequences which the team seem to have used to create those great James Bond moments from the movies. As long as they work well and don’t spoil the flow of the game i’m cool with ‘em but if they start to get in the way during firefights that’s not good.
Overall it looks cool and will obviously apparently be releasing alongside the new movie on every platform going. There’s a dev. diary up on GameTrailers so go now watch it.
