New Red vs. Blue Released

The guys over at Rooster Teeth released the first episode of their new series: Red vs. Blue: Reconstruction this week. Their production has only gotten better through the years and this one definitely shows off their skill. A small spoiler after the jump.

Although the episode is mostly seriosu, at the end it appears that the series will be returning to Blood Gulch and the cast of the previous Red vs. Blue seasons. However, it has not been revealed how many of the original characters will return.

Beyond Good and Evil 2 Announced

A sequel to the cult classic Beyond Good and Evil was announced yesterday at Ubidays. This announcement was made simply by showing a trailer for Beyond Good and Evil 2 towards the end of the presentation.

Beyond Good and Evil was a game for the original Xbox in which gamers played the character of Jade, a girl who took pictures and fought monsters with the help of her "uncle"(a biped pig). It was regarded as many as an underappreciated gem of a game. I personally enjoyed it a lot and look forward to a sequel.

Saints Row 2 Delayed

THQ has confirmed that Saints Row 2 will be dealyed until October 14th. The original release date was August 24th.

THQ said "marketing and issues and product quality" are the reasons behind the decision.

Sounds good to me. I really enjoyed the way Saints Row took the good parts of GTA and made them better. I did have a lot of bug problems, so if they are fixing those then I'm glad it's delayed. Nothing pissed me off more than driving along and then getting stuck in a building because the Xbox didn't draw it there fast enough.

I imagine GTA IV's success is playing a small role in this as well. I hope SR2 really ups the game, like they did with their first release.

Amazon.com Says 03-10-2009 for RE5

According to Amazon.com, the release date for Resident Evil 5 will be March 10th, 2009. Not that these dates are accurate, but it's a pretty believable date for this caliber of game. Additional info may be revealed when the new trailer is released on the 31st.

Free Army of Two DLC Wednesday

EA's Army of Two will have more missions and more multiplayer starting tomorrow. EA announced a little while ago that it would be releasing some free downloadable content for the game. Today EA announced that it would be released May 29th.

The DLC will be for both PS3 and Xbox 360, available on their relative networks. The new content will include two new co-op campaign maps and one new multiplayer map.

The map pack is called The Veteran Map Pack and is sponsored by Pontiac. It will be released in the United States and Europe.

Personally, I'm looking forward to it. New content is always a plus, especially free content. And I liked Army of Two and look forward to playing it again.

YouTube and PS3 Team Up

YouTube started a service in March called YouTube APIs and Tools with the goal of making YouTube open to any website, application or device. Playstation 3 appears to be the first big name to take advantage of this service. At first, the only game to use this service will be Mainichi Issho, popular in Japan. With this game, gamers will be able to instantly upload video captures of their games to YouTube.

I think this is a pretty cool thing. YouTube is hoping more games and systems will take advantage of their new service. It would definitely be sweet if some of the games that already allow users to capture video took advantage of this. I'd love to be able to instantly upload some Halo 3 videos to my YouTube account.

1 Million Downloaded Daily

Aaron Greenberg, director of product management for XBox, has said that XBL users are downloading 1 million pieces of content on a daily basis.

That is crazy. I imagine that average gets boosted by downloads, like new maps and free games.

"Niko" Cries About Unfair Pay

Michael Hollick, the actor who voiced Niko Bellic in GTA IV and did some motion capture work for the game, is upset that he is not getting royalties and residuals from the top-selling game. He "only" got paid $100,000 for about 15 months of work.

He's not mad at Rockstar or Take Two in specific but feels like the industry itself needs to change. The problem is that the Screen Actor's Guild doesn't really deal with residuals and royalties for video games. It's a gray area for them. There probably will be changes to this in the future, but for now, video game companies only have to pay for work rendered. Whether the game does well or not, the actors are paid the same.

Now, Hollick was paid about 50% more than the standard daily fee. And honestly, he did a great job. But he's not the reason people play the game. They could have found someone else to read the lines and it would most likely be the same. After all, you never heard the voiceover guy for the main character in Saint's Row complain. (<-joke) I believe this is the reason that video games are such a gray area for SAG. The game drives consumers, not who the star is.

Meanwhile, Jason Zumwalt, the guy who voiced Roman, has his own little parody about not getting paid on YouTube.

Wii Fit Calls People Fat

I know this news has been all over the web recently, but the Wii Fit calls a lot of gamers fat. Isn't that why they're playing the Wii Fit to begin with?

A friend of mine got the Wii Fit. He is one of those crazy people who actually go to the gym and work out on a regular basis. He is not fat, but Wii Fit ranked him at the fattest possible on their scale. This is because his BMI is more than the "healthy" average should be. Muscle weighs more than fat so if you just looked at his weight, height and age on a chart, it would indicate that he is a big tubbo.

That's all it is, people. A chart. Your BMI is at one spot, the game will tell you you're healthy. Another spot and you're fat. So what? It's just a tool to try and help keep you a little more fit. You want to really be fit? Be crazy and go to the gym and eat healthy.

I've also seen stories about gamers who bought the Wii Fit but are too heavy to play it. It says right on it that the maximum weight is 330 lbs! If you weigh more, the Wii Fit is not for you!

XBLA Size Limit Increased Again

So now the size limit for an Xbox Live Arcade game is up to 350 MB from 150 MB. Remember, it was originally only 50 MB. Microsoft says this increase should provide gamers with better games to choose from on XBLA.

And I agree. Sure, this will start filling people's harddrives faster, but Microsoft is still standing behind their delete it and download it again free stance. As long as that doesn't change, bigger XBLA games are a good thing.

Originally, the size was 50 MB so gamers could fit them on the memory cards for the Xbox 360. But let's face it, hardly anybody is using one of those cards. The real gamers all have harddrives on their 360.

Atari Shifting Away from Single Player

Under the leadership of Phil Harrison, Atari(and Infogrames) looks like they will be shifting away from big budget single player games. Harrison has always championed social online gaming, and it appears his new job at Atari is allowing him to pursue this goal. Harrison has stated in a recent interview that the upcoming Alone in the Dark(for PC, Xbox 360, PS2, Wii, and PS3) could be the last of Atari's "huge-budget, single-player games."

I think this is a mistake. More and more companies are trying to shift to the multiplayer at the expense of the single player. Now I may just be an old gamer and I understand that gaming is more socially accepted these days, but most of the "great games" in my experience are single player games.

Now, I love playing online with my friends. I've had great times with Halo 3, GTA IV, COD4, etc. online. But my friends have lives. They're not always available for gaming. And I've had some horrible times playing online with strangers. Many of the people online are social miscreants who apparently have no friends and take it out on the others they play with. I hate when a game forces me to play with strangers.

Some XBLA Titles to Be Deleted

Microsoft has announced plans to start deleting some Xbox Live Arcade games from the marketplace. The games that would get the axe are ones that have a Metacritic score of less than 65, less than 6% conversion from demo to full ratio and have been on the marketplace for more than 6 months.

This seems like a dumb idea. Sure, there's some crap games out there on XBLA, but it's all digital. It doesn't cost Microsoft anything to keep it on the marketplace. Microsoft says that they want to start deleting games for two reasons: 1) "quality over quantity" and 2) there are too many games on XBLA, making it confusing.

Quality over quantity is a great idea. I love it. But they should focus on this before the games are released. Don't release games on XBLA that suck. It's as simple as that.

Too many games available on XBLA? That doesn't sound like a problem to me. That sounds like a good thing. The interface could use some work, though. Cycling through approximately 130 games can be irritating.

The reason I really feel like these deletions will be a bad thing is this: Microsoft has always touted the fact that you can delete your XBLA games to clear up room on your harddrive and then later redownload them at no cost. If these games are deleted from XBLA, users will no longer be able to redownload them.

Prototype Drops Multiplayer

Developers at Sierra have revealed that there will be no multiplayer gameplay in their upcoming release Prototype for the PC, PS3 and Xbox 360. They have scrapped plans for multiplayer so they can concentrate on the single player game.

Honestly, I think this is probably a good idea. I prefer a kickass single player game to a mediocre single and multiplayer game. Prototype looks like it could be a good game and hopefully it will bring Sierra back some of its former gaming glory. Also, this will mean that it will eliminate or reduce any delays for the game. Multiplayer is usually where you find the biggest glitches, bugs and problems in a game.

PS3 Home Open Beta Delayed

PS3's open beta for Home has been delayed again. The release date is not supposed to change, but the open beta has been pushed back to "fall." But Sony is expanding their closed beta this summer to include more people.

We Apologize

Sorry for the lack of activity on the site recently. I know I've been pretty busy with work and life and so has everyone else. (Also, there was about a month where almost all news I saw related to GTA IV.) Work's winding down for me so I'll be able to update the blog more often. Also, we are doing a podcast next week. Our topic will be all about GTA IV.

Metal Gear Solid 4 Long Cutscenes

It's been revealed recently that Metal Gear Solid 4 will have multiple cutscenes which will approach 90 minutes in length. Players will have the capability to pause or skip the cutscenes.

Cutscenes of an hour and a half long? Isn't that a bit much? I can get frustrated with 5 minute long cutscenes. I tend to watch the whole thing because I'm interested in the story, but I don't know about 90 minutes long. That seems absurd.

The game creators say that gamers who skip the cutscenes will miss out on a lot of the story. Why isn't this story being told in a playable format? Interaction, people! That's why it's a game and not a movie!