Great games blog

The past 10 days we’ve given you the chance to win in our Super Mario Galaxy or Assassin’s Creed competition. The task was a simple matter of choosing what game you wanted the most and answering why, it was great everyone explained their answer well. We heartily thank everyone who participated, but of course out of all the answers there could only be one winner…

Tpcool gave a huge explanation why he/she wants to play the game and gets a free copy of Super Mario Galaxy for the Wii!

Congratulations to the winner! Super Mario Galaxy will be sent to you via Amazon as soon as you respond (with your address) to an email that you’ll receive shortly.

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What are the best-selling games in America, Japan, and Europe (UK) this week? Thanks to Amazon online sales data here are the games that are the most popular now.

Nintendo Wii
North America: 1. Super Mario Galaxy (Nintendo), 2. Wii Play (Nintendo), 3. Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games (Sega), 4. Dance Dance Revolution: Hottest Party (Konami), 5. Game Party (Midway).

Japan: 1. Super Mario Galaxy (Nintendo), 2. Wii Sports (Nintendo), 3. Mario & Sonic at Bejing Olympics (Sega), 4. Hajimete no Wii (Nintendo), 5. Swing Golf Pangya 2nd Shot! (Tecmo).

Europe: 1. Big Brain Academy for Wii (Nintendo), 2. Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games (Sega), 3. Carnival Funfair Games (2K Games), 4. Mario Party 8 (Nintendo), 5. FIFA 08 (EA Sports).

Xbox 360
North America: 1. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (Activision), 2. Assassin’s Creed (Ubisoft), 3. Halo 3 (Microsoft), 4. Halo 3: Legendary Edition (Microsoft), 5. Mass Effect (Microsoft).

Japan: 1. Assassin’s Creed (Ubisoft), 2. Dead Rising / Gears of War — Xbox 360 Platinum Double Pack (Capcom / Microsoft), 3. The Idol M@ster — Xbox 360 Platinum Collection (Namco), 4. Guilty Gear 2: Overture (Arc System Works), 5. Ace Combat 6: Kaihou e no Senka (Namco).

Europe: 1. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (Activision), 2. Halo 3 (Microsoft), 3. Assassin’s Creed (Ubisoft), 4. Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 (Konami), 5. Mass Effect (Microsoft).

PlayStation 3
North America: 1. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (Activision), 2. Assassin’s Creed (Ubisoft), 3. Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune (SCEA), 4. Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction (SCEA), 5. Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock Bundle (Activision).

Japan: 1. World Soccer Winning Eleven 2008 (Konami), 2. Shin Sangoku Musou 5 (Koei), 3. Ratchet & Clank Future (SCEI), 4. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (Spike), 5. Tony Hawk’s Project 8 (Spike).

Europe: 1. Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 (Konami), 2. Ratchet & Clank: Tools of Destruction (SCEE), 3. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (Activision), 4. Assassin’s Creed (Ubisoft), 5. FIFA 08 (EA Sports).

PlayStation 2 (more…)

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Some more new features have been added to the fall Xbox 360 firmware update on December 4th.

These new additions will follow the previously announced “Family Timer” (which limits the amount of playtime the 360 can have per week or even per day, for parents who want absolute control of what their kid plays), Xbox Originals (Original Xbox games that you can download to your 360 via the Marketplace for $15 each) and a new “Friends of Friends” feature that lets you see your Friends’ Friends list. You’ll also be able to set your name, location and a brief bio as part of a social networking-style addition to the service.

And now the update will also include the Xbox Live Arcade Hits program, which will give us a discount for older Xbox Live Arcade downloadable titles. The first group of Arcade Hits will be: Bankshot Billiards 2 and Lumines Live!, both of which will cost only $10 (1200 Microsoft Points) now down from $15. And Marble Blast Ultra, Zuma Deluxe and Small Arms, which will cost $5 ($400) down from $10.

A new “Inside Xbox” news ticker will appear just below your gamercard on the Xbox Live blade. And it will show any update to the service, including new games added that week. There will also be a number of smaller updates, although none the less significant. You can now view previews in full-screen, and there is support for DivX and Xvid video files. People who were minors when they bought the system but are now adults will now be treated as such, and see their chat and IM features enabled. And you’ll also have the ability to change your Windows Live ID (passport) that’s associated with your Xbox Live account. — Via Joystiq

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Have you always been curious how much noise your console is really making, or which of the three consoles is the loudest or quietest? A Finnish magazine has made a comparison of the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Wii consoles, and showed how loud the systems are depending on what they are doing.

Overview ordered from quiet to loud decibels by system:

Wii:
32,3dB — Playing games
22,9dB — Doing nothing

PlayStation 3:
28,7dB — Blu-Ray-movie
35,8dB — DVD-movie
35,8dB — Playing games
23,5dB — Doing nothing

Xbox 360:
38,1dB — HD-DVD -movie
35,7dB — DVD-movie
44dB — Playing games
36,0dB — Doing nothing

Thanks to Suomi for writing down the numbers.

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Devil May Cry 4 is one of the most anticipated early 2008 action games, and the demo may be hitting soon.

The demo will clock in at 10 minutes and be a mish-mash of portions from the overall DMC4 story, including cut-up sections from Fortuna City and a piece from the ever-popular icy level that you can see in many of the screenshots from the game.

A boss character called Berial will also make an appearance in the demo.

Speculation had been running on the net though that the DMC4 demo would only be coming to the Xbox 360 marketplace in December, but Capcom has released a statement saying that is not the case. So we can expect it to hit for both 360 and PS3 (the Playstation Network) and according to the statement, we’ll have some news on the upcoming demo soon. — Via CVG

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The days they are a-changin’. It looks like Metal Gear Solid 4 will have to sell over 1 million copies on it’s first day(!) in order for Konami to make back the sky high development costs of the sure-to-be system-seller. This is all due to it only being available on one platform, the Playstation 3.

It used to be that video game developers could bank on a system exclusive to ramp up sales numbers for that title, but no longer. In this day and age it can take years and millions upon millions of dollars with huge development teams just to pump out one “next-gen” quality video game title (particularly on the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360), and a new Reuters article explores whether or not Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots may indeed be the last great console exclusive (although maybe they are forgetting about a little game called Final Fantasy XIII).

As has been widely reported, virtually all Sony’s once-exclusive juggernauts like Devil May Cry 4, Virtua Fighter 5, Grand Theft Auto 4, Assassin’s Creed, and Mercenaries 2 have gone multiplatform with all of them releasing on Microsoft’s competing console as well as Sony’s.

“We understand publishers are needing to recoup their investment,” said Peter Dille, senior vice president of marketing for Sony. “From our perspective, as long as the games aren’t going exclusive to other platforms, PS3 gamers are not actually losing anything.”

To compete Sony has majorly ramped up production with it’s own internal studios and is now creating no less than 15 Playstation titles, which is more than Microsoft and Nintendo combined (according to them anyway) with 15 exclusives hitting the PS3 between September 2007 and April 2008.

And now 3rd parties are needed to move massive amounts of copies in the first DAY just to stay afloat.

Which is a high order for Metal Gear Solid 4 considering that PS3 sales have been sluggish when compared to the Xbox 360 (7.2 million units sold) and Wii (5.2 million sold). The PS3 has sold only 2 million to this point according to NPD research and a year after it’s release only two PS3 titles have reached the one million mark in sales

So with production costs being anywhere from $10 to $50 million for top titles, that means publishers are virtually required to go multiplatform to make back all that money spent.

“You might be able to weather one title coming in at 500,000 in sales,” said Pidgeon. “But two or three failures like that and even big publishers are going to be hurting.”

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New songs have been added to Boom Boom Rocket! Earlier in the month developer Bizarre Creations announced that they would be adding dance pad and guitar support for Boom Boom Rocket (they’re music/rhythm Xbox Live Arcade game) and now they are set to add even more downloadable support for the title!

The guitar and dance mat support is now officially up for you to download and along with it are new leaderboards for players using the new control methods, Japanese and Korean language support (as previously announced) as well as five new songs!

These five songs will be free until December 16th, after which they will cost $3.12 each (250 Microsoft Points).

The new songs are:

Eine Kleine Rochtmusik
Cannon in D
Sugar High
Sting of the Bumble Bee
Explode to Joy

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Chessmaster will be making it’s way to yet another platform in the form of a release on Xbox Live Arcade in January 2008 from massive publisher Ubisoft.

Features of Chessmaster on Xbox Live include:

* Hundreds of AI opponents in “ELO-ranked matches”
* Voice-chat
* Live Vision Camera functions for head-to-head matches
* New 3D chess sets inspired by luxury board designer, House of Staunton
* Five “original chess variants”
* The “Message Chess” variant allows you to spread one chess match over “days, weeks or even months”!

“Chessmaster Live is not only a comprehensive chess program, but it is also one that has expanded beyond the traditional game to include exciting features for fans, both old and new,” says Ubisoft’s Peter Helm.

Ubisoft already published various Chessmaster games here including the recently released duo of Chessmaster: The Art of Learning on DS and Chessmaster: Grandmaster Edition on PC and they will be publishing ChessMaster for PSP in Spring of 2008.

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New details have finally surfaced on Silent Hill V, one of the most anticipated upcoming horror games. Silent Hill V is notable because it will be the first next-gen (PS3 and Xbox 360) installment in the massively popular franchise.

Returning in Silent Hill V after it’s absence in Silent Hill 4: The Room, will be the flashlight and radio. You will recall these from previous installments where the flashlight let you see in dark areas (obviously) while the radio would make static noise to tell you that enemies were approaching or nearby (as you can read in my Silent Hill 2 review).

Unlike the previous Silent Hill titles, the camera in Silent Hill 5 will feature full 3D movement. Since this news comes from the Official Playstation Magazine (which also features new scans from the game), that means that they obviously are focusing on the PS3 version, and as such they hint at the possibility of Sixaxis motion-censored support for the PS3 version of Silent Hill V. Which could make sense if it was done right, but I hope they don’t just shoehorn it in there.

Take a look at Silent Hill V in action in this old trailer.

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Tomb Raider: Anniversary is out now for download via the Xbox 360 Live Marketplace, but you can only get it if you already own Tomb Raider: Legend on disc, since the downloads act as additional episodes; Although it’s the entire Tomb Raider: Anniversary game, just split up into four downloads (the initial level of which is downloadable for free, btw).

This makes Tomb Raider: Anniversary the first full-retail game to be available for download over Xbox Live (although the audience is limited obviously).

This is in addition to all the other ways you can get the game, which is available as a standalone Xbox 360 title that you can buy on store shelves (but hey, now you don’t even have to get up off your couch to play it!) as well as on the PC, Playstation 2, Playstation Portable, Nintendo Wii and you can download Tomb Raider: Anniversary via Valve’s Steam service (although Europe is excluded).

If you’ve never heard of the game, it is a remake of the original Tomb Raider but using the engine (which includes updated graphics, effect, physics and control) from the extremely successful Lara Croft revival, Tomb Raider Legend. And since it is a remake of a very, very old and archaic game, many changes were made to update it to a modern experience and to make-up for all of Lara’s new moves and abilities that weren’t available in the original game. But all the same worlds and the feel of the original game is largely intact. Making it a great place to get acquainted with the video game icon Lara Croft if you never played the original.

Here is a trailer for the Xbox Live version of the game (which oddly enough doesn’t say anything about you having to own Tomb Raider: Legend on disc in order to download it).

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