There’s some good news for people who are addicted to the Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood multiplayer. Ubisoft says the first batch of juicy, delicious DLC will be 100% free. The update will contain a new map which will be set in Mont Saint-Michel on a rocky tidal island in Normandy. The map contains narrow streets, a bell tower and multiple levels.
With the release of Rock Band 3, Dance Central, Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock, DJ Hero 2, and Power Gig in the last month, you would be forgiven for thinking the music genre is pretty healthy. However, according to a report on Gamasutra, the total earnings of the genre has dropped by more than 50% since last year.
The Gamastura article records the music genre as raking in $1.6 billion in 2008, helped by sales of instrument bundle sets of games like Rock Band and Guitar Hero. Since then, the genre earned $870 million in 2009, but as of this writing music games have yet to break the $400 million mark. With these numbers, it’s not a huge surprise that parent company Viacom is looking to sell off Guitar Hero and Rock Band creator Harmonix, despite the critical acclaim of their latest games, Rock Band 3 and Dance Central (well, everybody but Jay seemed to like Dance Central at least).
Capcom and Marvel have definitely had some fans guessing at what characters will make it into Marvel Vs. Capcom 3. The roster is already packed with heavy hitters from both camps, but recently four new characters have been announced. The first two are Jill Valentine and Shuma Gorath, are DLC exlusive characters and have been known about for a few days due to a Gamestop mistake. The second two are thankfully unspoiled and we can be in awe of their combined might.
One of the biggest titles revealed with Kinect at E3 this last year was Lucasart’s Kinect Star Wars game. The demo showed a Jedi Knight blasting through waves of Stormtroopers while using the Kinect peripheral to control saber strikes and force powers. Fanboy dreams suddenly soared, I mean who didn’t want to be Luke Skywalker or Darth Vader as a kid?
Recently at the official Kinect launch for the UK, resident Xbox sunglasses aficionado Kudo Tsunoda let slip that Star Wars Kinect is currently set for a Holiday 2011 release. While this may not be as soon as some fans were hoping, Kudo affirms that from what he has seen of the game— It’s worth it.
Indie games have had a rough go on Xbox Live. While there are tons of great independent games on the marketplace, sifting through the garbage to find the gems can be a bit of a chore. To get the jump on the holiday spirit, it was announced that indie games would be getting some love as part of a new promotion called “Indie Games Holiday Uprising”
Similar to Summer of Arcade and Game Feast for XBLA, Indie Games Holiday Uprising will showcase some of the best new titles to grace the independent scene. Expect games from known studios like Ska Studios and Radiangames as well as some new kids on the block.
Call of Duty Black Ops is currently in the process of being patched, due to complaints about about lag and multiplayer matchmaking.
Most of the game’s most annoying and potentially gamebreaking glitches were fixed earlier this week, like certain game modes not functioning and unstable maps. Treyarch says that more improvements will be made and more glitches will be fixed in upcoming patches.
At its annual investor conference earlier this week, Hasbro confirmed that Transformers: War for Cybertron 2 is currently in development, with the new title is tentatively scheduled for a 2012 release.
Mark Blecher, SVP and General Manager of Digital Media & Gaming, was extremely satisfied with the response to the first War for Cybertron.
“This is the most highly-rated, critical success of any game that’s had the Hasbro brand yet and we’re looking forward to a sequel in 2012,” Bleacher bragged.
Several board games have found a second life on Xbox Live Arcade, from classics like Risk to more hardcore fare like Catan and Carcassonne. According to Joystiq, the board game Zombies!!! will be joining those ranks this coming spring thanks to developer Barbaroga, who is currently working on the Windows Phone 7 version of the game.
A digital version of Zombies!!! was originally to be developed by developer Big Rooster, but Zombies!!! owner Twilight Creations announced back in August that they would be searching for a new partner for the property.
For those who have not yet experienced the joys of flinging homicidal avian, developer Rovio said that they plan on bringing their popular physics-based phone game Angry Birds to Xbox Live Arcade.
The announcement, reported by Pocket Gamer, came as part of a speech by Rovio staff at the first Social Gaming Summit which took place in London on Nov. 11. Rovio CEO Peter Vesterbacka said that his company plans on bringing the game to XBLA, Playstation Network and the Wii before they work on a sequel to the game.
Rovio also said that Angry Birds multiplayer is a “priority” for them and described it as being similar to Worms series of games, which featured turn-based battles and destructible environments. It ha
Call of Duty: Black-Ops developer Treyarch has been criticized by being the team that makes “the other Call of Duty game.” Treyarch may have the last laugh; however, as Black-Ops has officially broken the record for most first day sales of any game. The game, which sold 5.6 million on launch day, beats out the old number one title Infinity Ward’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 by almost a million copies. Just the titles that were sold on launch day have already amounted to $360 million in revenue, cemented Treyarch as the staple developer in the Call of Duty franchise.
