Grand Theft Auto IV DLC due Feb. 17 Yesterday at 11:26:50 pm by JeffU
The bad news: Rockstar Games has officially confirmed that the Grand Theft Auto IV expansion will not arrive in 2008. The downloadable add-on, which will be exclusive to the Xbox 360, is now set to launch on Xbox Live worldwide on February 17, the same day as Street Fighter IV in the US. No price has been set, but the expansion will require the original game to play and will presumably share the same hard M for Mature rating.
Now, the good news. The expansion won't be a smallish bit of DLC, like Mass Effect's single-mission Bring Down the Sky. Titled "The Lost and Damned," the add-on will leave Niko Bellic behind in the Manhattan doppelganger of Algonquin and focus on an all-new protagonist. According to USA Today, Liberty City's newest antihero will be Johnny Klebitz, member of the biker gang known as The Lost. Based in the New Jersey clone of Alderney, the Sons of Anarchy-esque motorcycle club had some run-ins with Bellic--who will make a cameo appearance--in the middle section of GTAIV.
"Johnny is a very different character than Niko, with a very different background," Rockstar vice president of creative development Dan Houser told USA Today. "I can't go into too much detail on the story, because we try not to give away too much plot before the game is released. But I can say that the story will show you a different side of Liberty City."
In addition to the new storyline, The Lost and Damned will also sport new weapons, vehicles, and multiplayer modes that have yet to be detailed. In an official press release, Rockstar said the add-on will also feature a whole new soundtrack, with new types of music being added to GTAIV's myriad radio stations.
Last but not least, the expansion will be the first of two 360-exclusive episodes Rockstar North is making for GTAIV. "Making these episodes has enabled us to expand the narrative and the experience of interacting with a game world in really innovative ways," said Rockstar Games founder Sam Houser, brother of Dan, in a statement. "We hope fans of the game enjoy the new way of experiencing life in Liberty City contained in this first episode." No details on the second episode have been announced.
Lich King claims 2.8M souls in 24 hours Yesterday at 11:21:16 pm by JeffU
As only the second expansion to an 11 million-player massively multiplayer game, there was little doubt that World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King would sell well. Today, developer-publisher Blizzard Entertainment told the world exactly how well, announcing the add-on had sold a staggering 2.8 million copies in its first 24 hours on the market. GameStop reported that the expansion is already their top-selling PC title of 2008. Although currency fluctuations and discounts prevent an accurate estimation of the expansion's exact take, 2.8 million units at the US price point of $39.99 stacks up to nearly $108 million.
Wrath of the Lich King's launch was heralded by 15,000 midnight launch events worldwide. Whether they were in the US, UK, or Australia, all events were mobbed by fans whipped into a frenzy by a steady drumbeat of hype. The fact that it has been nearly two years since the first WOW expansion, The Burning Crusade, also played a large part. That game, too, shattered records when it sold 2.4 million copies in the 24 hours after its launch on January 17, 2007, back when WOW only had 8 million subscribers.
World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King will raise the level cap to 80 and will add new abilities and talents to all classes. It also introduces the Death Knight hero class and a new profession--inscription--that will let players permanently enhance spells and abilities. The expansion also adds new character-customization options, as well as a massive new realm, Northrend.
NXE launch chilled by dashboard freezes Yesterday at 11:18:30 pm by JeffU
[UPDATE] Shortly after this article was first posted, reports of widespread freezes while navigating the NXE dashboard began to trickle in. The trickle soon became a flood, and a un-scientific survey found that every single GameSpot editor who applied the NXE Update encountered multiple freezing issues with the new dashboard. These seemed to come most often when entering and exiting the avatar editing mode, with three GS editors being forced to reboot three times in under an hour. Requests for an explanation sent to Microsoft were unanswered as of press time. The original story is below.
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In the wee hours of this morning, millions of Xbox 360 users logged on to Xbox Live and began downloading the New Xbox Experience (NXE). First unveiled at E3 in July, the top-to-bottom update does away with the first current-generation console online service's flat blade-based interface and deemphasizes its two-dimensional gamer pictures.
Instead, NXE will feature a scrolling menu system similar to iTunes' cover flow--or, some would say, the PlayStation 3's XrossMediaBar. Its focus will also be three-dimensional avatars, which look like the illegitimate offspring of Nintendo's Miis and the slicker avatars of the PlayStation Home service, which is still ostensibly set to launch before year's end.
Microsoft is heavily promoting NXE, even going so far as to offer qualifying buyers of hard-drive-less 360s a free 512MB memory card or a $20 20GB HDD so they can download it. However, not even the multibillion-dollar resources of the software giant could prevent the service from running into some trouble even before it launched. Many planned features, such as Xbox Live Primetime, were pushed back until after the service went online.
Now, though, the service is up and running after a semi-smooth launch. GameSpot editors encountered a few issues Wednesday morning, primarily in the form of missing game and video content on Xbox Live Marketplace. Often, when content appeared, it could not be purchased. However, by this afternoon, it appeared that Marketplace, which now has a drastically different navigation system, was well stocked with content ranging from Rock Band Track Packs to the new Avatar-based game premium dashboard themes.
Unfortunately, though newer themes, such as those for Gears of War 2 and Fable II, are optimized for the new display, older ones are partially obscured. For instance, the shield in the England 2006 World Cup theme is now bisected by the silver dome, which takes up the bottom half of the dashboard. More top-heavy themes, such as the Alpine Winters theme, are less affected by the new windows-based navigation, which occupies the center of the screen at all times. The British Official Xbox Magazine has compiled a gallery of the most egregiously obscured themes (pictured).
Bigger problems are besetting the Netflix streaming-video service, one of NXE's most heavily hyped features. This afternoon, one day after the California-based rental company admitted "hundreds" of films would not be viewable on the 360, the video service still did not work for multiple GameSpot editors. Those who could get the service functioning found the quality severely limited by bandwidth, with a 1.5 Mbps DSL connection yielding blocky video.
When queried by GameSpot, Netflix reps said that they were unaware of any issues. However, they did confirm that another selection of streaming-video offerings, including the BBC series Red Dwarf, would no longer be available as of December 1. However, unlike the aforementioned films, which appear to all be Sony-owned, Xbox owners won't be the only ones missing out on the next batch of removals. They will no longer be streamable either on PC or other Netflix devices, thanks to what a spokesperson called the "ebb and flow of licensing."
PS3 trophies mandatory in 2009 Yesterday at 11:15:42 pm by JeffU
Much as Microsoft is currently grappling with technical snafus associated with the New Xbox Experience, Sony faced its own minor debacle during the implementation of the long-anticipated trophy system for PlayStation 3 games. System lockups aside, confusion abounded over which games would feature the new award system.
At fault for the mystery was that unlike Microsoft's mandatory approach to gamerscore achievements, Sony left the option to implement trophies up to the discretion of both internal and third-party developers. At that time, Sony's director of PlayStation Network Eric Lempel told GameSpot that, eventually, all new PS3 games would include trophies.
[UPDATE] The eventually in question is apparently coming sooner rather than later. A Sony representative confirmed for GameSpot that trophy support will be mandatory in all PS3 games submitted for certification beginning next year. "Trophies will be mandatory for titles submitted after January 1, 2009," said the rep. "Of course, many teams have already started to incorporate trophies and have added support for older titles."
Currently, a number of development houses have revisited their previously released titles to implement the award system, including Naughty Dog (Uncharted: Drake's Fortune), Rockstar (Grand Theft Auto IV), and Criterion (Burnout Paradise). However, these rewards are not awarded retroactively, requiring a fresh play-through to secure the achievements.
Aussie game charts: November 10-16 Yesterday at 11:14:21 pm by JeffU
Top 10 Full-Priced Games 1. World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King, PC 2. Wii Music, Wii 3. Call of Duty: World at War, Xbox 360 4. Call of Duty: World at War, PlayStation 3 5. Gears of War 2, Xbox 360 6. Guitar Hero World Tour super bundle, Wii 7. Wii Fit, Wii 8. Wii Play bundle, Wii 9. Guitar Hero World Tour super bundle, Xbox 360 10. Guitar Hero World Tour super bundle, PlayStation 3
Top 10 PS3 Games (over A$60) 1. Call of Duty: World at War 2. Guitar Hero World Tour super bundle 3. Little Big Planet 4. MotorStorm: Pacific Rift 5. Fallout 3 6. WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2009 7. Saints Row 2 8. Far Cry 2 9. FIFA Soccer 09 10. Midnight Club: Los Angeles
Top 10 Xbox 360 Games (over A$50) 1. Call of Duty: World at War 2. Gears of War 2 3. Guitar Hero World Tour super bundle 4. Fable II 5. Fallout 3 6. Saints Row 2 7. WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2009 8. Guitar Hero World Tour bundle 9. Far Cry 2 10. FIFA Soccer 09
Top 10 Wii Games (over A$50) 1. Wii Music 2. Guitar Hero World Tour super bundle 3. Wii Fit 4. Wii Play bundle Super 5. Mario Kart Wii 6. Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games 7. Smash Bros. Brawl 8. Guitar Hero World Tour bundle 9. Super Mario Galaxy 10. Mario Paty 8
Top 10 PC Games (over A$20) 1. World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King 2. Call of Duty: World at War 3. Fallout 3 4. Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 5. World of Warcraft Battlechest 6. World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade 7. Far Cry 2 8. The Sims 2: Apartment Life 9. Spore 10. World of Warcraft
Top 10 Nintendo DS Games (over A$40) 1. Dr Kawashima's Brain Training: How Old Is Your Brain 2. MySims Kingdom 3. More Brain Training from Dr Kawashima: How Old Is Your Brain? 4. Maths Training The Hundred Cell Calculation Method 5. Nintendogs: Labrador and Friends 6. Nintendogs: Dachshund and Friends 7. Nintendogs: Dalmation and Friends 8. Guitar Hero: On Tour bundle 9. CrossworDS 10. Nintendogs: Chihuahua and Friends
Top 10 PS2 Games (over A$50) 1. WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2009 2. Guitar Hero World Tour super bundle 3. SingStar Hottest Hits 4. SingStar Singalong With Disney 5. Call of Duty: World at War 6. SingStar '80s 7. SingStar Rock ballads 8. SingStar Hottest Hits bundle 9. SingStar Pop Hits 10. Crash Bandicoot: Mind Over Mutant
Top 10 PSP games (over A$40) 1. WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2009 2. Midnight Club: Los Angeles Remix 3. FIFA Soccer 09 4. Lego Batman 5. Crash Bandicoot: Mind Over Mutant 6. Star Wars: The Force Unleashed 7. NBA Live 09 8. The Simpsons Game 9. Buzz!: Master Quiz 10. Iron Man
Grand Theft Auto IV DLC due Feb. 17
