Joystiq

Puzzle Quest 2 coming to DS, XBLA in Spring 2010

by JC Fletcher { 20 minutes ago }

Though we're confident Infinite Interactive's Puzzle Quest 2 will eventually be a mega-multiplatform release like its predecessor, D3Publisher announced that the game's roll-out will start on DS and Xbox Live Arcade. It'll be out in spring 2010, along with every other game you've ever heard of, which means that you'll now have the choice to play all those games or Puzzle Quest. They'll occupy about the same amount of time.

Puzzle Quest 2 will let players match gems as one of four new character classes: War Mage, Inquisitor, Barbarian, or Assassin, using "all-new weapons, spells, and shields." Sorry if you just got over a Puzzle Quest addiction.

The Best of Big Download: November 23-29

by Joystiq Staff { 9 hours ago }

How was Thanksgiving weekend for you? Eat a lot of turkey and then took a long afternoon nap? Watch a lot of football? Put up your holiday decorations? Raid stores for deals on Black Friday? Man, you must be tired. Just sit back and check out what Big Download posted up during the last seven days.
Exclusive features

Left 4 Dead 2 Game Guide: If you want to be fully briefed on Valve's zombie co-op shooter sequel, then you have come to the right place. We have started our Left 4 Dead 2 Game Guide with the first chapters on Identifying New Threats, Knowing Your Arsenal and our first campaign guides Hit 'Em Dead Center, Hosting a Dark Carnival and Catching Swamp Fever. Look for the other entries next week.
Holiday Gift Guides: Black Friday may be over but the holiday shopping season has begun. Take a look at our PC gamer gift guide for non-game present ideas as well as our picks for some single player title gift suggestions. And if you want to do some download shopping for your gamer we have evaluated the major PC game download services.
Interviews: We chat with the creators of the just released indie strategy game Solium Infernum and the upcoming action game Zombie Driver.
Gyromancer review: We give our final verdict to this Square Enix-Popcap puzzle-RPG collaboration.
The State of Mac Gaming: In this first part of a multipart series, we look at the current state of gaming on the Macintosh platform.
Big Ideas: In our latest entry in our look at gaming themes we look at if single player gaming is truly becoming extinct.

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Nintendo investigating possible copyright infringement in new Nokia smartphone

by Xav de Matos { 10 hours ago }

Nintendo's says it will investigate possible copyright infringement in Nokia's N900 smartphone after a Nokia blog post showcased the device playing retro games through the use of an emulator application. According to Edge, the video (which is no longer available) featured someone playing Super Mario World and Super Mario Bros. 3, and also showed off buttons that supposedly opened emulators for Nintendo's Game Boy, Game Boy Advance, NES and SNES.

Nintendo UK PR manager Robert Saunders told Edge the company was unaware of the smartphone's emulation feature and stated that Nintendo would take "rigorous steps" to protect its intellectual property. "Our legal team will examine this to determine if any infringement has taken place," Saunders added. Even if the feature ends up on the cutting room floor, we imagine some crafty hackers are already taking steps to get emulation software working on the Nokia device. Just like they do with everything else.

Swag Sunday: Game show giveaway extravaganza! (Wii)

by Ben Gilbert { 11 hours ago }

We know we've been pushing nothing but family entertainment on you with our Swag Saturday posts for a few weeks now, and, well, this week isn't much different. We've got a prize pack full of two "2010 Edition" Nintendo Wii games that are sure to get the family together and, quite possibly, at each others throats (in a wholesome kinda way): Family Feud and The Price is Right! Hey, one of those even has the word "family" in the title!

To get your hands on the prize pack, all you have to do is leave a comment telling us what your favorite game show of all time is. We'll pick a winner at random from the entries sometime this week, so be sure to check those inboxes!

Leave a comment telling us what your favorite game show of all time is.
You must be 18 years or older and a resident of the US or Canada (excluding Quebec -- partially because of Céline Dion, mostly because of Alanis Morissette)
Limit 1 entry per person per day
This entry period ends at 10:31PM ET on Monday, November 30
At that time, we'll randomly select one winner to receive one copy of The Price is Right for Nintendo Wii ($40 ARV) and one copy of Family Feud for Nintendo Wii ($40 ARV).
For a list of complete rules, click here

Master Arica Harbor with these Bad Company 2 beta tips

by Xav de Matos { 12 hours ago }

If you find yourself coming up short in your quest for victory in the PS3-exclusive multiplayer beta for Bad Company 2, the development team at DICE has a few pointers to help reduce the gap between your win and loss statistics. Bad Company 2 level designer Inge Jøran "Pirelli" Holberg posted a laundry list of tips for attackers and defenders for the beta's Arica Harbor map.

With the map's design in mind, Holberg's tips feature a slew of ideas on how you can destroy specific areas of the map to redirect adversary foot traffic -- right into the sights of your favorite firearm. Our tips? Keep shooting people on the other team and you're bound to win eventually. We're professionals here, folks.

Amazon.com's Cyber Monday deals available now

by Ben Gilbert { 13 hours ago }

In the market for Nathan Drake's latest adventure but not trying to spend a hidden fortune on it? Amazon.com's Cyber Monday deals are here to help, offering Uncharted 2 for only $40, among other great deals. How about Left 4 Dead 2 for $40? Or maybe you'd prefer a 60-hour-long fantasy RPG for the same price? Amazon has you covered.

Look, we'd keep listing deals here, but there's kind of a lot. So pick your console of choice (Nintendo Wii / DS, PlayStation 3, or Xbox 360) and check out all the savings for yourself. While it's not quite Steam levels of insane price drops, we're quite partial to games for a third or more off normal retail price. Aren't you?

Avatar mutliplayer trailer pits giant blue things against humans

by Ben Gilbert { 14 hours ago }

It could happen this week, it could happen next week, but sometime in the month of December, Ubisoft will decide to liberate Avatar from the shackles of game development. And when that happens, we're prepared to go directly online and start popping 10-foot blue things with our big human weapons. This is about survival, ya dig?

It appears that in addition to simply plugging bullets into the creatures, Ubisoft will also be allowing for some form of capture the flag (wait, isn't this about survival?). Other than that one crucial detail, the only info we gleaned from the multiplayer trailer above is that there'll be a ton of explosions, even more mid-air flip-kicks, and explosion/flip-kick-laden jungle combat when the game does finally come out. For now, unfortunately, you'll have to sate yourselves with something totally boring like Modern Warfare 2. Humans against humans? Pssshhht, that's so mid-November.

Gallery: James Cameron's Avatar (Xbox 360/PS3/PC)

Scivelation's year old 'trailer' reveals name and engine change

by Ben Gilbert { 15 hours ago }

Something we've been saying since TopWare Interactive and Black Wing Foundation first announced their upcoming third-person shooter, Scivelation – what's with the name?! At first we thought it might be a weird play on the word "civilization," but quickly realized it was missing a syllable.

It was an odd surprise then when we spotted a trailer for the game (found after the break) on Russian gaming site Absolute Games 1.5, though rather than a "Scivelation" logo at the end, we noticed one for a game titled "Salvation." So we contacted TopWare Interactive to find out what was up and were told the video we found is actually not the "first official trailer" for Scivelation, but rather an "old trailer that Black Wing [Foundation] did under the name 'Salvation' that has very little to do with the game Scivelation." More accurately, Scivelation started life as Salvation – "a game from last year with a basic premise that we really enjoyed" – though at the time it was running on Source Engine rather than its current game engine, Unreal.

If you're left feeling as hollow inside as we were after finding out that the accented, fairly confusing, and kinda goofy video isn't from the newest build of Scivelation, take refuge in the fact that the game's developers are completely rewriting the story "to give it a solid story arc with distinct and engaging characters that we feel are going to capture the gaming audience." So there's that, right?

Gallery: Scivelation

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New Splatterhouse screens -- now with more blood!

by Ben Gilbert { 16 hours ago }

If you're anything like us, you've had the upcoming Splatterhouse remake fresh in your mind ever since this week's positively terrifying reveal of Splatterhouse shoes. Thankfully, Namco also released a handful of fresh screens of the game, riddled with various creature parts and – shock! – gallons of blood. Sure, the 13-year-old in us is just about as stoked for a new Splatterhouse game as one could be. Unfortunately, the 25-year-old in us still needs a lot of convincing that the franchise is worth revisiting before next year's Q3 release.

Gallery: Splatterhouse (11/29/09)

Japanese hardware sales, Nov. 16 - Nov. 22: Rapid expansion edition

by Griffin McElroy { 17 hours ago }

This is just getting ridiculous. It seems like every week now we see a new contender added to the Japanese sales chart. Remember? Remember the beginning of the month, how simple everything was? Seven platforms. Seven arrows. Seven percentile figures. With today's addition of the super-magnified DSi LL, we're now up to nine platforms. In addition to being a much less appealing number (unless you're a Beatle), it's incrementally increased the amount of time we have to spend compiling each chart . That's twenty precious, valuable seconds we'll never see again.

To compensate for the increased labor that goes into making the charts, we guess we'll subtract some of the usual work ethic that goes into the text of these posts. Hope you don't mind. Man, that DSi LL sold a bunch, didn't it? Man. Sure sold real good. PS2 didn't, though. Too bad about that.

- DSi LL: 100,553 (New Entry!)
- PS3: 34,752

3,746 (9.73%)
- Wii: 32,844

6,080 (22.72%)
- PSP: 32,752

6,018 (15.52%)
- DSi: 32,070

1,679 (4.97%)
- DS Lite: 5,051

15 (0.30%)
- PSP Go: 4,574

1,853 (28.83%)
- Xbox 360: 4,085

39 (0.95%)
- PS2: 2,024

7 (0.34%)

[Source: Media Create]

See: The super-magnified archives

Fight Night Round 4 gets 'Rivalries' DLC this week, you get a new trailer right now

by Ben Gilbert { 18 hours ago }

For those of you wishing to recreate the ear-biting banality that is a boxing match between Mike Tyson (please don't hurt us!) and Evander Holyfield (the poor guy!), EA Sports is enabling just such a possibility with this week's DLC for Fight Night Round 4. Titled "Rivalries," it'll be adding three new fighters as well as some new game modes.

The DLC's trailer (found after the break) details all the new additions, as well as giving us our first in-action look at the new fighters. We'll be re-imagining Holyfield's fateful fight with Tyson getting pummeled into the ground when the DLC arrives on December 3 – call it virtual retribution.

Gallery: Fight Night Round 4 (DLC)

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BBC iPlayer for 360 indefinitely postponed due to disagreement with Microsoft

by Griffin McElroy { 19 hours ago }

Though the BBC iPlayer is already available on the Wii and PS3 overseas, it seems a disagreement between the television corporation and Microsoft will keep the platform off of the Xbox 360 for the time being. According to a recent Telegraph article, sources close to the BBC's Future Media and Technology department claim that Microsoft's desire to make the iPlayer a Gold Subscriber-exclusive feature is "incompatible with the BBC's public service remit."

An unnamed BBC representative reportedly explained, "this does not fit with the BBC's model and Microsoft will not budge at the moment. It is really frustrating for those involved on the BBC side who want to make sure iPlayer is rolled out on as many popular entertainment platforms as possible." We've contacted Microsoft to hear the other half of the story.

Royal Navy sailors given PSPs to 'encourage studying'

by Ben Gilbert { 20 hours ago }

So, umm, this is kind of awkward. We're sorry to tell you, British Royal Navy, but it would appear that you've been duped. We know that the electric engineer everyone trusts so much – Reginald, that con artist! – has spent hours convincing everyone at HMS Collingwood in Hampshire how important it is for him to have a Sony PSP for "studying," but we have to tell you: It's a gaming system! He's just using it to play games!

And so even though Reginald said it would be a "smashing idea" for you to buy 230 consoles and spend £50k in the process, we're not so sure this is the best way to educate British sailors. The pre-loaded engineering software may help, but who's to stop users from spending hours with Patapon 2 instead? And no matter how much they claim to be learning about naval combat from SOCOM: Tactical Strike, we're pretty sure that's a lie as well. We hope you've learned from this, and will think twice next time that dastardly Reginald proposes a gaming system as education.

[Via GamesIndustry.biz]

Steam Deals Day Four: Prince of Persia, Lucidity, Guild Wars marked down

by Griffin McElroy { 21 hours ago }

The next-to-last day of Steam's "Early Holiday Sale" brings with it an eclectic collection of discounted PC titles, including last year's Prince of Persia ($14.99), Battlefield 2 ($14.99), Lucidity ($2.49) and Guild Wars Trilogy ($24.99). Also, here's a link to a Black Friday sale for a 1TB internal HDD. If you've been following this Steam sale for the past few days, you're probably hurting for hard drive space right about now.

Make sure you free up some room before tomorrow -- at 8 a.m. PST, the last batch of 24-hour sales will be announced. Stay tuned!

King of Fighters movie trailer giving us Street Fighter flashbacks

by Griffin McElroy { 22 hours ago }

We are conflicted, dear readers, over the assumed quality of the King of Fighters film adaptation, the debut trailer for which can be found after the jump. On one hand, we have the incomparable film chops of action heroine extraordinaire Maggie Q and former spiky-headed Jedi slayer, Ray Park. Also, the whole production is led by award-winning director Gordon Chan, so we at least know the hand on the film's rudder is gnarled with experience.

On the other hand, it's another film based on the typically devoid-of-plot fighting game genre. If the precedent set by Street Fighter, Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li, Double Dragon, Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat: Annihilation and Dead or Alive are any indication, we could be in for another theatrical trainwreck.

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