Tag: games
Guitar Hero Smash Hits: Activision lays track down
Activision has given Guitar Hero addicts more ways to part with their cash by announcing more tracks for their June 16th release of Guitar Hero Smash Hits. The game, which sounds horribly like a teen magazine, sees the relaunch of a batch of songs from previous editions of Guitar Hero and this time it’s the turn of the second pack’s resurrection.
This list as follows is:
Avenged Sevenfold – “Beast And The Harlot”
Rage Against The Machine – “Killing In The Name”
Rush – “YYZ”
Lynyrd Skynyrd – “Free Bird”
Wolfmother – “Woman”
Foo Fighters – “Monkey Wrench”
Iron Maiden – “The Trooper”
Nirvana – “Heart-Shaped Box”
Lamb of God – “Laid To Rest”
The Police – “Message In A Bottle”
Danzig – “Mother”
Kansas – “Carry On Wayward Son”
Stone Temple Pilots – “Trippin’ On A Hole In A Paper Heart”
Warrant – “Cherry Pie”
Alice in Chains – “Them Bones”
Jane’s Addiction – “Stop!”
The Sword – “Freya”
Reverend Horton Heat – “Psychobilly Freakout”
Motley Crue- “Shout At The Devil”
Previously announced tunes:
Pantera – “Cowboys From Hell (Live)”
Franz Ferdinand – “Take Me Out”
Queens of the Stone Age – “No One Knows”
Joan Jett & the Blackhearts – “I Love Rock N’ Roll”
Incubus – “Stellar”
Boston – “More Than A Feeling”
White Zombie – “Thunder Kiss ’65”
Blue Oyster Cult – “Godzilla”
Helmet – “Unsung (Live)”
Queen – “Killer Queen”
The Exies – “Hey You”
Ozzy Osbourne – “Bark At The Moon”
Deep Purple – “Smoke On The Water”
The Donnas – “Take It Off”
Twisted Sister – “I Wanna Rock”
Poison – “Nothin But A Good Time”
Heart – “Barracuda”
DragonForce – “Through the Fire and Flames”
As usual there’s a frustrating mix of jaw droppers and those I couldn’t give a monkey’s about. “Killing in the Name” and “No One Know” are probably enough on their own for me to part with my cash but there’s still plenty of treats in the shape of “Smoke on the Water”, “Message in a Bottle” and all those others that I don’t know I know. Rock on.
(via Wired)
OnLive – top end PC gaming on your TV for less than a subscription to Xbox Live
I started out as a PC gamer with a 486 and single speed CD drive. I was one of those people who entered the constant upgrading loop to try and keep up with the must have games of the time. Then something happened: I moved out and had to deal with rent and bills – suddenly keeping my PC up to date wasn’t quite the priority of yesteryear and I slipped slowly into console ownership. But what if there were a way to play the latest PC games in top resolution through your TV without the need to upgrade your hardware? And what if this were to cost less than the current consoles on the market? Well, I think at that point I’d probably proudly clutch my mouse once more, but that’s never going to happen, right? Wrong, if OnLive has anything to do with it.
The OnLive service, seven years in the making, will allow games to stream games to their front room – it’s essentially cloud gaming. Whereas previously your controller of choice would play the game in the same room, now you’ll be controlling the game on OnLive’s central servers, where the video will be streamed back to you. All you need is a basic computer – even a netbook should do it – and a broadband connection to send and receive the data.
Gaming BAFTAs – winners announced
Last night, the gaming BAFTA winners were announced. They went predominantly to ‘hardcore’, more traditional games and ignored more recent successes. Particularly missing out were GTA IV and the Guitar Hero/Rock Band franchises. Call of Duty 4, on the other hand, cleared up – winning three awards.
Action & Adventure: Fable II
Nominated: Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Dead Space, Grand Theft Auto IV, Prince of Persia, Tomb Raider: Underworld
Artistic Achievement: LittleBigPlanet
Nominated: Assassin’s Creed, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Dead Space, Gears of War 2 (Eh? – ed.), Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots
Best Game: Super Mario Galaxy
Nominated: Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Fable II, Fallout 3, Grand Theft Auto IV, Rock Band
Casual: Boom Blox
Nominated: Guitar Hero World Tour, Buzz! Quiz TV, LittleBigPlanet, SingStar Vol. 2, Wii Fit
Gameplay: Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
Nominated: Grand Theft Auto IV, Left 4 Dead, Mario Kart Wii, Rock Band, Super Mario Galaxy
Handheld: Professor Layton and the Curious Village
Nominated: Geometry Wars: Galaxies, God of War: Chains of Olympus, The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, Patapon, Soul Bubbles
Multiplayer: Left 4 Dead
Nominated: Buzz! Quiz TV, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Gears of War 2, Mario Kart Wii, Rock Band
Original Score: Dead Space
Nominated: Assassin’s Creed, Fable II, Fallout 3, LittleBigPlanet, Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots
Sports: Race Driver: GRID
Nominated: FIFA 09, Football Manager 2009, MotorStorm Pacific Rift, Pure, Wii Fit
Strategy: Sid Meier’s Civilization Revolution
Nominated: Advance Wars: Dark Conflict, Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3, Ninjatown, SOCOM: US Navy SEALs Tactical Strike, Viva Piñata: Pocket Paradise
Story and Character: Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
Nominated: Assassin’s Creed, Fable II, Fallout 3, Grand Theft Auto IV, Mass Effect
Technical Achievement: Spore
Nominated: Assassin’s Creed, Fable II, Fallout 3, Grand Theft Auto IV, LittleBigPlanet
Use of Audio: Dead Space
Nominated: Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Gears of War 2, Grand Theft Auto IV, LittleBigPlanet, Super Mario Galaxy
GAME Award of 2008 (public voting): Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
Nominated: Fallout 3, Gears of War 2, Grand Theft Auto IV, Guitar Hero: World Tour, Left 4 Dead, LittleBigPlanet, Professor Layton and the Curious Village, Wii Fit, World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King
Gary won’t be too happy, given how few of his original recommendations won awards. I’m fairly pleased though – CoD4 is fantastic, as is Spore, Civilization, GRID, Left 4 Dead and Fable 2. Given the competition, it’s good to see excellent games beating off the populist choices like GTA IV and Gears of War.
(via Buzzin Games)
Microsoft announces improvements to Xbox Live
Microsoft today announced plans to extend the services offered on Xbox live, pushing the console even further from being a pure games machine to include movies too. There’s also plenty of content for existing games, and a gameshow.
Starting with the movies, Microsoft has done a deal with NBC Universal, which means that a limited selection of films will be offered for people to buy using Microsoft points, in both standard and high definition. Average price is £3 – £5, depending on which format you want, and how new the film is.
Then there’s a selection of bonus content for a variety of games. More content for Gears of War 2, Grand Theft Auto IV, Fallout 3, Tomb Raider, Fable 2, Lips, Rock Band, Guitar Hero World Tour and Scene It will be available, all of which will be exclusive to the Xbox 360 platform.
Lastly, there’s going to be some sort of weird quiz show thing called 1 vs 100. Over to Microsoft to explain it: “a completely exclusive, completely interactive television quiz show game giving gamers the chance to compete against each other and win real prizes”. Is anyone even remotely excited about that?
Overall, it’s a decent upgrade to the system and a ‘thankyou’ to owners, but I don’t think it’s going to be selling any new consoles over this. Especially when the company is banning people who identify themselves as a lesbian.
UK set to overtake Japan as the CENTRE of the gaming UNIVERSE this year
Poor old Japan is about to fall behind the UK in the global video game charts, with us lot finally spending more of our remaining cash on gaming than the Japanese – making the UK second only to the USA in how much cash we blow on various Halos and Mario Karts.
Figures released by UK sales-counter Chart-Track show that for the first five weeks of 2009 sales of games were up 37% in the UK, as kids spent their Christmas money on novelty Wii games like never before…
VIDEO: Energy & Efficiency, episode 12
Energy saving doesn’t have to be boring and about compromises. Here are a few ideas for FUN GAMES you can play, to enjoy yourself while also getting the smug feeling that can only come from doing your bit to save the world.
So come on, everyone! Let’s have fun and save energy!
If you have any ideas for additional energy saving games…
SEGA launches marginally disappointing online "casual" gaming portal PlaySEGA
The once-mighty SEGA has nailed its colours to the “Casual, internet” gaming mast, with the launch of PlaySEGA – a little portal rammed with simple games and colourful logos that might just hold the average teenager’s attention long enough for a game to finish downloading.
It’s not just about trading on former glories, PlaySEGA’s got actually NEW stuff on there to play that’s been made specifically for the service, should you, for some odd reason, be tired of slogging through Sonic 2 or Golden Axe on your emulator of choice.
As is fashionable these days, users are encouraged to sign in and create a wacky and possibly zany avatar symbolising their unique personalities, with “Escape Areas” – personal profile pages based around visual…
Spore becomes most pirated game ever
Largely thanks to the draconian DRM bundled with Will Wright’s ‘Spore’, the life-simulation game has been downloaded an epic 1.7 million times since its release at the start of September. If my maths is right, that means that one copy is downloaded every five seconds or so. If that rate had been maintained over the whole year, then people would have snagged 6.5 million copies.
Interestingly, second place in this year’s top ten most pirated games, published by Torrentfreak, was the Sims 2, showing that piracy isn’t limited to hardcore gamers (who generally hate the Sims), it’s become a perfectly mainstream pastime among ordinary people. It’s impressive that despite being released in 2004, it’s still right up at the top of the list, though it’s unclear how The Sims 2’s multiple add-on packs are counted.
(via MCVUK)
Related posts: SPORESUIT: EA sued over Spore DRM | Spore fans threatened with game ban over DRM discussion
FLASH GAME CHALLENGE – Downhill Bowling
This is brilliant. Why has no-one come up with the concept of downhill bowling before? Fling a bowling ball down a hill and see how many strikes you can get on the pins scattered about the hillside on the way down. Plus there’s bombs!
Install the Unity Web Player (It’s not virus, spyware, etc), and then restart your browser and give it a quick go. I had difficulties running it in Chrome, but after swapping to Firefox, I notched up a whopping score of 7180 on level one. Beat that, and leave your score in the comments for someone else to top.
Downhill Bowling (via RPS)
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Gaming Addiction Centre Chief: "Compulsive Gaming Is Not Addiction"
Keith Bakker is the founder of one of the most popular gaming addiction rehab centres in the world – the Smith & Jones Centre in Holland. They were the first facility in the world to admit patients for addiction to games, and they’ve been in the headlines lately following a few cases of people playing a little too much of the new WoW expansion.
Last year, Keith said “I believe gaming is currently the greatest threat to our society”, which is a hell of a statement. However, he’s recently made somewhat of a U-turn in his opinions. He now says that 90% of the kids he sees are actually addicts – they just need better social care, which is exactly what I said the other day.
