Time: Tuesday, February 9, 2010, 5 p.m. PST Location: Watch the embedded video player above.
Questions: Submit your question(s) in our Game Night message board thread.
On the next Game Night, we're harvesting Little Sisters and fighting Big Sisters in BioShock 2.
We record Game Night, live, every Tuesday at 5 p.m. PST, and we welcome your thoughts and comments on our message board or Twitter account. A recorded version of the show will go up Wednesday afternoon on GameVideos. For past Game Night episodes check out 1UP's Game Night hub page.
If your passion for Danish building toys and space operas hasn't been satisfied by the other Lego Star Wars titles, Traveller's Tales is ready and more than willing to give you another. Today the company announced Lego Star Wars 3: The Clone Wars, based on the popular Cartoon Network animated TV series. The game is set for Wii, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PSP, DS, and PC this fall. The company promises characters from both seasons of the series, along with cameos from the movie characters. TT is working to make this game an improvement over previous installments with an enhanced level builder, Jedi and Separatist factions, and new attacks and abilities.
"LucasArts is an amazing partner, and working with them on the next iteration of the Lego Star Wars continues to be a great experience," said TT Games director Tom Stone in the press release. "The team at TT is working hard at making this simply the best Lego game ever with all new gameplay and features never before seen in a Lego game."
While TT Games has made two Lego Star Wars games (and one compilation) in the past, we'll see a shift in the art assets for this installment. The games have always been based on the actual Lego sets, and sets produced for the Clone Wars television series have had a stylized look to more closely resemble the cartoon. All the same, we can't help but wonder if this installment is destined to eventually be bundled with the other two existing games. They could call it, "Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga, For Reals This Time."
Super Bowl XLIV has come and gone, and once again the EA Sports prediction has come true. This brings the grand total of accurate predictions up to six, with 2008 remaining as the only inaccurate game called by the company's Madden franchise simulation. As usual, however, the predicted score was much less accurate, and this year some unexpected plays by the New Orleans Saints took a major part in throwing off the simulation's idea of how the game would go down.
EA Sports predicted a high-scoring, nail-biting game through the first three quarters, ending at 24-21. In reality, the Colts took a modest 10-6 lead into halftime. It was after the half that the Saints found their momentum, starting with a risky onside kick that paid off with a touchdown. The Colts answered with their own touchdown in the quarter, which left the score narrowly in the Colts' favor at the end of the third quarter. Finally, EA Sports predicted two Saints touchdowns to the Colts one in the final quarter. While the Saints did earn the two TDs -- one accompanied by a contested two-point conversion and another due to an interception -- the Colts failed to put any points on the board. This led to a final score of 31-17, a far cry from EA Sports' much closer 35-31 prediction.
Hey, remember Alpha Protocol? Sure you do. It's an espionage action RPG from Obsidian Entertainment? Originally planned for release way back in February 2009 before it was delayed twice, with the last setting it for a vague spring 2010 release? Well speaking to MTV Multiplayer, Sega explained why Alpha Protocol has been pushed back so much...and evidently announced they pushed it once again to summer.
"We had a few reasons for [delaying] it. One: We wanted to position it better, give it a lot of time," said Mathew Hickman, assistant producer at Sega. "The main reason: We really wanted to polish the game up, make it everything Obsidian planned it to be, and give the consumer a very polished game."
Hickman also explained what's been added during the extra development time: "We added a couple of other things. Tweaks in lighting here and there, added the inventory comparison screen so you can compare what you're buying to what you have equipped. Just bringing the whole quality level up."
The ESRB has a lot of history leaking game announcements by giving a game a rating before it's officially announced, but it looks like they've moved into the more specialized subject of leaking game content. In their expanded rating description of Battlefield: Bad Company 2, they let slip that the game evidently begins in World War II.
"In single-player mode, players conduct missions on an unnamed Japanese island during World War II and then move into the modern day through jungles, deserts, and snowy terrain," the description explains (via Kotaku). That at least leaves us with the surprise of just how long the game stays set in World War II, doesn't it? Hey, we're glass-half-full types here.
Of course, the Battlefield series is no stranger to the most popular war in the first-person shooter genre -- the original Battlefield 1942, as the name implies, was set during said global conflict before its sequels went on to Vietnam and modern times. And as for Electronic Arts, they can at least be satisfied the ESRB didn't also call their game creepy and bizarre.
It's been a couple years, but maybe you remember the ridiculous fake controversy that erupted on Fox News after the first Mass Effect was released, where they flagrantly misrepresented the game's sex scenes as being hardcore with full-frontal nudity. Well members of BioWare's forums remember, and one asked the developer point blank if fear of another controversy led them to tone down the sex scenes in Mass Effect 2. BioWare's answer: No.
"It's kinda funny that this topic keeps coming up over and over again," said BioWare's Stanley Woo, responding to the charge in the forum post (via Cinemablend). "People who claim to be old enough and mature enough to handle sex and nudity in a game seem to believe that any lack of sex and nudity in the game is a sign of self-censorship. They generally don't believe that a game can be called 'mature' without explicit sex and/or nudity."
If you haven't played either game, they both allow you to potentially "romance" party members, which can lead to sexual intercourse. In the first game, the sex cut-scene featured partial nudity (which is to say, "side boob"), a little bit of groping, and not much more. Mass Effect 2 now features even less skin, with the characters' underwear staying on at all times and a cut away to implied sexual intercourse. And Woo says that was entirely their call, without any outside influence.
Considering UFC Undisputed 2009 sold tremendously well and had "2009" in its title, a follow up in what is now obviously an annual series was a foregone conclusion. And after a teaser trailer being shown during the 2009 Spike TV VGAs last December, UFC president Dana White spotlighted UFC Undisputed 2010 again at a THQ event earlier this week, along with announcing Brock Lesnar as its cover star.
Naturally, UFC Undisputed 2010 is in development for both the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, with a release date set for May 25. But GameSpot reports that THQ also revealed that this year's version will get a PSP release at a later, unannounced date.
Lesnar, for those unaware, is the reigning UFC heavyweight champion, although a string of illnesses has sidelined him from fighting since last October. Of course, Undisputed 2010 will face stiffer competition than 2009 did last year, as Electronic Arts is readying EA Sports MMA for this year, as well (a game White has had a thing or two to say about in the past).
Perhaps you remember this leaked video of the Road Rash reboot Electronics Art had in development? Well above you can see what some of the characters in the game might have looked like in concept art form. Superannuation picked up on the personal blog of concept artist Ross Dearsley, where he posted a number of pieces he did for Road Rash and a few other probably canceled EA games -- including a game adaptation of Oliver Twist.
Yes, Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens's classic tale of an orphan who enters the world of 19th century London street crime. The concept art shows a character design for Oliver, as well as suggests his animations would have changed based on how well he was fedMetal Gear Solid 3-style gruel collecting here?). And yes, it even shows Oliver performing want kind of looks like parkour/freerunning techniques, because every action/adventure game needs parkour/freerunning these days.
But that's not all! Other art in Dearsley's portfolio show designs for some sort of sci-fi game with robots and "'B-Movie' Style" aliens; a game called "Gunhead" (featuring a character who, perhaps, had some sort of gun for a head); and a game called "Hurikan," which according to notes on the art itself was set "on a weather-beaten island research center."
So you've purchased Mass Effect 2, but you can't read the tiny text on your SDTV. Don't laugh -- more people are playing Xbox 360 in standard-def than you think. Unfortunately, it looks like BioWare won't have a fix for those silent legions anytime soon.
In a recent post on the official forums, BioWare's Michael Gamble wrote, "We understand that on some Standard Definition TVs the smallest text in Mass Effect 2 can be difficult to read. While this was not an intentional result, it was a byproduct of enhancements to the user interface."
"After investigating potential solutions, we have determined that while this issue does affect a small portion of SDTV owners, we are unable to resolve it for Mass Effect 2 through a title update. However, we have taken note of this issue and will take it into consideration as we plan future games in the Mass Effect franchise."
L.A. Noire was originally announced as a PlayStation 3 exclusive, but after four years, nothing can really be taken for granted. Hence, it comes as no surprise that the upcoming Rockstar title will be multi-platform.
The confirmation comes on the heels of word that L.A. Noire will feature on the cover of the March issue of Game Informer. GI staff member Matthew Kato addressed questions of exclusivity on the second page of the comments.
