Ragnar’s Realms

Admin wrote: 

Filed under: Sony PlayStation 3, Microsoft Xbox 360, Simulations

It was a tad controversial when Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation was announced as an Xbox 360 exclusive. After all, Namco Bandai’s Ace Combat series had cut its teeth on Sony’s consoles for years. Now, however, the title might return to familiar territory, as UK-based PSM3 Magazine is reporting on the development of Ace Combat 6 on PS3.

According to a brief blurb in the magazine, Ace Combat 6 is scheduled for release later this year, and will feature online co-op. The blurb also mentions that the title will include its own custom controller (clearly referring to the Ace-Edge flight sticks that were released alongside the 360 version).

With no official word from Namco Bandai on the topic, we’re hesitant to believe this one just yet, although breaking exclusivity agreements is certainly not unheard of in this industry.

[Via PS3 Fanboy]

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Today,  

Filed under: News

It looks like PS2 RPG Mana Khemia is getting ported to the PSP after all. Following speculation based off a retail listing at Play-Asia, PSP Hyper suspected that the title would be heading to the portable system. Today, a scan from this week’s Famitsu (pictured above) pretty much confirms those suspicions to be correct.

According to Jeux-France, the port will have additional content such as new bosses and an all new co-op mode for two players. The title is slated for a Japanese release sometime in Q3 2008. While a North American announcement will be far off at best, NA gamers can get a taste of Mana Khemia on the PS2 once it hits retail shelves on March 31.

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Today,  

Filed under: Culture, PC, Sony PlayStation 3, Microsoft Xbox 360, Action, Adventure

Korean actor Byun-hung Lee, whose likeness was used for the protagonist Wayne Holden in Capcom’s Lost Planet: Extreme Condition, has been casted in the upcoming G.I. Joe film to play Storm Shadow, according to the official Capcom blog. The film is expected for release in 2009.

On a related note, has anyone ever noticed the alternate text when highlighting your mouse over Capcom blog links? We particularly laughed at the text for the link related to the G.I. Joe movie: “Directed by the guy who directed Van Helsing? Danger!” We laughed. The screenplay for G.I. Joe was written by Stuart Beattie, who is penning the film adaptation for Gears of War.

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Admin wrote: 

Filed under: News, Console wars

Microsoft’s Entertainment and Devices Division (EDD) is one happy division, because for a second fiscal quarter they’ve turned a nice profit and are Microsoft’s shiny badge of success.

For the third fiscal quarter, Microsoft revealed that the Xbox 360’s EDD turned an operating profit of $89 million seeing an operating income of $614 million which is a major improvement of last year’s $746 million operating loss. Analyzing the numbers further, we see that third quarter EDD sales rose 68% to $1.58 billion (up 35% to $6.57 billion for the nine month period) and Microsoft shipped 1.3 million consoles in the third quarter alone. Oh, and the reason for such impressive numbers? High demand for the Xbox 360 which now has cumulative sales of 19 million units. A 74% increase over last year.

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Today,  

Filed under: PC, Strategy

When Bobby Kotick was discussing Guitar Hero expansion and the possibility of a Call of Duty MMO at the Morgan Stanley Technology Conference last week, he also brought up a much less appetizing prospect: in-game advertising in StarCraft 2. … Shh, if you’re very quiet, you can hear fanboy hearts all over the world shattering and being replaced by churning, white-hot fury.

As much as we enjoy that sound, Blizzard has swooped in to explain that fans have nothing to be worried about, telling Blizzplanet, “We have no plans to have in-game advertising in StarCraft II. We believe Bobby was actually referring to Battle.net, which has always included ads.” … Well, thank the Overmind for that.

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Admin wrote: 

Filed under: Raiding, Bosses, Two Bosses Enter

Another week is over — leaving us with another winner and another loser in our weekly series of fantasy deathmatches. Last week we tossed the Firelord Ragnaros into our theoretical arena along with Ossirian the Unscarred. Despite quite a few comments suggesting Ossirian’s Supreme Mode would make him completely unkillable, the final results turned out in Ragnaros’ favor:

Thanks to the commenters who are enjoying our game in the spirit it was intended, especially mortalbound, whose recreation of the fight is too lengthy to reprint here, and Vaylix, who accurately noted, “This isn’t about your data, or in game logic. This is about who is more awesome.” Check back later for our next match, complete with more awesome, just for you.

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Admin wrote: 

Filed under: Sony PlayStation 3, Microsoft Xbox 360, Rhythm

The LA Times reports a truck with over 1,000 boxes of Rock Band was hijacked yesterday. The robbers kidnapped the truck driver, held him at gunpoint while they unloaded the truck and then released him after the deed was done. For those interested in the math, the thieves got away with $170,000 worth of merchandise.

According to authorities the circumstances of this hijack are very rare as the thieves actually kidnapped the driver and drove around for an hour — the kidnapping charges carry a life sentence. Our big question: How do you inconspicuously store and fence 1,000 Rock Band boxes? May we suggest checking the Canadian border, we hear they’re getting a little desperate up there.

[Thanks to all who sent this in]

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Admin wrote: 

Filed under: What are you playing?

As we mentioned in the Week in Review, things are a little hectic at Fanboy Towers these days. It’s E3 time you see, so we are busy, like bih-zee. Scheduling time with games, interviews, and trying to make sure we have enough time to do less important things like, say, eating: it’s enough to addle the brain. What will we be playing this weekend? Dustin and Richard (hey, that’s me!) will be playing the packing and flying to LA game. Terrence and Xav? They’ll be playing the prepare for a metric ton of press releases and assets game.

Don’t worry if you feel left out, because you can play along at home next week. In the meantime, we must ask, what will you be playing this weekend?

Leaderboards:
Xbox 360 Fanboy Leaderboard
Xbox 360 Fanboy Leaderboard Mk. II

X3F Gamertags:
Richard Mitchell — SenseiRAM
Dustin Burg — SuperDunners
Xav de Matos — Snypz
Terrence Stasse — EnlightenedApe

What were you playing? (WRUP archive)

[Image: icanhascheezburger]

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Today,  

Filed under: Sony PlayStation 3

[Update: It’s working without a hiccup now, folks. Enjoy.]

While we’ve been playing Grand Theft Auto IV on Xbox Live for hours now, our pals over at PS3 Fanboy have had less luck. The gang — meta moment alert! — grabbed a cell phone and snapped a photo of the game’s cell phone, specifically, the “error” message pictured above, confirming reports that the online multiplayer component of the PlayStation 3 version of GTA IV has not been accessible today (though it was last night, apparently). To be clear, this does not appear to be a network-wide issue; PSN seems to be functioning properly otherwise. Someone go give those Rockstar servers a good hard kick, will ya?

We’ll update the post once multiplayer is back online.

Continue reading PS3 GTA IV online multiplayer went down, back up [update]

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Admin wrote: 

Filed under: Final Fantasy

Eurogamer is reporting that a special edition of Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core might be on the way to Europe, or at least to the UK. Although Square Enix has yet to officially confirm it, UK retailers such as Gamestation have already begun hosting details about the special ed on their websites. Called the “Special Pre-order Edition,” it will come in nice slipcase packaging, and will also included a 48-page hardbound art book. The special ed is available only when the game is pre-ordered at regular price; so there’s no multiple pricing schemes going on — just reservations.

If this does indeed prove to be true, it seems like an enticing little incentive for Europeans not to purchase the North American version soon to release in less than two weeks. Especially since NA has a fixed date and Europe has a vague spring release, we suppose Square Enix needs something extra to keep crafty Euros from importing. Well, an art book and slipcase sure do beat our UMD cases.

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