Who doesn’t love a Bungie Weekly Update that’s both informative and newsworthy? We know we do and this week Bungie talks about all kinds of Halo 3 goodness including some matchmaking changes.
A new Halo 3 matchmaking “hopper” update will be rolling out sometime in the next few days with changes a plenty. The most notable being Lone Wolves getting a swords gametype, oddball frequency being reduced and games increasing to six players. Also, Team Slayer will be getting Guardian and Valhalla maps, Social Doubles has been removed and a new eight player max social Rocket Race has been added (X3F Live memories …)
Other than matchmaking changes, Bungie says they’re looking into the Halo 3 melee problems, screenshot uploads being slow and armor permutation unlock bugs, all of which are hella’ annoying. Bungie also officially revealed the new Bungie.net Heatmaps feature and says they consider it to be in the “beta” stage and will tweak it accordingly. Finally, we’ve been promised more concrete and less code-namage Halo 3 DLC details in the weeks ahead, so keep your ears perked up for that. Bungie has spoken, get your Weekly Update fix after the jump.
We reported yesterday about the new icy splash screen which has appeared on many of Blizzard’s corporate and gaming sites. There’s already tons of speculation speeding around the web about it, and of course the pot was only stirred all the more this morning when the picture changed slightly: the light in the middle of the cracked ice became brighter, and there’s some new detail that can be seen through the ice, including a rune of some sort just to the upper right of the center. we can probably assume that the picture will change more each day until something is announced at the Worldwide Invitational. However, the question remains: What is being announced?
Right now, there’s two major schools of thought about it: One school says that this will lead up to the announcement of the WoTLKBeta, while another says that this will be the announcement of Diablo 3. Each side has some pretty passionate arguments, and are bringing the analysis to back it up. Let’s look at what we have after the break.
2K Games has released the first (teeny-tiny) round of images from BioShock on PS3, following up on this morning’s official announcement of the game. And … it looks like BioShock. On Xbox 360.
As mentioned in our previous post about the game’s PS3 debut, developer 2K Marin is looking into ways to enhance the game for Sony’s platform, but stopped short of providing any hard details. The latest issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly reports that the game essentially looks indistinguishable from the 360 original, and that the only “enhancements” at present are the plasmid additions and bug fixes that were pushed out to the 360 release via Xbox Live. 2K Marin has told EGM that it is working with Sony on more substantial enhancements, but at present they remain as murky as the sea enveloping Rapture.
Like another layer in the Russian nesting doll of Spore hype creation, the Spore Creature Creator demo is out now for both Mac and PC. Big Download reports the demo contains 25% of the content available in the full $10 retail version releasing tomorrow.
Within the last week, articles on a couple different websites has given us a little look at how much of a juggernaut Activision Blizzard really is on the gaming front.
The first comes from VentureBeat. Not directly about Activision Blizzard, this article talks a little about the current state of PC gaming. VentureBeat mentions that The NPD Group, a market researching group, has said that online gaming subscriptions generate around $1 billion per year with World of Warcraft leading the pack. I wouldn’t use this as proof of PC gaming still going strong as VentureBeat does, but rather that the PC gaming community has shifted toward subscription based multiplayer experiences with consoles taking over single player experiences, for the most part. You can probably thank piracy for that. That bit is a topic for another time, though.
Our other bit comes from Gaming Today on Filefront. This one is quite directly about Activision Blizzard, mentioning that they’ve become the number one game publisher around with a net earning of over $2.9 billion. That’s a lot of money! Again according to The NPD Group, Activision dominated both the console and handheld markets. Between the Guitar Hero series still going strong and the upcoming release of Wrath of the Lich King, it won’t be much of a surprise to anybody if Activision Blizzard comes out on top again in 2009.
Filed under news that’ll make Portal fans squeal with joy, Rock Band’s hmxsean just confirmed that the Portal hit “Still Alive” by GLaDOS will be releasing as Rock Band DLC in the near future. And that deserves a w00tacular! The news was revealed last night at Harmonix’s GDC party where the man behind “Still Alive”, Jonathan Coulton took the stage to make the announcement and play through the song with a few Harmonix developers. We guess this time the cake ended up not being a lie. Sweet.
This week on Ask X3F, we discuss important issues like analog stick … um … stickiness, Canadian pricing, dead batteries and that all important topic: how do you convince your significant other that he or she needs an Xbox 360? Yes, we take a look at all this an more in the latest installment. Find them after the break. If you’ve got questions of your own, don’t forget to send ‘em our way.
Got a question for Ask X3F? Maybe you have a story or some information you’d like to share? Send it all to ask [att] xbox360fanboy [dawt] com.
Just as your head begins to clear from downing your seventh pitcher of holiday eggnog, Electronic Arts announced plans to push off and catch a mad vert when Skate 2 nails its retail landing in January. The sequel will do a frontside 360 in North America on January 21, while skateboarders elsewhere will be able to get their trick on two days later on January 23.
Next month EA will also launch a Skate 2web application, creatively titled “Graphics Creator,” which will let players create customized graphics for their in-game decks and clothing. Additionally, would-be shredders in North America who pre-order Skate 2 will grab a code to unlock a “Throwback Pack” that will allow access to retro accessories, gestures and clothing. When you bail from a botched nosegrind, at least you’ll look good in your Skate or Die shirt.
Sierra just announced that their already delayed console port of PC real-time strategy slash tactical game World in Conflict would indeed be coming in 2008, as promised, but long after the originally planned November ‘07 release. The Xbox 360 and PS3 ports will be released this Fall (yup, that’s one year later than you expected) with new single- and multiplayer content looking to make up for some of that delay. If it makes you feel any better, Martin Tremblay, president of worldwide studios, Sierra Entertainment, says the “franchise” is being “reinvented” for consoles. We’re not really surprised they’re planning to make more, but we still love when they call singular releases “franchises.”
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