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MAY 2008 NEWS

May 8, 2008

    PS3 News
    Well fire up your PS3 tonight and if it's online you will notice that Patch 1.01 has been released for Grand Theft Auto IV. Weighing in at 18MB the patch will apparently fix the freezing issues when the game loads. Let us know if this fixes the problem for you.

    Now we don't know if the game will actually come to PS3 (although job postings suggest it will), but it's exciting anyway. id Software has confirmed that Doom 4 is entering production with the company looking to ramp up the number of employees.

    Pandemic has confirmed that they are currently working on Lord of the Rings: Conquest for the PS3 (and 360/PC). Little is known of the game although it will play in a similar fashion to their Battlefield titles - actually you can probably get a good idea of what it will be like from that... Droolworthy.

    PS2 Preview
    SingStar Party Hits is sure to boost the 12 million units sold so far in this series. Indeed the SingStar releases aren't slowing down and this compilation includes plenty of Australian artists as well as international stars. Here's a rather last minute preview with the game due at the end of the month.

May 7, 2008

    PS3 News
    Sony has confirmed that their PS3 PVR attachment, PlayTV, will be released in the UK in September this year for the price of 99 Euros. A couple of weeks ago Sony Australia confirmed a release late this year with a pricepoint under $AU200.

    Sony Europe has confirmed that the Metal Gear Solid 4 bundle will be coming to Europe and will sell for 439 Euros. Sadly though it appears that the European bundle (and we assume Australia as well) will only include a Black 40GB PS3, whereas the Japanese and US version will include a steel grey coloured unit.

    Sony has confirmed that Killzone 2 has been delayed from late 2008 until February 2009. The game was shown at the Playstation Day Conference and from all reports looked quite impressive.

    LittleBigPlanet promises to be one of the biggest titles this year - if only due to the focus being on the game allowing you to create, share and then play levels from around the globe. Sony Europe has confirmed that the title will be released this October.

    Rockstar has confirmed that they will be releasing a patch for Grand Theft Auto IV in the next day or so which should eliminate the lockups and loading issues. As yet details (size, exact time) of the patch haven't been disclosed.

    Sticking with Grand Theft Auto IV Rockstar has confirmed that sales of the game have surpassed 6 million units in the first week around the globe. In the UK the game sold 926,000 copies in its first week with 413,000 units sold on the PS3, and 514,000 units on XBox 360.

May 6, 2008

    PS3 News
    Wondering what is happening with the Batman video game which hasn't been announced by Electronic Arts, but is in development at Pandemic? Well according to a source of mine development isn't progressing too well at all and the game has now (unofficially, as it hasn't actually been announced) been delayed until 2009. Electronic Arts aren't too pleased with the situation apparently but given the current state of the game there was no way it could be released to coincide with the upcoming movie, or even the DVD release late this year!

    The Playstation Store is set to have two updates this week. The first will be on May 6th and include demos of Haze and Condemend 2 while an update on the 8th will see a demo of Race Driver: GRID and The Bourne Conspiracy. There will also be a tonne of videos and other content put in the store too.

    Sierra has confirmed that their upcoming action game Prototype has been delayed until next year. The official statement reads "Sierra Entertainment and Radical Entertainment have made the decision to shift Prototype to launch in 2009". The action title has also made the news of late for a couple of reasons. Firstly it was recently confirmed that multi-player was being pushed aside to concentrate on the main game while it has also been confirmed that the Australian version will actually be censored prior to release here.

    Red Ant has confirmed that Monster Madness: Grave Danger, the upgraded version of the XBox 360 title, will be releaseed on the Playstation 3 on May 29th.

    PS3 Preview
    Ghostbusters The Video Game should be a hit, no doubt about it. This game not only looks great but sees the return of the entire Ghostbusters cast from the movies! Who you gonna call? Hopefully your retailer after reading this updated (more like rewritten with new screenshots) preview.

May 5, 2008

    PS3 News
    Atari have confirmed that they will release Bandai Namco's PS3 exclusive title Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm this November. The game, which is based on the hugely popular TV series, will include 100 missions to partake in.

    Site News
    Well some (I guess) good news with a new search engine being added to Futuregamez.net. The old search was crusty and slow as hell, but the new Google Search uses AJAX, and is damn fast to get the results. The only problem is that the articles actually open in a new window without frames. We are working on a new site (well, have been playing with ideas for about a year now!) which will overcome this but this trade off seems to be worth it for the benefits. Let me know what you think about the new search engine which you can access on the Main Page or Site Search Page.

    PS3 Preview
    Street Fighter IV may not even be coming out on the PS3 - it hasn't been confirmed yet, but we'd be surprised if it doesn't. Capcom's Street Fighter series has had dozens of releases over the years, and has millions of fans the world over. This is the fourth major release in the series, and we've taken an early look.

May 4, 2008

    PS3 News
    For the love of god. Grand Theft Auto IV may be a masterpiece, but questions have to be asked just how much testing was done on the game prior to release (perhaps there is a benefit to sending out review code prior to launch!). After playing the game for 7 hours on Thursday and Friday it suddenly decided to continually lock up upon loading (as we briefly mentioned yesterday). Deleting an old save file didn't work, nor did deleting 3.3GB of installed game data and re-installing. In fact the one solution which we, and most other people, have discovered is to make sure your PS3 is offline when you play the game. But, ermm, what about mutli-player? Well forget about it for now as soon as you try to connect the game freezes. We believe that the issue is caused by the game trying to access some stats servers, which are no doubt swamped this weekend. This wasn't an issue until late Saturday for us. Hopefully Rockstar are looking into the problems rather then sitting in the Bahamas all cashed up, but given their lack of responses to customer complaints we just don't know.

    We do have one very amusing thing we noted about this mess. If you head on over to the games official site here and you will notice a caption at the top... Welcome to Liberty City A great social experiment gone terribly wrong. Indeed...

    So while on the topic we thought we'd bring this video to your attention. In it you'll find one of the most crazy, stupid rants about violence in video games. I would love to know where the chainsaw is in Grand Theft Auto IV - I haven't found it yet. Oh, and the final comment that kids can now do for $60 what the military spent millions on? Well, who has wasted their money!? Enjoy...

May 3, 2008

    PS3 News
    So we have the biggest game of the year in Grand Theft Auto IV, and while brilliant, it's also pretty fucked up. Thousands of gamers around the globe - us included - have been reporting that the game freezes and won't allow you to load the save files (Which is pretty fucking annoying when the game auto loads at startup!) But fear not as there apparently a solution. Actually Rockstar are offering a shit load of solutions in the remote hope that one of them will fix your problem. We have another solution - play Call of Duty 4 instead! Anyway here goes to official fix (sort of)...

      1. Delete the game's install data. This is done via the PS3 options. Scroll along the cross media bar until you reach the 'Game' tab, now scroll up / down the list until you reach the 'Game Data Utility' Enter this and locate the GTA IV option. Highlight this and press triangle once, from the menu select Delete. This will delete the game's install information.

      2. Delete the game's save files. To delete any save files you will need to do the following. Scroll along the cross media bar until you reach the 'Game' tab, now scroll up / down the list until you reach the 'Save Data Utility' Enter this and locate the GTA IV option. Highlight this and press triangle once, and from the context menu select Delete.

      3. Disable your Internet connectivity for the PS3. To do this scroll along the cross media bar until you reach the 'Settings' tab, now scroll up / down the list until you reach the 'Network Settings'. Now scroll down to the Internet connection option and press x, now select the disable option. Once this has been done unplug the ethernet cable if you are connecting to the Internet if using this.

      4. Disable the console's information board. To do this scroll along the cross media bar until you reach the 'Network' tab, now scroll up / down the list until you reach the 'Information Board', highlight this and press triangle. From the menu select 'Do not display' Press X to confirm this.

      5. Disable Media Server functionality. Scroll to Settings, now scroll up / down to 'Network Settings' select Media Server connection. Once this has been done press triangle and change the option Disabled.

      6. Delete all of the system's Internet cache. To do this scroll along the cross media bar until you reach the 'Network' tab, now scroll up / down the list until you reach the 'Internet Browser', highlight this and press X. Once you browser opens press the triangle button once, from the new menu highlight the 'Tools' option and press X. Scroll down the menu until you reach 'Delete Cookies' and press X. Confirm the files deletion. Repeat this for 'Delete Cache'.

      7. Turn off the PS3 screen saver. Use the cross media bar to scroll to 'Settings', select 'Display Settings'. Now highlight 'Screensaver' and set this to 'Do not use'.

      8. Once this has been done, manually restart you PS3 by holding down the power button for 5 seconds it will beep once and then shut down. Release the power button and re-press it and hold for about 5 seconds. The system will then boot and reset all display settings. You will be prompted to reset your display settings to how you require them.

      9. Once restarted please try the game again, you will be prompted to reinstall. Once the game has started please turn off the following features:
      1. The game's auto-save. Press Start, Game, and locate the Auto-save option. Turn this off.
      2. Turn off the game's flicker filter. Press Start, Display and locate the Flicker Filter option. Turn this off.
      3. Turn off the controller vibration feature. Press Start, Controls and locate the vibration option. Turn this off.

    Sony Computer Entertainment Australia has confirmed that the Playstation 3 has sold 238,000 units since its launch in March 2007. Over the first 12 months the PS2 sold 146,000 units. Clearly Sony's next-gen system is proving to be a winner at retail.

May 1, 2008

    PS3 News
    Sony Australia has announced some details for PlayTV, which is the first official details from anywhere around the globe for some time. In short the big news is that the PVR device (more on that soon) will be released in Q'4 2008 and will apparently sell for under $AU200 ($AU199.95 anyone?). So what is a PVR? Well it is essentially a digital video recorder so you can record Free To Air TV stations to your PS3's Hard Drive. The real surprise is that Sony won't have it in stores in time for the Olympics... Sigh...

    Leslie Benzies, producer of Grand Theft Auto IV, has commented that the game has cost around $US100 million to develop! This is an astounding figure and makes it the most expensive video game ever made behind Sega's Shenmue which is rumoured to have cost $US70 million. While that game only sold 1.2 million copies, Rockstar's title is expected to sell many times that on day one alone.

    Blu-Ray Review
    Predator is one of my favourite movies of all time and seeing a release this early on Blu-Ray was like the gods decending from heaven. Have the gods (through Fox) delivered the goods? Sadly it's certainly not as much as we had hoped for, but die-hard fans will still want to consider this upgrade over DVD.

April 30, 2008

    PS3 News
    In a somewhat surprising movie Crytek (the developers behind Far Cry and Crysis on PC) has confirmed that they will, in future, be releasing their games on multiple platforms - that being PC and consoles. The company has cited high rates of piracy of their latest PC hit Crysis for the move. Sadly there still isn't confirmation of that title coming to PS3 - yet.

    Enjoying Grand Theft Auto IV? Well it seems some people are having problems. Apparently some, and it is an extremely small number, the original 60GB American PS3 models occasional have problems running the game. The solution - delete and re-install the game onto the Hard Drive. Of more concern are the reports that numerous people are having problems connecting to the online games. That's probably not unexpected given that millions of copies are being sold on the first day alone! Rockstar are looking into the issue.

    Blu-Ray Review
    Ratatouille is Pixar's most recent cinematic masterpiece, and is available now on Blu-Ray. We've checked out the disc from Disney for review. In short, this is a true reference quality Blu-Ray release and an essential for any movie lovers collection.

April 29, 2008

    PS3 News
    For millions around the world today is the day that they have been counting down for as Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto IV has hit the shelves. If you're looking for a bargain (in Australia at least) BIG W are selling the game for $AU78, which is $42 off the rrp!

    PSP Preview
    Everybody's Golf 2 is the second game in the series to hit the PSP. This game has great graphics, multi-player and gameplay. Take a look at our preview to see what's heading our way in the coming months.

April 28, 2008

    PS3 News
    One of the biggest action games this year is certain to be The Bourne Conspiracy. Developers High Moon Studios stated that when Matt Damon showed no interest in continuing the characters in the cinemas there was no need to put him into the game. The developers see this game as the first in the series, and didn't want to be tied into using likenesses of whoever plays Jason Bourne in future movies. Of course, money has nothing to do with it we reckon. You can check out the full interview at Eurogamer by hitting this link.

    One game we are desperate to play this year is Ghostbusters from Vivendi and developers Terminal Reality. Not only are the main cast back lending their likenesses and voices to the game, but the developers have now confirmed that the classic theme song from Ray Parker Jr. will be in the game, and they have secured the rights to include 75 minutes of unused soundtrack that never made it into the movies which should keep the game synched up to the movies perfectly. Expect a release in late 2008.

    Want to see Eight Days from Sony anytime soon? How about The Getaway? After all both games were shown around 2 years ago now weren't they? Well according to this article at The Guardian, Eight Days is only now ramping up to full production status, while The Getaway will follow that title. It looks like we will have at least a year to go before we see anything much on these games let alone a release!

    Red Ant has confirmed that Ferrari Challenge has been pushed back (yet again) from May 15th to June 19th. The game, which was first announced for release in November 2007 has suffered almost monthly delays in the lead-up to release. Hopefully the developers are taking a good look at certain Polyphony Digital racer and making sure it's all up to scratch - and could quite easily surpass Sony's weak online offering.

    PSP Preview
    Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII is certain to be a massive seller when it hits Europe and Australia later this year. As a prequel to one of the most loved games of all time Crisis Core promises to deliver gameplay in spades and the graphics certainly look the part too. We bring you a preview of this hot action RPG due late this year.

April 27, 2008

    PS3 News
    According to the latest issue of EGM the critically acclaimed Bioshock will be coming to the Playstation 3 this September. The game will reportedly also include all the downloadable content released for the XBox 360 version, and even include some visual enhancements. 2K Games aren't commenting on the matter as yet.

    Sony has confirmed that SingStar will be released in America on May 20th. Sony Europe has confirmed that SingStore has now surpassed 1 million downloaded songs while the series (on PS3 and PS2) has now surpassed 12 million units in sales.

    Blu-Ray Review
    Monty Python's Life of Brian is one of the greatest comedies of all time, and is available now on Blu-Ray. Sony Pictures have given this Monty Python classic the full treatment with a great transfer and extras. Here's our review of this classic movie in High Definition.

April 25, 2008

    PS3 News
    The Playstation Store has been updated and, as expected the Variety Map Map has been released for Call of Duty 4. The packs sells in Australia for $15.35. We have to say that the Creek is an absolutely brilliant map too, we love it. Headquarters is larger then we thought and Chinatown looks stunning with plenty of buildings to explore. The fourth map, Killhouse, well we haven't played that one yet, but if it's up to the other three it should be awesome.

    Other updates on the Playstation Store this week include a tonne of videos some backgrounds and themes and other bits. Sadly Australia misses out on the Iron Man and Echochrome demos which have appeared on the US Store.

April 24, 2008

    PS3 News
    Activision have released an update for Call of Duty 4 this evening. The 12MB update takes the game to version 1.30 and although there is no changelog as yet that we can find the update is almost certainly to do with the release of the Map Pack tomorrow.

    PS3 Preview
    Damnation is still a long way off but this game could be a great new IP for the new developer Blue Omega and publishers Codemasters. No longer are shooters restricted to flat worlds, this game includes levels thousands of feet high! Here's a brief preview of this hot looking title.

April 23, 2008

    PS3 News
    Bethesda has confirmed that there will not be a demo for Fallout 3 due to the large open world being used. To break of a section is impossible according to Pete Hines, Vice President of Marketing.

    Sony Europe has confirmed that the GTA IV PS3 Bundle we announced yesterday will also be hitting Europe for £319.99. Unlike us though that pack will hit their store shelves on April 29, Australians will be waiting until May 1st.

    Industry News
    Interplay has confirmed that a new Earthworm Jim title is in development. Target platforms haven't been listed as yet, and we don't know if the new game will have anything to do with the PSP version which was in development a couple of years ago (you can read our old preview here).

    PS3 Review
    Viking: Battle for Asgard is a game we have been waiting to play for quite some time now. The Creative Assembly had a strong console outing with Spartan: Total Warrior, and there were high hopes that Viking would also deliver the goods. We tell you if it does.

April 22, 2008

    PS3 News
    Sony Australia has confirmed that there will be a Grand Theft Auto IV PS3 Pack coming out on May 1st. A couple of days after the game is released, this pack will include a 40GB Playstation 3, SIXAXIS Controller (what! No Dual Shock 3 - disappointing) and a copy of Rockstar's game. All this can be yours for $AU749.95 which is a saving of $70 off purchasing the items seperately (and assuming you'd pay full retail!).

    So Rockstar has a little game coming out soon that some of you may know about; Grand Theft Auto IV. That's not all they have up their sleeves though with a brilliant racing game in the works Midnight Club Los Angeles which today has been given an offical release date, September 12. Pencil it in, it looks superb.

    Sony has confirmed that the Playstation Home beta won't be opened to more people until Fall 2008 (which is around Q'3). Sony has confirmed they want even more time to polish off the online service and make it even better. Can't argue with that.

    Konami has confirmed that the Metal Gear Online Premiere Beta will now (hopefully) begin on April 25. Details are still being worked out.

    PS3 Review
    NBA 08 is the third NBA series to hit the market. While Electronic Arts and 2K Sports selling sports games by the truckload, Sony also want to dip their toes into the sports genre. Here's a review of their NBA outing on the PS3.

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