Random gaming news

...for which there is no point in creating a whole freakin' thread.

"Eidos Interactive and Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment announce that The Joker will be an exclusive playable character in Batman: Arkham Asylum for the PlayStation®3 computer entertainment system. The character will be made available upon release as a free downloadable character through PlayStation®Network for the PLAYSTATION 3 and can be played in Challenge Maps from the game."

I think that's a major selling point. Even in the mainstream, especially since the Dark Knight, Joker is probably more popular than Batman, and certainly the character everybody was talking about more.

Yeah but in a limited fashion.

Still don't understand why stuff like this determines which version multiplatform gamers will purchase. Guess I'm not a big enough fanboy :)

I would be interested in Joker getting his own game but as an add-on that is based on a play style that doesn't fit his character? Meh. It needs and deserves more focus to make it worth anything to me.

Hmm, I'd expect a Soul Calibur, Darth/Yoda situation for this.

Joker/Harley Quinn would be my guess.

Or another major baddie - Killer Croc is the other big character in this game I think. Maybe it's him...

I'm not huge into Batman, so perhaps I'm missing something, but how the heck does Killer Croc fit into the Batman universe? You've got all these crazies as villains (and I can just about suspend my disbelief for them), and then Killer Croc, this big freak of nature, who looks like he crawled out of the Spider-Man universe.

Killer Croc has always been one of the odd ones. There are a few other characters that are equally strange such as Man-Bat and some versions of Clay-Face.

He's depicted quite differently in some versions than others, for instance, in 'Joker' he pretty much looks like a normal person with a skin disease (which is what he is) that happens to be incredibly strong. Other versions have him more like the crocodile you would expect.

Heh, the German equivalent of the Daily Mail 'reports' that a German party (or rather a member of it) tries to ban WoW. ^.^

Ghostbusters will be exclusive to PSP/PS2/PS3 in PAL regions.

Too bad, Xbox owners, or as I like to call you, X-gays. :P

Shame for the guys making the Wii version; it was a separate team making that one, wasn't it? It looked pretty decent too.

...For a Wii game.

3D Realms closes then? I wonder what'll happen to Duke Nukem For(never) now then!

My guess is that the GOW lot will have a crack at it next or get hold of the IP. I can just picture Duke Nukem in the Unreal III engine

it's actually really fucking annoying, having to listen to their hype and bullshit for years only for them to go out having released nothing, i wonder if there ever was a game, or was it a scam to take money from investors

I remember the very first time I saw footage of the game in action (and this was about 5 years ago) - it looked horrendous, like a huge pisstake by the devs.

Then the last few screenshots looked a bit meh too.

My guess is that they've bottled it big time, and Take Two removed funding so they're without a pot to piss in. Best 3D realms can hope for now is selling the characters / IP to someone who gives a shit.

Read Dead Redemption is looking verrrry purty.

It looks AMAZING, I seriously couldn't be more excited about it.

The multiplayer sounds like a hoot too.

Quite fired up for Red Dead Redemption, but Call of Juarez also looks mighty fine.

That's a damn fine trailer.

That's bad news for me then. It's a bit of a joke when they're still selling it multi-platform in Japan and the US. Plus, then the cunts'll moan about us chipping our consoles. Hopefully it's just a 'timed' exclusive.

This quote suggests it might be...

"We're committed to bringing the PlayStation family the biggest and best gaming experiences first," says Mark Hardy, European Product Marketing Director at SCEE, "and it doesn't get any bigger and better than this blockbuster title.

"This summer, PlayStation owners will be the first to grab their proton packs and fight the spirit world."

A couple of mentions of 'first' implying that other platforms will get it later.

A lot of people made a big deal of it when it happened, including the headline "Sony gives the finger to 64 million gamers", but don't all consoles have exclusives? Suddenly this game is an issue (and as far as console exclusives go, it's not going to be the best game ever).

MGS4, Uncharted, Halo, Gears of War, how come exclusives like that get overlooked and then exclusive-ising Ghostbusters makes Sony jerks?

Given that the film was released by Columbia (Sony owned), I was slightly surprised that it hasn't been an exclusive from the start or at least since it was first available to be signed up after being dropped.

I guess probably because it's not exclusive anywhere except PAL-land. All those other games were console-specific from the ground up, but this game has been all but finished on all the consoles, and will still be available elsewhere. Or if you've got an import machine I s'pose.

Apparently it was entirely funded by the studio with no outside money from Take Two.

Xbox had Rock Band exclusively for months in Europe before it came out on PS3. And the same for Rock Band 2.

It's like people have never seen this before!

I think it all depends on whether it's a timed exclusive, or that we will never see a PAL version of Ghostbusters on the 360 and Wii. If it's a timed exclusive I'm not bothered at all. If it's a genuine exclusive in PAL-land then that's a pity, as the rest of the world WILL be getting it on other consoles, just not us.

People are annoyed because this came out of the blue and was unexpected.

Rock Band was always 360 exclusive in the UK. It didn't suddenly change.

With any luck, the NTSC version will be region free anyway.

Let's see if it's any good first, if it is, then I'll be indignant :D

That's a great point Hairy - the region coding of 360 games is at the publisher's discretion. It would be clever of MS to circumvent the exclusivity period by persuading the US publisher to release the game region free. Whilst also giving SCEE one in the eye financially of course.

Take two is suing 3d Realms for non-delivery of contracted goods (in this case, DNF), according to this article. I found that article slightly confusing until I remembered that Apogee is 3d Realms - 3d Realms was always just a game label.

Judging by that, I assume Take Two have rights to the game, and therefore the plot and characters. Doesn't indicate whether they actually funded the development directly or indirectly (though you'd assume so, unless they got the rights as part of some other deal).

From what I've read they paid about $19m for the publishing rights, so when Shinji said in the EG article it was studio funded, that looks a little wide of the mark imho.