News

Electronic Arts today contacted game writers around the country asking them to return the brass knuckles they were sent as part of a promotion for Godfather II.

The representative that contacted me said that the company wanted to make sure that the brass knuckles were "properly disposed of." He declined to comment any further. Contacted by email Friday, an Electronic Arts spokesperson verified that the company is asking that all of the brass knuckles shipped out be returned.

Legal game site, Law of the Game, has weighed in on GameStop's policy of selling games they let their employees play as new, unplayed, titles.

Mark Methenitis, an attorney at Dallas-based The Vernon Law Group, says that there is both a legal and pragmatic approach to the answer of whether the practice is illegal.

"From a legal standpoint, ignoring any pragmatic analysis, it certainly seems that way from the letter of the law. Certainly, it's something the FTC could investigate, but more practically, it may be a matter for state deceptive trade practices law. In Texas,...

The designer behind The Sims and Spore has left Electronic Arts, the publisher announced today, starting a new "think tank" known as Stupid Fun Club, a venture that has EA's backing.

"The entertainment industry is moving rapidly into an era of revolutionary change," said Will Wright. "Stupid Fun Club will explore new possibilities that are emerging from this sublime chaos and create new forms of entertainment on a variety of platforms. In my twelve years at EA, I've had the pleasure to work alongside some of the brightest and most talented game developers in...

A man purchasing two used Grand Theft Auto titles from a store in Gloucestershire, England, over the weekend got more than he bargained for, to the tune of four tablets worth of the drug ecstasy.

Richard Thornhill purchased two used Grand Theft Auto titles from a Gamestation store in Cheltenham on Sunday. Upon opening one of the game boxes, a cling-film packet dropped from between the pages of the game manual containing four ecstasy pills, which he promptly brought to the local police station. Thornhill shudders to think what could have happened if his 12-year-old son or 16-year-old...

Activision's slapped a firm June 5 European release date on open world action title Prototype.

That's four days earlier than in the States and three weeks earlier than retailer listings previously suggested, which is nice.

"Prototype lets gamers feel the power of being the ultimate shape-shifting weapon. You are the Prototype: Alex Mercer - a genetically mutated man without memory, armed with amazing shape-shifting abilities, hunting to discover what created you and determined to make those responsible pay," says the publisher.

"As Alex, gamers...

Capcom will today release the new Resi 5 online multiplayer Versus mode for both Xbox Live and PlayStation Network. You'll still have to pay for it, mind...

"For 400 Microsoft Points on Xbox Live, or €4.99/£3.99 on the PlayStation Network, Resident Evil fans will be able to go up against each other for the most terrifying Versus mode to date," says Capcom.

Here's the official word on what your cash gets you:


Versus allows up to four players to match wits in online battles across two very different game types. Slayer's Rule is a point-based...

Official PlayStation Magazine UK has published its thoughts on the new active battle system from Final Fantasy XIII.

The mag compares it to FFXII "in that the battles take place in real time (with characters operating on a timer), but you can now input three commands at once."


Lightning, the main female character, has four techniques which appear on the menu along with the number of attack points needed to use them. Attack points, says the mag, correspond to a timer bar made up of three segments, each segment correlating to an attack point.

So you...

The announcement of another PES game will come as no surprise, but Konami is hyping PES 2010 for having "the most exhaustive raft of new features in the series' history".

These improvements, which Konami says it's made after months of analysis and feedback from fan forums, will make its next effort "the most realistic football simulation ever". The game's in development for PS3, 360, PC-DVD, PSP, and PS2 for release this autumn.

"Konami has spent the last year expanding the development team's numbers, and created a number of dedicated departments,...

The internet has gone into conspiracy theory overdrive over a missing page from the UK Official PlayStation Magazine's Final Fantasy XIII preview.

The last page of the huge preview, which we detailed earlier, is gone, but not because Square sent out its helicopters. Nothing that exciting. OPM has issued the below statement:


"Those of you who pick up a copy of this month's Official PlayStation Magazine (issue 31, with Bioshock 2 on the cover) will notice that its world exclusive Final Fantasy XIII hands-on feature just stops right in the middle of a [SNIP].

Next year, the fourth installment in the US$2.6 billion grossing Pirates of the Caribbean franchise goes into production. After spending the past years on the series, director Gore Verbinski is moving on.

Instead of directing the fourth Pirates, which is once again starring Johnny Depp, Verbinski has told producer Jerry Bruckheimer that he has opted to focus his energies on the BioShock movie, slated to being production in 2010.

"I had a fantastic time bringing Pirates to life, and I am eternally grateful to Jerry, Johnny and the rest of the creative and production team,"...

Some new news on this wonderful evening, this time from the latest issue of Famitsu Magazine (lots of interviews nowadays huh, year of Final Fantasy XIII anyone?), this time we delve into some details with the battle system!

Interview Details
- Trial edition has 2 versions (?) with Snow and Lightning. (Note: I'm assuming this means there are two different modes or scenarios people can select in the Demo. Probably choosing a mode with Snow or a mode with Lightning.)
- During battles you can use the right stick to change the camera view. (up down left right). Awesome addition!

Godfather II includes a bonus trailer on the game disc but it's not for some upcoming EA game - it's for Dead Space, the survival horror game released last fall. Why put an old trailer on your game disc and bypass an opportunity to promote a new product? Well, there's a few reasons.

For starters, EA doesn't think Dead Space lived up to its sales potential. On a couple different instances, EA execs have stated that the Dead Space series will ultimately be a success but it's not quite there yet so they're doing all they can to boost sales for the game.

Bear in mind that a...

For those who can’t get enough Halo information, DK Publishing has announced they are publishing the Halo Encyclopedia in 352 glorious full-color pages. The book is planned for a November 2009 release.

The press release at this point says the book will cover just the games. A call to the publisher has them scrambling to check if the books will be included as well, since the stories were sanctioned by Bungie and Microsoft. The forward of the encyclopedia will be written by Frank O’Connor, who left Bungie as content manager in May of last year to work at Microsoft and more...

Speculation is building over the future of Midway's Mortal Kombat, as its current development team are rumoured to be seeking asylum from the crumbling publisher.

Specifically, unnamed sources from within have told news site Kotaku that Midway's MK team are "in active talks" with other publishers, with the aim to push forward a sale of the franchise. Midway had previously said it was pondering selling off the MK rights.

The MK team are, according to sources, angered by Midway's reluctance to pay promised bonuses despite Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe meeting its sales...

Further reports are suggesting that EA has snapped up the Worms licence from shrinking publishing arm THQ Wireless.

According to Mobile Entertainment, the wheels are in motion for Electronic Arts to become the exclusive global distributor of the long-standing franchise on mobile phones.

News recently surfaced that around 75 percent of the workforce at THQ Wireless had been made redundant, with the remains of the studio told to no longer work on mobile games and instead concentrate on "‬fewer,‭ ‬higher quality titles" for handheld consoles.

Embattled Californian publisher THQ has announced that it is on target with plans to slash annual spending by $220 million.

Early in February the firm announced that, for it to achieve those cuts in annual spending, 600 jobs were going to be axed from its global workforce.

"We have executed on our previously announced business realignment actions," says Brian Farrell, THQ CEO. "Our goal is to return to profitability and generate positive cash flow in fiscal 2010, and to position THQ for long-term sustainable and profitable growth."

News emerged...

The latest downloadable multiplayer map pack for Call of Duty World at War has been downloaded over a million times.

Publisher Activision has announced that the figure has also been reached in the space of a weekend. The pack was first released on Thursday March 19, with Activision declaring that the one million downloads had been amassed in the four days (or "weekend") ending Sunday 22 March.

"The success of Call of Duty: World at War Map Pack 1 speaks to Treyarch and Activision's ability to provide fans with quality content during a time when people want to...