There are plenty of other noteworthy things, but if you’re looking for actual in-game footage, you won’t find it throughout the three minutes of video above. But, hey, if the CG is any indication, there will be lots of action to look forward to in Brink. That and curiously tall, acrobatic gentlemen wearing a variety of neat masks.

Brink trailer showcases acrobatic, lanky dudes originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 12 Mar 2010 19:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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While it’s certain to be the best game this week about playing fictional arcade shooters, singing karaoke with dates from hostess clubs and hitting gangsters with street signs, how did Kazuma Kiryu’s latest saga fare under more common rubrics?

• IGN (8.5/10): “You’re getting this intense story about Japan’s seedy underbelly that’s set in an open world where you can take all sorts of side quests, but as you do so, random battles are popping up, you’re earning experience points so you can level up your moves, and you can take stuff from your extensive inventory list and craft new weapons and armor. There are no cars or chocobos, but you see where I’m going with this — one minute you’re slamming a crowbar into a guy’s face or tearing off a fingernail with pliers, and the next minute, you’re taking photos to blog about or on a fetch quest to find a certain fish.”
• GameSpot (8/10): “While the pace and events of the story are enough to propel you towards its conclusion, the non-story peripheral content gives Yakuza 3 a welcome sense of diversity. There are more than a hundred side and hitman quests that allow you to do everything from carrying ice cream for a father who has overpurchased, to playing UFO Catcher claw machines in the arcade, to chasing down a bag snatcher, to offering financial advice to a man deep in debt and precariously perched on the edge of a bridge.”
• Eurogamer (8/10): “From the publisher that brought us Streets of Rage, Virtua Fighter and Shenmue, Yakuza is essentially a mashup of all three, which is hardly surprising but does mean it’s the stuff of Segaphile fantasies. Liberally sprinkled with their genius, it’s the grateful beneficiary of some of their most satisfying elements, in a context which delivers a uniquely Japanese — and uniquely Sega — flavour.”

Metareview: Yakuza 3 originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 12 Mar 2010 22:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The trailer urges players to take their own country’s team to the World Cup, though we should issue a word of warning to those of you in the contiguous United States who choose to bring our fine nation to the top: it’s just a game. Okay, okay, sorry — we were just joshin’ ya! We suppose it’s possible. Maybe after the robots take over. Maybe.

More FIFA World Cup 2010 media than you can shake a red card at originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 12 Mar 2010 20:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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At the end of the trailer, after the release date, is a brief reminder of the new character added to the console version of Continuum Shift: the new character μ-12. Aksys Games has yet to announce a localized version of Continuum Shift, but if you absolutely have to buy a new BlazBlue disc, the company released the PSP port of the first BlazBlue this week.

[Via GameVideos]

BlazBlue Continuum Shift trailer blazes appropriately originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 12 Mar 2010 13:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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“I’m the voice of Guitar Hero 6,” says KISS front man Gene Simmons during a video clip produced by Game On, a division of UK media site ITN. And that’s all he says. The clip — view it after the break — has been removed from the context of what’s assumed to be a full interview and essentially turns Simmons’ statement into a gag line. Still, Simmons does appear to be the first “official” spokesperson to outright name the next iteration of Guitar Hero, albeit unofficially.

Activision previously dated a forthcoming Guitar Hero game for the “back half” of 2010. Presumably, that’s “Guitar Hero 6″ and the game Simmons will apparently star in. What? Activision didn’t offer his crew a full-on Guitar Hero: KISS game? It’s for the better, really, because all we want to do is get the digitized Simmons onstage and make him crank ‘dat Soulja Boy!

Continue reading Gene Simmons: ‘I’m the voice of Guitar Hero 6′

Gene Simmons: ‘I’m the voice of Guitar Hero 6′ originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 12 Mar 2010 17:09:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sam and Max will bring their off-kilter humor to PlayStation 3 for the first time in The Devil’s Playhouse: The Penal Zone, the first episode in a new season of Telltale’s episodic adventure series. In a first for the PlayStation Store, the full season — consisting of five monthly episodes — will become available for pre-order on March 18, nearly a month before The Penal Zone launches on April 15.

While PC and Mac owners will receive substantial benefits for pre-ordering the full season, including a free game episode, access to developer chats and extra downloadable goodies, Telltale noted that it also has a deal in store (you know, actually in the store) for console players. According to Telltale PR manager Chris Schmidt, pre-ordering the full pack will reduce the cost to $29.99, a minor but not unwelcome discount from the regular price of $34.95.

Speaking to Joystiq at a meeting during the Game Developers Conference on Friday, Schmidt also addressed the obvious question: Will this season of Sam & Max come to Xbox 360 or Wii? He called it a “definite possibility” a few months down the line, and noted that it’s in Telltale’s best interest to work with more partners and deliver its games to as wide an audience as possible. Designer Chuck Jordan jokingly added that Telltale would ultimately like “to get the games on everything that has a chip in it.”

Forget the 360 — what could be better than getting Sam & Max in a tube of Pringles?

Sam & Max PSN pre-orders start March 18; other console versions a ‘definite possibility’ originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 12 Mar 2010 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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There is one drawback to seeing Uncharted 2’s co-lead designer, Richard Lemarchand, unfurl the development process behind the most successful and most ambitious game in the studio’s history. A post-mortem panel, held on Thursday afternoon at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, delved into developer Naughty Dog’s pre-production process, its production pipeline and the climactic rush to a spectacular end. It also highlighted some of the studio’s misjudgments, which resulted in a difficult crunch time toward the end of development.

And now, every time I play that incredible train level — “an evil monster of a level,” Lemarchand said — for my personal enjoyment, I’ll pull back the curtain and see programmers hunching over keyboards and nodding off into icy cups of coffee. Thankfully, Lemarchand painted a warmer picture, firm in his belief that the development team’s intrinsic motivation to produce a character-driven blockbuster helped it overcome the final hurdles.

An important pre-production phase dominated the first six months of Uncharted 2’s 22-month creation. “Messing it up often means messing up the whole project,” Lemarchand noted. There were no deadlines or deliverables during this period, and the team was free to seek inspiration and consider the individual moments they wanted to explore in Drake’s second outing. A single image would portend much of the game’s direction: A photograph of the Tiger’s Nest Monastery in the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan.

Continue reading GDC: ‘Among Friends: An Uncharted 2 Post-mortem’

GDC: ‘Among Friends: An Uncharted 2 Post-mortem’ originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 12 Mar 2010 12:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Having printed and shipped more than 3 million copies of BioShock 2 across the seas, publisher Take-Two is clearly leaning on its sequel to provide a strong sale wind to push the company through another successful quarter. Following its February 9 release, the Xbox 360 version of BioShock 2 cruised up the US sales charts, anchoring in the peak position, according to the NPD’s monthly report. For the PS3 version, the journey was not such a breeze, as it appeared to have come up against some bad weather.

Despite the Xbox 360 edition’s #1 ranking in US February game sales, the PS3 version of BioShock 2 was curiously absent from the top ten listing. An NPD representative told Joystiq that the PS3 game recorded roughly 190.5k units sold last month, “just outside the top 10 at #11.” If anything’s to blame for this somewhat modest debut month, it’s Heavy Rain. In just one week of retail availability, the PS3-exclusive “Western Interactive Novel” had enough of an impact, with 219.3k units sold, to seemingly alter the sales course of BioShock 2 for PS3.

Now, just imagine how much trouble a rampaging “murder carousel” could stir up for BioShock 2 PS3 sales this month!

NPD: BioShock 2 Feb. PS3 sales just shy of 200k mark originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 12 Mar 2010 11:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Lady Gaga was already announced for Rock Band’s DLC update next week — but she’s bringing friends along. The pop sensation will be joined by some, ahem, actual rock bands.

Check out next week’s full list of releases after the break.

Continue reading Rock Band Weekly Redux: Lady Gaga, Cartman, 3 Doors Down, Mute Math, The Subways

Rock Band Weekly Redux: Lady Gaga, Cartman, 3 Doors Down, Mute Math, The Subways originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 12 Mar 2010 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Pre-orders for the whole season on PC and Mac are currently available on Telltale’s site for $35, which also comes with an episode from Strong Bad, Wallace & Gromit or a previous Sam & Max season for free. “Pre-orders on PlayStation Network coming soon.”

Sam and Max penetrate ‘The Penal Zone’ April 15 on PC, Mac, PS3 originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 11 Mar 2010 19:35:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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