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PopCap Launches “4th & Battery”…

Dustin Spencer
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There is no doubt that PopCap have a dominate market on today’s casual games, but it now seems the company is looking to expand by launching a brand new label by the name of “4th & Battery”. 4th & Battery is going to be a bit of a developmental playground for PopCap, allowing them to launch new titles that are still in the testing phase. In a way, this kind of works like Xbox Indie games, except the consumers will be able to try out these new ideas while they are still in the experimental phase.

PopCap released this statement today for the launch of 4th & Battery:

“4th & Battery is a pressure valve intended to keep our heads from exploding,” explained Ed Allard, Executive Vice President of Studios at PopCap. “The PopCap brand has become closely associated with ultra-high quality, polish and attention to detail — which is a great thing. But our standard game development process is therefore long and involved, and doesn’t really accommodate all of the creativity pumping through our collective veins. 4th & Battery gives us a way to quickly try really strange or marginal ideas, and to give our designers a safe area to hone their chops.”

4th & Battery is expected to produce several games per year, primarily small-scale, arcade-style games for platforms ranging from PC to Facebook® and iPhone. Unlike PopCap’s traditional franchises, some of the content emanating from 4th & Battery, including its initial launch title Unpleasant Horse, will be aimed at mature audiences.

“4th & Battery is a purely experimental, creative label with none of the typical concerns like schedules, profitability, or even target audience. It’s kind of the video game equivalent of B-sides or short films,” explained Jason Kapalka, co-founder and Chief Creative Officer at PopCap. “Expect weirdness.”

Unpleasant Horse will be available next month for the iPhone and iPod touch through the Apple App Store for the nice low cost of “Free” and will consist of “a strikingly unpleasant horse that sports wings and advances through the game by destroying small birds and landing on more pleasant horses from above”. A mature rated game with horses? Yes, I think we have a winner here.

Sounds pretty interesting and if this helps PopCap let their creative juices flow, I am all for it. With the many hits we have received over the years I have no doubt that there will be a lot more to come from 4th & Battery in the future, but for now you can check out the shiny new website for yourself at www.4thandbattery.com.

Resident Evil 15th Anniversary celebrated by Wesker

Travis Bruno
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Resident Evil 15th Anniversary celebrated by Wesker

Feel like you haven’t gotten enough of Albert Wesker in your life lately? Also feel like it has been a very long time since the first Resident Evil game came out back on the original PlayStation? Then you are not only in luck but also correct. The 15th anniversary of Capcom’s first Resident Evil title has rolled around and they have released a video voiced by none other than Wesker himself in commemoration of the event.

The video itself shows off various clips from past Resident Evil titles but the highlight of the video is the fact that it shows off pieces of trailers from all of the Resident Evil titles that are coming out this year. You will find pieces of videos from Resident Evil: Code Veronica X HD, Resident Evil: 4 HD, Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D and Resident Evil: Revelations. Well at least only one of these titles is actually new but regardless of that it is nice to see everything together in one video.

Get Mass Effect 2 free for the PC if you bought any version of Dragon Age II

Travis Bruno
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BioWare has decided that the best way to reward its devoted fans would be to hold something they are calling The BioWare Sequel Celebration. This means that as long as you have purchased any copy of Dragon Age 2, whether it be on the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 or the PC then you will be entitled to to a free download of the PC version of Mass Effect 2. This deal is only available through the end of the month however so you have only a month to redeem your code.

The system uses the Black Emporium Online Pass content that was given to anyone who purchased Dragon Age 2 new. Then you must travel to the website for the offer here and enter the Online Pass Code again on this website to receive your download for the PC. They even released a trailer for the event. It is a bit of a let down that it is PC only for Mass Effect 2 because not everyone has a computer up to snuff to play Mass Effect 2 but hey, free is free.

Portal 2 turret trailer reveals interesting features

Travis Bruno
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Portal 2 turret trailer reveals interesting features

Have to love when a company markets itself with comedy. Especially one as good at it as Valve appears to be. They have released the third trailer for Portal 2 that features Cave Johnson, the Aperture Science president and this time around he is making Portal’s iconic turret available for purchase. Of course he can’t sell us a product without telling us some of its features however.

The automated turrets come in a hundreds of different colors such as forest and table…. Plus it appears that the way they fit so many bullets into the turret itself is the fact that it is literally crammed full of bullets. Also you can set it up to help protect your baby, just better hope it realizes that you are a friend or else your in a bit of trouble.

Black Ops Escalation DLC Pack leaked by retailer for May release

Travis Bruno
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Nothing like getting your current secret project outed by a retailer way ahead of when you wanted to announce it. It seems to happen a lot these days but regardless of the mistake itself, Call of Duty: Black Ops will be getting a new pack of DLC maps. The leak itself was from Australian retailer GAME and contained information about the Escalation Pack of DLC that will be released on May 3rd for the Xbox 360 with a PC and PS3 release later on.

Honestly the news of more download content for Black Ops is not a surprise because, let’s face it, they will probably release at least one more in the future. But what is interesting is that this advertisement, which has since been removed but snagged by VG247, contains a bit of information about what we can expect from the Escalation Pack. There will be four maps as well as a zombie map for your $15 and they will apparently take place in a zoo, hotel, convoy and a stockpile with the zombie map not getting any extra information. It certainly seems like they are trying to keep things fresh with the DLC maps at least. They could even have a tiger kill someone in the zoo or something to help spice things up.

Ray Maguire leaves Sony UK

Jack Joly
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Today came the news that Sony Computer Entertainment’s UK managing director, Ray Maguire, has made the decision to leave the company. With a career spanning 17 years, Maguire helped establish the PlayStation brand in Europe, but on a personal basis has decided to leave the company following “a lot of soul searching”, describing his future personal growth as “essential.”

He joined Sony in 1993 as Director of Sales, Europe, having made his presence felt while at Sega as UK sales manager when he oversaw the successful launch of the Mega Drive.

There’s no news yet on what he will be doing next or who Sony will put in his place.

Steel Diver 3DS gets European release date

Jack Joly
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3DS exclusive game Steel Diver has been given a solid release date for the UK and Europe.

Nintendo have confirmed that the game will arrive on 6th May on their latest platform, which is actually quite a while considering it is already out and available for purchase in the US. Still, it’s not too far away, so Europeans won’t have long to wait until they can engage in naval warfare using their submarines underwater. Using strategy you must hide your own ships and successfully locate enemy ships before trying to sink them with your torpedoes.

Nintendo of America boss Reggie Fils-Aime has called Steel Diver 3DS a ‘sleeper’ hit, but is this one on your radar?

Mortal Kombat 9 goes gold

Jack Joly
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Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment and NetherRealm Studios have today announced that Mortal Kombat has officially gone gold on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, meaning the development has been completely finished and it is ready to be shipped.

It is due for launch in the UK on 21st April, and in the US 2 days earlier on 19th April. Sadly for our Australian followers, it won’t be coming to Australia as it has been denied by the Australian ratings board, as you will have already heard if you’ve been following our coverage of the game so far.

The game hopes to mark a triumphant return for the series, with the fan favourite Fatality back and presented in more gory detail than ever before thanks to improvements granted by the graphical capabilities of the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. There’s also plenty of new modes adding to the game’s traditional line-up.

Overhyped and over-rated

Kellie Wallace
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When a video game is marketed, pushed and hyped as the biggest title of the year, always has the opportunity to heighten the anticipation and thrill of the release.

THQ’s Homefront was named as one of the most emotional and overwhelming games of the year but when it was released in March, it failed and as like EA to its Medal of Honor, stocks fell and people denied the game.

The apocalyptic title certainly had its epic moments and had magnitudes of potential but sadly it couldn’t live up to its predecessors like Fallout 3 or Gears of War. The AI was lousy and relied too heavily on the player’s extra movements.

One of last year’s major disappointments, despite its acclaimed name was Call of Duty: Black Ops. The Treyarch blockbuster defied its history and took risks, making the game distinctive from its ancestors. Despite its massive sales, the shooter failed to live up to the hype it enabled many months before its release. With the success of Modern Warfare 2, Treyarch and Activision relied on the name alone to push Black Ops into history.

Polish studio People Can Fly had a distinct title on their hands with the space adventure Bulletstorm. The game was certainly unique, unusual and very different from anything else in the industry. The characters were clever, cunning and held an appealing comic relief. But sexual innuendos, constant swearing and gory deaths did not make the game a favourite among parents. The exclusivity of the game was a major factor in enabling it to grow above its competition. But being different can also be a flaw.

The mother of all disappoints would have to be last year’s Medal of Honor. The Afghan based shooter had so much potential but many found it’s AI and similar looking characters weighed down any positives it might have had. The plight of Rabbit and his team could have had the opportunity to rival Soap MacTavish and his Task Force 141 but the foursome didn’t have the lift to push them that far.

Another EA title to disappoint fans is Crysis 2. Despite coming from an epic series, Crysis fell among other alien shooters, becoming a Halo clone. The graphics and maps might have shadowed its flaws but Crysis didn’t live up to the massive hype it caused before its release.

With this year yet to provide a plethora of awesome games, we should never accept the hype and learn to love games as they are.

Tower Defence – Lost Earth iPhone Beta Testing

Philip Federico
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Have you ever wanted to BETA Tester ?  Well nows your chance.  Com2us have some great news.

As a part of their amazing line-up of iPhone/iPod Touch games, Com2us have begun their Previewing (beta testing) for ‘Tower Defense- Lost Earth’.

By the looks of it ‘Tower Defense- Lost Earth’  sounds like the perfect game for Tower Defense fans.  Also a small piece of trivia, Com2uS are the only right owner of the trademark for the term Tower Defense, so better to make a Tower Defence game 🙂

If you’d like to be a part of the BETA Testing, get cracking right now don’t waste anymore time, apply now!

To be eligible to enter, follow the steps in the attatched image.

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