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July 26, 2011

Reckless Getaway review

You’d think that nothing can stop a Dodge Challenger. Turns out grinding will.

Perhaps we're cynics, but Reckless Getaway looks like a game made in anticipation of a license that never happened. It has a lot that's familiar, but what gives things away is the car – a 1970 Dodge Challenger, exactly as seen in Driver: San Francisco.

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Partnertrans on appealing to overseas markets

A localisation expert warns against the temptation to use Google Translate.

As part of our recently published feature on the complexities of localisation, we asked Iris Ludolf of translation/localisation specialist Partnertrans what advice she would offer a developer setting out to localise its games for overseas regions in today’s market.

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Runescape expansion released today

Jagex's browser-based game holds the Guinness World Record for most popular free MMOG, and that popularity seems set to further increase with today's release of an expansion which adds clan citadels to the game's sky. Any clan with five or more members can take ownership of a citadel, and the expansion also introduces the Battleground Editor, which lets clans devise their own multiplayer games, ranging from deathmatches to ball games. Jagex says interest in the update has prompted a rush of new players, with Runescape VP Daniel Clough saying: "Our ambitious plan has always been to make Runescape's clan support the envy of the MMOG world, and we are confident that clan citadels can do just that."
http://www.runescape.com/game.ws?j=1
Runescape


Runescape expansion released today

Jagex's browser-based game holds the Guinness World Record for most popular free MMOG, and that popularity seems set to further increase with today's release of an expansion which adds clan citadels to the game's sky. Any clan with five or more members can take ownership of a citadel, and the expansion also introduces the Battleground Editor, which lets clans devise their own multiplayer games, ranging from deathmatches to ball games. Jagex says interest in the update has prompted a rush of new players, with Runescape VP Daniel Clough saying: "Our ambitious plan has always been to make Runescape's clan support the envy of the MMOG world, and we are confident that clan citadels can do just that."
http://www.runescape.com/game.ws?j=1
Runescape


Localised culture

Why selling a game in another territory isn’t only a matter of translating text.

"Why is Joe Danger such a typical fat, ugly American?” Of all the anticipated cultural and language problems that taking a western game to Japan could have thrown up, Sean Murray, managing director of Hello Games, 
was still surprised at the question posed by the journalists at Famitsu on his visit to Tokyo last year.

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Splash Damage: we don't take crunch for granted

Brink studio's CEO says overtime is sometimes inevitable but "you have to have respect for staff."

Paul Wedgwood, CEO and game director of Brink developer Splash Damage, has weighed in on the crunch debate, telling us that his studio goes to great lengths to ensure that excessive overtime is the exception rather than the rule.

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Inazuma Eleven gets UK release date

In a press release Nintendo has revealed that Inazuma Eleven, the Level 5-developed football RPG, will be released for DS in the UK and Ireland on August 26. While enormously successful in Japan, it's taken three years for it to make its way to British shores - though it was released on the continent earlier this year. It's a good time for a localisation: a tie-in anime premiered on the UK's Disney XD channel yesterday.
http://www.nintendo.co.uk/
Nintendo


From Dust PC delayed

Eric Chahi's striking god sim, which will be released on Xbox Live Arcade tomorrow, will not make its PC debut until next month. An Ubisoft rep confirmed to Joystiq that the PC version will now be released on August 17. This is hardly a first for Ubisoft: the likes of Assassin's Creed, Splinter Cell: Conviction, Call Of Juarez: The Cartel, Prince Of Persia and Tom Clancy's Endwar have all suffered a similar fate.
http://www.joystiq.com/2011/07/25/from-dust-pc-launch-delayed-one-month-available-aug-17/
Joystiq


Suda51 to make "the social game with the most blood"

As we reported yesterday, Suda51 is making a social version of No More Heroes as part of DeNa's Super Creators programme, that will also see the likes of Keiji Inafune and Yuji Naka release games on Japanese mobile social network Mobage. At a press conference in Japan today, Suda said he wants to see how far he can take violence in social gaming, saying: "We're aiming to make it the social game with the most blood."
http://www.andriasang.com/e/blog/2011/07/26/no_more_heroes_violent/
Andriasang


PS3-exclusive Tekken Hybrid announced

A post on the PlayStation Blog reveals Tekken Hybrid, a PlayStation 3 exclusive to be released before the end of the year. Included is a remastered HD version of PlayStation 2 launch title Tekken Tag Tournament, a four-character preview of its sequel, Tekken Tag Tournament 2 Prologue, and Tekken Blood Vengeance, a feature-length, CGI movie set after the events of Tekken 5.
http://blog.eu.playstation.com/2011/07/25/tekken-hybrid-coming-exclusively-to-playstation-3
PlayStation Blog


Zynga steps up Chinese expansion

There can be no bigger potential market for Zynga's enormously popular social games than China. While the firm has had a Chinese presence since the acquisition last year of XPD Media, creation of an office in Beijing and launch of a localised version of Zynga Texas Poker, it is to expand its operations significantly through a partnership with Chinese internet firm Tencent. Zynga is to launch a localised version of CityVille, dubbed Zynga City, with culturally tailored items, events and gameplay mechanics. The deal gives Zynga access to Tencent's 400 million active users, and reduces its reliance on Facebook: Zynga City will be released through Tencent's Pengyou social network, and will launch on other Tencent platforms in the coming months.
http://techcrunch.com/2011/07/25/zynga-partners-with-tencent-to-launch-localized-chinese-version-of-cityville
TechCrunch


Nintendo open to Majora's Mask 3D

In an interview with US magazine Nintendo Power, picked up by fansite Zelda Informer, Nintendo's Eiji Aonuma said: "One of the big things that made [Ocarina Of Time 3D] possible was that there was an outpour of emotions from people who said they would like to see this game done. I think certainly if there was a similar output of emotion and clamour from fans for a remake of Majora's Mask, it wouldn't be an utter impossibility."
http://www.zeldainformer.com/2011/07/more-skyward-sword-aonuma-interview-details.html
Zelda Informer


Amazon resumes 3DS sales

The online retailer's US store yesterday suspended sales of the Cosmo Black 3DS, saying: "Customers have told us there may be something wrong with our inventory of the item, the way we are shipping it, or the way it's described here." The system is now back on sale, and while declining to go into specifics an Amazon rep explained to Giant Bomb: "The product itself was not under review...The Amazon.com offer of black Nintendo 3DS was removed until we had a chance to investigate the issue, and it was resolved."
http://www.giantbomb.com/news/what-happened-between-nintendo-and-amazon-today-updated/3519/
Giant Bomb


Evo fighting tournament streamed live in PlayStation Home

This weekend's Evo fighting game world championship, which takes place at the Rio Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, will be streamed live in PlayStation Home. The action begins on Friday with Super Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition, continues on Saturday with Marvel Vs Capcom 3, and Sunday sees grand finals for those two games as well as Blazblue Continuum Shift, Tekken 6 and Mortal Kombat. Several streaming sites will be covering the event, but Home viewers will be rewarded with virtual items, including a replica Evo trophy for their personal spaces, as Japan's Daigo Umehara tries to take the Super Street Fighter IV title for a third year in succession. The smart money's certainly on Umehara, but our heart is with Korean player Poongko and his terrifying Seth.
http://blog.us.playstation.com/2011/07/25/watch-the-2011-evo-world-finals-live-in-playstation-home/
PlayStation Blog


July 25, 2011

PlayStation Store launches in Brazil

Sony has launched the PlayStation Store in Brazil, which becomes only the second country in Latin America to receive access to digital content from the PlayStation Network on PS3. Users are able to purchase and download almost 200 pieces of content including PS3, PSP and PSone games. The PlayStation Store currently only supports payments made using credit cards, although Sony says PlayStation Network pre-paid cards “will soon be available at a variety of local retail stores”. Users can view the PlayStation Store in English or fully localised Brazilian Portuguese, with content prices displayed in local currency, Brazilian Real. New content will be added to the digital store on a weekly basis commencing on August 2. In addition, Sony has launched the PlayStation Brazil Blog, which features official news, and the PlayStation Brazil Website, offering product information from the platform holder.
http://blog.us.playstation.com/2011/07/21/playstation-store-playstation-blog-officially-launched-in-brazil/
PlayStation Blog


Unity expands into South Korea

Unity Technologies, provider of the increasingly popular Unity game development platform, has announced plans to launch a subsidiary in South Korea. Led by country manager William Hugo Yang, a former analyst and consultant in the Korean gaming industry, Unity Korea will serve as a localisation and support centre for future Unity expansion in the country. Yang said: "As the Korean development community continues to grow, we will provide our expanding Korean user base fully localised tools and documentation, as well as dedicated technical support." Unity CEO David Helgason added: "Our strong following in the Korean developer community tells us that Unity is the perfect solution for Korea's dynamic games industry, which requires a cross platform solution enabling casual, MMORPG, mobile, PC and console games development on current and emerging platforms." Earlier this month Unity secured $12 million in a Series B financing round, part of which the firm said would be used to help it push into the Asian market.
http://unity3d.com/
Unity Technologies


Avatar Kinect launches today

The Kinect-powered video chat application using Xbox 360 Avatars is available from the Kinect Fun Labs application today. While it will always be a free download for Gold Xbox Live members, Microsoft is giving it away to Silver members as well until September 8. Also coming this week is Kinect Sparkler, which was shown off during Microsoft's E3 presentation last month and will cost 240 Microsoft Points when it is released through Fun Labs on Thursday.
http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-US/Product/Kinect-Fun-Labs/66acd000-77fe-1000-9115-d80258480811
Microsoft


Cthulhu dev: "It's no wonder Xbox Indie Games sell poorly"

Zeboyd Games calls on Microsoft to better promote quality titles on Xbox 360's indie download service.

A prominent independent developer has told us that Microsoft must do more to promote the best games on Xbox Live Indie Games or risk losing the service's most talented developers to other platforms.

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LA Noire credit cuts "were Rockstar's decision"

While fingers have been pointed at Team Bondi head Brendan McNamara for the omission of over 100 developers from LA Noire's credits, Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter has been told that the controversial studio boss was not behind the decision. "My understanding is that this isn't a Brendan McNamara / Team Bondi issue; it's a Rockstar issue," he said. "What happened was, a couple of hundred Rockstar employees worked on the game too, and I don't think they wanted 45 minutes of credits at the end of the game. So someone made an executive decision - and I understand it wasn't Brendan's decision - that they had to scale down the number of people who got credits, and he did not have control over that…If your complaint is you got left off the credits, blame Rockstar."
http://www.gametrailers.com/video/episode-222-pach-attack/717740
Gametrailers


Find your future with Edge Jobs

Get your dream job by signing up to Edge Jobs, the game industry's premier recruitment board.

Featuring roles at developers including Guerrilla Games, Crytek, DICE and Sony, and across the world, from Shanghai to San Francisco, Edge Jobs is the ideal place to

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XBLA revenue "up 41 per cent"

Full House Poker grosses $2.7 million as XBLA games sales in the first six months of 2011 total $66.2 million.

Revenue grossed from Xbox Live Arcade games rose 41 per cent in the first six months of the year, according to data released by market research firm Fade.

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Opinion: Waking up to game music

Steven Poole contemplates the challenges faced by today's videogame composers.

Most mornings these days, I am woken up by the main title theme from Metal Gear Solid 2. This has major benefits for a chronically reluctant riser. The beginning of the music, all blippy whooshes and mysterious cello stabs, evokes the feeling that today is going to be yet another exciting action-thriller adventure.

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Opinion: Waking up to game music

Steven Poole contemplates the challenges faced by today's videogame composers.

Most mornings these days, I am woken up by the main title theme from Metal Gear Solid 2. This has major benefits for a chronically reluctant riser. The beginning of the music, all blippy whooshes and mysterious cello stabs, evokes the feeling that today is going to be yet another exciting action-thriller adventure.

read more


Amazon suspends 3DS sales

The online retailer has temporarily removed Nintendo's glasses-free 3D handheld from sale, saying: "While this item is available from other marketplace sellers on this page, it is not currently offered by Amazon.com because customers have told us there may be something wrong with our inventory of the item, the way we are shipping it, or the way it's described here. We're working to fix the problem as quickly as possible." The system is still available from Amazon's UK site.
http://www.amazon.com/Nintendo-3DS-Cosmo-Black/dp/B002I096AA
Amazon


Walmart to report game sales data

The US retail chain, the largest public company in the world in terms of revenue, has not reported its videogame sales data for ten years, leaving a gaping hole in the monthly figures provided by the NPD Group. Now Advertising Age reports that the retailer is to begin reporting sales figures for both Walmart and the Sam's Club chain in "a few months."
http://adage.com/article/news/wal-mart-lifts-decade-long-ban-data-sharing/228845/
Advertising Age


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