2008 April 22 | Techchill.com

Apr 22 2008

You can never go Home: open beta delayed again

Posted by: admin in PS3 Game News

Ah, I bet you forgot about Sony’s on the web software Home, didn’t you? Don’t worry; I also forgot this was supposed to be coming out soon, as there’s so many other interesting titles on the horizion. Maybe it would have been superior for Sony if the let us forget about it absolutely until it was fully ready to launch. But they’d to go and remind us with this new delay announcement.

If you’re keeping score, this is the second delay. We were supposed to see Home this spring, but now it has been pushed back to a fall release. Shacknews says that beta tester feedback is stated to be playing a heavy role in the title’s continual refinement. Because of this delay, the closed beta session will be expanded.

“We have come to the conclusion that we need more time to refine the service to ensure a more focused gaming entertainment experience than what it is this day,” explained SCE president and CEO Kazuo Hirai.

“Spending more time on the development and on the Closed Beta testing reaffirms our commitment to bringing a quality service, maintaining the PlayStation tradition.”

Don’t you think that Sony will be missing the boat with these delays?

Apr 22 2008

CoD 4 Variety Map Pack (finally) coming to PSN on Thursday, April 24!

Posted by: admin in PS3 Game News

If you’re a CoD 4-obsessed PS3 owner, like I am, then you’ve been waiting with bated breath for the Variety Map Pack. It was first announced a while back as coming to Xbox Live on April 3rd and to the PSN two weeks later, once Sony updated the PlayStation Store’s interface. However, the certification process took a bit longer than expected, so instead of releasing with the new store last Thursday, the map pack will be out this Thursday, April 24th. The four maps — Killhouse, Chinatown, Broadcast, and Creek — will sell for $9.99.

This news comes to us straight from the horse’s mouth, Mr. Robert “Fourzerotwo” Bowling himself (he’s Infinity Ward’s Community Manager). Originally, he said that the DLC would be on the North American PS Store on the 24th, while Europeans would have to wait an extra week until Might 1st. But he announced this day that, after some bureaucratic wrangling, Activision will launch the DLC in North America and Europe at the same time! Huzzah!

But there’s even more awesome news for PS3-owning CoD 4 players. It looks like Activision wants to equalize the experience for PS3 and 360 owners; they’re doing for us what they did for them three weeks ago. There was a Double XP / Play with the Devs weekend on Xbox Live, and there will be one this weekend on the PlayStation Network. Here’s hoping that none of the fun is interrupted by any network issues.

So from 12:01 AM GMT on Friday, April 25, to 7:59 AM GMT on Monday, April 28, players will be able to accrue double experience points for playing Call of Duty 4 on the PSN. In case you need help translating times, that’s 7:01 PM EDT on Thursday evening through 2:59 AM EDT on Monday morning. In addition, the Infinity Ward team will be playing on the PSN from 2 PM to 5 PM EDT and from 8 PM to 11 PM EDT on Friday. So how many of you’ll be fragging the game’s developers this Friday while getting twice the XP for doing so?

[Via fourzerotwo’s blog]

Via Destructoid

Apr 22 2008

Earthworm Jim 4 announced, platform unknown

Posted by: admin in Xbox360 News

Filed under: News

While many gamers of the 360 generation will not know of the antics of Earthworm Jim, those more ancient gamers will recall Princess What’s-Her-Name, Psy-Crow, and others. When the rumors began that there would be a continuation of the franchise, we were admittedly excited. Now, we discover that Earthworm Jim 4 will happen and that the original creator, Douglas TenNapel, is back on the series as a creative consultant (he’s also working on a cartoon and motion picture based on the property.) There were no other details announced (not even a platform), but given the changes in the industry since the series’ heyday, we’d love to see Earthworm Jim 4 take some sort of substitute to the usual “reinventions” of franchises. Perhaps a 2D side-scroller/platformer with 3d character models, released on XBLA (maybe even with episodic content?). Yeah, that’s a nice dream.

Apr 22 2008

GRID and eBay Motors partner in advertising deal

Posted by: admin in Xbox360 News

Filed under: News

Codemasters, their in-game advertising peeps at Engage In-Game Advertising and eBay Motors are all happy-go-lucky today with the announcement that upcoming racer GRID will incorporate eBay Motors’ auction service into the game. In-game advertising FTW!

According to Codemasters, the eBay integration “allows GRID players to purchase and sell performance cars in a realistic setting” as the “marketplace experience becomes an essential element in a player’s strategy to win races by upgrading automobiles for optimal performance”. There will even be an in-game eBay Motor Muscle Series. And, per the new GRID video embedded above, it looks like there will be a special eBay Motors vehicle as well. Hell, GRID is eBay’tastic! It makes us wonder if eBay will be waiving all selling fees on duplicates of GRID that are sold through their online auction service. That’d be a great promotional tie-in.

Apr 22 2008

Rivet, new 360 media sharing for Mac

Posted by: admin in Xbox360 News

Filed under: News

Mac users looking to take advantage of the Xbox 360’s media sharing abilities have thus far been confined to a single program, Connect360. Those have read the headline have probably realized that there’s now another choice. The program is called Rivet and comes from Cynical Peak Software. It does everything that Connect360 does (streaming music, videos, pictures, etc) with some minor distinctions. The largest of which is that Rivet replicates your Mac’s folder structure as opposed to displaying your media in a single list (a very long one if you’ve got a lot of media). Another difference is that Rivet comes in at $18.95 (compared to Connect360’s $20). The last distinction is that Rivet is Leopard only, so Mac users who have yet to upgrade their OS X are left out of the fun. For the rest of you, there’s a demo available from Cynical Peak Software. Hit the “read” link to give it a try.

[Via Joystiq]

Apr 22 2008

Vampires rejoice, Harker on “indefinite hold”

Posted by: admin in Xbox360 News

Filed under: News

After a brief burst of early hype, The Collective’s Harker — a vampire slaying action game — totally disappeared. Of course, that makes sense when you factor in the fact that The Collective (who have now been combined with Shiny to form the new Double Helix studio) was later handed the reins to the latest entry in the Silent Hill series. If Konami decided to let us make the next Silent Hill (note to Konami: not a good idea), we’d drop whatever we were doing too. Unfortunately, it looks like Harker might be buried in an early grave, as Double Helix’s parent company Foundation 9 has announced that the project is on “indefinite hold.” Frankly, we were looking forward to killing vampires using the game’s environmental hazards and brutal combat engine.

Here’s hoping Harker gets another opportunity to prove his undead-slaying worth.

[Via Joystiq]

Apr 22 2008

Two Worlds devs admit to and learn from faults

Posted by: admin in Xbox360 News

Filed under: News

OXM UK just published a rather candid interview with Two Worlds developer Reality Pump where they discuss what went wrong with their icky RPG and what they’re doing differently with The Temptation sequel. So, onto the blame game!

Reality Pump admits that they bit off way more than they could chew with Two Worlds, citing total inexperience when it came to console development which led to the game’s lackluster graphics and gameplay. Development on the title also got discombobulated (yes, that is a word) when their team “tried to fit in every idea” which ultimately “hurt the end product in that it had parts that were underdeveloped”. Overall, this was their first step into the next gen ring and admitting to ones’ missteps is, well … very noble.

Reality Pump promises fans that they learned from their Two Worlds mistakes, have a new engine, new voice actors, a new writer and a more focused development schedule planned for Two Worlds: The Temptation. Hopefully the sequel can stand on its own and distance itself from the Oblivion comparisons because, no matter how great the game ends up being, we don’t think it’ll ever win.

[Thanks, PrivateRyan]

Apr 22 2008

Wal-Mart’s GTAIV launch plans revealed

Posted by: admin in Xbox360 News

Filed under: News

Joystiq reports that Wal-Mart’s intranet — known as ‘The Wire’ — now contains the