GamesBloggo - Your source on game news! January 2009

Grand Theft Auto IV is now available for purchase in the United States and European markets, for the Playstation 3 and XBox 360 platforms. Take-Two and Rockstar have followed their second launch date announced, since it was impossible to release the game on October 2007, as initially planned.

The delay was dependant on the launch of another blockbuster, Halo 3. The problems in the development for the Playstation 3 platform also contributed for the changes, which also caused a delay on the XBox version, since both should be released simultaneously.

Some retailers, such as GAME, have prepared special launching event, such as extending the stores’ opening hours. GAME, HMV and Play.com do not guarantee, however, that the delivery will be done in the same day, for those that have pre-ordered GTA IV.

According to analysts, Take-Two will sell 6 million copies of Grand Theft Auto IV in its first commercial week, and 9 million copies throughout the whole year.

One of the elements from Spore that has been keeping Maxis busy is the physical customization of the characters and their modelling. The players will interact with this interface through a tool named “Spore Creature Creator”. This tool will be available before the game launch.

Electronic Arts and Maxis have in fact announced that the Spore Creature Creator will be released on June, 17th. It won’t be free, however, and the costs should be around $9.99 dollars in the United States and €9.99 in Europe, and it would be available in most retail stores.

A demo version will be downloadable from the official Spore website, also from June 17th. The demo version will contain 25% of the contents from the standard version. Both versions will allow players to share their creatures with friends and enable them to upload their self-made videos on YouTube.

The PC and Mac versions of Spore will be available for purchase on September 5th in Europe and September 7th in the United States.

Devil May Cry 4 will be available for PC from next Summoner. A playable demo should be launched before the release of the final version. This demo will also contain a benchmark mode, so players will be able to evaluate their own hardware efficiency.

The PC version will feature new game modes and more graphic options. The Turbo mode, for example, will enhance the game’s speed, while the Legendary Dark Knight mode will fill the game screens with enemies, which will require a much higher PC performance. There will also be different game locations in the PC version, and the cutscenes will play at 120 frames per second. Players will also be able to decide what effects they want to enable or disable or choose whether to use DirectX 9 or 10.

The developing stage of Grand Theft Auto IV has finally been concluded. That’s the announcement made by Rockstar Games. The company has also confirmed the game’s released date: April 29th. It’ll initially be available for Playstation 3 and XBox 360.

Grand Theft Auto IV is one of the most anticipated games of the year, and there’s a high expectation for a big commercial boom from the first release day. According to analyst Mike Hickney from Janco Partner, Rockstar will sell 9.5 million copies during the first weekend alone. From these copies, 5.8 million will be bought by American customers.

According to Variety, the copies sold in the first week would be 6 million, generating revenues of 400 million dollars.

Electronic Arts has announced that the Sims series has sold more than 100 million copies worldwide. The whole game series has generated more than 4 billion dollars, around 500 million dollars for every year of its existence. The Sims was released in 2000; the game is translated in 22 languages and sold in 60 countries. The success of The Sims is also due to its many expansions, essential for the variety of the series and its long-term playability.

The Sims 2 website registers an average of 4.3 million visitors every month and has over 70 million objects created by the players themselves. On YouTube, there are more than 100.000 videos about the Sims’ lives. To celebrate the occasion, new content for the game has been released in the official site.

The date of release for Star Wars: The Force Unleashed has been announced: September, 19th in Europe. The action/adventure game will be available three days earlier in the United States and one day after in Australia. The game will be available for Playstation 3, Playstation 2, XBox 360, Wii, Nintendo DS and PSP. So far, no mention of a possible PC version.

Game details: Darth Vader is now almost ready to reunite the whole galaxy under one leader. The player will be Vader’s apprentice and learn how to control the dark side of the Force. Force Unleashed, in this way, puts the player on the side of the “bad guys”. The Wii version will allow the players to use the Wii remote as a lightsaber.