GamesBloggo - Your source on game news! January 2009

Capcom has issued a press-release informing the users that a problem in the PC version of MotoGP 08 has been encountered, during the installation process. The problem presents itself only if players change the installation path from the default one given. In that way, Capcom recommends not using the personalized installation to try and solve the issue. The standard folder for the game is “C:\Program Files\Capcom\MotoGP 08”.

Capcom should release a patch to resolve the bug during the next few days.

Ubisoft has immediately cleared up things about Tom Clancy’s EndWar, affirming that it’s not a game planned to be a best seller that hits in the first commercial days.

Probably anticipating the release, on the same day (November 7th) of Gears of War 2, Michael de Plater from Ubisoft Shanghai says: “I don’t think EndWar is to be considered a Blockbuster from day one”.

On the other hand, the genre itself, especially on the console versions, cannot expect a huge public acceptance from the beginning, especially on the new game by Ubisoft: An RTS is an atypical choice, especially considering the interface innovations. “I think it’s a new game typology and there’s no real competition with other titles. I guess it’ll spread by word of mouth, and people will buy it and have fun. I believe we’ll see the game in stores for quite a while”, says de Plater. The launch date wasn’t, however, born from a strategic decision: “Christmas is such an important period that if it hadn’t been Gears of War 2, it would have been Fable 2, Fallout or Left 4 Dead, or any other title”, Ubisoft Shanghai’s director said. “I just want the game on the shelves as soon as possible”

Criterion has intentions of launching a new edition of Burnout Paradise on the market on February, called The Ultimate Box. The box features essentially everything that has been brought to the Paradise City world since the game’s launch. That means the original game plus all the updates that followed, “Cagney” and “Bikes”, and a completely new mode: “Burnout Paradise Party”. The latter is an offline multiplayer game option, where up to 8 players can “pass the controller” to each other and engage in several different challenges, adding a “social” component that is characteristic of party games.

Burnout Paradise - The Ultimate Box should arrive on the market on February 2009. Those that already have the original game will be able to download the “Burnout Paradise Party” through a paid downloadable expansion.

Several American sources report a delay in the release of Grand Theft Auto IV for the PC, although there has been no official confirmation on the matter by Rockstar, or even about the European market. IGN, for example, reports that the game has been dalayed from November 18th (November 21st in Europe) to December 2nd. They don’t specify, however, the reasons for the postponing.

In any case, here are the hardware requirements for Grand Theft Auto IV for PC:

Minimum Requirements

* OS: Windows Vista (Service Pack 1) / XP (Service Pack 3)
* CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo 1.8 Ghz / AMD Athlon X2 64 2.4 Ghz
* Memory: 1.5 GB RAM; 16 GB hard drive space
* Graphic Card: 256 MB NVIDIA 7900 / 256MB ATI X1900

Recommended:

* OS: Windows Vista (Service Pack 1) / XP (Service Pack 3)
* CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad 2.4 Ghz / AMD Phenom X3 2.1 Ghz
* Memory: 2 GB (XP) / 2.5 GB (Vista) RAM; 18 GB hard drive space
* Graphic Card: 512 MB NVIDIA 8600 / 512 MB ATI 3870

SCEA has revealed that the first free downloadable contents for LittleBigPlanet will be released on November 6th. The contents are a “Launch Spacesuit” and a “Halloween Mask” for the sackboys. There will be a weekly release after that, according to Sony, not only to enhance the characters but also to expand the creation tool with objects, materials, sounds and etc. The first two downloadable costumes will only be available from November 6th to 11th.

The lucky ones that managed to be invited for the preview (some sort of closed beta) of the New XBox Experience will be able to download the update from today on. It was an official announcement by Microsoft, that reminded that everyone that tries or manages to download the preview illegally will have their own accounts banned from Live at least until November 19th, which is the official release date for the new XBox 360 Dashboard.

NCSoft has announced that the company has finally reached an agreement with TransGaming to take one of their famous MMORPG’s, City of Heroes, into the Mac platform. In fact, thanks to the transposition technology owned by TransGaming - “Cider”, the superhero MMO will be available also on the Apple systems.

“Thanks to Cider, the Mac version will be developed in parallel to the PC one and all the game updates, the new functions and adventures will be launched simultaneously in the two platforms”, said Vikas Gupta, general manager and president of TransGaming.

The Mac version of the game should be launched thi autumn, probably November, in different digital delivery services. For now, there are no plans of a retail box version.

With the release of Portal: Still alive, an expansion that has the aspect of a real standalone game and was distributed as such on Live Arcade, it was easy to assume that Microsoft had given the green light to the software houses about creating games in any size for the XBox 360’s digital delivery, since Valve’s game is a 659MB pack, way beyond the maximum limit of 350 MB.

It seems, however, that it’s not the case: “We have established the file size limit as a general guideline. An important feature of XBox Live Arcade is its accessibility, and keeping the limit on the file size is a fundamental element on it”, said Microsoft. So it seems like the standard 350 MB file size limit is still active, with an exception made for Portal: Still Alive.

Electronic Arts has talked today about the problems on the activation of Red Alert 3 for some users. In fact, there are some cases where the activation code isn’t retained valid, or there’s one character missing. EA has reported on their official site about the possible solutions for the matter.

About the “invalid” codes, the publisher is working on solving the problem: apparently some issue happened on the company’s “backend”, where some of the correct codes weren’t inserted. The problem will be solved as soon as possible.

On the “missing character” matter, the solutions are more practical: the user should either contact EA’s customer service or go by trial and failure. The character can be a number from 0 to 9 and a letter on the alphabet. We would suggest contacting the customer service, however. Faster and safer.

A while ago, Sony had published an announcement that said that the beta testing subscription for their PlayStation Home would be somehow connected to the online magazine Qore, present inside the PlayStation Network. It seemed back then that in order to have access to the new integrated online platform’s beta testing, users would only need to buy the sixth issue of Qore, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.

According to what has been reported by Joystiq, it seems that the beta access is granted only to those who have an annual subscription to Qore, and that have done it before or on October 29th. In any case, there is no official confirmation on this matter, so we will be waiting on it.