GamesBloggo - Your source on game news! January 2009

Ensemble Studios has released 46 new images from Halo Wars, the real-time strategic based on Master Chief’s universe that will be released exclusively for the Xbox 360.

The launch date for this game has been confirmed for February 27th in Europe, a few days earlier than the American market that will only be able to experience it from March 3rd on.

Here are some of the images. Click on the thumbnail to see the full image.

The most-known secret of the videogaming industry has finally been officialized. During the press-conference held yesterday, LucasArts and BioWare have presented the MMORPG based on the Knights of The Old Republic universe, and it seems to be a very ambitious project.

It will be a highly-narrative RPG, although still based on the usual MMO settings: with the possibility of PvP, raids and PvE. The story takes place 300 years before the first two Knight of The Old Republic games, in a period where the Sith still dominate the galaxy with a dark empire.

According to Jeff Dobson from BioWare, the Old Republic MMORPG is the most ambitious project he’s ever worked with. The developers are aiming for a very detailed graphic setting, especially when it comes to the detail level of each object that will be part of the game. Despite that, it’s being developed to work well in a wide range of PC specifications, from those more standard to those more advanced, with obviously different results.

There’s not even an approximate launch date yet, but BioWare has stated that there will be, at some point, a beta version. For now, the game’s aimed for PC only, and no mention of console versions have been made.

Here are some of the screenshots that have been published on the official site, where you can also find the rest of them.

Click on the thumbnails to view the full image.

A post that appeared on the Age of Conan’s official forums has reported what would be the original words from game director Craig Morrison, who announced the company is currently working on an update on the combat system for the MMORPG. The patch would be aimed at the combo system as it currently is: since the combo’s length would determine its damage, it was possible to reach too huge and unbalanced damage points. Moreover, players would constantly find themselves initiating their combo sequences from a distance, and making sure only the last hit would be done correctly, creating a huge damage amount in a less-than-correct combat way.

We aren’t yet sure of what the update will be about, but it should fix that issue.” ..we felt that we needed to adjust the system to provide the right reward for executing your combos effectively, while also ensuring they aren’t cumbersome to pull in PVP”.

This fix will arrive at the same moment as the update for the trade changes and the Notoriety System, but no official dates are known yet. More details on the changes can be found on the Age of Conan’s official forums.

Microsoft has announced that Portal: Still Alive will be available on XBox Live Arcade next wednesday, October 22nd. The game includes the Aperture Science “campaign”, together with 14 new exclusive maps and 6 advanced maps. There will also be new unlockable objectives. There are no information on the price just as yet. We’ll be tuned for more information from Microsoft.

There’s no official confirmation so far, but several fonts (including the reliable GamesIndustry.biz) are talking about a postponing for the launching of LittleBigPlanet in Europe. For now, some retailers are in fact communicating the delay to their clients: The game, first scheduled for October 24th, might be postponed to November 14th.

Such delay seems a little exagerated, as GamesIndustry.biz says as well, but in any case, we’ll be waiting for any official confirmations from Sony before dismissing the information as a rumor (or not).

Rhianna Pratchett will be the new Overlord 2 scriptwriter. The game is an action/adventure produced by Codemasters and developed by Triumph Studios. Pratchett has also written the previous title, and other big names such as Mirror’s Edge and Heavenly Sword. She’ll also be taking care of the Overlord Dark Legend and Overlord Minions spinoffs, aimed for Nintendo Wii and DS respectively.

Rhianna is Terry Pratchett’s daughter, famous British writer responsible for the DiscWorld novels. In the meantime, Codemasters has released two new Overlord 2 images. This sequel expands the first title in many aspects: artificial intelligence, interface system, world interaction and graphics.

Overlord 2 will be more realistic than the previous title, with current political elements presented in the game as a parody. The world will have less fantasy elements to make room for more real scenarios.

A new update scheduled for “this winter” (no further details so far) will bring two new classes into the Warhammer Online universe. The Mythic MMORPG will then recover two of the classes that had been initially included in the first package, but then cut out after the heavy resizing that was made to the game before the launch.

The two classes are “tank” based due to their resistance, and armor / weapon sizes. The classes are the “Empire’s Knight of the Blazing Sun”, for the Order side, and “Dark Elf Black Guard” for the Destruction side. The first is described as a tactical leader that uses Battlefield Commands. The latter is a feisty, violent fighter.

With this update, two classes still remain out: The Dwarf Hammerer and the Greenskin Choppa, but they’re likely to be available with future updates, as well as the four big capitals that were removed from the game.

After the confusion that arose after the publication of a temporary list of games to be launched for the Sony console, SCEE has finally cleared one point: Motorstorm: Pacific Rift will arrive on European markets on November 7th, instead of the previously announced November 14th. This info confirms, then, that the dates were far from being official, as Sony had declared back then.

It seems that November 7th is going to be quite a big day for the videogaming market, since not only MotorStorm, but also Tom Clancy’s EndWar will be launched that day. Not to mention that it’s also the launching date for the highly-awaited Gears of War 2.

Illusion Softworks has revealed a series of new details concerning the highly-awaited Mafia 2, in development for XBox 360 and PS2, while the PC version will be released a bit after the console ones. The game will not be a direct sequel of the first chapter, however. Players will interpret the part of Vito, a mafia man that goes back to Empire City after having finished his military service on the Second World War. The imaginary city will be 10 km square large, twice as big as the latest title, and it will be modeled after San Francisco. The vehicles will receive noticeable damage and will need fuel in order to work. There will also be the car wash option. Money will be a much more important issue than the first chapter, as well. In a similar way to GTA, players will be able to use the money to buy clothing or go to restaurants.

The game should be released next year, around October.

Treyarch, one of the developers for the famous series Call of Duty, has declared to have no intentions of creating a new series title based on the Second World War. “I can’t say if there will ever be a new WWII Call of Duty, but we’re happy to have been able to finish the war and support the game with many downloadable contents. It’s been gratifying to be able to show the end rather than the beginning, at least once. The war is finished and both campaigns have a very clear ending”. Those declarations seem to indicate that in fact, that was the end of the Call of Duty from the Second World War, but there are still many war scenarios that haven’t been explored, such as the last battles of the Red Army or the Okinawa battles. We’ll be tuned to see which scenarios will be included on the downloadable contents.