GamesBloggo - Your source on game news! January 2009

Major Nelson has published the list of the most played games on XBox Live during the past year. On the top of the list, is Halo 3, followed by Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare and Grand Theft Auto IV.

Gears of War 2 is only fourth on the list, maybe due to the fact it only arrived by the end of last year, but there are also the few multiplayer problems it encountered at the beginning, and the fact that it’s not truly managing to reach the numbers that the first chapter of the series managed to obtain.

The full list can be found here.

Chet Faliszek from Valve has confirmed during a video podcast for Kotaku that the developing team is working on downloadable contents for Left 4 Dead.

He confirmed that the team is working on additional contents that will be available for download, and that the developing is being done contemporarily for the XBox 360 and PC versions. Although there aren’t many details on how this expansion will present itself, Faliszek has declared that it will feature “new playable contents”.

We’ll be waiting on more information on the matter.

In a long interview to Gameplayer, Red Faction: Guerrilla’s producer Rick White has answered questions about the stage of the game’s developing for the Microsoft console. One of the interesting comments was that, even though the developing continues to be done in schedule, there are some evident programming issues for the XBox 360.

“We’ve got it to the point where we can’t even put an extra vehicle into a world, because it’ll blow the memory. Every little change we make we have to be hyper-critical about it because it could just bring the whole system down”, says White.

In order to try and avoid “panic”, White underlines that THQ and Volition’s plans isn’t much about optimizing the resources in order to better manage the console. Their plans is to push the current hardware to the maximum levels as possible.

The full interview can be found here.

Electronic Arts has decided to release the demo version of Skate 2 only on XBox 360 and restricted to the American territory for now. Despite the restrictions, it’s good to know that the Skate 2 has fortunately survived the closure of EA Black Box, a branch of EA that was also responsible for the latest Need for Speed saga.

We hope that EA will make the demo available for European players as well, especially because the January 23rd launch date is coming close, and a playable demo could be useful to convince players to buy the game.

We’ll keep tuned.

Reuters has published important numbers concering the Call of Duty franchise, that has sold more than 35 million copies in all its versions, in the several countries in which it is distributed. GTA IV has reached the 11 million copies, while Gears of War 2 has sold 3 million copies on its first commercial month.

In the war amongst the “rhythm” games, the Guitar Hero series remains untouched with its 23 million copies sold for all its versions. For Nintendo, Mario Kart Wii and Super Smash Bros. Brawl sold more than 4 million copies in the US, according to the updated data from November.

For Sony, of course, LittleBigPlanet has interesting numbers as well: it already features more than 100.000 levels created by users that have generated more than 20 million matches.

A new initiative from Eidos has made its appearance on the official Tomb Raider website. On the page dedicated to the serie’s soundtrack, it is now possible to download a good number of songs, extracted directly from the original soundtrack from many of the Tomb Raider chapters.

It’s possible to download mp3 file packs that are divided according to the chapter in which those appear, including the new Tomb Raider Underworld Deluxe Edition, that contains 71 mp3 tracks.

Everything is available for free too. Which is always a good thing.

There’s a small waiting atmosphere around the Ensembles Studios’ project Halo Wars, especially after the closure of the Studios three months ago. Now, however, some of the unlockable objectives for Halo Wars have been revealed and we’ll list it at the end of this article.

This real-time strategic will be based on the Bungie-created world and made famous by Master Chief, that became somehow an icon for the game.

Halo Wars should be available from February 27th, 2009 on. Below are the list of objectives that will be able to be unlocked on the game. Enjoy.

* Adjudicate the Arbiter 30
Complete the Campaign on Heroic Difficulty
* Detour the Great Journey 50
Complete the Campaign on Legendary Difficulty
* Momma’s Boy 5
Get a Gold Medal on any mission
* Crushed Colors 10
Improve your Score in any Campaign Mission
* Mr. Punctual 15
Finish all missions under Par Time on Heroic difficulty
* Own Worst Enemy 20
Get a Gold Medal with all Debuff Skulls Active
* Wall of Recognition 30
Get a Gold Medal on every Campaign Mission
* Epic Grinder 40
Obtain a Lifetime Campaign Score over 1,000,000
* Everything’s Better with Bacon 5
Mission 1: Ram 50 Grunts with Warthogs
* Endless Fun 5
Mission 2: Destroy every Methane Tank
* Covenant “Hot Drop” 5
Mission 3: Kill at least 5 Covenant Units with the Bridge
* The Real Winner 5
Mission 4: Save Adam
* He’s Got The Jack 5
Mission 5: Jack 6 Covenant Vehicles
* Rhino Hugger 5
Mission 6: Successfully protect every Rhino
* Micro Manager 5
Mission 7: Do not destroy any Power Node
* Ramblin’ Man 5
Mission 8: Use Elephants to train 100 Infantry
* Sweet Naptime 5
Mission 9: Put every Colony in Hibernation Mode at the same time
* The Procrastinator 5
Mission 10: Disrupt all Tractor Beams
* Battened Down the Hatches 5
Mission 11: Save all the Airlocks
* Handy with Tools 5
Mission 12: Repair the Power Core in less than 4 minutes
* Beaming with Pride 5
Mission 13: Destroy 25 units with the Scarab
* Didn’t Get To Second Base 5
Mission 14: Don’t claim an extra base
* Thinkin’ about My Doorbell 5
Mission 15: Open the Doors in order
* Backscratcher 10
Complete any Campaign Mission in Co-op Mode
* OMG BFF FTW 40
Complete entire Campaign in Co-op Mode
* Playin’ the Field 15
Win a Skirmish Game with every Leader
* Gallivant around the Galaxy 25
Win a game on every Skirmish Map
* Empire Builder 5
Win a game in every Skirmish Game Mode
* Titan 15
Get 20,000 points in any Skirmish Game
* Big Al’s Scooter 10
Win a Heroic Skirmish Game against the AI in under 10 minutes
* My Virtual Friends Love Me 10
Win a 3v3 Skirmish game with 2 AI Allies
* Walk-Off Winner 30
Use one of the 6 Major Leader Powers to destroy an enemy’s last unit
* 2 Bugs are Better Than 1 10
Win a Skirmish Game with Dual Scarabs
* Penny Pincher 10
Get a winning High Score with 10 or less Squads against the Heroic AI
* N00b n0 M0r3 10
Win a Matchmade Skirmish Game on Xbox LIVE
* So Lonely at the Top 20
Win and have the Highest Score in a Matchmade Skirmish Game on Xbox LIVE
* Basically Naive 10
Obtain the Recruit Rank on Xbox LIVE
* Officer on Deck 30
Obtain the Lieutenant Rank on Xbox LIVE
* Running the Show 50
Obtain the General Rank on Xbox LIVE
* Alas, Poor Andrew Thomas 5
Collect your first Skull
* Graverobber 30
Collect all Skulls
* Halo Academic 15
Unlock 20 Timeline Events
* Halo Historian 40
Unlock All Timeline Events
* Ready for the Sequel 75
100% Completion
* 24 Hours of Quality 20
Play Halo Wars for at least 24 Total Hours

Secret Objectives:

* Secret Achievement 10
Continue playing to unlock this secret achievement.
* Secret Achievement 40
Continue playing to unlock this secret achievement.
* Secret Achievement 50
Continue playing to unlock this secret achievement.
* Secret Achievement 70
Continue playing to unlock this secret achievement.
* Secret Achievement 70
Continue playing to unlock this secret achievement.

Sega is preparing to offer some of their classics on XBox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network. The titles should be well-known, such as Gunstar Heroes, Phantasy Star II, Comix Zone and Sonic The Hedgehog 3.

Some of the Sega old games are already present in the Virtual Console listing for Wii, but it seems the company has decided to enlarge their target. Prices and dates should be available in the next few days, so stay tuned.

The first F.E.A.R was somewhat “ruined” by the Extraction Point and Perseus Mandate expansions and their respective console conversions that were done by other Software Houses. At least according to Dave Matthews, from Monolith, in an interview to CVG.

“[TimeGate] took the story in a direction that we didn’t intend. We look at Extraction Point and Perseus Mandate as an alternate universe, a ‘what could have been’, and because of that it doesn’t necessarily diminish the story that we were trying to tell. F.E.A.R. was about Alma, F.E.A.R. 2 is about Alma, and we wanted to continue the story the way we originally intended”, says Matthews.

Besides criticizing the expansions, Matthews also shares some negative opinions about the technical quality for the console conversions made by Day 1 Studios, affirming that they never sold as well as the PC version.

Matthews reassures players, however, that the XBox 360 and PlayStation3  conversions of F.E.A.R 2: Project Origin will be a lot more faithful to the PC counterpart. F.E.A.R 2 will be launched on February 10, 2009 for PC, PlayStation 3 and XBox 360.

The development team for F.E.A.R 2 has released a few screenshots for the new F.E.A.R sequel that will be launched next February 10th for PC, PlayStation 3 and XBox 360.

There’s not much more to say except: enjoy some of the screenshots below!

Click on the thumbnail to see the full image.