Cheaters have forced Sony to scrap the second round of its online Gran Turismo Academy competition.
GT Academy, which kicked off on December 20, sees players compete in a series of GT5 online trials using Nissan cars to win a race in a real tournament, but underhand tactics are threatening to spoil the competition.
Sony said: “In Round 2 of the GT Academy held from January 31 to February 6, we have found repeatedly that it was possible to inappropriately cut corners or intentionally hit the walls to shorten lap times.
“Because of this we are effectively negating Round 2 of the competition, allowing EVERYONE who entered round 2 to automatically progress to Round 3. As notified before, we had changed the course for the event twice due to these issues, but we were unable to completely eliminate the problem.
“For this reason we are now working on an update that will help prevent this type of inappropriate driving. Because Round 3 must take place after the release of this update, the previously announced schedule of February 14 is subject to change. The new schedule hereafter will be announced again at a later date.
“We send our sincere apologies to all participants of Round 2, for the repeated inconvenience and turmoil this may have caused. We are currently working hard to make the necessary adjustments to prepare a fair race environment for everyone, and ask for your patience until Round 3 of the competition is ready.”
Take-Two has reported its financial results for the third quarter ended December 31, 2010, posting net revenues of $334.3 million (£208m) and profit of $40.9 million (£25.5m).
During the same period a year earlier, revenues were higher at $360.4 million (£224.3m), but profit was lower at $37.9 million (£23.6m).
In its financial highlights, the company cited eight million Red Dead Redemption units sold-in to retail since its May 2010 launch, and four million copies of NBA 2K11 shipped. Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick said: “Strong holiday sales enabled Take-Two to continue to deliver better-than-expected revenue and earnings in the third quarter.
“Our results year-to-date clearly demonstrate the Company’s ability to translate its world-class creative resources and diverse portfolio of triple-A franchises into meaningful profits.”
He added: “Looking ahead to the balance of the year and fiscal 2012, I have never been more enthusiastic about our diverse line-up of upcoming releases.
“From unique, groundbreaking new titles such as L.A. Noire, to the long anticipated return of Duke Nukem, the interactive entertainment industry’s most irreverent hero, we will deliver a broad array of entertainment experiences that promise to delight audiences around the world.”
EA has slashed the price of most of its top games on iDevices down to just 99c in the App Store, sparking another buying frenzy.
Last time it did a sale of this nature was over the Christmas period, causing EA titles to dominate the Top Paid Apps lists much to the frustration (and anger) of the indy dev community who struggle on a normal day get their games noticed.
Anyhow, you get wicked games for nearly nothing, and that’s all good in our books.
Here’s the list of titles:
* Battlefield: Bad Company 2, down 80%
* Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit, down 80%
* Cause of Death, down 50%
* Tetris, down 67%
* Pictureke, down 50%
* The Sims 3, down 86%
* Scrabble, down 67%
* FIFA 11, down 80%
* The Sims 3 Ambitions, down 80%
* Heroes Lore III, down 50%
* Mirror’s Edge, down 80%
* NBA Elite 11, down 80%
* Madden NFL 11, down 80%
* Monopoly, down 67%
* Risk, down 80%
* NCAA Football, down 80%
* Sim City Deluxe, down 67%
* The Sims 3 World Adventures, down 80%
* The Simpsons Arcade, down 67%
* Need for Speed Shift, down 80%
* Need for Speed Undercover, down 80%
* The Game of LIFE, down 67%
* MONOPOLY World, down 67%
* FIFA 10, down 80%
* Mass Effect Galaxy, down 50%
Bethesda has revealed that it looked to its own Fallout 3 for influence when it came to fixing The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim’s difficulty curve. That’s what we like to see.
Speaking to Official Xbox Magazine in the UK, game director Todd Howard acknowleged that the fact monsters levelled with you in Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion was an issue for fans.
“It’s similar now to what we did in Fallout 3,” he revealed, “where we changed it a lot. We now have the ability to set a dungeon and say that ‘this dungeon is this hard’, so when you come in it will look at you and adjust its difficulty level. But it might be much harder, just because of what it is.
“It also saves the state of the monsters. So if you come in and at the side it says, ‘okay, this is going to be hard for your character’ – and it might be much easier because of how we set it – but it won’t change its difficulty if you leave.”
Skyrim is set two centuries years after predecessor Oblivion. The land of Skyrim has erupted into civil war after the assassination of its King, whilst god Alduin arises to destroy the world.
The title is due for release on 11/11/11 across the globe, on PS3, 360 and PC.
Harmonix has laid off an undisclosed number of staff today to “bring it into alignment with current product development plans”.
The Rock Band developer went independent in December after breaking from former owner, MTV parent Viacom.
Speaking to Joystiq today, a Harmonix spokesperson said:
“Harmonix is restructuring our organization to bring it into alignment with our current product development plans. Unfortunately, this means reducing the number of full-time staff.
“We sincerely appreciate the work of each and every one of these employees. Harmonix is working to ensure that those affected are well taken care of as we make this change.”
The company is thought to be working on an unnamed music title for Nintendo 3DS. It most recently created Dance Central for Kinect, which won positive reviews from critics.
Joystiq notes that the creation of future DLC for Rock Band 3 and Dance Central will remain unaffected by the cuts.
By virtue of the fact they’re old, game cartridges are normally filthy as hell. Which means sometimes they won’t work! Not to fear. If blowing on them won’t get them up and running, a chemical fix probably will.
Little bit old school, but still good to see people chipping away on the good ole’ N64. The wife an I still bash away on the Game Cube, with the stakes on who cooks dinner or something. This handy instructional vid shows that all you need — provided the problem is dirt and not something more technical — is a little rubbing alcohol and some cotton swabs to get those filthy, grubby old game cartridges good as new.
And can since report that while it works just fine for cleaning the insides of the cart, I actually found them more useful for cleaning the outside, which on cartridges that aren’t black (like the N64) tend to get a lot dirtier and grimier than the insides.
Putting models together and painting them are not easy. Finishing them and making them look great takes skill. And skill is expensive.
At this weekend’s Wonder Festival, a collectible figurine showcase, in Chiba, Japan, Kyoto’s “Mr. Big” offered completed garage kits of Bayonetta from the self-title action game Bayonetta and Ayane from the fight games Dead or Alive. Mr. Big deals in completed garage kits, and the Bayonetta one alone took two months to finish.
The completed Bayonetta was priced at a cool ¥18,000 or US$1,820, while the Ayane was asking ¥15,000 or US$2,184. Both come with handsome base stands for the figures, and Bayonetta even has a pair of 1/1 scale glasses.
Attention to detail like this is not cheap! In fact, it’s very, very expensive.
The producer of Age of Empires Online has been voicing his thoughts on piracy, saying that the free-to-play model is one of the best defences against piracy. Inappropriate Bunny agrees .He’s argued that Eastern games that primarily use microtransactions are more secure than other games, and that “it makes sense for us in the West to catch up on this.”
Microsoft Games Studios’ general manager Dave Luehmann made the comments in an interview with MCV, where he said “In the console world, piracy is a little better understood and managed. Whereas on an open platform, you need to have a different kind of business model that’s more resilient to piracy. In Eastern countries, transaction-based online games have demonstrably been more secure against piracy, and I think it makes sense for us in the West to catch up to this.”
This makes you wonder weather or not were gonna start to see some completely free to play/join console game on the live network, with no account fees or anything.
Over the last year, a few major Western MMOs have successfully gone free-to-play, including Champions Online and Lord of the Rings Online. Free-to-play online arena games like League of Legends and Bloodline Champions have also been growing in popularity after a quiet start. Luehmann lists this as one of the problems of the free-to-play model. “The launch of your game becomes less of an event,” he added. “It’s hard to have a big get-together and launch party for a download game like the ones we had for titles like Age of Empires 3. It’s a different sequence of events – the launch isn’t one big event, it’s something that grows over a longer period of time.”
Anything with Lego stuck at the start is ok by me and at least worth a look, though im not too sure who is actually playing all these Lego games. Or for that matter, who’s playing Lego Online Universe or whatever its called. It just doesn’t seem to have the extra approach to make sure the Gears Or War generation are playing them. The novelty seems to wear off after you’ve have a quick look. Lego Iggy Pop on their attempt at Rock Band was cool though!
Her’s something a bid more manly and main stream. The pictures here boast some stunning homemade efforts by a Andy Pescovitz, that are either Lego models manipulated as well as some sculpted by the looks of it. The collection include some Halo:Reach chaps on a warthog along with a well worked Max Payne Loadout on page four.
Fans of EA’s Battlefield series who also enjoy playing their games on the PC aren’t having a good day. DICE has announced that the long-delayed Battlefield 1943 has finally been canceled for the PC, and we likewise won’t be seeing the Onslaught mode in our version ofBattlefield: Bad Company 2
“We know some of you eagerly have been awaiting Battlefield 1943 andBattlefield: Bad Company 2 Onslaught on PC,” Karl Magnus Troedsson, general manager of DICE, wrote on their official blog. “I’m sad to say that these two titles are now officially canceled. Instead, our talented teams will focus on delivering the greatest possible gaming experience in our next behemoth release. We’re confident this will lead to an even better experience in Battlefield 3, not only on PC, but on all platforms.”
Battlefield 3 will be unveiled to the press at an event before the upcoming Game Developers Conference, and PC gamers have had the release of Bad Company 2: Vietnam to keep them somewhat placated, but this is still disappointing. We wanted to play some Onslaught! Still, DICE is making it clear that it’s looking forward, not back.
