Of the many great lines in the classic 1985 film “The Breakfast Club,” my favorite has always been the knowing enticement delivered by Judd Nelson’s character, the delinquent John Bender: “Being bad feels pretty good, huh?”
It most certainly can, and that is why the Grand Theft Auto series is so successful, both commercially and artistically. In its ambition, fearlessness, style and production quality, it stands apart from every other game franchise.
Microsoft’s Xbox 360 console has sold over 28 million units worldwide, 8 million more than the Sony Playstation 3.
According to figures from Microsoft, the Xbox 360 is ahead of the Playstation 3 by one million units in Europe and by 7 million in the US.
However, both consoles are being outsold by the Nintendo Wii, which sold 3 million units in the UK and 10.17 million in the US last year.
Burnout Paradise (formerly known as Burnout 5) is Criterion Games’s newest installment in the Burnout video game series. It was released in January 2008 for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. It was also released on the PlayStation Store in September 2008 and will be available on Microsoft Windows from February 2009. It has an open world set in the fictional Paradise City, with no loading times and no traditional online lobbies or game menus. The song “Paradise City” by Guns N’ Roses is the game’s title music and also featured on the in-game soundtrack.
Rock Band 2 is a music video game developed by Harmonix Music Systems, as the sequel to Rock Band. It is the second title in the Rock Band series. The game software was released in North America for the Xbox 360 on September 14, 2008, along with individual instrument peripherals. The software/hardware bundle for the Xbox 360 was made available on October 19, 2008, the same date that the PlayStation 3 versions of the software, hardware, and bundle of the two were released. Versions of the game for the Wii and PlayStation 2 platforms were released on December 18, 2008.
Lego Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures is a 2008 video game developed by Traveller’s Tales and published by LucasArts. The game allows players to recreate moments (albeit more humorously) from the first three Indiana Jones films. It features the same drop in/out co-operative play mode as seen in the Lego Star Wars video games, although it is restricted to local console play. The game was released on June 3, 2008 in the United States and Canada, and June 6, 2008 in Europe. A downloadable demo for Windows was made available on May 13, 2008.
Fallout 3 is an action role-playing game released by Bethesda Game Studios. It is the third major game in the Fallout series, which has also spawned the spin-offs Fallout Tactics and Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel. The game was released in North America on October 28, 2008, in Europe and Australia on October 30, 2008, and in the United Kingdom and Ireland on October 31, 2008. It is available on the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 video game consoles as well as the Windows operating system.
Grand Theft Auto IV is a sandbox-style action-adventure video game developed by Rockstar North. It is the ninth title in the main Grand Theft Auto series and the first in its fourth generation. The game was preceded by Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and will be succeeded by Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars. Grand Theft Auto IV was released for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in Oceania, Europe and North America on 29 April 2008, and in Japan on 30 October 2008. A Windows version of the game was released in North America on 2 December 2008 and in Europe on 3 December. Two episodic packs are being developed for the Xbox 360, the first of which is entitled The Lost and Damned and scheduled to be released on 17 February 2009.
Sony Corp. is closer to breaking even on its new-generation PlayStation 3 videogame console because it costs 35% less to make than the previous model, according to technology-research firm iSuppli Corp.
The electronics giant is locked in a battle with Nintendo Co.’s Wii and Microsoft Corp.’s Xbox 360 for control of the videogame-console market. The cost cuts could help stanch the hardware red ink at Sony, which sold the previous-generation PS3 at a significant loss, making up for it with game-title sales and royalties.
Not long after LucasArts loosed Star Wars: The Force Unleashed on a galaxy not so far away, the publisher said it was already melding a fresh batch of downloadable content for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 editions. Included in the pack, according to LucasArts, would be an all-new level featuring the Secret Apprentice that augments the single-player campaign. Without much of a warning this week, LucasArts said that the content is now available.
The aforementioned new mission will be set in the Jedi Temple, former center of the vanquished order’s power, on the city-world Coruscant. Playing as Darth Vader’s understudy, players will explore the ruins for clues to his origins in general–and his father in particular. The download will also include nine new character skins, letting gamers play through the single-player campaign as a variety of Star Wars staples ranging from purple-lightsaber-wielding Mace Windu to the sinister Darth Maul.
At this year’s Tokyo Game Show, executives from Square Enix, Capcom, and Namco Bandai engaged in a roundtable discussion about Japan’s diminished role in the gaming industry. As a result, the publisher and many of its fellow Japanese outfits are putting a greater emphasis on the West, both in selling and developing their games there.
Square Enix recently set up a development studio in Los Angeles. Capcom is “actively pursuing friendly acquisitions and partnerships” with foreign outfits, and developing games like Dead Rising and Lost Planet with a more Western audience in mind. And today Namco Bandai established Surge, a new publishing label “dedicated to providing cutting-edge, genre-defining games that are targeted at satiating the appetite of western gamers.” Surge will produce games across a variety of genres and platforms.
