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.
Chrono Trigger is a console role-playing game developed and published by Square (now Square Enix) for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System in 1995. The game’s story follows a group of young adventurers who travel through time to prevent a global catastrophe. Square re-released a ported version by TOSE in Japan for Sony’s PlayStation in 1999, later repackaged with a Final Fantasy IV port as Final Fantasy Chronicles in 2001. A slightly enhanced Chrono Trigger was released for the Nintendo DS on November 25, 2008 in North America and Japan, and will go on sale in Europe in early 2009. It has never been released in PAL territories on the SNES or the PlayStation.
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.
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.
Telltale Games’ frighteningly amoral tag team of freelance police are ready to protect and serve (for a reasonable fee) once again. As part of a bevy of announcements, Atari announced this week that it would be bringing the second season of the downloadable, episodic adventure series Sam & Max to stores around the world next year.
Season 2 sees the cuddly yet violent detectives investigate a giant robot attack on their beloved city, perform an exorcism on Santa Claus, and even visit Hell, a heavily bureaucratic limited-liability company. As part of the international release, Sam & Max Season 2 will introduce full French and German translations to the episodes, as well as Spanish and Italian subtitles.
The results are in, and the annual 2008 PlayStation Awards out of Japan is now a wrap. The handing out of awards commemorates successful titles over the past year. It highlights the best of the best and honors titles that have sold more than 500,000 units with a Gold Award, and those which sold over a million with a Platinum Award.
Unfortunately, only one PS3 title made this year’s list. That being, of course, Metal Gear Solid 4 with a Gold Award. With most of the other major PS3-exclusives releasing in late Autumn, we’re not really surprised by this.
NAMCO BANDAI Games Europe gets working on its combos in preparation for the next installment in the ultimate fighting franchise TEKKEN 6, scheduled for release in Europe through its distribution partnership with Infogrames Entertainment in autumn 2009 for the Xbox360 and PLAYSTATION3.
Developed by NAMCO BANDAI Games Inc., TEKKEN 6 brings the blockbuster fighting series onto multiple platforms for the first time in the history of the TEKKEN franchise. TEKKEN sets the standard for fighting games with its stunning realism and uncompromising quality, and TEKKEN 6 promises to propel the series to greater heights with major gameplay enhancements and the largest character roster ever seen in the TEKKEN series.
