Giant Bomb Video Game News

I bet when you hear the phrase "indie games," your mind doesn't immediately run to stuff that looks like this:   

If you are a reader of the corners of the Internet currently dedicated to the game industry, you have probably heard the many twists and turns regarding the tale of of George "GeoHot" Hotz, who, after his successful run as "the guy who jailbroke the iPhone," moved onto hacking of the PlayStation 3 firmware and getting sued by Sony for it. It's been an amusing, interesting story up to this point, with blogs frantically tracking GeoHot's out-of-country sojourns and rap video legal statements like he was the game industry's version of the Hipster Grifter, or something.




Over the course of this week, this story has gotten markedly less amusing and decidedly more uncomfortable, thanks to the actions of notoriously dogged and frequently butthurt hacker group Anonymous, who put out a really adorable threatening statement declaring Sony's civil suit against GeoHot and fellow hacker Alexander "Graf_Chokolo" Egorenkov an affront to hackers everywhere, and warning that they would get their DDoS on with the PlayStation Network as a result of Sony poking their hornet's nest.

Now it appears Anonymous is making good on its threats, with a variety of reports regarding connectivity issues on the PlayStation 3 popping up all over the place. Sony, for their part, has remained relatively mum on the subject, with a moderator forum post on the European PlayStation forums simply offering up a series of known error codes, and a statement that read, "We are currently looking into this and I will update the thread as more information becomes available." Translated from legally approved corporate speak, that roughly translates to, "Uhhhhh...crap?"

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I'll be honest here: after our recent, relentless string of first-person shooters on TNT, we started feeling the FPS fatigue something fierce. Stepping into the squared circle with WWE All Stars was a suitable palate-cleanser last week, and this week we keep it weird, while also choosing a game that's available outside North America, with Rare's singular Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts for the Xbox 360. 

I bet you didn't even know that game had multiplayer, did you?

Well, it does! And it's nuts. (And bolts. Zing!) If you want to play with us, dust off your kraziest kontraptions and send us a friend request at GBTNT on the Xbox 360. If you don't have Nuts & Bolts yet, you can pick up a Giant-Bomb-endorsed Platinum Hits copy for pretty cheap, and the game is also available through Games on Demand. 

Either way, we'll be playing from 4PM to 6PM PDT tomorrow, April 7th, and live streaming the whole damn thing. Don't miss it! To get everyone appropriately chuffed for the event, here's a really ineffective Master Chief built in Nuts & Bolts. Enjoy!

Still don’t have Mass Effect 2? Here’s an expensive way to get a free copy of the oft-acclaimed sequel: buy Dragon Age II. In a celebration ending April 30, past and present owners of any version of Dragon Age II can sign up to receive a free digital copy of Mass Effect 2 for the PC. Just head on over to Dragon Age II’s official Web site, hit the rectangular “Get Mass Effect 2 Code” link in the middle of the page, and follow the directions to claim your own.

This is all an obvious marketing stunt that trades exposure for a free game, but to hear Mass Effect and Dragon Age series creator BioWare tell it, this Mass Effect 2 giveaway is simply an effort to reward fans of Dragon Age II since the game has sold over one million copies to date. 

           

There have got to be catches with this, right? Yeah, I've spotted a few small ones. In order to claim your Mass Effect 2 code in the first place, you’ll need to have a valid Online Pass connected to your copy of Dragon Age II. Also, the copy of Mass Effect 2 you’ll receive in return won’t come with an Online Pass, so you won’t be able to access the Cerberus Network (or any DLC) without forking over $10 first. Oh, and also, all of this is done through the EA Store, which isn't the... most popular or solid of services. But otherwise, hey, free game!

Development on the next NBA Jam is heating up. In a press release, EA Sports revealed NBA Jam: On Fire Edition, a proper follow-up to last year’s NBA Jam title for the Xbox 360 and PS3. In an ironic twist, EA has decided to make this one an actual downloadable game on both platforms--On Fire Edition will see releases on XBLA and PSN, just like its predecessor was supposed to before EA Sports scrapped NBA Elite 11 and turned Jam into a full retail release.

Just for a bit of reference here, NBA Jam for HD consoles was once a download attached to the purchase of NBA Elite 11, the long-awaited reboot of the NBA Live franchise. But when things went south for the new Elite and the project was canned, EA decided to drop NBA Jam on discs and then add in extra features via patch downloads. NBA Jam’s sole planned retail release was on the Wii, a platform the developer hasn’t mentioned at all in its On Fire announcement press release. 
     


As most sports sequels tend to promise, On Fire Edition will supposedly ship with tweaks and new features based on fan feedback. New AI that is based on the system used in the Fight Night games is, perhaps, the most important of the new features mentioned so far, but fans can also look forward to roster updates and a co-op “Road Trip” component that will have pals battling it out against legends and current stars in “a series of white-knuckle challenges” against each NBA team. Also, look forward to the usual NBA Jam trimmings: wild animations, secret characters, a scary announcer, and so on.

No word on pricing just yet, and as I mentioned, no word on a possible Wii release. I should also note that EA Sports doesn’t rule out a potential retail release for On Fire Edition either in this press release. 

If you're one of the many post-plastic rockers who, feeling a distinct sense of music genre malaise after so many years of clicky guitars and downloadable Miley Cyrus songs, found themselves unable to muster enough excitement to go out and purchase Rock Band 3 when it hit stores last year: congratulations. Your indifference toward one of the best games of last year has led to a tremendous discount for everyone. Way to go.
 
Harmonix today announced that going forward, all game-only copies of Rock Band 3 will be $20 at all major retailers, including the usual suspects like Amazon and Walmart. GameStop will probably get with the times eventually, but as of now, they're still selling for $49.99, because GameStop is jerks.
 
Incidentally, this new price puts Rock Band 3 $10 below the current retail price of Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock, a game that, despite being by all accounts dead, still continues to produce new DLC. Sort of like the part of the zombie brain that remains active and instinctively hungry for your money long after any identifiable humanity has ceased to be. 



All Rock Band instruments are still sold separately--and appear largely undiscounted at this juncture--but with all the extra money you're not spending on a disc, maybe you can pony up for a keyboard and some brand-new downloadable Grand Funk Railroad and/or Joy Division songs. Or perhaps you could make up the difference with cheap copies of Green Day: Rock Band and one of the Rock Band Country Track Packs, each replete with exportable tracks. You'll create a playlist that's bound to confuse the hell out of everyone who attends your next Rock Band party, to be sure.
 
If you don't own a copy of Rock Band 3, or know someone who doesn't, now seems like the perfect time to get yourself or your stingy cohorts in on one of the best music games of all time. And I'm totally not saying that because I used to work for Harmonix, the developer of the Rock Band series. It's not like my name appears in the credits for that game, or anything. Who in their right mind would let a former Rock Band publicist write a news story ostensibly promoting the purchase of a game in that franchise? The very notion is utterly ludicrous, and not even worth thinking about, if you ask me.

It’s possible that the devastating earthquake in Japan might have pushed the release of the NGP out of its original window, at least in some regions. In a recent interview with Bloomberg, SCEA big dog Jack Tretton said as much. "It may be the straw that says 'maybe we get to just one market by the end of the year," he said, though to be clear, NGP creator Sony hasn’t been promising a worldwide release of the device by the end of holiday 2011. The company line was always that the NGP would make it to at least one region during that timeframe, and that safe estimate is appearing more like a reality now considering the unfortunate circumstances.  
 


Bloomberg reports that the earthquake has directly caused production issues, forcing closure for the repair of a few factories in Northern Japan. Also, delays in component parts are causing additional problems. Combine both of these issues, and you see why Tretton is saying what he is.  

So, where might the NGP be released later this year? Your guess is as good as anybody’s, since Tretton refused to specify which one region might be receiving the handheld. But considering tradition and the market the NGP will be targeted at, I wouldn’t be surprised if Japan is the sole region to receive the device if there are postponements.    

In case you were worried, Burnout isn’t dead. IP owner and publisher of the franchise, EA, has been keen on teasing this fact in the past, but now a smidgen of evidence has emerged to support the existence of a new game in the franchise. The Australian Classification Review Board, a service similar to the US’ ESRB, has rated a brand new Burnout title dubbed “Burnout Crash,” a PG-rated joint set to be published by EA.

And, well, that’s all we know for sure at moment. As for speculation, though, there’s a lot of that out there. On the developer front, it’s been suggested in the past that Criterion, now fresh off the release of Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit, could be resuming its work on the Burnout series with this new title. Criterion is of course the studio behind all the Burnout games, and did an especially good job with the last iteration, Burnout Paradise. And while you’d figure that Criterion would just be slated to work on the next NFS title considering the praise Hot Pursuit has received, it's been strongly suggested by EA’s Partrick Soderlund that Black Box is the next in line to give the NFS series a spin.   


   
 
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It’s no secret that GameStop has been looking to get its fingers into the digital distribution cookie jar. The downloadable sector is growing fast enough to threaten the brick-and-mortar retailer’s bottom line. Why go to a store with pushy employees when you can just download what you want from the comfort of your own couch, right? So, it’s really not a huge surprise that GameStop has acquired Spawn Labs and is in the process of purchasing Stardock’s digital distro platform Impulse, two pickups that will surely pave the way for GameStop to start moving into the digital space.

Spawn Labs--the lesser known entity in this deal--is basically a peer-to-peer gaming service similar to OnLive. It specializes in streaming games to users via everyone's favorite omnipresent cloud. Impulse, on the other hand, is one of the few big names in digital distribution that's not "Steam." It may not be as popular as Valve's service, but Impulse has been turning a profit, which has become a point of concern for Stardock’s founder Brad Wardell. "When Impulse became our number one source of revenue," Wardell told Joystiq in an interview, "I realized it was time for us to look at our options there." Earlier he said that it wasn’t his goal to grow Impulse into a dedicated retailer, so he was open to selling the business.  
 


GameStop points out that Impulse will provide “three specific components” for studios and publishers. The first is the client itself that will provide games to users. The second component is the “reactor,” which from what I can tell, will operate as a hub for all the secondary functions of the client by providing DRM, achievements, friends lists, cloud-based saves, and account management functions. The third and final component is the “publisher,” which will give publishers the power to “manage all aspects of their game with powerful real-time reporting and management tools.”

In the press release announcing all of this, GameStop neglected to get into the hard details about when or how it will begin to make its digital push with these businesses, but it is noted that Impulse will become integrated with GameStop.com “within the next few months.” The wording in the PR about the Spawn Labs acquisition certainly makes it clear that GameStop will begin pushing streaming on multiple devices as soon as possible: “once the Spawn Labs integration and testing on a new consumer interface is complete,” the boilerplate reads, “users will have immediate access to a wide selection of high-definition video games on demand on any Internet-enabled device.” Guys, I think the future is here!

It's been the better part of seven years since anyone uttered the name of BloodRayne without the title being immediately preceded by "That terrible Uwe Boll vampire movie..." Today, Majesco made it a point to remind us that, yes, this was once a video game franchise, by announcing the first new entry in the series since 2004's BloodRayne 2 and title heroine Rayne's somewhat dubious appearance in Playboy magazine. Titled BloodRayne: Betrayal, this sequel moves away from the series' 3D action roots into the realm of two-dimensional scrolling to the side. Majesco plans to release it this summer via Xbox Live Arcade and the PlayStation Network.
 
Betrayal is not the product of original BloodRayne developer Terminal Reality, but rather is currently in the capable developmental hands of WayForward, who is, as the press release puts it, "the award-winning team known for bringing franchise favorites back to audiences in exciting new ways." That seems like an awfully roundabout way of saying, "We make really good side-scrolling games based on your existing franchises so you don't have to," but regardless, WayForward has enjoyed some success in this genre previously, with such titles as A Boy and His Blob, Batman: The Brave and the Bold: The Videogame and Contra 4, otherwise known as "the fourth Contra game." In a weird bit of subtitle convergence, this is also WayForward's second game titled Betrayal. They also made the Game Boy Color wrestler WWF Betrayal. Presumably, the two games are unrelated.
 
Other than its side-scrolling nature, the press release is sadly light on details, as is the entirely teasing teaser of a trailer, which is embedded below. The official website also fails to offer up any juicy information, beyond a prospective keyboard-and-power-chord-laden soundtrack that sounds a little like it fell out of Cradle of Filth's ass. We'll be sure to bring you more on BloodRayne: Betrayal as it becomes available, including any word on an eventual Uwe Boll-directed film tie-in. Considering the last film, BloodRayne: The Third Reich came out just last year, it seems pretty much inevitable.