JoWood has announced that a demo for Acania – Gothic 4 will be released on 24th September on the PC and Xbox 360. The demo includes the first two hours of the game, featuring the tutorial island Feshyr. Gothic will be released on the PC, PS3 and 360 in October.
Capcom has announced that Dead Rising 2: Case Zero has broken the record for best week one unit sales in the history of all content distributed through the Xbox Live Arcade. Case Zero was released last week exclusively on the Xbox Live Arcade. It’s a standalone title that bridges the gap between Dead Rising and Dead Rising 2. Dead Rising 2 will be released on September 28th for the 360, PS3 and PC.
EA has announced that a demo for EA Sports MMA will be released on September 28th on the Xbox Live Marketplace and the PlayStation Network. The demo features Jason Miller against Jake Shields and Alistair Overeem against Bobby Lashley with both matches overseen by John McCarthy. The demo will also have a tutorial and information about the game’s other modes. Apparently, if you share the demo with friends, you’ll unlock Randy Couture as a playable character in the full game.
Some figures floating around the internet have reported that Dead Rising: Case Zero managed to clock up 330,000 downloads in less than seven days. The game costs 400 Allards and even though that doesn’t sound like it could make anyone much money, Capcom could’ve made $1,149,015 for just this week. That’s assuming Microsoft took only 30% of the game’s sales money.
The Map and Characters Pack 2 for Transformers: War for Cybertron has been released on the PlayStation Network and the Xbox Live Marketplace. The PS3 version costs $9.99 and the 360 version costs 800 Allards. The DLC includes two new Transformers (Zeta Prime and Dead End) and five new maps for the game’s online multiplayer. The new Transformers can be used in the game’s co-op Escalation mode and their chassis can be used in the create-your-own Transformer builder.
We’ve just been browsing the new demo releases on the office Xbox 360 and we can confirm that demos for R.U.S.E. and Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock are now available to download. The R.U.S.E. demo (878.39MB) has a full mission to play through, which we’re informed has a nuclear conflict to sort out.
The Guitar Heroes: Warriors of Rock demo (706.79MB) has four tracks in Quest mode to play through, as well as the ability to unlock Johnny Napalm’s chapter. The tracks are: Black Sabbath’s Children of the Grave, Foo Fighters’ No Way Back, Slash featuring Ian Astbury’s Ghosts and Dethklok’s Bloodlines.
Activision has said that a DJ Hero 2 demo has been released today on Xbox Live in a press release issued earlier, but it isn’t available for download yet.
Epic Games has confirmed that the Gears of War 3 ‘Fate of Carmine’ campaign has raised $150,000 for Child’s Play. The charity event ended September 1st and now Clayton Carmine’s fate has been sealed and avatar shirts brought from now on won’t count to the end result. It’s not currently known if shirt sales from September 1st onwards will still contribute to charity. Here’s a video of Cliff Bleszinski and Rod Fergusson talking about the results of the promotion:
Black Rock has released some downloadable content for Split/Second: Velocity today. There’s a mix of premium and free content available to download on the Xbox Live Marketplace and the PlayStation Network. The first of which is the High Octane Supercar Vehicle Pack, which costs 160 Allards (£1.36). That includes three new vehicles and a new skin for the Ryback Cyclone. Next, there’s the Ryback Cyclone Special Edition, which is available for free. Finally, there’s the Elite Livery Pack, which is also available for free. That offers elite versions of the Brawn, Vixen and Raptor.
Microsoft has confirmed the Xbox Live Marketplace release schedule for the next two weeks:
Xbox Live Deals of the Week
September 5th: Select Resident Evil content
September 13th:
BUST-A-Move Live! (400 Allards)
Gyromancer (800 Allards)
Tower Bloxx Deluxe (400 Allards)
Puzzle Chronicles (400 Allards)
Xbox Game Add-Ons
September 2nd: Crackdown 2 Toy Box (Free; 560 Allards for more content)
September 7th: Mass Effect 2 Lair of the Shadow Broker (800 Allards)
September 7th: Dragon Age: Origins Witch Hunt (560 Allards)
September 7th: Rock Band Snoop Dog 8 Single Tracks (160 Allards per track)
Xbox Live Arcade
September 8th: Plants vs. Zombies (1200 Allards)
September 8th: Dance! It’s your Stage (800 Allards)
September 15th: Sonic Adventure (800 Allards)
Square Enix has released three multiplayer add-ons for Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days. The most expensive of which is the Doggie Bag Pack, which will set you back 560 Allards on 360 or $5.99 on the PC and PS3. It includes two new maps (as well as a pre-order map), five new weapons and some new achievements/trophies. Next up is the Alliance Weapons Pack. That costs 240 Allards/$2.99 and includes seven of the pre-order weapons (expect handguns, shotguns and assault rifles). Finally, there is the Multiplayer Mask Pack. That costs 160 Allards/$1.99 and includes some new masks (surprisingly).
Rockstar has confirmed that the Liars and Cheats Pack for Red Dead Redemption will be released on the PS3 and 360 on 21st September. It will cost £7.99 on the PlayStation Network and 800 Allards on the Xbox Live Marketplace. The pack will now include content that was originally supposed to be in the “Free Roam Pack”.
That pack was supposed to be free, but it had to be merged into the paid for content because the “platform networks’ restrictions on numbers of free packs we can give away”. The industry has recently been privately bemoaning Microsoft’s anti-free DLC policy behind the scenes, and it doesn’t look like that’s going to change anytime soon.
Regardless, Liars and Cheats comes with a new competitive multiplayer mode called “Stronghold”. In it, players take turns as attack and defence teams fighting to keep/assault a stronghold (surprisingly). Also, expect some multiplayer horse races, multiplayer poker and Liar’s Dice, as well as a new explosive rifle, seven new gang hideouts and four new Hunting Grounds.
Furthermore, the DLC gives you 15 story mode characters as multiplayer character skins. There will also be new achievements/trophies to obtain.
2K Games has confirmed that the single-player story-driven Minerva’s Den downloadable content add-on for BioShock 2 will be released Tuesday, 31st August. It will set you back $9.99 on the PlayStation Network and 800 Allards on the Xbox Live Marketplace. A PC version is in the pipeline, but won’t be released until some point after the console release. The DLC has three new areas with six more Little Sisters. Apparently, you can still play it even if you haven’t finished the game.
Microsoft has announced the first downloadable content for Crackdown 2. It’s called Toy Box, and it’s due out “soon”. Apparently, Toy Box contains both free and paid for stuff. The free version contains Vehicle Tag, a level six ability reward and a “Keys to the City” mode. The premium version will set you back 560 Allards, but contains 10 new achievements, avatar awards and new vehicles/gadgets.
Keys to the City is basically the same as it was in the original Crackdown, allowing you to mess around with God Mode and Infinite Ammo. Also expect some new bits and pieces like Fly Cam, weapon spawning, the ability to freeze the time of day and to push your skills to their maximum. The new Level 6 reward is a “Thruster” ability. It gives agents built-in vertical propulsion, allowing them to activate the Wingsuit for some random flying wherever they are in Pacific City. Vehicle Tag is a new multiplayer mode where up to eight Agents have to fight it out across six arenas (Speed is the Quay, Industrial Action, Maim Street, Skid Row, Beachhead and The Sum of Human Knowledge).
A hacker group have managed to obtain Halo: Reach from Microsoft’s own website weeks before the game’s official release. The game was posted on the Xbox Live Marketplace for “internal use only” (according to our Microsoft PR contact) to download straight to Xbox 360s, similar to the past few Microsoft games (Alan Wake, Crackdown 2). Halo: Reach’s download clocks in at 7GB and is priced at a tear-inducing 99999 Allard mark, which is £856.66. However, even if you had the right amount to purchase the game, the servers will normally stop you from downloading it. The hackers managed to bypass Microsoft’s security and have now got Reach uploaded on various file sharing sites.
Ubisoft has announced that a demo for Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X. 2 will be released on the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live this week. The 360 demo will be released today, whereas the PS3 demo will be released sometime tomorrow. The demo features two single-player missions, called Interception Course and Seek And Destroy.
Interception Course has you playing as a Russian pilot, as he tries to intercept stolen aircraft across the Caucasus Mountains. In Seek And Destroy, you play as the Americans. You get to take off from a carrier in darkness and take out smuggling targets in Africa with some laser-guided bombs. H.A.W.X. 2 will be released on 3rd September for the PC, PS3 and 360.

















