Battlefield 3: Aftershock is MIA from the iOS App Store due to a lack of quality. IGN got a hold of a communique from EA, in which the publisher stated it is committed to delivering quality mobile entertainment and, therefore, decided to remove the game.

An EA spokesperson said the company is "currently re-evaluating the app" in response to the consumer feedback. Sounds like the 2.5 star rated app, which suffered complaints about its controls and multiplayer, may not return to the app arena any time soon.

Sony's Vice President and Managing Director from the UK and Ireland, Fergal Gara, talked with Eurogamer at the PS Vita launch last night in London, and said there's a lot more in store for the new handheld console. The current pricing and memory concerns are the results of "early days."

On price, for example, Gara says that the system is priced as low as Sony could get it on launch day, "not a lot above an iPod and a hell of a long way below a good tablet." Given the hardware included, Gara says Sony "priced it as attractively as we could afford to, frankly," with an eye toward creating a lasting product over the next few years.

Gara also admitted memory is a concern, with hefty downloadable games filling memory cards up quickly. Having learned from the Japanese Vita release, he says, Sony is already securing memory, chips and deals to release bigger cards in the UK, and presumably in North America as well.

Our fellow bloggers at Engadget have gotten their hands on the Blade laptop from Razer (the very first commercial fruits of that "Switchblade" concept seeded so long ago), and the unit gets some high marks, despite some significant flaws. The worst issue with the laptop seems to be the audio (the built-in speakers are so bad that Engadget suspected their unit was broken somehow), but in general the problem with the Blade seems that it's tuned for a mix of portability and performance, which means neither gets to be perfect.

Yes, the Blade is sleek and super thin for a PC laptop, but it trades on that build by being a "gaming" unit that doesn't play StarCraft 2 on its highest settings perfectly (see update). And that's something that Engadget would definitely like "the world's first true gaming laptop" to do. For the sticker price of $2,799, Razer traded a little too much performance for the admittedly impressive form factor.

But while Engadget doesn't recommend the laptop wholeheartedly, the site does praise the Blade's "bright and delectably tactile" LED buttons. The article surmises we'll see those types of controls again soon, either in Razer hardware, or units from other device manufacturers.

Update: Engadget has discovered that they didn't have the latest drivers for the graphics card, and with those, apparently Skyrim runs much better. Engadget is working on updated benchmarks, but it still seems that Razer traded in at least a little performance to make the laptop look as good as it does.

BioWare has confirmed that the Mass Effect 3 "From Ashes" DLC that leaked on Xbox Live Marketplace yesterday is one of the items included with the Collector's Edition. The extra character, mission and outfits will also be sold separately (at 800 MSP / $10) for owners of the game's standard version.

Mass Effect 3 producer Michael Gamble hit the BioWare forums to clarify some stuff surrounding the exact components of the DLC. You'll want to avoid it if you don't want to learn the identity of what we shall tactfully refer to as "the extra, downloadable person."

[Thanks, Patrick.]

It makes sense. More individuals are streaming Netflix on their consoles and, as of last summer, the Wii was used to stream Netflix most often. According to a report on AdWeek, Nintendo is working out deals with major content providers right now for the Wii's successor, the Wii U.

AdWeek's sources say that Nintendo is aiming for parity between video streaming and gaming, much like what Microsoft did with the latest version of the Xbox 360 Dashboard. Sources say Nintendo held meetings back at CES in Las Vegas focusing on sports and music -- one source in particular says that Nintendo is working with Comcast right now for cable distribution rights.

It's all pretty forward-thinking stuff for Nintendo, if true. Nintendo president Satoru Iwata recently spoke about NFC payments and microtransactions on Wii U, showing an interest in broadening the system's financial model. The Wii U will launch by "the year-end season."

So, remember how EA and Bioware are launching six copies of Mass Effect 3 into (near) space? Well, they're still doing that, and now there's a trailer about it that you can watch.

The trailer itself is not particularly informative, but the press release delivered with said trailer actually contained some cool information about the event. Specifically, students from the High Altitude Balloon Club at Texas A&M University will be assisting with each of the six launch sites around the world.

Once the event is complete, EA will be donating all of the equipment used during the publicity stunt to A&M's Aerospace Engineering department, which will then take the gear to Alaska and use it study the aurora borealis. We're glad to hear this advertising campaign will benefit a group of bright youngsters, and that EA isn't shelling out a presumably massive load of cash just to launch some games into space.

Continue Reading

When California agreed to foot the Entertainment Software Association's $950,000 legal bill accrued during its deconstruction of Brown v. EMA, we estimated the state's cumulative payout to the ESA at around $1,327,000. Once you factor in the state's own legal costs, however, California's total payout for attempting to regulate the sale of violent games to minors rings up at a cool $1.8 million, according to The Sacramento Bee.

Billable hours accrued by lawyers working for the state add an estimated $500,000 to the failed legislation's price tag, which has been slowly growing since the state decided to appeal the bill's initial injunction way back in 2007. Considering that California's budget deficit is projected to reach somewhere around $22 billion this year, two million bucks doesn't seem like all that much in comparison. It's like tossing a box of matches into a burning building: What are you gonna do, set it more on fire?

So far, 300,000 have played Tribes: Ascend in its closed beta state, Hi-Rez Studios COO Todd Harris revealed. But Hi-Rez wants more players and this Friday, the Tribes: Ascend beta will be open to all.

Before the launch of the open beta, Hi-Rez will add some additional maps and customization options to Tribes: Ascend, plus a new game mode: Arena Deathmatch. These will all be added in a patch coming, well, before Friday, we guess. Hi-Rez hasn't really said when the patch will be live.

If you're worried about player progress, don't sweat it. Your progress and unlocks will carry over to the open beta.

Continue Reading

It takes place sixty years after Amnesia: The Dark Descent at the turn of the twentieth century, yet the next game to carry the franchise's moniker will feel like familiar territory in one major respect: it is built to scare you senseless.

It's six-o-clock in the morning. My tea jolts me awake. The street outside is silent. It's serene and peaceful all around me, until I call Frictional Games designer Thomas Grip. His voice booms in my headset; he's obviously excited. This is the first time his team can talk about his upcoming project. This is how I was introduced to Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs.

Continue Reading

Tiny trucks will take their places on PS3 and Vita on March 6, when MotorStorm RC arrives on the North American PSN, letting you experience the best of the series in little toy trucks. You'll be able to download the same game on both platforms, and buying one gives you access to the other.

If you're playing on PS3, you'll get "SimulView" same-screen support (for TVs fancy enough to support it), 3D, and split-screen four-player. If you're playing on Vita, you're playing on a Vita! Wow!

Game, the UK-based games retailer, was unable to stock any of Ubisoft's Vita day-one titles, breaking the news just hours before the device's midnight launch early this morning. Game still doesn't have definite plans to carry the games, and marketing director Anna-Marie Mason explained why to Eurogamer: "You can see, there's a finite amount of space in a store." No way. Do go on.

"We can't stock absolutely everything. That's just not possible," she said. Mason didn't cite Game's financial troubles as a direct cause of the missing titles, talking past Game's store closures, layoffs, broken credit lines and the potential sale of its international branch.

One possible reason for Game's struggling sales is an influx of cheaper online retailers, but Mason said Game offers something more, citing the store's 2.5 million customers a week. "What our customers get from us, whether they shop with Game or Gamestation, is more than a sterile transaction," Mason said. "They get the opportunity to transact with us in the way they want and they get added value. Our customers will vote with their feet."

Game may stock Ubisoft's Vita launch titles in the future, Mason said, but for now it does offer the games through a "downloadable option," which we're sure will attract dozens of feet.

This is a column by Kat Bailey dedicated to the analysis of the once beloved Japanese RPG sub-genre. Tune in every Wednesday for thoughts on white-haired villains, giant robots, Infinity+1 swords, and everything else the wonderful world of JRPGs have to offer.
A PlayStation Vita will be arriving on my doorstep some time on Thursday. It will be arriving courtesy of Amazon rather than Sony, in case you're wondering, so I did in fact spend money on the thing. I do not, however, plan to purchase any games for it. At least not yet.

As I perused the list of PSP games available for download, I realized that I already had quite a few titles to choose from. So rather than try to justify spending money on Lumines or Uncharted -- both fine games but not my cup of tea -- I decided I would revisit some of my favorite PSP RPGs on the Vita's big, beautiful screen.

It's really a pity the PSP never experienced the renaissance over here that it did in Japan, since it means quality RPGs like Valkyria Chronicles 3 may never be localized. It's only thanks to XSEED that Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky ever saw the light of day in the US, as well as Vanillaware's coming North American launch for Grand Knights History. A select few have made it stateside, and I'm happy to see them available on PSN. Here are the ones that will be making their way to my Vita, and to yours as well, I hope.

Continue Reading

We've raised our expectations for portable fighting games in the last decade, especially in the past year.

The last time Namco brought Tekken to a Nintendo handheld, it produced 2002's Tekken Advance, which received praise from reviewers at the time but in hindsight was a poor facsimile of the console and arcade experience -- like the Kid Cuisine version of spaghetti and meatballs, fortified with essential vitamins and minerals, but, c'mon son, that ain't a proper meal.

Another Tekken Advance (that is to say another handheld port that's far from arcade perfect) wouldn't stand today, not when releases like Super Street Fighter IV 3D and Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 set the standard for fighting games you can play on the go. Those releases don't stop at just emulating the big screen experience; they raise the bar for what all portable titles can accomplish, online and off.

That is why Namco Bandai and Arika's Tekken 3D Prime Edition will disappoint both new and casual Tekken fans. Because while the core game -- the parts in between "Round One, Fight!" and "K.O. You win!" -- are just as great as the Tekken 6 I've played on consoles and in arcades, everything else is lacking.

Continue Reading

With the retail launch of the Vita hardware comes the arrival of three augmented reality games, using a set of six cards that look an awful lot like the ESP test cards Dr. Venkman used in Ghostbusters. I downloaded them all from the PlayStation Store today, carefully set up a camera between my face and Vita (keeping the table in view) and demonstrated all three.

Of the three, Fireworks is the definite standout. And by "standout" I mean "one I could foresee playing a second time."

[Music: "Shanghai Moon" by USK]

Dejobaan's AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! for the Awesome drops into the iOS App Store next week as AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! (Force = Mass x Acceleration). The game will launch on March 1 as a $2.99 universal app. Meaning, you pay once and play it on your iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad.

Having had some hands-on time with the mobile version recently, the iPad experience can be particularly intense. The tilt controls are super intuitive -- since you're falling and trying to avoid buildings -- and I found myself tilting my head to avoid scraping against buildings. The size of the screen and focus on the experience started making everything else around me fade away.

For a less intense, but still enjoyable game, the iPhone version feels like guiding an object through space instead of yourself.

Another gem unearthed from the Nintendo Direct event: Project Zero 2 (known as Fatal Frame 2 in the states) is headed to the Wii in Europe. We don't have many other details, the press release states rather simply that, along with Spirit Camera: The Cursed Memoir, Project Zero 2: Wii Edition "will be coming to Europe." The remake was announced for Japan back in 2010.

The release doesn't specify whether the game will see a North American release as well. Spirit Camera, a Fatal Frame spinoff, has already been confirmed for North America, so hopefully we'll have a Fatal Frame 2 announcement before too long. And, uh, since we're on the subject, how about a little Fatal Frame 4, Nintendo? Pleeease?

A new Assassin's Creed mobile game will launch in December of this year for English and Japanese audiences. The title is being developed by Ubisoft and GREE. In the same breath, GREE is teaming up with Gameloft on Gang Domination, which will be available on various smartphone devices this coming June.

So, what's GREE? Beyond being a company with way too much money, it's a mobile publisher/platform that's huge in Japan and is moving into the global marketplace, launching the GREE Platform in the second quarter of 2012. The company bought mobile social network OpenFeint last year and has offices in Tokyo, San Francisco, London, Beijing, Sao Paulo and Dubai. The company states: "GREE will continue to aggressively expand worldwide."

"GREE will continue to focus on building relationships with third party game developers and publishers as it moves towards releasing its new platform."

So, if GREE wasn't on your radar before, it appears to be a company you're going to be hearing about a lot in the near future.

Continue Reading

Real-life guitar hero Slash was in Los Angeles last week promoting a new music game called BandFuse: Rock Legends. Speaking to Joystiq, he shared some insight on what it was like to work with Activision for the immensely popular Guitar Hero series. "A lot of kids tripped out," says the former Guns and Roses guitarist, "because they were under the impression that the character in Guitar Hero was just that character. So a lot of kids trip out that I was actually a real person."

Once they found out that he was an actual person who was in an actual band, however, Slash says Guitar Hero was surprisingly effective at winning new fans. "It opened up the doors of a demographic that was way younger than me," he says. "I had no idea that would happen." He couldn't speak to the lawsuit that claims the game took advantage of his GnR connection, but he does say the game has inspired a much younger generation to check out classic rock.

As for interest going the other way, Slash says he hasn't found the time for video games -- not even his own. "I couldn't play it," he says, "because I was actually in the game and it was too surreal."

Asura's Wrath is a pile of impossibilities. It is a myth made real. It is a meticulous construction of unflappable absurdity. Asura's Wrath is a glittering, golden starchild of incredulity, and I love it. I also wish I didn't have to review it.

The strictures of a review really aren't adequate to quantify the experience waiting for players in Asura's Wrath. Of course there are mechanics and systems and gauges, all of that, and I will endeavor to explain them, but understand that what follows falls well short of fully encapsulating the experience. About 380,000 kilometers too short.

Continue Reading

Over the last few years or so, the "guitar game" genre has had one of the craziest journeys in video game history. From the huge early success of Harmonix' Guitar Hero to the company's split into Rock Band and the final proclamation that Guitar Hero was finished, the epic story of plastic instruments and the games that came with them has gone from prelude to climax to quiet hum, all in the space of a few years.

And there have already been a few "post-modern" guitar games, most notably Power Gig: Rise of the Six-String and Rocksmith, which both involve real guitars rather than their plastic counterparts, and which suggest that strumming along with real songs and strings might actually teach real musical skill (a promise that neither was able to land with great success).

And so it's interesting that Realta Entertainment Group has chosen this moment to step out with its premiere product, called BandFuse: Rock Legends. It's a music game that uses a real, live electric guitar, plugged into a video game console, as its controller. We've ... we've been down this road before, right?

Continue Reading