GamerBytes

Where's Waldo / Wally Sneaking Onto WiiWare And DSiWare

editors@gamerbytes.com (Ryan Langley) — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 18:00:28 +0000

The elusive Waldo / Wally is coming to WiiWare and DSiWare, so says the Australian Classification board.

The popular book series recently made its way to downloadable PC game (on the Games for Windows marketplace) and also popped up on the iPhone, now it'll be coming to both Wii and DS in 3 separate "Travel Pack" selections. As the iPhone version had 12 maps with multiple scenarios, I imagine this might split them into packs of 4 maps each.

Eh, it's Waldo / Wally. It'll fit right in with the direct control of the two consoles, and hopefully it's cheap enough to warrant a quick purchase. Another example of "make a game, port it to everything".

Source: WHERE'S WALLY? THE FANTASTIC JOURNEY TRAVEL PACK 1

XBLA Update - Perfect Dark

editors@gamerbytes.com (Ryan Langley) — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 22:52:29 +0000

Perfect Dark is now available for 800 Microsoft Points. Go grab it.

Footage: 11 Minutes Of Puzzle Quest 2

editors@gamerbytes.com (Ryan Langley) — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 18:14:54 +0000

Do you want 11 minutes of jewel matching action? Gamespot are here to help.

Puzzle Quest 2 is looking great, I'd say it already looks better than Puzzle Chronicles, which Infinite Interactive developed but hasn't been released yet. Artistically it's better than anything Infinite have released, that's for sure.

I played the original game on the DS, so I'll be interested to see how if this one will work me over on a digital platform, heck I still need to go back and finish Gyromancer.

What say you reader? Ready for more Puzzle Quest? Do you have 30+ hours to kill on your console?

First Person Shooter Nexuiz Coming To Consoles

editors@gamerbytes.com (Ryan Langley) — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 18:10:31 +0000

Independent developer and publisher, IllFonic, have announced that they plan to bring PC shooter Nexuiz to consoles.

Nexuiz has been an open source project on the PC which startd in 2005, and was based on a heavily altered Quake 1 engine, which was available through GNU licensing. The game has made tremendous strides since its release from the original developer Alientrap Software, now IllFonic plan to bring it to consoles. Their plans seem similar to that of Babo: Invasion on Xbox Live Arcade last year, but Nexuiz will be coming to both XBLA and PSN.

This new version will contain a new art direction for the series but will keep the same fast paced style of the PC game. It now joins a very large list of upcoming shooters on XBLA - which already includes Monday Night Combat, Lead & Gold, Quake Arena Arcade, DOOM II and Blacklight: Tango Down just to name a few. Will this hold up against the competition, or fall on its face like Cellfactor did?

Source: IllFONIC BRINGS UNDERGROUND ARENA FPS, NEXUIZ TO CONSOLE GAMERS

In-Depth: North American Playstation Network Sales, February 2010

editors@gamerbytes.com (Ryan Langley) — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 20:43:08 +0000

[GamerBytes editor Ryan Langley examines February 2010's PlayStation Network debuts and continuing successes, with charts and leaderboard data, to find out what digital PSN titles are doing well at the start of the year.]

Back in 2008 February was the launching pad for several big titles - Flower, Noby Noby Boy and NHL 3-On-3 Arcade, but this year it's very quiet - Greed Corp and Fret Nice.

Can either of them stand up against last years titles, and how are older titles doing right now? We take a look at the PlayStation Network Top 10 for North America as well as Leaderboard statistics for a selection of popular titles to see how well games are selling on the service.

The Top 10

For February no new titles made it into the Top 10, the newest title being Hustle Kings from January which has continued to do well from its first month -- better than Inferno Pool ever did.

Marvel Vs. Capcom 2, Flower and TMNT Re-Shelled were all on sale at some point in the month, which is why all three have reappaeared on the list. Madden NFL Arcade’s resurgence is likely due to the real-life Super Bowl in the second week of the month.

In terms of PSOne classics Magic Carpet, Mass Destruction, Sorcerer's Maze, Dirt Jockey: Heavy Equipment Operator, Populous: The Beginning, Theme Park World and Grandia were all released in North America in February, but none of them made it to the Top 10. Grandia's release was at the end of the month, so it may appear on next months charts. The only PSOne classics are the standard fare - the Final Fantasy games and Resident Evil 2.

Leaderboard Statistics

We’ve had to drop a few games this month – Peggle, Peggle Nights and Topatoi are no longer viewable thanks to the PlayStation Network’s low ceiling to their Leaderboard statistics. Leaderboards can only show 1 million players across all Leaderboards of one game, so these games no longer add new players who have poor scores.

What we can see is a lot of titles still doing very well despite their age – Braid, Critter Crunch, Mushroom Wars and Tank Battles still add a lot of players each month, more-so than Xbox Live Arcade titles have in the same time frame.

Not everything is great though – Fret Nice didn’t do well at all, not even able to hit 1,000 players in the 4 weeks it was available, and Assault Heroes has continued to do poorly, not surprising since it’s such an old title ported over to the system.

Looking Forward

March will be an interesting month -- we do have the Mega Man 10 and Feeding Frenzy 2 and Wakeboard HD, it's quite a variety, but whether they will stick is something we just don't know.

First Footage Of Comic Jumper

editors@gamerbytes.com (Ryan Langley) — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 19:14:52 +0000

It appears that some Joystiq sleuths popped up over to the South by Southwest Screenburn Arcade to take a look at the Twisted Pixel booth, and low and behond - Michael Wilford was showing off the first footage of Comic Jumper in action.

Looks quite good at the moment - certainly looks like 'Splosion Man with guns. The gunplay actually reminds me of the upcoming XBLA game Shank.

According to Joystiq they'll be getting some direct feed footage later this week, so keep a look out.

Creat Studios And Tik Games Bring Wakeboarding HD To PSN

editors@gamerbytes.com (Ryan Langley) — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 18:14:54 +0000

Popular PSN publisher Creat Games have revealed their latest addition to the PlayStation Network library - Wakeboarding HD, bringing the water sport into the next generation.

From the press release:

Wakeboarding HD drops players into 20 top-velocity, water-filled levels to maneuver through tracks, perform high-flying tricks, collect bonuses and avoid dangers from exploding mines to bloodthirsty sharks. Show your skills and transform the South Pacific paradise resort into an action-packed extreme playground.

The game will retail for $14.99USD and €14.99, and will be available this week in Europe and next week in North America.

Source: PSNStores.com

Footage: Shank Reveals New Bosses, More Action

editors@gamerbytes.com (Ryan Langley) — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 16:06:58 +0000

We've seen the opening scene of Shank over and over now, but now Klei have saved us with footage of some of the later levels, and a new boss encounter.

It's still some ways away from being finished, but it's still looks pretty sweet. This versus The Dishwasher 2 is going to be pretty hardcore fight at the year's end.

Footage: Limbo (Playdead Games)

editors@gamerbytes.com (Ryan Langley) — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 14:58:49 +0000

Limbo is a strange game - a platformer set in a striking black-and-white world where you're on the search for your lost sister. It's been in development for years, but now we can get a glimpse of the game for the Xbox Live Arcade. Not a whole lot is shown, but it's piqued my interest at least.

In-Depth: Xbox Live Arcade Sales Analysis, February 2010

editors@gamerbytes.com (Ryan Langley) — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 19:19:24 +0000

[Sister site GamerBytes' editor Ryan Langley examines February 2010's Xbox Live Arcade debuts and continuing successes, with charts and leaderboard data, for a look at how XBLA titles are performing.]

February has always been a strange period for the Xbox Live Arcade - in previous years, it was the birthing ground of popular titles like 3-on-3 NHL Arcade and less likely titles like Discs Of Tron. There have been successes and failures, but much has changed since last year.

For 2010 we've seen publishers try something a little different -- we had 6 new titles this February, 5 which have a Metacritic of over 79. This included the release of Zoe Mode and OneBigGame's Chime, an inexpensive charity game, as well as the release of Introversion's Darwinia+ and The Odd Gentlemen's P.B Winterbottom..

We’ll see how they’ve done in this analysis, as well as look at the new Top 20 lists released by the Major Nelson blog:

Chiming In

The initial release for February was Zoe Mode's Chime. Its five dollar price point and charity basis ended up making it one of the better sellers for the month, but it wasn't a hit.

Bear in mind that the statistics we extracted from Leaderboards are lower than the actual sales -- they only count the 9 minute challenge and not the additional 6 and 3 minute options the game offers to the player. The game hit 6th place on the Major Nelson Top 20 in its second week, 10th on its third and then dropped out in the next week.

As a puzzle game in a crowded market we did not expect it to do all that well -- very few have as of late. We wonder if the game does not push the charity basis of the product as much as it should -- it’s just small text at the bottom of the title screen, which could easily be mistaken for disclaimer text. The file size of the game was also unnecessarily large at 800MB, which locks out owners of 20GB hard drives that are likely to be nearly full.

Darwinia

Despite being in development for a long time, as well as a publicity commute around North America to show off the game, Introversion's Darwinia+ came out with a whimper. The game hit 9th place in its first week with 3,192 players on the Leaderboards, and sat on 20th place in its second week -- only mustering 5,198 players in the first month.

It’s sad to see, and I can’t really say what they could have done differently to help make the game succeed. It’s a difficult game to get into, despite the numerous tutorials, and it certainly didn't help that there were 3 older Xbox Live Aracde games on sale the same week. But I would have expected more game sales for this well known indie developer.

Butt-Wit

We unfortunately do not have the statistics for P.B Winterbottom, thanks to the Leaderboards only being used for optional levels. But the game did hit 3rd spot on the Top 20 in its opening week and stayed at 4th place the week after. So it’s safe to say the game is doing quite well, assuming it can hold out against March’s Block Party release schedule.

The Greedy And The Lazy

The final week of the month contained three releases – Lazy Raiders, Greed Corp, and Fret Nice. Unfortunately it seems that not one of them hit it off, thanks to factors that might include poor promotion and too much choice.

Of the three, Lazy Raidersdid the best, with 2,945 players on the Leaderboards, hitting 11th place in its opening week. Despite good reviews there was not a lot of talk about the game outside of a few publications. Despite its charm, it is still a puzzle game, and a disorientating one at that.

Greed Corp received high scores in its reviews, but was ultimately somewhat lost with the releases that week. The game was unable to hit the Top 20 in its opening week and we’re unable to check the Leaderboards, as they’re multiplayer only. Much like Darwinia, Greed Corp has a deep difficulty curve and is very unconventional, which may have put some players off.

The worst performer was Fret Nice. At the end of its first week only 165 people had played the full game enough to reach the Leaderboards -- a very low statistic, considering its unique art style and being a platformer. It appears that the guitar controller gimmick was not enticing enough.

Deals Of The Week

Xbox Live Arcade titles took up all the deal-space for February, with one week sporting three titles with a “fighting game” promotion. We were able to grab the statistics for those games in the weeks they were available.

All the titles did very well during their week on sale -- all except Invincible Tiger. The Blitz-developed kung fu title did get a boost from its regular statistics -- adding 1,703 players in the week instead of just 30 players the previous week. But it wasn’t enough to get higher than 13th on the chart. All other games in the sale hit first or second place for their respective weeks.

The Major Nelson Top 20

For three of the four weeks of February, we were able to get the Top 20 Xbox Live Arcade titles from the Major Nelson blog. Through the list and our collection of weekly data, we were able to create the chart above.

While the Leaderboard data is not entirely accurate, as seen by some games with higher Leaderboard statistics than ones above it on the actual sales chart, it does give us a good understanding on what games are now selling per week. These inconsistencies can be due to players not playing their name until weeks after they bought it -- as well as multiple accounts playing on the same Xbox 360 system. Blue names are Deals Of The Week, while Red are new releases.

Trials HD is still selling incredibly well – in fact, if it weren’t for the Deals Of The Week it would have still been at the top on a number of weeks. 76,450 new players played Trials HD in the last month, and there were 43,943 new Castle Crashers players, though that number is inflated versus actual sales due to the local multiplayer aspect of the game.

Elsewhere, Peggle is still doing very well, and we can see that Marble Blast Ultra, Keflings and the first Worms are still doing incredibly well, years after release. UNO and Magic: The Gathering also staying in the Top 10 well after they came out.

Downloadable Content For Downloadable Content

Throughout February, we followed several pieces of downloadable content for XBLA games -- specifically the Peggle Nights and Trials HD DLC, which have continued to do surpass expectations.

In a recent talk by NinjaBee's art director Brent Fox regarding downloadable content, he told us that NinjaBee's DLC had not done so well in the past, and in fact didn’t make their money back on it. This is true for a lot of Xbox Live Arcade titles - but timing is key, and of course, the initial base to support it.

Games like Gripshift and the Bubble Bobble DLC probably didn’t make their money back, considering how few they sold, which is a shame. I would suggest working on DLC after you know your game has done well enough to support it -- don’t make it a requirement on the outset, no matter how much Microsoft may encourage it.

The Big List

The Big List culminates the last 100 or so releases on Xbox Live Arcade that have Leaderboards we can follow. We check the Leaderboards at the beginning and end of the month which allows us to see how games not at the top of the charts might do on a monthly basis.

The Banjo-Kazooie series, Defense Grid and Diner Dash continue to do well despite not appearing in the Top 20, but there are a lot of quality titles that have just fallen off to the wayside -- Space Giraffe, Wallace & Gromit, Penny Arcade, Madballs and Axel & Pixel are just some of the examples.

The Xbox Live Arcade is getting incredibly full, and there an awful lot of games on the way which won’t do well just because the selection is so large to choose from. This is somewhat of a change from standard retail marketplace practices, but will have to be something to be aware of in the future.

A Look Ahead

March will be interesting month for the Xbox Live Arcade with their Block Party promotion. Last year’s Days Of Arcade promotion was not as successful as the Summer of Arcade, but we’ll see if it’ll pay off this year.

Already we've seen that Toy Soldiers has done incredibly well with over 116,150 players in its first week - beating 'Splosion Man and TMNT Re-Shelled from the Summer of Arcade promotion in terms of first week Leaderboard statistics. We think Perfect Dark is set to blow things out of the water, and the Game Room will be something to keep an eye on moving forward as well. Overall, there's a lot of games to look forward to next month - and we'll see how they sell.

Sam & Max: The Devil's Playhouse Confirmed For PSN

editors@gamerbytes.com (Ryan Langley) — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 17:46:30 +0000

The news may have leaked out a little early, but now it's confirmed -- Sam & Max: The Devil's Playhouse will be coming to the PlayStation Network, and it's coming very soon.

Starting April 15th you'll be able to buy the first episode of the third Sam & Max season on PSN, or you'll be able to pre-order the full season for a slightly cheaper fee. This has worked previously on the PC via Telltale's website, but now Telltale are able to continue with this on consoles. I'm sure they wish they could have done the same for the Wallace & Gromit series on the Xbox Live Arcade.

The season will start April 15th, but in the meantime check out this Quick Look from Giant Bomb.

GDC Sees Record Attendance, Reveals 2011 Dates

editors@gamerbytes.com (Simon Carless) — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 17:17:06 +0000

Organizers of the 2010 Game Developers Conference, the world's largest industry-only event dedicated to the advancement of interactive entertainment, has announced an all-time record of 18,250 game industry professionals attending San Francisco's Moscone Convention Center for the March 9th-13th event.

Surpassing last year's total of 17,000 attendees, the event - created by the UBM Techweb Game Network, as is this website - brought together experienced game developers, publishers, deal makers, industry aspirants and working press for more than 400 lectures, panels, summits, tutorials and roundtable discussions.

Offering a full five days of content, the event also hosted an extensive Exposition floor, featuring the biggest firms in the games space alongside the Career Pavilion and associated Game Career Seminar.

Also presented were the 12th Annual Independent Games Festival, the 10th Annual Game Developers Choice Awards, Game Connection America, and more opportunities for networking, discussing business, sharing knowledge, and meeting with equally-devoted fellow developers.

Following the success of the show, organizers of the Game Developers Conference have announced that GDC 2011 will return to the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco from Monday, February 28 to Friday, March 4, 2011, with a call for lecture submissions to open this Summer.

More information on that upcoming show and the other GDC events on the calendar - including GDC Canada, GDC Online, GDC Europe and GDC Austin - will be available at the GDC news page in the near future.

Some of the highlights of this year's GDC in San Francisco include a keynote from the renowned creator of the genre-defining Civilization series, Sid Meier, entitled "The Psychology of Game Design (Everything You Know Is Wrong)." Using examples from his illustrious career, the legendary developer discussed how player motivation is tied to gamer psychology and expectations, and described how developers can strike a delicate balance between fun and difficult gameplay.

GDC 2010 also played host to the 12th Annual Independent Games Festival and the 10th Annual Game Developers Choice Awards. Pocketwatch Games' stylish co-op caper, Monaco, proved to be the big winner at the 2010 IGF, bringing in the coveted $20,000 Seumas McNally Grand Prize for Best Independent Game, as well as the award for Excellence in Design.

At the Game Developers Choice Awards, which immediately followed the IGF, Naughty Dog's Uncharted 2 attained the record for most awards won at the prestigious event, taking home the prizes for Game of the Year, Best Writing, Best Visual Art, Best Technology and Best Audio.

During the awards ceremony, an announcement via video was delivered by White House CTO Aneesh Chopra, who directly addressed GDC attendees. The video message announced the Apps for Healthy Kids contest, championed by First Lady Michelle Obama, encouraging developers to create tools and games meant to engender healthier eating and exercise habits among kids, and educate parents on their children's diets. The challenge offers $40,000 in cash prizes.

The show also offered intensive tutorials and a full lineup of summits focusing on emerging trends in the game industry. They included the AI Summit, the GDC Mobile/Handheld Summit, GamesBeat@GDC, the IGDA Education Summit, the Independent Games Summit, the Game Localization Summit, the Serious Games Summit, and a pair of extremely successful inaugural summits, the iPhone Games Summit and the Social & Online Games Summit, all of which took place on the Tuesday and Wednesday of the week, March 9-10.

"Even through hailstorms and turbulent business times, the passion, experience and sheer dedication of the gaming community really showed through this week, to make for an incredible conference," said event director Meggan Scavio. "I'm proud to see the games industry reinvigorated by the new platforms, inspiring ideas and fresh business models showcased at GDC 2010, and I hope attendees take the lessons that they learned from the event to create tomorrow’s amazing titles."

For viewing of GDC-related material after the event, the UBM Techweb Game Network's GDC Vault will offer free access to material starting in approximately two weeks time, including speaker slides, as well as synchronized video and presentations for select sponsor lectures.

In addition, some of the top lectures from GDC 2010 will be gradually posted online for free, including synchronized video, audio and slides. Finally, GDC 2010 All Access Conference pass holders will shortly be able to access hundreds of videos, audio recordings and slides from this GDC and past Game Developer Conferences.

This Week On XBLA - Perfect Dark

editors@gamerbytes.com (Ryan Langley) — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 16:47:08 +0000

But you already knew that didn't you?

While you're waiting for the game to come out on Wednesday (and for only 800MSP), you can check out the first 10 minutes of the game in the video above, thanks to Xbox Evolved.

NA Nintendo Update - Castlevania: Rondo Of Blood, Car Jack Streets And More

editors@gamerbytes.com (Ryan Langley) — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 15:28:37 +0000

If you've ever complained about the lack of Virtual Console content, now is the time to pipe down - Castlevania: Rondo Of Blood is now out for 900 Nintendo Points. Go get it.

On the WiiWare front this week we've got Rage Of The Gladiator, the first person fighting game which supports the Wii Motion Plus, and Triple Shot Sports, an iPhone sports port, for 500 Points.

For DSiWare we've got 4 titles - Battle of Giants™: Dinosaurs – Fight For Survival for 800 Points, Gameloft's Zoo Frenzy for 500 Points, Teyon's 101 MiniGolf World for 500 Points and finally Car Jack Streets from Tag Games, an enhanced port of their original mobile phone title - Car Jack Streets is essentially classic GTA on the go. Might be the one to grab this week.

Trailer: Might & Magic: Clash Of Heroes (Capy Games / Ubisoft)

editors@gamerbytes.com (Ryan Langley) — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 13:33:19 +0000

Earlier last week we pointed you to some off-screen video of Clash Of Heroes, now we've got the official trailer to gander at.

Art wise the game has taken a huge overhaul to the original DS game, and the influence of Critter Crunch's HD artwork is clearly seen. Let's hope the game will get the recognition it should on these digital platforms.