XboxSold.com BLOG

Half-Life 2? Rubbish. Left 4 Dead? A stain on the history of videogames. Valve has declared that Portal 2 is its greatest triumph yet, even though it’s not even finished. Speaking with 1UP, Gabe Newell stated that it’s “pretty clear” to his internal team that the long-awaited sequel is absolutely amazing. 

“One of the nice things about The Orange Box was it allowed us to try out a couple of different things, and Portal really seemed to resonate,” explains Newell. “We got the signals that we wanted — this is what people liked; this is what people didn’t like. And to us, it was like, ‘OK now we know how to take this big,’ so that’s what we’re going to do with Portal 2.

“Oh Portal 2’s great. It’s the best game we’ve ever done.”

Usually I’d warn against hype, but if any company is good at making games live up to the PR nonsense, it’s Valve. I can’t wait to see what the team manages to do with Portal 2. If it’s the best thing Valve’s ever done, it’s probably going to be really, really good. 

Gabe Newell: Portal 2 is “The Best Game We’ve Ever Done” [1UP]

Fans are railing against 2K Games after it was suspected that the newly released BioShock 2 DLC, the Sinclair Solutions Test Pack, wasn’t really downloadable content, but a mere key to unlock stuff already hidden on the disc. Like Namco Bandai does all the time. 

Suspicions were aroused thanks to the small file size of the alleged download. The file is 108kb on Xbox 360, and 24kb on PC, which is pretty damn tiny. Naturally, people are upset to think that 2K is taking the piss out of them, and one poster on the official forums believes that it should be labeled “unlockable content” rather than downloadable content to reflect its true nature. 

Honestly, publishers  should be held to some advertising standards when it claims that unlockable extras are DLC. If you’re merely purchasing a key to activate something on the disc, that’s not downloadable content, and it’s wrong for companies to advertise it as such. Whether 2K has gone this controversial route or not remains to be seen, but it does throw this issue back to the fore, and it’s something that I believe should be examined. 

What about you? Do you believe that unlockable content should not be called DLC, or do you think that it’s fine to have such content masquerade as a download?

BioShock 2 DLC already on disc? [CVG]

The Sony Wiimote, codenamed PlayStation Move, was revealed in all its glory at GDC, and Peter Molyneux isn’t impressed. Claiming to have not been surprised (and who could, really?), the game designer and Microsoft thrall declared that Move was not as big a step as Project Natal.

“We’re not really surprised, are we?” says Molyneux. “I mean, at E3 last year we saw they were having a wand, and that’s kind of what I expected. It looks like they’ve taken a step forward but it’s not as big a step as something like Natal, I don’t think. This is purely me talking personally, but I think maybe it’s slightly more a device for the core than it is for the casual market, because I think it’s quite precise.

“As a designer it’s another one of those things I’d love to get my hands on and to play around with. As a consumer, everyone’s talking about motion control now — I mean, I’m starting to get confused. It’s kind of like the arms race, with the Wii MotionPlus and now the Sony Move and now I’m getting kind of confused.”

Molyneux makes a fine point here. I don’t know about anybody else, but I already have a Wii, and I didn’t buy the PS3 because I wanted another one. I’m not fond of Sony’s current plan to cram Move into all of its games, and I’m not keen to see the PS3 turn into a more expensive Nintendo system. Frankly, I don’t think all the consumers who bought into the Wii craze will rush out and buy another one either.

Peter Molyneux’s Question Time [Eurogamer]

Telltale Games isn’t done with the Sam & Max adventure series. The studio has announced the third downloadable season, “The Devil’s Playhouse,” which looks to begin hitting in monthly increments starting on April 15th.

Perhaps more startling is the fact that Telltale is set on plopping the new 5-part season onto PSN. As revealed last afternoon via press release, and during their shindig at GDC a foggy night ago, the series premiere, “The Penal Zone,” will debut on PSN as well as the PC and Macintosh. Check below the fold for the first trailer, which teases a bit of the series’ story. Spoiler: it has something to do with Max getting psychic abilities.

For a few years now, Nintendo of American and Nintendo of Europe have used Japan’s fireworks-based holiday, the Hanabi Festival, as an excuse to release Japan-only Virtual Consoles games in their respective regions. That’s how we got Sin and Punishment here in the States, as well as the baby-powered platformer Bio Miracle Bokutte Upa, the oily-buttock powered Cho Aniki, and that weird sequel to Milon’s Secret Castle that no one liked.

Looks like Nintendo Europe is continuing the Hanabi tradition this year with a few pretty kick-ass games. Well, maybe “kick-ass” is a little strong. The NES port of Lode Runner isn’t all that great, but Iron Clad for the Neo Geo is pretty awesome if you like weird steampunk shmups. The real star of the show is Castlevania Rondo of Blood. Long considered one of the greatest games in the Castlevania series, this Virtual Console release will be an unaltered replica of the Japanese original; no text translation, no English voice-acting, nothing. For a purest like myself, that’s totally awesome.

The festival kicks off in Europe on March 12th. Wait, isn’t that in an hour?

I HATE YOU, EUROPE.

Europe- Hanabi Festival 5 Starts Friday [Nintendaan]

Kojima Productions just tweeted some footage from Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker’s first mission, titled “For Starters: A Solo Sneaking Mission,” and you can watch it embedded after the cut.

And indeed, the toys at Naked Snake’s disposal for this PSP-based outing are impressive, ranging from the familiar tranquilizer darts and chaff grenades to more intriguing gadgets like an invisibility blanket, inflatable dummies, and the Fulton Recovery Device, a balloon that can be attached to a fallen comrades (or potential recruits)to whisk them to safety.

Visually the game is looking great, and sports a minimalist, vertically-oriented HUD. Some of the actions that were added with Metal Gear Solid 4 also seem to be present. 

The real highlight of the footage is when Snake enacts the Metal Gear equivalent of a CARE package kill. That alone makes it worth playing.

As a follow-up to last night’s announcement that Capybara is bringing Might and Magic: Clash of Heroes to PlayStation Network and Xbox LIVE Arcade, we have more scrumptious screenshots and even a trailer of the new high-def look.

More than anything else, I opted to post about this because thinking about how effing adorable baby capybaras look — see the attached picture for overwhelming proof — is something I want to do as much as humanly possible.

And secondly, because commenter HEL 105 said he “played the tits off” the DS version in Hamza’s post yesterday; that made me chuckle. On a related note, I am in fact a five-year-old.

Today I had the privilege of attending a GDC talk by Yoshio Sakamoto of Nintendo*, who is perhaps most famous for his work on the Metroid series. He divulged many of the secrets behind his history as a producer and gamemaker, including quite a few about the upcoming Metroid: Other M. The most interesting one? While developing the control scheme, there was one thing he was unwilling to budge on: he wanted Samus to “move along a rail”.

Yep, that’s right. His original vision was for Other M to be on-rails, and it would have been if it had not been for Team Ninja.

In disagreement about rails being the best way to go, they first suggested using the Nunchuk, but Sakamoto was very adamant about using the sideways Wiimote scheme. But then they proposed a system where Samus could move freely in a full 3D environment using the control pad. Sakamoto tested this scheme, said it “worked perfectly”, and was finally swayed to change his mind.

What do you think, Metroid fans? Are you glad Team Ninja stepped in, or would you have rather seen Sakamoto’s full vision come to fruition?

* a full summary of this talk is coming soon!

Today I had the privilege of attending a GDC talk by Yoshio Sakamoto of Nintendo*, who is perhaps most famous for his work on the Metroid series. He divulged many of the secrets behind his history as a producer and gamemaker, including quite a few about the upcoming Metroid: Other M. The most interesting one? While developing the control scheme, there was one thing he was unwilling to budge on: he wanted Samus to “move along a rail”.

Yep, that’s right. His original vision was for Other M to be on-rails, and it would have been if it had not been for Team Ninja.

In disagreement about rails being the best way to go, they first suggested using the Nunchuk, but Sakamoto was very adamant about using the sideways Wiimote scheme. But then they proposed a system where Samus could move freely in a full 3D environment using the control pad. Sakamoto tested this scheme, said it “worked perfectly”, and was finally swayed to change his mind.

What do you think, Metroid fans? Are you glad Team Ninja stepped in, or would you have rather seen Sakamoto’s full vision come to fruition?

* a full summary of this talk is coming soon!

[UPDATE: To clarify, Sakamoto meant a side-scrolling rail game, a-la Klonoa.]