XboxSold.com BLOG

The playful speculation that the North American version of Trine would hit Xbox LIVE Arcade before it made it’s way to PlayStation Network is over. This afternoon, developer Frozenbyte and publisher Nobilis Publisher announced that the bite-sized platformer hits PSN on October 22nd.

Trine was supposed to be released in July this year. Last month, Frozenbyte CEO Lauri Hyvarian pegged the reason for the gargantuan delay on physics, bugs, and “unlimited gameplay possibilities.” It apparently wasn’t an easy game to test.

Curious about Trine? Check out our review of the PC version’s single-player component.

If you believed the rumors, congratulations!

Harmonix has confirmed via its Rock Band ’zine that a Queen track pack — ten damned songs! — will be coming to Rock Band in the fourth week of October. You probably want to know what songs they are, and we’re happy to tell you:

Another One Bites The Dust, Crazy Little Thing Called Love, One Vision, Fat Bottomed Girls, I Want It All, I Want to Break Free, Killer Queen, Somebody to Love, Tie Your Mother Down, Under Pressure

So basically, all of the awesome ones you probably wanted. No word on pricing, but you can do the math based on previous releases and you’d probably get pretty close. Two weeks is plenty of time to enroll in some singing classes, or at the very least, start warming up those vocal folds.

Sega really isn’t shy of throwing Bayonetta assets around, and the latest is a very saucy Japanese commercial that features a "real life" Bayonetta sucking on a lollipop and saying "Jim Sterling, you are so sexy and you probably have a really big thingie so you should totally do me out and get it up me and make a damp mess everywhere." Her words, not mine.

A few readers have been quite cynical about Bayonetta, claiming it doesn’t look all that good. Those people are wrong about everything in life, ever, and I hereby stake my reputation on this game’s quality. If Bayonetta is released and does not meet my exacting standards, then I will write a blog titled "Sony is great and PS3 fanboys are brilliant and I love them." 

The challenge has been made. In the meantime, hit the link and watch the trailer.

[Thanks, Crunshii]

If you’re curious to see the differences between NeiR Gestalt for Xbox 360 and NeiR Replicant for PS3, then you’ll need to find a young rich Japanese widow to marry and become a citizen in the land of the Rising Sun. Only Gestalt is releasing outside of Japan, with Replicant being a Japan-only deal. At least, that’s the implication.

While not specifically stated, Japanese-to-English blog Andriasang is reporting that a Famitsu interview with executive producer Yosuke Saito "heavily implied" the international status of NeiR. Considering it’s only ever been called NeiR in the West, with no mention of a Gestalt or Replicant, it’s an implication that is quite likely true.

According to the interview, NeiR Replicant is designed to appeal specifically to the Japanese market, with Gestalt being designed with a more Western slant. This explains why the game’s titular character is younger and more effeminate in Replicant, and why the main character is his sister and not his daughter. Japan loves a girly virgin. 

In other news, NeiR will be a single-player affair, with no co-op planned. I approve of this, because I’m sick of shoehorned co-op in my action games. Also, DLC is being considered. 

So there.

Since Super Street Fighter IV news is being obnoxiously trickled out a drop at a time and nobody wants to read a new post on it every ten minutes, I’ve decided to round up some info and make it part of … whatever this thing I do on Friday is.

After the jump, you’ll find some juicy new details on the game, compiled from several different stops along the interbutts highway. I was going to post more Memebon pictures, but this is just as good, I guess. Follow on as we kick off the weekend with some fresh upda … mmm, Juri …

1. Confirmed game deets!
First up, IGN posted an interview with Yoshinori Ono, and he had some interesting tidbits to share. Here’s a little peek at some of the new stuff we’ll be seeing in SSFIV:

• A new theme song, thank God. No more "Indestructible."
• Juri plays a major role in the storyline of SSFIV, and thusly …
• Brand new opening and ending videos for every character.
• All characters will be playable from the start, including newcomers and those locked in SFIV.
• That doesn’t mean there won’t still be plenty of other things to unlock, however.
• Seth is still the final boss, and Ono says, "We’re going to make you like him even less."_{(FFFFFFUU…)}
• Online modes are "beefed up," and Ono mentions that players have been wanting to watch others fight (spectator lobbies, perhaps?)
  

While noting that he was only allowed to say so much, he made it a point to mention a few other things. He says that the existing stages have been tweaked, and that "It’d be strange" if we didn’t get some new ones, but wasn’t permitted to elaborate. He later addressed the topic of the classic bonus stages making a comeback, and said "I’m going to try really really hard this time around." Again, he’s not allowed to say for sure.

And when reminded that fans have come to expect new moves and attacks with updates like this, he replied, "we certainly have no intentions of betraying that expectation."

Ono also stated that he wants to expand the use of this engine as much as possible, and the one thing he’d most like to do with it is to build a new Darkstalkers game. I would also like this thing.

2. Character Rumors
The bulletpointed stuff you read above is official. What’s not confirmed yet is the list of remaining characters that EventHubs had listed last week. I’ve linked to this a few times before, but I’m just going to list them here because a lot of people seem to miss it. This is still rumor material, but they’ve been right so far — even about Juri and her backstory before she was revealed. Unannounced fighters rumored to be on the way are:

• Hakan: (new character) An Arabic grappler, obsessed with oil.
• Dudley (SFIII)
• Ibuki (SFIII)
• Makoto (SFIII)
• Adon (SF Alpha)
• Cody (SF Alpha 3)
• Guy (SF Alpha)

3. Arcade release hasn’t been ruled out
Next, the official SSFIV blog was updated yesterday, and Capcom’s Nakky says that an arcade release hasn’t been completely ruled out. This is very good news regarding a very bad idea. If you’re wondering why an arcade release is so important to those of us in a country where such things are all but extinct, this thread on the SRK forums and the links within it explain will the matter quite clearly.

Nakky says we should hold onto hope, and I’m inclined to agree. You can help by signing the petition under the SRK link above, and/or another one over here. I’m normally the kind of guy who laughs at petitions as an effective means of reaching game publishers, but Capcom is one of the very few companies who actually notices them. In fact, this same kind of petition is almost entirely responsible for Juri’s addition to the franchise. Speaking of …

4. Juri skin for iGoogle
The guys at Google set this up for fans of the sexy new addition to the Street Fighter universe. It’s free, of course, and it changes depending on the time of day, with different pics of the evil Korean spider lady herself. Pretty cool if you use iGoogle. They should make skins like this for everything, so I never have to stop looking at Juri.

5. I am in love with Juri
It’s true. Those sinister eyes, that seductive voice. That straight, black hair with those sharp Asian bangs … and have you seen this shit? She’s also the only female character in the game so far who doesn’t look like a dude. I’m going to marry her, and we’re going to have evil spider babies together. We will then train these evil spider babies to attack Capcom headquarters and force them to put Dudley and Ibuki in the game. You’ll want to call us and say thanks, but we’ll be too busy making more evil spider babies.

That’s how I’ll be spending my weekend, anyway. What are the rest of you up to? Let’s FRIDAY.

DJ Hero turntable controllers and Xbox 360 demo discs have made their way to eBay… and nobody is buying!

That could of course be chalked up to the fact that the starting bid for one failed auction was $300… close to two hundred dollars more than what the game will sell for at retail when it hits shelves on October 27. At the time of writing, one auction has a few hours left to go, with a starting price of $142… or you can buy it for $362. Did I mention it comes with a DJ Hero shoulder bag? 

The demo/controller combos were likely put on eBay by an enterprising retail worker; Activision recently sent demo kits out, intended for being demoed by customers, not for sale on eBay. Obviously.

The demo disc features three DJ tracks and one multiplayer guitar vs. DJ track — the final version, of course, will feature more music. The peripheral will also be wireless — wires are so last year — unlike the ones being sold here with the stinky USB cable. Heck, even the demo unit Activision sent me doesn’t have a wire!

[Thanks, Isaac!] 

If you’ve been following Lost Planet 2, you’re likely aware that the game will feature some relatively deep character customization options this time around. If not, now you know. To explain how some of these options work, Snow over at Capcom-Unity has posted a blog that details just what you can customize and how.

Weapons, for instance, are broken down into categories, and you can choose a favorite from each. Snow points out that if you prefer a shotgun for your short-range weapon, that’s what will appear on the battlefield for your character. If someone drops a different short-range weapon like a flamethrower, it’ll be a shotgun when you go pick it up. Pretty cool stuff.

The post contains further info on costumes, taunts (called Emotes in LP2), and nickname tags like those seen in SFIV. There’s also some hints and teasing on unannounced features, along with answers to some of the more popular questions about the game. It’s a fun read if you’ve been looking forward to Lost Planet 2, and you can check it out here.

Rockstar has dropped some new media on our faces showing off some of the new things we can expect from Grand Theft Auto: The Ballad of Gay Tony. In the video after the jump, we’re introduced to Armando and Henrique, two thugs you’ll be coming across during the game.

Rockstar also showed off a few new vehicles, including the APC tank. The tank has always been a big part of the Grand Theft Auto games and I was sad that there wasn’t one in Grand Theft Auto IV. Now that it’s coming in A Ballad of Gay Tony though, I’m going to spend countless hours just causing a ton of havoc on Liberty City. 

Multiplayer is going to be pretty fun with the tank too. That is if the multiplayer will be updated at all. 

For once, we are getting a videogame-based movie that actually makes a lot of sense. As reported by Variety, Fox has acquired the rights from EA to produce a Spore movie, and while few specifics are known about the film at this time, there are some names attached to the project.

"From every perspective — visually, thematically and comedically — the world of Spore provides the potential to put something truly original on the screen," says director Chris Wedge. Having previously directed Ice Age, I think he’s a suitable candidate for the gig, although he’s no Uwe Boll.

The movie is set to be produced by Blue Sky Studios, while EA Entertainment’s Patrick O’Brien and Maxis Studio’s Lucy Bradshaw will both serve as executive producers. Finally, Greg Erb and Jason Oremland (The Princess and the Frog) will be writing the script for Spore.

Out of all of the films based on EA properties that are in the works — The Sims, Army of Two, Dante’s Inferno, Dead Space, Mass Effect, and probably something else I’m forgetting — I believe this one seems like it has the most potential to be successful with its target audience.