G-News

Now that communications between AMD and Havok have broken down, AMD has admitted that it’s considering buying Ageia, if the price is right. AMD’s head of developer relations, Richard Huddy, told Custom PC that ‘we’ve had that discussion, yes. It’s a discussion that goes round every three months – someone turns to me and says ‘why don’t we buy Ageia?’ and I go through the arguments about why we should and why we shouldn’t.’

Despite, Ageia’s disappointing games-support for its PhysX chip, the company’s PhysX software is free, and has accordingly been used widely, even if the PhysX hardware itself isn’t supported. As such, buying Ageia could give AMD a chance to continue to compete in the gaming physics arena now that Intel has bought Havok.

Nintendo Australia has just announced that the Wii is now officially the fastest selling console in Australia, reaching 200,000 units sold. The Wii has done this just two weeks shy of its Australian one year launch anniversary. The figure includes all consoles and handhelds. To put this into some context the last reported Wii figures were at the end of Q3 with 167,899 units sold. This means that from the start of October to now the Wii has sold 32101 units in a month and a half. The Wii continues to be a success down under with the system having surpassed the GameCube by a massive margin in less than a year on the market.

Sony has flat-out denied to CVG that it is working on the heavily-rumoured PlayStation Phone, after fresh speculation did the rounds yesterday.

Rumours were refreshed yesterday when Sony Computer Entertainment’s co-chief operating officer, Jim Ryan, reportedly told The Economic Times that convergence between Sony’s PlayStation and Ericsson arms to create a portable gaming phone was “definitely plausible”. But Sony tells CVG he was misquoted.

“Jim Ryan was in fact misquoted by the Economic Times of India about this issue,” a Sony UK spokesperson told us moments ago, adding, “We do have talks with other arms of the Sony family about various topics but I can confirm we are not currently working together on the creation of a PlayStation Phone.”

So let that be the end of those rumours… until another Sony big wig says it’d be a brilliant idea.

Microsoft somehow decided that they knew better than us and most of the gaming press what was good for Mass Effect, and wanted to limit us to 4*1 minute videos and 10 screenshots for the review of the game. Needless to say this is totally unacceptable and you guys will have to wait until the official release date here in France (Friday) to see our usual videos. We are sorry about that, but there is no way around it.”

“Well everything isn’t lost, since we have this rather nice interview from XCN for you guys.”

Blizzard is sitting pretty at the moment. Having just announced that the world’s most popular MMO, World of Warcraft, has got even more popular, with an astonishing 9.3m subscriptions across the world, the US developer can afford to employ its famous mantra “it will be ready when it’s ready” whenever it’s asked about games in development. And clearly its legion of fans wouldn’t want it any other way.

VideoGamer.com sat down for a chat with executive vice-president of product development Frank Pearce to talk World of Warcraft 2, StarCraft 2 and the mystery surrounding StarCraft: Ghost.

Tidbits from the interview:
- They are not yet ready to talk about the release date of Wrath of the Lich King.
- Warhammer Online, Age of Conan and Tabula Rasa are bringing some great new ideas to the MMO space, according to Frank Pearce.
- No concrete relase date for StarCraft 2. They’re prepared to spend as much time as required to ensure StarCraft II lives up to expectations.
- They share the desire of the community in seeing the Diablo series continue, but their focus remains on StarCraft II and Wrath of the Lich King.
- They not looking to restart console development in the near future.
- They have no plans to continue StarCraft: Ghost’ development on next-generation consoles.

When cuddly old Bob Hoskins said that it was ‘good to talk’, he was trying, in his loveable Cockney kind of way, to get us to rack up enormous phone bills. He wasn’t advocating that using endless exposition was the best way to get you into space fairing action RPG epic. He’d probably politely tell them to ’shut iiiiit’.
Eurogamer say that despite the niggles, Mass Effect is most definitely a great game with an awful lot going for it - but one that doesn’t quite deserve unquestioning praise. For what it achieves in delivering a compelling narrative and wonderful atmosphere, BioWare deserves a huge amount of credit, as there are few games that come anywhere near it in this regard.

The dialogue system, and the impact it has on individual missions and the game as a whole is exceptional, adding greatly to the potential replay value. Where it doesn’t quite hit the mark for me is in the action stakes.

Tomorrow, the PlayStation 3 celebrates its first full year of existenc. To celebrate, Sony sent us a birthday cake this afternoon - complete with party hats and festive cardboard trumpets so we could make honking noises at each other. Yes, that’s right - Sony sent US a cake and presents to celebrate ITS birthday. Now that’s generosity.

It’s been a rough first year for the PS3, but the system has come a long way since its difficult birth last November, moving a total of 5.6 million units worldwide (2 million in the US) as of Sept. 30 (according to numbers provided by Sony Computer Entertainment of America), and delivering some exceptionally strong titles over the last several months. And with the revelation that the PS3 actually outsold the Wii in Japan last week by a significant margin, it looks as though the console’s gaining some ground on its competitors.

Whatever the case, the coming year portends exciting new things for the platform, not the least of which are the releases of LittleBigPlanet and Grand Theft Auto IV. As always, we’ll keep you informed of everything that develops - but in the meantime, click the Images tab above to see more pictures of delicious PS3 birthday cake, and somewhat less delicious (but no less visually appealing) PS3 consoles.

Coming this December to a Wii near you is the latest Soul Calibur game from Namco Bandai aptly titled Soul Calibur Legends. Today, we have submitted two new trailers for your approval along with some new screenshots from the game. The trailer I have posted shows gameplay featuring the character Lloyd, and here is a link to basic gameplay featuring Seigfried and Sophita. The screenshots just speak for themselves, and to view more of them, click on this link.

Coming to the Wii in the first part of 2008 is One Piece: Unlimited Adventure, where the motley Straw Hat Pirates find themselves stranded in a mysterious land after a massive island rises to the ocean surface from underneath their pirate ship. Players must assume the role of their favorite One Piece persona and explore this newly formed terrain to uncover the secrets and powers that lie within this isle.

With the Wii remote and Nunchuck controller, players will pull, turn and swing to battle nefarious villains using each character’s own unique set of moves including Luffy’s “Gum Gum Storm” and Nami’s “Cyclone Tempo”. Now with more One Piece playable characters than ever, gamers can journey through the exclusive new storyline in Adventure Mode using one of eight Straw Hat pirates or test their skills in Survival Mode and Vs. Mode to unlock more than 40 additional playable swashbucklers. Find a bountiful booty of items, unlock special moves and costumes all in the name of acquiring the ultimate treasure.

The trailers up for grabs are ‘Battle #2?, ‘Boss’, ‘Survival’, and ‘VS’.  Click on the provided links to check them out - and on a side note, does anyone else find Chopper a bit strange?  Maybe it is just me, but that little guy has always creeped me out, especially when he turns from a cute little fawn into that big, buff, butt-kicking stag.

Joe Tung tracked down some data on the achievements that have been completed by folks whose 360s are connected to Xbox Live. Here’s some data for folks to chew on:

• Campaign Complete: Normal – Completed the Campaign on Normal Difficulty: 43.28%
• Campaign Complete: Legendary – Completed the Campaign on Legendary Difficulty: 15.14%
• Graduate: Graduated from basic training. Stick with it to earn your Spartan insignia: 66.92%
• UNSC Spartan: Promoted to Sergeant. Proven in combat, you are a Spartan: 52.07%
• The most found metagame skull? Black Eye skull with 34.26%
• The least found metagame skull? Tilt at 22.98% (Go find it, jerks! It’s one of the best skulls in the game!)
• At 6.21%, Steppin’ Razor is the hardest multiplayer Achievement to earn, with Two for One right behind it at 6.77% and Overkill nipping at its heels (6.75%)
• 8.68% of players have unlocked the Marathon Man Achievement
• 1000/1000 Gamerscore: 2.07%