Following on from the news that Saints Row 3 is in development you’ll also be pleased to know (probably) that EA are also planning more installments of popular franchises. The CEO of EA, John Riccitiello, says that recent EA releases will be “sequelable”, as if there was ever any doubt. Mercenaries 2 sold 1.9 million copies so it would be pretty stupid for EA not to have another installment in the series.

Dead Space and Mirror’s Edge will also be turned into franchises but are “not likely to be annual sequels”, which no doubt will be left up to sports games like FIFA. Spore will also have new expansion packs (meaning it will be heavily milked for moolah, like Will Wright’s other popular franchise, The Sims).

Hopefully EA’s recent lust for new IP’s will not be sated by all this upcoming sequels. The more new and excellent IP’s that EA puts out then the more my new found fondness for the publisher continues to rise.

(Via Kotaku)

Even though Saints Row 2 was released just over two weeks ago Volition have revealed that work is already underway on the next installment to the series.

“Well…durrrrrr Tom, isn’t that a given?”

Of course it’s obvious. The franchise has been pretty well received as a great alternative to GTA, but when Violation producer Dan Sutton says the series is “going to take a new direction” you have a right to start worrying.

Let’s look at GTA IV. It’s predecessor, San Andreas, was pretty crazy. You could do pretty much anything you could think of; like parachute off a mountain, drive a tank, fly a fighter jet etc. GTA IV stripped all this fun and went realistic, which, although it didn’t exactly make a bad game, it signified a big change in Rockstar’s direction. Saints Row now seems to have everything that GTA has taken away, so for Dan Sutton to say that a change of direction us going to happen for Saints Row 3 you can’t help but be a tad bit worried that we’ll have two good free-roaming action games with decent storylines and realistic gameplay on the market, but without the over-the-top fun which made the two franchises so successful.

Given Saints Row 2’s massively unrealistic approach (zombies anyone?) it would be a bit strange for Violation to do away with everything they’re known for in the next installment. Then again, people said the same thing about Rockstar…

In the mean time go out and buy Saints Row 2. Who cares about realism when you have shoot-outs in a hot dog costume?

Saints Row 3 Revealed - Gamespot.

There’s two new demos to try out on Xbox Live if you’re short of pennies in the run up to the Christmas season. They’re not the full games, of course, but you can try them out to possibly put them on your Christmas wish list. This way you can stop wishing that you could actually afford all the games coming out around now and just get someone else to buy them for you instead.  Are the two demos any good? I haven’t tried them yet so I can’t possibly comment, but I’d just like to inform you that they are now available.

Our favourite female video game character Lara Croft returns in Tomb Raider: Underworld. The reason for the ‘Underworld’ part is because the game is all about water this time around, and you’ll also be swimming through old ruins as well as doing the old fashioned Lara way of climbing all over the walls. After you’ve sat through the 1.3GB download you’ll get the chance to find out if this new take on Lara’s adventures is actually worth parting with your hard-earned cash. Hopefully it will be latter, but that’s totally up to you.

The full game arrives for Playstation 2, Playstation 3, Mobile, Nintendo DS, PC, Wii, Xbox 360 on November 21st.

Don’t laugh, but this is one game I’m actually looking forward to. Despite never touching a Banjo-Kazooie game in my life (apart from one in a McDonalds on a holiday to Florida, which didn’t really work) I’m loving the look of  Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts and what you can actually do with the game. The idea is that you’re taking part in a contest against a witch named Gruntilda for control of Spiral Mountain.  She’ll be constantly trying to stop you while you undertake challenges to preserve your home (as Gruntilda wants to build malls everywhere). Anyway, the point is that you can build things, and that’s the big pull (as with many games these days). There’s over 1,600 components that you can build vehicles with, so you can pretty much build a vehicle in any style you want.

The demo will take up 1.07GB of space and will allow you to try and the building and take on ‘Jiggy challenges’, whatever they may be.

The full game will be out for Xbox 360 on November 14th.

Try them out and tell me what you think!

I’ve been playing Far Cry 2 most of the weekend and today (it came out on Friday) and I’m kind of on the fence in regards to my impressions of it. It’s not that it’s a bad game, it’s just that there’s plenty of minor annoyances that bring it down. I’m still enjoying playing it, but I can’t seem to get around the fact that it seems a little too repetitive and may be better if it’s played in short bursts.

Let’s get the good things about the game out of the way first. Firstly, the graphics are absolutely stunning and the games recreation of Africa is superbly realistic and a pleasure to drive around in. When you’re playing on a HD screen you can’t help but let your draw drop the first time you’re driving down a jungle path with the sunlight streaming through the treetops. You’ll also find a number of wild animals wandering around the landscape - which include zebras, buffalo and gazelle, but sadly no predators - which adds an extra touch of realism to the game world.

I also like how you can approach each situation tactically. I’ve heard some complaints on the Internet that all you seem to do is attack guard posts and objectives guns blazing while tossing a few grenades or Molotov Cocktails. If you have a tactical head on you then this is simply not true. One of the techniques I often do is throw a Molotov Cocktail as I approach then go the opposite direction to the spreading fire. This way you can sneak up behind the enemy and chop into them with your machete. This isn’t the only way of course, but it’s totally up to you when deciding how to approach a situation as the game doesn’t force you to do it one way. Snipe from a distance, go in guns blazing, approach underwater, strap an IED to a jeep and jump out before it hits your objective - whatever you want! Those who say attacking is repetitive just aren’t using their brains. Moreover, the AI can often be pretty smart (although it can also be pretty stupid, such as not noticing you standing four feet away) so get used to them flanking your position and using the foliage as cover (this is both good and bad as half of the time you can’t see where the person who’s shooting at you is, but it also means you need to be constantly aware of your surroundings).

Forget tactical attacking for the moment though, as there are plenty of moments that may frustrate you. For example, it’s annoying to have to fight your way through every single guard post you come across because the guards respawn as soon as you’ve left one. Sure, you can avoid them but this often takes you even longer to get somewhere or is downright impossible due to the way the game often funnels you through these guard points. Even if you try to drive right through them it will be pretty much guaranteed that a few of the enemy soldiers will jump in a jeep or two and give chase. If you get out they’ll make this annoying revving sound as they try to run you over which, unfortunately, has happened to me a number of times. Combine all this with having to drive absolutely everywhere, which you’ll be doing a lot of while also stopping every two minutes or getting attacked by a random patrol (there are buses but they only take you to certain places, and walking is out of the question with a map as big as Far Cry 2’s) as there doesn’t seem to be any innocents in Africa. Not that I’m condoning shooting virtual innocent people of course, it just seems a bit unrealistic that Africa is only populating by gun toting factions.

Far Cry 2 adds a further touch of realism by having vehicles break down on you, which means you have to get out and fiddle with the engine. Weapons will also jam in the heat of battle and eventually explode in your hands, which means you’re better off buying new weapons before each mission as old or enemy weapons will be rusty and unreliable. Getting down to the last bar of health also means you quickly have to find some cover to pull the bullet out or put your arm back in your socket (because we all know that removing a bullet or using a syringe will magically cure all wounds!). All this is cool for the first time but can get a little tiresome when you have to climb out of your jeep in the middle of nowhere for the 300th time, but it at least makes the game a little more exciting. Furthermore, even though it’s supposed to be realistic the act of doing all these doesn’t feel that real, especially when a gun is rusting after 10 minutes of use.

Finally, there’s the multiplayer. I haven’t played all that much of it yet so it may start feeling a little better, but it’s nowhere near on par with Call of Duty 4’s excellent multiplayer mode.  It seems impossible to kill someone with a sniper rifle unless they’re standing still, but that may just mean I suck. Thankfully the game is given extra life with a powerful map editor that allows you to create pretty much any map you want and make them available to play by the rest of the community. I personally can’t wait to see the creations that come out of this, but it’s a shame that the editor is part of a multiplayer mode that isn’t really all that great.

Despite all my objections something keeps me playing Far Cry 2. Maybe it’s the freedom that’s allowed when choosing what to do next, or how to approach a particular objective. Sure, you may only be killing a lot of people and blowing things up when you actually get there but you at least get to do it in a number of different ways. It’s not perfect by any means, and is marred by repetitiveness that is only made worse by trying to mix things up every five minutes with guard posts that only become repetitive themselves. Somehow I’m still finding it fun, but only in a way that an average game can be fun while you try to get the most out of your money. Just get used to being chased across Africa while being shot at by a machine gun turret every few minutes.

Far Cry 2 is out now on PC, Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 (impressions based off this version).

Bioware - a company well known to Star Wars fans due to the excellent Knights of the Old Republic series - has announced that the new Star Wars MMO rumored a few months back will be called Star Wars: The Old Republic. The game will be set three centuries after the events of KOTOR II and will feature two opposing factions - the Galactic Republic and the Sith Empire. You won’t be forced to pick good or evil right from the start though as, like KOTR and Mass Effect, your good or evil status will evolve through the choices you make.

“Players get to come in and take the roles of heroes–or villains–at this pivotal moment where we’re starting to go back into a big galactic war,” promised Erickson. - Gamespot

There’s not much more we know yet, aside from the basic information about the story (which is apparently going to be pretty important to the game, and each class will have its own unique story). The game’s art direction will not be realistic (as you can obviously see from the screenshot above) but it will not be overly cartoon-y either. The big reason for not having spectacular realistic graphics is similar to the approach that Blizzard took with World of Warcraft. Having more simple colourful graphics means that the game will be able to work on a wide range of systems, which is part of why WoW is so popular.

Star Wars: The Old Republic will be the second attempt at creating a Star Wars MMO. Star Wars Galaxies was certainly ambitious but never quite managed to fully grasp the attention of the extensive Star Wars fanbase. Then there was the complete change to the way the game played that angered most of those still playing the game, and while the game still exists today its playerbase is tiny compared to what it could have been.

Hopefully it will be a better game than its former attempt, especially as it’s being made by the rather excellent Bioware. The game is only in development for the PC at the moment but Bioware aren’t ruling out a console release just yet.

More information:

Star Wars: The Old Republic Revealed - Gamespot.
Star Wars: The Old Republic - What we Know so Far - Kotaku.
BioWare Compares ‘Star Wars’ MMO Combat To ‘WoW,’ ‘Age of Conan’ And ‘The Force Unleashed’ - MTV Multiplayer.

Well, take a wild guess. The picture above this isn’t a hint or anything, really!

Well, ok,  I lied. The UK’s favourite video game character has been named as none other than Sonic the Hedgehog in a poll marking the launch of this year’s London Games Festival. The poll only involved 500 people, so while it’s still pretty unrepresentative of the UK population as whole it’s still pretty interesting to see the most liked characters of those who grew up with them.

Sonic gained 24% of the vote while Mario followed in a close second with 21% of the vote. Lara Croft’s boobs propped up third place with 16% while Donkey Kong drooled in fourth place with 11%.

Here’s the full list:

1. Sonic the Hedgehog (24 per cent)
2. Super Mario (21 per cent)
3. Lara Croft (Tomb Raider) (16 per cent)
4. Donkey Kong (11 per cent)
5. Pac Man (10 per cent)
6. Link (The Legend of Zelda) (5 per cent)
7. Max Payne (4 per cent)
8. Pikachu (Pokemon) (3 per cent)
9. Niko Belic (Grand Theft Auto series) (2 per cent)
10. Blanka (Street Fighter) (1 per cent)

Other (3 per cent)

If you feel like playing a game with the nation’s favourite you can always take a look at our range of Sonic titles. In my opinion 90% of them are pretty bad, so maybe it’s for the best if you just stick to the original Sonic games. Then again, there’s always the animated Sonic series if you feel like reliving Saturday mornings when you were 12 years-old (maybe that’s just me).

(Via Kotaku)

For those of you anxiously waiting for the release of LittleBigPlanet - a game that may force me to buy a Playstation 3 - you’ll be highly disappointed to know that the game has been delayed for an unspecified period of time.

The delay is due to two references to the Qu’ran which were discovered in a piece of licensed background music. Not wanting to cause any offense to religious groups (especially since the two references aren’t exactly the friendliest of quotes) Sony has recalled their entire shipments of the game so they can remove the offending material. You may wonder why they can’t just remove it in a patch, but you have to realise that not everyone connects their PS3 to the Internet so this problem will affect those people.

The game was originally due to hit stores on 24th October, but Sony said that a new date will be announced shortly. Retailers are speculating that the new date will be 14th November, but the date may be earlier than that yet.

UPDATE: There’s still no concrete release date but Sony are saying it will be ‘no later’ than the week of November 3rd.

In case you’ve missed it in your excitement about the end-of-year line-up then you may want to know that upcoming RTS Tom Clancy’s EndWar now has a demo available on Xbox Live. The demo weighs in at a hefty 1.6GB so read a book or something if you’re only on a lousy 4mb connection like myself. The demo includes a single-player tutorial and one-on-one multiplayer with matchmaking support.

Instead of using your Xbox Live headset for poor comebacks to the abuse thrown by 12 year-old Americans you’ll be able to command your troops through the power of your voice alone. That is, of course, if it is able to recognise your accent. My own mother can barely tell what I’m saying sometimes, so I’m not too confident that an army will - especially if I order them to bring me a cup of tea!

No word on a Playstation 3 demo yet but I wouldn’t be surprised if one came along.

EndWar is out on Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 on November 7th.

As I mentioned yesterday Microsoft said that those who didn’t have the hardware required to store the 128MB the NXE takes up would be offered “storage solutions”. Today Microsoft have revealed just what these “storage solutions” are.

Microsoft have launched an Xbox Storage Upgrade site for those that may encounter some problems. When you go to the site you’ll be able to input your consoles serial number and ID to see if you are eligible to take part in the program. For your troubles (and if you’re eligible) you’ll be offered either a completely free 512MB memory unit or a 20GB HDD for £12.99 (which is a steal considering they normally cost about £65). While a free memory unit is incredibly kind of Microsoft I’d go with the latter as you’ll be able to make full use of the NXE’s features with the HDD.

The offer only applies to those who own Core or Arcade systems as those who own a Premium or Elite are expected to already have a HDD (considering it comes with the console). If you’ve filled up your HDD then you can do nothing more than free up some space or buy a new HDD.

Xbox Storage Upgrade - Microsoft.

I forgot to mention this earlier but Xbox 360 owners will be pleased to know that the New Xbox Experience (NXE) will be arriving around the world on November 19th. The dashboard update will be completely free but will also be mandatory for any Xbox 360 connected to the Internet (if you don’t have Xbox Live you’re missing out on a whole lot of fun).

You’ve probably heard about most of the upgrades now - which include a totally new look, avatars, new community based games (Which is called Primetime and features games such as 1 vs 100, where you can win real prizes) and features, the ability to install games on a consoles hard drive and much more (although video sharing won’t be included straight away, despite earlier claims) - but those of you who own a Core Xbox 360 (now discontinued)  or don’t own a hard drive are probably wondering how you’ll be able to install the new dashboard. The install will weigh in at only 128MB but if you don’t own a hard drive or a 256MB memory card then you’re pretty much screwed. Even if you do own a memory card it’s a large chunk out of your available memory. While I highly recommend buying a hard drive obviously some people won’t be able to afford them, so Microsoft have to come up with a way to combat this problem. So far they had this to say;

“While we expect the majority of consumers to download the New Xbox Experience without a problem, a small percentage of Xbox 360 owners do not have enough memory to accommodate the update. To help ensure all Xbox Live members are able to download the New Xbox Experience and enjoy its new features, Microsoft will be offering storage solutions to the Xbox LIVE community. We are not sharing details of this offering yet. Be sure to check Xbox.com for more details in the coming weeks.” - Gamespot

It will be interesting to see what Microsoft means by “storage solutions”. Will Microsoft possibly send all those affected a free memory card? If so then how will they determine who has the storage and who doesn’t? Couldn’t you just claim a free one whoever you are? It’s hard to see Microsoft doing this anyway, but it won’t give Microsoft many brownie points if people have to fork out more money just because Microsoft didn’t offer in-built storage in the first place.

What about myself? Well I have a 20GB hard drive, which itself may not even be that useful in the future but it’s good enough for now.