Back in June I told you that Rockstar had decided to bring GTA: Chinatown Wars to the PSP. Rockstar dated it earlier this week – giving us a 20 October release date – but we didn’t really get any further information on the game or any screenshot showing what the game will actually look like compared to the Nintendo DS version. That has now changed, as Rockstar today released some screenshots of the upcoming PSP version.

If you compare it to the DS version then obviously the game is graphically better looking, but it’s nice to see they have kept the semi-3D top-down perspective instead of going full 3D like Liberty City Stories and Vice City Stories were. The lighting effects look to be a lot better, obviously taking advantage of the PSP’s power over the DS. Overall it is looking a lot better, but graphics aren’t everything when we still don’t know how the game will play.

The DS version made use of the touch screen through mini-games; such as smashing the window when you get trapped in a sinking car, or sorting through rubbish to find a concealed weapon. Will these mini-games disappear from the PSP version? Or will Rockstar find another way to implement them? It won’t be the same if they simply put a cursor in that you have to control with the analog or d-pad. At least we’ll get better music to make up for it, well hopefully anyway.

I guess, as I seem to say a lot these days, we’ll just have to wait and see. Hopefully it will sell more than the DS version, which is probably what prompted Rockstar to port the game to the PSP in the first place.

The game will be available in both UMD form and by download through the Playstation Network.

Earlier this week over 15,000 fans formed a Steam community group with the aim to boycott the upcoming Left 4 Dead 2 launch. Left 4 Dead 2 was a surprise announcement at E3 – especially for Valve, a company that tends to take a long time to release a sequel – annoying many fans as they felt that Valve had promised to offer continued support and new content for Left 4 Dead. By releasing a sequel only a year after the first game gamers were starting to feel a bit short changed, as Left 4 Dead doesn’t have a great deal of content and the idea was that more would be added (only the Survival Pack has been released so far). Valve has now responded to these protests.

Speaking to Kotaku Valve founder Gabe Newell defended plans for the sequel, saying that its release would not change plans for the continued support of the first game

“Doing a sequel in one year is new for Valve. But providing ongoing support for our titles after the initial launch isn’t - it has been part of our philosophy since Half-Life was released ten and half years ago,” said Newell.

“We see no reason to change that and will continue to support the over three million customers in the L4D community. Some in the community are concerned that the announcement of L4D2 implied a change in our plans for L4D1. We aren’t changing our plans for L4D1.”

“In addition to the recently released Survival Pack, we are releasing authoring tools for Mod makers, community matchmaking, 4×4 matchmaking, and more new content during the coming months for L4D1,” Newell claimed. “We also agree with our customers that there needs to be an interoperability plan for players of L4D1 and L4D2, as multiplayer games are driven by the cohesiveness of their community.”

While it’s refreshing to hear that Valve will still be supporting Left 4 Dead I still don’t understand why Valve couldn’t have just released Left 4 Dead 2 as an expansion pack instead of a fully fledged game. It’s not looking much different from the first game anyway, so it could have just been a new campaign instead. I understand that Valve need to make money but that can easily be done by charging for new content, just like the Burnout Paradise developers do.
Gabe Newell can justify it all he wants, but I’m still not sold. What’s the point in updating two products that are incredibly similar? I’m willing to bet that Valve stop creating new content for Left 4 Dead a few months after the sequel is released.

Remember APB? The MMO in development from the same guys who brought us Crackdown? No? Well, I didn’t really expect you to. In fact I only really knew about it because I wrote about it last year. Realtime World’s haven’t exactly been forthcoming with new details on the game, but now they have chosen EA’s E309 press conference to unleash a new trailer on the unsuspecting world.

Without repeating much of what I said in my earlier post APB will throw thousands of players into a city split between the warring Criminals and Enforcers. After creating your character with the incredibly deep customisation options (I have a feeling that there’s going to be a lot of semi-naked women running around if players tastes are anything like the mohawk sporting woman in the trailer above) you take to the streets to carry out missions; which may mean robbing somewhere as a Criminal or trying to stop a robbery as an Enforcer. In the end I’m sure it will just boil down to one massive firefight.

Rumour has it that the game is no longer coming to Xbox 360 and will only be released for the PC in early 2010.

Although rumours (and leaked video footage, although Relic have now said that this came from a cancelled game and parts from it have been used for this game) have been circling around on the Internet for a while now THQ and Relic have now officially announced the existence of a new Warhammer 40k game. Warhammer 40k: Space Marine will be an “Action RPG” for the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360.

The new game puts you in the incredibly huge boots of the Emperor’s glorious genetically engineered Adeptus Astartes (which are sometimes referred to as Space Marines, hence the title of the game); whom are fending off thousands of Orks that have decided to attack an Imperial planet. There’s not much more information apart from what you see in the video above; but apparently you will be engaging in large-scale conflicts whilst using devastating weapons like chainswords, bolters and even orbital strikes. All this will be splattered with WH40k’s trademark gore, but it wouldn’t be the dark evil future without it.

The 40k universe is a favourite of mine, but I do have some issues with the largely generic title that Relic have chosen. Yes, Games Workshop largely created the bald space marine types we see in a lot of video games today but I can’t help thinking that Relic could have chosen a more attractive title, considering how many similar games are out there for your average consumer. Similarly calling the game WH40k: Adeptus Astartes would appeal to the fans of WH40k, but the average person wouldn’t have a clue what that title meant. It’s a bit of a conundrum, but I hope that they rename the game before release.

Despite my concerns about the games name I am looking forward to this. Relic have a great history, having already used the 40k license in the excellent Dawn of War games, but are largely focused on the RTS genre. However, if they can channel the rich lore of the 40k universe into a decent action game then it may just be one of the biggest releases of the year - at least in my eyes!

Pre-E3 2009: Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine First Look - IGN

A few days ago I brought you word that Capcom were about to announce a new Resident Evil game specially for the Wii. Well, Capcom have now officially confirmed that not one but three new Resident Evil games are on their way to the Wii. So, Wii gamers, you can hardly complain that Capcom ignores your demands.The first game will be titled Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles, which will be a sequel to the on-rails light-gun game Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles. The story will be based around the events of Resident Evil 2, and will feature our favourite Leon S. Kennedy and Claire Redfield. The game will play the same as its predecessor, but will feature a new evade system. Capcom also promises that the game will fill in the missing pieces that Umbrella Chronicles left untouched.

The other two games are remakes of older games in the series, hence the ‘classics’ tag. The Gamecube remake of original Resident Evil - complete with zombie dogs - will come to the Wii, as will its prequel Resident Evil 0. Both will take advantage of the Wii Remote’s motion-sensing capabilities.

The Darkside Chronicles will be coming this winter, with the other two games also being released later this year.

Darkside Chronicles official, Resident Evil, RE0 Wii-makes US-bound - Gamespot

UPDATE:  Here’s a trailer for the game. It looks pretty good graphics wise, but then again the first Umbrella Chronicles didn’t exactly look awful.

First rumoured last week Army of Two: The 40th Day has now been confirmed, along with a screenshot and details about the game. The game is under development by EA Montreal and will be released for the Playstation 3, PSP and Xbox 360.

The protagonists from the first game, Rios and Salem, return to find themselves in the middle of ‘mysterious catastrophes’ occurring in Shanghai. Their task is to uncover the ‘mysterious forces’ that are causing these catastrophes and uncover the ’secrets of the 40th Day’. Well, that’s what the press release says anyway.

As usual co-op will play a big part in the game, or it wouldn’t be called Army of Two would it?

With ARMY OF TWO: THE 40th DAY, we’re pushing the tactical two-man military team into new battlegrounds offering a completely organic and rich co-op experience to deliver an action-packed co-op shooter this winter,” says Reid Schneider, Executive Producer, EA Montreal. “As chaos blankets Shanghai, China, you must rely on your partner to survive as you weave through a broken city left devastated in a mysterious wake.”

Let’s not concentrate on the totally generic story though, as these kinds of games don’t need a story worthy of Dickens. I’m always up for a new co-op game though, so I’m actually looking forward to this. I thought the first Army of Two was a pretty good game. Sure, it was nothing special but it was a decent co-op experience.

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In case you haven’t guessed from the title of this post (and the video lying above this) Rockstar have released the first official trailer of GTA: Chinatown Wars. Unfortunately there are only a few glimpses of actual gameplay, but what we can see still looks pretty interesting. The main thing is not to blink.

So, from what we can gather from the trailer (being that it pretty much tells you in the trailer), you will play as Huang Lee. Lee is out to avenge his father’s death and restore his family’s honour, which means that Rockstar just stepped even further into the realm of cliché storytelling.

Whatever the case GTA: Chiantown Wars is looking like a must buy for the DS; a handheld that has a distinct lack of anything remotely violent and adult rated. Oh, and there’s always the fact that Rockstar may cause the usual controversy by allowing the player to deal drugs.

Sounds like a great game to me!

Ubisoft revealed new details today on Techland’s upcoming Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood. Alongside these new details came a trailer (see below) and a bunch of new screenshots.

The game will follow the story of the McCall brothers across a variety of settings from “”a ravaged Civil War-era Georgia to the Aztec ruins of Mexico.” They will be able to take advantage of new weapons such as canons and machine guns, and try these out in shooting modes that are unlocked by gaining a high accuracy percentage during shoot-outs.

Co-op play will be a new feature in Bound in Blood, with players taking on the role of either one of the brothers. Depending on who you pick there will be specific abilities and weapons that only that character can use. For example, one character may be good in a long range fight while the other loves a good close range scrap. Or one will use a lasso while the other deploys dynamite. There will also be the ability to use horses, canoes and wagons.

Multiplayer wise there will be numerous modes and maps to play around in. Along with the obligatory deathmatch modes there will also be team-based objective modes, plus a new bounty system that increases a player’s bounty as their kill count rises.

The game is due out this summer, for the PC, Playstation 3 and Xbox 360. If you fancy trying out the original it’s currently a steal at £11.91.

I first mentioned that Metal Gear Solid would be making the jump to the iPhone back in December, but now we have a trailer and some further information to go along with that.

Metal Gear Solid Touch is basically a retelling of the story from Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, but from a different perspective.  From the looks of it though it’s a little more than an on-rails shooting gallery, as you’ll play the game from over Solid Snake’s shoulder and use your fingers to do all the work. You can move the reticule by sliding your finger across the screen, tap to shoot and zoom in and out by pinching the screen; which should be familiar to all iPhone owners.

Advancing through the game will also, wait for it, unlock wallpapers for use on your iPhone!!! Sounds exciting, huh? Whatever, it will still sell by the truckload…wait…truckload? The game is download only so maybe that’s the wrong word to use here, but screw it.

There’s no release date or pricing structure yet, but we should know that pretty soon.

A few days ago a viral video popped up on YouTube (see the bottom of this post). The video looked to be a viral for Dead Rising 2; which was further strengthened through the mentions of ‘Willamette Mall’ (the setting for the first game), the character Isabella, quick flashes of zombies in a casino (remember that Dead Rising 2 was rumoured to take place in Las Vegas), and a flash of ‘2′ at the end. Of course, you got the cries of ‘FAKE’ but the more intelligent of us got excited about a new sequel. Thankfully Capcom have now confirmed our ’suspicions’ that the video was for Dead Rising 2.

The game is coming to PC, Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 (yay for multi-platform!). It will take place several years after Dead Rising in a place called ‘Fortune City’, a setting that confirms the earlier rumour as a fictional re-creation of Las Vegas. Apparently the zombie virus was not contained at the end of the first game and has spread across the U.S, leading to zombie outbreaks - one of which your character will get caught up in. Notice how I say ‘your character’, as there’s no sign of Frank and his trusty camera as of yet. Check out this gallery for more images of Dead Rising 2.

I’m incredibly excited for this game, and I even hope that they keep the time system in. They do need to fix the one save at a time system though, as that was pretty ancient.

Dead Rising was one of my ‘Bargain Bin‘ choices, so if you haven’t played it yet you can now pick it up on the cheap.