Going back a couple of posts you’ll remember that there were talks of the first joint project between Square Enix and Eidos Montreal. Dues Ex 3 is that project.

“Deus Ex 3 is going to be the first project which will be a concrete product of joint effort between Square Enix and Eidos,” said D’Astous. “The cinematics—by which I mean any CGI pre-rendered cinematics — are going to be done in Tokyo by Square Enix, and that’s going to be amazing.”

Explaining the background for this announcement, D’Astous said, “It was in April when Square Enix acquired us, and by June, July I was trying to think of a project we could do together. One morning I woke up and I said, we’ll, they’re known for their cinematics, so why not get them involved with those?”

“We already have some pre-visualisations,” continued D’Astous. “The people in Tokyo are just so glad to work on it; this is the first project for them that’s a non-Final Fantasy title— they even want to work on Thief 4 too, so everyone is really excited.”

I can’t wait to see how these cinematics will turn out, as a huge Final Fantasy fan I know Square Enix will do an awesome job. And I am really looking forward to the 3rd Dues Ex.

No detail other than what the classes are called is known so far.

So to sum up all the classes the game will have:

• Trooper
• Smuggler
• Jedi Knight
• Jedi Consular

• Bounty Hunter
• Warrior
• Sith Agent
• Sith Inquisitor

The Zombie Island of Dr. Ned features new areas to explore, new missions and new enemies to kill, including Were Skags, Crawling Torsos, Exploding Tankensteins and the usual Undead.

The Jakobs Corporation would like to invire you to discover and experience the mysteries of our corporate small town known as Jakobs Cove.

Any rumours you may have heard about Were Skags, Crawling Torsos, Exploding Tankensteins and the so called “Undead” walking our streets are completely preposterous and we officially deny them all.

If those rumours turn out to be true simply purchase a firearm from the conveniently located Jakobs Brand Vending Machines and aim for the head.
Also, would you mind saving your employees? (Non-union only please.)

There you have it folks, nothing to worry about. Just buy a gun at the “conveniently located Jakobs Brand Vending Machines” and enjoy.

Xbox Punishment

A 15-year old boy from Buffalo Grove, Illinois phoned the 911 emergency service on Sunday, to find out whether his parents had to right to take away his Xbox 360 as punishment.

The conversation didn’t last long. In addition, officers went over to the boy’s residence and informed him that his parents can indeed take away his Xbox 360, and that he would do well to learn from their discipline.

There’s no detail as to what the boy did to receive his punishment.

You can read the original story here.

Larry “Major Nelson” Hryb, Microsoft’s Director of Programming for Xbox LIVE, responded to the story on his Twitter account with some good advice: “No no no NO folks. Do NOT do this.”

BioWare promised to supply Dragon Age with new DLC over the next 12 months. Following through with that promise, the latest add-on, Return to Ostgar has been announced. This add-on will release sometime during this holiday season on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC for $4.99.

Be warned SPOILER ALERT through the link…

As its name may imply, the Return to Ostagar pack revisits an early-game scene in which the infernal darkspawn overrun King Cailan and his Grey Warden entourage, after the Fereldan monarch is betrayed by his advisor, Loghain. In the add-on pack, gamers will quest for Cailan’s armor and weapons, as well as get more insight into his political agenda and secrets.

According to Activision’s internal estimates, Modern Warfare 2 has earned $550 million in the first five days of sales. $310 Million of that was earned during the first 24 hours of the game’s release and another $210 million was further made during 4 days after that. Modern Warfare 2 broke GTA 4’s 5 day sales record by $50 million.

Activision claims that Modern Warfare 2 has broken a ton of records for entertainment sales.

Catch them after the link.

• The largest reported five-day opening worldwide box office gross figures, held by Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince ($394 million)
• The largest reported five-day opening domestic box office gross figures, held by The Dark Knight ($203.8 million)
• The largest reported five-day worldwide video game sales record, previously held by Grand Theft Auto IV (6 million units, $500 million)
• The largest reported opening first-day domestic box office gross figures, held by The Dark Knight ($66.4 million)
• The largest reported first-day book sales in dollars, held by Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows ($220 million)
• The largest reported first-day worldwide video game sales record, previously held by Grand Theft Auto IV (3.6 million units, $310 million)

Apart from the whopping $550 million earned, MW 2 also managed to log 5.2 million multiplayer hours and 11 million achievements unlocked on the game’s first day.

I figured it would only be a matter of time until someone Frankensteined a hack together for a dedicated server for Modern Warfare 2. Well it has happened, a group of hackers found a way to activate the dev console in Modern Warfare 2 on the PC.

“Thanks to AgentGOD and his great work bringing the developer console back into the PC version, a whole new wave of servers are possible with vast amounts of customisation. Things such as unlimited ammo, massive experience points (10000xp for a single kill), Field of View tweaks, speed and gravity adjustments and so much more,” reads the YouTube video’s description.”

The reason for creating such a thing was not to prove that dedicated servers are better than the p2p IWNet system, but rather to tweak some game settings and make for some interesting servers.

The hackers also claim that their servers are listed as “ranked” on IWNet.

Check out the video of what can be done on these servers after the link…

Left 4 Dead in all its 8-bit glory

Remember back in the day playing your favourite game on your 8-bit NES? With the release of Left 4 Dead 2, don’t you just wish you could go back and play this game in 8-bit style? What, you do?

Well fear not, all your prayers have been answered. Budding game designer Eric Ruth has made a “de-make” of the original Left 4 dead game in full 8-bit NES awesomeness. Ruth revealed that he plans on releasing the full game for free on the PC in early January 2010. The game will support up to 2 player co-op as in the early NES days.

Valve apparently know about this project and finds it “hilarious”.

Check out the video after the link.

Square Enix recently bought over UK-based Eidos as part of an initiative to better tap into the global audience. This does not mean however that Eidos studios will be fading away. They’re currently working on new instalments such as Hitman, Tomb Raider and Thief and will join upcoming games such as Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest projects bearing the Square Enix signature.

At the Montreal Games Summit, Square Enix CEO Yoichi Wada announced that Square is working with Eidos Montreal, part of the newly absorbed Eidos, on a new game. The new Eidos Montreal project “would be the first collaboration between Square Enix and Montreal,” Wada reportedly told summit attendees. “We would like to be able to create a new title that is made by the group as one.”

Wada didn’t say what the new game was about, whether it’s going to be a new IP or just a sequel. But rest assured that this will be the first of many such collaborations.

On side note, it’s also known that Eidos Montreal is working on other high-profile projects such as Dues Ex 3 set for a 2010 release and development of Thief 4 is also underway.

I personally am very exicted about this as I am a very big fan of the Final Fantasy seriess as well as the Tomb Raider series. Could we be seing Lara Croft gaining experience and leveling up in a future Tomb Raider title?

WCG 2009 was hosted in Chengdu, China and saw gamers from all over the world come together and battle it out for the number one spot in their respected games.

Read the full article after the link.

Let’s start off with Counter Strike. I am not a big fan of this game and generally do not follow it that much, but I must add that it can be very exciting to watch (when not executing the “you camp here for 20mins strategy”).

Here are the teams that made it through to the top 16:
Millenium, Turmoil, TeG_RO, fnatic, [mTw], Team_EG, Tyloo, DuskBin, wNv.CN, [k32], tp.uSports, parallax, H2K_Gaming, Again, HellRaisers, PowerGaming.

Ok, before we carry on please note that my knowledge of CS and the respected teams playing CS is not that great. From what I can see in the group stages with my limited knowledge, the only upset was mousesports not qualifying.

In the top 16 bracket it seems fnatic went to an easy final wining all their games 2 – 0. In the 3rd game of the top 16 we saw two heavy weights taking on each other [mTw] up against TEAM_EG with [mTw] coming out the victor 2 – 1.

In the lower half of the top 16 bracket we saw team Again from Poland fighting their way through the bracket to make the finals, winning all their games 2 – 1.

Next up we had n HUGE clash with team fnatic taking on [wTw] in a semi-final game, with fnatic taking it 2 – 0.

So in the finals we had fnatic from Sweden taking on Again from Poland. I don’t think anyone saw this coming and must have been one of the biggest upsets in WCG this year, with Again beating fnatic 2 – 0 in the finals. Congratulations team Again.

Again taking WCG Counter Strike finals

Group Stages
Top 16

Next up WarCraft III.

The qualifying players from the group stages should come as no surprise, all the big names qualified.

Onto the top 16, where all my hopes and dreams came crashing down. If someone had to ask me who I see as the best WarCraft III player, my answer would be none other than the Orc player Grubby. This should come to no surprise then that I would have put money on Grubby taking WCG again this year.

My predictions saw a Grubby against Moon final. Wow, was I off. The first round of the top 16 didn’t really see any upsets. Round 2 though was a completely different story. And is where everything made a wrong turn in my predictions. Grubby got taken down 1 – 2 by SK.Lyn in a Orc mirror match up. I was hoping for some payback from Grubby’s side, as Lyn beat Grubby in the finals at BlizzCon earlier this year.

Another upset was between WeMadeFOX.Moon playing Night Elf who went up against Infi playing Human. WeMadeFOX.Moon lost 1 – 2 to Infi.

Fly100 went through to the finals with ease without losing one game. The finals saw an all chinese match up against Fly100 playing Orc and Infi playing Human. Infi came out the victor with a 2 – 1 against Fly100. I must say I never would have imagined Human taking a WCG victory. Congrats Infi.

Infi taking WCG WarCraft III finals

You can grab the WCG replays here.