Train2Game News: UK Top 20 – 22.10.12

In the charts this week Skylanders Giants has come in at number two, leaving FIFA 13 still sitting pretty at the top for week number four and Bethesda’s Doom 3: BFG Edition has come in at number five.

Week ending 20 October 2012

POS.  TITLE  PUBLISHER  LAST
WEEK 
1 –  FIFA 13 EA SPORTS 1
2 SKYLANDERS GIANTS SKYLANDERS
3 DISHONORED BETHESDA SOFTWORKS 2
4 JUST DANCE 4 UBISOFT 6
5 DOOM 3: BFG EDITION BETHESDA SOFTWORKS
6 POKEMON BLACK VERSION 2 NINTENDO 3
7 RESIDENT EVIL 6 CAPCOM 4
8 –  BORDERLANDS 2 2K GAMES 8
9 POKEMON WHITE VERSION 2 NINTENDO 5
10 XCOM: ENEMY UNKNOWN 2K GAMES 7
11 F1 2012 CODEMASTERS 9
12 007 LEGENDS ACTIVISION
13 THE ELDER SCROLLS V: SKYRIM BETHESDA SOFTWORKS 10
14 –  ROCKSMITH UBISOFT 14
15 PRO EVOLUTION SOCCER 2013 KONAMI 12
16 NEW SUPER MARIO BROS. 2 NINTENDO 15
17 SLEEPING DOGS SQUARE ENIX 11
18 LEGO BATMAN 2: DC SUPER HEROES WARNER BROS. INTERACTIVE 19
19 FORZA MOTORSPORT 4 MICROSOFT 13
20 GRAN TURISMO 5 ACADEMY EDITION SONY COMPUTER ENT. 16

leisure software charts compiled by Chart Track, (C)2012 UKIE Ltd

Train2Game News: UK Top 20 – 15.10.12

On Monday mornings I will now be posting the top 20 UK games chart from UKIE to keep you all updated.

 
Dishonored has come in as the highest new IP this year at number 2 but nothing can knock FIFA off the top spot for the third week running. It is interesting to see that Skyrim and Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 are still in the top 20.

Week ending 13 October 2012

POS.  TITLE  PUBLISHER  LAST
WEEK 
1 –  FIFA 13 EA SPORTS 1
2   DISHONORED BETHESDA SOFTWORKS
3   POKEMON BLACK VERSION 2 NINTENDO
4 RESIDENT EVIL 6 CAPCOM 2
5   POKEMON WHITE VERSION 2 NINTENDO
6 JUST DANCE 4 UBISOFT 4
7   XCOM: ENEMY UNKNOWN 2K GAMES
8 BORDERLANDS 2 2K GAMES 3
9 F1 2012 CODEMASTERS 5
10 THE ELDER SCROLLS V: SKYRIM BETHESDA SOFTWORKS 8
11 SLEEPING DOGS SQUARE ENIX 10
12 PRO EVOLUTION SOCCER 2013 KONAMI 9
13 FORZA MOTORSPORT 4 MICROSOFT 11
14 ROCKSMITH UBISOFT 7
15 NEW SUPER MARIO BROS. 2 NINTENDO 12
16 GRAN TURISMO 5 ACADEMY EDITION SONY COMPUTER ENT. 13
17   CALL OF DUTY: MODERN WARFARE 3 ACTIVISION
18 NBA 2K13 2K SPORTS 6
19 LEGO BATMAN 2: DC SUPER HEROES WARNER BROS. INTERACTIVE 14
20 DEAD ISLAND GOTY EDITION DEEP SILVER 16

 

Train2Game News: Mid-week round up

Five months since its release, Minecraft on the Xbox 360 is still selling 27,000 units daily. That’s an estimated 4 million copies sold, further solidifying the games legacy.

Valve’s Steam distribution service now sells software as well as games. The software is for games development. The products currently available on the store are ArtRage Studio Pro, CameraBag 2, GameMaker: Studio, 3D-Coat, 3DMark Vantage, 3DMark 11 and of course, Source Film-maker.

Halo 4 won’t be getting Kinect controls, says 343 Industries’ Frank O’Connor. His opinion is that while the motion sensor has its uses when it comes to the UI, controlling a core game is not what it’s for. Kinect will be used for Halo Waypoint however, which can be launched from in the game.

Reportedly, Arkane studios’ Dishonored will take over twenty hours to complete playing stealthily with killing no one. A brutal play through, killing anyone in your path, will take between 12 to 14 hours but that’s without exploring every nook and cranny, and knowing the solution to everything beforehand. It should take more thorough or inexperienced players longer than that.

PlayStation Europe is offering a month long internship to who ever can make the best game on LittleBigPlanet for the PS Vita. The best submission, as voted by a PlayStation judging panel, will be rewarded with a month-long internship at Swedish studio Tarsier. Games will be judged on gameplay, originality, and commercial appeal. The winner will eventually help work on official DLC for the game. To register an interest, go here.

A new mod has been developed for Crysis. The mod, StarCry, sees many different hit sci-fi shows making their way into the new user made campaign for the game. Franchises such as Stargate SG1 and Star Wars are featured in the mod.

Chasing Aurora developer, Martin Pichlmair, says that Nintendo is working hard to make the Wii U eShop friendly and open for independent developers. This opens up a whole new market with a new innovative console to work with.

World of Tanks official site, Wargaming.net, say that registration numbers have passed the 40 million mark. Players have been pouring into servers to check out the big 8.0 update, which overhauled WoT’s visuals and added proper physics. World of Tanks is one of the biggest free to play games in the world.

Cliff Bleszinski has announced he is leaving Epic. After two decades with the company he is moving on to expand his career. Whilst with the company he was responsible for games such as Jazzy Jackrabbit and the highly acclaimed Gears Of War series.

Bad Piggies, the Angry Birds spin-off from Rovio, shot to the top spot on the US iTunes App Store within three hours of launch. The firm said the game was the fastest chart-topper in the company’s history. The game is the third from the Finnish studio this year to hit the top spot within it’s first day of release. The other titles were Amazing Alex and of course, Angry Birds Space.

Train2Game News: A day at Eurogamer Expo: Part 1

On Saturday I was sent to the Eurogamer Expo held at Earl’s Court in London. I am going to give a recap of my day for anyone who couldn’t be there.

My first clue that the day was going to be a good one was seeing The Mask queuing to enter. I was surrounded by hundreds of other early entry ticket holders all eager to burst through the door and get their hands on the up coming games.

As the doors opened and we all filed in. I knew exactly what I wanted to play. I walked straight to the over 18 area to finally get my first taste of Arkane Studio’s Dishonored.

The demo gave you a good taste. I got to use the possession skill, walking around in guards bodies to sneak around, before falling out and assassinating them. The blink skill is a good mechanic, similar to that of Nightcrawler from Xmen, you can teleport short distances without being detected and get to hard to reach areas. The world its self looks beautiful and the level design is so versatile. I can not wait to get my hands on this game.

Next up I had a shot at Hitman: Absolution. Everyone who played the Square-Enix game got a little Agent 47 model, who now sits proudly on my desk. The graphics are of a very high standard and the game play is typical Hitman from what I could see. Having only played Hitman:Blood Money previously, I was happy to see the ability to peak from hiding places, which was seriously lacking in earlier games. This will probably be another one I end up getting.

After seeing highly amusing stickers that were for the iOS game Carmaggedon I had to hunt down the stand. It is a remake of the game released fifteen years ago that had so much controversy surrounding it. When the game was first released the public didn’t like the fact that you had to run over people. They had to change it to zombies or face the game being banned. Now that times have changed the game is back in all its glory, the way it should have been.

I then visited the Train2Game stand to say hello. I was happy to see many students and potential students attending. Royal Rush, the winning game from the world record winning Game Jam, made by RetroMetro, was playable at the stand. Train2Game held competitions daily, who ever got the highest score on the game was awarded a prize later in the day.

At midday it was time for the Dishonored developer session. We all took our seats and were introduced to Christophe Carrier and Dinga Bakaba from Arkane Studios. They took us through the story and some of their development ideas before doing two demos for us. The first time through they demonstrated the stealth aspects of the game, using the blink mechanic and distractions to get to the end of the level. No one was killed and he was only spotted once before disappearing out of sight. The second time was much more brutal. Killing everyone he could find using different methods. The highlight of which being the moment he froze time with a bullet in mid air, possessed the guard who had fired it and walked in front of the shot before leaving his body and unfreezing time, making the guard shoot himself.

That covers my morning at Eurogamer. There was so much to do and see through out the day I am going to have to split this in to two blogs across the day. Check back later for the continuation.

 

Train2Game News: Mid-week round up

Blizzard Entertainment released Mists Of Pandaria yesterday. The latest expansion for World Of Warcraft. Blizzard have also said that they have no fear of Windows 8 and will release games for any platform their players are on.

Avenged Sevenfold have released a new track that will feature on Call Of Duty: Black Ops 2. The song, Carry On, is the second song the band have released for a Call Of Duty game. They previously released Not Ready To Die with one of the Call Of Duty: Black Ops DLC packs.

Telltale’s five Walking Dead episodic games will be put on disc in December for Xbox360 and PS3. The game is based on the graphic novel turned TV show and through playing them myself I can say, if you are a fan of the series, play this game. You won’t be disappointed.

Nvidia’s head of cloud gaming, Phil Eisler, believes that cloud gaming could take over from consoles. He believes that consoles have one final generation in them before they die out, leaving the world of gaming in the hands of the cloud.

Ubisoft have announced that Assassins Creed 3 will not play on Windows XP. The company has released the specifications needed to play the game. There is a version for Windows 8 in the pipeline though.

Bethesda have released an animated prequel to its upcoming Dishonored. The webseries is called Tales of Dunwall and the gorgeous animated shorts are being released in three parts. The videos can be found on YouTube and they show the downfall of the in game city.

Sony Xdev are giving a small studio the opportunity to win £25,000. This new initiative, called Playstation Pioneers, will reward developers for a PlayStation Mobile game concept and will also offer successful candidates the opportunity to work alongside XDev. Further details can be found here.

An extra four titles have been added to the Humble Bundle 6. The titles are: Bit.Trip Runner, Gratuitous Space Battles, Jamestown, and Wizorb. If you have already purchased the bundle, you will get the new games added at no extra cost.

If you are attending Eurogamer this weekend you can get a special surprise when you play Company Of Heroes 2. Everyone that plays the game or attends the developer session at the event will get a code to access a future beta for the game.

Finally Train2Game will be at Eurogamer this weekend. If you are attending go and say hello, it is always nice to meet these people. I will be attending on the Saturday so if you see me feel free to talk to me. I hope everyone that attends has a brilliant time.

Train2Game News: Dishonored developer diary 1

At Eurogamer this year you will be able to play the highly anticipated Dishonored.

The new game from Bethesda looks to be a Half Life meets Assassins Creed style game.

This is the first of four developer diaries about the game. I will upload one a day leading up to Eurogamer.

Viewers must be over 18

Train2Game News: “Mostly everything successful is a sequel nowadays.” says Dishonored director

Dishonored looks like it might be on its way to becoming a success when it’s released later this year, but Zenimax visual design director Viktor Antonov believes that it’s now extremely rare for this to happen for a new IP.

He made the remarks while presenting ‘Creating Dunwall’ a session on visual development for Dishonored at Develop Conference 2012.

“Rarely in life in as a developer do you get to start a brand new IP. Mostly everything successful is a sequel nowadays.” said Antonov, who gave the audience a huge insight into the three year pre-production for Dishonored.

Arkane Studios built the visual style of Dunwall by beginning with the Great Plague of 1665, deciding to base the city on London, due to it being both familiar and exotic to those in the United States and in continental Europe. Edinburgh has also influenced design of Dunwall, with the studio taking trips to both cities.

“It’s important to go to the location you want to develop” added Antonov, who was director and concept artist for Half-Life 2.

There’s much more about Dishonored in developer videos with commentary, which you can watch right here on The Train2Game Blog.

Keep reading The Train2Game Blog for the latest news from Develop Conference.

What are your thoughts on Antonov’s comments about success? Is it really only sequels that are big successes now? Or is there still room for new IP?

Leave your comments here on The Train2Game Blog, or on The Train2Game forum.

Train2Game News: Watch two Dishonored gameplay videos with developer commentary

Get an insight into development of Dishonored in not one, but two gameplay demos with commentary from Arkane Studios Co-Creative Directors Raphael Colantonio and Harvey Smith.

Colantonia spoke to The Train2Game Blog about Dishonored at Gamescom last year.

The two videos show Colantonio and Smith discussing two different playthroughs of ‘The Golden Cat,’ a mission that tasks you with assassinating The Pendleton Brothers, two corrupt aristocrats. The first Dishonored video shows a stealthy approach to the mission, while the second sees the Arkane Studios Co-Creative Directors, commentating on a more action-based style.

Watch both videos, and listen to the commentary on two very different styles of play, below, here on The Train2Game Blog.

Dishonored Golden Cat E3 Gameplay Walkthrough — Part 1

Dishonored Golden Cat E3 Walkthrough — Part 2

Dishonored from Arkane Studios and Bethesda is scheduled for release on 12th October 2012.

There are more developer diaries, giving an insight into development of a wide variety of games, here on The Train2Game Blog.

What are your thoughts on the two different styles shown in the videos? Are you looking forward to Dishonored?

Leave your comments here on The Train2Game Blog, or on the Train2Game forum.