"I don't think it's quite done, but I heard that on the wind last year that they were trying to do it," said Knepper. "You know the whole thing with an escape, they were working on a videogame where you plot your own escape from prison."

Brash plans Prison Break [Gamespot UK via Videogamer.com]

We've also got the Capcom-published, Backbone Entertainment-developed and arcade-inspired 1942: Joint Strike (800 Microsoft Points), a top-down vertical shooter set in a "parallel" WWII era, featuring updated 3D graphics and stylized aircraft.

Both titles hit on Wednesday morning — incidentally, PlayStation Network gets 1942 on Thursday.

"Go! Go! Break Steady" and “1942: Joint Strike” launch on Xbox LIVE Arcade this Wednesday, July 23, 2008 at 9:00 a.m. GMT (2:00 a.m. PDT).

"Go! Go! Break Steady" features an original style combining rhythmic beat-matching with match-3 style puzzle game play. Choose your character and then make them dance to the beat while solving increasingly challenging puzzles. This addictive game features a unique visual style, multiplayer versus and cooperative local and multiplayer action via Xbox LIVE, and 20 different songs in a variety of genres for your character to break dance to.

Developed by Little Boy Games, Inc. and published by Microsoft, "Go! Go! Break Steady" will be available worldwide for 800 Microsoft Points and is rated E for Everyone by the ESRB.

“1942: Joint Strike” imagines a parallel world reminiscent of our own WWII era, where pilots take to the skies with stylized aircraft carriers and devastating weaponry! Inspired by the popular 80's arcade series, “1942: Joint Strike” combines classic top-down vertical shooting with updated 3D HD graphics. Take on massive waves of incoming enemies while dodging explosions and missiles! Face off with huge enemy bosses in death-defying dogfights. Recruit a wing man locally or online to pull off new “Joint Strike” attacks, combining the powers of both aircraft in one explosive barrage. With new weapons and power-ups in your arsenal, prepare to rejoin the battle!

Developed by Backbone Entertainment and published by Capcom, “1942: Joint Strike” will be available worldwide for 800 Microsoft Points and is rated E10+ for Everyone 10+ by the ESRB.

For more details on "Go! Go! Break Steady," please visit http://www.xbox.com/en-US/games/g/gogoxboxlivearcade/default.htm. For more details on “1942: Joint Strike,” please visit http://www.xbox.com/en-US/games/1/1942jointstrikexboxlivearcade/default.htm.

Leading up to last week's event all of the stuff I saw about the game made me feel like it was another shooter, albeit one set in space, but one that didn't seem to offer anything new or interesting to the formula of scary shooters.

But after spending ten minutes or so watching a demonstration and then a few minutes controlling a hapless space engineer, I've got a taste for the game.

The most defining element of the game, besides its graphically rich environment, is the way in which you have to dispatch enemies. Instead of selecting your favorite weapon and pouring ammo into the limb-sprouting Necromorphs that populate the darkened halls of the abandoned spaceship, you have to be slightly more tactical. Each form of the creature, it seemed has it's own particular weakness and a weapon that best takes advantage of that.

After watching the accompanying writers at the demo get obliterated by a varied selection of limb-waving, ceiling-scrambling aliens, I was handed over the controller to give it a try. The weapon I settled on looked like a cross between some sort of battle rifle and a pitchfork. Blue targeting lasers emitting from the prongs of the device helped me try to line up the weapon's spread with the swaying tentacles of my first opponent. A couple of misses and I settled on the empty-the-clip-into-the-abdomen method, which causes a bit of a mess, but did little more than delay my death by a few more minutes.

Dead Space, which is due out for the PC, Playstation 3 and Xbox 360, this Halloween, seems to add a level of tactical weapons use that I've rarely seen in a third-person shooter. Graphically, the weapons and their resulting damage is amazing, but whether the tactical shift will be perceived as a welcome change or an annoyance stands to be seen.

When Electronic Arts takes over a bar, they don't just throw up a bunch of gaming kiosks and a couple of Communist slogan-themed logos, they also come up with their very own list of game-themed drinks.

Here's the breakdown:

Battlefield: Bad Company: Herradura silver tequila, cointreau and fresh squeezed lime served on the rocks.

Battlefield: Heroes: Hendrick's gin, fresh rasberry, cucumber, shaken and strained, served up with a splash of kumquat dry soda.

Left 4 Dead: Fresh muddled lime wedges, mango puree, cachaca, shaken and poured over rocks.

Warhammer Online: Oronoco rum, freshly squeezed lime, simple syrup and muddled cucumbers, shaken hard poured over ice.

Dead Space: Maker's Mark, carpano antica sweet vermouth, disaronno amaretto, served up with a cherry.

Rock Band: Drink like a rockstar, Skyy citrus, fresh lemon and lime, served sparkling in a tall glass.

Skate It: Jameson, fresh lemon, ginger beer, a touch of blood orange bitters and pomegranate.

Mass Effect: Fresh basil, Lotus vodka and fresh lime juice served straight up.

DICE's free-to-play upcoming shooter features Team Fortress 2-like graphics and a definite Battlefield Lite feel, but what really captured my interest was the game's use of customization.

To create your character you have to first choose between a soldier, gunner and commando. Once you've selected the basic type of character you are playing you can go in and customize his look by adding objects to the ten provided slots. Like in many role-playing games, each slot changes a specific part of a character's look.

For instance with my character, a long mustachioed gunner, I gave him skull make up on his face, a dragon tattoo on his back, a bandolero of ammo slung from a shoulder, black pants and a peg leg. Yes, a peg leg. Really, I could have stopped playing at this point because any World War II -themed shooter that features a cartoon like art-style and the ability to slap peg legs on anyone is going to have a hard time convincing me not to play it.

But there is more. Besides customizing the look of your characters, you can also customize the way they play. By playing the game you unlock abilities which you can then bind to hotkeys, like you would in a massively multiplayer or role-playing game. The first few are typically reserved for weapons, but then you can use the rest for rechargeable powers like the ability to heal yourself, run, toughen your skin for a short time.

I didn't have tons of time to actually play the game, what with the time I spent marveling over the peg legs, but from what I saw it looks like it's going to be quite a bit of fun: A shooter that in many ways looks and feels like an RPG.

Boo me off the stage, he insisted, if I do... and then he proceeded to use the phrase.

"If it's not built from the ground up, is it a port? Not really."

Blackwood explained that before Black Box started their work on the Wii and DS versions of Skate, they had to figure out if the controls would work.

"It we couldn't get that great flick it feel, we weren't going to do it," he said.

Later on, while trying out the Wii version of the game for myself, I was told the team spent three to four months working on getting those controls right and for the most part, it felt like they succeeded.

To play the Wii version, you hold the remote flat, facing it toward the screen and then move it around as if it is the board you are standing on. The A button makes your skater push with his foot, and the B makes him hold the board. The rest is done with motion. You turn by tilting the remote side to side, manual and nose manual by tilting the remote forward or back and do tricks by snapping the remote up, to the side or in tight circles.

I was able to do quite a few tricks with the remote, including a new Kung-Fu move requires jumping up in the air and pushing both buttons at the same time, after just a few minutes with the controller. There was a slight lag between the motion and a jump, but it felt like it was something built into the game on purpose rather than a design flaw. The turning was tight and responsive and for the most part if felt like a Skate game.

One very noticeable difference is that in Skate it on the Wii there are no pedestrians. The developers explain this away by saying a series of disasters have struck the city, leaving you with a playground of upturned asphalt, broken signs and bent rails to skate in, but I suspect that some of that decision was also driven by the necessity of developing an Xbox 360, PS3 game for the Wii.

While the game will also make use of the Wii Balance Board, allowing you to steer and do manuals with it by shifting your weight, we weren't allowed to test that out at last night's event.

The game will have you leaving the city and traveling to real cities around the world to compete in skate events, the developers told me.

While the graphics certainly take a hit, the slick feel of the controls, I suspect, will more than make up for that.

I didn't get a chance to check out the DS version, unfortunately, but in the demo they showed how you will perform stunts by tracing lines across a skateboard on the touch screen. Most moves looked like they were made by drawing angles lines or open shapes, like a rough J or U, though one trick required a odd-looking loopdeloop.

During last night's EA event Richard Leinfellner, executive producer of the game and video president of developer Phenomic, walked the press through a quick co-op battle.

While Battleforge has single player and versus modes, it appears that it's really, at its heart, a cooperative game, supporting up to 12 players.

To play, players first build a deck from the cards they've collected by working through the campaign, which rewards gamers with new cards, trading online or buying booster packs.

Once the deck has been built, players use these cards to summon their armies, there are no production buildings or resource management, instead you fight to capture territories, which gives you the ability to summon larger and larger creatures.

In the demo we were shown one of the players used more of the aggressive, direct attack cards, while the other player used cards that were more about support and healing. While most of the cards we saw summoned creatures, which were then controlled like units in a typical real-time-strategy game, some of the cards were spells that did direct damage. The Inferno card, for instance, dropped comets onto an area.

Some of the game's creatures have specific abilities, for instance the Juggernaut, which is a massive creature that deals high levels of damage, also can charge it's way through enemy walls and fortifications.

The demo ended after the two players worked together to take down a sort of boss enemy. Once the enemy was defeated both players won his card, which they were then able to use in future battles. So winning a battle in campaign, gives you this permanent reward.

After the demo I tracked down Dirk Ringe, one of the development team members, to quiz him on some of the ins and outs of the game. Unfortunately, I couldn't check the game out because they were having some technical issues when I went by.

The game will support co-op up to 12 players and versus up to four. There will also be the ability to play through maps as a single player, but it doesn't sound like that's really the game's focus.

Ringe said the company plans to sell booster packs for the game starting with its launch, though you won't need to buy them if you don't want to. Essentially these packs will be a collection of random cards which might make deck building easier, but won't really give you a leg up on your competition. The game will include a robust system designed to allow gamers to permanently trade cards with one another, to bolster and fine-tune their decks. It won't support the ability to compete for cards, but players could always try the honor system.

From what I saw of the game it looks like it has quite a bit of potential, I like the idea of stripping away some of the resource management aspects of strategy gaming and making it a bit more about the combat.

The game starts off with your and three other players on a roof top behind a locked door. A nearby table is stocked with a selection of weapons, ammo and health packs. In the map we played, the first room had molotov cocktails, submachine guns, pistols and shotguns. Each player can equip a health pack, molotov cocktail, handgun and primary weapon: I went with the submachine gun.

Staying true to the zombie formula, your ammo is very limited, so survival isn't as much about clearing a room as getting through it.

After stocking up we unlocked the door, made our way down a set of stairs and were immediately attacked by a dozen or so zombies. The zombies in the game are a nice mix of the ambling Dawn of the Dead variety and the liquid fast 28 Days Later breed. The dead tend to stand around, mill in corners or, at times, crouch in pockets of shadow. Initially when they spot you they seem slow, turning to track you, but most of them got fast once they lock on and either run at you or, on occasion, actually leap across a room at you.

While there's a nice mix of zombie animation it became clear early on that certain zombies behave certain ways. Some can be killed with a single shot, others take a full clip to knock down. Some hide, others mill, some bound around the map, others come straight at you.

After pushing our way through that first home and onto the streets we wandered around the nearly empty city looking for our way out. In the game, the object is to make it from safe room to safe room, taking the time to replenish ammo and health, on your way to an evacuation point.

In my first run through with the game, I made it to the streets before my first-person shooter habits got the best of me and I made the mistake of separating from my team to see if we left any of the undead, not dead. After taking out a straggler or two I realized I was on my own and started to hot-foot it back to the team. Too late. Within minutes the once empty city was crawling with zombies and my last moments were spent standing in the bed of a pick-up truck trying desperately to shoot down the sea of zombies surrounding me with a quickly diminishing supply of ammo.

Take two went much better, knowing that we had to stick together and not dilly-dally, we managed to make it to the second safe room with almost no losses, though one of our party was taken down in the room itself before I managed to close the steel door and drop a metal bar across it.

After replenishing we made our way into a warehouse where the doors and windows blew open and zombies began to pour in. The seemingly insurmountable odds were evened a bit when one of the other gamers noticed a room blocked off by a wall of sand bags and a mounted machine gun. The three of us stayed in the room fighting off the zombies as the flooded the warehouse. At one point I found a gas can and threw it on the other side of the sand bags. Shooting it, created a wall of flames which slowed the zombie attack, but didn't stop it.

Finally we were picked off until it was just me, once more cornered and desperately trying to put off the inevitable death at the undead hands of countless zombies.

The game's graphics were amazing, pushing the Source Engine to its limits and delivering plenty of startling moments. The one off-putting thing I noticed was the gallons of blood that pour from you after an attack, it looked like, at times, that characters had a hose attached to their head or stomach, so much blood was pouring out.

There are an interesting mix of zombies in the game including a slow, fat thing that projectile vomits blood on you and explodes in a geyser of gore when you shoot them.

The balance of the game perfectly matches the feel of most zombie movies and we tended to die when we strayed from the unspoken rules of a zombie flick. Never separate, never slow down, and conserve your ammo.

Last night Electronic Arts took over the trendy San Francisco Supperclub to show off a slew of new games coming from their different labels and partners including Phenomic's Magic the Gathering meets Warcraft title Battleforge, Dead Space and Left for Dead.

Mike Quigley, EA Games Label vice president of global marketing, kicked off the event by walking the gathered press through the the games label were and reminding folks that it now includes folks like Pandemic and BioWare and partners like Valve and Harmonix.

Quigley said that EA Labels was a reminder that "sometimes you have to get back to basics" and make things all about the games again.

After showing off a three-minute montage video, Quigley called Bioware GM Ray Muzyka to the stage to talk up the PC adaptation of Mass Effect, which Muzyka called BioWare's "best game to date."

While the event didn't include Dragon Age, Muzyka said that it was "looking really sweet."

NVidia's Roy Taylor hit the stage to remind press that PC gaming was still important and pointed out that five of the games being shown off that night were computer games.

The event wrapped up with Battleforge and Skate It demos. The night gave us a chance to get hands on with a number of games including Dead Space, Battlefield Heroes, Battleforge, Skate It, Mass Effect PC and Left 4 Dead. Check back in a few minutes for all of our hands-on impressions and news.

You're still proud of yourself for figuring it out.

Someone stick a walkthrough on Gamefaqs, please. I'm busy posting.

You Have to Burn the Rope

And so we bid adieu to Harold and Game Break. You will be missed.

Don't get us wrong. We're not asking nor begging for a confrontation—we're just saying that if that little alien decides to animate, go rabid and go on an office-destroying rampage across the US, who are we to use our mad Space Invaders skills to stop him?

CUBESDAY: Win a USB Missile Launcher! [via hawtymcbloggy]

Each game piece will be based on an Atari video game — Asteroids, Centipede, Missile Command, or Star Raiders — and can have a series of rub off spots. If you can match food or Atari game prizes without uncovering a "Zap" spot, you win.

I don't imagine it would be possible to do such a promotion with the more complex, visually realistic games of today. What would you scratch? Weighted companion cubes?

You Deserve an Atari Break Today [Atari Age Magazine, scanned at Atari Museum] [Image]

The full version of the template is right here. All you need is a little glue to attach the legs, and voila, you have a little kitty that doesn't shed or ignore you (depending on which way you point him). Kim Phu

Papercraft Kotoro [Owari, thanks Frost1!]

Obviously it's in the rumor bin because it's from a forum where only one user has experienced this "problem". If it is true, all that you can do is make a trip down to Home Depot to buy some fancy soldering irons and find some one with some very tiny, steady hands. Kim Phu

Nintendo Shipping Mod-Proof Wiis in Japan ]]> Wed, 30 May 2007 09:40:00 MDT Kim Phu http://kotaku.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=264378&view=rss&microfeed=true

Deep inside the Japanese e-Capcom shopping pages is the limited edition version of the Umbrella Chronicles for the Wii. According to the product page, it will available on May 31st of this year and will contain the original game box, an instruction manual, two types of caution tape, and two keys (which I'm not even sure are really keys because of translation issues). Trying to add it to the shopping cart sends you to a page that chastises you for trying to buy an item that isn't available yet. Can't blame a girl for trying, can you? Kim Phu

BIOHAZARD Umbrella Aluminum BOX [Capcom via Gamebrink]

I wholly attribute this to my Minstrel, Calibran, standing in the square in Michel Delving in the middle of the night playing the Rugrats theme song on my clarinet, and I will refute anyone's claims to the contrary with my harp version of Fly Me To The Moon.

I'm certainly enjoying the game, which while not entirely unlike World of Warcraft has more than it's fair shire of innovations to keep things fresh. It'll be interesting to see how the reception of LOTRO affects the MMO market in the long run. Could this be the game that finally breaks Blizzard's domination? Michael Fahey

THE LORD OF THE RINGS ONLINE IS THE #1 SELLING PC GAME ACROSS NORTH AMERICA AND EUROPE

10th May, 2007 - Today, Turbine, Inc., Midway Games Inc. and Codemasters Online Gaming announced that The Lord of the Rings Online : Shadows of Angmar is the #1 selling PC title across North America and Europe based on the most recent industry reports. The Lord of the Rings Online has outsold all other PC games across North America, Germany, United Kingdom and France according to data from NPD (NA), Chart-Track (UK), GfK (France) and Media Control (Germany).

In addition to soaring sales, The Lord of the Rings Online (LOTRO) has been enthusiastically received by gaming critics around the globe:

The New York Times proclaimed LOTRO as "a major achievement of interactive storytelling, the first game truly worthy of the 'Lord of the Rings' franchise and a must-play for just about anyone with an interest in Tolkien or the future of online entertainment."
GameSpy awarded the game its prestigious Editor's Choice award with 4.5 out of 5 stars.
Computer and Video Games, a leading UK gaming site, rated the game a 9.2 out of 10 and said "LOTRO presents a stunning and evocative world of Tolkien magic to explore."
GameDaily, a leading US gaming site, rated the game a 9 out of 10 and calls the game "a hot contender for PC game of the year."

"This outstanding start sets the stage for a bright future," said Jeffrey Anderson, president and CEO of Turbine, Inc. "This is only the beginning as we embark on an incredible journey with our players to expand the world of Middle-earth with the release of regular content updates."

"Following the most successful North American pre-order program in Midway's history, The Lord of the Rings Online is off to a great start," said Steve Allison, chief marketing officer, Midway. "As the positive reports and reviews continue to come in, gamers are settling into the game and experiencing Middle-earth as never before."

"The fabulous response from consumers and the media has been overwhelming," said David Solari, Vice President and General Manager of Codemasters Online Gaming. "It's been a great launch, but it's only the beginning for us. We look forward to rapid growth and welcoming thousands more to Middle-earth!"

###

This is proof that no matter how many times some one explains the concept of Second Life, no one really understands it. I know that most medias want to capitalize on it, but why use Second Life in a commercial and try to use it as leverage in the Netherlands? People have a real, um, "natural" hunger for snack foods here. Kim Phu

Get a (Third) Life [Adverblog]

VH1 Games Harold Goldberg, who I hear once dated Jade Raymond, had a chance to sit down with Jon Bon Jovi recently to talk about Electronic Arts' Arena Football: The Road to Glory.

To summarize the Q&A:

JBJ isn't a gamer, but played a touch of Pong and loved pinball and his kids love video games.

Anyone who loved pinball, and how could Jon Bon Jovi not be a huge pinball fan, I mean look at that hair, is A-OK in my book. Brian Crecente

Exclusive: Jon Bon Jovi: Old School Gamer? [Game Break]

Just got back from the hand specialst's office. Apparently, the punch snapped the neck of my fifth metacarpal, pushing the head of the bone back 45 degrees. Just for reference, zero degrees is normal.

The doctor had to manually reposition the bone. Just a warning, if a doctor ever asks if you are ready while holding your pancake flattened pinkie between his two hands, the answer is always "no."

After a very loud pop and some grinding noises, and a brief moment of hovering on just this side of pain-enduced oblivion, I had my fourth knuckle back.

I have to go back in two weeks to see if the bone stayed upright or pins are required, and then I'll be getting a cast for a month, but I think the worst of my stupidity is done.

I was in a panic, after having the second splint put on, what with Guitar Hero 2 about to be released, but I can still strum with what's left of my right hand, so I'm solid. Brian Crecente

Ps. Yes, that really is my x-ray.

Xbox Live Marketplace
The Xbox Live Marketplace blade is getting a make-over making it easier to sort through the increasingly bloated offerings that can be found through Live.

The rework will include the addition of a New Media and Entertainment menu with the following categories:
New Releases
All Media and Entertainment
Movie Trailers and Short Films
Television, Music, Sports and More
Gaming Community Videos
Game Tips and Support Videos
Optional iPod Support.

You might have noticed that "Television, Music, Sports and More" category. Yeah, it caught my eye too. Here's what it means: Unfortunately, it doesn't mean full length prime time shows. Instead they are focusing on short form shows. Like maybe previews of next week's show or the Gears of War special. Music videos will also be here.

"We are continuing to develop exclusive content," Greenberg said, when I pressed him on the issue of the chance that prime time tv or other episodic content might be sold through Live. "Anything is possible, we have the platform for it and the partners in place."

Gaming community also has some amazing possibility, but so far it looks it will be free of your buddy playing DDR. Instead expect to see things like episodes of Red Vs. Blue and tons of machinima stuff. Greenberg added that they hope to one day allow users to upload their own original content in some way.

Another Marketplace addition is the Games option. In that category you'll find newly released downloads, Xbox Live Arcade, demos, trailers and videos for games, played games and the ability to sort through your game downloads by genre.

In general, the Marketplace is getting a lot deeper with a lot more ways to sort and find content, something that certainly comes as a reaction to the explosion of interest to the service.

Background Download Manager
Active Download will allow you to download games in the background as you do other stuff. Yes that means you can play retail games, or any other "full Xbox experience" during a download. The download manager will pause downloads automatically during multiplayer experiences. You will be able to rack up, up to six downloads at a time. Once one is completed it will go to the next. And you can see where everything stands with the Background Download Manager.

"This has been our number one feature since we launched," Greenberg said.

Control Marketplace Videos
The Marketplace video you download can now be rewound or fast forwarded at 2 to 16 times normal speed. You can do this with a controller or the Xbox remote control.

"We realized that people wanted to be able to control that," Greenberg said.

Enhanced Photo Viewing
This will allow you to preserve folders on memory cards when you transfer to your 360 and also tweaks the slidesow.

Music Player and DVD Playback Improvements
On the DVD front, the upgrade will add a feature called DVD Bookmarking, which will allow your 360 to remember where you stopped watching a movie and automatically jump back to it when you slap it back in after a few hours of GRAW. You can even turn off the console or unplug it. They've also tweaked overall DVD performance.
On the music side of things, the 360 will now remember where you were while browsing through your music. Also, now when you launch your music in the background, it will continue to play no matter what you are doing, even launching a new game or hopping around through the blades.

Dashboard Boot-Up
Finally, the update will add an option that you can set-up to allow you to boot up straight into the Xbox Dashboard instead of jumping to whatever CD, DVD or game happens to be in the console's tray when you start it up.

"We think this is going to be the default most people are going to want," Greenberg said.

Friends Status Update
Now, like instant messenger, if you're away and your screensaver turns on (usually after 15 minutes), your Friends status will show you are away. It also will show how long you've been away.

Xbox Live Vision
Msoft will also be loading camera setting to the 360 so the Xbox 360 camera will be fully supported when it hits in September. You might notice some stuff in the menus you can't use, but it's there because it's embedded in the update, you might notice things like a video chat option and the ability to take your picture and use it as your Gamertag image. Woo Hoo!

Here's the best news. This entire update will take less than a minute to download and apply, according to Greenberg and it will be applied directly to the console's flash memory. That means if you don't have a hard drive you will still be able to use the update.

Msoft is still pushing people to connect to get the update, but if you really don't want to, rest assured you can still get it. Greenberg said the update will be added to new game discs in the near future.

"This is the great example of the benefits of a unified service," Greenberg said. "We are soliciting consumer feedback and I think this addresses what a lot of gamers have been looking."

He added that since the 360 launched there have been a whopping 24 million downloads. Yikes.

"Marketplace has really taken off in a major way and we are scaling up for that usage," he said.

Wow, this sounds like a fantastic update, but I can't help but wonder what sort of anti-piracy or chip-mod prevention stuff they may have stuffed in there as well. I guess we'll all see next week. Brian Crecente