Weekly Digest - 08/06/09
By Jessica Citizen - Mon Jun 8, 2009 9:27am
Each week, we collate the most popular stories that we published over the past seven days, plus a lineup of the most downloaded files added in the same timeframe. That way, in case you missed something, you can catch up in one helpful little spot, every Monday morning.
While you might expect E3 to dominate (don't forget to check out all our coverage!), our top story came from a press conference the day before the expo, revealing that we should see the first part of StarCraft II before the end of the year! Sticking with Blizzard, they also had some extended WoW downtime, which affected the Oceanic realms. Everybody wanted to know about Assassin's Creed II, the new announcement of Left 4 Dead 2, and Sony's big reveal: the PSP Go.
Plus! We're giving away a copy of BioShock for PS3, complete with a limited edition Little Sister figurine!
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While you might expect E3 to dominate (don't forget to check out all our coverage!), our top story came from a press conference the day before the expo, revealing that we should see the first part of StarCraft II before the end of the year! Sticking with Blizzard, they also had some extended WoW downtime, which affected the Oceanic realms. Everybody wanted to know about Assassin's Creed II, the new announcement of Left 4 Dead 2, and Sony's big reveal: the PSP Go.
Plus! We're giving away a copy of BioShock for PS3, complete with a limited edition Little Sister figurine!
) | StarCraft II on track for a 2009 release Will we have StarCraft II by the end of the year? Sure, if Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime is to believed. He just made the announcement to a gathering of Activision Blizzard investors and media, as part of the company's pre-E3 press conference. |
) | World of Warcraft: Patch 3.1.3 hits live servers after extended maintenance Another Tuesday, another extended maintenance for numerous World of Warcraft servers which include Proudmoore, Blackrock and the oceanic realms. The extra long downtime will last from midnight to noon Pacific (4:30pm Adelaide until 4:30am tomorrow). The remaining servers receiving normal maintenance stick to the routine 3am to 11am PDT downtime schedule (between 7:30pm and 3:30am, Adelaide time). This downtime isn't all under-the-hood hardware changes. The 3.1.3 Patch deploys onto all the servers. It's a small class balancing, changing a few things to the Ulduar raid instance, along with some minor bug fixes. |
) | Assassin's Creed 2 - an amazing trailer from E3, and more! The Ubisoft press conference E3 was full of exciting announcements and trailers, but one stood out far above the rest. That, my friends is the E3 2009 trailer for Assassin's Creed 2. The trailer isn't the only news to come out of E3 regarding Assassin's Creed 2. Ubisoft have also announced a release date for the game (sooner than you'd expect, too!), and have also announced plans to make a series of short movies based on Assassin's Creed 2, with "high production values". |
) | Left 4 Dead 2 Announced Valve have officially revealed details for Left 4 Dead 2 (L4D2), as part of the Microsoft Pre-E3 Press Conference. In case you missed it, it's the sequel to last year's best-selling and critically-acclaimed co-op multiplayer zombie-shooter - and it's already looking like it's shaping up to be pretty nifty. While it was announced as part of an Xbox 360-centric lineup, I can confirm that the game is coming to PC also, and promises to set a new benchmark for co-op action games, as it becomes one of 2009's marquee titles. Don't believe me? Check out the first-look trailer. |
) | PSP Go revealed a little earlier than expected It just wouldn't be E3 without something major being leaked in the leadup to the show, right? Well, this year's shaping up to be a good'un, with footage, pictures and specs of Sony's latest handheld console making their way onto the Internets a few days before the official announcement. That's right, the long-rumoured PSP Go has been confirmed, and you'll be seeing a lot more of it this week. |
) | Star Wars: The Old Republic - New Trailer is Deceived The crowing achievement of the Sith Empire's ambitious military strategy was, without a doubt, the Sacking of Coruscant. That was the moment that changed the history of the Old Republic forever. While you might have heard of this event, you haven't really seen it until today, with LucasArts and BioWare revealing a new cinematic trailer for Star Wars: The Old Republic. Capturing the event with beautiful attention to detail and some pretty breathtaking action, the Deceived cinematic trailer is now available for your viewing pleasure. |
) | Xbox 360 Project Natal: Meet Milo Ladies and Gentlemen, I'd like you to meet Milo. He was the star of Tuesday night's Microsoft Press Conference, demonstrating the abilities of the new Xbox 360 motion-sensing Project Natal. Created at Lionhead Studios, nobody expected Peter Molyneux's fabled "something big" to be anything like this, but nobody's complaining. Check out what Peter - and Milo - have to say in this new four-minute trailer that was shown at E3. |
){kind=logo} | Left 4 Dead 2 Announced You've probably already made up your mind about Left 4 Dead 2. Either, you're thrilled that Valve are releasing a sequel to such a great game... or you're upset and a little bit cranky that they're concentrating on a new release so early, before they've "properly supported" the original Left 4 Dead. Either way, chances are you're interested in seeing just how this sequel is going to shape up, since its surprise announcement as part of the Microsoft Press Conference at this year's E3, and I've got a treat for you. Not one, not two, but five gameplay trailers from L4D2 are ready for your viewing pleasure, so pick and choose from Fire Ammo, Dock Start, Safe Room, Axe Ownage - and my weapon of choice: Frying Pan. |
) | Battlefield 1943 heads to the Coral Sea with your help Everybody, gather 'round. DICE wants you to take part in a massive community event for Battlefield 1943 when it launches this winter. They've just announced a fourth map for the game, Coral Sea, but when you buy the game, it will be locked away where you can't get to it. If you want a chance to play this new WWII map, then you'd better have your trigger finger ready - it'll only unlock when the multiplayer community has achieved 43M kills on PlayStation Network, and the same number on Xbox Live ...until that happens, you'll only have three maps to play on: Iwo Jima, Guadalcanal and Wake Island. |
 | Ubisoft's E3 Lineup Many publishers have been really helpful in this leadup to E3, providing us with a handy dandy list of all the games they'll be showing off. It pains me to announce that Ubisoft are not among that number, with no great list to be seen. I'm starting to realise though, this might actually be a good thing. Instead of swamping us with title after title at this early stage, Ubisoft have announced their press conference will be held early in the expo, and that is where they'll be unveiling their Holiday 2009 lineup plus some other unannounced titles. Icing on the cake: they'll also be demonstrating Rabbids Go Home, and revealing bits and pieces about Red Steel 2 and Assassin's Creed II. It's not all bad. |
 | Nintendo Press Conference Liveblog E3 2009 Day 2 of E3 is at hand, with everything starting off bright and early with the Nintendo Press Conference. Just like the ones held earlier, we'll be liveblogging the whole thing, so not only can you catch up on what's going on, but you get some awesomely sleep-deprived commentary from yours truly! Big N have already made a few revelations, but what else do they have up their sleeves for this week? My money's on lots of details about MotionPlus, but I'd also like to see something about Pikmin 3, even though I think it's still early days yet. And then there will be congratulatory chuckling over how well they have perfected their money-printing technique, with various levels of foreign accent. |
) | Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising - the E3 trailer has arrived! With E3 fast approaching, in the coming days you can expect to see a lot of trailers from upcoming games hit the mirror. One of the latest of these is from the upcoming military "sim" Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising. The Operation Flashpoint E3 2009 Trailer is one of these, showing off in-game footage and some of the toys would-be-soldiers will get to play with when the game finally releases in September this year. While it doesn't reveal much new about the game, the trailer is sure to make those waiting for the game happy. |
) | Xbox 360: A few more details about what's in store "The future of home entertainment has a new name: Xbox 360." It's a big call, but when you consider it in light of one of the best E3 Press Conferences in recent years, it's not that hard to believe. The Xbox 360 briefing "rocked, tweeted, revved and awakened the world to a new era of fun and entertainment" - with all eyes on the freshly-announced Project Natal controller-free gaming. Rumours had been floating around that MS were going to launch a "motion-sensing camera" type peripheral... but nobody expected Project Natal. |
) | Now Playing - E3 Special 2009: Day 2 It is the second day of E3, and it was a massive day. That makes Now Playing all the more difficult, as today we've got 87, (yes EIGHTY SEVEN) trailers from Los Angeles, and have them all on the mirror, ready to be downloaded (and streamed!). Now Playing is in a blur this evening, with so many pretty lights and stunning screenshots (and, of course, trailers) that it just has to be seen. Tonight, we'll take a look at Trinity: Souls of Zill O'll, a new PlayStation 3 exclusive from KOEI. Next, we'll take another look at the time-travelling Singularity, the next first person shooter from Raven Software. After that, we take a look at Rogue Warrior, and PROTOTYPE before finally ending today's look at E3 with Overlord II. |
) | Monkey Island to make a triumphant return to gaming Telltale Games and Lucas Arts have announced that they are currently developing not one, but two games based on the classic Monkey Island series. The first game, Tales of Monkey Island will begin in just a few short weeks, with Telltale to bring gamers a "completely new epic storyline" over five monthly episodes to be released on the PC and WiiWare. Meanwhile, it has also announced that Lucas Arts will be re-imagining the first game of the Monkey Island series in The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition, which will be released on the PC and the Xbox LIVE Arcade. |
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