The Beatles: Rock Band on shelves this September

Hey Jude, wait for September; because that’s the month when The Beatles are slated to appear on the successful musical franchise Rock Band. That’s right, a “celebration of the music and artistry of The Beatles,” The Beatles: Rock Band has chosen 09/09/09 to go live on 360, PS3 and Wii simultaneously, as announced by MTV, Harmonix and Apple Corps. yesterday. The Beatles: Rock Band would be a rebirth of the franchise with special instruments fashioned after those used by the band’s members throughout their carriers. Fans would be allowed a pick of guitar, bass, drums or mike and enjoy a gameplay taking them through the band’s legendary career. The Beatles: Rock Band would be sold as standalone game ($59.99), standalone guitars ($99.99) or even a limited edition bundle ($249.99). The game is supposed to be compatible with existing Rock Band- and other music-based games’ – peripherals. Giles Martin is onboard for the music of the game, which would be distributed by Electronic Arts. More information about the game would flow in over the course of coming months. What is known currently is that exclusive content would be shipped along with pre-orders of the game. Register on the official page for a reminder when pre-ordering begins.

Via: Kotaku

Split/Second debut trailer out; burning wheels and more

Could Burnout be history sooner than we think? Now let’s not get too excited even though last night’s outing of GameTrailers TV has given a reason to do so. Actually last night we got a very first (as in clear) look at developer Black Rock Studio’s upcoming racing title, Split/Second. The game looks very intriguing with it placing your destructive antics on the street in front of a televised audience to see and cheer. The trailer hints at a neat little originality: the players would be able to trigger real-time events on the track that could potentially crash and burn the opponents’ rides; the player too would be liable to get hurt if he’s not in complete control. Black Rock Studio has promised to upgrade our knowledge about the game in the coming week itself. Hit this space for more very soon. Till then follow the link for the scrumptious HD trailer.

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Via: Joystick

Codename Panzers: Cold War has a MP demo

Codename Panzers: Cold War by Atari is scheduled to hit the UK retailers on March 13. Its single-player demo has been online for a while now. For those who have tried and tested the game’s single player capabilities, there’s something new on the official page. The tactical RTS has a multiplayer demo to test out. The Soviets are put to test in a 522MB demo. The multiplayer demo lets you test-drive the Domination mode in the Islands of Hope map. The players are required to seize control of a nuclear weapon. All the actual units available in the game are featured in the demo as well. The Codename Panzers: Cold War’s proprietary ‘Points of Interest’ also finds adequate representation with a radar station, HQ, and a radio station, put on display to be won. The multiplayer capabilities of the full version seem to be huge with 20 different maps and three game modes to play: Domination, Co-op and Deathmatch. Get cracking to get a feel of what that all would amount to.

Via: gamershell

Hand-detailed KOF XII on PS3 and 360 this July

Some things are destined to stay the way they are. So just as Mario is supposed to be plumbing till eternity, King of Fighters is supposed to stay 2D; even though other franchises may have turned over a new leaf on the new consoles. SNK Playmore’s KOF is going to make its debut on PS3 and 360 in July (yeah, the game has been officially dated) and for the time being it will stay 2D; that despite moving to the Taito Type X2 arcade system. King of Fighters XII is however going to make a slight digression by redrawing the entire line of its characters and offering “all-new, high-resolution fighters,” along with new backgrounds. All this labor means that for the first time in its history KOF will offer only 20 playable characters; a nice way to commemorate The King- of Fighter’s 15-year anniversary. The creators are smug enough though, having put on offer hand-drawn characters and backgrounds. Fans would tell soon enough what they appreciate more: storyline and more characters or human touch!

Via: 1up

Punch-Out: Nintendo keeps it real

Wii fans waiting for Punch-Out - to be released on May 18 - would you be glad to hear about the latest from Nintendo’s camp or what! The latest info from Nintendo includes answers to several questions, both about Punch-out’s NES link and the way its controllers work. Punch-Out will put both Wii Remote and Nunchuck controllers to good use to simulate throwing punches. Nunchuk will be your left punch while Wii Remote will act as you right punch. And if you are amongst those rare lazy retro-gaming guys who want to play it old school then nintendo’s taken care of you as well. Punch-Out also gives an option of punching rivals using classic NES controller. Nintendo has also mentioned that there’s an option of earning ‘Star Punches’ that will help the player to drain rival’s life with fewer punches. Pretty old school, Huh?

Via: joystiq

Sony plans non-Sony classic content on PSP

If you have been into games since your childhood then I bet you are still big on those retro titles; nothing like that sweet nostalgia of old days. And now even Sony agrees with that. Sony wants to bring the oldies back to its PlayStation Network for PSP as downloadable content. The company’s plan is bigger than you’d have imagined; it wants to bring back the retro titles not only from PlayStation family but beyond as well. As per John Koller, US marketing head for PS hardware, Sony has been discussing a lot about reviving back catalogs so that the classics can be made available for the PlayStation Network in second half of this year itself. He says:

Free car with GTA: Chinatown Wars pre-order

Before you misinterpret the title (although chances are very limited) let me just clear up that the car is supposed to be within the game. Moving on, if you are among those who play GTA for the sake of fun then car chases and gunfights ought to be right up your alley. Doubling that fun for DS owners in the next GTA title would be a Bulletproof Infernus. But this would be only for those quick bastards who pre-order a copy of Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars on Amazon, and get a code for unlocking it in return. Also shipped would be the detailed instructions regarding just how the Infernus would be downloaded on to the DS. This sleek ride would become available in the game as soon as the Auto Merchant opens up. Rockstar has confirmed that those who miss out on a pre-order will not get the coveted bonus later on and that they’d be stuck with a regular (read bullet-prone) Infernus; if and when they are lucky enough to unlock it that is. Nintendo DS gets Chinatown Wars on March 17 so you might as well hurry up to pre-order it on Amazon. Price $34.99 only.

Via: Gamedaily

Watchmen MMO coming to iPhone

It’s like a norm these days to roll out a videogame with a movie that’s a comic book adaptation, and it’s not surprising that ‘Watchmen’ is following the lead. I know it’s pretty common and there’s nothing to report about it, but what’s uncommon about this comic-to-movie-to-game port is that it’ll be released as a Massively Multiplayer Online Game and that too for iPhone and iPod touch (another recent fad).

Microsoft kills the legendary XBox, promotes the new kid

Our friends at Microsoft have decided that you don’t need your old Xbox anymore and so they’ve announced that they won’t be repairing the outdated junk anymore. Microsoft acted real brave here as its rival is still capitalizing on a huge catalogue and cheap prices of PS2. As one would imagine, Microsoft wants you to dump that old thing and opt for the bigger and better Xbox 360 (even if you don’t want to). Microsoft will provide the services to those under warranty (which I bet aren’t many) and will continue providing other technical support, documents and content (which they stopped developing and updating a long ago). In Microsoft’s words:

Activision wins defensive lawsuit against Gibson

Last year, around this time, Gibson filed a lawsuit against Activision and a few other companies linked to Guitar Hero and Rock Band. Now the US District Court for the Central District of California has ruled out Gibson’s claims and Activision come out unscathed. Gibson had filed a lawsuit claiming that developers, publishers and retailers dealing with Guitar Hero and Rock Band violate their 1999 patent stating “a system for electronically simulating participation by a user in a pre-recorded musical performance.”

Judgement passed thoroughly disagreed with Gibson’s plea by describing gaming peripherals as “toys that represent other items.” Gibson won’t just be sobbing over this particular lost cause but also over some other lawsuits that they’ve filed against Harmonix, EA and Viacom on similar grounds. Hopefully Gibson will save itself from being ridiculed further and find some silent dark corner where no one can see them cry. But, in case, they do plan to go ahead with their nonsensical pursuit, then I bet they’d be a laughing stock alright. Obviously, unless they find a better way of convincing people that they’ve indeed been ripped off.

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Via: Engadget