Crispy Gamer News

You just can’t keep a good god down these days. While Sony has already been teasing God of War 3 and the series’ debut on the PS3 ever since the release of God of War 2, short of a teaser image and a blink-and-you’d-miss-it clip from E3, there hasn’t been much word coming out of Mt. Olympus on the further adventures of Kratos. That all changed last night, as Sony unveiled the game’s first gameplay trailer during the Spike TV Video Game Awards in Los Angeles, along with new game details released to the press this morning.

Developed by Sony Computer Entertainment’s Santa Monica Studios, God of War 3 is set to cap the epic story of the Spartan Kratos, as he slices and dices a path of revenge through the pantheon of Greek gods who have betrayed him. According to Sony, God of War 3 is being developed on a scale that is four times larger than Kratos’ last outing in God of War 2 on the PS2.
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Like those pesky dentists from the chewing gum ads, it looks like three out of four holiday shoppers preferred the Xbox 360 to the PS3 on Black Friday. The 360 had record-breaking console sales on one of the biggest shopping weekends of the year over the Black Friday weekend. According to Microsoft, the 360 outsold its PlayStation 3 competitor by a 3:1 ratio, with an estimated 25 percent increase from Xbox 360 Black Friday sales figures over last year. 360 sales were also bolstered by strong software sales, with the console maintaining its record as the console with the highest game attach rate of any console, clocking in 8.1 games per console.

“We entered into the Black Friday sales period with cautious optimism, knowing that dollar for dollar, Xbox 360 offers more social entertainment value than any other console on the market,” said Don Mattrick, senior vice president of the Interactive Entertainment Business at Microsoft. “Record Black Friday sales in the U.S., coupled with our existing global install base of 25 million and an online community of more than 14 million Xbox LIVE members, have laid the groundwork for continued global sales momentum in 2009.”

Xbox 360 sales have also surged worldwide since the September price drop, outselling the PlayStation 3 week over week across Europe. Console sales in Europe are up as much as 400 percent, with sales nearly double year over year and reaching 7 million consoles sold this generation. With a starting price point of $199.99 worldwide (estimated retail price) for the Xbox 360 Arcade, a strong game lineup, the launch of the New Xbox Experience, and the addition of Netflix integration to the console, it’s looking more and more like the 360 may be the console to beat this holiday season. Well, at least until Nintendo amps up its shipments of Wii consoles to retail.

Japanese hardware sales for Nov. 3 - Nov. 9 shot that the new Nintendo DSi is doing pretty well in the region, beating out every other platform out there including the usually impressive PSP. The DSi sold 104, 897 units during the week, followed in the distance by the PSP at 40, 726 units, the Wii at 24, 726, the PS3 at 18, 354 and Xbox 360 at 12, 759. The good old DS Lite, one the standard bearer of Nintendo’s hand-held business in Japan, is the real victim here; the system moved a meager 8, 381 units, only beating out the PS2 which moved 5, 743 units.

You can see the list - in order - after the break:

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Creeping through the corridors of Rapture, the term “time trials” usually doesn’t come to mind. That’s because wood-grained radios, flapper dresses and grandma’s record collection echoing in the darkness define BioShock’s underwater city, not speed boosts or a Crystal Method soundtrack. Yet very soon, the time-trial gameplay concept will hit BioShock, along with a host of other ideas that will push this dystopian world into uncharted waters.

On Nov. 20, a BioShock downloadable content pack will be available on the PlayStation Network for $9.99 (no plans yet for the Xbox 360). These new challenges work within the existing gameplay and environment (same weapons, plasmid powers and grandma’s records). But they’re completely independent of the primary game’s now-famous storyline, and deviate from its established gameplay.

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It’s Super Tuesday today, and while most of the country is content to sit back and just watch electoral vote roll in on the tube, the folks at Sony have been keeping busy making sure our PS3 systems are ready and polished for our next
President of the United States … whoever that may be.

According to a post on the official PlayStation blog, Sony is releasing a minor update to the PS3 firmware, taking it up to version 2.52. For those thinking this update could be something major to compete with Microsoft’s upcoming New Xbox Experience, don’t get your hopes up.

The new PS3 firmware update addresses a couple of issues, tweaking the overall performance. The first change will improve the playback quality of certain PS3 format software (no specific titles were mentioned). The second issue fixes a text entry issue that occurs when using the on-screen keyboard, USB keyboard, or Bluetooth keyboard with some PS3 format software has been addressed.

Apparently Solid Snake will never need to go into battle alone again, at least if Konami has its way. The company announced today that its online action game, Metal Gear Online, has recruited more than 1 million members worldwide since the launch of the service in June.

To commemorate this achievement, Konami will launch a special campaign, “Metal Gear Online: Commemorative Campaign,” that will officially begin on November 25th, awarding reward points which can be used to purchase new online gear from the in-game reward shop to gamers who access Metal Gear Online during the promotion. From November 25th through December 9th, all players who own a Metal Gear Online account (Game IDs) and access the game will receive 10,000 reward points each. The 10,000 reward points will be updated to account owners on the last day of the campaign.

Player characters who access Metal Gear Online during the Commemorative Campaign period will also have a chance to be one of 30 people (10 people from each region: North America, Europe and Japan) to receive an additional 100,000 reward points. The 100,000 reward points drawing will happen after the campaign ends and will be awarded the drawn winners on December 16th.

After all the waiting and anticipation, and then an unexpected last minute recall, a number of gamers got some good news over the weekend, as LittleBigPlanet finally started to rear its head at some retail outlets in time for the weekend. GameStop, in particular, began calling customer who had the game on preorder to let them know they could pick up the game as early as Saturday morning.

While some lucky gamers were fortunate enough to start their Sackboy adventures a few days shy of the full retail rollout, things weren’t all roses for the early adopters. Anyone looking to hook up with friends, share levels, or make use of any of LittleBigPlanet’s other online options saw their luck cut short. And in an ironic twist, those who picked up special preorder bonus content, such as the GameStop exclusive Kratos and Best Buy exclusive Nariko Sackboys, were greeted with an “invalid code” error when they tried to unlock the preorder goodies they received when they picked up the game. The reason for all these problems? While those retailers got their pre-order copies of the game in a few days early, no one ever switched on the LBP servers.

On the upside, though, playing the single player Story mode of LittleBigPlanet isn’t a problem, and should be enough to keep those who picked up the game busy until the LBP servers go live on Monday.