StarCraft 2 has been doing some serious business: Blizzard has recently announced that the game has sold 3 million copies in the first month of availability. Mike Husky is certainly doing his part to keep the game popular; his YouTube channel has just under 200,000 subscribers, and his videos have over 64 million lifetime views.
The demand is there for high-quality commentary on StarCraft 2 matches, and Husky wants to help fill it. “It is my goal to support and promote StarCraft as much as possible,” he told Ars, and his success shows the promise of “on-air” personalities in competitive gaming.
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Inversion (X360)
The spiritual successor to TimeShift under the spotlight.
Kirby’s Epic Yarn (Wii)
Nintendo announces its new Kirby game for Japan and shares a sweet trailer with some must-see gameplay sequences.
Playing games on the PSP Go was one of the most annoying experiences possible in a job that can be full of annoying experiences; if it takes you hours to play a game on a portable system out of the box there is something tragically wrong with your product. After only a year on the market, it looks like Sony’s experiment in digital distribution is on its last legs.
Finding any sort of sales information on the system for the US has been difficult, although Media Create does track the hardware sales for Japan… and its performance has been abysmal. The PSP has long come in last place in the US sales numbers, and breaking that number down between the PSP and PSP Go doesn’t give Sony the possibility of a happy ending.
We called a local GameStop to see what they were offering for trade-in credit on the hardware. Even though you can still buy the PSP Go for $250, the trade-in value was only $50. Just to rub salt in the wound, the latest model of the standard PSP will get you $80 in trade-in credit, and is eligible for a $20 promotional bump. The PSP Go is specifically exempt from that offer.
Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep is coming to the PSP on September 7 and should be one of the platform’s largest releases this year. The bad news? Square Enix currently has no plans to release the game on the PlayStation Network; the company doesn’t seem to care about missing out on digital sales, which means PSP Go owners will not be able to play the game. Sony leaves decisions about digital sales up to the publishers, and there is no way to tell in advance whether a game will be made available to Go owners.
There’s nothing wrong with the idea of a gaming system with no physical media—Apple seems to be doing just fine in the gaming space without requiring carts or discs—but Sony’s implementation has been disastrous. It may be a while before any company has the gonads to step up and take another crack at the idea.
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We have received word that Alliance of Valiant Arms is set to receive a new co-op map titled Death Valley, several new weapons and an item to keep its fans busy.
Death Valley, a jungle-based map, emphasizes on teamwork that allows groups of four players to work together to clear the area to encounter a boss at each round of the mission. Throughout the course of the co-op map players will encounter a jungle river boat ride, wide open areas where helicopters will swoop in and circle overhead, and per usual standards, tight corridor gun fights to ante up the excitement.
As for the new items and weapons in the update, the follow is set to make their debut:
M4A1 Chrome
Knights SR25
M18 Smoke Grenade
AI Mission Respawn (permits additional respawns)
A.V.A. released in North America in November 2009 and received a warm welcoming to the free-to-play community by GameZone’s own Dan Liebman. Check out our full review to find out more details on the popular first-person shooter.
Check out GameZone’s exclusive video of Death Valley.
Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode I (X360)
Can Sonic escape the Lost Labyrinth?
Even though it’s set to hit PCs and consoles in a little over a month, there has been little in the way of multiplayer details for the Treyarch-developed Call of Duty: Black Ops. This all changed yesterday when Activision held a press event in Los Angeles to reveal the multiplayer gameplay: COD fans can expect bots, enhanced customization, and a new currency that can be used both to upgrade equipment and to gamble in competitive play.
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Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies (DS)
Dragon Quest IX
The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings (PC)
High fantasy has rarely looked better.
