The current PlayStation Rewards beta program lets users earn virtual rewards by doing various PlayStation related activities and earning the ranks Select, Pro and Legendary. Now a new wrinkle is being added in Quests.
With Quests, players will have various tasks to do that increase their Rewards progress, with nine being implemented in the beta. The PlayStation Rewards program is expected to be available to everyone in April 2011.
Source: PlayStation.blog
It has been announced that Neil Patrick Harris will host Spike TV’s 2010 Video Game Awards. Other presenters, attendees and nominees include Chris Hemsworth, Dane Cook, Olivia Munn, Denise Richards, Guillermo Del Toro, Nathan Fillion, Nick Swardson, Tony Hawk and Danny Devito.
“Neil is a big gamer and a brilliant host,” said Casey Patterson, executive producer Spike TV’s Video Game Awards. “Video games are taking over the world and Neil is perfect to lead the ‘VGA’s’ in celebrating the best of the year and the future of gaming.”
The VGAs will have 13 world premieres for various hot games and trailers for 2011 and beyond, including Batman: Arkham City, Resistance 3 and Thor: God of Thunder.
Facebook has unveiled some major changes to the site. The new intro for users includes pictures and certain vital information.
“The profile begins with a quick overview of basic information such as where you’re from, where you went to school, and where you work – the kinds of conversation starters you share with people you’ve just met or exchange with old friends as you get reacquainted,” writes Facebook Software Engineer Josh Whiteman.
Users will also be able to create new groups of friends, highlighting them in certain ways and grouping them in significant ways. Finding particular photos is now easier with new search functions.
The profile also gives you new ways to share your interests and activities, added Whiteman. You can list the projects you worked on at your job, classes you took in school, your favorite musicians and sports teams, and more. You can also share your life philosophy by connecting to the religions, political affiliations, and people you follow and admire. All your interests and experiences are now represented with images, making your entire profile a more compelling visual experience.
Source: blog.facebook.com
Angry Birds has managed 30 million downloads on mobile platforms, including 12 million paid downloads on iOS platforms. While it is free to download on Android, the 5 million downloads have worked out well for developer Rovio Mobile.
“By end of year, we project earnings of over $1 million per month with the ad-supported version of Angry Birds,” says Peter Vesterbacka of Rovio.
Vesterbacka notes that Angry Birds has an 80 percent retention rate and the game is played a collective 65 million minutes a day on the iPhone alone.
Source: TechCrunch
Square Enix has announced details to the latest Tomb Raider game. Simply titled Tomb Raider, it will detail the origin story of Lara Croft (again) with her first adventure to be surviving as a shipwreck victim.
“Forget everything you knew about Tomb Raider, we are exploring things that have never been done before in this game,” said Darrell Gallagher, Head of Studio, Crystal Dynamics. “This is an origins story that creates Lara Croft and takes her on a character defining journey like no other.”
More details of the new Tomb Raider are promised in the January issue of Game Informer magazine.
Red Faction: Origins was originally scheduled to air in March 2011. However, with the game Red Faction: Armageddon pushed back into May 2011, the prequel movie is seeing a similar delay.
Red Faction SyFi movie started prep this week! tweeted THQ’s Danny Bilson. Shoot starts in January airs in May with game release. More to come .
Machinima is running a new series called Bite Me. Featuring Dead Rising 2, the series will focus on nerds who have just happened to accumulate a vast amount of knowledge about zombies from video games; here are the first two episodes.
PlayStation Home has become a reservoir for various casual games, but there’s still some things to interest more hardcore players. Check out Novus Prime, which brings space combat and zero-g shooting.
There probably won’t ever be a new Back to the Future movie, so the best we have to hope for is this game by Telltale. In the least, they certainly have the voices down.
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It had been thought that the Assassin’s Creed series might be taking a year off in 2011 to give the franchise a little time to breathe. That doesn’t seem to be the case, at least according to Geoffroy Sardin.
We will have good surprises for players in the weeks and months to come, said EMEA sales and marketing head Geoffroy Sardin. And next year we will have another big Assassin s Creed game. Assassin s Creed is our biggest franchise now, and we will invest to keep it big for the next few years and maybe the next ten years.
Source: MCV
