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Turtles In Time Remake To Be A Timed Exclusive
When the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time remake was announced, there was much rejoicing. Notable, however, was that it appeared to be an Xbox 360 exclusive. Worry not though, PlayStation 3 fans, you'll have your chance.
According to Kotaku, the remake will be a timed exclusive for the 360, with a PlayStation Network due "later this year." Titled Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time Re-shelled, it's due worldwide next month.
The title received something of a stealth reveal last month, as it was appeared as a playable demo at a TMNT event. From the looks of it, it will be based on the arcade version rather than the SNES title, which means it will potentially be lacking the Technodrome stage.
Blur is "Underwhelming," NFS: Shift Better Than Forza, Says EA Boss
To say the very least, EA Games Europe senior VP Patrick Soderlund is very confident in his brand's products. At E3 last week, he made his views on the competition -- namely, Activision's Blur and Microsoft's Forza Motorsport 3 -- abundantly clear. "Let me tell you this. I think Split/Second looks great," Soderlund told VideoGamer.com. "I'm going to have a good time playing that. Blur to me is completely underwhelming. I don't understand what's up with that game to be honest. That's an official statement."
Forza was spared a direct attack by Soderlund, but he did say it's "clear" that Forza is inferior to Need for Speed: Shift. He added, "Forza, I'm very confident we have a better game than them to be honest. Talking to the press, looking at the nominations, that's clear. So, I'm glad that they're confident but I'm as confident as they are." Shift may have been nominated, but Forza came out the winner in the "Best Racing Game" category in 1UP's Best of E3 2009 awards -- and we weren't the only ones who thought it was the best racing game of the show.
All this mud-slinging comes just days after Forza director Dan Greenawalt was quoted as saying that Gran Turismo creator Kazunori Yamauchi "hasn't done anything for me in years." With yesterday's news that Burnout developer Criterion is now working on a new Need for Speed game, things are become quite interesting in the racing game genre.
Green Day DLC Coming To Rock Band Next Month
Harmonix has announced that Green Day will be coming exclusively Rock Band, with the first selection of DLC becoming available next month. It's not their work from the '90s, or "American Idiot" for that matter, but it's a start.
The first set of DLC will be a three-pack consisting of the songs "21 Guns," "Know Your Enemy" and "East Jesus Nowhere." They're all from 21st Century Breakdown, the latest Green Day album, which was released on May 15.
Word that Green Day would be coming to Rock Band arrived on June 8, when vocalist Billie Joe Armstrong told a crowd at KROQ's Breakfast with Green Day, "Yeah. We're doing a whole Green Day Rock Band, uh," upon which he was cut off by cheering.
Nintendo Wins Another Wii Patent Lawsuit
Nintendo has prevailed against another patent lawsuit, according to a press release from the company. U.S. District Court judge Manuel Real of Los Angeles dismissed a suit from Guardian Media Technologies that alleged the Wii infringed on patent number 4,930,158. "Nintendo vigorously defends patent lawsuits," said Rick Flamm, senior VP of legal counsel. "At the earliest stages of this case, Nintendo convinced the Court to dismiss this case as Guardian's patent had nothing to do with Nintendo's products."
And "nothing" sounds about right. Guardian's patent is for a "selective video playing system," requiring a passcode to record or play video programming. In other words, the patent basically covers parental controls on devices like DVR boxes. The Nintendo Wii has parental control functions, but applying that patent to the game system seems like a stretch. This is the second legal victory from Nintendo in the last few months, after a recent suit from Fenner Investments over the Gamecube joystick was dismissed.
Final Warhammer Online Live Expansion Event Dated
The Warhammer Online "live expansion" Call to Arms is nearing an end, with the final event scheduled to hit next week. It won't be long before the biggest dungeon in Warhammer will be available to all.
Called "Rise of the Tomb Kings," the event places the forces of Order and Destruction in the land of the dead. There they must fight for access to Tomb Kings, where there's plenty of loot to be had.
Participating players will also be able to earn the exclusive titles "Sky Captain" (for the Order) and "Master of the Air" (for Destruction). The ultra rare Ravening Cloak will also be available.
Xbox Live Community Games Getting Name Change
The News: The Xbox Live Community Games are getting a name change, according to XNA 3.1 notes (via Kotaku). Starting in late July, they will be renamed "Indie Games." With the change, Microsoft hopes to "increase understanding and discoverability" of the indie game projects.
Our Take: "Indie Games" is a slightly less nebulous term, and the announcement came with word of User Ratings to launch in late July. Hopefully these two moves help the cream of the XNA projects rise to the top. Plus it gives them indie cred, and everyone likes that.
Free Saints Row 2 DLC Today
If you were concerned that developer Volition had simply washed their hands of Saints Row 2 after shipping Red Faction: Guerrilla last week, then you're in for a pleasant surprise. The third and final DLC pack for Saints Row 2 arrives on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 today, including a total of 62 brand new character customization options from Unkut -- all of which should be available right now, totally free of charge.
You can hit up the official Saints Row 2 blog for a full breakdown of the new clothing and tattoo options included with the Unkut Pack DLC, as well as information on where to track these items down in-game. Go ahead and dust off your copy of Saints Row 2, pick up some fresh duds, and give the fine people of Stilwater a piece of your mind for old times' sake.
Major Mount Changes Coming to World of Warcraft
A Blizzard spokesperson dropped by the official World of Warcraft forums last night to discuss yet another major overhaul to the game's mount system. Player mounts will soon be cheaper to acquire, available at earlier levels, and -- in some cases -- even a little speedier. As part of the upcoming 3.2 patch, you can expect the following changes to be implemented in order to "further improve the leveling experience in World of Warcraft": Apprentice Riding (Skill 75)
- 60% land mount speed
- Requires level 20 (instead of 30)
- Cost: 4 gold
- Mount cost: 1 gold
- Mail will be sent to players at level 20 guiding them to the riding trainer
- 100% land mount speed
- Requires level 40 (instead of 60)
- Cost: 50 gold
- Mount cost: 10 gold
- Mail will be sent to players at level 40 guiding them back to the riding trainer
- 150% flying mount speed; 60% land mount speed
- Requires level 60 (instead of 70)
- Cost: 600 gold (faction discounts now apply)
- Mount Cost: 50 gold
- Can now be learned in Honor Hold (Alliance) or Thrallmar (Horde)
- 280% flying mount speed; 100% land mount speed
- Requires level 70
- Cost: 5,000 gold (faction discounts now apply)
- Mount Cost: 100 gold
Additionally, all mounts will take 1.5 seconds to summon -- instead of the usual cast time of three seconds -- and Wrath of the Lich King's Cold Weather Flying skill will, unfortunately, retain its 1000 gold fee.
Blizzard's Zarhym later clarified the reasoning behind the game's easier-to-acquire rides. "The game has gotten quite a bit longer, and allowing players to get from A to B faster only very minimally decreases difficulty; more so, it decreases time spent traveling," explained the Blizzard poster, continuing, "We don't want to discourage players from trying out the game if they have not yet, and we especially don't want to discourage existing players from trying out new characters because the leveling process from 1-80 seems too daunting after flying around Northrend grabbing purples for a while."
Project Natal Demoed on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon
Microsoft's Kudo Tsunoda showed up on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon last night, as promised, to give the world an early glimpse of Project Natal. On display were the Ricochet demo that was shown off during the Microsoft press conference last week, as well as the Natal-enabled version of Burnout Paradise that was played behind closed doors at E3.
Curiously, Kudo, Fallon, and the rest of the crew were all dressed head-to-toe in bright red jumpsuits -- perhaps to compensate for the studio lighting and crowd interference? Either way, despite some technical hiccups and the software's apparent inability to comprehend Fallon's spastic movements, the Natal seemed to demo pretty well to the Late Night crowd. Judging by his performance in Burnout Paradise, we'd still have to advise against letting Jimmy Fallon anywhere near your actual vehicles.
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Valve Sticking To PC And Xbox 360, Says PS3 Is Too Complicated
The Orange Box ended up making its way to the PlayStation 3 back in 2007, but Left 4 Dead was conspicuously absent. And if these comments are anything to go by, there won't be any other Valve games coming to PS3 either.
"The PC and the 360 are just more straightforward," designer Tom Leonard told Loot Ninja. "We can focus on what we want to do, which is make game experiences, instead of sweating bullets over obscure architectural decisions they make with their platform."
"I didn't come into this business in the 90s because of some technical fetish. I came in because I wanted to give people experiences that made them have fun."

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