The Black Keys and Neon Trees to Debut on the Rock Band Network

Harmonix and MTV Games announced that the band The Black Keys and The Neon Trees‘s songs will be appearing next week on the Rock Band Network;
“We’re excited to be part of the Rock Band world because the game really introduces artists to young kids,” said Tyler Glenn, lead vocalist and keyboardist for Neon Trees. “Any video game introducing kids to The Replacements and old REM is something I can get behind.”

You can buy each song for 160 Microsoft Points or 440 for The Black Keys pack 1 or Neon Trees pack 1, $.99 USD per song or $2.49 USD for each track pack.

The song list follows:

• The Black Keys – “Strange Times”
• The Black Keys – “I Got Mine”
• The Black Keys – “Your Touch”
• Neon Trees – “Animal”
• Neon Trees – “Sins of My Youth”
• Neon Trees – “1983”

The tracks are due out on Aug. 17 in the US, and in Europe on Aug. 19.

Green Day: Rock Band Review

The latest installment in the Rock Band title series, Green Day: Rock Band is a fun game if you are a hardcore fan from their original Album 39/Smooth, a semi-new fan from American Idiot, or a new fan who picked up Green Day: Rock Band for the first time. This game has everything you wanted… Unless you don’t like Green Day. Read more

New Super Mario Galaxy 2 Trailer

Well here it is enjoy

Nintendo Gets Endless Ocean 2 Dated

Nintendo today announced that Endless Ocean 2: Adventures of the Deep would launch on Wii across Europe on February 5th.

The sequel to 2007′s tranquil, underwater exploration title puts players back in the scuba suit as six brand new locations are open to you, ranging from icy Arctic depths to the freshwaters of the Brazilian Amazon.

or the first time, Endless Ocean 2 also features Wii Speak support, allowing you to keep constant communication with your friends as you embark on some treasure-hunting together.

Bon Jovi song ‘We Weren’t Born to Follow’ Featured in Final Fantasy Trailer

Bon Jovi/Final Fantasy fans were in a state of amazement when the recently released trailer for Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers featured Bon Jovi’s We Weren’t Born to Follow.Which was on Bon Jovi’s latest album ‘The Circle’. You can see the trailer here: Read more

New Super Mario Bros. Wii wil get Multiplayer Focused.

At the New York round table with gaming legend and creator of Mario Shigeru Miyamoto. Miyamoto told the press outlets gathered at an intimate New York roundtable that the aim was to focus more on a multiplayer experience. Not that the original Mario games were not but we all know it went on as a single player game. But still this will be a more to the roots game as previous adventures. So Miyamoto started the explanation

“The original concept was that the Mario Bros. games would be games that two people always played together,” Miyamoto explained, “but of course, the Super Mario Bros. series turned into more of a single-player game.”

Still, Miyamoto has never lost interest in creating meaningful multiplayer experiences, particularly now with the Wii, a console designed for the family living-room setting. That’s why, he says, Nintendo focused its attention on local multiplayer with this title: it’s designed for play in face-to-face groups.

By making New Super Mario Bros. Wii a multiplayer game, Miyamoto had simultaneous goals in addition to making a meaningful group experience — he said the experience of playing the game is very different depending on whether it’s being played solo or not.

He learned this through his known strategy of testing games by observing players’ expressions: “People would play the game and…people playing alone had a serious look on their face. They were working very hard…and it was a big challenge for them.”

“But as soon as we had multiple people playing the game their expressions changed dramatically,” the designer explained, describing an environment of lighthearted excitement and rapid-fire verbal communication.

Subtly, the design of New Super Mario Bros. Wii seems to cleverly address a major criticism of Nintendo titles in the Wii era — that in favor of wider accessibility the company has abandoned the sort of challenge that can satisfy a traditional or more experienced gamer. This is because the multiplayer is designed such that more experienced players have an additional element to work with in the ability to help novice players: They can carry, rescue, or lead younger or less skilled players, and have fun doing so.

In groups, then, the players themselves can create additional layers of complexity in the difficulty level. Playing alone is much harder, while the challenge in playing with others depends in large part on how much players help one another. “Because it is multiplayer, it has some new facets, in the sense that more advanced gamers can take care of novice players that might be playing with them, and …carry them through the levels,” said Miyamoto.

Miyamoto knew from the response to New Super Mario Bros. on DS that multiplayer was the key to building this kind of variety, he said. “One of the things we tried to achieve [on DS] was a balance of difficulty that would be easier for some of the newer gamers who first joined with the DS hardware, but would still satisfy the needs of longtime fans.”

“But we found that doing that was actually pretty difficult,” he added. With New Super Mario Bros Wii, Miyamoto recalled that “at E3, somebody asked, ‘is New Super Mario Bros. Wii going to be as easy as New Super Mario Bros. was on DS?’”

“I think I said that it wouldn’t be as easy. …What we’ve created this time is in fact pretty difficult,” he concluded.

We will have more from the round table as news breaks.

LostWinds: Winter of the Melodias Downloadable now on WiiWare

As of today LostWinds: Winter of the Melodias is available on WiiWare. And on top of that there are even more games to download on WiiWare, Virtual Console and DSi.

Read more

Epic Mickey In Development Exclusively For The Wii

Epic Mickey is an exclusive game for the Wii. This confirms the US  magazine Game Informer. The game developed by Junction Point Studios together with Warren Specter, The guy that did Deus Ex and Thief.

On the cover of Game Informer you can see Mickey in a dark grim world where oily monster roam the world. We have seen the first drawings in the beginning of july where a steam-punk like world had been scatted. Read more

Nintendo hits Nr 1 Company of the world! According to Businessweek

According to businessweek Nintendo has hit the number one spot in the world as best business. As Businessweek states requirements are as following:

A commitment to innovation, diversified portfolios, aggressive expansion, strong leadership, and a clear vision for the future—these are just some of the strategies employed by the best companies to get to the top of the World’s Best Companies/Global Top 40 list compiled for BusinessWeek by management consulting firm A.T. Kearney. Two groups stand out: technology and telecommunications companies that have tapped into continuing demand for mobile-phone service and new digital hardware and services, and heavy industry and engineering outfits benefiting from the uptick in infrastructure spending. Have a look at the numbers behind the companies on this list.

5. Hyundai Heavy Industries (Shipbuilding)
4. Doosan Heavy Industries (Construction Products and Services)
3. Apple (Electronics)
2. Google (Internet Services)
1. Nintendo (Electronics)

Sony and Microsoft did not make the top forty.

Just take a look at the list -> here <-

Gamasutra Interviews: Frontier’s Braben On LostWinds’ Return To WiiWare

by Ryan Langley from Gamasutra

[Frontier Developments chair and industry vet David Braben talks about his next game, LostWinds: Winter of the Melodias, the follow-up to the 2008 platformer, and how WiiWare "is maturing into a serious platform."]

One of the biggest titles at the launch of Nintendo’s digital WiiWare service was Lost Winds — a fantastic example of what WiiWare games can provide. Read more

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