Video Games Daily News Digest

Got a soft spot in your heart (or maybe your head) for Kane and Lynch? It looks like you’re going to have to wait just a bit longer for the sequel. Publisher Square Enix just announced Kane and Lynch 2: Dog Days for an August 24 release in North America.

The follow-up to Eidos’ controversial 2007 game pits the titular protagonists against Shanghai’s underground crime lords. It also sports an entirely new, YouTube-inspired visual style, which you can see for yourself by watching today’s new trailer on the game’s official website.

Electronic Arts announced today that Skate 3 will be releasing for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 on May 11 in North America, with an international release following on May 14.

Along with the release date, EA also revealed the full roster of professional skaters that’ll be playable in Skate 3, which you can find below. Among them is actor Jason Lee, who you probably know from My Name is Earl or any number of Kevin Smith movies. Lee was also a pro-skater before his acting career took off, and in Skate 3 he’ll be playing “Coach Frank” in the game’s new Skate School tutorial mode.

For more on Skate 3 — including its new city and emphasis on team competitions — check out our last hands-on look at the game right here. The full roster follows below:

Valve is arguably one of the best talent scouts in the industry and back in 2008 when they acquired Turtle Rock Studios to form their Valve South division, that point was driven home. That division went on to release Left 4 Dead thus fulfilling all of our zombie laced childhood fantasies of undead mayhem. That southern division residing in California was short lived though, as not long after the game’s release many of the division’s employees were absorbed into Valve proper and the studio was shut down.

However, some of the residual Valve South employees, including Michael Booth who is heading up the operation, have stayed in California and have now reformed the old Turtle Rock Studios. The old but now new studio is hiring more staff, mostly likely gearing up for some new projects. Unfortunately, there’s no word on what those projects are.

Square Enix and developer IO Interactive have revealed the launch dates for Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days; August 24 in North America and August 27 throughout Europe and other PAL territories.

The news comes with a rather racy new in-game trailer featuring the two misfits meeting up in Shanghai. “We think it’s going to make quite an impression,” IO GM Niels Jørgensen says of the game’s “unique visuals and relentless gameplay” on display there. Have a look at it below.

Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime is skeptical of Sony’s hope to make the Move an appealing proposition for Wii owners. In an Industry Gamers interview, he addresses users who might be tempted to get the Move based on it looking like a hi-def Wii. “So I’m a consumer and I’m having a great experience with my Wii,” Fils-Aime said. “And we know that’s the case - we look at the software that’s being purchased. Consumers love the Wii. What’s going to motivate them to spend minimally $300 for a new [PS3] system, plus minimally $100 for the Move motion bundle? So [as a consumer] now I’m into this for $400 and I still have to spend money on software. What’s going to motivate me to do that?”

Though Fils-Aime is biased for obvious reasons, he raises a valid point. While the PlayStation 3 has its own selling points, like HD gaming and a blu-ray player, the Move may be too similar to the Wii for its own good. Sony debuted the device with Sports Champions, which more than a few people noticed looks a lot like Wii Sports. Sony has said Move will be under $100, but that may translate to $99. Asking Wii users to spend roughly $400 for a similar experience will be a hard sell, so Sony may find more luck relying on their library of core games compatible with Move. Check out our own impressions in the video above.

Dawn of War II was one of the more under-appreciated games of 2009, and that’s a shame. The shift from large-scale tactics to a smaller, more personal outlook was an interesting development for the genre, and it worked well because developer Relic did a great job of fleshing out the concept with a wide array of loot and customizable units. But alas, it seemed to drop off the mainstream radar a month or so after its release.

Now, though, it’s time to make amends. Chaos Rising is an excellent DOWII expansion that rectifies many of the original’s flaws. But even if you don’t know anything about the Warhammer universe, it’s a great strategy title that more than merits your attention.

Sega is looking to cater their classic franchises more effectively to the HD console owner this year, Sega’s Mike Hayes said in a recent interview, noting that while new intellectual property MadWorld was “mismatched” to the Wii, the latest Golden Axe was a downright underwhelming take on a classic franchise.

“It’s important that on our old IP that is respected, we need to deliver a good product,” the Sega West president said. “And in some instances we have done that - look back at when we re-did Sega Rally. It scored well and was moderately successful commercially. But then with other great franchises like Golden Axe we didn’t produce a great game at all.”

“Going forward, if we’re going to look at any existing IP to bring out the locker, we have to make sure we get the quality to a level we now expect,” he continued, saying they have to build “something that is 85 per cent plus [rated].”

“We can’t just get away with PR.”

The Wii-owning consumer will not be picking up Sony’s PlayStation Move when it launches this fall, Reggie Fils-Aime believes. There’s no motivation for them to do so, he reckons.

“So I’m a consumer and I’m having a great experience with my Wii. And we know that’s the case – we look at the software that’s being purchased. Consumers love the Wii,” the Nintendo of America president told IndustryGamers, failing to pinpoint the reason why consumers would be flocking to new but more expensive hardware that ultimately offers a similar experience.

“What’s going to motivate them to spend minimally $300 for a new [PS3] system, plus minimally $100 for the Move motion bundle? So [as a consumer] now I’m into this for $400 and I still have to spend money on software. What’s going to motivate me to do that?”

Lionhead boss and Fable creator Peter Molyneux is quite taken with fellow game designer David Cage’s latest, Heavy Rain.

“I recommend anyone who wants to start to see the first glimpses of the future of video games to go out and buy it,” he says of Quantic Dream’s recently released PlayStation 3 exclusive.

The “so dark and so emotionally involving” settings of the game may be ‘beating him up emotionally’ to a point where he can’t play it for more than 90 minutes, he said at SXSW this week, “But there’s no question in my mind that games like Heavy Rain — games that have a new fidelity in the way that they present their experiences; obviously made with cinematography and motion capture in mind — can really show the way forward to a new form of entertainment, which is evolving the story and choices and consequences.”

At the Game Developers Conference last week, speaking at a panel devoted solely to “Refining Gameplay in Mass Effect 2,” Christina Norman, the game’s lead gameplay designer, dived into the internal workings and discussed the major changes made to the sci-fi sequel.

Going into development on Mass Effect 2, BioWare knew one of the main goals to improve over the first game was to bring “more satisfying combat” while giving the sequel an “intense feel” that Mass Effect lacked. Norman admitted to the fact that the first game looked like a shooter but did not play like one.

“BioWare is strong on RPG and story,” yet “not so strong on shooter combat.” Those changes were implemented, based in part on the BioWare community feedback, and received high marks with both gamers and critics; yet more adjustments are still needed for the next installment of the trilogy.

As with previous games, BioWare continues to embrace the gaming community by actively listening to their fans - and detractors - by using community feedback as a driving factor for development on Mass Effect 3. Norman even pointed out a couple of forum threads in her panel to highlight the disappointment of some fans, saying that the third game will have “richer RPG features,” more “combat options,” and probably less of the planet mining because that was something “nobody liked.”

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