Video Games Daily News Digest

Bethesda has released a trailer for the upcoming latest piece of downloadable content for Fallout 3, to be released on Monday, showing us the innards of this “very large and treacherous gauntlet,” as lead artist Istvan Pely describes it. “My recommendation is to take your time and explore every dark corner and every innocuous-looking telepad of this vessel, there’s some things you wouldn’t want to miss.”

Pely also confirmed that Mothership Zeta will indeed be the last piece of downloadable content we’ll be seeing for Fallout 3. This is “the Vault Dweller’s final and most fantastical adventure in the Capital Wasteland, or rather several hundred miles far above it. The concept of the UFO visit emerged early in the idea-toss sessions we had for DLC, in fact it was the very first thing to pop into my mind; it just seemed a natural fit. But we saved it for last, as a fitting conclusion to the Vault Dweller’s story.”

But hey, there’s always Fallout: New Vegas.

Activision has announced that Xbox 360’s Avatars will playable characters in the upcoming September 1st release of Guitar Hero 5.

Alongside importing and playing as them in songs, you will be able to customize them in Create-A-Rocker mode, donning them in whatever clothes, costumes, and instruments as you like. The avatars can be played alongside the normal Guitar Hero characters like Judy Nails and Axel Steel, or with the Guitar Hero 5 specific artists like Carlos Santana.

With the combination of this the other features announced, my superstar team of Santana, Midori, and my avatar all using drums will finally be realized! Or at the very least, look incredibly strange.

Either way, at least watch the video. Song 2 by Blur is always awesome to hear. Well, that and the avatars are quite amusing to watch rocking out.

As you may already know, Assassin’s Creed II’s Ezio will possess a few new skills his crusades-era predecessor did not, including the ability to swim and, thanks to Leonardo da Vinci’s Ornithopter, the gift of flight. But it’s not just his newfound mastery of the elements that make him a bigger badass, it’s his blood-soaked backstory.

According to Kotaku, who got to tour the virtual streets of Venice with the game’s executive producer Jade Raymond, Ezio Auditore De Firenze’s viciousness stems from some serious family issues - namely, the murder of his father and brothers at the hands of the fellow Italian nobles they once called friends, an act that forced his mother and sisters into hiding and himself down a rather unorthodox, but surprisingly satisfying career path that could grant him the vengeance he desperately desires.

“In Assassin’s Creed, people had one strategy, like ‘I always run away,’ or ‘I always stop and fight,’” said Raymond, who promises that the sequel will not only feature more assassinations, but require more varied strategies in order to pull them off without raising alarm. Though the guards will be smarter and tougher, Ezio will be able to blend in with any crowd, stash dead bodies in hay stacks or prop them up on benches Weekend At Bernie’s style.

There also won’t be any “endless chases,” with the alarm zone limited to a specific area, denoted on the player’s mini map a la Grand Theft Auto - escaping the zone will take you off the authorities radar, both literally and figuratively. As for the game itself, we can only hope it remains on game release radar for this November.

We’ve been messing around with Scribblenauts here at the 1UP office, but we thought you’d like a chance to check out the game as well. Of course, we can’t send each and every one of you your own copy, but we want to know what you’d like to see in the game (or what you can’t believe they’d put in the game).

Post your ideas on the boards right here, and we’ll make the most original and interesting suggestions into a few videos you can check out next week.

Xbox 360’s upcoming Games on Demand service will be offering full retail game downloads from the comfort of your couch once the rather sizable NXE update happens in less than two weeks time. The service will offer slightly older games like Mass Effect, BioShock and Assassin’s Creed, but those hoping to purchase new games without putting any pants on will have to take some sad news from Microsoft’s Shane Kim, VP of Strategy and Business Development for Interactive Entertainment.

While talking to Fast Company, Kim said day-and-date releases aren’t even something they’re talking about yet and that there are “a lot of complex issues to deal with” before that can happen. “[..] publishers have to do some technical work in order to enable this. There will be decisions that publishers have to make from a business standpoint. But when it comes to us saying we want Games on Demand to enable day-and-date release of new titles, then there’s certainly a lot of work we would need to go through.”

“We’re not anywhere close to that world today,” Kim added.

And then there’s the retailers, who Kim says they have a great relationship with and who probably wouldn’t be too happy if they suddenly started losing chunks of revenue to digital downloads. “We sell a lot of hardware and software through retail channels. We have to be smart about how we approach this business.”

So there likely won’t be day one releases through Games on Demand in 2010. Better wash those undies.

According to the Gears of War website, it looks like we’ve stumbled into a free Xbox Live weekend for Xbox gamers out there with Silver accounts. More specifically, if you aren’t currently paying for Xbox Live Gold service but do in fact own Gears of War 2, Microsoft is letting you get in on some online multiplayer this weekend and this weekend only. The floodgates have been open since 12:00 P.M. EST today, and will abruptly close at 11:59 A.M. on Monday, August 3rd.

This short window of opportunity for offline fraggers matches up nicely with the release of the 1200 MP Dark Corners and 1600 MP All Fronts DLC packs. The former contains 7 new multiplayer maps, as well as the Road to Ruin campaign chapter, whereas the latter has all that new stuff, plus all the previously released map packs for a whopping total of 19 maps. If you dropped any Microsoft Points on either of these packs without having a Gold account, I kindly suggest you stop what you’re doing and get your butt on Xbox Live right now.

By Ray Barnholt

Discount passes are now available for next month’s Edinburgh Interactive Festival, the annual industry conference and public videogame showcase.

read more

EA and BioWare have released the official box art for their upcoming second game in the Mass Effect trilogy. It’s still over six months until the game’s release so it’s a bit odd that finalized artwork is already being sent out — we don’t usually see them until just a month or two before launch — but, like BioWare has advertised on the occasions they’ve talked about the game, the cover art seems to reflect the much darker tone that Mass Effect 2 is going for. The mean looks, drawn guns and war-torn backdrop shows these guys, none of whom clearly believe in wearing helmets in a battle situation (it would mess up her do!), are there to take names.

Infinity Ward’s community manager Robert Bowling has told IGN that the recently announced and detailed Modern Warfare 2’s Hardened and Prestige special editions that got the whole CoDosphere talking will not be getting PC counterparts. When the editions were first announced there was some confusion about the matter but Bowling has now made it crystal clear that “there will be no PC version of either collectors’ editions.”

Why PC gamers must live empty, MW2-branded night vision goggle-free lives remains a mystery.

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