It looks like this year’s Spike Video Game Awards are shaping up to be a major event in the world of video games. With the reveal videos, special announcements, performances, celebrity guests, and obviously the awards, it’ll be a show you won’t want to miss.

The hype has been building up for the highly anticipated games that are going to be shown to the public for the first time at the VGAs. Titles such as Halo: Reach, Tron, UFC 2010 Undisputed, Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands, and the new Medal of Honor will be making their world premier. Not only those, but GameTrailers TV host and VGA producer Geoff Keighley promises “more than 12″ exclusives at the show, which also includes all new footage of Crackdown 2, the announcement of a new Star Wars title, and at least two more games Spike is not even allowed to give a hint at.

Possibly the most anticipated part of the show is the public reveal video for Halo: Reach. The video is about two and a half minutes long, and will give the audience the first ever look at the game engine, characters (with dialogue), and the legendary Halo score by non other than Marty O’Donnell.

The video is ”basically the opening of the game,” Keighley explained. “It’s been a couple of years since we’ve seen new technology from Bungie. As soon as you see Reach, you’ll realize that these guys have definitely upped the ante when it comes to visual firepower of the engine.”

Not on the list to make an appearance at tomorrow’s show is Dead Space 2, Sony’s new motion controller, or anything from Microsoft or Project Natal. But according to Keighley, there are some big things we still have no idea about:

“We definitely have some pretty major surprises still to come. Essentially, the biggest thing in the show hasn’t even been announced yet.”

Aside from the announcements and revealings, there is still much more to the award show, like the celebs. For example, actor Jake Gyllenhaal will be on there to introduce an exclusive clip from the upcoming Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time film, Snoop Dogg and The Bravery will be performing, Year One’s Olivia Wilde and Heroes‘ “Sylar,” Zachary Quinto, will be attending, and Mike Tyson will be there because of his role in Fight Night Round 4.

And to make the show even that more awesome, Spike will be changing up the stage throughout the show to keep with the theme this year, which is a virtual digital set that will evolve as the show progresses. The stage will probably be different when you return from a commercial break than how you last saw it:

“We’re going to keep some of the environments secret,” Keighley said, “but you’ll definitely get to see that we’ll be transforming a lot of worlds, even some games worlds, as well. We’re working with some game publishers to actually create some of the very cool content.”

Then there is always the main purpose of the show…the twenty-eight categories of awards to give out. Who will be this year’s Game of the Year? We’ll find out tomorrow. The VGAs start at 8 p.m. Eastern Time on Spike TV and on the VGA website.

Some people are beginning to fear that the Grand Theft Auto series reached its climax with Grand Theft Auto IV back in 2008, and is now just a thing of the past. Atleast that’s what Broadpoint AmTech analyst Ben Schachter thinks.

“…we must raise an even bigger question: has the Grand Theft Auto franchise peaked? Given the strength of GTA IV in 2008, the question may seem misplaced, but our concern is that the very highly rated new GTA content for Xbox as well as PSP and DS did not perform up to expectations in 2009. Now, we very clearly understand that these do not represent ‘true’ new GTA titles. However, the fact is that these were compelling titles, attractively priced, and reasonably well-promoted, yet they fell relatively flat.”

Now I have to agree that Schachter makes a good point. The GTA titles that have been released since GTA IV have had no where near the sales of GTA IV, but I have to think that’s for several difference reasons. Allow me to explain:

(more…)

The next Call of Duty-branded game is due out next year, and it’s Treyarch’s turn to develop this one. Even though Infinity Ward took their portion of the Call of Duty series into modern times, and EA is following suit with Medal of Honor, Treyarch is still content on making epic war games that take place in the past.

A job ad has recently been posted on Treyarch’s site that may possibly reveal the upcoming game will take place in the past. While it’s not much to go on, the job description does say that a responsibility of the position is to ”Research subject matter for history and look of the level.” It’s kind of vague, but it leads us to believe that Treyarch isn’t quite done with the past. However, this new game, whether it’s in the past or not, will most likely not be another WWII game.

In an interview with Official Xbox Magazine in October 2008, Activision’s senior producer on Call of Duty: World at War, Noah Heller, said, “We are showing the final battles of the Pacific and the European Theatre and that lets us put a close to the war. I’m sure game companies will be making World War II games for years to come and World War II is a very classic war. But we’re happy that we put the war to bed.”

Several rumors and sources have said that the new game will take place in the Vietnam War era, or possibly other places like Cuba, Africa, and the Soviet Union. We’ll just have to wait and see.

It was only a matter of time before EA would decide to pull an Infinity Ward and bring a major World War II gaming franchise into the modern era. EA announced today that the new Medal of Honor game is getting a “reboot”, and will take place in modern times. This time around, there will be no subtitle, as the 2010 game will simply be called Medal of Honor.

The new game will take place in Afghanistan. The player will take control of a character in the Tier 1 Operator, an unknown group working under the National Command Authority.

“When we first set out to reinvent Medal of Honor, we wanted to stay true to its roots of authenticity and respect for the soldier but bring it into today’s war. The Tier 1 Operator is the most disciplined, deliberate and prepared warrior on the battlefield. He is a living, breathing, precision instrument of war.” said Greg Goodrich, Executive Producer, Medal of Honor. “We are honored to have the rare opportunity to work closely with these men to create a game that shares their experience.”

Interestingly enough, the game is being developed by two seperate EA teams. EA’s Los Angeles studio is handling the single-player campaign, while EA DICE is creating the multiplayer part.

This new Medal of Honor game is scheduled for a 2010 release on Xbox 360, Playstation 3, and PC.

Just two weeks after an extremely successful release on Xbox 360 and Playstation 3, plans for Assassin’s Creed II’s DLC have been announced. Ubisoft revealed today that Assassin’s Creed II will be getting two of its very own downloadable content packs at the beginning of 2010.

The first downloadable pack, or episode (whatever you want to call it,) is titled Battle of Forli, and is planned for release in January. The second, Bonfire of the Vanities, will be available in February. Convenietely, the PC version of Assassin’s Creed II releases in Q1 2010.

That’s about all we know as of right now. We remain clueless on the storylines, specific release dates, and prices. Although, we do know that the harddrive space requirement for each episode is 1GB. Yes, you read that correctly. Each episode will require 1GB, meaning that these could be some lengthy add-ons that would be worth however much they may cost.

It’s finally been made official, as several months of rumors have suggested would eventually happen. The Playstation 3 Slim, quite possibly Sony’s worst kept secret ever (even more so than the PSP Go), was announced earlier today at Sony’s GamesCom press conference.

The Ps3 Slim system will retail for US $299/€200. It will hit the shelves on September 1st in the US, while a few other places around the globe will be able to get it September 3rd (like AU, NZ, and JPN). The system contains all the same features as the current system…it’s just smaller and not as heavy. It’s 34% lighter, 33% smaller, uses 34% less power, and comes with a 120GB hard drive.

Also, as we also expected from months and months of rumors, all of the current Playstation 3 systems will receive a price drop that goes in to effect tomorrow. The new price is the same as the PS3 Slim’s…$299.99.

Playstation 3 has definetly been in the news today, and this time it’s another PS3 Slim rumor. We’ve attempted to not cover the PS3 Slim rumors because they were just that…rumors. But considering that this story has multiple sources, it might be more than just rumor.

In a report that was published today by Economic Daily News, Sony has signed a contract with Hon Hai Precision Industry Company Ltd to manufacture a new hardware model of the Playstation 3, which has led people to believe it’s the PS3 Slim. The reason it’s led people to believe it’s the Slim is because the report also mentions that the new hardware will be a smaller, lighter version of the PlayStation 3. Hon Hai is just one of the three manufacturers to have gotten the contract. Engadget has also posted an article reporting that Foxconn and Pegatron have also signed on to manufacture the new hardware.

What makes these reports so interesting is that both are stating that the new hardware will begin shipping in July. So that points to a July or August release. If that’s the case, we’ll be getting an official announcement from Sony within the next week or so.

We should know more soon.

Back when Sony announced that they were completely cutting backward compatibility in all the Playstation 3 models, Playstation fans that had a large PS2 library wept…like myself. But you know, Sony had a fairly good reason. The console’s Emotion Engine, which enables the system to play PlayStation 2 software, theoretically cut production costs by a lot. But a recent patent filed by Sony suggests that they have found a way to bring it back to all past and future PS3s.

Mentioned in a report by SilconEra, Sony recently filed a patent that would allow the PS3’s Cell processor to emulate the Emotion Engine. The of the details of the patent have led us to believe that Sony is developing a way to translate and store the Emotion Engine data within the PS3. That means that Sony may have figured out a way for all Playstation 3s, including the one that is sitting in your room right now, to be backwards compatible with a simple firmware update.

So even if you already own one of the older (or even newer) Playstation 3 models that doesn’t have PS2 backward compatibility, fear not. As long as you have internet access, you may soon be able to play your PS2 games on your PS3.

We are going to follow this story closely (mostly because I want my PS3 to be backwards compatible too).

That’s right, ladies and gentlemen! The movie adaptation of Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune is now officially in production. 

The film is being brought to you by Columbia, and will be written by Kyle Ward. Ward is also working on the movie adaptations of Kane & Lynch and Hitman 2. Avi Arad will be the head of production, along with Charles Roven, Ari Arad and Alex Gartner. No details on the release date, casting, or director have been announced.

Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune was a stand-out title for the Playstation 3 back in 2007, with extremely positive reviews. It’s sequel, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, is due for release sometime later this year.

Bungie’s president Harold Ryan and its creative director Joseph Staten mentioned in a recent interview with Seattle Times that Halo: Reach might be Project Natal compatible.

“I absolutely think [Halo:] Reach could be enabled with it,” Howard told the Times.

This is in no way a confirmation that Reach will in fact be using Natal, but it’s obviously on the minds of the guys at Bungie. At most, you might expect Natal to be an optional feature that is not required to play the game. Natal could be used simply to enhance the experience rather than make it essential to play the game. It does kind of make you wonder how exactly they would work Natal into the game. 

As Reach and Natal get closer, I’m sure we’ll hear more about this.