All Age Gaming Home Page > AAG FEATURE: THE WEEK THAT WAS #36

AAG FEATURE: THE WEEK THAT WAS #36

25th April 2010 - Hi everyone, welcome to the 36th instalment of “The Week That Was”. This week was a slow release week with the only notable releases being Nier for the PS3 and 360 and Dead to Rights: Retribution for the PS3 and 360. Next week however is shaping up to be a big week in releases, but more on that in next week’s article.

Xbox 360

This week in Australia sales of the Xbox 360 past the 1 million mark. To celebrate the occasion there will be several celebrity airbrushed consoles up for grabs in the Xbox Konsoles for Kids Charity Auction. For full details on this great charity auction go HERE.

Speaking of Xbox 360 sales, this week the Xbox 360 past 40 million units sold worldwide. Whilst the Playstation 3 is definitely catching the 360, 40 millions units is still an impressive figure.

This week a lot of the buzz in the gaming world has centred round Bungie’s massively anticipated game, Halo Reach. With the multiplayer Beta launching on Xbox Live in just over a week and Bungie announcing that the work on the content of the game is days away from completion! This will mean the next few months prior to the games release will see Bungie polishing the title and tweaking anything that is discovered from the Beta. This will hopefully mean that Halo Reach will be the next gen Halo that Halo fans have been waiting for! Also in regards to Halo Reach it was announced the other day that Halo: Reach will deliver the ultimate collector’s experience with Limited and Legendary game editions. For full details on these awesome game packages and ones that any Halo fan will want to get their hands on go HERE.

Another big Xbox 360 game that is coming in May that has been in the making for some time is Alan Wake. A big thanks goes out to Microsoft and Remedy for hosting a special dinner in Sydney on Tuesday night where various representatives from various gaming sites were on hand to have a go at the latest build of the game. Our own Ian Crane was on hand and had some time with the game and was able to ask the Remedy guys some questions about the game. Ian’s hands on impressions of the game and his Q&A can be found HERE.

Playstation 3

What is probably the most anticipated Playstation game of all time, Gran Turismo 5 is surely nearing completion and long suffering fans will hopefully finally get a release date at this year’s E3. However in an interesting and odd admittance from the Polyphony Digital boss Kazunori Yamauchi, he has reportedly claimed that he will be left "angry" when work on Gran Turismo 5 is finally complete - and predicted he won't be satisfied with the final product. Most of us know that Yamauchi is a perfectionist and GT5’s massively long production time attests to that, this is surely a weird comment to put out there. Sure GT5 won’t be perfect, no game is, even though many have received “perfect” scores, but to admit you won’t be happy with your final product is a tad over the top. Let us know what you think in our comments section below.

Many PS3 owners have enjoyed the free application, Vidzone. Vidzone provides PS3 owners with a heap of Music videos for users to enjoy. This week however, Sony launched VidZone TV. VidZone TV offers a choice of more than 100 free pre-programmed music channels, specially selected and created by VidZone to suit your moods and music tastes. For detailed information on the new service, go HERE.

Singstar has been a huge hit for Sony since it started on the Playstation 2 many years ago. This week Sony announced they signed a deal with The Wiggles! In a game that is sure to be a hit with the kids, Singstar The Wiggles will be releasing first on Playstation 2 in May and on Playstation 3 later in the year. For more details go HERE.

This week also saw the latest System Software update for the PS3. Update 3.30 was released and introduces a few Trophy enhancements and also preps the PS3 system for some upcoming new features, including 3D stereoscopic gaming, which is coming soon to PS3, in time for the launch of Sony 3D BRAVIA TV’s.

What is still the best game on PS3, Uncharted 2, received title update 1.07. For details of this update go HERE. Also in regards to Uncharted 2 this week was the announcement of the new DLC pack, Siege. The Siege Expansion Pack is the biggest add-on for the acclaimed action adventure title to date, adding two new maps, six new multiplayer skins, 11 online Trophies and a brand new game mode. For full details go HERE.

Nintendo Wii

In Wii news this week more information has been revealed about the Wii’s massive upcoming title Super Mario Galaxy 2. In videos going around the new Cloud Mario suit has been shown and the new Cosmic Guide. A good description of the Cosmic Guide is found in Gamespot’s preview and is as follows:

“The Cosmic Guide is similar to the Super Guide in New Super Mario Bros. Wii. Instead of a green block, you meet with a Cosmic Spirit that asks if you would like some guidance in completing the level. If you agree, it causes the game to take over and play for you until the end of the stage or until you decide you want to jump back in again. The Cosmic Spirit shows up only in certain trickier areas of the game and only when the game has noticed that you've either taken a long time to complete the level or lost several lives already. You'll get only a bronze star for completing the level this way, so there's an incentive to do it yourself if you want the extra shiny gold one. We were told that the developers didn't want anyone getting hopelessly stuck, but they didn't want to make it so that you could just walk through the entire game either.”

In a positive piece of news for the Wii, according to IndustryGamers discussion with Sega’s Mike Hayes, Wii Core is still important to Sega. According to Hayes Sega were misquoted at the beginning of the year when reports came out that they were not going to publish any more mature content for the Wii. They have confirmed their support of core content on the Wii by agreeing to publish a sequel to The Conduit as well as signing Tournament of Legends.