The GameShadow Blog

It has been confirmed that there will be no Games Convention in Leipzig, Germany, this year – or ever again.

The main European computer games show for 2009 will now be gamescom, held in another German city, Cologne, during August.

The formation of gamescom was announced last year and will see all major publishers present their portfolio of games for 2009 and beyond.

There will be a spin-off from Games Convention though, it has been named Games Convention Online, offering a trade show for online and casual gaming and will be held at the end of July.

A third person view code has been made available for Mirror’s Edge PC players.

The unofficial work around means players can see central character Faith from top to bottom and experience the game in the new view.

Take a look at the gameplay video below to see for yourself and decide whether it’s worth the effort.

Warner Bros. has announced it is planning to re-launch Lara Craft in a new Tomb Raider movie.

Early details suggest the movie will re-ignite the character’s origins, as well as her love and enemy interests, and move away from the style of the two previous titles starring Angelina Jolie.

No names of the director and main actress have been announced yet.

Tomb Raider Underworld is the latest game in the series from Eidos Interactive, released in November 2008.

Having announced that its western servers will close at the end of January, Hellgate London will continue as a free-to-play game in territories that have yet to be confirmed, according to comments from Korean publisher and developer HanbitSoft.

This announcement comes despite a decision by original co-publishers Namco Bandai that it claims to still own the western publishing rights.

HanbitSoft had been responsible for the game’s Korean operations.

Some confusion has surfaced around the release date of one of the biggest titles of the year.

The Sims 3 has had its released date changed from 20th February to TBA on the game’s official product page.

There is a paragraph still stating 20th February, but it’s from way back last August.

The first half of this year is the now predicted release time.

It looks that the Call of Duty: World at War map pack could be just round the corner. I saw this (above) when browsing through the Game Marketplace yesterday. Right now it’s quite confusing as the section it’s advertising doesn’t include any W@W stuff.

How long is Microsoft intending on it being this way? And what should we expect, for our hard-earned MS points?

Have Your Say, what kind of maps would you like?

When Sega and Sports Interactive first announced Football Manager Live back in 2007, it generated both a great deal of anticipation and raised a few questions for the fans. The decision to take the already popular management series online meant the development team at SI needed to deliver a series of new and exciting features to entice both current players and potential new ones too. (more…)

THQ has announced that its next real time strategy title Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War 2 has gone gold.

Developed by Relic Entertainment, it is one of the stand-out titles of 2009 and is the latest edition in the popular strategic series. 

This gold status announcement means the late February release date is still on course.

FIFA and Electronic Arts have announced that the 2009 FIFA Interactive World Cup has received a record number of entrants, with around 320,000 competitors already signed up.

The 31st of March is the sign-up deadline, with this year’s final being held in Barcelona during May and marks the culmination of months of FIFA 09 qualifying rounds from around the globe, in countries including Australia, Brazil, UK, Germany and the USA.

The 2008 winner Alfonso Ramos recently received his official winner’s trophy at the FIFA World Player Gala in Zurich.

As the doors closed on CES 2009, one of the main games to be highlighted was the much-hyped, open world, action title Prototype.

The Radical Entertainment creation was originally picked up by Sierra and set for a 2008 release, but is now in the hands of Activision.

Not a lot had been heard about it since the first half of 2008, but a recent influx of promotional material has confirmed a summer 2009 release.

Electronic Arts has announced a Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3 standalone expansion pack.

Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3: Uprising will be released in March for the PC and will be available via digital download.

The game will take players into the aftermath of one of the battles in the original Red Alert 3. It will contain additional singleplayer campaigns and a new Commander Challenge game mode.

The majority of people are back in their work mode after the end of year festivities; eating, drinking, being merry and hunting down bargains in the retail sales, despite there currently being an economic slump.

Notably, computer games stores were doing a roaring trade with sales in full flow.

Figures released by ELSPA (Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association) showed UK consumers spent a chunky £4.034 billion on computer software and hardware in 2008.

In particular, the increasing popularity of computer games took total sales to £1.905 billion, compared to £1.552 billion in 2007.

The computer games industry dominated against the likes of music and movies in 2008, with big sales of games, consoles and gaming accessories.

The publishers and developers will be aiming to keep the flow of titles coming and hoping to avoid any negatives, such as closing studios, poor sales figures and lack of funding.

Are the upcoming titles likely to make record sales figures, as seen this year with Grand Theft Auto IV and World of Warcraft – Wrath of the Lich King?

Will the industry continue stay ahead in 2009?

2008 offered a host of new and re-invented gaming characters.

By now, these characters will have been put through their paces, fighting off enemies, stealing precious items, or going about their daily business.

We’ve seen the likes of Lara Croft and Prince of Persia face their latest challenges. We’ve also been introduced to Sackboy in LittleBigPlanet, new heroine Faith, aiming to take back her city in Mirror’s Edge, as well as seeing Niko Bellic discovering the American Dream in Grand Theft Auto IV.

Sergeant “Psycho” Sykes put players through their paces in Crysis Warhead and they even became a mercenary in Mercenaries 2: World in Flames.

Of course, players will have their favourite character of the 2008, or may even prefer their very own one they created in one of the popular titles of the year, Spore.