The GameShadow Blog

As we predicted a few weeks back, details on Call of Duty: World at War Map Pack 1 have surfaced.

We know that GameShadow has a big number of Call of Duty users and they’ll be pleased to hear of the first Map Pack heading to the XBOX 360 and PS3 this month, with the PC edition at a later date.

The Nazi Zombie Level found in Map Pack 1 looks to be the main draw.

Last year Codemasters won the rights to create the next edition of Formula 1 computer games.

With the ToCA and Colin McRae racing series already on the company’s CV, Codemasters also acquired the staff at the now closed Sega Racing Studio.

With this in mind, the new Formula 1 team rules and specifications for the 2009 season have been announced recently, aiming to add more excitement to the racing.

Codemasters will hopefully be aiming to implement these new changes into the game, with high-speed results!

On March 19th, one of the top selling titles of the year, FIFA 09, is getting an additional downloadable game mode, named Ultimate Team.

Electronic Arts has announced XBOX 360 and PS3 players will be challenged to collect or create the most talented players in the world, develop them into a dream team and then compete online against challengers, aiming to be crowned the ultimate team.

This news comes on the same day EA also announced that FIFA 09 is the most popular EA Sports game played online over the past 4 months. Over 141 million games have been played on the XBOX 360 and PS3, a daily average of 1.25 million games.

Japanese publisher Konami has reportedly won the rights to publish Saw, the computer game based on the blockbusting horror movie series.

The game will be released around October on PC, XBOX 360 and PS3, at the same time as the release of the sixth movie.

It was questioned whether Saw would be released at all, after original publishers Brash Entertainment went out of business.

Konami has been involved with previous horror-action titles with the Silent Hill series.

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.

After massive console sales, this week sees Grand Theft Auto IV finally hit the PC.

A lot of talk surfaced about whether it would or wouldn’t be released on the PC, but after a slight delay from the original November release date, it is now here.

The video editor looks a quality addition to the game, allowing the capturing, editing and sharing of in-game footage.

It will be interesting to see how it performs against the other big titles in the busiest time of the retail year.

TIME magazine has unveiled the Best Inventions of 2008. 

In amongst the scientific, engineering and architectural feats is the god-type management computer title from Electronic Arts, Spore.

Released in September, it has reached the top spot in various global game charts.

Valve has a large army of fanboys out there, so for me to say what I’m about to is quite brave!

Valve really ain’t all that! There I said it…

I can forgive Counter-Strike and Half-Life (1) for being “floaty” they’re old games and at the time making a good game was still revolutionary. Left 4 Dead on the other hand doesn’t have the same excuse. It’s a brand new title and should be ‘next-gen’ which graphically it might be, but avatar-physics-wise is just dreadful.

A while back I played the demo for Turning Point: Fall of Liberty and I instantly hated it. The reason was you don’t feel like you are, or at least in control of, the avatar at all. Instead you feel like you’re some sort of bomb-squad-robot that moves on super smooth tracks and can spin faster than my new (second-hand) washing machine. Turning Point was terrible, but it was the way you move that I really didn’t like. Valve games have the same problem.

Don’t get me wrong I loved Portal like everyone else, possibly a bit less than some, but even that had the same problem. When walking, the most basic of things, a humans head bobs, if you are holding an object that too will move as you do. I’m not saying Valve need to add Mirror’s Edge avatar-physics into their games but please move away from the avatar-physics of Doom and Wolfenstein!

Valve seem to come up with great ideas but without the very basics of immersion it will always feel like you’re just… …. …. well, playing a game.

[Amendment: In hindsight this wasn’t the most well thought out post. I just felt compelled to have a little rant as I found myself quite disappointed with the movement and feel of Left 4 Dead. I personally didn’t like the feel of Team Fortress 2 and had my fingers crossed Valve weren’t going to use the same for a more realistic looking game. Either way the post was only ment to be a bit of light-hearted fun and a bit tongue-in-cheek. P.S. I don’t think Valve or Steam are really shit, I just liked the pun.]