The GameShadow Blog

As the release of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 draws closer, the hype is starting to build and become frenzied.

Every trailer or video that gets released drives the hype and whets the appetite of potential players.

It is debated whether the Infinity Ward developed title will break records for week one sales and beat Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto IV from 2008, only time will tell.

A plethora of content, a strong franchise, pre-orders advertised for over 6 months, midnight store openings and a massive publishing push. These terms could be applied to either of the two previously mentioned games. Activision though is aiming to make Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 the entertainment source of the year, ahead of other big game releases and ahead of top music, TV and movie releases.

Who would bet against them succeeding?

This week has seen the opening screenshots of Rockstar’s highly anticipated Max Payne 3.

Scheduled for a winter 2009 release on the PC, XBOX 360 and PS3, this edition sees the story of Max move in a totally new direction.

A very different looking and desperate Max is intent on revenge and the truth.

2008 saw Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto IV reach new promotional heights and surpass all-time entertainment records for day one and week one sales.

Now 2009 is shaping up for Modern Warfare 2, from Activision and Infinity Ward, to run it very close.

The 2009 edition in the ever-popular first person shooter series is aiming to beat competition not just from rival games, but TV and movie blockbusters too, making it the main entertainment source of the year.

The shooter genre is heading to the Wild West.

This year has already seen Damnation, the ‘shooter gone vertical’ from Codemasters, based on elements of American history.

Ubisoft’s Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood, the follow up to the 2006 original Call of Juarez, will take players to the heart of the Wild West with the McCall brothers.

Red Dead Redemption, from the makers of GTA IV, will also offer another ticket to the gun-firing, cowboy hat-wearing lands.

Rockstar Games has announced that Max Payne 3 will be released this winter on the XBOX 360, PS3 and PC.

A teaser site has been put up in preparation for release.

The game will follow on from the previous two, Max Payne and Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne, and features an older, wiser character.

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.

Gamer.tm has, frankly, outrageously good news regarding a newly documented tea bagging feature in Saints Row II.

This makes Saints Row II the first video game to feature actual tea bagging, rather than the comical farce that is repeatedly crouching over one’s downed opponent in a crude replication of the true horror of the reality.

It will function as a kind of taunt, similar to the emote system in Rockstar’s Bully - positive and negative actions can be performed from a corner menu, with the tea bagging taunt potentially earning you additional street cred. Or something. And probably the wrath of your ball gobbling enemy.

I kinda like intelligent games. I like games that do something different, that make us think… games we can be proud of. Sants Row II isn’t one of those games. But then, in another way, maybe it is - for every Super Mario Galaxy with its cutesy entourage, there has to be a Saints Row II. For every Rockstar game that gets plagued with red tape and cuts, there has to be uncensored tea bagging.

Saints Row II has the balls to deliver. Literally.

1Up is running a rumour mill which indicates with surprising certainty that not only is Rockstar working on the follow up to Remedy’s Max Payne games, but also another unannounced project independent of the GTA series.

Remedy originally released Max Payne in 2001, and its sequel two years later - both were startlingly good. Now, though, with Remedy boldly struggling on with Alan Wake, the development duties have been shifted to publisher Rockstar’s Toronto studio - so far responsible for a slew of ports and the rather good ‘The Warriors’ in 2005. Keep an eye on this one, they’re probably well into development already, so expect a Christmas 2009 release.

The other news is that Rockstar North is at work on a PS3 exclusive title, independent of the inevitable GTA IV semi sequels. It’s early days, and the project may never see the light of day, but still, it’s exciting - not to mention a major one up for Sony.

Update: Apparently Microsoft jumped the gun; Rockstar reckons we won’t be seeing any DLC until Jan / Feb next year.

15 hours long, arriving November. There, happy now?

There’s not much more confirmed, and no footage, but with release in just two months such things can’t be far away. What’s more, with 15 hours of play tim, the rumours that an entire new island will be added to the game suddenly seem altogether realistic.

You’ll know as soon as we do. Let the GTA IV news-a-thon recommence!

There was never a huge amount of doubt we’d be seeing GTA IV arrive on PC this Christmas, but just to seal the deal, Rockstar have made the official announcement.

18 Nov for the States, 21 Nov for Europe.

There’ll be expanded multiplayer options, and presumably improved visuals. And that’s that.

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While there has been no official confirmation from Rockstar of GTA IV arriving on PC, the details and rumours continue to circulate. 

The July issue of PC Gamer Malaysia has “Now on console – soon on PC” on the front cover.

No other details have emerged yet from the magazine, so we’ll wait and see what it’s all about. 

A recent essay from Pulitzer Prize winner Junot Diaz on The Wall Street Journal website has critically dismissed GTA IV, stating “GTA IV is brilliant, but despite what virtually all the reviews clam, it ain’t the revolution.”

“I love GTA IV and I have no doubt that it is art, but an equal to The Sopranos or The Godfather? Narrative art of that caliber is distinguished by its ability to re-organize our preconceptions, to shift us into a world that’s always been there but that we’ve been afraid to acknowledge, and I’m not convinced that GTA IV pulls off that miracle,” said the writer.

And you know what? He’s dead right. GTA IV may be by video game standards, even by Hollywood standards, a magnificent work of art. It is, however, barely scratching the surface of the medium’s potential, and still a far cry from true artistic achievement. It’s a step in the right direction, but does it take us anywhere very much beyond cheap entertainment (of the very highest calibre)?

No. The sad fact is that interactive entertainment is immature, under confident and lacking motivation.

But that’s OK, because it’s early days. 20 years into the history of film, the medium had hardly left black and white - but look what we’ve achieved in that time.

It’s early days, Junot, but we’re getting there.

According to a New York Times piece, Michael Hollick - the voice behind GTA IV’s Nikko - has pointed out that he’s seeing absolutely no royalties on the sales of the game, and isn’t entirely sure that’s fair.

“Obviously I’m incredibly thankful to Rockstar for the opportunity to be in this game when I was just a nobody, an unknown quantity,”said the 35 year-old Hollick. “But it’s tough, when you see Grand Theft Auto IV out there as the biggest thing going right now, when they’re making hundreds of millions of dollars, and we don’t see any of it.”

Now, this is a topic that really gets to me. OK, granted, the actors are not the primary selling point of the game - they shouldn’t be seeing royalties before anyone else does. But the general status of royalties in the gaming industry in comparison to the other entertainment mediums is just a joke.

It’s basically impossible to get them. Where film, say, will embrace the idea that a key actor adds value and should have somthing to gain from a successful run, our industry doesn’t recognise this, and is dangerously behind the times.

To put it bluntly, it’s a f*cking disgrace that someone can be hired for £30,000 a year, design an innovative, award winning and profitable game, and see no more return for his input than if he’d produced a dud. It’s his ideas and his know-how that has gotten the game its success, and yet it’s the publisher that profits.

I’ve spoken to some devs about this topic, and they have excuses. Who does and doesn’t deserve royalties? How can we afford to offer royalties when no one else does?

At the end of the day, whether it’s a case of a young industry behind the times, or a profit lead industry that’s not interested in looking after its talent, the fact remains that the talent isn’t seeing the credit it deserves.

Take-Two Interactive announced today that Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto IV surpassed all-time entertainment records for day one and week one sales. It sold approximately 6 million units globally, creating an estimated retail value of more than US$500 million in the first week.

On a related note, Microsoft were pleased to announce that the Xbox 360 version has sold 100,000 copies (20%) more than the Playstation 3 version in the UK, since the game’s release last Tuesday, 29^th April.

Edit: This ‘news’ item was a fake story posted on www.sarcasticgamer.com. Yes, I fell for it. Sorry.

Yes, it’s happened again.

Following the infamous Hot Coffee incident in the last GTA (a deleted scene involving interactive sex between the protagonist and his fully clothed girlfriend which earned the game withdrawal from many shop shelves) a ‘deleted’ level in GTA IV has been discovered, entitled Hot Coughing.

Clearly a borderline topic cut at the last minute (or perhaps a cheeky middle finger from Rockstar North to the suits), the missions sees the player receive a groin injury and encounter ambulance chaser Jerk Thompson at the local hospital.

Jerk is predictably pushy, and verges on the gay side of homosexual - something tells me it’ll be fun to watch this one play out.