Gadgets and Video Games

There’s no doubt about it — Q-Games head Dylan Cuthbert is very much interested in making more content for the latest in the PixelJunk series of games, PixelJunk Shooter . When he spoke recently to G4TV , Cuthbert said, “for PixelJunk Shooter we still have a ton of ideas on the drawing board and the engine has lots of potential we want to use before moving onto our next idea.” He also teased the possibility of a full-on sequel, front-loading his last statement with, “normally sequels are just a re-hashing of the ideas in the original.” Given the PixelJunk ’s all-over-the-place history with DLC and re-releases and Encore versions, we poked Cuthbert for clarification.

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Q-Games’ Dylan Cuthbert taking aim at more PixelJunk Shooter

Nicalis, the developer of the anticipated Wii remake of the indie hit Cave Story , briefly noted in a Christmas Eve blog post that the WiiWare game had been delayed into 2010. It seemed like a good time to check in with Tyrone Rodriguez, head of Nicalis and producer on the title. Rodriguez spoke to us a bit about the progress of the remake, as well as Nicalis’s other projects, Nicklas “Nifflas” Nygren’s physics-based platformer NightSky and another WiiWare remake of a retro-style cave exploration platformer, La-Mulana .

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Interview: Nicalis’s Tyrone Rodriguez on Cave Story, La-Mulana, and more

As Ubisoft today sent its financial forecast soaring downward for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2010, CEO Yves Guillemot pledged to steer the company away from the suffering casual market. Specifically, “with a view to further reducing our exposure to the DS, we intend to continue to refocus our development resources on our major franchises and on the Xbox 360 and PS3, the two consoles which are expected to see sales growth in games for gamers in 2010,” Guillemot said. For the fiscal 2009-10 year, Ubisoft has revised its sales target to €860 million (roughly $1.25 billion) — down from an estimated €1,040 million — resulting in an anticiapted €50 million operating loss.

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Ubisoft to ‘refocus’ on Xbox 360, PS3 and ‘major franchises’

Dragon Age: Origins may seem expansive enough , but BioWare has already proven willing to inflate the game further with DLC and talk of retail expansion packs . And according to an unidentified retailer listing spotted by Eurogamer.cz , the first of those expansions, titled Awakening , will supposedly arrive in Europe on March 19. According to Eurogamer’s summary , the expansion will star a new player character with a new origin story, new areas and enemies, for about 15 hours of new content.

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Rumor: Dragon Age expansion ‘Awakening’ in March

Crystal Dynamics isn’t exactly known for its wide array of game franchises — since around 2003, the company has been pumping out nothing but Tomb Raider games. Normally we wouldn’t lead a job listing post with such information, but when Crystal Dynamics says it’s looking for developers who are “able to effectively create and lead the multiplayer vision and design effort,” it gets us thinking that we could be tomb raiding with (against?) other actual human beings! Considering this year’s layoffs , we’re not convinced that the developer could be working on another “AAA title” in addition to the Tomb Raider franchise. Given the leaked images of a “reboot” and assurance from Eidos ” Life President ” Ian Livingstone that Lara’s next installment will “reinvigorate the franchise,” we’re pretty confident that Crystal Dynamics is hard at work on whatever the next game in the TR series will be. For now though, we have a job listing and plenty of educated guesses. [Via CinemaBlend ] Tomb Raider studio seeking multiplayer devs for ‘AAA title development’ originally appeared on Joystiq on Sun, 06 Dec 2009 11:30:00 EST

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Tomb Raider studio seeking multiplayer devs for ‘AAA title development’

Goozex , the online game trading service, has announced a special promotion for its student members. Starting now and running through January 31, 2010, Goozex members that are enrolled in college will be able to trade their games without paying any trading fee whatsoever. Granted, the trading fee is normally only $1, but every little bit helps these days, especially with the holiday shopping season currently preparing its first major assault . Now, technically , the deal applies to anyone using Goozex under a .edu email address, so we suppose the less scrupulous folks out there could game the system

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Goozex temporarily drops trading fees for students

Having not played Renegade Kid’s first survival/horror-FPS on the Nintendo DS back in 2007, Dementium: The Ward , I had few expectations going into my recent hands-on with the game’s sequel, the aptly titled Dementium 2 . I knew that the first game enjoyed critical acclaim for more than adequately bringing survival/horror tropes to Nintendo’s handheld, and ultimately scored pretty well with reviewers, but ever since Metroid Prime Hunters I’ve been wary of first-person mechanics on the DS. Thankfully, when first faced with manipulating Dementium 2 ’s main character, it became quickly obvious that the game’s slow pace helps to account for any discomfort issues that might arise from the control scheme. Over the course of 45 minutes, I put together puzzles, traveled between two dimensions multiple times, and even fought a boss who tried to throw up on me from the ceiling (what a jerk!)

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Hands-on: Dementium 2 (DS)

Bayonetta has the magical ability — and macabre desire — to conjure torture devices for use against her enemies. But why does the hair-clothed, gun-toed heroine of Platinum Games’ action game do this? Is she just a horrible person? In a new developer diary (after the break), Director Hideki “Viewtiful” Kamiya explains that Bayonetta and her fellow witches have suffered through torture themselves, and so she fights not only for survival, but for revenge

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Bayonetta’s magical torture fetish explained

Ever the consummate hype man, Hideo Kojima is fluffing up Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker by teasing an apparent system-selling feature. “I haven’t announced this yet, but there’s another feature in [Peace Walker] that will surprise people, to the point where they’ll want to go out and buy a PSP right now!” Kojima blabbed in the latest issue of Famitsu (as translated by 1UP ). Short of some sort of in-game subliminal advertising (hey, these guys like to experiment ), we’re thinking The Two-Hundred-and-Forty-Nine-Ninety-Nine-Dollar Feature — or maybe it’s just “The Buck-Seventy Feature” — could get lost in translation. After all, the two Peace Walker features that have been newly revealed seem distinctly Japanese in their appeal.

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MGS: Peace Walker to feature Vocaloid, interactive cutscenes … and a surprise that’ll make you wanna buy a PSP?

Corporate synergy is well at work when the Br