http://www.ripten.com All Your Geek Are Belong To Us Sun, 05 Jul 2009 16:35:25 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en-us The summer drought has arrived. Not much going on this week other than Battlefield 1943 and The Bigs 2. Oh, and Street Fighter IV for you PC addicts. Looks like another week to catch up on games we haven't finished yet. Hit the jump for the full list of new ... http://www.ripten.com/2009/07/05/new-game-releases-75-711/ What do you get when you take Diablo 2, make the plot even more undecipherable and convoluted, and make random loot even more important?  You get Sacred 2, a great game to play if you don't care about anything other than mindlessly killing monsters because they happen to be in ... http://www.ripten.com/2009/07/02/review-sacred-2/ This is all pretty adorable and awesome now, but boy oh boy is this going to go downhill fast and he gets older. http://www.ripten.com/2009/07/02/megaman-in-training/ First Range told you about Call of Duty: World at War. Then he told you about Gears of War 2. Now I'm here to tell you that Bungie is also giving Halo 3 players a double XP weekend. However, this "weekend" begins today and goes until 2am Monday. It also ... http://www.ripten.com/2009/07/02/celebrate-the-4th-of-july-with-a-halo-3-double-xp-weekend/ So after just posting the announcement of a Call of Duty: World at War double XP this weekend to celebrate the 4th of July, I found out that Epic Games is doing the same thing with their own title giving Gears of War 2 it's own double XP weekend from ... http://www.ripten.com/2009/07/01/celebrate-the-4th-of-july-with-umma-gears-of-war-2-double-xp-weekend/ In celebration of Independence Day in the US, Microsoft has announced that Call of Duty: World at War wil be running a double XP weekend from July 3 to July 6. The double XP weekend will be available to all Xbox Live gold members worldwide. Along with the double XP promotion, ... http://www.ripten.com/2009/07/01/celebrate-the-4th-of-july-with-a-cod-world-at-war-double-xp-weekend/ 2K Sport's 10th Anniversary edition of NBA 2K10 is huge, and I'm not exaggerating by any means, as it may well be the biggest bundle for a limited-edition game ever. Unveiled today, the $99.99 10th Anniversary package comes with the game (duh), an exclusive Kobe Bryant figurine by McFarlane Toys, a ... http://www.ripten.com/2009/06/30/nba-2k10s-huge-10th-anniversary-edition-revealed/ Looking to buy a PS3 anytime soon? Wanting to get the best deal? Well, Best Buy has got a pretty nice PS3 bundle their offering right now. The bundle includes the 80GB model of the PS3 hardware for $399.99, along with a copy of LittleBigPlanet and a Blu-ray copy of ... http://www.ripten.com/2009/06/30/gaming-deals-of-the-week-best-buy-offers-littlebigplanet-wall-e-free-with-ps3/ Following the death of "The King of Pop" last thursday, sales for Sega's Michael Jackson's Moonwalker video game have rised on Ebay. Released for the Sega Genesis in 1990, Michael Jackson's Moonwalker reached prices as high as $205. The game featured music from the best-selling Thriller album and BAD album, including ... http://www.ripten.com/2009/06/29/bids-for-michael-jacksons-moonwalker-game-soar-on-ebay/ This week's bundle of Nintendo downloads feature one sudoku game for the DSiWare, one Sega classic for the Virtual Console and three WiiWare titles which is highlighted by Water Warfare, a colorful first-person water gun shooter, just in time for the summer. Hit the jump for the full list of ... http://www.ripten.com/2009/06/29/nintendowares-water-warfare-reel-fishing-reversi-sudoku-and-fantasy-zone-ii/ With another week comes another batch of new game releases for a summer that has been quite impressive thus far. This week we've got a western shooter, plenty of magic, dinosaurs and a Mega Man sighting. Hit the jump for the full list of new releases this week and my ... http://www.ripten.com/2009/06/28/new-game-releases-628-74/ I've never had the pleasure of playing the Tropico games, but as I've gotten older I've become a bigger fan of sim games, so Tropico 3 caught my eye a while ago. The closed beta is either starting soon or has already started, so you can go sign up for ... http://www.ripten.com/2009/06/27/tropico-3-closed-beta-starting/ The Punisher: No Mercy will be available on the PlayStation Store on July 2nd for $10. I really hope there's a demo. I'm interested because of my love for The Punisher, but I also have a love/hate relationship with first-person shooters. When done right, it's ... http://www.ripten.com/2009/06/27/the-punisher-no-mercy-trailer/ Rhianna Pratchett, the writer behind Overlord and its sequels, has expressed how much help the video game industry in the writing department. “Writers and narrative designers are still relatively new positions on development teams. This means there’s still a level of uncertainty about how best to use and integrate them. ... http://www.ripten.com/2009/06/27/overlord-writer-says-games-need-writing-help/ The 1 Vs. 100 beta has been going on for some time now but it's only been available to Xbox Live Gold subscribers, and if you're a cheapskate like me, that's a problem. From today until Sunday, however, Silver members can join in on the scheduled games. According to the ... http://www.ripten.com/2009/06/26/xbox-live-silver-members-1-vs-100-weekend/ My favorite part of this is that they kept all of their postal reciepts. You need to be diligent with your finances, even if you're a filthy criminal! http://www.ripten.com/2009/06/26/trio-busted-for-wal-mart-video-game-scam/ I mentioned yesterday that a screenwriter has been hired for Hitman 2 and now we learn that a new game is coming as well and it will be directly related to the movie's storyline. Hitman 5 will be released late next year and certain parts of the story will tie ... http://www.ripten.com/2009/06/26/hitman-5-coming-in-2010-to-tie-into-movie-sequel/ Check out this new trailer for Game Arts' Super Smash Bros.-style fighter Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Smash Up featuring Raphael and Casey Jones taking on a Foot Ninja and an Utrominater, whatever the hell that is. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Smash Up is scheduled for a fall release on the Wii, ... http://www.ripten.com/2009/06/26/trailer-teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles-smash-up/ Man what's with all these Jimmy Fallon-related stories that we've been posting lately? I don't even like the guy that much! I don't know how I feel about Tiger Woods, though. http://www.ripten.com/2009/06/26/jimmy-fallon-and-tiger-woods-square-off-in-tiger-woods-pga-tour-10-on-wii/ Red Steel for the Nintendo Wii wasn't terrible. I don't think it was good, necessarily, but for being the first of its kind, it was fun. Red Steel 2 will make use of the Wii MotionPlus and the devs want to make sure that shit is off the hook. “Being ... http://www.ripten.com/2009/06/26/devs-want-to-make-red-steel-2-best-reason-to-have-a-wii-motionplus/ Lego bricks are awesome. Just look at this damn thing. Mad props to dm_meister for constructing such an awesome tribute to an awesome character. Mad, rage-filled props. http://www.ripten.com/2009/06/25/geeked-out-lego-luigi/ Oh, Vin Diesel. Even though I find it somewhat amusing that you feel the need to star in all of the games that you make, I actually don't mind it when that game turns out to be pretty decent. The real question here is whether or not people ... http://www.ripten.com/2009/06/25/review-chronicles-of-riddick-assault-on-dark-athena/ I jump with joy any time that video games are brought up in a good light, and this is no exception. Deval Patrick, the Governor of Massachusetts, lobbied game publishers to relocate to his state in an effort to help his state's economy. Now he's brought the subject up again, ... http://www.ripten.com/2009/06/25/massachusetts-governor-brags-about-guitar-hero/ Battlefield Heroes, EA's new browser-based cartoony MMOFPS, has made the transition from closed beta to open beta. Not only is the game in open beta now, but the NDA has also been lifted. Battlefield Heroes is going to be free to play when it makes its official launch, so the ... http://www.ripten.com/2009/06/25/battlefield-heroes-open-beta-is-go/ A while back there was a rumor making its way around the internet saying that Megan Fox may play Lara Croft in the next Tomb Raider movie, as it was an origin story that called for a younger actress. This rumor finally made its way to Angelina Jolie and she ... http://www.ripten.com/2009/06/25/jolie-not-happy-that-fox-may-play-croft/ The Proudmoore server held its 5th annual Gay Pride March a few days ago. This probably makes me sound really dorky, but seeing Horde and Alliance march together like that is a pretty powerful site, even if it's just a video game. That's right, I'm a nerd. Deal with it. http://www.ripten.com/2009/06/25/world-of-warcraft-gay-pride-march/ Keeping in line with other game-to-film adaptations, Hitman was pretty bad. It was a clumsy mess and Timothy Olyphant looked really goofy with a shaved head. Nevertheless, it made a killing, so a writer has been hired to pen the sequel. Kyle Ward, the screenwriter who seems to be writing ... http://www.ripten.com/2009/06/25/writer-hired-for-hitman-movie-sequel/ These got progressively unfunnier. When I heard that Jimmy Fallon was going to talk about video games a lot on his show, I was unsure of what to expect. It looks like I was right to be cautious, as all the video game-related humor I've seen on the show so ... http://www.ripten.com/2009/06/24/jimmy-fallons-celebrity-videogames/ It's surprising how many games there are that actually use microphones on the Xbox 360: Guitar Hero Metallica, Rock Band 2, Disney Sing It: High School Musical 3: Senior Year, Lips and The Beatles: Rock Band. This fall, Microsoft is poised to release a new wireless microphone that's compatible with all ... http://www.ripten.com/2009/06/24/xbox-360-wireless-microphone-coming-this-fall/ Epic has released the details for the upcoming Gears of War 2 Update 4, which will prepare the campaign and multiplayer modes for the Dark Corners downloadable content, add XP gain to Horde mode and allow for a bunch of other bug fixes and improvements. The release date for Update 4 ... http://www.ripten.com/2009/06/24/gears-of-war-2-update-4-details/