14 DAY TRIAL // As with previous weeks, the gaming industry is always on the move and quite a lot of things have happened during the last few days. We've seen everything from new toys based on movies based on games to arguments between companies to new DLC being launched for a variety of titles. Without further ado, here are the most important things that happened in the gaming industry this week.
Monday saw the first details being unveiled about the upcoming The Pitt DLC (Downloadable Content) pack for Bethesda's very popular Fallout 3 RPG. The Capital Wasteland setting will now be changed by the main player with the lovely but war-torn Pittsburgh, with its industrial district populated with slaves, Raiders and various other mutants. Also, a weapon that consists of a few rotating axes is all the more reason to look forward to the month of March when it will be released. But things weren't going so well for Electronic Arts, which has been accused by Activision of stealing the rights for the upcoming Brutal Legend adventure game, despite the fact that Bobby Kotick's corporation had no plans to publish it. Compared by EA with an ex-husband who is jealous of his wife, it still seems that Brutal Legend won't bear the Activision logo on the box in fall.
This week the New York toy fair was underway, so on Tuesday we saw an announcement from major brick toy company Lego, which stated that it would create special Prince of Persia-based toys in order to celebrate the launch of Disney's movie which is inspired by Ubisoft's video game series. Whether this means that a Lego Prince of Persia game will be made is unknown, but a lot of rumors seem to confirm such a thing. Racing fans were happy to learn today that one of the future NFS titles to be released this year, NFS World Online will begin beta testing in March. Until the game will see its summer release in Asia and winter release everywhere else in the world we will still have to wait though.
Wednesday saw two very big announcements in terms of games. First of all, the Legendary Cars pack for Burnout Paradise was dated and priced, and racers who own the PC, PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360 version of the game will be more than happy to start playing with these new cars, inspired from famous vehicles found in movies or TV series. Strategy fans also received some very important news from Blizzard, which, in its classic style, revealed that StarCraft II was entering the final stretch of development but would make the announcement when they would be ready. Making us wait is the company's specialty so let's not hold our breath until we hear the news.
Thursday saw EA reveal some new details on the upcoming Dead Space Extraction title, a version of the popular alien third-person shooter exclusive to the Nintendo Wii. It seems that it will act as a prequel and will feature a main heroine instead of lonely space engineer Isaac Clarke, who headlined the original game. Also on this day we got a hold of the PC sales charts, and it seems that Blizzard, Valve and THQ are three very happy companies with their World of Warcraft, Left 4 Dead and Dawn of War II titles respectively topping each of the three charts. And who said PC gaming wasn't doing so well?
The last day of the week saw some very bad news for European Grand Theft Auto IV players who, after downloading the eagerly anticipated The Lost and Damned DLC episode, saw their games censored, with the pools of blood or naughty camera angles extinct. But don't worry, violence fans, as Rockstar is working on the problem and a solution will be released soon. Also, today I finally got a chance to play Resistance 2, the sequel to a very popular title for the PS3, and I was very impressed. For more details check out my one hour with the game.
As a conclusion, it was certainly a very busy week for gamers and things will stay that way for quite some time if we are to believe the companies involved in the industry. For all the latest news, demos and patches, feel free to check out our games section here at Softpedia.