Week In Review: 02/27

Another week, another game conference: Nintendo’s Q1 Media Summit saved us from having nothing to report on this week, while gamers had little other than Heavy Rain to look forward to – unless you are shamelessly in love with Sonic, like Tim Turi. In case you missed any of the latest news, here’s the Week in Review.

As mentioned in the intro, this week saw the release of Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing. Jeff Cork may have referred to it in the Weekly Roundup as Sonic Shame Fuel, but Tim Turi actually seemed to like it. It doesn’t hold a flame to Joe’s opinion of Heavy Rain though, which players can finally try out for themselves (fans may have a sequel to play in the future, too). Also, Napoleon: Total War was good and the PSP version of Metal Slug XX…not so much.

As always, we had a few cool exclusive features for our readers this week, including a Replay which covered DuckTales (woo ooh ooh!). Miller detailed a couple of cool looking downloadable games in Impulse Weekly, while the whole staff pitched in to create our Wish List for Mass Effect 3. This week’s Game Informer Show covered Heavy Rain, the DICE conference, and Nintendo’s Media Summit, while a new TidBits covered all the things you didn’t know about Dragon Age: Origins. I also posted my hands-on impressions for the Borderlands DLC, The Secret Armory of General Knoxx, which included a five minute video of me dying repeatedly in HD. This week’s Crafty Gamer featured video game patches made by Joey Fernandez – by patches we mean the kind you can put on clothes. Bertz also posted a new Codec Chatter with DICE producer, Patrick Bach, talking about the company's history, while DICE’s Karl-Magnus Troedsson talked to us in an exclusive video interview about Bad Company 2. BC2 also has its own launch hub now, where you’ll find stories like what kind of free day one DLC you can expect.

But let’s talk about Nintendo’s Media Summit. Phil went to the event expecting to see a bunch of less than stellar DS games, but ended up hitting the jackpot. He got to try out Super Mario Galaxy 2, and brought back screenshots and a trailer for the game. Then he played Metroid: Other M and got new pictures of that as well. He tried out Disney Guilty Party too, which I hadn’t even heard of. There was even more news from Nintendo’s conference, so check out our hub page for that as well.

What else happened this week? The winners of the Indie Game Challenge were announced  – Meagan will have more on that all next week. One of the nominated games, Super Meat Boy, will be heading to XBLA this year. We also found out that John Carmack will be presented a lifetime achievement award at this year's GDC. Past winners include Sid Meier, Shigeru Miyamoto, and Will Wright. Speaking of gaming luminaries: Tim Cain, the designer of the original PC Fallout titles, said that if he had made Fallout 3 it would have turned out differently, and Stuart Black criticized the current state of first person shooters.

One more interesting bit of news: This week it was discovered that Sony filed patents for a controller that would work for all consoles. The catch? It would use an LCD touchscreen instead of buttons. No thanks. Sony is confident its motion controller will be popular, though.

Let’s talk release dates: Split Second got one. So did Perfect Dark, along with all of Microsoft’s other XBLA Block Party games. Last but certainly not least, Alpha Protocol finally has a release date, and a new trailer to boot.

Other games that have new trailers: Risen, which we also reviewed; Civilization V; and Transformers: War for Cybertron. We also posted a new Skate 3 video, while 2K Sports showed how great MLB 2K10 is, by showing off how crappy MLB 2K9 was.

Not every game was lucky enough to get flashy new trailers. A few had to settle for new screenshots, like UFC Undisputed 2010 and Splatterhouse. Rockstar also detailed some of the characters and weapons you’ll use in Red Dead Redemption.

But why look at screenshots or videos when you can be playing more games? New DLC is now available for Valkyria Chronicles, and we found out what’s in store for both Guitar Hero and Rock Band next month. It was also announced that Castle Crashers is coming to PSN with an added volleyball mode. There’s Bioshock 2 multiplayer and singleplayer DLC on the way too, as well as upcoming DLC for Army of Two. In the meantime, a Just Cause 2 demo will be out next week.

But let's look further into the future: DICE’s founder, Fredrik Liliegren, stated Battlefield 3 will “blow people away.” Come on Liliegren, we're already dying for Bad Company 2! In other war game-related news that has us slightly less excited, a casting call suggests the next Call of Duty will be set in Vietnam.

Now let's talk business: Uncharted 2 is the fastest selling PlayStation game ever, with over 3.5 million copies sold worldwide. Plants vs. Zombies on the other hand sold over 300,000 copies when it launched on the iPhone. Warner Bros. Interactive bought Rocksteady Studios this week, a smart purchase after how great Arkham Asylum turned out to be. And we found out GTA IV might be the most expensive game ever made.

Segues? The following news stories don’t need no stinkin’ segues: You can tweet while racing in Blur; Itagaki and Tecmo settled their lawsuit out of court; and Valve unveiled a new interface for Steam, which might be coming to Mac. Also, video games can make old people less depressed. Not old? Here’s something that can make everyone less depressed: more free Mass Effect 2 DLC is on the way.

And that sums up a relatively slow week. To see what our editors were up to, check out the most recent edition of Blog Herding. See you next week!