Sony Buys Media Molecule

Here's some happier news for the day.
Media Molecule's extremely succsesfull debut title, Little Big Planet has gotten more than just fan attention.
Sony announced today that Media Molecule is now officially part of the "Sony family".

"Since Media Molecule's inception, we've had a uniquely close relationship with Sony. Over the years they have consistently shown their dedication to Creative Gaming and Media Molecule, not only through their support of the company, but their willingness to take risks and embrace our often unusual approach and ideas." said Alex Evans, co-founder of Media Molecule. "What we've achieved already with LittleBigPlanet has proved this to us and we're excited by this new chapter of innovation and creative gaming, for all involved."

It's not the world's biggest surprise, but its nice to know that Sony is backing Media Molecule for their creative efforts thus far. I'm sure we'll start to see even more Sackboy/Sackgirls on PSN soon, and maybe even something about the rumored Little Big Planet 2...who knows.

Massive Changes Coming To The Call Of Duty Franchise

Incase you missed last nights Infinity Ward and Activision situation, I'll re-cap everything real quick.
The two co-founders of Infinity Ward, Jason West and Vince Zampella, have left the popular game studio due to "creative disagreements" with their publish Activision. Later last night, Activision filled their 10-k where in they talked about investigating charges of "insubordination." Here's a direct quote from Activision's annual report put out last night:

"The Company is concluding an internal human resources inquiry into breaches of contract and insubordination by two senior employees at Infinity Ward. This matter is expected to involve the departure of key personnel and litigation. At present, the Company does not expect this matter to have a material impact on the Company."




 Now that everything has been cleared up, at least a little, Activision made a couple announcements regarding their popular Call of Duty franchise.


*Treyarch is developing a Call of Duty game for release this Fall
*Infinity Ward is currently working on the "first two" DLC map packs for Modern Warefare 2
*Sledgehammer games, the Activision-owned studio started by Glen A. Schofield and Michael Conrey--both formerly of EA's studio, Visceral Games--is working on a Call of Duty game scheduled for release in 2011. The game is going to "extend the franchise into the action-adventure genre".

Lastly Activision stated that they are forming a new business unit around the Call of Duty franchise to combine resources and bring to Call of Duty "the same focus seen in its Blizzard Entertainment business unit".
Its been pretty widly known for a couple of years that Activision specializes in making sequels for their franchies. This however, brings the Call of Duty franchise to a whole new level. I won't be surprised if Call of Duty starts to get the "Guitar Hero treatment" anytime soon.

Infitity Ward Studios Got Some Unexpected Visitors

Earlier today at the Infinity Ward in Encino, California, something a little unsettling happened. G4's Patrick Klepek was told, by a source close to the MW2 development team, that a "bunch of bouncer-types" suddenly showed up out side the studio. Some of Infinity Ward's employees tried to ask the "bouncers" what was going on, but the "bouncers" refused to answer any questions.

The heads of Infinity Ward studios were no where to be found throughout this entire situation, which makes this a very nerve-racking experience. As you might expect people became very confused and even a bit freaked out. There has been talk that Infinity Ward's relationship with Activision has been very "tense" as of late, which may have something to do with this story.
I hope that everyone at involved is okay, and that the problem(whatever it might be) will be resolved with no harm done.

Source: Patrick Klepek's G4 Post

Update: It seems that Jason West, Co-Founder of Infinity Ward is no longer working at Infinity Ward. This just came from his LinkdIn profile:

President/Game Director/CCO/CTO
Infinity Ward
Public Company; ATVI; Computer Games industry

January 2001 – March 2010 (9 years 3 months)

Portal Gets A Sneaky Update

A couple hours ago I was busy creating the TeamTwie Facebook group (Join it!) when a Steam pop-up said "Portal has finished downloading". I thought it was one of Vavle's usual updates involving some computer science-ish coding problems or something.  However, When I went to check out the patch note(s) I was pleasantly surprised. Here's what the note says:
  "Changed radio transmission frequency to comply with federal and state spectrum management regulations"
If you're new to Valve games you might think this is a legitimate issue that needed to be fixed in order to prevent a law-suit of some kind, but as someone who has experienced many of Vavle's comical tips/hints over the years, I think there's something different going on here.

The radio transmission was put on Youtube, so I'll let you try to figure it out yourself. My guess is that this will lead to the official announcement of the Portal Prequel we were told about oh so long ago.

Update: There's also a new achievement in Portal, but there's no real solution to getting it yet, the most popular rumor seems to be that you need to carry the radio out of the chamber 26 times...weird...

Little Big Planet Now Has Over 2 Million User Created Levels

Like many of you, when Little Big Planet (LBP) was first announced I immediately started to think of what kind of crazy stuff I could make with Media Molecule's creation/platformer game. However, when the game actually came out, I was too busy playing everyone levels rather than creating my own.

Although it seems that many of your level creation ideas never got translated into actual gameplay, there's still a lot of people out there making some very fun and innovative LBP levels.
Today LBP reached over 2 million custom level creations, which is a huge milestone for Sony, Media Molecule, and all of the LBP fans. It took about 9 months for LBP to have 1 million user created levels, and now they're already up to 2 million.









If your thinking of going to check out one of the these 2 million levels however, I'd highly suggest you wait a day for the "ApocolyPS3" to be over.

Mega Man 10 Endless Mode Is Still Not In Sight

Although Mega Man 10 came out today, there seems to be something "missing". Endless mode, a level of Mega Man that...has no end... is going to be offered as additional DLC on April 26.

I have yet to experience Mega Man 10, but from playing several hours of Mega Man 9 and not beating a single level, I'm not sure if I want to get Mega Man 10. Although Mega Man 10 will be offering an "Easy Mode" to allow some fresh blood into the Mega Man fan base.
The Endless Mode DLC is going to cost $3, which isn't much, but considering how hard Mega Man 10 will be, I'm not sure anyone would want to go through that knowing they can't win. Come to think of it, its starting to sound like a circle of hell from Dante's Inferno, "Play Mega Man 10...FOREVER!!!"
Yeah, no thanks, I'll pass that good sir.


P.S. I have nothing against Mega Man and I love the series very much. I'm just really really bad at Mega Man games :)

Assassin's Creed II Multiplayer Free For iPhone/iPod Touch For 48hrs

It seems everywhere I look I see something to remind me of Ubisoft's 2009 hit, Assassin's Creed II. First the actual game, then an iPhone/iPod Touch spin off, then the PC release of ACII, and now Assassin's Creed II Multiplayer.
This new app from Ubisoft hit the App Store today, and to kick things off, its free for 48hrs. In the app description it says after 48hrs it will cost $2.99, so get it while you can!

Don't get overally excited however, if you're expecting an iPhone/iPod Touch on par with Assassin's Creed II itself, you'll be pretty dissapointed.
The game plays from a top down perspective, and your goal is to assassinate the other players while using water, crates, and even power-ups to sneak around. For its current price tag, I can't argue, but for $2.99 I'd say you can let this one slide.
A little more interesting to me however, is the announcement that the original Assassin's Creed II will be getting some form of multiplayer later this year. Many people have been speculating at what a good multiplayer mod for Assassin's Creed II might be, but with this new iPhone/iPod Touch game, I wouldn't be surprised if Ubisoft is using it as a sort of "training ground" or "survey" for whats to come.