Gamertell

Since its launch, Grand Theft Auto IV has shattered all previously held records for sales, and it has become the new king of Xbox Live, but there have been a few bumps in the road that gamers have voiced their concerns about. Thankfully, Rockstar has released the first patch updates for GTA IV’s online game play.

All updates should be automatic the next time you log online, either for the Xbox 360 or the PlayStation 3.

IGN posted the list of updates:

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Today (June, 24, 2008), Battlefield: Bad Company comes out for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, making it the 12th title in the series to date, with Battlefield: Heroes still due to be released for the PC this summer.

According to IGN, executive producer Ben Cousens spoke about the game at Paris GDC this week:

“Since the start of this year I’ve been working as executive producer for the entire Battlefield franchise - we’ve got five titles in development at the moment, which is probably more than you expect.”

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After ten million units sold in just seven months after the November, 2007 release of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Activision is hoping that gamers are ready to strap their combat boots back on and return once again to the theater of war, but which theaters? Well apparently, World War Two hasn’t quite been won yet.

Call of Duty: World at War will return the franchise back to the Second World War roots, but this time we’ll get to jump from the Atlantic theater and take the fight to the Japanese on the Pacific side of the war. 

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James Cameron, the Oscar winning director of Titanic, Aliens and the Terminator is looking to break new ground in videogame-film relations with the announcement that he and Ubisoft have joined forces.

Ubisoft will be developing a video game based on Cameron’s next feature film, Avatar (no relation to the Nickelodeon cartoon Avatar)…

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According to a new post at Destructoid, the box art for brilliant Wii-ported Okami actually has the IGN watermark in the background. This means that whatever “artist” designed the cover blatantly ripped off an image from IGN and used it for the cover - a move that signifies the epitome of laziness.

If this is correct (and it appears to be the real deal), then someone in the graphic design department at Capcom will be getting the boot. Seriously, if you work for a major gaming company, I can’t imagine why you wouldn’t have access to the original, high-quality assets. It’s quite funny (and perhaps a bit ironic) considering that the unique art style is one of Okami’s best features.

Read [Destructoid]

Call of Duty 4 has proven to be the game that just doesn’t stop giving, er, selling. With more than nine million units sold worldwide and being ranked the number one played game on Xbox Live for the past four months, Call of Duty 4 has again broken new ground with its recent release of four all new multiplayer maps.

Since April 4 2008, the 4 new multiplayer maps for Call of Duty have had over 1 million downloads through Xbox Live. The map pack is sold for 800 Microsoft Points ($10), which amounts to a whole lot of cash for the already internationally successful game…

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Something seriously stinks at RottenTomatoes. The game stats and reviews have been removed completely from the site with game information shuffled to the back pages. The only indication of games on the main site is an IGN partner link at the top and bottom of the pages in small print.

Here is a letter from the editor of RottenTomatoes, Matt Atchity, that explains the change…

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On January 12, 1998, IGN.com was launched, and on January 8, 2008 the site celebrated its 10th birthday. So to celebrate and honor the event, IGN is launching a new website, IGN Retro, and having special editorial features from January 14-18, 2008. Of course it all seems like a fitting way to celebrate a decade of work.

As to be expected from the name, IGN Retro will be covering the classic systems. The press release states the Atari 2600, Dreamcast, Intellivision, NES and Xbox, among many other systems, will receive full coverage at the new website. It provides a way to not only honor the past consoles, but also create a new haven for those classic gamers that appreciate and play games on retired systems.

The special IGN editorial features for the week are spaced out so there is one each day. Each installment covers a moment in IGN’s history, rather than focusing on specific consoles or video games. The planned articles, two of which are already online, are “Press X: Ten Trends in Ten Years,” “The Many Faces of IGN: Where are They Now?,” “Classic IGN Video Moments,” “IGN.com Turns 10 Podcast” and “IGN Video Documentary: The First 10 Years.”

Kudos to IGN and their teams of writers, editors and contributors over the years for achieving this milestone. I hope that the site’s success continues for another decade.

Read [X-Intelligence Krew] Also Read [Kotaku] Site [IGN.com] Site [IGN Retro]

Apparently, I’m not the only one feeling the stagnation of massively multiplayer online (MMO) games. IGN UK reported that Richard Garriot, who was largely responsible for starting the genre with his work on Ultima Online, is also seeing the lack of creativity and he hopes that his new project, Tabula Rasa, will alter the paradigm.

It seems when I first considered the concept of a massive multiplayer online game I got pretty excited. I’m a fan of fantasy and science fiction and when I thought about this new genre of games I imagined…

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