In the crowded market of World War II-era first-person shooters, the Brothers in Arms series has carved a niche for itself on the technical strength of its squad-command mechanic and the emotional strength of its gritty, character-driven storyline. Last week we got a chance to play a not-quite-final build of Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway, and thus far it appears that developer Gearbox Software is sticking to its strengths. With the notable addition of new squad options, a slow-motion action camera, and vastly improved graphics, Hell's Highway is shaping up quite well.

via gamespot.com

Epic Games and publisher Midway have confirmed that the Xbox 360 version of Unreal Tournament 3 will be hitting Microsoft's console this summer with exclusive content.

Midway didn't give a specific date other than "summer 2008" for the latest entry in Epic's venerable online multiplayer shooter.

via next-gen.biz

The long-awaited (but never viewed) first salvo of Gears of War action figures should be landing in your neighborhood Hot Topics and comic book shops in the next few weeks -- as a special teaser, manufacturer NECA released a plethora of images of the four burly, sailor-mouthed characters featured in the first series of man-dolls: Marcus Fenix, Augustus "Cole Train" Cole, Locust Drone, and everyone's favorite, Locust Sniper. We can't even imagine the kind of brutal, testosterone-enriched tea parties we're going to hold once we obtain these tiny gunhavers -- especially when our supply of Earl Grey begins to dwindle.

via joystiq.com

Zombies might be a familiar theme in gaming, but an asymmetric multiplayer FPS certainly isn’t. The reality of Left 4 Dead colliding with people’s expectations was clear enough at the Munich playtest we attended recently, as Germany’s finest videogame journos shrieked in fear and delight. The survivor and infected teams were clashing on a previously unseen and remarkably intense new scenario: the Farmhouse. Rabid zombies came screaming out of the cornfields, and over-excited scribes punched the air as they managed to score an infected kill against the well-armed survivors.

The core of the game is easily understood: playing as part of a team of four armed survivors of the zombie apocalypse, you fight against AI-controlled waves of basic zombies and rather more potent boss types. You have to stick close to your buddies and covering fire between the FPS quartet is the only way to stay alive. What’s most exciting about this latest showing, however, is that the game now has the boss-infected, or the player-zombies, fully implemented. While gamers can choose simply to play an AI-populated scenario, they can also elect to have players come in as the zombie boss characters – a rending, leaping hunter, the exploding, vomiting boomer, and the nightmarish behemoth of the tank. As these beasts, players can see unique routes through the level, available only to the infected, and have a constant outline of the survivors’ positions in their vision. Playing as them, you begin to feel quite predatory.

via next-gen.biz

Rubin told Eurogamer.net last week that 1.2 to 1.3 million users play CoD4 on Xbox Live daily, and that doesn't include PlayStation 3 and PC gamers.

"Overall, even without the other consoles, we are beating the competition," he said. "PS3 numbers are monstrously huge. No other game has come close, either online current, or total unique users in a day.

"...We've created a lot of heartache for a lot of companies who go up against it. I think Halo's website says they get something around 845,000 to a million [per day]."

Microsoft Xbox's Live director of programming Larry "Major Nelson" Hryb confirms CoD4's Live dominance in his blog. CoD4 has been the most widely-played Live game for the past seven weeks in terms of unique users, topping Halo 3, which has been capturing the second slot.

via next-gen.biz

Gears of War film producer Wyck Godfrey has told Coming Soon that the production company is shooting for a Summer 2010 release of the video game adaptation. Said Godfrey: "We've got our script on and a director we're about to attach. We'll hopefully make that early next year for the summer of 2010."

The script was written by Stuart Beattie (Collateral, Pirates of the Caribbean), who recently said in an interview that the production will likely be heavy on green screen usage, à la 300. The Gears of War film will be released by New Line Cinema, with CliffyB as executive producer. You should probably get in line now, you've only got 24 to 27 months before this Romantic Comedy of 2010 marches into theaters.

via joystiq.com

Grand Theft Auto IV is a mere five weeks away from hitting retail, ready to thrust gamers back into the seedy underbelly of a criminal lifestyle. Recently, we took a closer look at new information from the game, which we're happy to share with you.

One interesting new aspect to GTA IV is the ability to use a police computer to your advantage. To do this, you'll have to steal a police vehicle, which isn't as easy as it looks. If a cop leaves it simply sitting there, you'll have to hightail it away from him before finding a spot to hide and utilize the in-vehicle equipment. Of course, if you're a little more violent about it, you can test your luck taking out the cop in order to obtain the vehicle. The computer search works by putting in the name of a specific person. As a result, you'll find precious information that comes in handy during your mission, such as an address or other details. You can then mark the location on your interactive map and use the in-game GPS system to get there – if the cops don't happen to take up pursuit first.

via gamedaily.com

Last year was exceptionally strong for first-person shooters. Yet despite being one of the latest genre releases in the year, Call of Duty 4 towered over its competition. There are so many shooters released these days that it's hard to stick with an online community for more than a few weeks, but even months later, we're still obsessively playing COD4's addictive online mode with no end in sight. So we counted ourselves among the incredibly fortunate when we headed down to developer Infinity Ward's Southern California offices recently to check out the game's first downloadable map pack, which is coming later this spring.

via gamespot.com

Capcom's shooter Lost Planet comes to the PlayStation 3 more than a year after its Xbox 360 debut, and it has a few extra goodies up its sleeve, such as more multiplayer maps and characters to tempt those who have never gone hunting for giant bugs in the snow before. Unfortunately, none of the added extras enhance Lost Planet's gameplay, and the PS3 version's visuals are actually inferior to those of its 360 and PC counterparts.

The 360 version of Lost Planet was fun, but it had a few frustrating quirks that made gameplay a real chore at certain points. The PS3 version is identical in gameplay style and content--nothing new has been added to the single-player experience, which means it shares its 360 compadre's good and bad points. Lost Planet puts you in the shoes of Wayne, an enigmatic snow pirate battling giant bugs known as akrid on a frozen planet called E.D.N. III. The plot follows Wayne as he tries to make sense of his father's death, destroy one huge, murderous insect after another, deal with marauding snow pirates, tackle the evil NEVEC corporation's plans to terraform the planet, and more. We'd give you more detail, but storytelling isn't this game's strong suit. The story mostly makes no sense at all, and the hammy voice acting does nothing to dispel its sci-fi B-movie feel.

via gamespot.com

Have you ever wondered what would've happened if Winston Churchill had been killed by a careless cab driver in 1931? It sounds like a silly premise for a game, but Turning Point: Fall of Liberty uses it to propel what would have been just another drab and forgettable World War II shooter into something with a much more powerfully motivational narrative than simply storming the Normandy beaches for the 100th time. A solid premise isn't enough to carry Turning Point to the top of the alternate-history WWII first-person subgenre, though. The combat is too predictable, the objectives give a strong sense of déjà vu, and most damning of all, the potential-laden narrative takes a backseat for most of the adventure. Though there isn't anything remarkable that would make veteran war gamers stop and take notice, the Nazis-take-America story and inherent fun of mowing down German soldiers in the streets of New York make this an enjoyable diversion for someone aching for another tour of duty.

via 1up.com

A glib response from a Crytek representative may have revealed that Crysis is coming to the Xbox 360. The rep reportedly told Primotech that the Xbox 360 version was being shown behind close doors to "prospective publishers" at last month's Game Developers Conference.

This is far from a confirmation; the Crytek rep may have misspoken. Furthermore, we'd be surprised if Crysis PC publisher Electronic Arts didn't have the foresight to secure rights to the console game as well. We do know that Crytek planned on showing off a console version of CryEngine 2 (which runs Crysis), and although the assets were likely Crysis, perhaps the prospective publishers were just looking for a game engine.

via joystiq.com

An update for Team Fortress 2 has come to the Xbox Live. Unlike the PC patch from over the weekend, there are no balance changes to the classes themselves. Instead, a number of glitches have been fixed, as well as the inclusion of rumble for weapons and the addition of 10- and 14-player team sizes. No indication of a PlayStation 3 patch, so if you've gotten an update, let us know in the comments below.

via joystiq.com

We're on the fence as to whether or not the upcoming issue of Xbox World 360 Magazine does indeed have legitimate details about the supposedly-canceled Goldeneye 007 remake for Xbox Live Arcade. On the one hand, CVG claims the issue features four pages of details about the unfinished project, with numerous screenshots and comments from Microsoft.

On the other hand, Eurogamer reportedly spoke with Microsoft Game Studios, who claim that Xbox World 360's look at the Goldeneye game is based entirely on rumors and speculation, with no participation from Microsoft in the story.

via joystiq.com

Make no mistake, Call of Duty 4 players: Infinity Ward is listening.

If you need evidence, you need look no further than the slew of updates and changes that are coming to the game in the coming months, which we talked with IW community relations manager Robert Bowling about today at GDC.

The first in the pipeline is a feature patch that's just been sent to Microsoft for Xbox 360 certification and will soon go to the PS3 for certification.

Arguably the most important new addition is host migration. In short, if a host leaves a game, all players stay together, a suitable replacement is chosen and the game begins anew. Though the game doesn't continue uninterrupted, it should help to keep a host departure from being so jarring.

via joystiq.com

Gametap's latest preview of Majesco's Blast Works focuses on the part of the game that has previously received the least attention: the game. A lot has been said about the editor, but, of course, building objects isn't all that much fun without anything to do with them. Luckily, Blast Works, like no other shooter, puts objects to great use.

This is because the powerup system from TUMIKI Fighters is still present. When you shoot an enemy, it falls out of the sky. If it lands on you, it sticks to your ship, firing its own projectiles and acting as armor -- though, according to the preview, "because you're trying to quickly catch them any way and with any part of your ship you can, you wind up having little control over the actual direction that captured guns fire."

via nintendowiifanboy.com