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Activision kills Guitar Hero, DJ Hero, and True Crime

 

dj hero"Due to continued declines in the music genre, the company will disband Activision Publishing's Guitar Hero business unit and discontinue development on its Guitar Hero game for 2011," the company said in its fourth quarter earnings report.

The move also covers "DJ Hero" games, and Activision said it will also stop development on "True Crime: Hong Kong."

"These decisions are based on the desire to focus on the greatest opportunities that the company currently has to create the world's best interactive entertainment experiences," Activision said.

In a FAQ posted on its Web site, Activision said that based on current demand, the company could not profit from the "Guitar Hero" franchise because of licensing and manufacturing costs.

Click to continue reading Activision kills Guitar Hero, DJ Hero, and True Crime


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UK teen facing charges for hacking Black Ops servers

black ops server hack

Quitting games on Call of Duty: Black Ops can get you penalized, but forcing other people to quit games can get you locked up. A UK teen is now well aware of this as he sits behind bars for using a program called "Phenom Booter" to kick players from Call of Duty servers in September. 

The Phenom Booter program attacks servers, denying specific users - or all users on the server - to be booted off the server. This hack was floating around on forums earlier in the year, and can be seen in demonstration with a quick YouTube search. E-cops eventually traced the attacks from the teen to the Greater Manchester area, charging the 17 year old with violating the U.K.'s Computer Misuse Act of 1990.

"Programs marketed in order to disrupt the online infrastructure not only affect individual players but have commercial and reputational consequences for the companies concerned," stated Detective Inspector Paul Hoare to BBC. "These games attract both children and young people to the online environment and this type of crime can often be the precursor to further offending in more traditional areas of online crime."

Read More | Gamasutra

Deal of the Day: Save $20 on Call of Duty Black Ops + 3 Months Xbox Live Gold

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Hot Deals, Video Games,

call of duty black ops sale

Wanna get your hands on the next big Call of Duty release? Call of Duty Black Ops is our , and you're saving a nice 25% off the total cost with this Dell pre-order deal. You get both the Xbox 360 version of COD Black Ops and a 3-month Xbox Live Gold subscription card for $59.99, saving you $20. Shipping is free, and the game will ship to you on November 9, when it's released to the public. A nice way to save some cash if you were gonna pick this one up anyway.: 

Save $20 on Call of Duty Black Ops + 3 months Xbox Live

Don’t forget, if you’re looking for other deals, be sure to check out our Newegg Promo Code thread.


Call of Duty: Black Ops in Stereoscopic 3D

Black Ops 3D

Playstation 3, Xbox 360, and PC gamers will be able to get a touch of the three dimensional come November 9. Deciding to try something a bit new, and trendy, the Call of Duty series is going 3D, “day one, out of the box”, according to Mark Lamia, the head of the Treyarch Studio. All you need to make this work is one of those ridiculously expensive 3D HDTVs or an NVIDIA 3D Vision-ready PC, along with those ridiculously cheesy active shutter glasses. The stereoscopic 3D will work in all of Black Ops’ modes, including multiplayer. How this will work out in accordance with the subtleties of the game that require precision and concentration is unknown as this point. Though, one can’t help but wonder if 3D visuals are just a gimmick, not fit for competitive play. If so, there’s going to be a whole lot of noobs that are getting pwned, all for them to play in glorious 3D.

Click to continue reading Call of Duty: Black Ops in Stereoscopic 3D

Read More | Kotaku

Pokemon done Call of Duty-style

Posted by John Kilhefner Categories: Culture, Internet, Nintendo,

I frequently ask myself the question, “what if Modern Warfare 2 was like Pokémon?”, and at last all quandaries have been put to rest courtesy of Blastedroof.com. The new gaming community has fused the two unlikely gaming franchises into what can only be described as utterly brilliant. Included in the seven minute video are some memorable internet personalities such as the British gamer who “played 7hrs straight”, the senior citizen bum from the bus fight video, a MW2 guru who makes video walkthroughs, and a nod to Infinity Ward’s own Robert Bowling. The video pokes fun at noobs, and different styles of play (rushing vs. camping) as well.


Xbox scores Call of Duty add-on exclusivity through 2012

Call of Duty Xbox Exclusive

At their Media Briefing, Microsoft announced that they’d signed a deal with Activision that would give them a window of exclusivity over all Call of Duty downloadable add-on content through 2012. In other words, if you are a big Call of Duty fan, and you want access to the game add-ons as quickly as they become publicly available, you’ll want to be playing on the . If you are on PS3, you’ll likely need to wait a month or two before you can download the add-ons. Interestingly enough, they said this was an Xbox exclusive, and not an Xbox 360 exclusive. Of course, there is a high probability that Microsoft will have announced and launched a new Xbox before the end of 2012, and if that is the case, the agreement will carry over.


Modern Warfare 2 throwing knife tricks video

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Action, First Person Shooters,

The youngins that play Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 always seem to amaze me, while also catching me off-guard, with their crazy knife-throwing skills. Seriously, taking people out by throwing sharp eating utensils at them, in a first-person shooter no less! Still, I’ve gotta give props where props are due. Hit the video above for a look at some seriously cool throwing knife kills in Modern Warfare 2.


And we have a Pwnedface COD:MW2 Xbox 360 winner!

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Announcements, Features, Video Games,

pwnedface Modern Warfare 2 Xbox shoot it giveaway

Over the past month we’ve been running our Pwnedface Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 Xbox 360 giveaway, asking you guys to use Shoot It! to send us postcards of your best pwnedface. What’s a pwnedface, you ask? That would be the face you make when you get pwned in a game, or when you are doing the pwning. We got a ton of entries, and finally selected our random winner - that’s his entry above.

We’ve chosen some of the shots that we thought were pretty funny, and put then into our pwnedface photo gallery - we definitely loved seeing all the entries come in, and a lot of laughter was had. A big thank you goes out to the folks at Shoot It! for sponsoring the giveaway. All the postcards you see? They were generated by our readers using the Shoot It! app on their iPhone or BlackBerry devices, right on their phone.

The giveaways aren’t done! Be sure to enter our HP Envy 13 notebook giveaway, which is currently ongoing!

Gallery:


Bleeding Edge TV 282: E3 2008: Nintendo Announces Wii Sports Resort, Wii MotionPlus, WiiSpeak

At , put on quite a show at their keynote. Among the announcements were , a sequel to the much acclaimed Wii Sports, , a music creator with no talent required.  Also featured were Shaun White Snowboarding and Rayman Raving Rabbids TV Party, Grand Theft Auto Chinatown, Animal Crossing Cityfolk, Guitar Hero On Tour, Creatures, Star Wars: Clone Wars, and a new game.

Nintendo also announced new accessories, the , an add-on to the Wii Remote that adds real-to-life motion sensing; and , a set-top microphone that enables audio chat in online multiplayer games. Check out the video for the highlights, and don’t forget, we put up a full gallery of the event as well.


Call of Duty 4 Beta Ends September 30th

Call of Duty 4

Robert “402” Bowling from Infinity Ward has posted about some upcoming changes to the Call of Duty 4 beta on his blog. The most significant announcement is the closing of the beta on September 30th, but he also revealed that two days prior the level cap, which has been at 16 for a couple of weeks after being lifted from the initial cap of 11, will go up to 25. That gives beta testers only two days to jump from 16 to 25 before the beta closes down in anticipation of the game’s release November 5th.

Part of the post hinted that CoD4 had gone gold, but Bowling refused to come right out and say it, saving the announcement for more official channels. He did say that Infinity Ward had received congratulations from the Sony of America and the Xbox 360 certification team, which leaves little room for doubt that the game is in the final stages before shipping.

The beta has been an excellent marketing tool for Infinity Ward since the strength of the game is quite evident from the limited, multiplayer-only test version. Even though the game is likely gold, the beta continues for developers to continue gathering data for the inevitable title upgrades and expansion packs. The raising of the level cap so close to the end of the beta is, speculatively, due to the launch of a certain multiplayer juggernaut a few days prior.

Read More | Fourzerotwo's Blog

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