Gaming News and Notes from 7-26-10

Yup, I’m alive. All… 4 of you… (maybe?) hopefully noticed. And missed me. Moving on – it’s been due to a large number of video games that have recently come into my possession (thank you Gamestop, giftcards and generous friends). I’ve got a handful of reviews cooking up and almost ready to publish. I should be able to fire one off tonight even. But first, I thought I’d gather up some gaming news from around the web and toss it out there for general consumption.

There’s another new firmware update going in for PS3 owners tonight. Sounds pretty small, with the only thing IGN even bothered to note about was that there is going to be a ‘you might like’ recommendations center for downloads. Not as big as the last one that had a handful of cool features – perhaps my favorite of which is the energy saver automatic shutoff for when my wife dozes off watching movies on it late at night. J

Apparently there was a slightly over-ambitious script running on Valve as they accidently banned over 12,000 Modern Warfare 2 accounts over the last 2 weeks. Those accounts are all back and those affected were given copies of Left for Dead 2 plus another to give to a friend. Pretty big mistake that affected a lot of people, but I for one find the compensation to be a classy move. Nice going Valve.

DC Universe finally cleared up a pair of questions for people interested in the MMO. First – the cost: Roughly $15/mo. Additionally, it was being made for PC and PS3 and there’s long been talk that maybe there would be interconnected play between platforms, but that rumor has in fact been put to rest.

Are you a Blu-ray owner? My two PS3’s would make that a yes for me, even though my collection is only around 30 at this time. That said, Sony has begun work on the eventually successor to that format. It’s interesting stuff to read about here, but it sounds like a good ways off – which is actually good for those of us who enjoy the current format and don’t want to push into something new and even more expensive any time soon.

If you are a fan of football and Madden games, no doubt you’re starting to latch onto every bit of football goodness out there. Today’s IGN tidbit? A trio of teams getting to show what happens if you win the Super Bowl – which was kind of cool since one was using my oft-beleaguered Lions. Anyway, it’s nice to see they put a bit more detail into winning the game, which in the past usually amounted to fairly short, ordinary screens with a confetti overlay.

There was a recently announced Street Fighter x Tekken game (think Marvel vs. Capcom). It’s actually being pronounced Street Fighter “cross” Tekken currently. As probably my two favorite one-on-one fighting franchises – this should be very cool. Namco and Capcom are working together on this, so there’s no doubt loads of talent behind the wheel here – but it should be interesting to see if they favor one game’s style over another. They’re usually quite different in how they play. Oh – but don’t hold your breath while waiting for the release. Looks like it’s going to be about 2 years off.

Last but not least, joy for Demon’s Souls players. One of the coolest (and most difficult) RPG games to come along in quite some time just got an extension. The North American Demon’s Souls online servers are going to stay up until March now, and the server tendencies were all pushed to pure white in celebration. It’s awesome seeing them bump the servers and keep some interaction going with what is still a very active fanbase. The online aspect of this game is very cool – to me the experience just would not be the same without it so if you’ve been contemplating this game, I’ve seen that it dropped in price new recently and I snagged a copy at Gamestop used for $26.