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Hot Wheels Battle Force 5 for Wii-1.052009-11-23 16:55:48Maura S

Activision has announced today that Hot Wheels: Battle Force 5 for the Wii™ is now available in retailers across North America. The game, which is based on the hit Cartoon Network animated series, enables players to use battle-ready vehicles to defend earth from invading alien hordes and such like.

The Battle Force 5™ of the title is actually an elite team of drivers who like to smash their way through Battle Zones in their bid to vanquish The Sark™ and The Vandals™. There are 12 playable vehicles in total, all of which can be used to perform extreme stunts and jumps. Each Battle Zone also contains a Battle Key, which players must find in order to seal the portal and prevent those pesky galactic predators from sneaking through when you’re not looking. You can also show off your battle skills against your friends in the multiplayer Battle Mode.

“The TV show is packed with non-stop action, and the game puts players squarely in the middle of it all,” said David Oxford, Activision Publishing. “By enabling them to be a part of Battle Force 5, we are giving fans the interactive experience they’ve been dreaming of.”

“Activision has done a phenomenal job replicating the crash and bash vehicular combat of Battle Force 5 into a thrilling video game that fans of the show will love,” said Barry Waldo, VP Entertainment Marketing, Mattel.

Posted on November 23rd, 2009 at 4:55pm by Maura S
Filed Under: Wii Release Dates & Game Previews, activision, battle force 5, hot wheels, wii racing games

As a child, we were really into dinosaurs. Jurassic Park was our favorite movie, Dinosaucers was our favorite TV show and Yummy Mummy was our favorite cereal (that’s not dinosaur-related, but we didn’t want to lie to make the story better). So as we played the new demo for Jurassic: The Hunted, we couldn’t help but feel that, with every shot, we were blowing away some small part of our innocence.

But then we pretended that each dinosaur was the one that ate Robert Muldoon, and we felt loads better. If you download the sample, which features a taste of the ‘Survivor’ arena mode, we’d recommend doing the same.

Jurassic: The Hunted demo now on Xbox Live originally appeared on Joystiq Xbox on Fri, 20 Nov 2009 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Posted on November 20th, 2009 at 2:30pm by Justin McElroy
Filed Under: activision, demos, fps, jurassic-the-hunted, xbox-live

GameStop remains an unstoppable retail force, as the juggernaut slammed cash register drawers shut with $1.83 billion in sales and $52.2 million in profit for the quarter ending October 31. The figures represent 8.2 and 11.8 percent increases, respectively, from the same quarter last year.

The top five games during the quarter were Madden NFL 10, Halo 3: ODST, Batman: Arkham Asylum, NBA 2K10 and Wii Sports Resort, with all titles having “exceeded” the company’s initial sales expectations. GameStop also revealed thar Modern Warfare 2 — which released in Q4 on November 10 — sold 2.5 million copies at the retailer in 72 hours. GameStop CEO Daniel DeMatteo is optimistic and believes MW2 is a bellwether for the rest of the holiday season.

GameStop earnings up in Q3, Modern Warfare 2 company’s biggest launch ever originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 19 Nov 2009 11:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Posted on November 19th, 2009 at 11:15am by Alexander Sliwinski
Filed Under: Infinity Ward, Modern Warfare 2, activision, business, call-of-duty-modern-warfare-2, fps, gamestop, q3-2009, sales

Game: Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2
Developer: Vicarious Visions
Genre: Hack ‘n’ Slash
Verdict: More of the same with an HD veneer.
Pros: Cool team combo moves. Now you can team up with you favorite villains as well.
Cons: Bland graphics and no real update to the gameplay other than the combos.
Acquired: Developer Provided

On the bare face of it, putting this many of Marvel’s best-known characters in to one game is a comic fan’s dream come true. Further sweetening the pot, this time around you can also mix and match your favorite heroes and villains into one ass-kicking team.

Fortunately for fans of the franchise, there is more to the game than this. Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 follows the plot of one of Marvel’s most successful storyline to date, the Civil War, penned by a fellow Scotsman and Wanted author, Mark Millar. Civil War revolves around a great split in the superhero community caused by the introduction of the Superhuman Registration Act. This new law forces those with superhuman abilities to either register their talents with the government or face imprisonment.

The Act is brought into being after a disaster that centers around a group of young vigilantes, featured on a reality TV show. One of the vigilantes, known as Speedball, overcooks his powers, loses control and devastates the town of Stamford, Connecticut. The public outcry is enormous and the government swings into action with the Act. Believing that this is wrong, Captain America, Luke Cage, and a good few other heroes go underground, vowing to fight the Act and those who support it until it is repealed.

On the other side of the coin, Mr Fantastic has done some advanced calculations and believes that the Act is the only way to save the planet. Feeling vindicated with the findings, he and Iron Man join up with those that support the government, in order to hunt down Captain America and his allies. So begins another complicated comic book storyline involving a good few plot twists, before its inevitable resolution. Conversely to what you would think, Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 is really far from complicated. For all its pretension to some kind of morality, this game is actually fairly simplistic and the moral choice really only comes down to choosing between which characters you want to have available for the whole game. Essentially this results in slight narrative variations, but the gameplay itself has changed very little since X-Men Legends surfaced on the previous generation of consoles.

You are given charge of a team of four superheroes and you have to use them to hack, slash, burn and smash your way through hordes of anonymous enemies, to gang up on some evil that threatens mankind. What has changed this time around is that you can combine two heroes’ powers together in various special moves, which does prove to be particularly devastating.There is also a point in the game where you must choose which team to side with. Depending on your choice of Captain America or Iron Man, this affects which heroes you can choose and even how many of your caped wonders will level up. Of course this is all given a next-gen graphical makeover, which means you can now see the scales of Captain America’s armor in the finest detail.

Being a huge Marvel fan, I wanted very much to love this game. Civil War proved to be a great read and provided great fodder for a video game. The developer, Vicarious Visions just have not done enough with the rich subject matter. Before I tell you why this game is such a disappointment, just let me say that there is still plenty to be excited about with Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2. The combination moves are really cool addition and the ability to play as villains as well as heroes is a nice addition to the series. Even Marvel supremo Stan Lee even makes a very welcome cameo! These are all just window-dressing though.

It seems like they have tried to hide the fact that the game’s core mechanics have not evolved, in any significant way, since X-Men Legends. Yes, there ar high-res graphics, but they lack the polish and true attention to detail that we expect from today’s top titles. Levels are quite sparsely laid out and there is some truly odd collision detection, with some piles of crates requiring a significant detour to circum-navigate. As good as the ‘innovations’ are, they feel like they’ve been pulled out of a hat, rather than carefully chosen and designed as important updates. The new combo moves and the addition of villains as playable characters are just tweaks, rather than bold new alterations to the series.

With the current crop of consoles having been around for a good while now, it would be reasonable to expect that the games would be more than just ports of good titles from the previous generation, with improved graphics. Sadly, this game proves otherwise. Don’t get me wrong, I do enjoy playing with my favourite Marvel superheroes and the Civil War storyline is a cracker, but if you’re going to lay out your hard earned cash, you need something more. Simply put, Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 doesn’t always go far enough to justify the outlay. Sorry Marvel, but this year the sane option, as far as comic book games go, is to join Batman in the asylum.

Posted on November 18th, 2009 at 5:21pm by [email protected] (The Games Are Evil Family)
Filed Under: Playstation 3, Reviews, Xbox 360, activision, featured, features, marvel, marvel-ultimate-alliance-2, vicarious-visions

Yes, we’re still talking MW2 on GamingAngels. The title is making all kinds of waves and today it’s the good kind… money. Modern Warfare 2 has shattered theatrical box office and video game sales for five-day worldwide sales. The new records for five days of sales is now $550 million according to initial Activision estimates.

$550 million is huge. To give you some sort of idea on comparisons with other forms of entertainment, Activision sent over a list of items that they beat out:

The largest reported five-day opening worldwide box office gross figures, held by Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince ($394 million)

The largest reported five-day opening domestic box office gross figures, held by The Dark Knight ($203.8 million)

The largest reported five-day worldwide video game sales record, previously held by Grand Theft Auto IV (6 million units, $500 million)

The largest reported opening first-day domestic box office gross figures, held by The Dark Knight ($66.4 million)

The largest reported first-day book sales in dollars, held by Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows ($220 million)

The largest reported first-day worldwide video game sales record, previously held by Grand Theft Auto IV (3.6 million units, $310 million)

“In just five days of sell through Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 has become the largest entertainment launch in history and a pop culture phenomenon,” said Robert Kotick, CEO, Activision Blizzard, Inc. “The title’s success redefines entertainment as millions of consumers have chosen to play Modern Warfare 2 at unprecedented levels rather engage in other forms of media.”

I guess the last thing to see is if Modern Warfare 2 will beat out Twilight Saga: New Moon.

Posted on November 18th, 2009 at 12:49pm by GamingAngel
Filed Under: Dark Knight, Grand Theft Auto IV, Harry Potter, Modern Warfare 2, News, activision, activision-blizzard, twilight: new moon