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Xbox 360 Ultimate Game Sale Day 2: Farming, fighting, F1-ing
Eight more games are on sale for 24 hours in today's Xbox 360 Ultimate sale, including a few big names from a few years back. If you missed them back in the day, Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, Lost Planet 2, and Darksiders 2 are all on offer, as are Arcade offerings Hell Yeah! and Fruit Ninja Kinect - check out the full list of discounts on Major Nelson's blog. In terms of more recent games, there's an eclectic mix to choose from. For starters, you can rake in a half-price Farming Simulator at $15/£15/20 euros, or if you'd prefer something a little faster, F1 2013 is two-thirds off at $16.49/£13.19/21.44 euros. Finally, we saw Soulcalibur 2 HD Online go on sale over on PSN recently, and the Xbox Games Store follows suit with a whopping 75 percent discount. That means you can pick up the re-released fighter for just $5/£4/5 euros. Don't forget, there's a bunch of games staying discounted throughout the week. The full list of them is here, but today we'll point your eyes towards the original Mass Effect. BioWare's sci-fi RPG started us on a path that's left us with hours upon hours plunged into deep space shooting, negotiating, and wooing, and if you've somehow avoided it over the last six years or so, it's a steal at $3.74/£3/3.74 euros. [Image: Focus Home Interactive]
Arkedo Studio disbands under 'good conditions'
The game industry is a bit less colorful today, with news that Arkedo Studio, maker of extraordinarily vibrant games like Hell Yeah! and Big Bang Mini, has effectively closed its doors. "Arkedo, the company, is still here," explains creative director Aurelien Regard. "But no one's employed anymore. No more games are produced either."Regard explains that the company self-funded two small games after Hell Yeah!, but had no other paid projects lined up. "So, it has been decided to disband the team when there still was enough money to get good conditions for everyone, rather than replace permanent positions with interns and a bad atmosphere," he said. In addition, everyone at Arkedo wanted to return to smaller projects than Hell Yeah!, and both Regard and co-founder Camille Guermonprez were working on their own side projects anyway.The last two Arkedo games will be released "soon," and then there will be no more Arkedo games. In an unusual twist, the studio is dissolving under seemingly amicable conditions. "What is for sure is that we still see one each other and will often do in the future," Regard said about himself and Guermonprez, "all with great pleasure and for a long time."
PlayStation Plus deals: Dungeon Defenders, Sonic 1 and 2 for free, Sega discounts
This week may play host to the big debut of PlayStation Plus on Vita, but a smattering of other deals also await subscribers. The free game this week is Dungeon Defenders, the tower-defense online co-op RPG hybrid from Trendy Entertainment. The Classic Sonic bundle, which pairs Sonic the Hedgehog and Sonic the Hedgehog 2, is also gratis to all PS Plus members this week.Deals come from Sega's staple of games too, the PlayStation Blog reports, with discounts on Nights Into Dreams HD, Jet Set Radio, Virtua Fighter 5: Final Showdown and even a bundle on Hell Yeah and two supplementary DLC packs on the docket. And if you got into the PS Plus membership for the non-gaming stuff (sure, we totally get it) then an 80% discount on one year of Music Unlimited Premium may entice your earbuds.
Check out Hell Yeah's Sega suit DLC
You could get the new Hell Yeah! "Pimp My Rabbit" DLC, or you could keep playing without putting an Opa-Opa on anti-hero Ash's head. Tough choice, we know. The DLC also adds costumes based on other Sega properties like Jet Set Radio, Shenmue, Streets of Rage, Shinobi, and even Bonanza Bros.Also visible in this trailer is the "Virtual Rabbit Missions" DLC, which adds new assassinations in a computerized landscape.
PlayStation Plus this week: Need for Speed, Medal of Honor, Hell Yeah!
No, that headline isn't our own exclamation of excitement over this week's PlayStation Plus update. Two pieces of Hell Yeah! DLC, Pimp My Rabbit and Virtual Rabbit Missions, are each 20 percent off this week for Plus members, $4 and $2.40, respectively.Need for Speed: Most Wanted comes out on October 30, but this week it's $54 for Plusers who pre-order, opposed to the standard $60. Plus members also get a one-hour timed demo for Medal of Honor: Warfighter in preparation for its launch tomorrow. Sega Master System's Wonder Boy in Monster Land is normally $5 on PS3, but Plus people get it for $1 this week.Check out the full details on the PlayStation Blog, and please, try to contain your hysterical joy.
Hell Yeah, there's DLC coming October 23/24
Arkedo Studio's hellacious downloadable action game Hell Yeah! will be bolstered by DLC on October 23 in North America and October 24 in Europe.The "Pimp My Rabbit" pack is all cosmetic, adding 50 new masks and 11 driller skins for $2.99. "Keep your eyes peeled for some classic SEGA franchise and characters making an appearance such as Jet Set Radio, Super Monkey Ball and Crazy Taxi," Sega teases. This may be your only chance to see AiAi the monkey shoot a flamethrower at a robot panda. Actually, we hope it is.There's also a series of new challenge missions available in the "Virtual Rabbit Missions" pack, which Sega estimates as "over three hours of gameplay" for $4.99.
Hell Yeah! review: I concur
If you're a small developer used to making small games, there's a lot you can do when presented with a bigger budget and a major publisher. You can make a deeper, more involved story than usual; you can design bigger and more complex environments; you can hire Hollywood voice talent; you can motion-capture every motion that it's possible to capture.Arkedo Studio chose to apply its resources to filling the screen with as much hand-drawn 2D art as possible, all the time. It's a remarkable achievement. Hell Yeah! doesn't just have some of the best 2D art in recent memory, it has the most.%Gallery-157507%
Starhawk campaign free, Tokyo Jungle and Hell Yeah discounted on PS Plus
Are any games discounted on PlayStation Plus this week? Hell Yeah!That's one of them, anyway. It'll be $11.99 for Plus users when it comes out tomorrow, and $14.99 for everyone else. Tokyo Jungle will be subject to the same discount, while Starhawk's single-player component will be subject to an even more significant discount.Along with the single-player DLC, the Starhawk campaign is free on PSN for Plus members. Now you know what to play next after your surprise downloads of Borderlands, Scott Pilgrim, and Double Dragon Neon.
Hell Yeah starts wheeling in September 25
Arkedo Studio's Hell Yeah!, about a demonic rabbit in a sawblade wheel taking over-the-top, violent revenge on every underworld critter he can find, will be released on PSN September 25 in North America, on XBLA September 26, and on PC October 3. All three versions will be released on October 3 in Europe. The price is set for 1200 Microsoft Points/$14.99.Some kind of exclamation would be appropriate for this news, we feel.
Hell Yeah! Watch some monsters get smushed
We thought this trailer for Hell Yeah! would be about the unique monsters that you meet, destroy, and catalogue in Arkedo Studio's action game. Well, it kind of is. You can see them briefly before they're dispatched by a truck, or a "Happy Birthday" sign, or some other wacky device.You can also get a glimpse of the scandalous photos that cause all this revenge-killing. Do you dare watch? (It's probably okay to dare watching.)
How Arkedo learned to love downloadable games
Hell Yeah! is the first full-scale digital release by French studio Arkedo, after two boxed DS games and a few tentative (XBLIG) digital experiments. The transition to downloadable games was not an easy decision for a company that, according to founder Camille Guermonprez, loved packaged games. But it was a necessary one."I started Arkedo because I wanted to make a game with boxes," he told Joystiq at PAX East. "My first company was a digital game company, in 1999, for mobile games. That was a big company. I raised the money and it was lots of fun."Arkedo was a reaction to that previous work. "We wanted to be able to buy our game in a garage sale in 20 years, to be able to sell it for scrap, to give it as a gift," he explained. "You know, you can't give a gift with a digital title. Even if it's the same amount of money as a box, you look cheap. It's a shame."
Arkedo's next games are about pee and poo
Having completed development of Hell Yeah! for Sega, Arkedo Studio's first priority is to rest -- the studio is taking a month off after the production of what studio head Camille Guermonprez called Arkedo's biggest game ever.Following that, the company has its number one and number two next projects in the pipeline. "We're going to make two games, one game on 'pee' and one game on 'poo,'" Guermonprez told me at Sega's PAX East booth. "One game about pee and one game about poo," he clarified. "It's gonna be a Steam game, I think."You can fill in the joke yourselves.
Sega and Arkedo's 'Hell Yeah' revealed
Back in October, Sega and Big Bang Mini developer Arkedo showed artwork of an upcoming game called "Project Hell Yeah." The game is now officially called Hell Yeah! Wrath of the Dead Rabbit, according to an IGN reveal, and the platformer is coming to PS3 download, XBLA and PC this year.Hell Yeah is about the rabbit prince of Hell, who, uh, sets off on a mission of bloody vengeance when embarrassing photos are posted online. Judging from the animated teaser, said bloody vengeance will be carried out within a giant spinning wheel of death. That's worth an enthusiastic "sure!"
Sega and Arkedo team up for 'Project Hell Yeah'
Hell yeah! Sega has teamed up with Arkedo (Nervous Brickdown, Big Bang Mini, the Arkedo Series) to make a game currently only known as "Project Hell Yeah!" Arkedo is now running a development blog for the mystery game, from which we've learned that it has "MEGATONS" of monsters in it, and that Arkedo's been working on it for nine months. Given the codename and the proliferation of monsters, we're going to venture a guess that this is set in a very cute version of Hell.Sega and Arkedo are still being coy about the details of the project -- including platforms (the fictional Dreamcast 2 is ruled out!) and release date.
