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NintendoWare Weekly: X-Scape, Ben 10, Wild Guns
Even though it's a holiday here in the US, Nintendo has released a plethora of new downloadable titles for the Wii and DSi. It's a great thing, not simply because OMG moar gamez, but because it gives us a distraction from the day's festivities. There's only so much of Aunt Linda's trip to the Grand Canyon we can listen to, you know? %Gallery-86442%
Earthworm Jim HD features 4-player co-op [update]
Update: Commenter Troy points us to an interview on The 8th Circuit, which has a few details on Earthworm Jim HD's multiplayer. According to Gameloft's Anne-Joelle Casenaz, the XBLA and PSN versions will feature "brand new levels with exclusive enemies and up to 4 players in co-op multiplayer!" So there you go: It's co-op. According to a list of Achievements unearthed by Xbox 360 Achievements, it looks like the upcoming Earthworm Jim HD will feature some form of multiplayer. There are two Achievements for multiplayer, one awarded for being "'No. 1' in each Xbox Live multiplayer level" and another for completing all multiplayer levels. It's hard to imagine how multiplayer would work, though GamerBytes offers up the possibility of speed run competitions or a multiplayer variant of the snot bungee mini-game. We'd also suggest that the space races between levels could work as well. Also, given the title of the second Achievement is "World Partnership," the multiplayer could be cooperative in nature.
Splinter Cell: Conviction now on iPhone
Is it no longer enough for you to be sneaky in Splinter Cell: Conviction? Would you also like the ability to be sneaky about playing it? Gameloft has just released an iPhone version of the stealth action game, so you could be playing Splinter Cell all day, with the people around you thinking you're just texting a lot. Conviction on iPhone attempts to bring essentially the same visual style and gameplay to the handheld platform, with a similar third-person perspective, cover, and even Sam's mark-and-execute abilities. According to TouchArcade's review, problems with controls and AI keep it from quite achieving that goal -- you can see the guard AI in (in)action in the trailer after the break. Splinter Cell: Conviction ($9.99):
Gameloft brings a selection of games to Android
Gameloft hasn't made much movement in the Android market since it promised to support the mobile platform last November. However, earlier today, the company launched 10 of its 3D games (all of which are currently available on iPhone) on a handful of Android-based handsets. PocketGamer reports that if you're rocking a Sony Ericsson Xperia X10, HTC Desire, Motorola Milestone, Motorola Motoroi or a Google Nexus One, you can now purchase one of the following titles: Asphalt 5 Let's Golf! Assassin's Creed Hero of Sparta Gangstar: West Coast Hustle Dungeon Hunter Real Football 2010 N.O.V.A. Near Orbit Vanguard Alliance Modern Combat: Sandstorm Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X You can check out a video of these games running on the aforementioned mobile devices, as well as instructions on how to purchase them, just past the jump.
Gameloft brings Iron Man 2 to the iPad and iPhone
Gameloft has done a Q&A over on Marvel's official blog about their iPhone and iPad versions of the upcoming Iron Man 2 game, and there are some interesting tidbits in there. Gameloft is traditionally a mobile company, and as they say, they've worked on "small to very small" devices, so the iPad is a new trick for them. They say that developing for the iPad allowed them to ramp up the graphics, and helped to make the new game that much more immersive. In my few experiences with the iPad, I've found that very true -- the bigger screen definitely makes a difference in terms of focusing on the game. Gameloft also promotes the game's multiple suits (including a stealth suit, that sounds interesting), and some big bosses to fight against. They say the release is scheduled for next week, so we'll look for it then.
iPhone apps make up 21% of Gameloft sales in 1Q
Gameloft's emphasis on iThings seems to be paying off. The French developer, one of the world's biggest publishers of games for mobiles, says iPhone apps accounted for 21% of its sales in the first quarter of 2010. That's a decent percentage considering that, for all of 2009, iPhone games only represented 14% of the company's sales. While Gameloft still makes noise about other phones and platforms, including those from Palm, Samsung, Nokia and Google's Android, the company's focus seems to be on Apple devices. Late last year, Gameloft finance director Alexandre de Rochefort said his company had cut back on developing for Android because buying apps for Androids was "not as neatly done as on the iPhone," and that companies weren't making significant revenue on Google phones. [via iPodNN]
Earthworm Jim HD trailer introduces snazzy t-shirts
Rather than posit that, yes, we are obviously the biggest non-arthropod invertebrate fans out there, we'll just point out how neat we think these "I love Jim" shirts are. They can be found, appropriately, in the latest trailer for upcoming digitally distributed HD re-release Earthworm Jim HD. We could use a bit more video from the gameplay department, sure, but what we see looks as good (if not better) than what we last saw last September in screenshots. The video also introduces a contest for fans of the series that sees five winners being flown to NY to Gameloft's studio for an early chance to check out EJHD on Xbox Live Arcade this May. To enter, interested parties should head over to the Gameloft Facebook page and sign up, write a 500 character or less message on "Jim's wall" explaining your "most memorable moment playing Earthworm Jim" (like that time your brother Charlie slipped a sleeping pill into your chocolate milk so he could play it uninterrupted for four hours straight), and voila ici! The directions also note that the entry period ends on May 2, so we'd suggest you get to it -- right after you check out the trailer we've dropped below the fold. [Thanks, Gavin Burbidge]
Earthworm Jim available on DSiWare in Europe next week
Next Friday, Gameloft's DSiWare port of Earthworm Jim will be available on DSiWare in Europe for 500 points. Nintendo of America hasn't made any announcements about a release date, but this opens the slim possibility that we could see it in North America next week as well! It's not exactly Earthworm Jim as we remember: Nintendo of Europe's info page for the game reveals that, in addition to what looks like a faithful port of the Super NES game, the DSiWare version has " facial-expression-based challenges" that require you to make a particular face at the DSi's camera. Hopefully every single challenge will require a "simultaneously frustrated and delighted" expression, because that's the face we all make unconsciously while playing Earthworm Jim.
Gameloft bringing downloadable UNO to PSP on April 22
There are only two ways we could think to improve the UNO experience we currently have access to on the PS3 and 360: Make it available on a handheld console, in order to emulate the joy of holding tiny cards in our hands. Remove all camera functionality, in order to lessen the frequency with which we're exposed to strangers' bathing suit areas. Fortunately, Gameloft is coming through for us in both respects with a downloadable PSP version of UNO, which is set to hit the U.S. and European PlayStation Stores on April 22. The game's video announcement (posted after the jump) mentions it will support local and online multiplayer matches, but doesn't say anything about a price. We've contacted Gameloft to discern this ever-important (yet, surprisingly, often excluded!) detail.
Japanese Nintendo downloads: Darius Twin, Max & the Magic Marker
With only one download per service, Japan's Wii and DSi Shops this week resemble the kind of updates we're used to in North America. At least the content is mostly good. Darius Twin, the SNES debut of Taito's horizontal shmup series, provides multiplayer shooting against a variety of giant robotic sea creatures. And Rakugaki Hero is the World Game Parade–localized Max & the Magic Marker. As for, Let's Make a Zoo on DSiWare, it was released elsewhere as Zoo Frenzy. It's all the fun of managing a fake zoo! The full list of weekly releases follows: Darius Twin (Super Famicom, 1-2 players, 800 Wii Points) Rakugaki Hero (WiiWare, 1 player, 800 Wii Points) Let's Make a Zoo (DSiWare, 1 player, 800 DSi Points)
Gameloft treads on XBL Indie games with Tank Battles
Xbox Live Arcade was once thought to be a bastion of independent game development, destined to help independent studios get their projects to the game-playing masses. While that's still true to a certain extent -- Ska Studios and Polytron say hi -- there's no denying that an increasingly large number of XBLA games are being created by major publishers and development houses. And now it seems as if Xbox Live Indie Games -- quite literally a bastion of independent game development -- might suffer the same fate. Unstoppable mobile game publisher Gameloft (a subsidiary of Ubisoft) is officially entering the Indie Games space with Tank Battles. As the title implies, the game features tanks doing battle from a third-person perspective. If the title sounds familiar, it's because the game was already released on PSN last year as Battle Tanks. The game offers up to 4-players (locally or online) to duke it out and, truth be told, it looks pretty fun. Check out a trailer after the break. [Via GamerBytes]
Earthworm Jim headed to DSiWare, first screens released
GamerBytes has stumbled (wriggled?) across the first screenshots for a newly announced DSiWare version of the original Earthworm Jim -- not to be confused with the upcoming HD remake. Unsurprisingly, it looks an awful lot like Earthworm Jim. The top screen is where the classic action takes place, while the touchscreen has been reserved for a level progress meter and a pause button (because the start button is just so hard to reach, right?). Another screenshot shows the bottom screen offering gameplay tips as well (hint: shoot the bad guys). All in all, as GamerBytes also points out, it looks essentially like the iPhone version of the game. There is, however, a fairly obvious distinction between the two: The physical buttons of the DSi will make the submarine level significantly less impossible.
Flurry data: 44% of apps tested on the iPad are games
Sunday night on the Talkcast, we pointed out that we didn't know exactly which developers were getting those test iPads to play with. However, we might know just which apps they're testing. According to Flurry Analytics, who have (somehow) been watching traffic from the iPhone OS 3.2, 44% of the apps being tested on the iPad right now are games. Entertainment apps (which seems like a broad category) falls into second place with 14%, and then the list evens out around there -- social networking claims 7% of the apps, sports 6%, travel 5%, and so on. It's not completely clear where this data comes from -- presumably, Flurry is finding web traffic somewhere that's marked as coming to or from an iPad. Of course, that doesn't guarantee that these numbers are legit. Some apps are more likely to send traffic than others, and all we see here are percentages, as Flurry hasn't released actual numbers. "Games," as we speculated last night, probably means that bigger companies like EA and Gameloft have test iPads to try out, and "social networking" probably means that Facebook and possibly Foursquare are testing their apps. "Sports" could mean that MLB is testing its app, and so on. It looks like gamers who have an iPad on day one will at least have plenty of game titles to choose from. The iPhone's App Store took a little while to get rolling with some hit apps, but developers and Apple seem to be doing everything they can to ensure that there are some popular downloads in the iPad's App Store right away. [via TheAppleBlog]
Palm's webOS PDK beta adds Pixi native development, PDK'd apps will hit the Catalog mid year
We just sat down with Palm here at GDC and fished out a few more details on the PDK beta front. Firstly, and most interestingly, Palm has confirmed that the PDK now works on all of its handsets (instead of just the Pre and Pre Plus), which means Pixi buyers can stop hating themselves pretty soon. Apparently the level of performance degradation should be comparable iPhone 3G vs. 3GS, which doesn't sound too horrible. This is functionality that wasn't available even to Palm's early PDK partners like EA and Gameloft, so we should be seeing versions of existing games make the jump to the Pixi when the time for PDK beta-developed apps to hit the Palm App Catalog. When will that time come, you ask? The "middle of the year," or "a few months," whichever sounds more promising to you. Palm's not saying whether this new era for the App Catalog (anyone being able to release PDK apps, and those apps working on the Pre and the Pixi) will accompany a full-on webOS update, but it seems logical to us. On a more technical front, we're told the PDK supports the Linux standard SDL (Simple DirectMedia Layer) to ease in porting and development (Unreal for Linux runs using SDL, for instance), and that developers could even build apps like an audio processor that rely on PDK components but don't show up in the UI at all, or OpenGL-empowered things that aren't necessarily games or in 3D. Also, existing developers have only been able to do "full screen" games that rely on PDK components alone, but the PDK beta lets you mix and match webOS UI with PDK elements. Currently there aren't many PDK games that use the extra Palm hardware like the QWERTY keyboard and the gesture area, but we're told that's all exposed to the developer, along with any other element of webOS that Mojo SDK users have access to. One notable plugin hangup is the fact that Flash only works in the browser, and can't be embedded into a regular webOS app, PDK or no -- though we have to assume this is something that's in the works.
Assassin's Creed II multiplayer, Rayman 2 out now on the iPhone
Two major league games have hit the App Store already this week, one of them for the surprise price of free. Ubisoft has released the multiplayer version of their Assassin's Creed II game on the App Store, and it's available for free for the first 48 hours. The game's a top-down multiplayer game that has you walking around the world of the console version, both targeting other players and being targeted yourself. All the reports say it's definitely worth a try, and if you can catch it before they raise the price back up (sounds like Ubisoft is trying to find a place for their releases), you should. And as expected, Rayman 2 is also out on the App Store -- it's a port of the 3D Playstation platformer that was actually a Ubisoft property, but as you can see from the trailer above, this one's been ported by Gameloft. As with most iPhone platformers, the game uses virtual controls, but Touch Arcade says they work just fine. The save system is the biggest issue -- your iPhone is not the best platform for playing games for long stretches of time, and any game that kicks you back out to a menu if you happen to step away for a second will cause frustration eventually. Still, it sounds like a solid platformer port, and there are certainly fans of those out there. The game is $6.99 on the App Store right now.
Rayman 2: The Great Escape coming to iPhone March 1
Prolific mobile publisher Gameloft has revealed its next project: An iPhone/iPod Touch port of Ubisoft's N64 platformer, Rayman 2: The Great Escape. Let's get our obligatory naysaying out of the way, so it won't sour the rest of the post: "But, it doesn't have buttons! How are we supposed to make well-timed jumps while avoiding sharp, pointy obstacles without buttons?" We can't answer that for you, dear reader. You have to answer that for yourself. The good news is that the game looks surprisingly faithful to its original iteration. You can watch a trailer for the title, which is due out March 1 on the App Store, after the jump.
Gameloft says they've got iPhone locked down
Gameloft is one of the bigger iPhone-specific (or at least mobile-specific) game developers out there, and in fact they're so big, they tell Mobile Entertainment that they're not scared of their development partner Ubisoft and other big game developers headed to the iPhone. Ubisoft developed the most recent Assassin's Creed game for the iPhone, but Gameloft developed the first, and Gameloft's Gonzague de Vallois says that their game had better ratings and sales. To a certain extent, yes, the App Store creates a level playing field for game developers, and allows companies even smaller than Gameloft to get their games out to a mass audience and gain a following based simply on gameplay, not necessarily marketing or other factors. But despite Gameloft's bragging, some of the most popular titles on the App Store, from Rock Band to Call of Duty: World at War Zombies, are able to tie a successful brand into an app that features solid gameplay. Yes, Gameloft has been able to shine on the App Store. But I wouldn't count big developers out yet -- they're still learning how to use the iPhone's marketplace, and I think we'll continue to see big successes from bigger developer in the future. [Via Slide-to-play]
NintendoWare Weekly: Phoenix Wright, Sonic & Knuckles, Spotto!
As expected, today marks the release of Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney: Justice for All on WiIWare. Capcom's lawyer-'em-up is joined by a plethora of new titles, so if you have some extra pocket change or a packed piggy bank, you'll want to head past the break and see what's available for download this week.
Gameloft revenues increase 11% in 2009, 122 million (mostly) digital dollars made
Yep, it says it all right there in the headline, folks. Gameloft swiftly took $122 million from consumers in 2009, roughly equating to 15 million digital copies of DSiWare Oregon Trail. Alright, alright, the digital distribution-based publishers probably sold some of its other games too, we guess -- mobile games (in general) represented a whopping 94 percent of the company's sales in 2009. And despite our voracious habit for mobile games here at Joystiq, North Americans were second place in terms of worldwide sales at 32 percent, with Europeans leading at 39 percent and the rest of the world trailing at 27 percent. Good luck catching up, rest of the world! And yes, even amidst the global economic recession, Gameloft predicted "further growth in 2010 in terms of revenue and profitability." The publisher also pointed out its strong position in the long term, saying it will "benefit from the rapid emergence of digitally distributed video games on mobile phones, tablets, consoles, and from major technological innovations." You catch that tablet reference in there? Yeah, we did too. Hey, it's 2010, right? The future. We're in it.
iPad plays all iPhone games and apps
digg_url = 'http://digg.com/gaming_news/iPad_plays_all_iPhone_games_and_apps'; We couldn't care less about our email, videos and music, all we wanted to know is if the newly announced iPad could play games. The answer? If you've been spending a fortune in $0.99 chunks on iPhone games, you've already got a big iPad library. The device, as just announced by Apple, plays all your iPhone apps unmodified, out of the box. That said, to take advantage of the system's full screen, devs will have to implement some modifications to their apps. We're not sure if we're happy or sad about this, as we were kind of hoping for a whole new gaming platform -- and we're not convinced a lot of games will translate well from the iPhone, even if they technically work. Oh well, Jobs is still talking, maybe he'll have something else for us. Update: The game Apple chose to feature at the iPad debut event was Gameloft's FPS N.O.V.A. It's kind of an odd choice though, right? It's a neat trick for a phone, but does it stack up on a larger screen? Additionally, EA showed off an updated Need for Speed: Shift (again, the iPhone version; hardly akin to the console iterations). Look for the iPad versions of both these games later this year.
