warner bros interactive entertainment
Latest
New Fight Night and FEAR 2 demos land on Live
We know what you're thinking. "Hey, aren't there already Fight Night Round 4 and FEAR 2 demos?" The answer to that question is ... yes. However, these are new Fight Night Round 4 and FEAR 2 demos. The new Fight Night demo adds the ability to punch using the face buttons instead of the right stick, so it might be worth a look for those who were turned off before. It also features a "body spamming fix." We're not sure what that is, but it sounds gross. The FEAR 2 demo is actually pretty interesting, as it's a demo for the upcoming single-player DLC pack, "Reborn." It's not very common to see demos for an add-on, but it seems like a pretty good idea. If you're hankering to see what "Reborn" has in store, download the demo and give it a try. The DLC itself was originally scheduled to release this month, so it should be available any day now. Add the Fight Night Round 4 demo to your Xbox 360 download queue Add the FEAR 2 demo to your Xbox 360 download queue
FEAR 2 gets free Slow-Mo Deathmatch DLC on September 3
It's been a long time since Monolith Productions unleashed FEAR 2: Project Origin on the world. Seven months after release, the game is experiencing a rebirth of sorts, through an upcoming single-player expansion and brand new multiplayer update. "Slow-Mo Deathmatch," a staple of the first game, is finally coming to FEAR 2 through a free update that will be available on September 3rd. Free? A price like that is certainly going to make us revisit the game. In addition to toiling on the various FEAR 2 updates, Monolith has created this hilarious and thematically-inappropriate trailer for the update. Watch as the magic of "SCIENCE" explains the process behind this DLC.
Warner Bros. trademark transfer of Midway begins
According to recently filed trademarks, the transfer of Midway's various game licenses to Warner Bros. Interactive has begun. Supererogatory spotted the first group of games that have been approved by the US Patent and Trademark Office -- including Robotron 2084, Defender, Joust and Wheelman, among others -- and asserted that the rest have yet to go through. With the possible re-branding of the ex-Midway Mortal Kombat team to WB Games Chicago and dissolution of Midway's executive ranks a few weeks ago, it appears as though the dismantling of Midway Games as it once was is nearly complete. We'll always have NBA Jam, right Midway?
Interview: Watchmen: The End is Nigh producer Andy Abramovici
We didn't exactly love Watchmen: The End is Nigh, Part 1 when it came out earlier this year, and now there's a sequel. Although it was always planned to be a two-parter in order to avoid the shoehorn effort of rushing a movie/game adaptation into development, how do you handle building the second half of a game that got raked across the coals by critics on its first outing? We spoke with Warner Bros Interactive producer Andy Abramovici about both halves of the game, the retail packages, and if we might ever see an actual Watchmen RPG, or indeed any other game at all. Watchmen purists and PS3 owners out there might want to pick up Watchmen: The End Is Nigh The Ultimate Experience to get the director's cut and both halves of the game. Read on for the interview, which does not include first-hand descriptions of WBIE employees reading our review and cursing our name.%Gallery-69401%
Warner Bros. promotes exec following Midway acquisition
Warner Bros. executive Jeff Junge has a laundry list of valuable gaming credentials on his resume. From recently leading the acquisition of a failing Midway Games to an early investment in dark magic engine OnLive, and even spearheading the purchase of TT Games a couple of years back, Junge is no stranger to the game industry. And all that would help to explain why, late this week, Warner Bros. announced the promotion of Junge to senior VP of business management for Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group. The Home Entertainment Group includes, among many other things, the company's gaming division.According to the release issued by WB, Junge will continue to "drive mergers and acquisitions" for the company. We've been told on good faith that neither "mergers" nor "acquisitions" are any type of automobile. How do you plan on driving them then, Mr. Junge? Hmmm?[Via Edge]
Scribblenauts 'rooster hat' becomes real GameStop pre-order bonus [update]
Click to e-n-l-a-r-g-e [Update: See 5Th Cell's Jeremiah Slaczka rocking the Rooster Hat after the break!] If Scribblenauts' September 15 release date is already noted in permanent marker on your calendar, here's a reason to pre-order the puzzle-platformer for wordsmiths from GameStop: Max's Rooster Hat. The real-world plush hat will be handed over to pre-order customers in the US and Canada (and Australia) at the time of purchase. Quantities are limited, so make sure to ask the sales associate how you can be sure to get one at launch. We want. Want bad. Wait, let's try this: W-A-N-T B-A-D. *poof* Yay!
Mortal Kombat team sheds Midway skin for 'WB Games Chicago'
Picked up by Warner Bros. in the auctioning off of Midway Games' assets, the development studio behind the Mortal Kombat franchise has seemingly been re-branded by its new corporate overlords. Superannuation spotted the info in the LinkedIn profile of Connie Gabelein, a human resources employee currently with Warner Bros. and formerly with Midway (and apparently never part of the management that was recently let go from the failed publisher). Ms. Gabelein lists her position as a "recruiter/HR generalist for the WB Game family of studios, which includes Monolith Productions, Surreal Software, Snowblind Studios and WB Games Chicago."Furthermore, former Midway CTO/now "head of WB Games Chicago" Michael Weilbacher's LinkedIn profile seems to corroborate our suspicions. We've contacted Warner Bros. and Midway for comment and will update this post with more information as we get it. Source 1 - SuperannuationSource 2 - LinkedIn Profile of Connie GabeleinSource 3 - LinkedIn Profile of Michael Weilbacher
Scribblenauts trailer attacks our weak point for massive damage
How many game trailers will you see today that start with a guy jumping a bicycle over a baby? Like, three at most. Even the trailers for Scribblenauts are mindblowing. There's even a little riff on Genji! To demonstrate the versatile gameplay found in the procedural adventure game (that's our awesome term for it), 5th Cell included things like helping improve an old man's vision by giving him another eye. That doesn't work? How about a sniper rifle? And while we're talking about that, we'd like to express our delight that there is a game in which improving an old man's vision is an objective. Even beyond all the item-summoning stuff, there's a ton of creativity at work here. %Gallery-68669%
Scribblenauts to stump brains, warm hearts September 15
5th Cell's wunderkind Scribblenauts has finally been given a US release date: September 15. After having the time of our life with the game back at E3, we're anxious to get through the next two months to play it. If only we had some kind of time-traveling device and, perhaps, a robotic dinosaur that could defend us on our jaunt into the future. Oh well ... %Gallery-68528%
Wait, what? Watchmen game-plus-movie hybrid Blu-ray comes on two discs
In February it was revealed that Sony was working on making game-plus-movie hybrid Blu-ray discs. A great idea that appeals to something movie-goers and gamers share -- an inherent laziness. The first game to feature this was to be Warner Bros' comic book masterpiece, Watchmen, which includes the downloadable game Watchmen: The End Is Nigh on the disc. Well, on a disc, at least. The game and the movie are on separate discs which sort of renders the entire process pointless. Whoops! Still, at least you get the game and the director's cut for for $50. Plus, now you can throw away your copy of The End Is Nigh once you realize how bad it is, without parting with your copy of the movie. Still, bit of an epic fail all around, really.
Scribblenauts could come to other platforms
It's a scientific fact that 100 percent of people on Earth love Scribblenauts -- trust us, an actual scientist said that -- unfortunately, not everyone owns a Nintendo DS. Sure, almost everyone owns a DS, but that still leaves a small sliver of humanity who will be unable to experience 5th Cell's wordy puzzler whenever it hits store shelves this September. Fortunately for this minuscule contingency, there's a chance Scribblenauts could be released on other platforms. In a recent interview with VG247, the game's technical director, Marius Fahlbusch, explained, "We never limited ourselves to the DS as platform in our heads and we'll see what the future holds." Personally, we think it would be a hit on any platform, whether that platform be Xbox 360, PS3 or coloring book.
Interview: Scribblenauts creative director Jeremiah Slaczka
During E3, word of mouth changed 5TH Cell's Scribblenauts from a promising DS oddity to one of the most highly anticipated upcoming games on any system. Following this sudden and drastic rise in interest level, we spoke once again to creative director Jeremiah Slaczka, whom we last interviewed when the procedural adventure game was first revealed. Just how well has the world reacted to Scribblenauts' public debut? And who at 5TH Cell is a zombie? Read on!
The Scribblenauts ESRB listing is hilarious
Above, you can see the actual ESRB listing for the upcoming DS write-em-up, Scribblenauts. We've taken the liberty of blurring out the most boring bits. Left behind is just a tiny sampling of the truly wondrous things that Scribblenauts is capable of. Trust us, developer 5th Cell did its homework. We know, we checked. Seriously, any game that allows you to attach a steak to a baby in order to attract lions ... that's at least a rental, right? Scribblenauts drops this September. [Via NeoGAF]
Watchmen sequel and retail pack dated, priced and still (likely) boring
Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment has put its Watchmen: The End is Nigh release plan cards on the virtual table of scheduling. Watchmen: The End is Nigh The Complete Experience: Watchmen: The End is Nigh Parts 1 and 2 for PS3 + movie (Director's Cut with 25 extra minutes) on July 21 with MSRP of $50. Watchmen: The End is Nigh Parts 1 and 2 on single disc for Xbox 360 on July 21 for $30. Watchmen: The End is Nigh Part 2 available July 29 on PC for $15. The title will hit PSN and XBLM on July 30 and August 26, respectively, for $15 (1200). We've previously said and shown all we need to about the quality of this downloadable movie tie-in title. The "make it expensive" trick won't work this time, like it did with Part 1. If there's a burning desire to purchase a downloadable title in your heart, there are plenty of better games on both systems to drop coin on. %Gallery-44353%
5th Cell had five people research words for six months for Scribblenauts
In Scribblenauts, you can manifest basically anything. Whether it's a skateboarding god fighting Cthulhu, or hilarious internet memes involving cats, it seems like this game has endless potential. We're anxiously anticipating the game's arrival, with a gigantic notebook full of ideas that we can't wait to try out. As confident as we are that we'll be able to best the game, it's tough when developer 5th Cell admits to G4 that it had five people reading just about everything for six months. Encyclopedias, dictionaries, and Wikipedias are just a few of the sources these folks scoured for juicy words to add to the game's enormous lexicon. Check out the video past the break, where 5th Cell's Jeremiah Slaczka and Matt Cox detail how much work went into building this game's robust vocabulary. %Gallery-39784%
Hands-on: Scribblenauts
There's a growing sect of Joystiq writers who are walking away from E3 2009 with the same title constituting their Game of the Show. Surprisingly, it's not a big-budget blockbuster, or a groundbreaking advancement in storytelling, or a bold new method of how we interact with our video games. It's Scribblenauts, an unassuming DS puzzler with a massive lexicon, charming gameplay and, as far as we can tell, a large infusion of impossible technowizardry. The premise of the game is simple -- you play as Maxwell, who must solve various puzzles to obtain Starites spread across 220 different levels. To execute the aforementioned solving, you write words to create objects in the world that your cartoonish hero can interact with. It's a simple concept that's bolstered by one astounding accomplishment from developer 5th Cell: Anything you can think of is in this game. (Yes, that. Yes, that too.)
Play Scribblenauts off, keyboard cat
While trying to stump 5TH Cell's Scribblenauts, it was suggested to us that we should try typing some Internet memes into the game's interface and see if they'd materialize. Our first experiment: Longcat. As it turns out, Longcat is in the game ... and he's looooooong. Equally long, but not pictured, is Longcat's nemesis Tacgnol. Seriously. Get ready to declare your game of the show after the break. You'll forget all about Splinter Creed or whatever once you see the player character, sitting in a mech, next to a mecha, watching 5TH Cell's creative director breakdance to the musical stylings of ... Keyboard Cat.
Scribblenauts gets more awesome with level creation, sharing
We already know that developer 5th Cell's ambitious DS project Scribblenauts will keep us distracted with its purported ability to let us conjure up anything simply by writing its name on the screen. What we didn't know is that the game will also let us confound others by letting us edit and share levels. Seriously, is there anything this cute little game can't do? In Scribblenauts, players will be able to create and share custom obstacle course-style levels with other players, as well as dictate how objects in these levels behave. We might create a whale who loves honey, or a rainbow that attracts flies. Or, as Kotaku's Totilo puts it, things could get weird when Scribblenauts pencils in all of our free time this fall. [Via GoNintendo]
PSA: Watchmen: The End is Nigh is coming to the PC
Yesterday, and for seemingly no particular reason, Warner Bros. told GameSpot of its decision to not distribute the second episode of Watchmen: The End is Nigh on PC. Today, when asked for comment, a WB representative told Joystiq, "It is actually coming to PC. What we told GameSpot yesterday, as of yesterday, was what we knew." Whoops! These things do happen though -- the question now is whether or not the publisher is doing the public a disservice by continuing to release poorly made games based on the classic Warner property. But that's a question you'll have to ask yourself. And maybe Justin. %Gallery-44353%
Watchmen: The End is Nigh coming to retail disc
Both chapters of downloadable title Watchmen: Please Make it End The End is Nigh will be available on a retail disc around the time the movie makes its way to DVD/Blu-ray on July 21. 1UP confirmed the information with Deadline Games director Søren Lund at the Nordic Game Conference yesterday. A press release with the full details should be made available today. Reviews for the The End is Nigh weren't exactly glowing (a la blue dongs), but perhaps having the two Nigh episodes together on one disc will reveal the undiscovered brilliance of the simplistic beat-em-up. %Gallery-44353%
