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THQ confirms closure of San Diego studio
In the hustle and bustle of E3 week, on the very day THQ announced it would transition over the UFC license to Electronic Arts for an 'undisclosed cash payment," the publisher decided to close its San Diego studio."THQ confirms that today's announcement regarding the UFC license transition will affect the company's San Diego studio," the publisher informed Joystiq in a statement. "THQ is working closely with those relevant staff to either find possible employment within the company, or potentially with EA."
WWE All Stars enters the 3DS ring
WWE All Stars, THQ's arcade-style wrestling game, is leaping from the top rope onto another platform: the 3DS. There, the exaggerated wrestlers will get to be exaggerated into a third dimension. The 3DS game will come pre-packed with the 13 rasslers offered as DLC for the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions, and two exclusive gameplay modes, Gauntlet and Score Scramble. Gauntlet is a survival mode in which players have to take on every wrestler in the game. Score Scramble challenges players "to either reach a specific point total or to finish a timed match with the highest point total." The 3DS version of All Stars arrives on November 22. Unfortunately, we don't expect a BrawlStick release for this one.
WWE All-Stars DLC adds some 'Southern Charisma'
You may be enjoying WWE All-Stars, but your copy of the game doesn't have all the stars. This week, you can address that shortfall by downloading the new DLC, "Southern Charisma Pack." For 240 Microsoft Points or $2.99 on PSN, you can add Big Boss Man, Michael "PS" Hayes, and "World's Strongest Man" Mark Henry to the game, all complete with the game's outsized style. That's ... more stars, even if it doesn't quite hit the goal of "all." Maybe we're being too strict about this.
WWE All Stars DLC schedule: DiBiase, Lawler, Big Boss Man on the way
THQ has revealed the upcoming DLC schedule for WWE All Stars (a game so good we gave it almost all of our stars). Available now is the Million Dollar Pack – previously only available for pre-orders – which includes Ted "Million Dollar Man" DiBiase and his son ... Ted DiBiase. The pack can be had for $2. Next on the list, July 5 brings the All-Time Greats pack, which features Hawk, Animal, Jerry "The King" Lawler and Chris Jericho for $4. The wrestler R-Truth will also be available as a free download on July 5. Finally, the Southern Charisma pack will debut on August 2 for $3 and will include Big Boss Man, Michael Hayes and Mark Henry. At this point, there's only one question left to ask: Where the hell is Cyndi Lauper?
Cheap arcade sticks, with just a little wrestling artwork
Today, as the Deal of the Day, Amazon is offering some of Mad Catz's well-regarded arcade sticks for both PS3 and Xbox 360, at the discounted price of just $59.99 each. In addition, the company's fighting game-centric pad controllers are also on sale for $29.99. There's just one small caveat: They have cartoon wrestlers all over them. The specific controllers offered are the "BrawlSticks" and "BrawlPads" produced for WWE All Stars, and thus bear the stylized likenesses of two massive and oiled WWE stars, The Rock and Triple H. Perfect if you were looking for both a new arcade stick and a new art project!
WWE All Stars Honky Tonk Man DLC free on XBLM
Ready for another outsized, stylized classic wrestler with whom to flatten your friends? Plug in your BrawlStick and download some new DLC for the Xbox 360 version of WWE All Stars. The free update offers a new old wrestler, the Honky Tonk Man. The DLC also includes "Compatibility Pack 1," an update that patches the game to be compatible with ... the Honky Tonk Man DLC. What a convenient bundle! The DLC was released for PS3 back in April, but is currently unavailable due to the small matter of the entire PlayStation Network being down.
WWE All-Stars review: Larger than life
In the last decade, wrestling video games have done an exceptional job of recreating the dense rules, convoluted dramas and worn bodies that comprise the popular television enterprise that entertains the red meat-eating swath of America. It is a strange, slightly silly pursuit: creating a realistic replica of a fantasy. And yet, developers and publishers have, without asking why, fed us real-fake wrestling games, where punches whiff and luchadores disappointingly obey the laws of gravity. WWE All-Stars, the latest wrestling game from THQ, sounds, in name alone, like another addition to this long, dull line of reality-fantasy-simulators. It's not: Its wrestlers are brawny theme park caricatures; its drama is shallow and direct; and its rules are nonexistent. %Gallery-114622%
WWE All Stars demo jumps onto Xbox Live and PSN today
The WWE All Stars demo is available now on Xbox Live and should be available later today on PSN (after the weekly update). The demo has Ultimate Warrior and Rey Mysterio entering the ring and is meant to showcase the changes THQ is bringing to the genre. The 838MB demo features Ultimate Warrior as a "Brawler" and Rey Mysterio as an "Acrobat," two of the four character classes in the game. Brawlers are the balanced class, while the Acrobat class is fast and flies through the air, springing off ropes. Go check it out ... you wouldn't want to Miz out on all the action.
Mad Catz's WWE All Stars 'BrawlStick' and 'BrawlPad' revealed
We were baffled by the announcement that Mad Catz would make premium controllers for WWE All Stars. Mad Catz just sent us the first images of the new "BrawlStick" and "BrawlPad" accessories, and we don't know if it's just because we've had months to get used to the idea, but they aren't too shocking! Okay, so these are Standard Edition FightSticks and FightPads with exaggerated cartoon pictures of The Rock and Triple H on them. For some reason, we expected to be a lot more weirded out by that sight. They'll be available on PS3 and Xbox 360 alongside the game, with the sticks priced at $79.99 and the pads at $39.99.%Gallery-114775%
WWE All Stars preview: Grappling with change
All Stars is supposed to represent one of the biggest changes to WWE gaming this generation. Promising an over-the-top arcade fighting engine, THQ hopes that this latest effort will "bridge generations of WWE enthusiasts and casual followers alike." As a personal fan of Legends of Wrestlemania, All Stars' simplified controls and decades-spanning roster certainly piqued my interest. But is it successful? From what I've seen so far: almost. "The greatest matches haven't happened until now," the game's marketing slogan enthusiastically promotes. Certainly, there's a lot of potential here, with The Rock, Andre the Giant and -- for the first time ever in a WWE game -- Randy Savage, standing amongst some of the announced characters. Perhaps more than other fighting games, this title will live and die by its roster. Right now, there are too many obvious omissions to count. In its current state, the roster is akin to a Smash Bros. without Mario. Of course, THQ undoubtedly has a plethora of announcements to make but, like its current ensemble, I couldn't help but shake the feeling that the gameplay didn't quite live up to my expectations. The concept is terrific, and definitely the freshest take on the sport I've seen in a long time. All Stars throws away any semblance of reality, and chooses a wild combat system that features superhuman moves, and encourages juggling and air combos. Seeing the Macho Man do a spinning somersault onto Big Show as the entire background explodes into a colorful vignette? Magical. Unfortunately, these moments don't happen quite often enough.%Gallery-114622%
UFC Personal Trainer due in Europe this April
Get ready to get super buff. European sites including CVG and Eurogamer say THQ announced that UFC Personal Trainer, the UFC-themed exercise game for Kinect, Move, and Wii, will be released in Europe on April 1 of next year, bringing with it THQ's firm (but completely unspoken) guarantee that regular use will make you look exactly like Brock Lesnar. Out the same day: WWE All-Stars, a similarly casual-focused game, but with wrestling instead of whatever you call what happens in UFC, and arcade-style controls instead of motion. Both games are headed for a similar release window in North America. During an investor conference call this month, THQ cited them as highlights of its "March quarter."
Mad Catz creating FightSticks and FightPads for WWE All Stars
Mad Catz has created FightPad and FightStick accessories for fighting games like Street Fighter IV and Marvel vs. Capcom 2. It has now announced a partnership with THQ to produce ... WWE-branded FightSticks and FightPads, for the upcoming WWE All Stars game. All Stars is supposed to be more arcade-like and feature "combination sequences" (according to its original announcement), so ... no, this just isn't going to make sense no matter how hard we try. Mad Catz intends to produce the accessories for PS3, Xbox 360, and Wii, which means that if you missed out on the Tatsunoko vs. Capcom FightStick, you'll have another chance to get a Wii arcade stick, albeit one with pictures of wrasslers all over it. Mad Catz has declined to offer images or specific details for the devices, so we're just going to have to dream for now.
THQ spinning off another WWE series
THQ has another WWE game on the way, joining its WWE Smackdown vs. Raw series and the new WWE All Stars (pictured). According to THQ's Danny Bilson, the new WWE "extension" shares All Stars' focus on accessibility over Smackdown vs. Raw's detailed ... simulation of simulated wrestling. "Next year you'll see another new extension [of the WWE license]," Bilson told CVG, "that's just as exciting as All Stars, but a little different. We're not talking about that yet." He said that the plan was to release a WWE game every six months (presumably for many years to come), alternating between Smackdown vs. Raw, All Stars and this new series -- the latter two being "more friendly, easier and less simmy than Smackdown vs. Raw." There's a fourth franchise too, WWE Smackdown Vs. Raw Online, but that's intended solely for the Asian market. If you're thinking that the "new" series will feature WWE wrestlers driving in cars and shooting at each other -- THQ tried that one already. Our wild guess: the new game's gonna really Kinect players to the Moves.
Seen@E3: The Greatest Thing We've Ever Seen
This is the greatest thing we've ever seen. To be more specific, it's from the WWE All-Stars booth at E3. But you probably didn't need that additional information. You only need to know that it's the greatest thing we've ever seen. When our bones are full of fatigue from braving the crowds of the E3 show floor, we need only to look towards it, like a beacon of hope, capable of rejuvenating our spirits in unprecedented ways. Thank you, WWE All-Stars booth. We do not deserve you.
THQ announces two new WWE games
As today's E3 festivities kicked off, THQ slipped in a pair of its own announcements: Its catalog of titles based on the world's oldest sport, by which of course we mean professional wrestling, is expanding by a factor of two in the near future. First, WWE All Stars will pit legendary wrestlers against one another. Just imagine: Diamondface vs. Mr. Grabs: The Man With No Fear. We just made those two wrestlers up, of course, because THQ hasn't actually named any specific fighters included in the game, nor do we know enough about the sport to identify the wrestlers in the image above. Aren't you impressed? The second game is WWE SmackDown vs. Raw Online, a free-to-play PC wrastlin' title with microtransaction support that's being created by Seoul-based developer Vertigo Games. The game is slated to drop in Korea in early 2011 -- no North American release plans have been announced. Hey, come on, THQ! We like wrestling, too! (Well, some of us do.)
