EA to buy out Crytek, makers of FarCry

Word from EA is that they are planning on buying Crytek, the makers of the massively sold game, FarCry.

Good news and bad news

Good news first. Valve released game play videos of Half-Live 2 Episode 2. Awesome! I love portal. Portal looks so cool. I wanna play it so badly. The graphics look nice (remeber that these videos are from youtube…so they kinda suck) and they physics look awesome.

• Portal
• Team Fortress 2
• Half-Life 2: Episode 2 (Part 1)
• Half-Life 2: Episode 2 (Part 2)
• Half-Life 2: Episode 2 (Part 3)
• Half-Life 2: Episode 2 (Part 4)
• Half-Life 2: Episode 2 (Part 5)

Now for the horribly bad news. It got delayed. NOOOOO! I WANT YOU PORTAL! It won’t release until Q1 of 2007 for the PC.

That sucks.

Sony Goes Pink

In other Sony news, Sony has announced that they will be making pink versions of the psp and ps2. They say the reason for this is because they want to target girls (as their current commericals seem to turn them off..wonder why?). However, this color is only availble in Europe and will be ready to be sold on November 8th.

The Pink PS2 will become…totally pink…with two pink controllers, a pink memory card, and supposively more pink crap. Sony has made the connection that girls like to sing. So, they are going to bundle Singstar Pop with the package as well. The pink system will cost €159.99

PS3 Dev Kit Released

Before we had a post on the original dev kit which was a big huge box that weighed nothing less of 60 pounds. And that box was huge. Turns out that Sony has been tweaking the dev kit to make it near the size of a old VCR set. The Kit contains a Blu-ray drive and a 80GB hard drive which contains an alpha build of Full Auto 2 as well as other apps. You were able to build Full Auto 2 using the dev kit and play it. People who have played it say that it was lag free and the menus were awesome.

Concept art for the new DirectX appears

The art has flew around the Internet as a rumor until neowin announced that it was official based of Gamespot UK. Check out this bad boy on the side of this post. Dang! That picture is detailed. But you should really go see it in all its glory.

 Just click it. It won’t kill you (I don’t think) but it is awesome!

Microsoft allows you to make your own Xbox 360 game

Today, Microsoft released a new game development environment that would allow anyone to create games for the Xbox 360 console, the company said on Monday. Microsoft dubs the new environment XNA Game Studio and will be available for download at Microsoft as a beta near late August. It currently runs on Windows XP only.

Click here for the official Story and here to sign up for the beta

TOP SECRET NINTENDO FACTS

Okay, here is something that no one has and it’s true. But I am limited on what I can say so I have to brief it for you.

I am gonna list these cause it will be easier

1. Pokemon Ranger is a game for the DS that will allow you to play as the pokemon and allow you to talk to other pokemon in English (squirtle and chikarita are gonna be in the game….squirtle looks so cute)
2. Nintendo is making a new murder mystery game for the DS where you play as a detective in the 1960s. It’s named Hotel Dusk. You have a lover who is missing, and you travel around US [man the transitions between places is so cool. It's like a drop down effect. Oh which reminds me, your character constantly thinks of his lover] trying to solve the mystery. You kill someone near the start on a dock, and the word “why?” appears on the screen. Based on the dark shaded graphics and the awesome transitions of the game, I would say it’s being made by the same team as Another was made by.
3. I saw the final box art of Twilight Princess but wasn’t allow to take a picture of it (I didn’t have a media pass [sorry guys..]) but a brief description: it will have the logo on the front as well as link as a wolf and himself and Zelda makes an appearance with her black cloak. The background is a darkness theme with a cliff and purple was in the shot. I can’t remember if the moon is in it or not (this is not it). I am gonna try to get the offical boxart soon.
4. The new Kirby game for the GCN will have the same animation for the sword as Kirby had in Kirby’s Air Ride
5. ChibiRobo is gonna go to the DS
6. “COME BACK LINK!” is a line in the new Zelda game for the DS
7. The Wii looks awesome
8. Star Fox Command has great controls

And that’s about it for my Top Secret Nintendo Facts

EA is shutting down online servers

EA is starting to shut down a bunch of online servers, for some reason, but it’s likely the servers will be put out of use because the games are old. Anyway here is the list of shutting down servers that will be gone by the weekend.

This weekend:

FIFA Soccer 2005 for PS2, Xbox and PC
EA SPORTSâ„¢ Fight Night Round 2 for PS2 and Xbox
NCAA® March Madnessâ„¢ 2005 for Xbox and PS2
NBA LIVE 2005 for Xbox, PC and PS2
NBA STREET V3 for PS2 and Xbox
NCAA® Football 2005 for PS2
Need for Speedâ„¢ Underground 2 for Xbox and PC
NHL® 2005 for PS2, Xbox and PC
Total Club Manager 06 for PS2
Tiger Woods PGA TOUR® 2005 for PS2 and PC
UEFA CHAMPIONS LEAGUEâ„¢ 2004-2005 for Xbox, PC and PS2

EA also announced that on October 1st, Madden NFL 2005 for PS2, Xbox and PC and  NFL Street 2: Unleashed for PS2 and Xbox will be shut down as well.

PS3 will be able to use save data from older PS systems….

..but here is the catch. You need to buy a PS/2 to PS3 adapter. Like something you need if you were to move data from a Xbox card to the new Xbox 360 by using 3rd party devices. The PS3 will have the same thing but you have to buy it from Sony.

Sony says that in order to use saved data on a PlayStation 2 memory card, you must copy data onto a virtual memory card that is mounted on the HD by default.

But does that mean you have to buy new memory cards so they would work with a PS3? The answer is no. Because the memory card adapter can edit, move data from memory cards.

Classic PS2 games are added to the cheap list

In Sony news, the PS2 has gotten 5 new games added to the Greatest Hits list and will become cheaper ($19.99) after Augest 6.

The five games are:

1. Shadow of the Colossus
2. Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves
3. SOCOM 3: US Navy SEALs
4. Jak X: Combat Racing
5. Ratchet: Deadlocked

The games added bring the list up to about 169 games which Sony proclaims, “IS THE LARGEST THAN ANY OTHER SYSTEM! BEAT THAT!”.

Medal of Honor goes to PSP Camp.

Which is the same thing as boot camp but for the PSP. EA Canada (the makers of the SSX series) announced that Medal of Honor is going to be on the PSP and will be out near Christmas. The game is exclusive to the PSP and will have characters from the past games you can play as. According to EA there will be over 20 characters you can unlock. The game will support 32 players in online matches playing in 15 different settings. There will be 6 multiplayer modes.

EA says the game is currently called Medal of Honor Heroes and the name may change in the future.