Activision has revealed new screenshots of the upcoming Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater HD, which is set to release on the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live this summer. The screenshots showcase some of the riders in the game, such as Rodney Mullen, Nyjah Huston, and of course, Tony Hawk himself. In these we also get a good look at the ‘Warehouse’ level as well a glimpse at the ‘School 2′ level.

With the screenshots, Activision has also confirmed seven of the levels from Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater & Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2, which will make their way into the game. The levels are Warehouse, School 2, Mall, Phoenix, Hangar, Marseilles, and Venice. Early screenshots of this HD remake look to do great justice to these old school levels and finally take the Tony Hawk series back in the right direction after Ride and Shred failed to impress.

Let us know in the comments if you plan to return to Tony Hawk’s old skating grounds.

© Cameron Teague for PlayStation LifeStyle, 2012. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us

Diablo III is arguably the biggest release set for 2012, and its PC-exclusive status has made it a golden egg on a platform that lately hasn’t seen many blockbuster exclusives. However, rumors have soared for months now that the game might make the award-winning series’ first transition to the console environment since 1998. With its release window approaching, multiplatform has seemed like nothing more than that: rumors. But a simple Tweet from a Blizzard employee has revealed one of the most surprising multiplatform jumps in history.

Blizzard Community Manager Micah Whipple, also known as Bashiok, was asked by a user whether or not Diablo III will be coming to consoles, to which he replied:

Yup. Josh Mosqueira is lead designer for the Diablo console project.

With Activision funding the project, this comes as less of a surprise. The good thing is that Diablo III‘s gameplay is one of a kind, and should transition to controller inputs relatively smoothly unlike its MMORPG kindred. Hell, the first Diablo was able to work on the original PlayStation, so the PlayStation 3 should have no problem. The only thing still left in question is what consoles it will release on. Hopefully Blizzard is attracted to Sony’s free-to-play online model and will bring one of the best series in PC history to the PlayStation 3.

© jleack for PlayStation LifeStyle, 2012. | Permalink | 11 comments | Add to del.icio.us

Reports show that this year video games sales are down compared to recent years, but one title has managed to buck that trend. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 has topped $1 billion in worldwide sales. Amazingly, the pass the mark in just 16 days, and even broke the previous record held by the Avatar, which reached $1 billion in 17 days.

Activision CEO Bobby Kotick said:

Modern Warfare 3, and other games by us, have a much broader appeal than they have had in the past, with the social nature of the game offering a different type of interactive experience that has not existed before. As the number of new game consoles has expanded, along with the audience, it’s capturing a new audience that in the past has not considered playing video games.

He also continued by giving praise to the game’s developer:

Really knowing the taste of your customers is something we do really well; we’ve had so much sustained success with this franchise because we continue to look at what the audience is interested in. We continually make sure we are delivering products that have audience appeal.

Do you think Call of Duty titles will ever be on the decline? Sounds off in the comment below.

© magpie4life for PlayStation LifeStyle, 2011. | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to del.icio.us

That is one big machine Spidey presumably takes down towards the end! You can take a look at the VGAs as it plays out here. Join in the discussion on our liveblog here!

© Paulmichael Contreras for PlayStation LifeStyle, 2011. | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to del.icio.us

Call of Duty Elite may have received harsh criticism since it was announced earlier in the year, but what really matters is whether or not Activision is able to sell the services which is the first of its kind. The current subscriber figures have now been released, and it appears that the complaints weren’t enough to halt Activision’s advancement on consumer wallets.

Activision has announced that Call of Duty Elite has reached more than four million subscribers within a month of Modern Warfare 3‘s launch. In addition, over one million users are currently paying for the service. With a $50 yearly fee, this equates to an estimated revenue of more than 50 million U.S. dollars, which will continue to rise as the game sells additional units throughout the holiday season.

As a comparison, the premium subscription services for Netflix, Hulu Plus, Sirius XM and Xbox Live reached one million paid subscribers after around a year, according to Activision.

This new service has been a way to flow Call of Duty‘s massive fanbase into Activision’s system, allowing the corporate juggernaut to host user information and offer additional services, but at a price. The paid offerings aren’t much different than what we saw given for free and through optional downloadable content in previous releases, which makes it a questionable move. It’s even begun affecting free resources, such as a popular YouTube user’s tip videos which have been subsequently removed after the deployment of Call of Duty Elite. The many users who are complaining appear to be the minority, and now that Activision has experienced success with implementing yearly fees for non-MMORPG products, this might become a more popular trend, similar to how DLC has developed over the course of this generation.

© jleack for PlayStation LifeStyle, 2011. | Permalink | 18 comments | Add to del.icio.us

When the world learned that Activision wasn’t joking about charging yearly fees for additional services related to the Call of Duty series, reality set in. Games might be overpriced, and DLC may have its own problems, but yearly fees are a whole different animal. The expensive pricing is one problem, but now the effects of Call of Duty Elite are beginning to affect the market in even more disastrous ways.

A popular YouTube user who goes by the name of XboxAhoy has had several of his Modern Warfare 3 videos removed from his account after a conflict with Activision. XboxAhoy was recently contracted for Activision’s new Call of Duty Elite service, and has stated that he’ll produce videos specifically for the service’s Elite TV feature along with making some lighter but free videos for his YouTube subscribers. After only a couple weeks of the game being out, all of his videos related to Modern Warfare 3 have been completely removed from his profile. Those who have enjoyed his Call of Duty tips and tricks for years now are now forced to pay for Call of Duty Elite.

YouTube has been an excellent resource for gaming walkthroughs, tips, and tricks, and to think that Activision would prefer gamers spend subscription fees to access such content is rather disgusting, but not particularly surprising when you look at their track record. Sadly, Call of Duty Elite has been so popular that registration was broken for its first week, meaning Activision has been rewarded for their implementation and will probably find ways to integrate it into all of the series under their umbrella. Of course, one of the best ways to find tips and tricks is use our Modern Warfare 3 trophy guide, which Activision can’t take down.

How do you feel about Activision’s bold move? Let us know if you agree or disagree with their tactics below.

© jleack for PlayStation LifeStyle, 2011. | Permalink | 25 comments | Add to del.icio.us

Nostalgia is a big part of the gaming industry and gamers themselves, as people always tend to talk about the good old days and those games they played for hours and hours as a child. When Activision announced that it was bringing GoldenEye 007 to the PS3 and Xbox 360, a lot of us out there, including myself, were tickled pink at this news, remembering back to the old Nintendo 64 and a certain secret agent who stole our hearts. Now, 14 years after the original released, Activision has given us GoldenEye 007: Reloaded, with the big question being, how far can nostalgia take this game?

In this remake, Daniel Craig takes over the role of 007, as he is out to face off against Russians, helicopters, tanks, and whatever else you can think to throw at him. Thankfully, you have a phone that can do anything short of make you a sandwich, and you are trained in the use of weapons and hand-to-hand combat. The story is interesting enough to push across the story and provides you with enough to make it feel all spy-like.

GoldenEye is a game that feels a bit dated in terms of the gun play and combat, which is both a good thing and a bad. The good part is that it feels very similar to the original, bringing back those good times many of us had. However, this also leaves it on the outside looking in, when it comes to shooters you have to play. This is an FPS that works and is fun, but doesn’t have anything extremely special or memorable with the campaign to bring you back for more, aside from the extra hard difficulty, which takes away health regeneration and such. The campaign will run you around 7-10 hours and each mission has a main objective and side objectives to complete, giving each level a bit of depth, despite the completely linear level designs.

Aside from the single player, there are also MI6 missions to take part in. These missions have various objectives, such as defend certain points from onslaughts of enemies or kill every enemy in the map. Each mission lets you customize the difficulty points for competition, as you can select how much health you have, how many enemies, and more. These missions do a great job of complementing the main campaign and should give for plenty of extra hours worth of gameplay, trying to get the best score on each one.

Online and offline multiplayer make an appearance as well, with 4-player split-screen or 16-player online matches. There are tons of different modes to enjoy in the online part of the game, but sadly almost every mode except for one or two are dead. Even when you do get in a game though, the multiplayer aspect of the game is rather weak, with poor level designs and a rather boring feel to the game. Shotguns are far too overpowering, with people killing from ridiculous distances and the RPG is whored more than a blonde bombshell on the streets. There is also a ton of lag to be found in almost every game I played, with my character stuttering around the map a bit too much when trying to run.

The game also implements motion controls with the PlayStation Move, along with the sharpshooter, but I found myself not really enjoying the motion controls as, even after I tweaked them, the controls felt incredibly stiff and delayed, so I constantly switched back to the regular DualShock 3 controller, which felt a lot better. This might be something that works better with the sharpshooter, but I would recommend forgetting the game has motion controls and stick to the good old two sticks approach.

On the audio side, GoldenEye does a great job but has a few quirks here and there. The voice acting is well done and the guns sound good, but the audio is a bit on the low-end and there is not an option for subtitles, which could have gone a long way in this game. Most of the time I had to jack up my volume to even hear what the characters were saying, something that could have easily been avoided. Aside from that little quirk, the audio part of the game is top-notch and does a great job of putting you in the action.

Visually, the game is just OK and that is about the best you can say for it. The character models are uninspiring and the detail to most of the environments are rather weak. Bland corridors over and over again litter each level, with not enough detail paid to the world surrounding Bond. Thankfully, the guns found in the game look good, and add at least some polish to a boring product visually.

In the end, Reloaded is a game that doesn’t do enough to win over gamers who never played the classic and for those who fell in love with this N64 classic, you might be better off wiping that dust off your old N64 console. The game feels like it was stuck in the middle of modernizing the experience too much and sticking true to the roots, opting to stay around the middle. The single player campaign is fun and the MI6 missions provided some added depth, just don’t expect much from the games online multiplayer, which is already dead just a week after launch. If you have a few friends over, the 4-player co-op will provide for a lot of fun, but its hard to recommend this game when you have the big three’s on the market in Uncharted 3, Battlefield 3, and Modern Warfare 3.

PlayStation LifeStyle’s Final Score +/ Enjoyable Single Player and MI6 Missions - Lots of Online Modes Don’t Hide Boring Multiplayer - Ugly game from Player Models to Environments

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© Cameron Teague for PlayStation LifeStyle, 2011. | Permalink | 11 comments | Add to del.icio.us

Another year has gone by, and once again Call of Duty is here to greet consumers at the front door of nearly every major retailer nationwide. But despite the series’ success, the Call of Duty franchise has often been accused of lacking innovation and remaining stagnant through each new iteration. With the latest advert for MW3 - which seems to be playing on just about every channel – featuring celebrities in live action role-play instead of showing actual gameplay, it’s beginning to set in that the game is just another clone of Call of Duty 4. The latest evidence that’s been uncovered doesn’t exactly help Activision’s case.

In the PC version of Modern Warfare 3, if the game crashes, the user will be asked to run in a “safe mode” on the next start-up. However, the error has an error of its own, which you can see below exhibit A:

Okay, so Infinity Ward forgot to change the error code from Modern Warfare 2, big deal. But what about this video evidence presented by FinalLevelGames?

Click here to view the embedded video.

The sad thing about this is that other developers who pour their heart out to make fresh experiences don’t even sell a tenth of what an annual Call of Duty release is able to accrue. This regular, astronomical success appears to have gotten into the minds of the development team, and in an effort to retain the award-winning formula, next to nothing has been done to evolve the series. Much of the same elements, from the gameplay, to the UI, weapons, and presentation, are absolutely unchanged. In other franchises this would be looked at as DLC, or perhaps even a map pack, but Activision can get away with just about anything until consumers’ demand change. As a result, what was once considered the undisputed king of its genre is beginning to not only look stale, but is turning into the FPS version of Madden, and without roster updates.

Are we being too critical, or is the annual release of Call of Duty damaging the series’ quality?

© jleack for PlayStation LifeStyle, 2011. | Permalink | 38 comments | Add to del.icio.us

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 is arguably the year’s most anticipated game, and is expected to break sales record set by Call of Duty: Black Ops last year. Along with MW3, Activision has introduced Call of Duty Elite, a combination of free and paid stats tracking system, but many who tried to sign up for the service today were greeted with an error. Servers stress from high demand has been blamed for the trouble.

Today, Beachhead Studios’ Chacko Sonny  released a statement regarding the situation on behalf of Activision:

Registration requests for our new live service Call of Duty Elite are exceeding even our most optimistic expectations, which is creating a bottleneck and some players have not been able to register. We have already registered hundreds of thousands of players and we are working around the clock to increase our capacity as quickly as possible.

Sonny also said that players will not lose any of their stats during the downtime:

Please be assured your gameplay data is safe and that whenever you successfully register for Call of Duty Elite, all of your data will be waiting for you. So enjoy the game, start ranking up and we assure you we are working around the clock to accommodate every player who wants to be a part of Call of Duty Elite as quickly as possible. We will update you frequently to keep you informed.

Have you experienced any problems? Let us know in the comments below.

© magpie4life for PlayStation LifeStyle, 2011. | Permalink | 12 comments | Add to del.icio.us

Activision and Electronic Arts have been in some serious competition over the years, which has been made worse by the close release date proximity of Modern Warfare 3 and Battlefield 3. Both camps have had their share of inflammatory comments, with Glen Schofield, Activision General Manager, and Sledgehammer Games head, commenting on the bugs in the Battlefield 3 beta. He has since retracted his statement.

In a now-deleted tweet, Schofield said, when questioned about the number of participants in Call of Duty’s own XP play test:

We had well over a 1000. Infinity Ward has years of experience with the biggest multiplayer game ever. I surely didn’t see bugs like I saw elsewhere.

Within two days of saying that Battlefield 3 feedback has been negative, he has apologized via a Twitter post, which states:

Bad day yesterday. My deepest apologies 4 bugs comment. I know about new engines, been there a dozen times. No disrespect intended.

Glen Schofield has gone on to say on record that Sledgehammer Games has been battling with lots of bugs and glitches during the production of MW3, so he understands the challenge involved with polishing such massive experiences that are under close examination. However, he didn’t say anything about BF3 not being as buggy as he indicated. Truth is, his original statement wasn’t far from the truth. Feedback has leaned toward the negative side, with much of it aimed at the dozens of strange unexplainable bugs that feasted on beta players.

DICE mentioned last week that BF3 won’t suffer from the same issues seen in the beta, but with such little time to spare, it’ll be interested to see if they managed to eliminate them all. We’ll find out soon enough, as Battlefield 3 releases on October 25th.

© jleack for PlayStation LifeStyle, 2011. | Permalink | 10 comments | Add to del.icio.us

After months of media and hot discussion, Activision and Electronic Arts are ready to butt heads with their big games of the holiday season: Modern Warfare 3 and Battlefield 3. If you’re expecting both to be similar, don’t be, because they’re heading in two opposite directions.

Glen Schofield, General Manager of Activision, had some interesting things to say about the media battle between MW3 and BF3 when speaking to CVG. He apparently didn’t even hear about his competitor’s game until a few months ago, and said:

My competition is Modern Warfare 2. It always has been and if you think back two years ago when we were starting on the project I didn’t know anything about Battlefield. I started hearing stuff about it maybe five or six months ago, news coming out.

With how much attention Battlefield 3 has been given over the course of the year, it’s hard to imagine how anyone could miss it until only a few months ago. Nonetheless, Schofield continued:

…as far as a competitor goes, by the time we saw anything of it, the window to make changes was closed.

What’s most surprising about his quote is that he’s essentially stating that BF3 has had no impact on the direction of MW3. There’s no way around it, that’s a big and potentially costly mistake. BF3 has some qualities that make it an easy sell to people tired of Call of Duty‘s annual releases, and some adjustments could help remedy that. You can bet almost anything that DICE have looked at previous Call of Duty releases for ideas on how to make their respective game more attractive, and while the Battlefield series hasn’t had the same success, it does offer a lot of unique ideas that make it a serious competitor in the market. If you get around to playing MW3 this holiday season, and find that it’s redundant, then here’s the reason.

© jleack for PlayStation LifeStyle, 2011. | Permalink | 17 comments | Add to del.icio.us

Activision has just announced that a new Men in Black video game is in the works, coinciding with the release of Men in Black III at the box office. Now don’t let this scare you, as Activision has stated that this is an original title that will be launching on consoles and handhelds in Spring of 2012.

In sticking true to the original series, the game promises an action-packed game with the same comedic style of the movies and great special effects. Old faces will show up in the story along with new enemies, as this brand new story will dig into the back story of the Men in Black universe.

Activision executive vice president David Oxford said:

The Men In Black franchise is an unbeatable starting point to deliver a genre-bending gaming experience with a level of production value on par with Hollywood.

VP of licensing at Sony Pictures Entertainment Mark Caplan followed with:

With Activision bringing the Men In Black universe to life on next-gen consoles for the first time, the Men In Black video game will be both familiar to fans, an exciting beginning for the uninitiated, and revolutionary for the franchise.

What do you think of this announcement and are you excited about possibly jumping into the shoes of an agent – and maybe even meeting Agent’s K and J?

© Cameron Teague for PlayStation LifeStyle, 2011. | Permalink | 13 comments | Add to del.icio.us

DICE has gone on the record recently stating that it has its sites set on the Call of Duty franchise, insisting that they will take away a significant amount of market share from Activision with the impending launch of Battlefield 3. Sledgehammer Games, Glen Schofield, has stated that he that he does not see Modern Warfare 3 as being in competition with Battlefield 3 at all, insisting that instead he wants to do better than Modern Warfare 2.

Speaking in regards to any sort of rivalry between DICE and Sledgehammer, Schofield told Eurogamer:

There’s definitely a mutual respect at the development level. The guys at DICE are great, they’ve made great games over the years and I think they have the same respect for us. We need to make a better game for the fans.

Schofield also admitted that he played Battlefield 3 beta, and shared his thoughts:

I like Modern Warfare 3. The reason Modern Warfare 3 doesn’t have a beta like Battlefield 3 is because it can sometimes backfire on the developer. Personally I don’t like to show a painting in progress, because you know as the artist what it’s going to look like when it’s done and you’re looking at it now and don’t feel right about it, because it’s not finished.

Sledgehammer Games seems to be taking the moral high ground concerning the proposed rivalry between their studio and DICE. Perhaps EA should take note, and use Battlefield: Bad Company 2 as a comparative point of reference in the future when they are asked questions regarding Battlefield 3.

© Josh Lewis for PlayStation LifeStyle, 2011. | Permalink | 47 comments | Add to del.icio.us

Activision and High Moon Studios are combining powers yet again to work on a brand new Transformers game. Following up the huge success the two had with Transformers: War for Cybertron, which released back in 2010 to high praise around the industry as the best Transformers game yet. High Moon Studios aren’t straying too far from the Autobot and Decepticon planet, as they have announced Transformers: Fall of Cybertron.

The exclusive reveal comes courtesy of the latest issue of Game Informer, with the magazine having over 12 pages worth of everything from “extensive story and gameplay explanations, concept art, and dozens of screenshots.” As one might expect, the game will continue the story of this epic struggle between the two sides as they both attempt to take control of their beloved home planet.

While details are thin at the moment, fans of the game should be excited to hear of another original game in the works, especially after the movie inspired disappointment that was Dark of the Moon. Also of note, the game will feature freaking Grimlock, so I don’t see how this news could possibly get any better!

How excited are you about this upcoming Transformers?  Let us know below in the comments and make sure to tell us your favorite Autobot or Decepticon of all time.  Here is a hint, mine turned into a boombox.

© Cameron Teague for PlayStation LifeStyle, 2011. | Permalink | 5 comments | Add to del.icio.us

Grand Theft Auto is arguably the biggest mainstream franchise in gaming, but with Activision’s Call of Duty: Black Ops outselling GTA IV and the franchise raking in billions, its position is in jeopardy. Analyst Michael Pachter believes that, with the Call of Duty series receiving such success (especially with a yearly installment), Rockstar’s GTA IP will lose its place as the biggest mainstream franchise in the market.

Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter confidently told IndustryGamers:

Call of Duty is bigger, and GTA will not maintain its position as the world’s biggest mainstream franchise.

Pachter then said:

Eventually, Call of Duty may suffer from fatigue, and GTA could keep chugging along, but it will be 8 years before we can make that call.

The yet to be announced Grand Theft Auto V is largely believed to see a release in 2012. Analysts predict that the game will launch in late 2012 at the very earliest, and it’s hard to argue with that as it’s difficult to see Rockstar releasing the game near Max Payne 3‘s scheduled March, 2012 launch.

© Matt Baker for PlayStation LifeStyle, 2011. | Permalink | 10 comments | Add to del.icio.us