Valve gave us the greatest value in gaming with last year’s Orange Box — where the entire Half-Life 2 saga, so far, made an appearance — including the short and sweet Portal. Maybe a little too short as a mod was released today that will let you play through a “prelude” of the cake-filled story.

As the site states, Portal: Prelude is an “unofficial prequel,” and has been nine months in the making. Unfortunately, only PC gamers get to have fun with this fan-made extension to the game and can download it here.

written by Carlos Macias \\ tags: Box, mods, orange, PC, Portal, prelude, Valve

Halo fans may not be getting any new details on when the strategy-flavored Halo Wars will be hitting console-side outside of “early 2009,” but you can enjoy some new box art in the meantime.

There sure are a lot of people backing up the three Spartan characters present. Looks good enough to grab the attention of the casual gaming crowd, at least.

“What?! I can play with three Master Chiefs?”

There goes a few million copies sold right there. Does the box art sell it for you?

written by Carlos Macias \\ tags: Art, attention, Box, crowd, date, gaming, Halo, Looks, lot, master, meantime, Nebulous, right, sell, Spartan

International Movie Star/Model Maggie Q to star in the upcoming EA Racing Game Need For Speed Undercover.  Coming to the PS3, X360, Wii, DS, PSP and PC November 18th.

Don’t know how they do it, but the Need for Speed team keeps rolling in hot chicks to star in their video games.  The “Balls of Fury” ping pong star will be featured in EA’s Need For Speed: Undercover.  I’m a fan of Need for Speed, and their great in-game videos.  They’ve used very attractive women before, but I think Maggie Q is their biggest star.  I guess Fast and Furious: Tokyo Drift motivated Maggie Q.

EA’s Need for Speed Undercover takes the franchise back to its roots and re-introduces break-neck cop chases, the world’s hottest cars and spectacular highway battles.

“Need for Speed Undercover features a deep and engaging story of spectacular Hollywood-style live-action that will transport players into the fictional world of the Tri-City Bay Area,” said Bill Harrison, Need for Speed Undercover Executive Producer. “Working with talent the caliber of Maggie Q allows us to deliver an unparalleled level of storytelling that will keep players engaged in between 180-mile-an-hour races.”

Maggie Q, who has starred in Mission Impossible III and Live Free or Die Hard, plays Federal Agent Chase Linh, a seductive handler who recruits and guides players as they go undercover. Players will take on dangerous jobs and compete in races in order to infiltrate and takedown a ruthless international crime syndicate.

“I’ve always been a fan of racing games and working on Need for Speed Undercover was an amazing experience,” said Maggie Q. “I was so impressed by the scope and quality of the overall production that goes into a videogame these days. It was like any other day on a Hollywood set; I felt right at home. The Black Box team is doing tremendous work here and I can’t wait to see the final game.”

Need for Speed Undercover is being developed by Black Box in Vancouver, B.C., and is slated to be in stores North America on November 18 and in Europe on November 21. The game will be available for Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system, PLAYSTATION®3 computer entertainment system, and Wii™ as well as the PlayStation®2 computer entertainment system, Nintendo DS™, PSP® (PlayStation® Portable) handheld entertainment system, PC and mobile.

Via PressRelease

written by Juan Perez \\ tags: B.C, Balls, Bay Area, Bill Harrison, Black, Box, computer, Don, Entertainment, Europe, Executive Producer, Fury, game, Hollywood, Linh, Maggie, North America, November, Playstation, Star, system, Team, Tri-City, Undercover, Vancouver, video, world

The packshot for ‘Sacred 2: Fallen Angel’ was released today, so now you know what the box looks like when you are shopping for the game. Sacred 2 is basically a prequel to the original Sacred taking place 2,000 years before the first game’s events. With a new game engine, this game will be in beautiful 3D. The game is scheduled for release on the PC this September. If you aren’t into PC gaming, it will be coming to the Xbox 360 and Sony PS3 two months later in November. Click on the images below to see larger views.

written by Will Snizek \\ tags: Angel, aren, Box, D. The, engine, Fallen, game, gaming, Packshot, place, prequel, release, Sacred, September, Sony, Today, Xbox

There’s been recent rumblings about what the final set list will be for Rock Band 2 but more interesting, at least for this writer, is what else the game will provide right out of the box.

IGN reports (via Kotaku) that when gamers take home and open up their shiny new Rock Band 2 game this fall, you’ll be able to download the first game’s complete set list…for FREE.

Gamestop might just get a sudden influx of Rock Band discs as Activision EA will be relieving the slight inconvenience of disc-swapping. Rocking out will suffer no delays.

Via IGN Insider (through Kotaku)

[Edited: As our kind readers have pointed out, EA is the publisher of all things Rock Band and it's developed by Harmonix who created Guitar Hero and its sequel. Our bad.]

written by Carlos Macias \\ tags: Activision, Box, download, fall, free, game, Gamestop, Home, IGN, influx, Kotaku, right, Rock Band, setlist, Songs, writer

Spore, the highly-anticipated game from the creators of The Sims™, gives players their own personal universe in a box. Create and evolve life, establish tribes, build civilizations, sculpt entire worlds and explore a universe filled with creations made by other gamers.

Available today on www.spore.com you can get your chance to create your own thingamajig or whatever they call it a “Spore”. The trial version features 25% of the creature-making parts from Spore and lets players shape, paint and play with their custom-created creatures. Creatures made in the Spore Creature Creator can also be imported into the full Spore game, allowing players to populate their own galaxies when the game ships worldwide later this year. Spore will be on sale for the PC, Mac, Nintendo DS™ and mobile phones on September 5, 2008 in Europe and September 7, 2008 in North America and Asia.

Continue reading »

written by Juan Perez \\ tags: AVAILABLE, Box, com, Creator, game, life, Online, sculpt, Sims, Spore, Sporette, Sporfugly, Today, universe, www

Surveys are a regular thing in movies, TV, and video games. They’re conducted by “professionals” to learn from a group of people (test subjects) on just what they’ll be likely to buy. The above screen, sent in to Joystiq, represents some of the box art Electronic Arts might be pitching to potential buyers this fall.

Does it make you want to buy it? Does it evoke a need for it inside of you? Whatever the case, let’s hope EA and Harmonix will not neglect our ability to play our EXTENSIVE collection of songs already downloaded in the original for the sequel. As Mr. Juan Perez would say…”that is key.”

Via Joystiq

written by Carlos Macias \\ tags: Art, Arts, Box, case, Concept, Electronic, fall, Group, Joystiq, need, Publishes, Rock Band, screen, Test, thing, video

All fingers are pointing at this guy as the new Artie Lang

Thank god for my Sirius Satellite Radio. On Howard Stern’s morning radio show exclusively on satellite, Artie Lang openly spoke about his upcoming role in the latest of the Leisure Suit Larry saga. The new game will be called Leisure Suit Larry - Box Office Bust. Artie continued to say how he was invited to voice over his in-game character just a couple days ago. Now, if you listen to the Howard Stern show, you know how honest Artie can be. He went on to say “I’m not even sure what the game’s about”. He continued to say “I was told that I had to supply 3 hours worth of audio… after an hour and a half I was done”.

Now the above means to me either Artie Lang is a very talented, no mistakes actor… or… he has a minimal role in ‘Box Office Bust’. After the last Lesiure Suit Larry ‘Magna Cum Laude”, Sierra takes another stab to revive the old school ‘Mature’ gaming experience.

Continue reading »

written by Juan Perez \\ tags: Artie, Box, Britney, Bust, Executive Producer, game, God, Hollywood, Howard Stern, John Melchior, Lang, Larry, Larry Role, Leisure, Lindsay, Office, Paris, radio, role, Satellite, show, Sierra, Sirius, Suit, way

Sword of the Stars is a space 4X game by independent developer Kerberos Productions.

Sword of the Stars seeks to streamline the 4X experience through a simplified design intended to avoid feature creep. 4X games in recent years have tended towards complicated designs and steep learning curves, which can be intimidating for many gamers. Sword of the Stars takes a more back to basics approach, leaving out many features such as ground combat and fighters. It also features a more simplified colony development model that replaces buildings with infrastructure, which utilizes the planet’s resource base to provide production points that can be utilized for infrastructure development, terraforming, producing space vessels, and production of trade goods capitalized for money.

Sword of the Stars is also noted for the use of completely different propulsion systems for each race, as well as completely different ship art.

Description Via Wikipedia

written by Will Snizek \\ tags: Art, Box, Collector, design, developer, development, Edition, experience, gallery, game, infrastructure, Kerberos, production, space, Stars, Sword