Some such goodies include an array of DirectX11 support methods. Though DX11 isn’t entirely supportable with that codebase, it’s clear the EGO engine Codies have built is going in that direction.

More worryingly, Codies have had to go on the offensive about claims that their AI is weak. Not that it’s particularly bad AI, but moreso that the AI ‘disappears’ off the track once they’re out of sight. Meaning if you lead a race by 10 seconds, you’re the only car on the track. The little dots on the map at the bottom right hand corner of your screen are merely projections of what the AI would be doing, if it were there. This is tantamount to cheating the system by Codies. We’ll have a review up in the next few days that will explore this notion more, but the team had this to say, “the AI times in such circumstances are calculated based on a ‘football management” style simulation model. Using this model all of the race factors, such as the car, driver, weather, tyres, engine, track conditions, traffic are all taken into account and a lap time is produced. These generated times are well considered and guided by a huge amount of data; they are not randomly generated. Nevertheless they remain simulated approximations using this model.”

A full response is available on their forums.

Codemasters are taking up the mantle from Sony’s F1 title, and next month we’ll have an F1 game! Furthermore, the release date means it’s the first one I can remember that’s released within the season it’s emulating.

The game isn’t due for release until September, yet somehow the developers comment on their system changing as the season progresses. Interesting, as by September there’ll only be a few races left in the calendar, which traditionally ends in October. This could elude to a new model for the game, whereby Codies release a DLC “pack” next season rather then a full price title. But this is yet to be seen.

They also boast the most realistic weather system ever seen in a racing game. A lofty claim, indeed. Check out the video below…

EA did supply a screenshot of Wayne Rooney but I’ve decided to let my bitterness take hold and not include it here. Since Ireland are not in the competition, I’ll be rooting for both Germany (who stand a chance of winning) and Netherlands (because they’re awesome – bloeden oranje!).

Screenshots below:

England v Holland - come on you Dutch high flyers!

Spain v Italy. Italy won't win this time because Luca Toni is even worse, and plays for Roma rather then Bayern

Mexico v USA. Neither will go far.

No, no screens of France v Ireland sadly, though here’s hoping for a “Henry Handball” exploit…

The next chapter in the story of Naked Snake, METAL GEAR SOLID: PEACE WALKER, set shortly after the events of METAL GEAR SOLID 3: SNAKE EATER drops the user into a 70s Cold War scenario. As interest continues to grow in this new title from series creator Hideo Kojima, he and his Tokyo-based Kojima Productions team have also revealed several key new elements to be found in the game.

Finally, get a good snake in your hands

The first major reveal is the Mother Base offshore plant, which acts as a hub for items and personnel collected within the game. During the course of METAL GEAR SOLID: PEACE WALKER, users can recruit felled adversaries and transport them to the Mother Base sea rig by using the Fulton Recovery System. Recruited soldiers each have unique attributes that allow them to support Snake and other characters in a variety of ways. By gathering more staff, players will be able to expand Mother Base and gain access to new functions. Mother Base also acts as a development area for Snake, where weapons can be upgraded or collated information used to create all-new armaments.

METAL GEAR SOLID: PEACE WALKER also introduces new AI Weapons – giant unmanned behemoths that Snake must overcome to complete his mission. These include hover, airborne, and tank-style vehicles. Each AI Weapon can talk and even sing during battle using VOCALOID technology, hinting at a surprising level of intelligence and a deeper role in the game’s intricate plot.

Finally, Kojima Productions has also confirmed the PSP game will boast extensive multi-player elements, allowing four-player co-operative missions, and a stunning three-against-three battle royale, wherein six players can form teams and engage in huge linked battles via the Sony handheld’s Ad Hoc capabilities. Further details will be released shortly, with Kojima Productions looking to the ever-popular METAL GEAR ONLINE for inspiration.

METAL GEAR SOLID: PEACE WALKER adds a wealth of new elements to the popular stealth series, with players giving CPR to felled colleagues, battling huge boss adversaries and enjoying another twisting plot that will surprise and thrill in equal measure. The story continues in May..

Glorious

Anyone who’s my friend on PSN will be aware that, of late, I’ve been playing a fair amount of FIFA 2010. I spend a lot of time in Manager Mode, managing Bayern Munich to various league glories. 5 seasons in and I’m a 5-star rated manager with an unstoppable team, only losing two games last season, where for the second time in a row, we did the treble (domestic league & cup as well as ECC glory). I signed a few players. Park and O’Shea from United, Fucile from Porto, Taiwo from Marseille, as well as one or two others here and there.

Last season I invested in a new striker to go alongside Gomez because Olic was due to retire the next season. So, having won loads of trophies and kept costs down I went mad and bought Ibrahimovic from Barca. Sure, people don’t like him and think he’s over-rated, but in the game of FIFA, his stats do the talking. Fact is I can run him up and down the pitch and score from miles away.

He’s expensive, but I could afford him. No issues with wages or club budget. I had plenty left over to possibly buy Xavi next season to cement the midfield as well as get Neuer from Schalke for the goal. Ultimate team! But no, something’s wrong. All last season my manager mode said I was sitting on a massive deficit of about 2 billion in the club and minus 300 grand in the weekly wages, despite consistent wins and bonuses from sponsors. I ignored it, hoping this would be resolved when we won some trophies. Which happened. We did the treble.

This man has wrecked my team!

The club deficit stayed and the wages deficit jumped to minus 800,000! Normally, if you were in such dire straights, you’d sell players. So I decided to do just that before the board sacked me. I couldn’t. The minus figure meant the game thought I couldn’t afford to re-negotiate with players’ contracts. On top of that, the board was telling me to buy players and improve the club grounds with the money I had. Something was awry…

A quick google search returned some amazing stats. On the official forums, EA have been given a list of about 68 bugs in the manager mode. 4 have been fixed since release late last year. No new patches and EA have even suggested that they won’t fix it.

This is a shocking glitch which entirely breaks manager mode. It’s unplayable. Sure I can play matches, but half of the point of manager mode is to be able to trade players and deal with the business-side of football. All of this is now impossible. I’m nowhere near alone either as various threads on EA’s own forums as well as FIFA fan forums have racked up huge numbers of complaints. Last year prior to patches EA staff were on the system boasting the fixes. Since the patch in October, the staff haven’t said a word. Customer service, eh?

Zoom Zoom

They went on to state that the West should expect the game to race onto shelves no sooner then “summer 2010″. No word on whether or not this includes Europe, who typically gets GT games before America (GT4 came to Europe before Japan and was a huge success, beyond Sony’s expectations).

If we hear any more on this, specifically if the revised date for “the West” does, indeed include fortress Europa, we’ll let you know!

EA’s world war II shooter Medal of Honour has been a staple for years, a shite one, but a staple none the less. Never as good as Call of Duty, it did try it’s best but the last two offerings, Airborne and Allied Assault did nothing to establish the series as a AAA franchise with hardcore Call of Duty 2 gamers.

Beardie makes bikes on Discovery Channel whilst not out shooting Jihadists

Well, que a huge re-do as EA’s LA studios in conjunction with the mighty DICE (Battlefield, Mirrors Edge) handling online duties.

The game stars beardie (my given name to him), “a relatively unknown entity directly under the National Command Authority who takes on missions no one else can handle,” according to EA’s press release. “The new Medal of Honor will give gamers a chance to step into the boots of these warriors and apply their unique skill sets to a new enemy in the most unforgiving and hostile battlefield conditions of present day Afghanistan.”

Sounds just like Mario.

A trailer will land December 12th via Spike TV in America, and undoubtedly will plague many a YouTube account minutes later. The game will not see a release until late 2010, though, most likely competing with a Treyarch-developed iteration of Call of Duty.

Given EA’s recent reshuffle of game franchises and actual care put into r&d, I do rate this idea quite highly. Using the name “Medal of Honour” gives it a nasty badge, but it is a known quantity for the average gamer in their local stores, so it’s understandable why EA would choose the name (especially considering new franchises like Mirrors Edge didn’t fare nearly as well as they should have). The only disconcerting part is putting it in a real-world setting (today’s announcement from Obama to send 30K more troops there doesn’t help) rather then an over-the-top Michael Bay one as well as having its star look nothing like a traditional trooper, instead opting for the “super hero” army man approach – or so it seems.

Check back for more whenever we have it.

EA says FIFA 10 sold 26 percent better than FIFA 09 did in the same period in 2009, which is about a 3 month period. The game ticker will also brag that FIFA 10 is breaking franchise records, with an average of “3 million games played daily and over 113 million total online games played on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 over the past two months.” That’s a lot of games, and considering 50% of the people have to loose a game – it’s pretty disparaging!

EA have also announced FIFA 10 Ultimate Team, some new DLC which will be available in February 2010 on Xbox Live and PlayStation Network.

Producer Paul Hossack says, “We now have over 7,000 players from 27 leagues available, from which gamers will craft one or multiple squads to show their mastery of the revamped, more realistic chemistry system, and compete in tournaments with exciting requirements and rewards. On top of that, we’ll release new tournaments and other updates regularly to keep the experience fresh and exciting.”

Look out for more FIFA in 2010, as well as FIFA 2011, in 2010. Yes, it is that confusing.

Santa Clause was busy so sent in some help to drop presents off to the kids

Recently the boys of Shoryuken took to the road and got to check out Sony’s new online MMO-style shooter, MAG. MAG stands for “Massive Action Game”, and it’s not kidding when they talk about massive. 256 online players in the same map environment shooting each other via three factions split into various squads. This is huge…. or, well, massive.

We were given a mission briefing by Zipper Interactive’s Ed Byrne – an Irishman with an American accent. And yes, this is the same Zipper Interactive behind the brilliant SOCOM series.

A closed BETA is currently underway with players worldwide jumping online to murder each other on a large scale. We got a chance to play the game, as well as give the BETA a go from the comfort of our own homes.

Despite the game being online, it puts the war into context by declaring its timeframe in the “not too distant” future. Probably taking a que from Metal Gear Solid 4, MAG’s factions are different Private Military Corporations (PMCs). Raven, Valor and SVER are the three PMCs in the game, and you choose which one you belong to at the beginning of the game. Battles take place in order to win contracts for your PMC, which begins a “shadow war”. This war is like an active cold war effect, where each PMC is only fighting each other for no reason then to undermine their ability to get big contracts and stay afloat. Recession beating stuff…

What this vague story does is facilitate a reason to have 256 people bludgeon each other to death with a variety of typical shooter weapons that look vaguely familiar to any FPS fan. The massive scale cannot be comprehended until played. Entire sections of maps can be fought for and battled for for huge amounts of time, as round after round of enemy spawn and die before your eyes, only letting you gain small amounts of territory to win the game. A well-organised team can really clean up, as long as they utilise the rank-based communication system (commander can talk to squad leaders, who can then talk to squad members, etc.). This chat system stops a huge amount of pointless natter on comms, and if used properly is really useful. Granted, I haven’t seen that much yet, but what I have heard on comms isn’t what you usually hear in halo; i.e. I’ve yet to be described as a homosexual African-American gentleman. Not yet, anyway.

Graphically this game will probably come into the category of under-whelming. At times the textures and lack of dynamics in there can make it look a lot like last-generation stuff. This is until you realise the scale on which you are fighting. Undoubtedly there are times in which you’ll fight for hours in the same group and not once come across the same people.

Occasionally it's best to stop burst-firing and just blaze your way through - you're bound to hit someone

Gameplay is typical online FPS stuff. The player count can be scaled back to ease the pressure and make a more competitive game occur, but the game only really shines when you’re in a massive battle. The gameplay draws real comparisons to Battlefield, which is the games number one competitor it seems. This is due out “Q1″ next year, and Battlefield: Bad Company 2 is out in the first week of February 2010. This could lead to, ironically, conflict in the ranks as two similar games touting online battle get released together. Of course BF doesn’t tout 256 online players, but it does pack a fair punch itself.

So who will this game cater to? Well, ideally people who like a little dash of MMO with a large pinch of FPS. It has elements from various genres packed in here, and with a lengthy BETA period going on the developers are keen to ensure this game hits shelves with nothing wrong – and a community-driven game that’ll suck you in relentlessly. Of course I would recommend it to anyone just to try parachuting into a battle, trying to aim at enemies as you glide down in the middle of a killzone undoubtedly to your death but with that slight glimmer of hope that maybe, just maybe you’ll manage to murder everyone. But no – you’re not rambo. You’ll never be rambo…. except in a rambo game, maybe.