Just past the break, we've got a new trailer for Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep, which highlights the PSP title's trio of protagonists: Aqua, Ventus and Terra. As you'd imagine, their keyswordthingy skills are without equal -- except for when directly compared to each other, we guess. So where were we?

Oh, right, the trailer -- you can see it yourself just past the break. And if you're wondering what all of the hubbub is about, you probably haven't read our E3 preview yet. Don't worry, we won't hold it against you ... for now.

Continue reading Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep trailer features fighting, floating PSPs

Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep trailer features fighting, floating PSPs originally appeared on Joystiq on Wed, 30 Jun 2010 22:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Of all the PlayStation Move games at E3, The Fight: Lights Out was the one I had the most advance interest in. While I enjoyed pummeling my friends and foes in Wii Sports Boxing, I was curious if The Fight would be the next evolution of motion-controlled fighting games -- or just a pretty tech demo. After making short work of my computer-controlled opponent -- and working up a sweat in the process -- it's clear that Sony and developer Coldwood Interactive still have plenty of work to do on this third-person brawler.

Continue reading Preview: The Fight: Lights Out

Preview: The Fight: Lights Out originally appeared on Joystiq on Wed, 30 Jun 2010 21:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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New Torchlight MMO details come to light originally appeared on Joystiq on Wed, 30 Jun 2010 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Speaking to Joystiq during E3, legendary Another World designer Eric Chahi gave us a bit more information about the mysterious Project Dust, revealed at Ubisoft's E3 presentation. First, it's important to know what inspired him to make the game: volcanoes. " I took a trip to an active volcano to see eruptions," Chahi said, "and since that time I'm crazy about volcanoes. When an eruption is announced somewhere, I take my bag and take the first flight to see this kind of thing."

According to Chahi, Project Dust is a God game based on manipulating nature. " The foundation of Project Dust is a simulation. It's like playing 'sandcastle' on the beach, except you have more material to use, like lava." Lava, he reminded us, isn't purely a destructive force -- it can also be used to shape the land and even create areas of land.

Interaction with your tribe of people is done through manipulation of the land, which mainly involves picking up materials and moving them around. The Ubisoft rep with Chahi explained that when you pick up something like water, it forms a free-floating sphere that the people can see and react to -- and they don't understand it. Right now, he said, the in-world significance of the levitating material is a mystery even to Ubisoft.

Chahi: Project Dust is like building sandcastles, with more lava originally appeared on Joystiq on Wed, 30 Jun 2010 19:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Blizzard has just announced that the closed beta test for the next World of Warcraft expansion has begun. Invites are going out now to players around the world who've signed up on Blizzard's Battle.net service, although there's no indication yet of just how many invites are out or how big the beta will be. If past tests are any indication, Blizzard will likely start it small and expand over time -- that's how the StarCraft 2 beta played out.

This also means that information about the new expansion will start appearing online -- rumor has it that there is no NDA for the closed beta experience, so players who see the new content will be able to tell us all about it. Cataclysm will completely revamp the old World of Warcraft world, in addition to adding five more levels of content at endgame. The Wrath of the Lich King beta also began in early July, and showed up in stores in November a few years ago, so it's reasonable to assume the same timeline for Cataclysm.

In the meantime, if you want to play, make sure your Battle.net account is set to opt-in and keep an eye out for a beta notice in your inbox. Good luck!

World of Warcraft: Cataclysm closed beta has begun originally appeared on Joystiq on Wed, 30 Jun 2010 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We've got a spiritual sequel and an actual sequel this week. The former is Ancients of Ooga, a successor of sorts to the ancient XBLA title, Cloning Clyde. The latter is Puzzle Quest 2, which essentially amounts to an apology about that whole Galactrix thing.

Check out XBLA in Brief and see if either game is for you.

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There are new Xbox Live Arcade games released every week. We realize that our readers are busy, attractive people, and you may not have time to download and examine each and every new XBLA game. You've got busy, attractive person stuff to do, after all. Not to worry though, because we've done the work for you, downloading every single trial game and giving you a taste of what to expect. Watch XBLA in Brief every week to see which games deserve a closer look. When you have the time, of course.

Continue reading XBLA in Brief: Ancients of Ooga, Puzzle Quest 2

XBLA in Brief: Ancients of Ooga, Puzzle Quest 2 originally appeared on Joystiq on Wed, 30 Jun 2010 18:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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According to a Joystiq source, NBC is developing a pilot for a show about gaming, focusing on gamer culture and the people who make games. According to the source, the project is being helmed by TJ "Ocman" Allard, a former Ubisoft designer. His co-host is Audrey Cleo, who currently works on Qore. The team is currently editing footage recorded at E3 for the pilot, including interviews with Kinect's Kudo Tsunoda and Mortal Kombat's Ed Boon.

Specific details, like a show name and distribution, have yet to be settled upon. However, our source says that the working title is currently "Game On." The pilot -- planned for primetime -- may even premiere as early as next month. If you happen to know more about this project, feel free to send us a tip. We will keep you anonymous!

NBC working on video game show pilot for primetime originally appeared on Joystiq on Wed, 30 Jun 2010 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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All of the questions about Gaikai and OnLive have revolved around whether the streaming technology actually works. Can a company actually process your games on a remote server, and then stream them to you in a playable format? For Gaikai's CEO Dave Perry, there's no question: It works. "Yeah. Yeah," he says. "Absolutely. No problem at all."

The question that Gaikai is trying to answer, then, isn't about whether the cloud works, but how. OnLive has launched with a subscription model, but Perry's doing it differently. Rather than build a service for customers, he wants Gaikai to serve as a sort of distributor -- a go-between for game publishers (like EA and Activision), online content creators (like Joystiq), and game players. Gaikai's "secret sauce" isn't in the streaming technology itself, but in the business model that makes it possible and profitable for everyone.

Perry explained his plan to us in detail at the company's headquarters in Southern California last week, and told us why and how Gaikai is different from all of the other streaming services out there.

Continue reading Dave Perry on the innovation of Gaikai

Dave Perry on the innovation of Gaikai originally appeared on Joystiq on Wed, 30 Jun 2010 17:38:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Valve's agonizing piecemeal delivery of footage from the Portal 2 E3 demo continues. These clips introduce Pneumatic Diversity Vents and Thermal Discouragement Beams, because simply creating conduits between two points in space (four in co-op) wasn't complicated enough.

Sure, those are just vacuums and lasers, respectively, but it's still enough to give us a headache in anticipation of future gameplay complexity. Luckily, no space-bending guns are required to see the videos -- simply click past the post break and they'll go directly into your eyes.

Continue reading Time for a bit more of the Portal 2 E3 demo

Time for a bit more of the Portal 2 E3 demo originally appeared on Joystiq on Wed, 30 Jun 2010 16:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Perhaps it's my Canadian roots and the fact that I am one of two staff members that enjoys sports games but NHL 10 was one of the best titles released last year. After a shaky start in the current generation of consoles, the team at EA Canada has transformed the NHL brand into the premiere video game sports franchise.

Not content with adding a few adjustments to last year's winning formula, EA Canada is making drastic changes to NHL 11 - the 20th anniversary of the longstanding sports franchise. Unfortunately, of the gameplay changes I've seen, there may be some cause for alarm.

Continue reading Preview: NHL 2011

Preview: NHL 2011 originally appeared on Joystiq on Wed, 30 Jun 2010 16:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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