Eurogamer in blog format -

Published as part of our sister-site GamesIndustry.biz' widely-read weekly newsletter, the GamesIndustry.biz Editorial is a weekly dissection of one of the issues weighing on the minds of the people at the top of the games business. It appears on Eurogamer after it goes out to GI.biz newsletter subscribers.

1.7 million people in the UK bought Modern Warfare 2 last week, a figure almost lost in the controversy which has surrounded this game for months. Amidst voices raised by the controversial airport level, it's almost possible to forget that a few months ago, it wasn't the content of Modern Warfare 2 that concerned us all - it was the price.

In the end, the higher price-point which fermented so much debate over the summer meant nothing to consumers. While specialist retailers fumed, some supermarkets discounted the game down to £26 and online behemoth Amazon dropped its price tag to £32 a few days before launch. Even considering the buying power of such retail giants, it's likely that some outlets were treating the game as a loss leader. Read more...

War's road to redemption begins.

KOEI has announced that Dynasty Warriors: Strikeforce (PS3/360) will be released in Europe on 16th February.

Strikeforce takes the Dynasty Warriors series online for the very first time. Four of you can either raid together co-operatively or bash each other competitively. There are even - in a Monster Hunter turn of events - dragons and "other massive beasts" to tackle together.

Voice and text chat are supported, and you can play offline with AI bots where your friends would normally be. Extra features exclusive to PS3 and 360 include 40 new missions, an enemy Hyperbreak gauge, combat tactics, new character "Meng Huo" and online officer trading. Read more...

Croteam's high-def update of the PC blasting classic gets a formal release date.

Gravity Crash will be released this Tuesday 24th November on the PlayStation Store. We had expected Just Add Water's much-touted retro PSN game in December.

The date arrives as part of this week's Store refresher and probably has something to do with Thanksgiving.

Out today are Invincible Tiger: The Legend of Han Tao, Critter Crunch and the original Metal Gear Solid. Invincible Tiger is the fast and fun Kung Fu game that supports 3DTV, should you have one, and Critter Crunch is a puzzle game you can find out more about on the PlayStation blog. Read more...

Sony's PSP and PS3 are still selling better than their Nintendo-made competition in Japan.

This week (ending 15th November) the PSP (45,197) and PS3 (38,498) combined to sell 83,695 units, whereas the DS (38,785) and Wii (26,764) banded together to sell 65,549 units, according to Media Create data.

That's about as exciting as the software charts. Those are dominated by SEGA's PSP newcomer J-League Pro Soccer Club o Tsukurou! 6: Pride of J (84,996). Read more...

Bye bye then 2009. Thanks for all the games. Some of them were very good, actually, and you are at least going out with a bang - perhaps even a series of bangs.

Assassin's Creed II has ended up one of the best openworld games of the year, despite the silly futuristic Scooby Doo soap opera Ezio's adventures are used to justify. If you like collecting things and being motivated to do so by pretty graphics and fun mysteries, look no further.

But do look further anyway, because otherwise you might miss out on the equally super-excellent Left 4 Dead 2. We're still a bit bewildered by some of the routing in the mall and the swamp, but otherwise it's fantastic, literally sticking two fingers up to those who thought it would be a bit of half-baked DLC in a box. Read more...

Rock Band gets light-hearted with the minifigs.

Dotnia experiences an expansion into an entirely new dimension.

Wheee! We're suckers for a bit of dog-fighting, especially with those crazy rear-prop driven Japanese planes.

Sneaky tactics and sharp headshots in the sequel to DICE's jolly battlefield romp.

Blood Bowl gets its first new race in the lithe and dangerous form of the Dark Elves.

2K has unveiled the official BioShock 2 Special Edition, which is due out "in most countries worldwide" along with the regular edition on 9th February 2010.

Along with a copy of the game, obviously, the special edition comes in a 13-inch square box with "special art" on the slipcase as well as the box cover, and inside is a mixture of old-school trinkets.

Indeed, you'll be able to transform your home into a corner of Rapture, sort of, thanks to three rolled posters featuring vintage ads (e.g. "Tomorrow's promise... kept today!") and a pair of soundtracks. Read more...

As an ancient and powerful Umbra witch, Bayonetta has a few handy tricks up her tight sleeves. Here, learn about her flashy, demon-powered killer moves.

Brad Pitt's production company, Plan B Entertainment, has secured the rights to produce a big screen adaptation of Dark Void.

The game - which is due out on PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 next year - follows the adventures of a pilot called Will. After crash-landing in the Bermuda Triangle he finds himself in The Void, an alternate world where aliens are trying to invade. Will decideds to take them on with the help of some fellow humans and a high-powered jetpack.

According to Capcom, the new movie "is being developed as a sci-fi action franchise" and "potential starring vehicle for Brad Pitt". Perhaps one of his 17 kids could play the jetpack. Read more...

The next instalment in the Kane & Lynch series will feature an online co-op mode, along with the offline co-op and competitive online modes of the first game.

As reported by Kotaku, Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days will see you playing as our nutty old friend Lynch. He's roaming around the seedy underbelly of Shanghai as he tries to make a big fat deal with dodgy characters.

New features will include the option to crawl away or shoot from a prone position if you take a bullet, so it's not all over the first time you're hit. Read more...

Modern Warfare 2 scriptwriter Jesse Stern has said that the goal of the game's controversial airport level was "to put you as close as possible to atrocity". (Beware, spoilers ahead.)

"We've been catching a lot of criticism for that and a lot of praise as well," Stern told GamePro (thanks Kotaku). "People have really strong reactions to the airport scene and it's been fascinating because we all wanted to make it something that would be upsetting, disturbing, but also something people relate to.

"There's something instantly identifiable about it when it happens, when you're in that situation and the level begins." Read more...

Video on demand streaming is coming to the PS3 very soon, with a massive wedge of entertainment waiting at your digital fingertips.

Enslaved may be published by Namco Bandai rather than Sony, and may be on Xbox 360 as well as PlayStation 3, but Ninja Theory's latest still has a lot in common with its PS3 exclusive, Heavenly Sword - Gollum Serkis is returning to wax lyrical in his own inimitable, rubber-faced way, and there's the familiar promise of a vast, cinematic story brought to life by a convincing cast of characters. One of the lead characters, Trip, also bears a striking resemblance to Nariko. But there is, of course, plenty that separates the two. Enslaved tells the tale of two characters, most notably, and there's Alex Garland, him of The Beach fame, writing the story, with gameplay built around the unlikely duo of Monkey (Serkis) and Trip working together, against one of their wills, in a post-apocalyptic world of killer robots. With the game due out next year, there are still a lot of unanswered questions, so we tracked down Ninja Theory co-founder Tameem Antoniades to find out more. Read more...

The spring-bound Alternative Edition of Resident Evil 5 adds more than just PS3 wand support and a Lost in Nightmares scenario.

The latest issue of Japanese magazine Famitsu (read by Joystiq) tells us there will be another story chapter and two accompanying costume packs. Plus, you'll be able to tackle Resident Evil 5 again but as previously unplayable characters.

Famitsu claims the story chapters cost 400 Microsoft Points each (£3.40/€4.80), whereas the costume packs cost 160 MSP (£1.36/€1.86) each. Read more...

WET developer Artificial Mind & Movement (A2M) has revealed that some studios try and cheat their way to a lower, more profitable ESRB age-rating by submitting misleading videos of games.

"As a developer who has worked with a lot of different publishers, we're aware of many that have tried to cheat the rating," said Rémi Racine in a panel at the Montreal International Game Summit, reported by Edge Online.

"They say to the ERSB that it's a Teen rating [13+] rather than Mature [17+] to try and sell more; you can do this just by sending them a video that doesn't show the most violent stuff and then you'll get the rating that you want rather than the rating you should get." Read more...

When you're heading into a life or death battle against uncaring robotic overlords, you want to be wearing the right dress.

Ever wanted a zebra-striped AK-47? Of course you have.

The PSP title slips out, somewhat in the shadow of its big brother.

Meet the two opposing forces of the Avatar world, and choose which one you'll be fighting for.

Sony has updated PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable with new firmware.

PS3 gets the bump to version 3.1, introducing a little bit of Facebook integration, changes to photo viewing and friends list tweaks. We wrote some more about that the other day, and now the European PlayStation blog has pictures and stuff.

PSP, meanwhile, is up to version 6.2, again detailed by the Euro blog, and the principal additions are options to transfer video and photo playlists to the portable either from PC (using Media Go 1.3) or PS3. Read more...

Gearbox has revealed that The Zombie Island of Dr. Ned will be roughly the same size as a small exisiting Borderlands zone and provide around six hours of new gameplay.

"It's probably about the size of the Arid Badlands," design director Paul Helqist told MTV Multiplayer.

The Zombie Island of Dr. Ned is Borderland's first batch of DLC and costs the equivalent of $10 on PlayStation Network and 800 Microsoft Points (£6.80 / €9.60) on Xbox Live. Read more...

Activision has reeled off some stats to support its claim that Modern Warfare 2 "redefines entertainment".

It certainly prompted a lot of activity on Xbox Live, according to the publisher, which reports that more than 2.2 million people played it on Xbox 360 on 10th November, logging more than 5.2 million hours of multiplayer between them.

They also managed to unlock a whopping 11 million Achievements between them, apparently. UAVs all round! Read more...

Activision has dedicated a third developer to the record-breaking Call of Duty series and lessened the strain on Treyarch and Infinity Ward, according to a report.

The Los Angeles Times offers no further detail to back up its claim, but does talk of a possible Call of Duty MMO - a game Activision boss Bobby Kotick has teased in the past.

Or this mysterious third studio could slip into the familiar rhythm of producing an alternate Call of Duty instalment alongside Treyarch and Infinity Ward, a move that could theoretically lengthen the development time of each. Or perhaps the developer has been drafted in to handle iPhone and mobile ports, or to tackle DS, PSP and Wii variations. Read more...

Series creator Chris Taylor discusses his sequel, and what improvements have been made over the original.

Two short CCTV vignettes with those lovable, psychopathic rogues, Kane and Lynch.

Tecmo KOEI offers a first look at Again, a DS game made by Hotel Dusk developer Cing. Story and contenxt are explained in this clip.

Square Enix Europe has officially unveiled the rumoured sequel to 2007's Kane & Lynch.

Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days thrusts the titular criminal duo into the Shanghai underworld and is due out on PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 in 2010.

"Gamers are always looking for something new and that is exactly what they are going to get with Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days," said Niels Jørgensen, general manager of developer IO Interactive. Read more...

Japanese magazine Famitsu has revealed that Wii game No More Heroes is heading PS3 and Xbox 360 in Japan in February.

Subtitled Heroes Paradise, the game adds Japanese voice acting and a mode where female characters wear little. Presumably there will also be adjustments made for higher resolutions. There are a few scans on Kotaku.

No More Heroes, released in January 2008, tells the tale of assassin Travis Touchdown who must hunt down and kill all other assassins with his magnificent laser sword, which is a cross between a Lightsaber and a strip-light. Read more...

A fantastic job of a sequel, building on strengths and addressing weaknesses - AC II hits the shops this Friday.

The perpetually confined simians return in their first balance board title, jonesing for bananas like the dirty little potassium junkies they are.

With social network integration a hot topic, Sony pumps up its Facebook app.

The hub of all starship activity, the bridge is where the important stuff happens. That and engineering, but engineering is far less glamorous and doesn't have the comfy chairs.