Playstation Moves, Mac gets Steamed, Superman flies again, and Activision does what Atari used to do.

Direct Link: Powetcast Episode 29: Infinity Wardfare

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(What do you think about the current Activision dustup? Is anyone in the right? Leave a comment below!)

Show notes after the jump!

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Updated: The content has been restored!
It appears that last month, Activision closed down Luxoflux Studios. Luxoflux were the developers of the Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen Game. As of the writing of this article, it appears that the downloadable content has been removed from the XBox Live Marketplace without notice and can no longer be purchased. I cannot verify if this is also the case on the Playstation Network.

The DLC was first made available August 27, 2009. That means it was available for less than 8 months before being pulled. The content featured 11 new playable characters, 3 new maps, a new expert difficulty level and all new achievements. We posted a trailer of the DLC here.

As a fan who only recently got an XBox 360 with this as his first game, you can imagine my disappointment that I now cannot have the chance to play this new content that I am more than willing to spend money on. Hopefully Activision can find a way to put the pack back up for a limited time for those who had not gotten it yet. [Read the rest of this entry…]

Late last night, Activision fired the heads of their biggest money maker. Jason West and Vince Zampella of Infinity War have been released, with the mega-publisher citing “insubordination”

Indeed, its now well known in the industry that Infinity Ward was fighting for creative freedom, asking to do Modern Warfare back in 2004 (it finally came out in 2007), and negotiated that they be the sole developer Call of Duty (later settling for just Modern Warfare). Apparently lately Infinity Ward wouldn’t even speak to Activision reps, and were bitterly trying to develop a new game they would own. Kotaku has the details here.

But now Activision has new plans for Call Of Duty, handing it off to Sledgehammer Games, made up of former members of EA’s Redwood Shore team (makers of Dead Space).

Two weeks ago, Activision CEO Bobby Kotick stood in front of an industry crowd and lamented that they bought the Guitar Hero name but not the studio Harmonix that made the games. He freely admitted that was a mistake, and that the brand name with different people behind the wheel wouldn’t match that critical success.

It appears Activison hasn’t learned much. Not that the artists now responsible for Call of Duty and Guitar Hero aren’t capable of making great games, but the senseless shuffling and replacing of talent can’t make the new developers feel very confident about their long term job stability.

For those wishing to switch from COD, may I humbly suggest:

Activision by way of GTTV on Spike has released footage of the next Transformers game. Looks like action gets pretty heavy with huge boss fights! Spot any favorite Generation One characters? Certainly looks like Ironhide doing that take down at about 1 minute in! A good mix of shooting and hand to hand combat will be key for this game, hopefully the promise of this trailer is realized when the game releases in May.

Hot on the heels of the Bumblebee figure’s reveal, UGO got some exclusive pictures of the upcoming Megatron and Optimus Prime releases based on the War for Cybertron video game coming to consoles soon. There wasn’t anything to really go on from the article aside from the pictures.

I have to say I really dislike Megatron’s alt mode. Megatron’s robot mode is slightly mistransformed and missing the cannon from the alt mode. Prime looks pretty good though.

    

The Transformers fan club has put up an exclusive image of the new War for Cybertron Bumblebee figure based on the forthcoming video game we mentioned back here, here and here.

This was the cover image to the latest club magazine and was posted on the club website.

We’ve been discussing this very topic on our forums here. Join the discussion or comment below on what you think of this likely filler sub-line until the new show/movie starts up.

This video has a lot of the same footage from the Transformers War For Cybertron Teaser Video, but includes voiceover from Peter Cullen as Optimus Prime. Its not Frank Welker as Megatron though, unclear if he’s still yet to be cast or if they’re going with another actor.
You’ll identify a lot more characters, including Bumblebee and Trypticon.

In related news, is Hasbro prepping a full line of War For Cybertron Toys? They’ve definitely made a deluxe Prime! Still no announcement where the series will go in 2010, this might be “filler” material until the next cartoon or movie is released.

The full feature on the newest Transformer game will be included in Game Informer magazine on December 14, but a short teaser video has already been posted.
Its highly unlikely this is in-game footage, but it does give us a peak at what Cybertron in this game shorld look like. Also, check out the big guy at the end!
Game Informer has a TF mini-site where new information about the game will be posted all this month.
What do you think of a Transformers game not tied to any specific show or continuity? Leave a comment here, or jump our forums!