It’s that time of week again when we take a fond look back at the top five news stories from the week. Welcome to the Weekly Wrap-Up. Below is a brief summary, but for the full stories simply click on the hyperlink. Let us know if you agree with our top five. If you have suggestions for future Weekly Wrap-Ups, feel free to email me at jeremy.tyler@bagogames.com.
Enjoy!
Number 5
Zone Of The Enders HD Collection Gets A North American Release Date
Been waiting anxiously for the Zone Of The Enders HD Collection to finally get a release outside of Japan? You and me, both, bub. Fortunately, if you’re North American, you won’t have to wait much longer as ZoE HD is coming to your shores on October 30th for Xbox 360 and PS3! But there’s more! You see, the original Zone Of The Enders came with a demo of the highly anticipated (and, seriously, some of you have no idea just how anticipated it was. It was almost Halo 3 levels of anticipation amongst gamers) Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons Of Liberty. This HD re-release wants to continue that tradition, but this time with a demo of Metal Gear Rising Revengeance bundled inside!
Number 4
A Kingdom Hearts HD Collection Is Coming To PS3
Craving a current gen Kingdom Hearts fix that isn’t stuck on handhelds? Want a refresher on most of the convoluted story that’s occurred so far? Missed out on the series completely first time around? Square-Enix have you covered as an HD Collection of various titles from the Kingdom Hearts series will be hitting the PS3 next year? The Kingdom Hearts universe is lengthy and numerous thanks to all of the handheld spin-offs and prequels and interquals and spin-off prequels and spin-off interquals. Well, Square are doing it as a trilogy and giving us HD versions of the original Kingdom Hearts, the Gameboy Advance (and, later, PS2) spin-off Chain Of Memories and the DS spin-off 358/2 Days
Number 3
PlayStation Plus Vita Version Dated
Sony announced the release date for the PlayStation Plus update for the PlayStation Vita. Owners of Sony’s newest handheld can expect the update to hit in November, bringing along with it an Instant Game Collection and 1GB online storage. Existing PlayStation Plus members will automatically be enrolled in the program on their Vita, at no extra cost.
Number 2
GameStop Breaks LittleBigPlanet Vita Street Date
Have you been waiting on the edge of your seat to play LittleBigPlanet for the Vita? Can’t wait a second more and just have to have it now? Are you American? Well, you’re in luck as American games retailer GameStop have broken the street date for the title and are selling it now. As in, right now. This very second. Two whole weeks before its official release date. How is this possible? Well, according to a Gamestop employee questioned by The Escapist, the game never had a street date to begin with. There wasn’t one in the store computer and this allowed the store to start selling it immediately.
Number 1
Bioware’s Co-Founders Ray Muzyka & Greg Zeschuk Have Retired From Games
Earlier this week; Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk, co-founders of one of the most important developers in videogames today, Bioware, each posted entries on the Bioware blog announcing both their resignations from Bioware and their retirement from videogames in general. The full blogs can be read here (Ray) and here (Greg), but here are some of the cliff notes. Ray’s blog was rather upbeat, all things considered. He noted that his decision was “incredibly difficult… to make” but that he made his decision back in April and that, “at that time I provided six months’ notice to EA, to help enable a solid transition for my teams at BioWare.”
Honorable Mentions
As usual, the news staff had a hard time coming up with only five top stories for the week. Here are some pretty noteworthy stories that didn’t make it into the top five: Final Fantasy 25th Anniversary Ultimate Box Trailer and Details, New Game Announcement to Come From Team Ninja At Tokyo Game Show, Last Modern Warfare 3 DLC For PS3 & PC Due October, TGS: Sony Announces Newer, Slimmer Slim PlayStation 3, New 5 Minute Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance Trailer
If you missed out on the big news items this week, you can check out our weekly podcast and get an audio update of this week’s madness from our podcasting team. Listen to us as we talk about some things seriously and a few other things not so much. We guarantee this episode will make you shake your fist at times and nod your head at others. And finally, check out The Interview with Q, hosted by Matthew Quinlan.