Eurogamer in blog format

As obvious as it is to say so, given its title, the first thing that hits you about Blur is how fast everything seems. As I hurtle around the first circuit in the opening stages of my hands-on with near-finished code, I'm experiencing sensory overload.

My eyes are darting around the HUD in an effort to take it all in: the detail of the cars, the hovering power-ups, the rearview filled with rapidly approaching opponents, the oncoming hairpin bend, my health bar so dangerously low, the mods displayed on my rear-fender - WARNING LIGHT! I click the left bumper on the control pad to cycle through to the Shield power I have stacked - too late! My Nissan Skyline is hit by Shunt from the car behind and goes somersaulting through the air showering bits of itself over the track.

Hey, it's my first race. It's bound to get easier right? No time for self-flagellation. In seconds I'm back into the action - only this time, I'm behind the sod that knocked me out of pole position. Revenge will be mine. Revenge will be sweet. Read more...

Games reveal a lot about humans. Action games? They exist because we can't get enough of violence. Experience points and achievements? Our brains are so hard-coded with the idea of incentives that we get a quiet, bottomless thrill from watching numbers increase. God games? Best not think about that one. But we must face up to the truth: as a species, we are fruity and doomed.

However, there is one noble trait that games expose about us, which is how we're drawn to explore. Look how compulsive roguelikes are. These are games which only ever end in you dying alone hundreds of feet beneath the world's surface, yet we find ourselves pulled down those same shadowy staircases over and over again. The unknown has a grip like a bear trap on our imagination.

It was Project Eden's roguelike narrative that I found most interesting back in 2001, and I still love it now. The idea is that in the future humanity takes to building cities vertically, with the stratospheric upper stories acting as the prime real estate and the endless lower levels gradually descending first into poverty, resentment, and finally abandonment. Read more...

Although England has a history of international football tournament failure, here in the UK we're nonetheless renowned for our sporting patriotism - by which token UFC 2010 should make a good impression. Last year's game only had one English fighter, Michael Bisping, but for 2010 we're getting The Ultimate Fighter 9 winners Ross Pearson and James Wilks, as well as Dan "Dhalsim" Hardy - a Brit who survived an armbar and kimura submission attempt by legendary Welterweight Champion GSP. Other 2010 British additions include Terry Etim, Mostapha Al-turk and Andre Winner (unconfirmed), as well as James McSweeney for DLC. Get in.

Playing 2010 on the Xbox 360 this week at an event in London, it's clear why Yuke's kept the Undisputed tagline, as the ebb and flow of the game will be immediately familiar to those who've played 2009. The control setup has been left mostly unchanged with everything from the right analogue stick counters, to the face button punches and kicks, remaining intact. The ground game transitions are also achieved through the quarter- and third-circle motions which took time and patience to master in the first game.

But while there's no escaping a sense of familiarity, it's also clear that 2010 is an evolution of the 2009 template, with its share of mechanical overhauls and improvements. Perhaps the most significant addition is the new Sway system, which allows the player to swiftly dodge oncoming attacks by holding the right bumper (high guard) and flicking the left analogue stick. A flick forward, for instance, will allow your fighter to duck a loaded punch to the head, and by immediately following up with a counter you can land an uppercut which has knockout potential. Read more...

Frame-rates from the Powerhouse level in Reach.

Action from the Sword Base level in Reach.

Digital Foundry measures joypad response times.

How does the beta's frame-blending look in action?

On Thursday night UK time, Microsoft and Bungie began to distribute the first Xbox Live redeem codes for the long awaited Halo: Reach beta, and Digital Foundry was one of the first 300 to acquire access to the sampler.

You saw a selection of 40 screenshots taken in-game yesterday, and of course Eurogamer posted some of our most early video captures. 36 hours on, we're ready to present our first tech analysis based on hands-on gameplay.

In terms of the beta itself, currently we seem to be limited to eight-player action set over two different maps, featuring a range of team-based and lone-wolf game-types. First impressions are that this is indeed "Combat Evolved". Read more...

Physics-heavy gridiron nears release.

Post-Modern Warfare.

Valve has released the first weekly "mutation" for Left 4 Dead 2's The Passing DLC, adding a new time-limited gameplay mode to the game.

"Bleed Out" mode starts Campaign mode players off with slowly deteriorating health that will eventually take them down. The mode also removes any health packs, forcing players to rely on pills and adrenaline for a temporary boost.

Valve has promised "over 20" mutations will eventually be released on a weekly schedule. Read more...

Sony has announced that the upcoming Toy Story 3 game for the PS3 will support Sony's PlayStation Move.

The motion controller will be usable in "downloadable mini-games designed specifically for this new motion controller" and not in the game's primary Story and Toy Box modes, according to the US PlayStation blog.

There's no word on whether these downloadable mini-games will be available (and controllable with a standard controller) when the game hits on 15th June. The PlayStation Move controller is not expected in stores until later this year. Read more...

Japan's love affair with portable gaming systems continues as the PSP and Nintendo DS topped the regional sales charts for the week ending April 25.

Media Create reports Sony's PSP barely edged out the Nintendo DS is total weekly sales, selling 30,302 units to Nintendo's 30,105.

The slight majority of total DS sales took the form of the larger DSi LL, which sold 16,676 units for the week. The DSi sold 10,640 units while the DS Lite only had 2789 sales for the week. Read more...

Telltale Games has announced Puzzle Agent, its first adventure game based entirely on an original IP.

The game, set in a rural Minnesota town encountering mysterious phenomena, is said to resemble Professor Layton's combination of storytelling and self-contained, logic-based puzzles.

Puzzle Agent will feature hand-drawn art from former Telltale creative director Graham Annable, who's best known for his Grickle series of animated shorts and comics. Read more...

Four more former Infinity Ward employees have signed on with Respawn Entertainment, according to information found on their LinkedIn profiles.

Designers Preson Glenn, Zied Rieke, Chad Genier and Sean Slayback all list themselves as members of Respawn Entertainment on the professional social networking site (thanks, G4).

The new company, created by Infinity Ward co-founders Jason West and Vince Zampella after their removal from Activision, now boasts 16 former Infinity Ward employees, according to LinkedIn. Read more...

Sony has announced that the PlayStation 3 version of MMA fighter UFC Undisputed 2010 will include exclusive fighters and fights not available in other versions of the game.

In addition to the 15 Ultimate Fights planned for all versions of the game, PS3 players will be able to take part in five additional classic match-ups: UFN 18's Carlos Condit vs. Martin Kampmann; UFC 60's Matt Hughes vs. Royce Gracie; UFC 66's Keith Jardine vs. Forrest Griffin; UFC 68's Martin Kampmann vs. Drew McFredries; and UFC 102's Nate Marquardt vs. Demian Maia.

The PS3 version of the game will also include three exclusive fighters: lightweight champion Jens Pulver, hall-of-famer Royce Gracie and former pro wrestler Dan Severn. Read more...

Capcom has announced it has already shipped one million units of Super Street Fighter IV to store shelves.

The announcement, coming via a Capcom press release, does not say how many of those shipped copies have been sold through to consumers - we'll have to wait for the various April sales charts to settle that matter.

Considering that the company originally planned to sell 1.1 million total copies of the game, the quick shipment milestone should probably be seen as a good sign. Read more...

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.

More than a few eyebrows will be raised at the enthusiasm with which US retail giant Best Buy is plunging into the UK games retail market, with the company keen to place games at the heart of its offering as it opens its first stores over here.

The timing couldn't be more peculiar. After easily a decade of speculation about when America's major chains would begin to exploit the opportunities on these shores, Best Buy is turning up after a torrid couple of years which many commentators see as proof of an irreversible decline in high-street retail. Read more...

New goodies from under the counter.

Elementary, my dear Watson.

Surely there's a joke about gritty realism in here somewhere.

UK retailer GAME has revealed that Call of Duty: Black Ops will head to Vietnam, Cuba and the Arctic.

"Now you will witness the birth of the Elite Special Forces and take part in off-the-record missions using unconventional weaponry to get the job done! From Cuba to the Arctic and the jungles of Vietnam, Call of Duty: Black Ops features stunning cinematic graphics and intense gameplay that puts you right at the heart of the action," reads GAME's description.

Black Ops was announced formerly earlier this afternoon and will be released on 9th November on PC, PS3 and Xbox 360. Read more...

The next instalment in the Call of Duty series will feature a co-op mode, according to a statement from developer Treyarch.

"We can't wait for our community to experience Call of Duty: Black Ops," said studio boss Mark Lamia "We have focused our entire studio on this game, with dedicated multiplayer, single-player and co-op teams creating the most intense, gripping and riveting experience possible for our fans on all fronts."

As announced earlier today, COD: Black Ops will be released on 9th November. There's no word on which platforms it's in development for. Read more...

There's a decent game lurking somewhere in Marvel's superhero, Iron Man. Maybe it's even a brilliant game. Sure, those palm-mounted laser cannons mean that he's going to enter most battles with his hands up, looking like he's dead set on capitulating, but he can fly, he can blast stuff into pieces, and he's made of bright, shining Metroid metal. Best of all, Iron Man's both weighty and lithe, capable of dropping out of the sky and busting open paving slabs before dancing out of the way of tracer fire and barrel-rolling into the distance.

Iron Man 2 will show you isolated moments of the character's potential, but not that many. SEGA Studios San Francisco, the team that made Tony Stark's latest movie tie-in, has already been closed down following the game's completion, and you can almost sense that external crisis intruding into the safe world of this blockbuster license. There's been a clear effort to make Iron Man work, but there's a lingering air of misery to proceedings, too: a feeling that the developers knew that it was P45s rather than DLC lurking beyond that last milestone.

In many ways, Iron Man 2 is an admirable endeavour. As ever, it has its fair share of indicators that it was rushed to meet a movie release date - there's plenty of texture pop-in, enemy animations are basic, and collision detection leaves gaps between melee attacks that Evel Knievel might have liked to try jumping - but there's a lot of effort on display, too. The story, kicking off after the end of the film by the looks of it, isn't that bad; missions show a willingness to mix up your objectives from time to time; and there's a generous upgrade system available in between levels. Read more...

Developer Treyarch has revealed the name and release date of this year's Call of Duty game.

Call of Duty: Black Ops will be released on 9th November 2010.

There are no other details available at the moment, and that includes platforms, although we are presuming Xbox 360, PS3 and PC. Read more...

Even the most promising selection of downloadable games can turn out to be right old duffers, and sadly we find ourselves in "buyer beware" mode this week. But that's all part of the fun of this exciting sector: the often complete absence of hype or pre-release info of any sort turns the selection process into a kind of digital lucky dip.

Sometimes you're dimly aware that other people are getting all excited and take a punt, but, as with AlphaBounce, what looks certain to be quirky and exciting can actually be a bit of a drag. But we're not here just to be giddy cheerleaders for the poster-children of the scene - we'll also point out the ones with faces that only a mother could love. Eurogamer: sparing you from genetically mutated offerings since 1999.

SEGA proved beyond any doubt several years ago that monkeys are the cutest possible animal to run inside a ball. So what exactly is the point of Hamsterball? Read more...

Lode Runner developer Southend has unveiled a charming XBLA exclusive called Ilomilo.

The name is a play on the game's two main characters Ilo and Milo. They're cute little squarish-shaped things that make their way around wacky 3D worlds on platforms made up of cubes.

The style is reminiscent of Noby Noby Boy and Katamari Damacy. Read more...

Promising newcomer seeks market penetration.

Terror and intrigue in mountain town America.

And it looks quite nice, as it happens.

Always thought St Lucia was supposed to be quite a nice place, personally.

Lush foliage replace barren tundra in the Capcom shooter sequel.

These are not men you'd want to upset. Or cuddle.

Haters need not apply.

That's an online, physics-based, action RPG.

EA's horror shooter returns for round 2.

Time manipulation and a refreshing grain beverage.

Extend the rapture with these deathmatch arenas.