Boomtown X

Peter Molyneux is well known for speaking his mind, but today a different developer at Lionhead Studio's has decided to say a few choice words to those that criticised Fable III. Lead combat designer Mike West believes Fable III is the series best game and can't understand why it has received so little praise upon release.

"Every time you finish playing Fable you'll have a smile on your face. Every time you play Oblivion you'll say 'I enjoyed my time there but now I want to go play something fun'. [Fable III is] a different type of game: it's more of a fun, comedic TV show than a serious Lord of the Rings film. I think a lot of people that play it think it's a Lord of the Rings - and it isn't."

One of his main gripes was the criticism of the game's story. "People saying the story wasn't very good was unfair. It's an interesting situation of you gather people together and then defeating the main bad guy. It's a pretty good story and it's pretty fun," he said.

Even the lack of recognition for voice acting has his knickers in a twist. "I'm slightly disappointed we haven't won any audio awards to be honest, because our music's great, our vocal talent's great - and then you'll see a standard shooter get an audio award. I just think that's because they're more popular than us."

So there you go. It's all your fault for not enjoying Fable III. We all should be ashamed of ourselves. I'm going to crawl back into bed with a bottle of amaretto and think about what I've done.

Full interview with Mike West can be found over on Eurogamer.

A rather bumper crop of new games today. That's in part to a bit new release - Crysis 2 - and the arrival of Nintendo's new handheld - the 3DS.

To be honest I'm more exited about a release for next Friday - Shift 2: Unleashed, but let's get on with today's retail releases.

XBOX 360
Assassins Creed Brotherhood: Da Vinci Edition
Crysis 2
Lego Star Wars 3: The Clone Wars

PLAYSTATION 3
Assassins Creed Brotherhood: Da Vinci Edition
Crysis 2
Lego Star Wars 3: The Clone Wars
PlayStation Move Heroes
Tomb Raider Trilogy

WII
Lego Star Wars 3: The Clone Wars
Nickelodeon Fit

PC
Crysis 2
Lego Star Wars 3: The Clone Wars
The Sims Medieval

3DS
Asphalt 3D
Ghost Recon: Shadow Wars
Lego Star Wars 3: The Clone Wars
Nintendogs and Cats
Pilotwings Resort
Pro Evolution Soccer 2011
Rayman
Ridge Racer 3D
Samurai Warriors
Splinter Cell
Super Monkey Ball
Super Street Fighter IV
The Sims 3

DS
Lego Star Wars 3: The Clone Wars
My World My Way
Peppa Pig Theme Park Fun
Phineas and Ferb Ride Again
Yu-Gi-Oh World Championship 2011: Over the Nexus

PSP
Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy
Lego Star Wars 3: The Clone Wars
Naruto Shippuden: Kizuna Drive

Microsoft has confirmed that it will release a PC software development kit for non-commercial Kinect use.

The Xbox 360 motion sensor is already being widely used by enthusiasts and researchers as an easy in to motion sensing technology, rather than using hacked third-party software in future such users will be available to development software with an official development framework.

Press release after the jump.

Something of a calm before the storm about tomorrow's selection of UK/Euro retail videogames releases. After all - next week sees the arrival of both Bulletstorm and Killzone 3.

But back to tomorrow's releases and I suppose the highest profile is Marvel vs. Capcom 3.

PlayStation 3
Marvel vs Capcom 3

Xbox 360
Crackdown & Mass Effect (Double Pack)

Halo 3 & Fable II (Double Pack)
Marvel vs Capcom 3
PopCap Hits!

Wii
Fit & Fun

PC
Bejewelled Blitz
Magicka
Plants vs Zombies: Game of the Year Edition

DS
The Mysterious Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

You may want to save your cash for next week.

The latest NPD sales figures for the North American market make for happy reading for Microsoft, Sony less so. Of course Microsoft's happiness must be tempered by the continued dominance of Wii and DS. But here are the hardware unit sales figures for December:

Nintendo DS – 2.5 million (-24%)
Nintendo Wii – 2.36 million (-38% YOY)
Xbox 360 – 1.86 million (+42% YOY)
PlayStation 3 – 1.21 million (-11% YOY)

Perhaps more interesting that the actual unit sales are the pecentage falls and rises compared to December 2009. Xbox 360 saw a massive sales rise compared to the previous year in a market that's fallen by five percent for the year and nine percent comparing December to December. When one combines software, hardware and accessory sales Xbox 360 came out as the leading earner.

Microsoft says it has now sold over 2.5 million Kinect motion control systems, with sales boosted in particularly by Black Friday sales in North America.

"We are thrilled about the consumer response to Kinect, and are working hard with our retail and manufacturing partners to expedite production and shipments of Kinect to restock shelves as fast as possible to keep up with demand," said Don Mattrick, president of the Interactive Entertainment Business at Microsoft. "With sales already exceeding two and a half million units in just 25 days, we are on pace to reach our forecast of 5 million units sold to consumers this holiday."

"Kinect on Xbox 360 was a top performer at Target this weekend," said Nik Nayar, vice president, merchandising, Target. "We expect Kinect will be a must-have gift this holiday season, so Target will continue to receive consistent shipments of Kinect throughout December. The hands-free, active gaming experience that Kinect offers is something that everyone in the family can enjoy."

We wonder how many people have bought Kinect to play around with on their PC now open-source drivers have been created by the tinkering community.

Today sees the last big weekend of the pre-Christmas videogames rush, though most of the best games have been released already.

Perhaps this week's best released in Red Dead Redemption Undead Nightmare. The disk version comes with all the multiplayer premium DLC released for the game and you don't need the original to play it. You can read our review here.

Check out the full list of European releases after the jump.

There are slim pickings to be had in your local videogame emporium today. That's thanks to the release of Call of Duty: Black Ops and Kinect earlier in the week. Obviously no publisher wants to put up a AAA release against those titles.

So what do we have in store today?

Adafruit Industries offered a prize of US$2000 for the first open-source driver for Microsoft's Kinect motion control camera system.

Just days after the wager from the MIT graduate company two other MIT grads have won the prize.

"It's amazing hardware that shouldn't just be locked up for Xbox 360," Adafruit member Phillip told CNET. "Its 'radar camera' being able to get video and distance as a sensor input from commodity hardware is huge."

You can see video of the hack in operation on the NUI community forum.

Source: Next-Gen.biz

With Microsoft's Kinect just around the corner, a new trailer has been released pimping one of its launch titles: Kinect Sports.

What we see is the typical happy family engaging in healthy competition on the wide variety of sports the game has to offer, including boxing, bowling and football, and although it presents us with nothing new in the way of information, I'll be damned if it doesn't make it look fun.

Kinect Sports and Kinect itself both launch tomorrow in the US and next Wednesday 10th here in the UK.

Continue reading to view the joy.

Microsoft had previously said that the new Kinect motion control system for Xbox 360 would use around ten to 15 percent of the console's resources.

However the company has been working hard at reducing the overheads for the system and according to lead developer Alex Kipman now only makes use of a "single-digit" percentage.

Source: Engadget

A new Sonic Free Riders trailer has emerged from SEGA detailing the upcoming game's weapons - and just how to execute them with your Kinect unit.

These range from standard boosts and jump tricks to giant cans of soda that act as makeshift jet propulsion. You can't make this stuff up!

Hit the break to watch.

Sonic Free Riders launches with Kinect on November 10th 2010.