Christmas break 2010 news round-up - Deus Ex delayed, new LA Noire footage, tons more

We may have wound down for Christmas and New Year, but the news motored on, dropping a winceworthy headline for Deus Ex: Human Revolution and plenty more.

Deus Ex gets delayed into FY2012 by Square

Square announced in its recent batch of financials that it's delayed Deus Ex: Human Revolution into fiscal year 2012. It was originally scheduled for a early 2011 release.

Square Enix's next financial year begins on April 1, 2011.

The reason for the delay is due to "weak sales performance of console game titles that have been newly released during the current fiscal year as well as harsh market feedback regarding a key title.

"We therefore have decided to spend additional time to further polish our upcoming game, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, resulting in a shift in release timing from our prior plan of the current fiscal year to next fiscal year."

Get the most recent trailer for it here.

LA Noire video shows off mo-cap tech

Rockstar released a new video of LA Noire, showing off the game's mo-cap technology, MotionCap.

The 40s-inspired Team Bondi title uses the tech to bring out realism and facial detail as never before seen in a game.

Get the video below.

Respawn's West admits not playing Black Ops

With things getting increasingly heated just before Christmas in the countersuit between Activision and ex-Infinity Ward heads Vince Zampella and Jason West, perhaps the fact that West's failed to even look at Black Ops shouldn't come as a big surprise.

West, who went on to found Respawn Entertainment with Zampella following the pair's layoff at IW last March, told 1UP at the VGAs that he hasn't touched the shooter.

"I haven't actually played it," he said.

As for what Respawn is currently making, West admitted some early concept stuff is already up and running, but said the project is still far out.

"We got some things cooking now, and I saw some awesome stuff last week," he said.

"I think announcements are going to be a ways off."

Watch the interview below.

Drs Ray and Greg added to AIAS Hall of Fame

BioWare co-founders Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk will be inducted into the AIAS Hall of Fame when DICE takes place next month, its organisers have confirmed.

It's the first time a pair have been added into the Hall of Fame, and the honour comes in a year that will be BioWare's biggest ever, thanks to 2011 releases of Dragon Age II, Star Wars: The Old Republic and Mass Effect 3.

Muzyka and Zeschuk will also speak at an AIAS talk at DICE.

"Driving BioWare's success past, present and future are the amazing family of people we have been privileged to work with over the years and our shared core values of quality in our workplace, quality in our products, and entrepreneurship in a context of humility and integrity," said Muzyka.

"We'd also like to thank our wives and the families of our employees for their continuous support over the years, which together with the hard work of our great teams continually enables BioWare's success," added Zeschuk.

The pair's awards will be given by Epic president Mike Capps.

Dissidia 012: Final Fantasy dated for March 3 in Japan, new trailer released

Square Enix confirmed at Jump Festa it'll release Dissidia 012: Final Fantasy on March 3 in Japan.

The publisher also confirmed a PSP hardware bundle for the game.

The title will cost ¥6,090 for the UMD version, and ¥4,980 as a download.

Square also said that the story from the original Dissidia will be unlocked in Dissidia 012 once its campaign is finished.

Its inclusion is due to the addition of a new 3D map system, according to Tetsuya Nomura in Famitsu (thanks, Andriasang).

Get the new trailer from Festa below, via Joystiq.

Conduit 2 gets February 15 US date

The Conduit 2 will release on February 15, developer High Voltage Software told IGN.

We'll get onto Sega about a UK and European date.

Dragon Age II video shows off combat styles

BioWare's released a new video of Dragon Age II on PC, featuring the game's two combat stances.

You can either go for the action-RPG approach DAII's been heading towards, or you can take the tactical route, where you can pause and give out orders.

Video's below, via Big Download. Dragon Age II releases on March 8 in the US and March 11 in the UK for PS3, 360 and PC.

Demon's Souls' online servers to remain live until October

Atlus has confirmed it's to keep live the online servers for RPG Demon's Souls until at least October this year.

It had previously said it would keep the servers open until March at the earliest.

"We've said it before and we'll say it again. We will support the online servers for Demon's Souls as long as we possibly can, and we'll be as transparent about the entire process as possible, hence us constantly updating folks as to what to expect," said Aram Jabbari of the publisher.

Crysis 2 trailer shows off Nanosuit

EA released a new trailer of Crysis 2, featuring what's possible in the game with the revamped Nanosuit.

It's very slick stuff, as you'll see below.

Crysis 2 releases on March 25 for PS3, 360 and PC. Thanks, D'Toid.

Need for Speed World passes 3 million users

EA confirmed over the holiday break that Need for Speed World has passed 3 million users.

It also announced the addition of a day-and-night cycle for the MMO.

Developer BlackBox will handle the second of two iterations from the Need for Speed series next year, the other being Shift 2: Unleashed in spring.

Max Payne 3 info "in the coming months," says Rockstar

It's been a ridiculous age since we've heard anything on Max Payne 3, but it's still in development, and there's more info inbound.

The sequel, being made by Rockstar's Vancouver studio, was left out of Take Two's provisional FY 2012 line-up after slipping out of the back-half of its FY 2011 line-up.

"We're still working hard on Max, and we'll have more news in the coming months," a Rockstar rep told Kotaku.

Bulletstorm dev diary has a lot of [duck]ing swearing, has profanity filter

EA released the first dev diary for Bulletstorm, featuring producer Tanya Jessen and lead writer Rick Remender talking about the People Can Fly shooter and its story.

It also features the term "dicktits". That is why you will watch it below. Thanks, Evil Avatar.

PCF producer Adrian Chmielarz has also confirmed the game will have a profanity filter to block out any swearing, although specifically how it would work was not mentioned. The filter works for both subtitles and voice-acting.

inFamous comic will bridge gap between inFamous 1 and 2

Sony, Sucker Punch and DC Comics are to release a six-part series of comics based on inFamous.

The comics will bridge the gap between inFamous 1 and the upcoming inFamous 2, explaining how main character Cole moved from Empire City to New Marais.

The series will be written by William Harms, with illustration done by Eric Nguyen.

More on the US PS Blog.

GT5 gets massive update 1.05

Polyphony released the massive version 1.05 update for Gran Turismo 5 just before Christmas, with the main inclusion being GT Academy for the US.

New seasonal events were also included, as was a "hot car dealer," improved rewards whilst playing and more.

There's details on the update at GT Planet.

DiRT 3 video shows off Gymkhana

Codemasters has released a new video of DiRT 3, showing off one of the new additions to the game: Gymkhana.

The video has rally driver Ken Block talking about how it works, as well as some gameplay footage.

Get it below. Thanks, D'Toid.

Dragon Quest VI remake launching in US next month

Nintendo's announced it's to release the DS remake of Square's Dragon Quest VI in the US on Valentine's Day, February 14.

Its release comes seven months after releasing Dragon Quest IX in America.

Hunted: The Demon's Forge gets first trailer

Bethesda released the first trailer for Hunted: The Demon's Forge over the break.

The clip of the inXile dungeon crawler shows off the world within the game, with its two main characters, E'lara and Caddoc, shown at the end.

Hunted's out next spring for PS3, 360 and PC. Trailer's below. Thanks, D'Toid.

Tales of Xillia announced, detailed

Namco said before Christmas that the all-new Tales game it announced for PS3 last August is called Tales of Xillia.

It's the third Tales game that'll appear on PS3 following ports of Vesperia from 360 and Graces from Wii, but the first to be developed for the console from the go.

As far as producer Hideo Baba is taking it, Xillia is a new era for the RPG series.

"Our goal here is to pool all the know-how we've built over the past 15 years and show off a new frontier in the Tales series," he told Famitsu (via 1UP).

"That's all there is to it. You might see that even now in the graphics, which are meant to be a contrast in light and shadow. Tales of Vesperia was always meant to have anime-like graphics, so everything's incredibly bright and colorful."

Baba continued: "With Xillia, on the other hand, we're deliberately placing light sources to play up the size of a room and the feeling that the characters are really there."

For the first time in the Tales series, there will be two main characters, a male named Jude and a female called Mira.

Other details: the game's world is called Liese Maxia, its battle system is known as the Double Raid Linear Motion Battle System - or DR-LMBS for short - and its viewpoint is behind the back and over the head. Exciting.

No date yet.

Activision has made "horrific mistakes," says Riccitiello

EA CEO John Riccitiello has told IG that Activision has made some "horrific mistakes".

"No, I don't actually feel sorry for the other guys," he said. "I think they're making some really horrific mistakes.

"Without being too directly negative about a particular competitor, I would say that what often happens is a scenario where you've lost your customer, so you lean on your employee to do evermore impossible things which generates profitability for two or three years where you sort of live off past success."

While Activision may be the lot under scrutiny, EA was once seen as the "Evil Empire". But Riccitiello explained how it got that monkey off its back.

"Three years ago, we were not making any money and we'd lost the support of our shareholders, and we had lost the support of our gamer, and our attrition was at an all time high.

"So your quality's down, the gamer hates you, the investor's not happy, you've got nowhere to go and employees are leaving.

"Since then, I think it is fair to say we've got most of the gamers back."

StarCraft II gets overdue single-player demo

Five months after going on sale worldwide, Blizzard's released a single-player demo of StarCraft II.

It features the first three missions from the campaign of Wings of Liberty. You won't need an Battle.net account to play it.

Get it here.

Full-priced Red Dead Redemption goes live on Games on Demand

Rockstar's put up a full-priced edition of Red Dead Redemption on 360's Games on Demand.

It'll set you back £39.99/$59.99, and only consists of the main game itself, with no DLC added.

If you want to pick it up on the cheap for less then £40, you can get it for just over £20 at GAME on PS3 or 360.

If for convenience's sake you actually want to buy it as a download, the link to queue it up for your 360 is here.

Dragon Age: Awakening dated for Japan

BioWare will release Dragon Age: Origins expansion Awakening in Japan on January 27, according to Famitsu.

Awakening continues the story of Origins, adds five new recruitable members to your party and more.

Awakening launched in the west last March for PC, 360 and PS3 in the US both digitally and at retail, while it was only available for PS3 owners in Europe on the PS Store.

Def Jam Rapstar gets Kinect support

Konami's released a new update for the 360 version of Def Jam Rapstar, which has enabled Kinect support.

The 4MM game will allow users to record videos of their rapping to the Def Jam community using the motion camera.

Fantastic. Thanks, Joystiq.

Team Meat cancels Super Meat Boy for WiiWare, explains why

Team Meat's confirmed it had canceled the WiiWare version of Super Meat Boy, with Team Meat leader Edmund McMillen telling Joystiq it would have been "a piece of s**t version".

"We knew of the limits early on but overestimated our ability to get Nintendo to raise the file size," said McMillen. "It's lame that there is a 40MB cap on WiiWare games... but it was our fault for blindly assuming this cap wasn't set in stone.

"We are sorry for that."

He went on to add that Team Meat had talked to three publishers about a retail version for Wii, but ended up passing on it.

"Right now we have talked to three larger publishers who have passed on the title because they believe Wii retail is a bad idea profit wise. Most places we have talked to believe that only Nintendo brand games sell well on their system and don't even understand why we want to release Wii retail."

FFXIII 360 bombs in Japan

According to Media Create numbers, the Japanese 360 release of Final Fantasy XIII sold 22,579 units.

Media Create doesn't release sales numbers for games that sell under 20,000, according to Siliconera.

FFXIII 360 in Japan was the international version of the game with English VOs, as well as epilogue episode and a new easy mode.

Kinect Sports gets demo release

Microsoft's released a taster for Kinect Sports.

Pick it up here. It's 718Mb.