Ruffian Games producer James Cope has revealed the studio's focus for Crackdown 2, and for games after it, saying the studio wants to remain a one-project team, delivering "great core action games."

While demoing the game, and allowing attendees to play a multiplayer match for the first time at Dundee's NEoN event on Saturday, Cope also stressed how important online play was for Crackdown 2.
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Speaking to IncGamers, Alex Hutchinson, creative designer of Army of Two: The 40th Day has said that the game sets up a sequel opportunity.
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Harmonix and MTV Games today announced that a five pack of tracks from AFI and singles from The Bangles and Them Crooked Vultures will be added next week to the Rock Band Music Store of Downloadable Content (DLC) for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Wii. Tracks from Dead Kennedys and Sleater-Kinney will be available for download next week for Rock Band Unplugged on PlayStation Portable (PSP).
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Indie games received some nice coverage last Friday courtesy of a New York Times article that discusses how indie game developers have managed to make a mainstream splash.
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Imagine this: you're playing one of Splinter Cell Conviction's many "choose your own torture" sequences, as described by Ubisoft's Jeffrey Dickstein. As you're slamming a terrorist's face into a urinal, you might ask yourself, "is this the new Degree deodorant I should buy?" (Seriously, these are his words.)

This is actually the pitch Ubisoft delivered at Microsoft Advertising's Gaming Upfront presentation in New York this evening. In-game advertising is rapidly growing, but has typically been relegated to sports and racing games. Splinter Cell Conviction breaks convention by being neither. Expect both static and video ads to appear throughout the environment -- including during the game's lengthy torture sequences. Perhaps they should take it one step further: Sam Fisher should grab a Coca-Cola bottle, smash it, and use the broken glass to kill a guy. Talk about refreshing!
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BeefJack writes: "What's that you say? Gears of War? You remember that game, right? It's the game that you bitched about, bitched that it was never fixed but then continued to be your third choice behind Halo and Call of Duty. Whichever way you look at it, Gears 2 is trying to make amends (or unsuccessfully trying to keep you away from MW2) by offering triple XP for 9 days, the last of which is tomorrow."
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MundoRare writes: "Recent times and cancellations have shown that all is not well in Rare-land. As if the cancellations of both Perfect Dark 2 and Kameo 2 in favor of Project Natal have shaken the faith of even the most loyal Rare fans, David Wise's departure from Rare could very well be the killing blow. [...]

From his Facebook: "I think the business of Rare has changed a great deal, and at the moment there is just not the opportunity to create the soundtracks that Rare were fortunately very famous for."

Unfortunately, though, this is only the most recent loss of a distinguished employee within the British developer in the recent months.

Back in August, Steve Burke, another prominent Rare musician from Kameo fame, also left the company to take a year's sabbatical "to go travelling," according to some Rare sources; no word if the real reason could be or not related with his well known desires to work for the film industry. Burke and Wise's departures only follow the trade open by Grant Kirkhope a year ago.

Out of the musical department, there has recently been huge losses, with Microsoft's recent restructuring process affecting several engineers and artists, including Steve Malpass, designer for Banjo-Tooie, Perfect Dark, Ghoulies and Nuts & Bolts. Moreover, some programmers have also left, like veteran Mark Edmonds, one of the remaining members of the original GoldenEye 007 team, who abandoned Rare in late 2008 after 14 years of work at Twycross."
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Mike from Project Gamers writes: Next week Harmonix brings us Rock Band gurus an AFI pack 01 including: Beautiful Theives, End Transmission, Love Like Winter, Medicate, The Leaving Song, Pt II. The AFI pack 01 will cost $8.49 or $1.99 a track. Harmonix will also bring us The Bangles – "Walk Like an Egyptian" for a Lego Rock Band family-friendly track, also available for non-Lego Rock Band owners. (All tracks are original master recordings.) Now if your a PSP owner of Rock Band don't fret (pun intended) we have you covered for two tracks next week including: Dead Kennedys – "California Über Alles" and Sleater-Kinney – "You're No Rock'n'Roll Fun". Both tracks are $1.99 each.

Update: Beatles Rock Band tracks added.
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Split-screen: "Gears of War 2 is one of the most successful games on the Xbox 360 ever, and is infamous for selling millions within a matter of months. This, despite being limited to a single platform, was a humongous feat for developer Epic Games. However, some recent evidence uncovered suggests the impossible. Could it be that Gears 2 is really going to lose it's Xbox 360-exclusivity?"
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Bungie writes:

"I want you to lean back and take a long, deep, cleansing breath.

As you begin to relax, allow your mind to drift away to a different place and time. Think back…waaaaaaay back. Remember when we first launched Bungie Pro Video, the technology formerly known as the thing you shouldn't still be calling BuTube?

Yeah, that was great. We wrote about how you were going to be able to take all of your favorite Film Clips from Halo 3 and turn them into videos you could play on your computer and stream over the World Wide Webs.

On that front we delivered, and plenty of people have been taking advantage. But we also promised a mechanism by which you could take advantage of more Render Minutes at a fine, but fair price. And that's where we hit a little snag."
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