The Lost and Damned achievements

The Lost and Damned will have 5 achievements for a total of 250 achievement points.

  1. Get Good Wood – 50G: In the Bike Races, whack off 69 bikers with a bat.
  2. Easy Rider – 100G: Finish The Story
  3. Full Chat – 70G: Your backup are riding at their best!
  4. The Lost Boy – 25G: All hail the leader of The Lost!
  5. One Percenter – 5G: Billy is back on his bike.

Payback iPhone release date and details

The iPhone/iPod Touch version builds on the strong foundations laid down by the GP2X version by adding an automatic save system, reengineered controls, HUD refinements and further gameplay improvement.

Probably the most important part of any game is the controls – if these don’t work well then the game would be about as useful as a chocolate teapot. For this reason, getting the controls right was the #1 priority in the iPhone/iPod Touch version of Payback. We tried to keep the on-screen buttons as minimal as possible so that they did not distract from the gameplay itself.

The game uses transparent up and down arrows on the right of the touchscreen to move forwards and backwards. The steering is handled using the accelerometer (tilting left and right) and there is a wheel displayed to show how far you have turned. This version doesn’t support multiplayer but at only 6.99 USD / 5.49 EUR / 3.99 GBP, it’s still great value as a singleplayer game.

There are more screenshots and details here: Payback iPhone report

Chinatown Wars details from EDGE

The February 2009 issue of EDGE reports that the team working on the game is "twice the size" of the one that worked on Vice and Liberty City Stories and they’ve created something which has "more lines of code" than San Andreas. This seems hard to believe but it’s great news if it’s true.

Other details included:

  1. The Satellite navigation system is "identical" to GTA IVs in appearance and functionality.
  2. Ammunation has gone online! You order weapons with your PDA and they show up at your safehouse.
  3. You can replay any mission by selecting it from a menu in the safehouse.
  4. Grenades and molotovs are thrown using the touch screen – you touch one and drag it, with an indicator on the top screen (where the action is) showing you where it’s going to land.
  5. The A button is used to fire weapons.
  6. One minigame involves assembling all of the parts of a sniper rifle with the touch screen, before using it to assassinate a designated target.
  7. Another touch-sensitive mini-game will be paying bridge tolls – you push the coin into the slot to get through the barrier.
  8. While some might perceive them to be gimmicky, EDGE describes the mini games as being "short" and "smoothly integrated".

Most importantly though, the magazine mentions that the game is "already complete" and final bug testing is taking place. You’ll be able to get your hands on the game in mid-March.

Thanks to GTAGaming.com for the news.

Saints Row 2 patch info

A patch will be released for the 360 version of Saints Row 2, which will address a few key issues presented by the community. There will be tweaks to Multiplayer in order to promote smoother and more balanced game play. All of the applicable balance changes and improvements listed here will be included in an upcoming PS3 patch. Due to technical differences between the PS3 and the Xbox 360, a number of the changes made in this patch do not apply to the PS3 edition of Saints Row 2.

This patch has been submitted to Microsoft, with an established release date pending. Once the patch has completed the certification process and a release date is known, the information will be announced to the community.

General:

  • Correcting the co-op mission completion and Achievement issues.
  • Implemented protection against disc read errors. May reduce or eliminate crashes experienced by some users.
  • Players will no longer be able to change the “Friendly Fire” setting during the Cat & Mouse diversion.
  • Players will no longer be able to access the weapon radial menu during the Demolition Derby activity, including all Special Derbies.
  • Correcting an issue with scripted attack helicopters not firing missiles during missions.

Multiplayer:

  • Pipe Bombs will be removed from the default MP weapon loadout when a game begins.
  • The default time / score limit for Team Gangsta Brawl will change from “5 min / 25 kills” to “10 min / 50 kills”.
  • A 5 second period of invincibility will be applied to respawning players. Once an invulnerable player performs an attack, the effect will be removed. Invulnerability will be displayed by a special health bar indicator.

A final date has not been set for the release of this patch, since it still needs to pass Microsoft certification, but once the exact date is known, everyone will be informed.

Source: saintsrow.com

MTA:SA status update

A bunch of new developers have contributed to the project, either by submitting patches for fixing bugs (like fog flicker fix for users with ATI graphics cards or compatibility fixes for the linux server) or by adding new features (different skins now have their own voices, rather than all having CJ ones; initial joystick support – we will write more about this one in our next status update), all of which are certainly a benefit to the project.

Also, lil_Toady has recently introduced initial support for loading and using custom sounds in MTASA. It is currently compatible with a wide variety of formats including MP3, WAV, OGG, RIFF, MOD, XM, IT and S3M. Along with already available custom map and model support, this will allow you to further customize the game by making it possible to add your own sounds or music to your maps and gamemodes.

Full details on MTASA.com