The people over at Bethesda Softworks have unveiled a new trailer for the newest installment in the first-person shooter franchise that started back in '81.
This trailer shows exactly what happened in this dark alternate future where the Nazis won WWII...
As a huge fan of alternate history (and a huge fan of the Wolfenstein franchise), "Wolfenstein: The New Order" is looking to be a real treat.
The New Order is set in 1960 after the Nazis won World War II. Gamers play as the familiar American war hero B.J. Blazkowicz and are tasked with launching an "impossible counter-offensive" against the Nazi powers that have taken over the world.
Set in Europe, The New Order will have players infiltrating Nazi strongholds and battling legions of enemies, while taking control of "super weapons" that the Nazis have used to dominate earth--"and beyond," Bethesda teased.
From the publisher that brought you "Shadow of the Colossus", "God of War", "Sly Cooper", and "Killzone" and the developer of "Uncharted 2: Among Thieves", "Crash Bandicoot", and "Jak and Daxter" comes this summer's "The Last of Us".
See the Extended "red-band" TV Spot that was released in April for ths summer's mighty PlayStation 3 Exclusive.
Survive an apocalypse on Earth in The Last of Us, a PlayStation 3-exclusive title by Naughty Dog. Here, you will find abandoned cities reclaimed by nature. Here is a population decimated by a modern plague. Here, there are only survivors killing each other for food, weapons, or whatever they can get their hands on. Here, you find no hope.
Joel, a brutal survivor, and Ellie, a brave young teenage girl who is wise beyond her years, must work together if they hope to survive their journey across the US.
In another stunning report that further solidifies Microsoft's downward spiral in the build-up to the next-gen console war, sources told Kotaku today that Microsoft an exciting exclusive possibly lined up; but that's about all they have.
We've heard from other sources that Microsoft is not where they want to be at this point in the pre-launch development of Durango. A reliable source—one who was not part of our reporting about the Respawn game—tells us that Microsoft is as much as six months behind in producing content for the new console, despite an expected late-2013 launch. Another tells us that Microsoft recently cancelled several internal next-gen projects because they were not coming together as hoped. These sources have told us that, comparatively, Sony is in better shape and further along with hardware and software development for PlayStation 4.
Yikes. That's not all though, Kotaku went on...
We'd also heard from an industry insider that Microsoft was aggressively trying to sign exclusive games for Durango. Given the lack of internal development at Microsoft—their internal studios, while talented, are outnumbered by those of Sony and Nintendo—and given some of the apparent recent stumbles and slowdowns internally, signing an exclusive Respawn-EA game would suit the Durango quite well.
Between it's rumored "always online" functionality, it's money sucking X-Box Live membership, and almost no exclusives, it was also strongly hinted by many that the next X-Box would also be a more focused entertainment centre than an actual gaming console.
Even if you don't care for Nintendo or the Wii U, it's a sad time when even Nintendo might be doing something.
Expect more details during Microsoft's "Reveal Event" set to air online May 21 at 1:00 p.m. ET.
IGN revealed the first trailer and screenshots to Bethesda/Tango Gameworks' "The Evil Within" (formerly known as "Zwei") the new survival-horror from Shinji Mikami, creator of "Resident Evil", "Devil May Cry", and "God Hand"
Shinji Mikami, the father of survival horror, is back to direct The Evil Within™ – a game embodying the meaning of pure survival horror. Highly-crafted environments, horrifying anxiety, and an intricate story weave together to create an immersive world that will bring players to the height of tension. The Evil Within is in development for the Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft, the PlayStation®3 computer entertainment system, PC and next generation consoles and is slated for release in 2014.
When Detective Sebastian and his partner rush to the scene of a gruesome mass murder, a mysterious, powerful force is lying in wait for them. Witnessing the killing of fellow police officers one after another, Sebastian is then attacked and loses consciousness. Waking up in a land where monsters are wandering about, Sebastian has to fight his way through a world of death and its close friend madness in order to understand what’s going on. Sebastian has to face his fears in order to survive on a journey to discover what lies in the shadows of that mysterious force.
The game, which has been under-wraps and in secrecy, was first shown back in April 2012 with the site going live, with a screenshot and message, part of which read:
As a master of the ‘survival horror’ genre, Shinji Mikami is committed to making a game that is the realization of pure survival horror, an experience which he defines as one that pushes the limits of fear and exhilaration. He and his team at Tango are committed to attaining this vision.
Mikami promises fans "The perfect blend of horror and action" with this title, dropping in 2014 and running off of the powerful id Tech 5 engine .
IGN will be going into full detail on Monday, April 22 at 7 am Pacific Time. with an early demo of the title.
In December, Ubisoft's "Far Cry 3" was released to great sales and near-universal critical acclaim- shipping over 4 million units as of February, and sitting at a 90% on review agitator Metacritic.
So what do you do after that if you're Ubisoft? Make an ultra-violent, corny 80's sci-fi-throwback DLC for it!
"Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon" is an upcoming DLC slated for a May 1st launch on PS3, X-Box 360, and PC. "Far Cry 3" will not be required, and the game with feature an 8 hour campaign, as well as a singular fully explorable island. "Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon" will feature Michael Beihn (Aliens, Terminator, The Rock) as Sgt. Rex 'Power' Colt.
Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon is stupid. It has a terrible story, one-dimensional characters, and there’s no emotional value in playing it whatsoever. I can’t even criticise it for all those things, because that’s everything Ubisoft wants the game to be. They think they’ve found a loophole in any criticism by deliberately aiming low. Hah! The joke’s on them! Blood Dragon is pretty good.
Marty Silva of IGN got a good 30 minutes in with 'Blood Dragon' which also confirmed robot lizards with eye-lasers. You read that right.
If you don't tread carefully near the laser-firing lizards, you'll quickly find yourself torn to shreds. But using the various cybernetic hearts that you cultivate (read: rip out) from the bodies of your enemies, you can take control of the beasts and use them in a variety of tactical ways.
It might be too early to call; but i'd wager "Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon" will sweep any and all DLC awards that it's nominated for, unless we get a phenomenal DLC for "Bioshock: Infinite" that makes the game good.
In news that seems like satire, Microsoft has crafted the most alienating next-gen console you can imagine.
Rumors began to spread early in the year that Sony's PlayStation 4 would block used games and, thusly, hurt the consumer and second-hand stores such as Gamestop; but those rumors were laid to rest shortly before Sony's "See The Future" gaming event in an interview with Eurogamer:
"That's the general expectation by consumers," Yoshida told Eurogamer. "They purchase physical form; they want to use it everywhere, right? So that's my expectation."
Yoshida added: "So, used games can play on PS4. How is that?"
With that, the fears of many were put to rest, and people all thought "Wow what a stupid idea that would be, who would do that?" Then Microsoft responded with "We will!"
After a leak of the next Microsoft system, code named "Durango", made its way to vgleaks it basically confirmed that the optical disc will be used only for install, making used games useless for the console, so observes Reddit user GideonJWells in a story from Huffington Post:
You're thinking short term. Long term if they can get console users used to this, PC already are, then it means they are one step closer to doing away with physical mediums and pushing for making the X-Box digital only.
If Durango does well it'll be a generation of users who are similar to late 90s/early 00s PC users. The disk slowly becoming just an install medium, you are on online most of the time anyways, why not just download digitally through Steam, GOG, Origin, etc. Which effectively kills the used game market in most countries
Used games are a huge outlet for many consumers who can't (or don't want to) afford a $60-$70 price-tag on new games which might not even be worth it.
If that wasn't bad enough, Microsoft Studios creative director Adam Orth took to twitter and basically cemented the rumor that the Durango will need to always be online. A measurement against piracy that, like many DRM plans, do more harm than good for the consumer.
While none of this has -technically- been confirmed by Microsoft, it's troubling news for many that have supported the X-Box as their go-to console.
Official word and confirmation will come May 21 with Microsoft's own official conference for it's next system, due to drop in November to compete against Sony's PlayStation 4.
One of 2013's most anticipated titles, 2K and Irrational Games' "Bioshock: Infinite" finally graced gamers world-wide with it's presence last week on March 26. However, some who played the game (in it's entire 9 hour campaign) were left wondering what happened to the "Bioshock: Infinite" we saw in 2011, and why the one we got was so....bland.
This image, courtesy of Reddit user TheCynicalGamer , contains excerpts from a post they made calling to a gameplay video from 2011 showing a game that is vastly different from the finished "Bioshock: Infinite" that hit the shelves.
It's obvious that not all games are always 100% like their trailers and initial videos, just see SEGA's recent fiasco with "Aliens: Colonial Marines" for that; but it's also no secret 2K and Irrational had a difficult time during Infinite's development.
Tim Gerritsen, director of product development, and art director Nate Wells have both announced their departure. Wells was a 13 year veteran of the studio, whose distinctive style was heralded in the original Bioshock.
That's not all, after it was speculated that Bioshock's delay from October 2012 to Febraury 2013 was due to the inclusion of a Multiplayer mode, which, according to Kotaku's Kirk Hamilton via Kotaku sources, fell apart before going into single-player.
That mode, internally dubbed "Spec-Ops," was similar to the Spec-Ops mode in the most recent two Call of Duty: Modern Warfare games. In it, four players would cooperatively work their way through levels lifted from the single-player game. The mode wasn't working, however, and some of the multiplayer team was taken off of it and tasked with getting the 2011 E3 demo into shape.
This all came from their source reporting Epic Games' "Gears of War" producer Rod Fergusson was brought into Irational to get Infinite shipped and ready to go, which was confirmed by Fergusson himself days later, lending credibility to Kotaku's insider.
In an interview with Polygon, Ken Levine, leader of Irrational Games, spoke of a cut portion of the game known as "Shantytown":
Ken had been in level reviews numerous times. Then one day, the Finkton team was doing a play test, when Ken decided the entire stage was wrong. It looked like the residents lived in garbage. It needed to be beautiful, because Columbia was designed so that even the poor lived beautifully.
It was all wrong. And it had to go.
Wells was furious. Levine had been looking at this for months. In August of this year, Wells announced his new role as art director at Naughty Dog Studios.
Strangely, Shantytown reappeared, much dumbed down and duller than promised, lending to the idea the final product of Infinite was a mash-up of stuff the team had made and redone over the past 4 or 5 years. In the same interview, it's revealed Levine hired writers on late into development, after being the games' sole writer:
Levine has tried to streamline this process. Most recently, he brought on fellow writers — until late in Infinite's development, he was solely responsible for the story.
It's clear, all the way from the 2011 gameplay to many other videos, that the games story and focus changed drastically through development and that much content was cut for whatever reason or another.
In another interview done by Polygon, this time with Bill Gardner, Design director of Irrational Games, it was revealed about how much was actually cut.
"We cut off enough things to make five or six full games," he said. "It is alarming."
Gardner says that it was "kind of gross" how much they cut but ultimately all that matters is the final product.
"I mean, it pains you when you are talking about about cutting one of your babies but ultimately you got to to look at the final piece," Gardner said.
Today the internet (pretended it) was shocked when Kotaku told of it's insider source confirming Big Daddy Disney was shutting down LucasArts, a studio which technically died in 2005, and will now be using the studio just for licensing purposes.
“After evaluating our position in the games market, we’ve decided to shift LucasArts from an internal development to a licensing model, minimizing the company’s risk while achieving a broader portfolio of quality Star Wars games," LucasArts parent company LucasFilm said in a statement. "As a result of this change, we’ve had layoffs across the organization. We are incredibly appreciative and proud of the talented teams who have been developing our new titles.”
The news of this, however, brought up the fate of the highly anticipated game LucasArts had been teasing for a while now, which is the "mature" Star Wars based shooter, "Star Wars 1313". The fate of 1313 was addressed in this statement, from GameInformer
"All of these things happened at once. Naturally, as any company that goes through a big announcement like this, you have to look through your whole portfolio and realign some things. 1313 was looking fantastic, the reception has been great. Our other unannounced titles are fine, it just got to a point where from a business standpoint we couldn't continue developing those internally and keep up with the direction that the company was going."
LucasArts jumped all up and down Twitter's top trends today, both domestically and world-wide, with many studios, journalists, and people offering kind words to the some 150 employees laid off.
The studio brought many games to life in the 90s with point-and-click adventure games like "Maniac Mansion" and "The Secret of Monkey Island", and critically praised shooters into the mid 2000's with games like "Star Wars: Dark Forces", "Jedi Outcast", "Rouge Squadron", "Knights of the Old Republic", and "Star Wars: Battlefront".
Their last "good game" considered by many was Battlefront II, since then they haven't put out anything of merit, with their last games being "Star Wars: Kinect" and the massive flop "Star Wars: The Old Republic".
The rabid fanbase who went on an internet witch-hunt to burn Capcom and Ninja Theory's reboot of the "Devil May Cry" franchise rejoice as sales get worse, while people who enjoyed the game (myself included) can do nothing but watch.
VGChartz published the Week 10 (March 26) sales of "DmC: Devil May Cry" earlier this week and the game is currently sitting at 448,051 units sold, a number lower than Capcom's anticipated (and lowered) hopes of 1.5 million.
Before DmC even had a chance the internet was against it with it's "dumbed down controls", the fact it ran on the Unreal 3 Engine (an engine not built for the quick speed and fighting fans of the franchise were accustomed to after 4 games) and Ninja Theory Chief Designer Tameem Antoniades's transformation and redesign of the white-haired, smart-mouthed Dante to a more "realistic" and punk-rock Dante in the reboot.
If Dante, dressed as he was, walked into any bar outside of Tokyo, he'd get laughed out. What Devil May Cry did when it launched was it brought everything that was great about action cinema like the fashion, music -- it was like a cultural melting pot -- and I feel like now, for Devil May Cry to have that same impact, it needs to draw on new things. New music, new ways of cinematography, new fashion.
Tameem deactivated his twitter account shortly after the games release, and hadn't been heard from since, until PlayStation's "See The Future" PS4 unveiling.
Despite being a commercial failure, "DmC: Devil May Cry" sits at an 88% (PS3) on Metacritic, while the "fan reviews" are extremely low due to, many believe, the intense hate campaign on the fans part or the "paid reviewer" angle on the journalists part. We may never know.
Erik Kain for Forbes has an interesting piece which speaks for all of the people of rational mind who enjoyed "DmC: Devil May Cry" for what it was and are somewhat disappointed that the game failed to find an audience, especially after the DLC, "Vergil's Downfall" left so much open for the sequel.
It's been a rough few years for Capcom, who also had to recoup for losses after "Resident Evil 6" sold 2 million fewer units than expected (with a range Capcom hoped would have been in the 7 million mark, RE6 fell in at about 4.5)
“The Phantom Pain and Ground Zeroes put together is Metal Gear Solid V"
Today, courtesy of GameSpot, fans got their first look at the full trailer for "Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain" at GDC 2013, which confirmed that 'Ground Zeroes' and 'Phantom Pain' are two halves of a whole (and more, as seen below).
The technology of the Fox Engine was also shown off as the main-point of the conference, with photo-realism being the engine's defining factor, as well as an advanced lighting system that was shown in great detail.
A quote from lighting director Yoshiharu Nishiyama almost perfectly summarized how photo-realism and the actual art of a game should go hand-in-hand.
"To reproduce the real world, we need to study the real world- at the same time, however, creating captivating visuals is an artists primary job, and replicating the real world may not necessarily be what a game needs, so to create a quality product, an artist's eye is essential"
The internet is still tyring to piece together all of the things shown in the 5 minute trailer for the game; but one thing is for certain, Kojima Productions is pushing current gen technological boundaries (MGS V is set to release on PS3 and X-Box 360) and we have a lot to look forward to when we reach the next generation
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Thu, June 6, 2013 
