What if our greatest heroes became our greatest threat? From the indomitable DC Comics and the makers of the definitive fighting game franchise Mortal Kombat comes Injustice: Gods Among Us, a bold fighting game featuring a large cast of favorite DC Comics icons. Set in a world where the lines between good and evil are blurred, players will experience heroes and villains engaging in epic battles on a massive scale. A deep, original story compliments the fighting action that pits many of the great heroes and villains from the DC universe against each other -- Batman, Harley Quinn, Solomon Grundy, Superman, The Flash, Wonder Woman and many others lose their allegiances and fight for Injustice!
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)
"Gods Among Us" debuts as a bold new fighting game franchise that introduces a deep, original story featuring a large cast of favorite DC Comics icons such as Batman, Cyborg, Harley Quinn, Nightwing, Deathstroke, Solomon Grundy, Superman, Lex Luthor, The Flash, Green Arrow, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Aquaman, Bane, Catwoman, Shazam, Black Adam, Raven, the Joker, Doomsday and more. Set in a world where the lines between good and evil are blurred, players will experience heroes and villains engaging in epic battles on a massive scale.
Los Santos: a sprawling sun-soaked metropolis full of self-help gurus, starlets and fading celebrities, once the envy of the Western world, now struggling to stay afloat in an era of economic uncertainty and cheap reality TV. Amidst the turmoil, three very different criminals plot their own chances of survival and success: Franklin, a former street gangster, now looking for real opportunities and serious money; Michael, a professional ex-con whose retirement is a lot less rosy than he hoped it would be; and Trevor, a violent maniac driven by the chance of a cheap high and the next big score. Running out of options, the crew risks everything in a series of daring and dangerous heists that could set them up for life.
“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
The tech savy nerds behind "Battlefield 4" have gone ahead and released 17 minutes of hard hitting video game footage to tease the couch potato gamers. The footage features a group of U.S. soliders struggling underwater in a sinking vehicle followed by flashbacks to an all out assault on Russian militants.
The official website for Battlefield 4 went live yesterday revealing a viral challenge to fans of the series. They more fans log in to the official site the more teases will be revealed leading up to actual gameplay footage on March 27th.
Two of these teases are below, one featuring a tease of naval warefare the other good ole' fashioned land combat
"Gods Among Us" debuts as a bold new fighting game franchise that introduces a deep, original story featuring a large cast of favorite DC Comics icons such as Batman, Cyborg, Harley Quinn, Nightwing, Deathstroke, Solomon Grundy, Superman, Lex Luthor, The Flash, Green Arrow, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Aquaman, Bane, Catwoman, Shazam, Black Adam, Raven, the Joker, Doomsday and more. Set in a world where the lines between good and evil are blurred, players will experience heroes and villains engaging in epic battles on a massive scale.
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Sun, April 7, 2013 
