Weekly Wrap Up: May 29

Halo 4 news

            Halo 4, like every game nowadays, will have pre-order bonuses.  Fortunately they are purely cosmetic, armour and weapon skins, which means that you won’t miss out on a special mission or area like in some games if you go to the wrong store simply don’t pre-order.  In other news Microsoft has stated that they have no plans for a public beta of Halo 4.  I find this to be surprising since many shooters now have betas and that console betas were pretty much pioneered by Halo 3 when they bundled the access code with Crackdown.  Perhaps they are too busy to organize a beta and compile all the info and make changes since the game is set to have so much stuff in it like a single player campaign, a co-op campaign, competitive multiplayer and probably Firefight & Forge World.  

38 Studios lay offs

            38 Studios and their subsidiary Big Huge Games, creators of Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, appear to be no more.  After defaulting on a loan payment to the Rhode Island state government it was revealed that they were incapable of paying off their debut and had to let go of all their staff members.  Just two months ago they had a total of 379 full-time employees who are now jobless.  I feel terrible for everyone who was let go and hope that they find work soon.  Also as someone who just started Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning this weekend, I am sad that after spending years crafting a huge mythology meant to span an entire franchise with many titles and types of games that they had to close down after their very first entry.  They had even just announced project Copernicus, which was an MMO that they were working on in the Amalur universe.  With the company gone the rights to the IP is now up for grabs to any willing takers, it will be interesting to see who decides to vie for it and if we will see this series continue.

Zone of the Enders 3

            Hideo Kojima, creator of the Metal Gear series, has announced that his team at Kojima Productions are currently starting design work for Zone of the Enders 3.  They have some art work competed and are working on creating some character models in their Fox Engine, which has yet to be shown off in a game.  They have also said that they are checking to see if a new ZOE game would be feasible, which will most likely be determined by how well the Zone of the Enders HD Collection sells.  If the possibility of a 3^rd makes you want to experience the first two then you’ll have to wait because an October 25^th release in Japan is the only one dated so far.

Street Fighter anniversary set

            On September 18^th Capcom will be releasing an incredible 25^th anniversary set for $150 that will blow your mind with its 15 disks.  That is right 15 disks! The set includes: Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix, Street Fighter III: The Third Strike Online Edition, Super Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition (plus all of its costume DLC), Street Fighter X Tekken (including all costume and character DLC), a Blu-ray Street Fighter documentary, Street Fighter II, IV & Super Street Fighter IV animated movies, the entire Street Fighter anime series, an 11 disk soundtrack with official and fan-created music, an 8-inch light-up Ryu statue, a 64 page art book, a full sized Ryu belt and an individually numbered certificate of authenticity.  Mind blowing right?  I don’t know what I would do with all that stuff, but I know a part of me wants it.

For all the latest updates on the blog be sure to follow me on Twitter @Aeonofdoom360 and be sure to let me know what you think in the comments section below no sign up or registration needed.