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Thursday, 13 December 2012

Weekly Wrap Up: Dec. 13, 2012

Two release dates set
It was previously known that Crysis 3 would be released sometime during February, but now EA has announced the exact release date for the game as Feb 19 in North America and Feb 22 in Europe. In addition to Crysis getting a release date from EA this past week; Naughty Dog revealed in a new story trailer that The Last of Us will be coming out on May 7th.  I haven’t watched the trailer because I have been sold on this game since E3 and try to avoid as many spoilers for things as I can, which is hard to do when you are online and constantly looking up info on games.  That being said it is probably pretty great so follow the link below if you want to check it out.

And one moved
The upcoming Bioshock Infinite from Irrational Games has been delay again.  Originally the game was supposed to be released in October of 2012, but was then pushed to February 26th, 2013 and now has been moved back one more month to March 26th.  Ken Levine has been saying that the game is great as it stands but they just want to take the extra time to make it even better “It’s a game we could have shipped in February. It just wouldn’t be the game that we think the fans deserve. And that doesn’t mean it was far off from that, but they deserve what they deserve.” However I can’t help but wonder if the 5 departures from the studio have contributed in any significant part to the need to delay this game.  In addition to delaying the game Irrational has also revealed the game’s box art.  It is rather uninspired as it goes with probably the most generic box art that has become clichéd in video games at this point; a man with a gun walking towards you, preferably with something on fire or exploding in the background.  Fans have been pretty upset because it leaves out so much of what is intriguing about the game like the Songbird & Elizabeth and while I think it is pretty lame, it is just the box art, it means next to nothing.  Despite this to try and quell fans Irrational is giving them the option to vote for what they want to be on the opposite side of what will be a reversible cover.  Personally I don’t feel like most of them work as good game covers, but you can vote for them none the less.

Phantom Pain, Dark Souls 2, Castlevania Lords of Shadow 2 trailers
            A new trailer for Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2 was released.  It is supposed to have a broader story that spans centuries and evidently from the trailer brings the series into the modern day world.  The trailer looks great and the game is scheduled for release sometime in 2013.  There was also an announcement trailer for Dark Souls 2 that looks really cool, but doesn’t tell much about the game aside from, you know, more Dark Souls.  I’m kind of disappointed in the name because it is really Demon Souls 3, which not only would make it appear to be part of a longer lasting and more successful series by virtue of its 3rd installment, but Demon trumps Dark and if Dark Souls couldn’t be Demon Souls 2 then Dark Souls 2 should be something else starting with a D followed by the word Souls.  Like say Damned Souls or Doomed Souls or to stick with downgrading the menace of the title: Depressed Souls.  Then there was the incredible trailer for Phantom Pain, which everyone is claiming to “know” is Metal Gear Solid 5.  I see why they think that but with Metal Gear Rising: Revengence still on the way and Ground Zeroes coming to next gen systems I don’t see why they would be making another huge Metal Gear game.  Also if it was MGS5 it wouldn’t be handed off to another studio.  Platinum Games is making Revengence because it is a spinoff, which MGS5 would not be.  Anyways be sure to check out these trailers.

Epic Games president retires
            Mike Capps, President of Epic Games, has decided to retire from his position.  The change was motivated by the fact that he has a baby boy on the way and he has decided to take up the position of stay-at-home dad, to which I say congratulations and I tip my hat to you sir for putting your family first.  Capps will remain a member of the board of directors and will assist the company through an advisory role.  Capps feels that his executive team consisting of recent re-hire (he worked at Epic previously and founded Epic Games China then left in 2010 to be President of LucasArts only to leave that position back in August) VP of Development Paul Meegan and VP of Operations John Farnsworth can do just as good of a job managing development as he did, if not better.  Mike Capps is not the only high profile member of Epic to step away from the company this year as Design Director and face of the company Clifford Bleszinski retired back in October, Director of Production on the Gears of War franchise Rod Fergusson also left the company and is now working at Irrational Games (another studio that has been plagued with recent departures) and shortly after Epic Games fully acquired People Can Fly the Creative Director and Co-Owner of People Can Fly, Adrian Chmielarz, left the company along with two senior artists; Andrezj Poznanski and Michal KosieradzkiEpic Games is currently in development of PC exclusive Fortnite scheduled for release next year, while its subsidiary People Can Fly are working on Gears of War: Judgment coming out on March 19th 2013.  Here is hoping that the change ups at the company don’t have any sort of negative affect on these projects.
    
RE6 DLC modes
            Resident Evil 6 is getting its first wave of DLC in the form of 3 new multiplayer modes.  The first mode is called Predator in which one player takes the role of the near unstoppable B.O.W., Ustanak, from the game’s campaign and tries to defeat the group of survivors ranging from 1-5 players.  The players must balance fighting back against Ustanak with the potential to kill him and running for their lives trying to make it until the timer runs out.  Mode number two is Survivors, which is Resident Evil 6’s take on Deathmatch and is similar to the Versus mode DLC in RE5.  You must kill the opposing team (the gametype supports up to six players but I don’t know if that translates to 3 teams of 2 or 2 teams of 3) while surviving the horde of zombies populating the map.  There is also a newly added feature where once you are killed you turn into an infected and if you manage to kill one of your opponents you get to come back as a human again.  The third mode is Onslaught and only supports two players in a very unique version of a 1on1 match.  You and your opponent will be on different maps and have no one of getting into direct contact with one another and you will both be holding out against zombies while trying to achieve chain bonuses and maximize your score, just like in Mercenaries.  So what makes this different from the Mercenaries leaderboards?  Killing zombies and achieving a large combo will send zombies to the other player’s game as you attempt to flood them with enemies and ultimately over whelm them.  All of these modes sound interesting with Onslaught possibly being the biggest appeal for me since I love Mercenaries so much.  They will all be released on December 18th separately for $4 (320MSP) a pop as well as in a bundle for $9 (720MSP).  Also one day earlier on December 17th Capcom is releasing a free update that allows players to set the camera further back (something I didn’t see as an issue that needed fixing), listen to the game with English language audio alongside another language subtitles, automatically unlocks the game’s 4th campaign so you don’t have to play through the other 3 to get to it not to mention adds a co-op partner as an option for it even though it makes no sense from a narrative standpoint (it is basically the equivalent of having multiple Master Chiefs in Halo’s co-op) and lastly introduces a new, even harder, difficulty level called No Hope.

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