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.
Castlevania:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJCPmEscRu0
Dark
Souls 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPJaJ5ys_G0
Phantom
Pain: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Kav2t0spyE
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 Kosieradzki. Epic
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.
