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Tuesday, 15 January 2013

Weekly Wrap Up: Jan. 15, 2013

Pokémon X & Y
            Pokémon is finally coming to the 3DS with the newly announced Pokémon X & Y.  Yep they are so out of ideas that X and Y, which can be used as stand-ins for explanations that don’t want to give specific names to their examples, are the actual names.  It’s smart of Nintendo to finally transition their flagship handheld franchise to the 3DS and it is really interesting to see the game in 3D (not 3DS 3D, but N64 3D you know).  Speaking of which the combat now looks like Pokémon Stadium and while it seems cool and all I still wish they would make a Wii U exclusive title and maybe experimented with real-time or a different type of turn-based combat.  The trailer is linked below

Halo 4 multiplayer updates
            343 Industries has released some details of their plans regarding Halo 4’s multiplayer for January and February.  It includes detailed weekly playlist updates for the next three weeks as well as news that the second half of Spartan Ops Season 1 is coming and that their second map pack titled Majestic will be released in February.  Please note that the info below is not 100% finalized but they did release it, so I don’t see why or how they would fail to live up to their word.
Week of 1/21
- Spartan Ops Episode 6: Five new missions and an accompanying new CG cinematic.
- "Forge Test" playlist (name not final): A rotational hopper featuring small Forge maps such as Relay. Help us test these maps by providing feedback and reporting bugs that will assist us in getting them ready for Matchmaking!
- Specializations: Pioneer and Pathfinder Specializations unlocked for all players.
Week of 1/28
- Spartan Ops Episode 7: Five new missions and an accompanying new CG cinematic.
- Grifball playlist: A rotational hopper featuring everybody’s favorite virtual sport. Catch the disease!
- Specializations: Engineer and Stalker Specializations unlocked for all players.
Week of 2/4
- Spartan Ops Episode 8: Five new missions and an accompanying new CG cinematic.
- Team Doubles playlist: A rotational hopper for those of you that like action of the 2 vs 2 variety.
- Specializations: Rogue and Tracker Specializations unlocked for all players.
[Source: Halo Waypoint]

The Walking Dead Survival Instinct is coming to the Wii U
            Activision’s survival based FPS based on the incredibly popular and incredibly awesome The Walking Dead TV show has been confirmed for the Wii U.  The game will make use of the Gamepad for inventory management and weapon swapping.  I don’t enjoy being pessimistic about a game because I would love for every game to be great (well maybe not every game, I have a hard enough time keeping up with all the great games as it is), but I just don’t have faith in this project.  Terminal Reality, the developers behind Survival Instincts, is most noteworthy for BloodRayne 1&2, Ghostbusters: The Video Game and Kinect Star Wars.  That being said Telltale hadn’t done anything terrific either prior to The Walking Dead, but I felt like that game captured what was core to me about The Walking Dead and transitioned it into a game incredibly well.  I feel like it would be very difficult to top what they did and I worry that this will come out for more than twice as much money as Telltale’s title and end up as less than half the game that Telltale’s is.  The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct will be available for 360, PS3, PC & Wii U on March 26th in NA and March 29th in EU.  

Cyberpunk 2077 trailer
            CD Projekt RED, the company that created The Witcher 1&2, has released the first teaser trailer for their new game Cyberpunk 2077 based on the pen and paper RPG series Cyberpunk.  The game is supposed to be an open-world RPG where people use cybernetic augmentations to change things about themselves they don’t like or to look and feel cooler (it is possible that with augmentations one could adjust or control their body temperature but that is not what I meant by “feel cooler”).  However, the more augmentations one undergoes the greater the likelihood that the synthetic and organic material might clash and cause mental breakdowns.  The trailer shows a squad of police officers and a Psycho Squad agent attempt to deal with someone who has gone berserk in such a fashion.  I think the trailer looks really cool but the initial image I saw beforehand of just the augmented woman with blades out of her arms in a low cut top and underwear really struck home to me how women do really have a right to complain about how they are represented in games (not that I felt their claims were invalid before, it’s just that my initial opinion of a game has never been “wow they really didn’t think about female gamers at all”), that was the very first thing aside from concept art that I had seen of the game and that is clearly designed with the intension of arousing male interest and paying no attention to the female audience.  The makers of the game have said that they intend for the game to look like the trailer does in terms of graphical fidelity by the time it is complete in 2015.  That is a pretty high bar to set and I’m interested in seeing if they can actually meet it (I highly doubt it).  Finally I want to point out that releasing a trailer at the beginning of 2013 for a game that won’t be out till at least sometime in 2015 is far too premature.  Games need to get their timing down better and release info when they have something to show and are close to release not upwards of 2 years prior.     

I don't do blog updates on my Twitter account anymore, but you can still follow me there @Aeonofdoom360. Also feel free to post comments below. 

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