Most Recent: News

Hulu Plus coming to 3DS, Wii; more features announced for 3DS

Posted on October 24, 2011 by Nicole Kline

Nintendo has made a big, if unsurprising, announcement: Hulu Plus is coming to the 3DS and the Wii. Hulu Plus – which costs $7.99 a month – is host to dozens of current and popular seasons of television shows from all the major channels.

In addition, Nintendo also announced some major additions to the 3DS. 3DS owners will now be able to record up to 10 minutes of 3D videos, opening up venues for all manner of creative endeavors – including 3D stop-motion animation videos. There are also new musical artists coming to Nintendo Video, including Foster the People’s “Don’t Stop (Color on the Walls),” as well as a new animated 3D video from Dreamworks called “Thriller” which features characters from Shrek. New puzzles will also be available in the Mii Plaza, and a new dungeon added to Find Mii.

Reggie Fils-Aime, President of Nintendo of America, said, “Nintendo 3DS continues to evolve with great new features and functions designed to reinforce its position as a premiere entertainment device. All of these features, in addition to great upcoming games like Pokémon Rumble Blast on October 24, Super Mario 3D Land on November 13 and Mario Kart 7 on December 4, make Nintendo 3DS a smart gift option this holiday season.”

Still want more? Nintendo also announced four new games – Freakyforms, Pushmo, Swapnote, and Dillon’s Rolling Western. The system update to the 3DS will be happening at the end of November, and Hulu Plus will be coming “soon.” Hit the jump for a complete description of the four new games. (more…)

Posted in 3DS, News, Wii | Tagged , , , ,

Rumor: Microsoft trade show schedule dates new Kinect hardware, next Xbox for 2014

Posted on October 23, 2011 by John Scalzo

Take this one with a huge grain of salt, but tumblr blog MS nerd has posted a leaked trade show schedule for Microsoft that covers every expo from now until the end of 2014. This treasure trove of data reveals release dates for Windows 8 and Windows 9 as well as info on the next Xbox and a Kinect refresh (both scheduled for 2014).

The most important conferences/dates appear to be E3 2012 (“Xbox SDK, 3G Kinect games announce”), E3 2013 (Xbox “loop” announce), Build 2013 (Xbox “loop” launch), E3 2014 (Kinect HP2 announce, Xbox PU announce), and Nov 2014 (Kinect HP2 launch, Xbox PU RTW).

While these acronyms go unexplained, allow me to take a stab at it. The short timeframe between the Xbox “loop” announcement and its launch likely points to another Xbox Live refresh or some other rebranding scheme. The 2014 dates are much more interesting as Kinect HP2 may possibly stand for “Hardware Profile 2” (meaning a redesign/upgrade for the Kinect sensor) and the Xbox PU may refer to a “Powered Up” Xbox (also known as the Xbox Next among rumormongers). Of course, this is all just speculation on my part.

The full Microsoft conference schedule can be found after the break. (more…)

Posted in News, PC, Xbox 360, Xbox One |

Console version of Diablo III in production, but no official announcment yet

Posted on October 23, 2011 by John Scalzo

Here’s your big news for the day: Blizzard has begun development on Diablo III for the PS3 and Xbox 360! Except they’re not ready to announce it. In fact, the developer may not even release it if they don’t believe it’s as good a game as the PC version. What? Allow me to explain.

During one of the many panels at this weekend’s BlizzCon, Diablo III Game Director Jay Wilson revealed that a small team has begun work on developing console controls for the game. In fact, Wilson told panel attendees that “The movement actually feels better on the controller.”

So done deal, right? Not so fast. Destructoid spoke to Josh Mosquiera, Lead Console Designer, who revealed that development is still pretty preliminary: “We’re not announcing anything because, literally, there’s three of us on the team right now,” he said. “But that’s what we’re trying to do. We’re trying to build the best console team at Blizzard. Blizzard is really serious about going back to the console.”

The non-announcement announcement of Diablo III on consoles was further put into perspective by Wilson, who added, “[W]e don’t want to announce something until we’re sure.” So there’s a possibility the game may never escape the testing stages. But something tells me parent company Activision will be pushing hard to put Diablo III on the PS3 and Xbox 360 sometime in the future.

The PC version of Diablo III still has a vague “Early 2012” release date, so making a guess on when the console version might be released would be a fool’s errand at this point.

[Source: Joystiq, Destructoid]

Posted in News | Tagged , , ,

Here’s the Batman: Arkham City system specs for your Batcomputer

Posted on October 23, 2011 by John Scalzo

WB Games and Rocksteady may have pushed the PC release of Batman: Arkham City back to November 15, but they claim its to make the best game possible on the PC. But will your PC be able to run it? After all, few of us have the Bruce Wayne billions required to cobble together a Batcomputer. Or even a Jokercomputer for that matter.

Minimum System Requirements
Operating System: Microsoft Windows XP, Vista or 7
CPU: Dual-Core CPU 2.4 Ghz
RAM: 2GB
Graphics Card: NVIDIA 8800 or ATI 3800 with 512MB of VRAM
Sound: Microsoft Windows XP/Vista or 7 compatible sound card (100% DirectX 9.0c-compatible)
DVD-ROM: Quad-speed (4x) DVD-ROM drive
Hard Drive: 17.5GB free disk space
Input Devices: 100% Windows XP/Vista or 7 compatible mouse and keyboard

Recommended System Requirements
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7
CPU: Dual-Core CPU 2.5 GHz
RAM: 4GB
Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 or ATI Radeon HD 6850 with 768MB+ of VRAM (DirectX 11 compatible)
Sound: Microsoft Windows XP/Vista or 7 compatible sound card (100% DirectX 9.0c-compatible)
DVD-ROM: Quad-speed (4x) DVD-ROM drive
Hard Drive: 17.5 GB free disk space
Input Devices: 100% Windows XP/Vista or 7 compatible mouse and keyboard or Xbox 360 Controller for Windows

More details about the PC-exclusive features found in Batman: Arkham City are available at GeForce.com.

Posted in News, PC | Tagged

Weekly Warp-Up: Adventuring at BlizzCon 2011

Posted on October 23, 2011 by John Scalzo

No, that’s not a typo. Welcome to the Weekly Warp-Up, your weekly wrap-up of the biggest and the best articles posted at Warp Zoned this week…

Get Warp Zoned!
Blizzard’s annual BlizzCon festival is underway this weekend and company executives have revealed loads of new details about World of Warcraft, a new WoW expansion, StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm, and Diablo III. But before we delve deeper into the snowstorm of news, let’s look back to earlier in the week when we made the argument Why I Hate Hearing the Words “Borderlands and Fallout 3 Are the Same Game”.

Oh, and speaking of snow, we cannonballed through a lot of it in this Hands-On Preview of Need For Speed: The Run.

Hit the jump for the rest of the Weekly Warp-Up. (more…)

Posted in News |

Battle of the Modern War Games: Battlefield 3 launch trailer

Posted on October 22, 2011 by John Scalzo

Have you chosen your side in the battle of the modern war games? EA and DICE will release Battlefield 3 for the PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 next week. To celebrate, they’ve created a launch trailer that is super intense. More intense than Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3’s launch trailer? Maybe, but that’s up to you to decide.

However, Battlefield 3 does have one major point its favor. The trailer (and game, obviously) features everyone’s favorite Secret Service agent. That’s right, Glenn Morshower of “24” plays a General that’s even been modeled to look like him.

Posted in News, PC, PS3, Xbox 360 | Tagged

Battle of the Modern War Games: Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 launch trailer

Posted on October 22, 2011 by John Scalzo

Is Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 “the most anticipated game in history?” Activision’s marketing department sure seems to think so. And while that makes a nice headline in a press release, it’s probably overselling the latest CoD game just a bit. Especially with the near simultaneous release of DICE’s Battlefield 3. But I’ve got to admit, the game’s launch trailer is packed with enough ominous voiceovers and explosive setpieces to make an impression on non-fans.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 will be released for the DS, PC, PS3, Wii and Xbox 360 on November 8.

Posted in DS, News, PC, PS3, Wii, Xbox 360 | Tagged

SSX shreds into stores on February 14

Posted on October 22, 2011 by John Scalzo

Love is in the air. Oh, and something else is in the air too. I think it’s a snowboarder using a wingsuit to get big air during a deadly descent. Yup, SSX is back.

EA has announced that SSX will be available for the PS3 and Xbox 360 on February 14, 2012, just in time for Valentine’s Day. And because the publisher loves us all, they’ve also released a new trailer for the game dubbed “Survive It.”

Hopefully, no one will get snowed in on the wintry release date.

Posted in News, PS3, Xbox 360 | Tagged