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A few more Hitman: Absolution details

Posted on May 10, 2011 by John Scalzo

After releasing a teaser trailer this morning, Square Enix has revealed a little bit more about Hitman: Absolution this afternoon.

Scheduled for release in 2012 for the PC, PS3 and Xbox 360, Hitman: Absolution that developer IO Interactive is calling a “familiar and yet significantly different experience from other Hitman games.” The game will be powered by the all-new Glacier 2 engine, which is an enhanced version of the company’s proprietary engine last seen in Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days. We’ve also learned a few storyline details:

Hitman: Absolution follows Agent 47, a cold-blooded assassin, who takes on his most dangerous contract to date. Betrayed by those he once trusted — and now hunted by the police — he suddenly finds himself at the center of a dark conspiracy and must embark on a personal journey through a corrupt and twisted world.

Hitman: Absolution will make its worldwide debut at this year’s E3 Expo, which will be held from June 7-9.

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Crysis 2 Retaliation Map Pack coming May 17

Posted on May 10, 2011 by Mike Gutierrez

Crysis 2 was far from perfect, but you can’t deny that it had a strong multiplayer component. Well, that component will be getting a little stronger come May 17 when the Retaliation Map Pack drops for PC, Xbox 360, and PS3 (hopefully). It’ll cost you $9.99 and come with four new maps: Park Avenue, Transit, Shipyard, and Compound. While most of the footage above contains the awkward character animations reminiscent of Halo (which is probably why Bungie always used live action to hype up their games), the first-person gameplay looks glorious as ever.

I might actually have to grab this when the PlayStation Network gets back up.

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PSN Outage Update: “A few more days”

Posted on May 10, 2011 by John Scalzo

Sony has supplied another update to the PlayStation Network restoration timeline. It looks like it’ll be a few more days at least:

I know you all want to know exactly when the services will be restored. At this time, I can’t give you an exact date, as it will likely be at least a few more days. We’re terribly sorry for the inconvenience and appreciate your patience as we work through this process.

That’s a better estimate than May 31st, but it’s still pretty bad news for any PS3 owner that wants to play new games like Mortal Kombat, Portal 2, SOCOM 4 or Brink (which was released today) online.

[Source: PlayStation.Blog]

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Daily Scoop: May 10, 2011 – On the Brink!

Posted on May 10, 2011 by Nicole Kline

Woo, Brink is out today! Make sure to get your parkour on by picking it up at Amazon for $54.99 for the PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360 (which also comes with a $10 promotional credit, wee!). Mine is in the mail, and I couldn’t be more excited to start it!

Today’s Amazon Deal of the Day in video games is Top Spin 4 by 2K Games. It’s $39.99 down from $59.99 for both the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. “Experience the intensity, emotion and excitement of real-life tennis matches set on the world’s most hallowed courts” – doesn’t get much better than that!

Today’s Tee Fury shirt is in honor of all us Dark Tower nerds out there, and it’s called The Ka-Tet of Nineteen:

Better get yours quick. It’ll be gone before you can say thankee sai.

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IO announces Hitman: Absolution

Posted on May 10, 2011 by John Scalzo

All the teasing is finally (well, almost) over as IO Interactive took to their Twitter account today to post a teaser trailer announcing Hitman: Absolution.

The trailer is very short, but it confirms that IO plans a full reveal at E3 and shows Agent 47 screwing a silencer into his trademark gun (which was used as part of IO’s Hitman ARG). In keeping with the assassin’s secretive nature, no platforms or release date for Himan: Absolution was revealed.

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Remedy reveals more Alan Wake

Posted on May 10, 2011 by John Scalzo

Remedy’s Head of Franchise Development, Oskari Hakkinen, has reached out to Joystiq to confirm that a new Alan Wake mystery project is in the works.

Hakkinen was encouraged to send the confirmation due to a Joystiq report that “Alan Wake 2” had appeared on the resume of an artist who claimed to work on the title. The “2” part in the title appears to be a mistake, but Remedy also revealed that the new project is not DLC for the original Alan Wake:

Fans of the franchise will be excited to learn that yes, more Wake is coming! But to be absolutely certain to avoid confusion, this next Wake installment will not be Alan Wake 2. But neither will it be DLC. The rest we’re saving for our official announcement when we’ll actually SHOW YOU.

So it’s not a sequel and it’s not DLC. So it’s either a sidestory (in the same way that Capcom doesn’t consider Resident Evil: Code Veronica a sequel to Resident Evil 3: Nemesis) or it’s a new edition of Alan Wake that contains new content (and I would guess the previously released DLC as well).

There’s no details on when it’ll be officially announced, but Remedy did say the game has a tentative release date of Fall 2011. Hakkinen also said that “platforms” (that’s plural, with an “S”) for the game would be announced soon. So it sounds like Alan Wake may finally be lighting up the desktops of PC gamers this Fall as well.

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Mortal Kombat: Legacy episode 5 now available

Posted on May 10, 2011 by John Scalzo

Kitana and Mileena continue their training in the latest episode of Mortal Kombat: Legacy. The sister’s tale is once again told through a combination of animation and live action as they hunt down Shao Kahn’s enemies and prepare for the first Mortal Kombat tournament.

There’s no hint as to who will take center stage next week, but here’s hoping it’s Scorpion and Sub-Zero!

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Activision: No Diablo III in 2011, Call of Duty 8 will be awesome

Posted on May 10, 2011 by John Scalzo

Activision held their quarter financial call yesterday and laid out a few more details about their 2011 slate of games. The company’s executives stressed that any real information about these titles would have to wait for E3, they did reveal a few juicy tidbits of information.

First off, it looks like it’s unlikely that a new Blizzard game will be released in 2011. That means no Diablo III and definitely no StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm. Instead, the publisher’s COO, Thomas Tippl, said to expect both games in 2012: “[O]ur outlook at this time does not include a new game from Blizzard in 2011. Should Blizzard not release a major title this year, we would expect, for planning purposes, to launch a minimum of 2 Blizzard titles in 2012.”

Mike Morhaime, the CEO of Blizzard, was a tad more optimistic, saying the team wants to release Diablo III in 2011, but that they’re not ready to confirm an official release date yet: “The development team is working hard to try and launch Diablo III this year. But I want to be clear that we do not have an official release date or window yet. As always, we will not compromise the quality of the game in order to hit a window.”

While a 2011 release date is still a question mark, A Diablo III beta is being planned for the Summer.

One Activision title that does have a confirmed 2011 release date is the currently unannounced Call of Duty 8. The publisher still hasn’t shared any new information about the next entry in the mega-selling series, but Eric Hirshberg, CEO of Activision Publishing, is pretty convinced it’ll be awesome: “By any measure, Call of Duty is one of the biggest entertainment franchises in the world and we expect this year’s game will set a new standard for this incredible franchise. The creative excellence and sheer scale of the game we are making and the unprecedented online universe that will accompany it will reset the bar for this genre, giving players a new level of immersion, connectivity, community and of course epic action. The game today has exceeded every internal milestone and we look forward to sharing this with you soon.”

Hirshberg also confirmed that a new James Bond game is in the works for 2011. But again, it looks like we’ll have to wait until E3 to learn more about it (and all of these titles).

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