Most Recent: PS4

Epic adds a human-sized hamster ball to Fortnite in Season 8

Posted on March 12, 2019 by John Scalzo

Epic Games is constantly updating Fortnite, but the game’s newest update might just be its best yet. As part of today’s kickoff to Season 8, the developer has added a new vehicle to Fortnite known as The Baller… a human-sized hamster ball with a grappling hook.

I’m not sure the world of FOrtnite is ready for a giant hamster ball of doom, but you learn more about it at the game’s official website:

Keep the good times rolling! Combine your boost and grapple to perform unbelievable feats with the newest vehicle addition to Battle Royale!

This single seat vehicle is found at Expedition Outposts and around pirate camp loot stashes. Use the attached Grappler and Boost functionality to pull yourself up cliffs or swing through the trees. The driver is protected from damage, but The Baller is vulnerable to enemy weapon fire.

A new trailer for Fortnite: Season 8, which has been subtitled Pirates and Treasure, can be found after the break. (more…)

Posted in Mobile, News, PC, PS4, Switch, Xbox One | Tagged

New Retail Releases: Tom Clancy’s The Division 2, Lego Marvel Collection, More

Posted on March 11, 2019 by John Scalzo

It looks like another handful of new games will make their way to retail establishments this week…

Ubisoft is shifting the locale of The Division from New York City to Washington D.C. in Tom Clancy’s The Division 2, which will launch this week for the PS4 and Xbox One (and as a digital download for the PC). Players will march into a “post-pandemic Washington D.C.” and fight to restore order and prevent the collapse of the city in online co-op or competitive PvP.

Players looking to upgrade to a new Xbox One console will also be able to pick an upgraded version of Microsoft’s machine and the game in a Xbox One X 1TB + Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 Bundle or a Xbox One S 1TB + Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 Bundle.

A different type of group-play will be available in WB Games’s new Lego Marvel Collection for the PS4 and Xbox One. The package will bundle together Lego Marvel Super Heroes, Lego Marvel Super Heroes 2, and Lego Avengers, as well as all previously-released downloadable content for all three games.

A variety of other games will appear elsewhere on store shelves this week. Bandai Namco will bring the anime-inspired One Piece: World Seeker to the PS4 and Xbox One. NIS America will expand and enhance the turn-based RPG The Caligula Effect: Overdose for the PS4 and Switch. Outright Games will team up with Nickelodeon to release Paw Patrol: On A Roll for the Switch. Rising Star Games will release cel-shaded FPS Rico for the PS4 and Switch. And THQ Nordic will update MX Vs ATV: All Out – Anniversary Edition for the PS4 and Xbox One.

That’s it for this week’s New Retail Releases report.

Posted in News, PS4, Switch, Xbox One | Tagged , , ,

Cassie Cage makes her proper debut in a new Mortal Kombat 11 trailer

Posted on March 8, 2019 by John Scalzo

Fresh off the heels of a Story Trailer that reintroduced Erron Black, Jacqui Briggs, and Cassie Cage to the Mortal Kombat mythos, NetherRealm Studios has uploaded a new Reveal Trailer for Mortal Kombat 11 focusing solely on Johnny and Sonya’s daughter.

Accompanied by a Battle Drone (and a pair of fully-loaded pistols), Cassie delivers a beating to Kano that includes a Shadow Kick, a Split Punch, and an absolutely insane new Fatality.

Mortal Kombat 11 will be released for the PC, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One on April 23.

Posted in News, PC, PS4, Switch, Xbox One | Tagged

Mortal Kombat 11’s newest Story Trailer reintroduces Erron Black, Cassie Cage, and Jacqui Briggs

Posted on March 6, 2019 by John Scalzo

“I’ve been in the future for a whole hour and I haven’t seen one jetpack. Not one.”

It’s official… Johnny Cage is a national treasure. A younger version of the movie star takes center stage in the latest Story Trailer for Mortal Kombat 11, while also reintroducing fans to a trio of returning fighters (Erron Black, Cassie Cage, and Jacqui Briggs) from Mortal Kombat X.

Beyond the new characters, the trailer features an epic scope and an all-out war between Earthrealm’s mightiest heroes, Kronika’s time-displaced warriors, Liu Kang’s army of revenants, and Raiden’s evil alter-ego. Can it be April already?

Mortal Kombat 11 will be released for the PC, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One on April 23.

Posted in News, PC, PS4, Switch, Xbox One | Tagged

A major Anthem bug is randomly shutting down PS4 consoles

Posted on March 5, 2019 by John Scalzo

Man, it has been a rough couple of weeks for BioWare’s Anthem. The game’s VIP Beta was met with a resounding “meh,” the convoluted release schedule left fans confused, and the critical reception to the eventual retail release has been less than kind (in fact, it quickly became the developer’s worst-reviewed game ever).

But wait, it gets worse. Electronic Arts confirmed last night that Anthem will completely crash (for seemingly no reason) for a random assortment of PS4 players. The publisher is currently gathering information about the bug on their Answers HQ forum, and so far more than 300 people have responded:

Is Anthem shutting down your PS4 console? If so, please share your information with EA so they can get to the bottom of this.

Posted in News, PS4 | Tagged

The Video Game Canon – Tetris Remains the Best Game of All Time in Version 3.0 Update

Posted on March 4, 2019 by John Scalzo

The Video Game Canon is a statistical meta-ranking of dozens of “Best Video Games of All Time” lists that began in 2017 with Version 1.0, and the ranking has been updated several times since then. Which game is #1? There’s only one way to find out…

Once again, Alexey Pajitnov’s puzzle masterpiece, Tetris, stands atop the Video Game Canon.

If you’re unfamiliar with the Video Game Canon, it’s a statistical meta-analysis of 53 “Best Video Games of All Time” lists that were published between 1995 and 2018. To qualify for inclusion, each list had to include at least 50 games, as well as some form of editorial oversight in the process (lists made up solely of reader polls or fan voting were excluded), and no restrictions on release dates or platforms.

After feeding each “Best Games” list into the Video Game Canon machine, the games were ranked against each other using the C-Score, a formula that adds together a game’s “Average Ranking” across all lists with the complementary percentage of its “Appearance Frequency.” Combining these two factors allows us to create a list of games that have universal appeal across a long period of time without punishing any game for being too old or too new.

Five new lists were added to the Video Game Canon in the Version 3.0 update, bringing the total number of games to be selected by at least one list up to 1,182. The most expansive new list came from Game Informer, which published The Top 300 Games of All Time in April of last year. Hyper (The 200 Games You Must Play), IGN (Top 100 Video Games of All Time), and Slant Magazine (The 100 Greatest Video Games of All Time) also published new lists in 2018.

I was also able to reach back into the history books a little bit after stumbling upon a list from 2009 by Benchmark.pl, one of Poland’s largest technology blogs. Aside from a handful of titles (most notably, 2015’s The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt), most of the games created in Eastern Europe or played by Eastern European players aren’t on the radar of your average gamer, so digging through The Top 100 Best Games of the Twentieth Century gave me an interesting window into a population of gamers that I probably don’t think about as often as I should.

Even with these new additions to the dataset, Version 3.0 didn’t signal any huge changes to the Video Game Canon over last year’s Version 2.0 update, but the movement amongst the games in the top ten does bring to mind a round of musical chairs. And after the music stopped, nearly all the titles scrambled to find a new place to sit.

Visit VideoGameCanon.com for all future updates to this project and to explore the complete Top 1000.

Posted in Features, PC, PS2, PS3, PS4, Retro, Top Story, Video Game Canon, Wii, Wii U, Xbox 360, Xbox One | Tagged

Capcom reminds fans of “The Story So Far” in a new video ahead of Devil May Cry 5’s launch

Posted on March 3, 2019 by John Scalzo

The original Devil May Cry franchise went on a bit of a hiatus after the release of Devil May Cry 4 in 2008, as Capcom turned to Ninja Theory to create the alternate universe seen in 2013’s DMC: Devil May Cry. So it’s understandable that some fans might need a refresher course on all the events that happened in the series so far before the original Dante (along with Nero and newcomer Nico) returns next week in Devil May Cry 5.

Thankfully, Capcom has provided us with “The Story So Far,” a short video recap of Dante’s greatest hits:

Been a long time since your last demon hunt? Forgotten about Mundus, Lady, and Nero? Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered with this smokin’ sexy short recap on the DMC story so far…

“The Story So Far” has been embedded above, and Devil May Cry 5 will be available for the PC, PS4, and Xbox One on March 8.

Posted in News, PC, PS4, Xbox One | Tagged

PEGI accidentally leaks rating for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Campaign Remastered

Posted on March 1, 2019 by John Scalzo

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 was originally released for the PC, PS3, and Xbox 360 in 2009, and it looks like fans of the shooter sequel might get to celebrate its tenth anniversary with a brand new remaster of the game. According to a new rating that was briefly available on the PEGI (Pan European Game Information) site, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Campaign Remastered is currently in development for the PS4 and Xbox One:

Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 Campaign Remastered is a combat simulation game in which the player takes the roles of various members of a Special Operations team attempting to thwart the plans of a Russian…

PEGI has since removed the listing, but it makes sense that the game will be released this year. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Remastered was bundled with Infinity Ward’s Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare in 2016, and the developer is now hard at work on Call of Duty 2019, which should be released sometime this Fall.

At the time, fans were rather unhappy with this forced bundling, and Activision eventually released Modern Warfare Remastered as a standalone title the next year. It’s unknown how Modern Warfare 2 Campaign Remastered will make its way to the masses, but it’s easy to assume from the title that the publisher has no plans to remaster the game’s multiplayer component.

Activision typically announces a new Call of Duty game every Spring, so we’ll likely learn more about Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Campaign Remastered (and Call of Duty 2019) in the coming weeks.

Posted in News, PS4, Xbox One | Tagged