Nintendo Download: Animal Crossing: New Leaf, Yoshi, more

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Welcome to this week’s Nintendo Download, which includes two new titles to download today and two more later this week.

Available today on the Wii U eShop is Spelunker, a Virtual Console console game originally released for the NES. The Wii Virtual Console has also been updated today with Sengoku 3, a side-scrolling brawler originally available for the NeoGeo.

The biggest game in this week’s Nintendo Download will be available in three days as 3DS owners will be able to download Animal Crossing: New Leaf on Sunday, June 9. Three days after that, on June 12, Yoshi, a puzzle game originally released for the NES, will be added to the Wii U eShop.

More information on all of these titles can found after the break.

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

Xbox One must make online connection at least once a day to play games

xboxone-logoIf you were interested in an Xbox One, I hope you have a broadband Internet connection at home. If not, you’re going to need one as Microsoft has confirmed that the Xbox One must connect to the Xbox Live servers at least once per day before it’ll let you access your games. That even goes for single-player games that you have the discs for. Oh Microsoft, I hope you have the bandwidth ready to handle this influx of connections.

Here’s the official statement from Microsoft, which was posted today on Xbox.com:

While a persistent connection is not required, Xbox One is designed to verify if system, application or game updates are needed and to see if you have acquired new games, or resold, traded in, or given your game to a friend. Games that are designed to take advantage of the cloud may require a connection.

With Xbox One you can game offline for up to 24 hours on your primary console, or one hour if you are logged on to a separate console accessing your library. Offline gaming is not possible after these prescribed times until you re-establish a connection, but you can still watch live TV and enjoy Blu-ray and DVD movies.

Posted in News, Xbox One |

Microsoft clarifies Xbox One game licensing policy

xboxone-logoA few days ahead of E3, Microsoft has finally clarified how game licensing and used games will work on the Xbox One. In an FAQ posted on Xbox.com, Microsoft broke it down for prospective Xbox One buyers:

*** All games must be registered with your Xbox Live account. But once registered, all of your games can be downloaded to any Xbox One system as long as you’re logged in with your Live account.

*** “Your friends and family, your guests and acquaintances get unlimited access to all of your games. Anyone can play your games on your console–regardless of whether you are logged in or their relationship to you.”

*** You can designate ten “family members” who can log in and download any of your games from any Xbox One.

*** Your friends can borrow your games with two conditions: “[Y]ou can only give them to people who have been on your friends list for at least 30 days and each game can only be given once.”

As for used games, Microsoft has confirmed that all Microsoft-published disc-based games can be traded in or transferred without a fee. However, how the game is removed from your account remains still a mystery. Here’s the kicker, though. Third party publishers can choose to “opt out” of this system and charge a fee for game transfers or entirely disallow Xbox One owners from trading in their games.

So there you have it. Microsoft’s game licensing policies for the Xbox One aren’t quite as bad as we feared, but allowing publishers to deny used game sales is pretty terrible. And it will definitely cost Microsoft at least a few Xbox One sales this holiday season.

Posted in News, Xbox One |

Daily Scoop: June 6, 2013 – Happy birthday, Anthony!

It’s my boyfriend Anthony’s birthday today, hooray! To celebrate, we’re going out to dinner, then playing Borderlands 2 all night. What better way is there to spend a birthday, anyway?

There are some really good digital deals at Amazon right now. Bastion is on sale for $7.49, in case you are the only person on Earth who has’t played it yet (AKA me). You can get the Batman Arkham GOTY Pack, which has the Game of the Year editions of both Batman games for just $11.99 – or you can get them separately if you just need one (Batman Arkham Asylum GOTY is $9.99, and Batman Arkham City GOTY is $14.99). And you should absolutely consider paying $17.99 for the F.E.A.R Ultimate Pack, which includes all three of the F.E.A.R. games. F.3.A.R. is one of my all-time favorite co-op experiences, and worth the price alone!

I’ve only got two shirts for you today, sadly!

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Posted in Daily Scoop, Etcetera, News |

PC, Xbox One, Xbox 360 shooter TitanFall is Respawn’s first game

respawn-logoThe digital edition of the July 2013 issue of Game Informer was uploaded to the Google Play store a might early and, thanks to NeoGAF user cartman86, we’ve gotten our first look at Respawn Entertainment’s first title: TitanFall. The game, which will be published by Electronic Arts, will be available in Spring 2014 for the PC and Xbox One. An Xbox 360 version is also in the works at an outside development studio.

As expected, TitanFall is a futuristic first person shooter that throws ground troops and mechs (known as Titans) onto the same battlefield and asks them to duke it. The game will be centered around its Multiplayer Campaign mode, while also including additional multiplayer modes and a “One-Player Mode.”

Titans are not your traditional lumbering mechs. They’re fast and powerful, with the ability to jump and scale walls. Titans can also be programmed to remotely follow a ground troop like a giant robotic dog. But ground soldiers can take down a Titan by climbing atop the head and shooting out the brain a la Johnny Rico in Starship Troopers. On the technical side of things, TitanFall is being built with a modified version of Valve’s Source engine and will make use of the Xbox One’s cloud processing feature in some way.

A more official announcement for TitanFall will surely appear at next week’s E3 Expo (or perhaps earlier thanks to this leak).

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

Kiefer Sutherland is the voice of Snake in Metal Gear Solid V

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Ever since we heard his voice in the GDC 2013 trailer, we’ve known that Kiefer Sutherland was connected to Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain in some way. Today, Konami and Hideo Kojima have confirmed that he will be voicing Snake in the upcoming open-world game.

In addition to lending his voice to the character, Sutherland will also perform the motion capture for Snake. Appearing on Konami’s Pre-E3 2013 Show, Kojima revealed that he is very excited about Sutherland’s motion capture performance and plans to develop the script around his acting, making the dialogue more succinct and hoping Snake’s facial expressions can convey the rest.

David Hayter, who previously Snake in every previous Metal Gear Solid game, won’t be involved with Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. According to Kojima, he wanted a new voice actor for Snake that would more closely match the character’s age in the game (which is 49). Apparently Hayter, who is 44, was just a bit too young for the part (Sutherland, by the way, is 46).

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Double Fine’s Massive Chalice is already a Kickstarter success

massivechalice-posterLike it or loathe it, big companies are now turning to crowdfunding in order to push games from inception to reality. But some are old pros, like San Francisco-based Double Fine Productions, who has succeeded in a fully-funded Kickstarter campaign for the second time.

Last year, the company launched a campaign for the Double Fine Adventure (now known as Broken Age), asking for funding so they would not have to deal with meddling middle men. They were seeking $400,000, but managed to get almost ten times that amount, finishing with $3,336,371.

But Double Fine is also looking to the future and a new project. Known as Massive Chalice, the game will take its inspiration from tactical strategy classics such as X-COM and Fire Emblem, as well as a healthy dose of Game of Thrones in terms of story and style. It will feature customisable heroes, who you will set to defend your kingdom. As years pass by, you will have to choose whether to keep your best heroes on in battle, or retire them to teach a new generation of young and eager warriors.

Despite the turn-based strategy game having a target of nearly double the previous Kickstarter campaign, Double Fine has managed to reach their goal of $725,000 with 21 days to spare. At the time of this writing it was sitting comfortably at $827,186 and steadily rising. No doubt Double Fine will be hoping to repeat their initial success and reach the millions before the campaign concludes.

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DC Universe Online and PlanetSide 2 announced as free-to-play PS4 titles

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With E3 only days away, game companies are building up momentum to their main expo events with some big announcements. Keen to push their new PlayStation 4 console, Sony has announced not one, but two, free-to-play titles that will hit the console this year.

The first is MMO DC Universe Online, which seems fitting as it was the first MMO available for the PS4’s predecessor, the PS3. Speaking about the PS3 version, Laura Naviaux, Senior VP for Sony Online Entertainment’s Global Sales and Marketing Division, said, “Its thriving community is proof that we can create an exciting and robust console experience for players.”

The second title is the MMO FPS PlanetSide 2, which up until now was only available on PC. Its announcement once again confirms the PS4’s architecture being closely aligned with the PC market. Naviaux commented that “players have been asking for PlanetSide 2 to be playable on consoles, and PS4 is the ideal platform to showcase the game’s beauty, depth and frenetic open world combat.”

Naviaux’s boss, Sony Online Entertainment President John Smedley, expanded on her comments: “Since the launch of the original EverQuest, we have pioneered major shifts in the development of MMOs and videogames as a whole, and now we’re bringing our titles to the forefront of next-gen gaming. Players are evolving and want a variety of ways to access and play games. Our goal is to deliver epic gaming experiences that players crave while harnessing the awesome power and technology of this incredible new platform. We are thrilled to bring two of our most popular free-to-play games to PS4.”

E3 2013 trailers for both games can be found after the break.

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