343 Industries has “a great plan” for Halo at E3 2014

Posted on February 28, 2014 by John Scalzo

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Microsoft’s Phil Spencer has confirmed, via Twitter, that the consolemaker has big plans for the Halo franchise at this year’s E3 Expo:

Interestingly, what Spencer did not do was confirm that Halo 5 would make an appearance at E3 2014. A persistent rumor continues to circulate among industry insiders that states Halo 5 will miss its planned 2014 launch. Instead, so the rumors says, the currently unannounced Halo 2 Anniversary would take its place on the release calendar. Halo 5 would move to 2015, or possibly beyond.

Of course, Spencer could also be referring to that live-action Halo series that Steven Spielberg is involved with. Microsoft has been uncharacteristically mum about their original programming initiative and we haven’t heard anything about Halo: The Television Series since last May.

Posted in News, Xbox One | Tagged ,

Daily Scoop: February 28, 2014 – It’s finally Friday!

Posted on February 28, 2014 by Nicole Kline

It’s Friday at last! What are you doing to be doing all weekend? Anthony Amato and I are finally going to play some Dungeons & Dragons after a hiatus of something like four months. It should be fun! I’m looking forward to that, and sleeping. Oh, the sleeping I’ll do.

Let’s talk about deals, shall we? There are lots of sales happening at the Humble Store. You can get Shadowrun Returns for $14.99, Planetary Annihilation for $29.99, Waking Mars for $1.99, and Power-Up for $2.39, among others. Other than that, all you’ve really got is the Daily Deal over at Steam, which is Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II: Retribution for $7.49. Scoop ’em up!

The last t-shirts of the week are good ones!

Press Start to Continue →

Posted in Daily Scoop, Etcetera, News |

First Shin Megami Tensei game coming to iOS next month

Posted on February 28, 2014 by Nicole Kline

“The struggle between law and chaos… what is right and wrong?”

For the first time, the original Shin Megami Tensei will be available in the United States! Atlus is bringing the first game in the series to the iOS App Store, giving mobile gamers a chance to get addicted to these games. Now you can start from the very beginning and spend 40-60 hours with your favorite device: your phone.

For those of you unfamiliar with the plot, here’s a synopsis:

Step away from clear notions of good and evil, right and wrong. There are demons in the world, but whether they are ally or enemy depends on player actions. In Tokyo 199X, a mysterious murder leads to the emergence of demons and an escalating global conflict thanks to the rise of a charismatic rebel leader in possession of a demon army, and external forces that wish to crush such threats with extreme measures. As the protagonist, players have an unusual ability (via computer program) to communicate with and recruit demons to fight for them. As they collect demons, the program will allow you to store, summon, and fuse them to create the right team to negotiate the ever-changing balance of powers, and fight for the kind of world you ultimately wish to live in.

Shin Megami Tensei will be available on the App Store on March 18 for $7.99.

Posted in Mobile, News |

Outlast: The Whistleblower DLC will be available in April

Posted on February 28, 2014 by Nicole Kline

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Warning: If you want to play Outlast and you haven’t yet, this DLC description has major spoilers!

Outlast developer Red Barrels has announced via its Facebook page that “The Whistleblower,” the first DLC expansion for the game, will be coming to PC and PlayStation 4 this April.

In “The Whistleblower,” you’ll get to play as Waylon Park, the man who sent the email to Miles Upshur, and many other journalists around the world, at the beginning of Outlast. Park was a software engineer at Murkoff, and “developed a deep-seated distrust of the profit-motivated scientists and doctors leading dangerous and irresponsible experiments on their patients” while he was working at Mount Massive. He was driven to blow the whistle on Mount Massive, and here you can play out those events – though the developer promises that the DLC “will actually stretch past the events of the first game to show the final chapter in Mount Massive Asylum’s story.”

Keep an eye out for “The Whistleblower” this April on the PC and PlayStation 4.

Posted in News, PC, PS4 | Tagged

Dead Nation: Apocalypse Edition coming to PS4 next week

Posted on February 28, 2014 by Nicole Kline

It’s no secret that I love Housemarque, the amazing studio behind Super Stardust HD, Dead Nation, Outland, and Resogun. Anthony Amato and I played a ludicrous amount of Dead Nation on the PlayStation 3, and now that it’s been announced that Dead Nation: Apocalypse Edition is coming to the PlayStation 4, well… let’s just say I really need to get that second DualShock 4.

In case you don’t know what Dead Nation is, it’s a top-down, twin-stick, shoot-em-up zombie game, where you’re fighting through hordes of the undead with tons of amazing weapons. You can play it alone or with a friend, local or online multiplayer, at night with the lights off or in the middle of the day with all the blinds up. Apocalypse is an upgrade visually – “you can now play in full 1080p HD, with improved textures, rendering, and effects,” according to the PlayStation Blog – but that’s not all. They’ve also “improved the controls, adding in a quick weapon select so your favorite zombie decimator is never out of reach.”

Not only is the DLC, Road to Devastation, included in this version of the game – and not only can you submit challenges to your friends and others on the leaderboard to beat your score – there’s also Broadcast+ Mode, which blew my mind:

In this mode, you can stream your game to the masses interactively, and your viewers can influence the difficulty of your game. Periodically all your viewers, whether they be on PS4 or a web browser, have the option to vote between a positive and negative effect that occurs in your game. There are a total of 30 different voting effects that can occur, ranging from spawning zombie packs to giving the player ammo, or even disabling the player’s ability to sprint. But don’t worry; as a player you can get back at the masses, because voters will appear in your game as named zombies for you to exact your revenge on.

Dead Nation: Apocalypse Edition will be available on the PlayStation 4 next week, March 4, for $14.99 for regular users, and free for PlayStation Plus members. Oh, and they also dropped a hint that there will be an upcoming announcement about the Vita version. It’s like zombie-killing Christmas in here.

Posted in News, PS4, Vita | Tagged

Anomaly 2 is in development for the PS4

Posted on February 28, 2014 by Nicole Kline

Anomaly Warzone Earth‘s single-player experience got an upgrade to multiplayer last year on the PC with Anomaly 2. And now, according to the PlayStation Blog, it’s coming soon to the PlayStation 4. Now you can do more than just tower offense – you’ll be playing tower offense vs. tower defense.

11 bit studios’ Pawel Miechowski had a lot to say about the game at the PS Blog:

Anomaly Warzone Earth was one of the first tactical, reversed tower defense games in the world, where you didn’t control the towers (aliens), but rather the attackers (human forces) and defended Earth. In Anomaly 2, the story continues right after the invasion of Earth in 2018. Our planet is controlled by the aliens, and humankind is almost extinct. Those who managed to survive are grouped in convoys. Your convoy is called Yukon. …You’re again playing as Commander, controlling him on the battlefield and supporting the units in your convoy with four special abilities which you deploy during missions.

For a full explanation of all the new features, check out the rest of his comments at the PS Blog.

Posted in News, PS4 | Tagged

Sony Santa Monica lays off staff, cancels unannounced original game

Posted on February 28, 2014 by Nicole Kline

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After the completion of God of War III, Stig Asmussen, the game’s Director, began working on an original property within the walls of Sony Santa Monica. Sadly, it has been confirmed that the unannounced game has been cancelled. The cancellation looks to be the direct result of layoffs at the studio, as 50 employees recently lost their jobs. Lead Level Designer Jonathan Hawkins confirmed via Twitter that the project had been cancelled.

According to Gearnuke, Hawkins had been working on the new IP with Andy Puhl and Rob Davis, among other developers at the studio. The image above shows an Easter Egg from God of War: Ascension, which many thought was a teaser for the new property.

Once again, it’s a sad day for the industry when so many talented developers and staff members of an amazing studio like Sony Santa Monica are let go.

Posted in News, PS3, PS4 |

Next Tony Hawk game is exclusively in development for mobile devices

Posted on February 28, 2014 by Nicole Kline

tonyhawkIt has been revealed that Tony Hawk’s new game, which he teased last week, will be a mobile exclusive. Hawk confirmed to Bloomberg that he is working on a mobile game now: “We’re working on a game for mobile devices this year.”

“We’ve never gone exclusively in that direction yet so I’m excited because, with the amount of time people are spending on their phones and their tablets playing games, we’ve never had our own game in that space so I’m excited to provide one finally,” Hawk continued.

According to CVG, Hawk told CNBC in October of 2013 that he wanted to see his series on mobile platforms, because so many people are playing games there. “You just have to adapt and you have to realise where people are going to actually play their games,” Hawk said. “It used to just be Nintendo and PlayStation, and now it’s all kind of devices. So you’ve got to learn to adapt what you know from the technology into those areas. I’ve been wanting to do a mobile game for a long time.”

Hawk had previously told IGN that he wanted to bring his games to next-generation consoles as well, so who knows – maybe there are PS4, Xbox One, and Wii U versions in the mix somewhere down the line as well.

Posted in Mobile, News | Tagged