Monthly Archives: January 2015
New Downloadable Character Revealed For Borderlands The Pre-Sequel
The third DLC pack for Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel has been announced at PAX South 2015, and it features Sir Hamerlock's older sister, Aurelia.
Pretty much every character in the Borderlands universe has a colorful past, and Aurelia is no different. Read this snippet from the press release:
"Aurelia is the heir of the Hammerlock family fortune, but when she's not riding her hoverbike through the endless hallways of her orbital turbomansion, she's out hunting the latest and greatest game in the galaxy. If these expeditions should put her in conflict with her younger brother Alistair – aka Sir Hammerlock – all the better. The only thing more fun than shooting a rare animal Alistair intended to study is the look of abject horror and surprise on his face once Aurelia wears its carcass like a jaunty scarf."
Homeworld Is Still Great, and I’m Still Bad At It
I loved the original Homeworld, but I was never, how do you say, "good" at it. So you can imagine that when I sat down to play the Homeworld Remastered Collection, I was pretty scared of making a fool out of myself, given that over a decade has passed since I last played it, poorly, on the best gaming PC a broke college student could afford. Thankfully, the folks I was meeting with anticipated this, and had a map all set with a large fleet for me to bound-box, and send into the fray - and just like that, with a single right click, the fireworks began.
Homeworld's massive, three-dimensional space brawls were more or less the first of their kind, but very few games have recaptured that sense of scale. With this shiny new coat of paint, there are few, if any space-based RTS games that offer such a spectacle. Seeing the remastered version right next the classic version (which is also included in the Homeworld Remastered Collection) was beyond night-and-day different, to the extent that someone seeing Remastered for the first time would fully assume they were looking at a recently developed game.
Homeworld Remastered Collection is Coming Sooner Than You Think
Today at their big panel held at PAX South 2015, Gearbox announced the price and release details for their Homeworld Remastered Collection.
The package will include new versions of Homeworld and Homeworld 2, both of which have seen dramatic visual improvements over their original releases. Speaking of the originals, those are included in the package as well in case you feel like having the original experience without having to struggle to get it to play nice with modern computers.
For $34.99, you get both versions of both games, and access to the Homeworld Remastered multiplayer beta on Steam, which will begin on the game's launch day, February 25. We got a chance to play Homeworld Remastered at PAX South, so look for our first impressions shortly.
Next Killer Instinct Season 2 Character Teased
Killer Instinct Season 2's next character Golem has been revealed in a new gameplay trailer featuring the upcoming bonus character Omen.
Golem, seen at the 1:46 mark of the video, is a giant animated being, combining part stone and part metal, accented by plants and faces of statues.
Microsoft Studios Creative Director Adam Isgreen called the character Golem on Twitter. It is unclear if that is a codename or the final name.
The trailer also reveals Omen, who was unveiled earlier this month, will be available to Killer Instinct Season 2 Ultra Edition owners on January 30, and Combo Breaker Edition owners on February 5. He will not be available individually.
Bungie Won’t Repeat Mistakes With Destiny Expansions
Bungie has plans to take a different approach to Destiny’s loot reward system in the upcoming House of Wolves expansion.
Destiny developer Luke Smith says the studio will not repeat “mistakes we made with the DLC1 (The Dark Below) reward economy,” on NeoGAF today, in response to comments about House of Wolves’ potential reward system.
The studio has nothing official to announce, but Smith did list Vault of Glass vendor gear “invalidating” raid gear, resetting Exotic talents through upgrading, and the shard economy as mistakes the studio made.
Randy Pitchford Discusses The Chances of a Borderlands 1 Remaster
If enough people buy Borderlands: The Handsome Collection, we may see a similar new-gen remaster for the original Borderlands.
When asked about how Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel and Borderlands 2 wound up being ported to PS4 and Xbox One, and whether Borderlands 1 would follow suit, Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford initially responded by saying that he "...doesn't want to announce things anymore unless he knows for a fact they are going to happen." However, he went on to say that he "...loves Borderlands 1...it'd be awesome to get that on next-gen sometime. If the Handsome Collection is wildly successful, that increases the chances that that investment can be made." While this isn't a confirmation in any way, it sure is tempting to think about.
Revisiting the Golden Era of LucasArts
The image of a person skimming through the job section of their local newspaper to see who’s hiring is nothing new for people who grew up in the ‘80s or earlier. Before the internet went mainstream it was the way most people looked for work. And that’s exactly what Michael Levine was doing in early 1991, when he saw an ad looking for game testers at a local development studio. The game? Monkey Island 2. The developer? LucasArts.
A vintage LucasArts ad.
Dreadnought Made My Battlestar Dreams Come True
At first glance, Dreadnought looks equally grin-inducing to the Battlestar-loving side of my brain, as it is wince-inducing to the consumer side of it. First thought: simply gorgeous. Second thought: how many pieces of flight-sim equipment will I need to buy, and how many hours of training will I need to do in order to have battles as impossibly awesome-looking as the ones in the footage? The answer, is “none” on both counts. Dreadnought delivers the tension and thrills that should accompany a clash between massive capital ships, and it does so while walking a thin line between accessibility and believability.
Controlling Dreadnought's ships, which range from modestly-sized support corvettes to the huge, eponymous dreadnoughts, is more or less like moving around in a first person, save for the fact that the A and D keys turn left and right rather than strafe. Shift and spacebar, ever the crouch/jump duo, move you down and up respectively along the z-axis. Aiming is handled with the mouse, and most of your standard armaments are turret-based batteries, so you can target freely in a full 360 degrees. It took me less than five minutes to fly comfortably and confidently.
Agent Carter: Not Everyone is Who They Appear to Be
Having taken a one-week break thanks to the State of the Union address, Marvel's Agent Carter returns this coming Tuesday to continue its eight-episode run.
Guiding the series are showrunners Tara Butters and Michele Fazekas – longtime collaborators who created Reaper and whose credits include Dollhouse and Resurrection. I recently spoke to Fazekas about what to expect when Agent Carter returns, as the show’s focus switches gears, now that Howard Stark’s stolen tech has been recovered.
We also discussed Peggy’s allies and if all of them are what they appear to be…
IGN: James D’Arcy said an interesting thing about how now the show will kind of really begin anew moving forward.
Download and Watch All of IGN’s Podcasts: January 24, 2015
Each and every week, IGN releases over a dozen video and audio podcasts from our offices around the world. Topics range from games to tech to all-things entertainment. For your viewing and listening pleasure, here is everything you need to consume for the week of January 24, 2015.
Subscribe to IGN's Podcast Series
Greg, Colin, and Marty gathered together to discuss their favorite PSP memories, whether or not we'll actually see Uncharted in 2015, and when the PlayStation 4 will receive its first price drop. Also Colin talks about hockey. Shocker. All this and more on the Internet's No. 1 PlayStation podcast!