Monthly Archives: June 2015
Why Gun Combat Doesn’t Exist in Mirror’s Edge: Catalyst
Mirror's Edge: Catalyst does not allow the player to hold or use a gun, ever -- there is no gun combat, so when Faith disarms an enemy soldier, his gun goes on the ground and stays there. When asked why Mirror's Edge is ditching ballistic encounters, DICE General Manager Patrick Bach said, "I think it's a statement."
He explained, "We have a game that is about a character that doesn't use guns, period. I guess it's part of sticking to the creative vision, because it's so easy to fall back on adding a gun, because we know that works in a way that takes us to a place where we don't want to be."
DICE's Sara Jannson talks Faith, combat, and more with IGN.
Calvino Noir Announced
Film noir-style "heist game" Calvino Noir has been announced for PS4, with its website suggesting release on PC and iOS as well.
According to a post on the PlayStation blog, Calvino Noir draws its moody aesthetic from the history of noir films such as Blade Runner and games such as Deus Ex, with 1930s-inspired architecture providing the backdrop.
EA Dashes Hopes of Mass Effect Trilogy Remaster
Electronic Arts doesn't have any plans to release a remastered version of the Mass Effect Trilogy for Xbox One or PlayStation 4.
"I won't lie and say we haven't looked at it. But for us, it's about weighing where we spend our resources," EA's Patrick Söderlund told Game Informer. "Is it better for them to be working on a completely new IP, which you know BioWare is, or should they be remastering a Mass Effect?
"I don't know about you, but sometimes when I go back and play a game, you want the memory of what they were at that point in time when you played them," he continued. "If I go back and play the old games, I think, 'Really?!' Was this what it was? Because in my mind it was amazing."
Yooka-Laylee Kickstarter Concludes With £2.1 Million
The crowdfunding campaign for Yooka-Laylee has concluded with £2,090,104 (nearly $3.3 million USD) raised.
It's £1.9 million over its modest original goal of £175,000, which was funded in under an hour. The final stretch goal was at the £2 million mark, and it'll see backers receive free DLC after the game's launch.
Some selected tiers are still available via PayPal for a limited time at the Playtonic Games website.
Just Cause 3 Encourages Creativity Amidst Chaos
In Just Cause 3, the third instalment of Avalanche Studios’ open-world action series, you’re no longer controlling Rico Rodriguez the latino super spy and explosion enthusiast. You’re controlling Rico Rodriguez the god.
Or at least that’s how it seems, given that from the outset of the game you’re handed a bottomless backpack of C4, a permanently equipped wingsuit and enough grappling hook tethers to reduce a fleet of enemy helicopters into a swirling mechanical tumbleweed of destruction.
The game’s Mediterranean island setting is so picturesque it would seem criminal to damage even an inch of it, yet that’s precisely what you’re encouraged to do and indeed you’re given an intoxicating amount of ways in which to do it. You want to topple that giant statue of a local dictator in a village town square in order to inspire the rebellion? Well, you could just drive a truck into it. Or you could wallpaper it with C4 and detonate it from a distance. Or you could tether its outstretched hand to its smug, stoney face with multiple cords from your grapple gun, then use the new manual grappling controls to force it to slap itself until its head crumbles into pieces, as though you were some sort of demented puppeteer (or a boorish big brother).
10 Things We Learned About No Man’s Sky
This week at E3 Hello Games revealed more about their upcoming galactic simulator, No Man's Sky. Here are ten things we learned about the game.
- No Man’s Sky does not have a traditional story with cutscenes and a predefined hero. Like Minecraft and Terraria, the player creates and defines their own experience.
- Planets are planet sized. You can spend days exploring just one world, experiencing its day and night cycles while walking its surface or flying through the sky in your spaceship (or jet pack)
- Once you discover a planet, you can change its randomly generated name to whatever you want. The same goes for any creatures you find on its surface.
Nintendo’s Next Metroid Game Nearly Launched Alongside New 3DS
Metroid Prime series Producer Kensuke Tanabe told IGN that Nintendo originally timed its new spin-off game, Metroid Prime Federation Force, to launch alongside New Nintendo 3DS.
We spoke with Tanabe about the backstory for his new project and the decision to work with Next Level Games. "Well, first I would say that the focus on the battle between the Federation Forces and the Space Pirates was an idea I had since I was involved in Metroid Prime 3," he said. "It's similar to with Metroid Prime Hunters, how we relied on NST
to do that. Hunters deals with the relationships between the bounty hunters besides Samus in the world of Metroid.
"We wanted to make something that would show the fight between the Federation and the Space Pirates, but there was no company that would make that for us."
Next Proper Metroid Prime Game Not Likely Until NX
Nintendo's next console Metroid Prime game is not likely to see release until Nintendo launches its next-gen console, codenamed NX.
"If we started for Wii U now, it would likely take three years or so. So it would likely now be on Nintendo's NX console," said series producer Kensuke Tanabe, speaking to Eurogamer at E3.
"Truth be told, making HD games takes a lot of time and resources," Tanabe added when asked why Nintendo had not made a Metroid Prime for Wii U. "I haven't been able to collect a team or the resources to do it."
This means we'll probably be waiting at least a couple more years for the next proper Metroid release; Nintendo doesn't plan to reveal anything about its new NX console until 2016.
New Netflix Sitcom to Star 70s Show’s Kutcher & Masterson
Netflix is reuniting That '70s Show stars Ashton Kutcher and Danny Masterson for The Ranch, an upcoming multi-camera sitcom, produced and written by Two and a Half Men co-showruners Don Reo and Jim Patterson.
Described by Deadline as a "sibling comedy," The Ranch is, naturally, set on a Colorado Ranch and follows "Kutcher’s character returning home after a brief semi-pro football career to run the family business with his brother, played by Masterson."
(L-R) Wilmer Valderrama, Danny Masterson and Ashton Kutcher on That '70s Show
Star Fox Zero Started as a Protoype for Wii
Nintendo's upcoming Wii U exclusive Star Fox Zero didn't get its development start on the company's tablet-centric console; the game actually began as a prototype for the original Wii.
"I work very closely with the programmer of Star Fox 64. Basically, every time we get new hardware, we do a Star Fox prototype," Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto told Game Informer.
"This Star Fox started out being based on a prototype we created for the Wii. We took that prototype and thought about what we could do with it, he continued. "We came back and just said that this should be a Star Fox game."