Monthly Archives: April 2016
Rumor: New Call of Duty to Be Unveiled by Next Week
Leaked retailer documents seem to point to the next Call of Duty game being revealed by next Tuesday, May 3.
Posted by games critic Jim Sterling on Twitter, the document seems to indicate changes to in-store marketing, which includes the "Call of Duty Reveal".
The next Call of Duty will apparently get unveiled by next Tuesday. Getting listed in retailers at any rate. pic.twitter.com/eYnVX5spdh
— Jim Sterling (@JimSterling) April 26, 2016
UK Street Date Broken for Uncharted 4
Although not scheduled to release until May 10, 2016, Uncharted 4: A Thief's End is already in the hands of some fans.
Videogamer reports that at least one person has picked up the game from retailer CEX in the UK, with others sharing news on Twitter that Amazon, too, has dispatched two weeks ahead of the street date. MCV also reports unconfirmed assertions of early deliveries in Germany and North America, with auctions already showing up on eBay.
Epic Reveals Paragon Open ‘Stress Test’ Dates
Epic Games has announced the first free stress test weekend for Paragon will begin on April 28, and end on May 1.
A second phase will then begin on May 5, and last until May 8. For the first phase, you'll have to be in the first 500,000 people who signed up to the beta. However, for the second phase, all players will be invited, including everyone who signed up before May 1.
If you're already taking part in Paragon Early Access, Epic is offering a double XP boost if you play during those weekends, and your existing Boosts will stack with the extra bonus.
More beta weekends will be announced in the future before the June 7 release date. It will be free-to-play, however there is a $60 retail version available which contains a lot of paid content.
Blizzard Responds to Illegal Server Closure Complaints
Blizzard has responded to complaints sparked by the closure of the World of Warcraft Nostalrius server.
The unlicensed server offered a vanilla World of Warcraft experience - running a very early version of the game - that Blizzard itself no longer provided, and last month's closure spawned a petition to reinstate it that gathered over 235,000 signatures.
Stating the developer had to close the server in order to preserve the developer's intellectual property, World of Warcraft's executive producer, J. Allen Brack, wrote on the official forum (via Eurogamer) "failure to protect against intellectual property infringement would damage Blizzard's rights". While Blizzard had "looked into the possibility" of working with unofficial servers, there was "not a clear legal path to protect Blizzard’s IP and grant an operating license to a pirate server".
Neill Blomkamp Releases Newt Concept Art for Alien 5
Director Neill Blomkamp could be bringing Rebecca "Newt" Jordan back from the dead in Alien 5.
Newt, along with Corporal Hicks, both died at the start of Alien 3, but apparently we could be seeing both of them in different forms in the next movie. Blomkamp released the image below on Instagram today to coincide with Alien Day.
Newt concept art, Neill Blomkamp
Nintendo Patents a New Controller
Nintendo has submitted a patent for a new controller it calls a "training implement, training system, and input device".
Spotted and documented by NeoGAF user Rösti, the controller resembles a horseshoe-shaped regular game controller (oddly, not dissimilar to Xbox 360's Wireless Speed Wheel), but includes an accelerometer, gyrometer, temperature sensor and load sensor.
Patent drawings of Nintendo's new "training device".
Final Fantasy 3, 4, 7 & 8 Getting Physical PC Release Next Month
Final Fantasy 3, 4, 7 and 8 will be released on PC as physical box sets next month.
According to listings on Amazon.co.uk (via VideoGamer), the four games will be paired up in two PC "Double Pack edition" bundles - one with Final Fantasy 3 and 4, the other Final Fantasy 7 and 8. The games are set to release on May 27, 2016 for £20 each.
Image credit: videogamer.com
The Dark Souls Board Game Kickstarter Hits £1.5 million
The Kickstarter campaign to fund a Dark Souls board game has topped £1.5 million.
With 20 days still left to go, 15,898 backers have donated a total of £1,546,480. The original goal of £50,000/$70,832 USD was reached in just three minutes.
Hitting the £1.5 million stretch goal on Kickstarter unlocks the Havel's Set. If the final two stretch goals -- the Crimson Set and Dark Set fixed at £1.55m and £1.6m respectively -- are reached, all 54 stretch goals will have been unlocked.
IGN’s Top 25 Cheesy Action Movies
Cheese. Some say it’s a delicious food product made from pressed milk curd left to ripen and age. And they are right; that is a fundamentally accurate description of what cheese very literally is. But literal cheese is for crackers. Figurative cheese? Well, that’s just the glorious, stringy goo that binds together some of the finest action films this side of 1967.
Cheesy action movies stand apart from regular action films; cheeseball action movies revel in their ridiculous plots, corny one-liners, and absurd stunt sequences. The following films may not share the same esteemed reputations as objectively great action classics like Die Hard or RoboCop or Terminator 2, but they are amongst the cream cheese of the crop when it comes to silly yet sincere, bicep-bulging brilliance. Sure, they’re not really on the same rung as important stuff like Aliens, and Lethal Weapon, and Raiders of the Lost Ark. And sure, those are the movies that have all the acclaim, and the influence, and the genre-defining legacies. But do you know what they don’t have? Ninja.
Quantum Break’s Shawn Ashmore on the Future of Performance Capture
Following its April 5 launch Quantum Break has gone on to become the biggest-selling new Microsoft Studios published IP this generation and was the most played new game on Xbox worldwide during the week of its release. You can check out IGN's Quantum Break review here if you haven't already.
The developer at the centre of this is Helsinki-based studio Remedy Entertainment (Max Payne, Alan Wake) but the bloke on the box is Canadian film and television actor Shawn Ashmore.
Read on for Ashmore’s full interview where he discusses the nuances of performance capture, the eeriness of watching a significant other controlling you in a video game, and why he’ll be sending a copy to his twin brother.