Monthly Archives: March 2015
Shuhei Yoshida: PSN Attacked ‘Literally Every Day’
President of Sony's Worldwide Studios Shuhei Yoshida recently spoke about DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks on PlayStation Network and the surprising frequency at which they occur.
At GDC this week, Yoshida told Game Informer that PSN is attacked "literally every day" and that Sony is working diligently to combat each effort.
"We are always always working against these attacks," Yoshida said. "Actually, an attack happens every day. Literally every day. Some days are bigger and some days smaller. Some days they devise new means, new ways - it's like cat and mouse. We have a partner company we work with, and we always update the new ways the attacker might deploy, so it is a constant battle."
Dead Space Dev Wants to Revisit the Series
As developer Visceral Games prepares for Battlefield Hardline’s launch, the studio says it would like to revisit the Dead Space series.
“Many, many people here at Visceral have a warm spot in their heart for Dead Space, and right now we’re busy with Hardline and…other things,” Visceral Games General Manager Steve Papoutsis told Games TM, “but it’s definitely something we’d love to look at again.”
“There’s definitely a lot of interest internally for us to pick that up again at a future date.”
Visceral Games developed all three games in the Dead Space series. IGN reviewed Dead Space 3 and thought it was good, despite some glaring issues. The game failed to meet publisher EA’s sales expectations in 2013. Back at E3 in 2013, EA Labels president Frank Gibeau told IGN that “there’s no reason to believe” EA wouldn’t revisit Dead Space.
We Can’t Wait For Virtual Reality To Be Reality
Between the Mobile World Congress (MWC) and the Game Developers Conference (GDC) this week, there's a lot of tech to cover this week! We debate Samsung's choice of a unibody design for the Galaxy S line, consider the viability of Steam Machines and Nvidia's console in today's market, and spend quite a bit of time chatting about all of our GDC virtual-reality demos and what consumers can look forward to in the near(ish) future.
Street Fighter 5 Coming Next Year Says Capcom
UPDATE: A Capcom spokesperson has confirmed to IGN the launch window listed was a tentative release time and there are no official announcements on a Street Fighter 5 release as of yet.
Original Story: Capcom has hinted at a potential spring 2016 release date for Street Fighter V for PlayStation 4 and PC.
Capcom is on-hand at PAX East and a Capcom-Unity blog post regarding Street Fighter V merchandise casually mentions the release date.
“Everyone is fired up for Street Fighter V coming to the PS4 and PC next Spring,” the Capcom Unity post reads. “Until then, you can sport the official SFV key art T-shirt, which features Ryu in a heroic pose, for $25.”
Gigantic’s New Character is a Kung-Fu Elvis Frog
Gigantic's two latest roster additions, Aisling and Wu, continue the game's trend of creating mechanically rich characters that can function in wildly different ways depending on how you spec them out. They also carry on the other growing trend within Gigantic's cast: they're just wild-looking. One's a little girl with white hair, a huge sword, and a spectral warrior buddy named Cador, and the other is a kung-fu fighting frog with an Elvis cowlick. I don't know where developer Motiga gets this stuff from, but I definitely want more.
First up is Aisling, who hefts a large sword wreathed in crackling blue spectral energy. It's taller than she is, but she whips it around with an airy effortlessness all the same. She's almost too versatile to classify as a specific archetype, thanks in large part to her spectral warrior ally, Cador. While he remains within her blade Aisling is more powerful in direct melee combat, but at a moment's notice, she can send him out to do her bidding at ranges a typical melee character doesn't usually engage at. He can charge out and deal a ton of damage wherever he arrives, and with his warcry, he can interrupt enemy abilities while applying one of several different effects, including one that generates a protective barrier for your nearby allies.
Castle Crashers Dev’s Latest Has Blood, Guts, and Blueberries
No RPG player likes the word "streamlining." It's practically a synonym for "shallow" at this point - a word that warns you to temper your expectations and prepare for a game with fewer interesting choices and nuances than you'd like it to have. It's for that reason that I have trouble defining The Behemoth's Game 4 (the typical working title for them). Calling it a strategy RPG "lite" doesn't do it justice; neither does saying it's "streamlined." Let's just say what's important though: I didn't see Game 4 coming. In typical Behemoth style, it's completely different from what they've done before, and though it may be a fair bit simpler than, say, Final Fantasy Tactics or Fire Emblem, it kept me either chuckling or making interesting decisions for the full duration of the demo, and that's a great start.
The Best Virtual Reality At The Game Developers Conference
Virtual reality was all over the Game Developers Conference this year, and soon it’ll be all over your living room. Before that happens, we've rounded the best VR experiences we had at the show to give you a preview of what will soon become your reality.
I came into Sony’s Project Morpheus demo skeptical: how could console VR ever compete with something hooked into a custom PC? Well, I can’t tell you how the PS4 managed it, but man, it sure did.
The Fascinating Way Japanese Games Get Localized
Download Nintendo Voice Chat Here
The NVC crew has to keep moving in this piece from artist Pandamusk.
Special guest Mark MacDonald rejoins the cast of Nintendo Voice Chat to talk about the challenging process of translating Japanese games for the West. He joins host Jose Otero and Peer Schneider, as they trade impressions of Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Tipping Stars and Code Name: S.T.E.A.M. Then, after the break, the crew tackles some of your queries once again on the Question Block.
Gotham Reportedly Casts Its Lucius Fox
Another staple of the Batman mythos has been added to the cast of characters on FOX's prequel series Gotham.
12 Years a Slave actor Chris Chalk has reportedly won the role of Lucius Fox, Wayne Enterprises' tech guru and an eventual mentor to Bruce Wayne.
Chris Chalk as "Tom Walker" on Homeland.
"(Fox) will appear in the penultimate episode 21 of the current first season with an option to return in Season 2," according to Deadline.
Red Riding Hood Cuts Down Wolves in Gritty Retelling
My time with the puzzle platformer was short, but I enjoyed how Woolfe: The Red Hood Diaries managed to make Red Riding Hood's sad story even darker.
Vengeful and trained to fight, an axe-wielding Red Riding Hood works to unravel the secrets behind her father’s death. Behind it all is her nemesis, the big bad wolf, or in this retelling, the human, corporate giant B.B. Woolfe. Under his reign, the city Red used to live in is slowly falling into ruin and is constantly under watch by Woolfe's evil Toy Soldiers.
The world developer GRIN has built for this twisted fairytale is beautiful; it still holds a cartoonish, storybook-like feel, but is dreary enough to reflect the tone of the story. Though I mostly did a lot of puzzle solving and sneaking around dark city, it was fun to slay Toy Soldiers and rats in a hack-and-slash fashion.