Fans of Timegate Studios downloadable shooter Section 8: Prejudice should be pleased with the change of scenery packed in the two new maps of the Overdrive Map Pack, available now for PC and Xbox 360 for 320 Microsoft Points.
The audio experts at Turtle Beach are all set to rock E3 2011 next week with a pair of new gaming headsets destined to please the ear canals of countless PlayStation 3 and PC gamers, including a more affordable version of its coveted programmable PX5.
Back when I was first diving into the PC scene, Turtle Beach stood for "But I asked for a Sound Blaster". Times have changed since then. Nowadays quality audio is more a factor of what you're listening on than the chip that's processing it, and Turtle Beach is right in the thick of things, providing gamers with quality listening headgear.
Headgear like the Ear Force PX5, a fully programmable headset that delivers superior sound and functionality for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PC. Unfortunately that superior sound comes at a superior price point of $249.95, much more than many players are willing to spend for something that'll shortly be covered in their ear stench.
Enter the PX3, the 'little brother' to the PX5. Turtle Beach has taken the same programmable technology from the PX5, taken away the ability to create your own custom settings, and they'll be passing the savings on to you this summer. Turtle Beach Ear Force PX3 Programmable Wireless Gaming Headset will come with 18 predefined configurations, with additional profiles made available for download on a regular basis. It also features a Turtle Beach first: A rechargeable 10-hour battery pack. All that for only $149.95. It's primarily aimed at PlayStation 3 players, but will work with the Xbox 360 and PC as well.
For PC gamers looking for something more than "also works with", the company is also showing off the Ear Force Z6A Multi-Speaker Surround Sound Headset at E3 2011. The USB-powered Z6A boasts eight "acoustically angled" speakers (including two subwoofers), a 5.1 channel amplifier, and lightweight oversized mesh ear cups perfect for extended play. It's even got a quick disconnect cable for folks that often find themselves having to run away from their PC at great speed. Now how much would you pay? The Z6A will retail for $99.95 when it drops this summer. Xbox 360 owners will be able to purchase an optional connector to make the Z6A work for them.
Whew, that was exhausting, wasn't it? Let's wind down with some press release hype.
"We are the category leader because we are the only headset maker solely focused on gamers' unique audio needs," said Carmine Bonanno, President and CEO of Turtle Beach. We redefined what a gaming headset could do when we introduced the PX5 earlier this year. One message we have heard from gamers load and clear is that they want to control their gaming experience as much as possible. The PX3 allows us to bring many of the PX5's amazing innovations to an even broader audience, while the Z6A offers PC gamers a competitive edge with a flexible multi-driver surround sound experience that provides the comfort needed for long gaming sessions."
Check out the Turtle Beach website for more details on the company's E3 2011 lineup.
War rode proud and strong through the battle between good and evil in the original Darksiders, but he's only one of four apocalyptic horsepersons of interest. War, Famine, and Pestilence take the bench as Death saddles up his pale horse for Darksiders II.
Vigil's resident comic book legend Joe Madureira shows off his stunning interpretation of Death on the July cover of Game Informer magazine. The most inevitable of horsemen is dual-wielding scythes and sporting a rather Splatterhouse-esque mask, prepared to pose for any heavy metal album cover photo shoots he might happen to pass in his travels.
With War taking a little break, it's up to Death to find a way to restore humanity in the midst of the war between heaven and hell, which sounds ironic until you realize a general lack of living things puts him right out of a job he's held for ages. Downsizing is a real bitch when you're the otherworldly personification of a biological process.
For more on Darksiders II check out the July issue of Game Informer, or just wait until E3 next week when we see it for ourselves.
July Cover Revealed: Darksiders II [Game Informer]
Rockstar and Team Bondi have more cases for L.A. Noire gamers to play soon. One, Reefer Madness, surely involves a wacky weed of some sort. The other involves the explosion you see above (well, you'd see it if not for that darn age-gate).
Those cases and a pile of other additions to L.A. Noire—suits, guns, an extra mission mode—will be available as downloadable content between now and the middle of July.
Rockstar is offering fans a chance to pay $10 for a "Rockstar Pass" that will guarantee gamers all of the content for half the price. Otherwise, you can buy what you want a la carte. Be aware that you may have a few of these items already, if you had pre-ordered the game from certain retailers (the Reefer Madness vice case and explosion-based Nicholson Electroplating Disaster arson case will be new to everyone.)
The trailer shows all of the DLC content off. For a la carte pricing, check our original story about all of this L.A.Noire-expanding content.
The long-in-the-making first-person shooter Aliens: Colonial Marines is still alive and coming out in the spring of 2012, according to a chest-beatingbursting announcement from the movie studio behind Aliens, the publisher of Sonic the Hedgehog and the creators of the award-winning game Borderlands.
The unlikely trio of 20th Century Fox, Sega and development studio Gearbox Software will be making what they're calling a "true sequel to James Camerson's classic Aliens." Either that's a shot at David Fincher's controversial Alien 3 or it's simply a verification of what the game's new teaser trailer shows the game to be: a direct storyline-sequel to Cameron's Aliens movie.
In the game's new trailer, which you can see here, unseen men, presumably colonial marines, are discussing the U.S.S. Sulaco, the military ship that transported Sigourney Weaver's Aliens heroine, Ellen Ripley, and a group of Marines to LV-426, the planet on which most of Cameron's movie takes place. On that planet, Ripley and a rapidly-dwindling team of human fighters fought the Aliens before struggling back to the Sulaco. In the trailer, the male voices refer to Ripley as having checked herself back into cry-sleep. They also refer to Paul Reiser's Carter Burke deceased character and the ripped-in-two artificial person Bishop. The men decide to go to the Sulaco, but there's no indication if Ripley, Bishop, or any of the other few survivors of Cameron's movie make it into the game.
The Aliens Colonial Marines game is set to be a first-person shooter that supports up to four players proceeding through its storyline together. The new press release for the game says players will be able to drop "in and out as necessary through self-contained missions within an over-arching narrative."
Players will be able to upgrade and customize their characters, gaining new weapons and perks. The game's levels will be set across "authentic environments inspired by the film series including Hadley's Hope, the Sulaco and LV-426."
Here's the official plot summary:
Aliens: Colonial Marines begins with an ostensibly abandoned ship, the U.S.S. Sulaco, recovered in orbit around LV-426. Players lead a group of highly trained United States Colonial Marines as they board the deserted craft to uncover the fate of the crew. They will have to fight to survive unspeakable horrors and their own anxieties as they chase down the truth behind a galaxy-spanning deception that places humanity at the mercy of the most murderous and deadly species in the universe.
We'll be seeing the game at E3 and meeting with Gearbox Software chief Randy Pitchford, whose team is also getting Duke Nukem Forever out this month.
Look for Colonial Marines on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC in the spring of 2012.
Batman: Arkham City, the return to Rocksteady Studios' amazing journey into the world of Batman, isn't all about the bat. There's the cat too.
At times in the game, players won't be controlling the cowled crusader, but rather the feline second-story woman, working Catwoman over the streets of slum-turned-prison Arkham City one whip-cracking swing at a time.
Deep into a demonstration of Batman: Arkham City, due out this fall on the PC, PS3 and Xbox 360, Rocksteady's Dax Ginn explains that gamers who spend 24-7 delivering justice on the streets of Arkham City may want to, from time to time, take a break.
On screen, Batman walks up to a few cats milling on a rooftop. The words "Take a Break" pop up on the screen with the icon for the Xbox 360's blue X button. Pressing the X button causes Catwoman to leap into the scene as Batman stalks to the roof and drops off.
"What would someone like this do in a place like this," asks Ginn. "She's using the chaos to achieve her own ends. She is establishing what she can steal and how quickly she can get to it."
That means targeting "high value contraband." The culmination of that journey, shown to us by Rocksteady, is Catwoman's decision to go after the vault buried in the city that holds all of the most valuable items taken from the prisoners by the private military force known as Tyger.
Catwoman leaps from the rooftop, pulling out her whip as she drops. With a retort that sounds like a gunshot, she wraps the whip around a jutting ledge and swings out from the roof. Occasionally Catwoman uses her claws to latch onto buildings and scramble up walls. But mostly she swings through the city, a series of loud crack's accenting her every whip swing.
In combat, Catwoman looks much more acrobatic. She flips over and around enemies as she takes them down with kicks, punches and weapons like her bola and caltrops.
Later, trying her controls out myself, I discover she doesn't feel as different as she looks. In practice, at least with my short time with her, she feels very similar to Batman and his steady flow of attacks, counters and blocks. A bit of a let down, but still satisfying.
Fortunately, Catwoman sets herself apart from Batman in other ways. She has a thief vision mode, for instance, that highlights items of valuable in her view. She also has at least one new move type, she can crawl along certain ceilings, dropping down to do special take downs.
I watch as Catwoman crawls above an enemy before taking him out. Later I see her pickpocket guards, stealing their pass keys. She crawls along floors, pounces to the ceiling.
Ginn explains that while Catwoman plays a pivotal part in the game, she is still more like a special guest star then a co-star. Batman, Ginn assures us, is still the main attraction. But that doesn't mean you can avoid playing as Catwoman. While some of the things she does, some of the missions she has available to her, aren't required and can be accessed by choosing to "take a break" there will be central plot points that will require you to control Catwoman.
"It is intertwined into Batman's story," he said. She also has her own upgrade system and even her own trophies.
And the entire demo wasn't focused on Catwoman. We got a quick tour of Arkham City, which Ginn says is about five times the size of Arkham Asylum's Arkham Island. Ginn said that Rocksteady went to great pains to make sure that the game had an amazing sense of scale.
As if to illustrate the point, the demo opens with Batman perched above the city, a city so large that he is almost lost in the backdrop. Suddenly Batman power dives from his roost, floating through parts of the city before dropping onto a lamppost.
Ginn tells us that they've worked at integrating the way Batman gets around into the way he takes people down. As he explains this, Batman uses his grappling hook to launch into the thug, knocking him into next week.
"Whammy!" Ginn yells Batman makes contact with the baddie.
Batman spins, punches and kicks his way through the rest of the thugs on the roof, leaving one standing. Saving a particularly intricate take down for the last man standing.
"Kablam!" Ginn shouts.
Even without Ginn's enthusiastic interjections, the heart of Batman: Arkham City seems to remain a game about blood-pumping, over-the-top brawls, terrifying take-downs and Batman.
Commenter BrawlKarter subjected his left thumb to the real-world sport of basketball, resulting in a strain that leaves him effectively thumbless for weeks. What games can he play without his favorite digit?
I need some help fellow Kotaku community members. Sprained my left thumb playing basketball yesterday while saving a loose ball and am in a splint for the next two to four weeks.
As a gamer, this puts me in a pretty messed up situation as the vast majority of games require the use of your left thumb for movement.
So I am asking you the awesome members of this community to help me find games that can be played using the right analog stick on controllers.
I currently have a PS3, Xbox 360, Wii (thinking of getting a Wii Zapper) and 3DS as well as several old-school systems (I have a steering wheel for Dreamcast, time for some Daytona USA!).
Any help in this matter is greatly appreciated.
It's a fair guess that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 will follow in the footsteps of last year's Call of Duty: Black Ops, shattering sales records and bringing even more people to video games.
But it's typically not the single player campaign, detailed here, that draws in those record-breaking numbers. While many, including myself, enjoy the Call of Duty campaigns, it's the multiplayer that has managed to shift the Call of Duty franchise from a video game to something more akin to a sport.
People play pick-up games of Black Ops, Modern Warfare 2, even Modern Warfare, like they play games of baseball, soccer or shoot some hoops. Like it or not, consider it innovative or rehashed gameplay, the Call of Duty franchise has in many ways transcended what it is to be a video game.
So here's your first, unofficial look at what we can expect from the bread and butter, the heart of Modern Warfare 3 when it hits this fall. Do keep in mind that while the details of the game's single player campaign, first reported by Kotaku via inside sources and later seemingly verified with the official release of a trailer and matching levels, are likely mostly locked in stone, what is delivered with multiplayer could easily shift as the team works to polish and balance the game in the months leading up to release. Multiplayer is also often tweaked after the game hits. It also receives a number of downloadable content packs post launch. With the advent of Elite, that's even more likely.
That being said, here's what our inside sources are telling us is the current state of multiplayer.
The game's multiplayer will be divided into cooperative Special Ops maps and traditional multiplayer maps. There will be no zombie modes in this game, not a surprise since zombies were introduced to the Call of Duty franchise by Treyarch and have, so far, popped up only in the Treyarch-developed games.
Special Ops will include both a survival, horde-like mode and a mission mode, with a total of a dozen maps and missions to choose from between the two.
As we've previously reported, there are 20 maps being worked on for Modern Warfare 3's multiplayer.
It is unclear how many multiplayer and Spec Ops maps and missions will come with the game and how many will be sold at a later date as add-on downloadable content.
Key to the multiplayer experience is the ability for players to level up their characters and unlock perks to modify the effectiveness of their equipment, character and enemy equipment. The multiplayer matches also include killstreaks, which are special one-time rewards that are unlocked after a player kills other players a set number of times without dying.
As could be expected, developers Infinity Ward and Sledgehammer Games have been working to tweak both killstreaks and perks for Modern Warfare 3.
The biggest new addition to the game that we've heard of so far is the creation of Team Perks. These are perks that a team can work toward to earn. It is unclear whether this will be tied to clans or some other team system, but their inclusion could help push the game into a more team-driven title, something the premium Elite service is likely to tie into.
While we don't know the total number of team perks coming to Modern Warfare 3, we have been told four of them:
Stopping Power: Increased bullet damage.
Blast Shield: Unclear
Health Regen: Regenerate health over time.
Stun Protection: Prevent stunning from flash grenades.
New perks coming to Modern Warfare 3 include:
Blind Eye: This makes you immune to computer-controlled and player-controlled killstreaks. The pro version makes your launchers lock on faster and gives you extra bullet damage to vehicles.
Assassin: This makes you immune to UAV, thermal, and heartbeat sensors. The pro version also makes you immune to CUAV, EMP and no longer shows your name in red or the crosshair in red when you're targeted.
Point Guard: Every two assists count as a kill towards your killstreak.
Dead Silence: You make no noise.
Recon: Gives you a special kind of radar to spot enemies, most likely. We're not sure on this one.
We're not clear on how many or which previous perks will be coming to the game, but it sounds like the ones that do return will do so from Modern Warfare 2, not Black Ops.
There will also be a bevy of new killstreaks to play with in multiplayer. Here's the rundown on the latest thinking:
EMP Grenade: Temporarily takes out all area electronics.
Littlebird: A small-manned helicopter that can controlled and used to gun down enemies. [Updated]
Precision Airstrike: Calls in an airstrike on a targeted area.
Stealth bomber: Calls in a B2 Spirit to carpet bomb along a line designated by the player.
Remote Turret: A remote controlled turret.
Directional UAV: A UAV that can be directed into areas to scan for enemies.
Remote Mortar: Direct a mortar team using a zoomable camera view of the map to call in strikes.
Airdrop Trap: A booby-trapped airdrop.
Ammo Resupply: An ammo reloading airdrop.
Escort Airdrop: A protected airdrop.
Specialist Strike Package: This one remains a mystery to us.
While it's likely that some of the killstreaks will drop out or be added in, we've been told that the team has decided to remove the controversial Tactical Nuke killstreak from the game.
Other tweaks being looked at by the team include making sure things like exploding barrels not counting toward a player's killstreak tally.
We've also learned, unfortunately, that this latest Call of Duty still won't support dedicated servers, instead relying on the hosted servers found in previous iterations of the game. Dedicated servers were removed from the Modern Warfare games starting with Modern Warfare 2. (Modern Warfare 3 appears to be using DemonWare for player authentication, just like with Call of Duty: Black Ops.)
Activision was contacted prior to this story's publication and declined to comment.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 is coming Nov. 8, 2011, Kotaku has learned, delivering with it mammoth battles that engulf a dozen cities around the world including New York, Paris and London.
Multiple sources have shared details of the game's story, art, sounds and game modes with Kotaku, noting... More »
We've been gentle so far in our revealing of what we know about Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. We've tip-toed through the minefield of spoilers, and tried to reveal only facts anyone would want to know. More »
Packed with 15 levels set in locations around the world, from Manhattan to the catacombs of Paris, Modern Warfare 3's near-future campaign looks to be an experience that will top anything seen before in a Call of Duty game. More »
Modern war in modern cities: Gunfights in the walled canyons of New York City's Financial District, rolling battles in the subterranean train tunnels of London.
This is the promise of Modern Warfare 3, as revealed during a press event in Los Angeles last week. More »
The people who make Call of Duty keep promising that they won't charge you extra to play their hit game against other people. They shoot down any fears that they're going to turn CoD multiplayer into a pay-per-month subscription service, a la World of Warcraft or HBO.
But starting this fall, series... More »
It's June. Already. It's so terribly hot out, that I'll need all of you to talk as much about video games as possible, so that I don't get a headache or fall asleep. No really, it works. And since this is Talk Amongst Yourselves, there's no better place for it.
Please become acquainted with this month's painting of choice (thanks Diamond Sea), "Paradies" by Lucas Cranach the Elder—you'll be seeing a lot of it. Well, a lot of it in pieces, at any rate. Conveniently, the German word for "paradise" looks a good deal like the English word "parodies", which is exactly what we'd like you to create! You know the drill: take this artwork, run it through Photoshop, and generate some humorous video game-inspired images. Each day, we'll pick our favorite to sit atop that day's TAY post.
Submit your image to #TAYpics.
(Read this thread for directions on how to do a TAYpic.)
Almost four years ago today, the people who made Pac-Man tried to make Pac-Man better, by giving the game a techno aesthetic and altering—intensifying—its rules of play. Game developer Milan Nikolic's Knight Defensenow does that for chess.
Nikolic hasn't made chess better. He'd have to be a genius to do that. But he has twisted it successfully into something catchy, unique and enjoyable, a sort of Chess: Championship Edition. He's mixed that Pac-Man CE aesthetic with chess and tower defense, setting the player's bottom-of-the-screen chess pieces against descending hordes of enemy chess pieces (and cats).
Unlike chess, this isn't a turn-based game. Once a match starts, waves of enemy pawns or rooks and so on begin o appear and descend. The player's chess pieces automatically strike back in the direction where a chess piece normally could attack. So a player's pawn will always zap any enemies that try to traverse the squares immediately diagonal to where the pawn stands. The player's rooks will automatically zap any enemies who step into the squares that are in rows that are at right angles to the rook. The pieces don't move when they attack, but the player can move them manually, again, bound by the rules of chess-piece movement.
In another deviation from chess, a player gets points for defeating enemies. Oh, and they can upgrade their pieces to make them more powerful. And! They can activate special powers, like a healing blast, which are specific to each type of chess piece.
So... it's not that much like chess. It's just built upon chess' foundations.
The game is divided into levels, each a challenge involving a new arrangement of pieces or a new variation of attacking waves. At first, a player can just mash through the game's easy levels, with little attention paid to strategy. Later levels require more planning and more fast-fingered manipulation of a full board of chess pieces.
Knight Defense may feel overwhelming at first, but it rewards dedicated play. Try its Lite HD version or just make the $1 bet and go for the full thing.
Knight Defense is $0.99 with different versions for iPhone and iPad.
Knight Defense [iTunes]
Knight Defense HD [iTunes]
Knight Defense Light [iTunes]
