Paradox Interactive drops a dollar's worth of downloadable content today with Magicka: Nippon, three Japanese-flavored items (and a Team Fortress 2 Demoman cowl!) to aid your wizard's quest, with 50 percent of revenue going towards the Japan Relief Support program.
The first trailer for Croteam and Devolver Digital's Serious Sam 3: BFE has exactly what you'd expect from a Serious Sam game: guns a-blazin', alien invaders, screen splattering gore and a total disregard for taking cover.
And while it doesn't spell out exactly what the BFE stands for, who really cares? The important information is "summer 2011," when Serious Sam 3: BFE is expected to hit the PC. Other platforms will follow according to Croteam, who gives IGN the scoop on its upcoming first-person shooter.
We're hoping to get our hands on Serious Sam 3 soon, but if that doesn't happen, we won't be wanting for shooters at E3 2011 next week.
Serious Sam 3 BFE: Reveal Trailer [YouTube]
Nintendo sent us a copy of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D a bit early. The game launches later on June 19, but we'll be able to play it some and tell you about it.
No time to play now, though! So just check out the tchotchkes Nintendo sent along (sure to be given away someday). Ocarina of Time originally came out on a gold cartridge on the Nintendo 64 back in 1998, keeping a Zelda game tradition. That tradition broke when they put Zeldas on cartridges on the DS. No gold here, either, except for the label. Not a huge deal, but now you know.
[UPDATE: Credit to those Zelda-loving commenters who remember that there were non-gold Zelda cartridges prior to the original Ocarina game.]
This week's Famitsu features some new screens from Ninja Gaiden 3. According to Andriasang, the upcoming article says that the game is "30% complete" and will be ready for release in 2012. [Famitsu]
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.
