But seriously though, the star of this new Resident Evil 6 footage is Ada Wong. Also: sorry, that was Fahey's joke. This clip is of Ada Wong's side-story in action.
There's also a new video of the multiplayer mode "Agent Hunt," which I'm assuming has nothing to do with the Mission Impossible films.
I really do feel like I'm going to see this entire game before it even comes out.
(Via Siliconera)
Scammer programmers love to pass off clones of successful games as the real thing. Google's trying to stop them.
New language in the tech giant's Developer Program Policies call out "impersonation or deceptive behavior":
Don't pretend to be someone else, and don't represent that your app is authorized by or produced by another company or organization if that is not the case. Products or the ads they contain also must not mimic functionality or warnings from the operating system or other applications. Developers must not divert users or provide links to any other site that mimics or passes itself off as another application or service. Apps must not have names or icons that appear confusingly similar to existing products, or to apps supplied with the device (such as Camera, Gallery or Messaging).
Anybody running afoul of the new rules will have their app pulled from Google Play. This new policy is almost certainly an attempt to stamp out kind of fraud that's generated loads of Angry Birds and Cut the Rope rip-offs that show up in Google Play. Similar frauds—the fake Pokemon, Mega Man and Canabalt games, among them—on Apple's App Store. The folks behind those games put their off-brand games up, hoping to peel away dollars from impulsive or gullible consumers until they're pulled from the download service. At least Google's formally addressing this scummy practice in its policies. We'll see if Apple has similar policing in the works.
Google Play puts foot down on storefront mimicry [Gamasutra]
Yesterday, Electronic Arts mentioned just three console and/or PC releases coming up between October and the end of the year, and NBA Live 13 was not on the list. Given the series' troubled history, an E3 reveal widely judged to be a flop, and near silence from EA Sports since then, sports gamers took this as a sign the franchise was in some kind of trouble.
Reached by Kotaku, an EA Sports representative for NBA Live said the game still has "a very aggressive launch plan, and the team is focused on bringing NBA Live back in a big way.
"The development team at our Tiburon studio is working hard to get the game to beta," the statement added, "and we'll have a hands-on experience later this summer."
NBA Live 13 should release Oct. 2, the same day as NBA 2K13. Sports simulations, including directly competing titles, generally release on a date fixed by the league that licenses them. No official release date has been given for NBA Live 13 though.
This edition should end EA Sports' three-year absence in the NBA simulation market, a hiatus brought on by a glitch-filled NBA Elite 11's cancellation one week before it was due to release in 2010.
Hot off Nintendo's presses, here's the latest trailer for Pokémon Black Version 2 and Pokémon White Version 2, which will be out for DS on October 7.
The Rubik's Cube-sized $99 Ouya game console is supposed to come out in March 2013. We thought you'd only be able to get it in silver, but, no, there's a darker option.
Today, the Ouya folks have revealed a special edition version of the console. You'll have to donate $140 to their Kickstarter to get this Limited Edition one (like they need more money! Their roughly 47,000 backers have already pledged $6,000,000).
The controller's face buttons have also been re-labelled on the regular and Limited Edition controller, by popular demand, the Ouya folks say.
The buttons used to be labelled this way.
VEVO music videos and a "last week of Kickstarter" special edition console and controller [Kickstarter]
A guy with the terrific name Palmer Luckey wants to finally make a great virtual reality gaming head-mounted display. Some guys behind some terrific games think you should help fund it.
This is the Oculus Rift, a VR headset that we heard about in June at E3 when Doom co-creator and master programmer John Carmack started talking up Lucky's headset. Carmack had a makeshift version, which he used to show an updated version of Doom 3. I tried it, and it was impressive.
So, given that it's the year 2012, the next logical step is that there's a Kickstarter to make the Oculus Rift a reality. Spare $250,000, Internet folks?
As you'll see in the Kickstarter project video, Carmack continues to support the tech, as do Valve's Gabe Newell and Michael Abrash and top folks at Epic and Unity, both of whom say their industry-leading graphics engines will work with it.
Watch the video for some demonstrations of the Rift's supposed superiority over other VR headsets. Luckey is promising negligible latency, 3D and a panoramic field of view. I saw all of this myself when I tried it at Carmack's behest back at E3. It's cool. Why does such well-made tech that is verbally supported by such important gaming people need a Kickstarter? Supposedly, it's to help fund development kits or at least speed the creation of them. A commercial version, for regular games, is, the Kickstarter post indicates: "a ways down the road."
This Kickstarter was launched this morning, a day before the kick-off of QuakeCon which is the official, open-to-the-public convention for Carmack's id Software and parent publisher Bethesda. Id's new version of Doom 3, the BFG Edition will support the Rift and is slated for release this October. The Rift is already 1/3 pledged toward the $250,000 goal.
Oculus Rift: Step Into the Game [Kickstarter]
Reader Dan Hobart has been cutting long Super Nintendo games into digestible five or six-minute "abbreviated" video versions. They're fun to watch, especially if you haven't played some of these games in a while.
Above: Chrono Trigger in five minutes. Here are a few more:
"It's just like Tetris, right?" That's what I was asked when someone peeked at my iPad screen while I was playing Slydris, the new game from Luke Schneider's RadianGames imprint. The answer is no and yes.
Slydris operates on the same falling-block template pioneered by Tetris and, yeah, you're still aligning the tumbling shapes into horizontal lines to clear space on a vertical playfield. But Slydris finds unique ways to differentiate itself from other efforts to recapture the glory of Alexey Pajitnov's all-time classic game.
The blocks in Slydris don't come in different shapes like Tetris' tetronminoes. They're either rectangles of varying size or small squares that take up one spot on the grid. And the falling quadrilaterals come in groups of three, too, forcing you to seat multiple items in the right place. In addition, the block drops don't happen automatically in Slydris and only trigger when you slide something into a new position.
More modern touches like achievements and power-ups get folded into Slydris' recipe. Clearing a line with a single color gets you a special buster block that breaks down bigger pieces of the same hue into more manageable squares. You also get bombs—good for blowing up three rows of blocks off of the gameboard—for clearing successive lines.
The urge to play quickly is the enemy in Slydris and that bit of dissonance reminded me of Drop7, one of my favorite iOS games ever. I constantly had to force myself to slow down and take in the whole board, poring over the playfield to see the consequences that would follow a move I was thinking of making. Sometimes blocks come up from below and if you don't pay attention, they'll screw up that glorious combo cascade you were trying to set up.
Slydris represents an elegant evolution to a well-knownplay style, ones that adds multiple vectors of variance to sliding-block. You'll want to play it like something you already know, but it'll kick your ass if you do. A game that forces you to learn new rules while looking like a familiar experience and that happens to be fiendishly clever to boot? Just one more reason that everyone needs to pay attention to Luke Schneider and every single RadianGames release.
Slydris [$1.99, iTunes, iPad only]
There is a pedigree of role-playing fan out there that inherently 'gets' the Kingdom Hearts series. To these magical people each new entry in the series is another skein of thread being woven into a glorious tapestry of fantastic fiction.
And then there are the game reviewers.
Having reviewed several Kingdom Hearts titles myself, I can honestly say that there's nothing more terrifying that hitting that submit button and waiting for the die-hard fans to scrutinize every syllable I've committed to digital paper. Did I mistakenly refer to Vanitas as Xenahort? Did I get Sora, Roxas, Xerox and Rorschach mixed up again? Did I refer to the series as a confusing mess, and need to be put down?
Well this time around I dodged that bullet. These poor unfortunate game critic souls, however, did not.
Metro GameCentral
There's not a long history of video game crossovers, but when they do happen they rarely go for the obvious. But the likes of Marvel Vs. Capcom and turning Mario & Sonic into a sports game has nothing on a crossover between Disney movies and Final Fantasy games.
The two universes seem to have little in common, but Kingdom Hearts has been a huge money-spinner for Square Enix - even though it hasn't seen a numbered sequel since 2006. Even though it seems to be leading into Kingdom Hearts III this is yet another side story, and a confusing one if you're not already familiar with the overarching plot.
Polygon
Kingdom Hearts 3D follows the events of last year's Kingdom Hearts re: Coded for the DS. Series protagonists Sora and Riku must undergo the Mark of Mastery test – a physical examination that, if passed, will earn them the title of Keyblade Masters. They advenure to worlds based on movies such as The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Tron Legacy, with both protagonists working through their own unique storyline in each area.
Nintendo Life
In Kingdom Hearts 3D the usual enemies, the Heartless, have been replaced by Dream Eaters, who look like university freshers on their way to a UV party. While lacking the scare factor, there is a plus side to these colourful characters, as you can recruit friendly Dream Eaters (known as Sprites) to your party to help in battle. Sprites are customisable, with lots of different paint gun colours to collect and spray to your heart's content. There is also a new ‘petting' feature, similar to Nintendogs, where you tap the lower screen with your stylus to give your Sprite a stroke, earning you ‘Link' power-ups to make your compadre stronger in battle. You can also take 3D photos of your Sprite, but only if you really want to.
Eurogamer
Flowmotion, meanwhile, allows you to hurl yourself around the environment. Activated by rolling into an object or larger enemy, it can be used to travel quickly or to unleash immensely powerful attacks. To begin with, it's basic stuff - high altitude slam attacks, whirling around a post and clobbering everyone in range, or throwing an enemy into the distance - but like almost everything else in Dream Drop Distance, the more you experiment, the more layers you uncover.
It's just a shame that the game's camera isn't always up to the task of keeping Flowmotion in the "pro" column as opposed to the "con". The whirling, lurching motion can be distracting or downright disorientating during combat, while the need to cram a lot of info into the small 3DS screen adds to the cramped feeling of data overload. The game is compatible with the Circle Pad Pro, it helpfully points out, and will no doubt look the business on the 3DS XL. It's just a shame that the greatest weakness in a game that pushes boundaries in so many other areas is something as old and irritating as a poor camera.
RPG Fan
There is considerable meat to the gameplay, for sure, but mechanically the game leaves a lot to be desired. Swapping commands on the 3DS' awkwardly positioned D-pad is very difficult to do while moving, and that can be deadly during a boss battle. The lock-on system is functionally the same as previous games', but here it just can't seem to do the job. There's frequently so much going on and so many enemies around that you'll struggle to lock onto the correct enemy, and you'll end up flying off in random directions or accidentally Flowmotioning off of a wall or large enemy.
Gaming Age
It's a beautiful looking game on the 3DS, and compares favorably to the gorgeous Birth By Sleep on the PSP. It's certainly a step up from any other Nintendo handheld entry in the series (which isn't saying much, I know), and looks pretty fantastic in full 3D. The soundtrack is also filled with a lot familiar tunes, but also some catchy new ones and a nice Dearly Beloved remix at the title screen.
And if you're new to the series, there's a lot of optional material in the game that'll attempt to catch you up on the overall plot, with various text breakdowns that kick in at important points of the story. I'd say to really appreciate everything going on it's a good idea to be familiar with the PS2 and PSP entries at least, but I think you could come into this cold and still have some fun.
Kotaku
Although it's hard not to miss Donald and Goofy-or, for that matter, party members who can actually talk-it's easy to ignore the inevitably incomprehensible story (and even skip cut-scenes) in favor of whacking your way through lovely Disnified worlds. Dream Drop Distance isn't a great game. Nor would it earn a particularly high ranking on my list of "video games you must play in your lifetime" (which, of course, starts with Suikoden II). But it sure is fun.
There is no release date for Grand Theft Auto V. There are no confirmed platforms for the game. All we have is one trailer and two screenshots, but some of the people who follow the business of the publisher of Grand Theft Auto, Take Two Interactive, are convinced the game will be out before the end of March.
Here's a jargon-filled explanation as to why from the oft-quoted stock analyst Michael Pachter, a man known by those who follow the gaming press for lots and lots of predictions. This comes from his latest note to investors about Take Two:
FY:13 guidance implies the release of Grand Theft Auto V in FY:13 [Note from Kotaku: That's Take Two's fiscal year, which runs from April 1, 2012 through March 31, 2013]. Management expects revenue to more than double yearover-year in FY:13, with non-GAAP EPS [Earnings per share] increasing from a loss of $0.71 in FY:12 to a profit of $1.75 – 2.00 in FY:13. In addition, FY:13 guidance includes an estimated 1H [First-half] loss of $(1.46) – (1.31), which implies 2H earnings of $3.06 – 3.46. We cannot construct a scenario in which Take-Two could generate the revenue or EPS needed to achieve FY:13 guidance without GTA V, given the highest combined EPS for two consecutive quarters in Take-Two's history was $2.46 (Q2/Q3 2008). We expect GTA V to sell at least 18 million units, representing a 20% attach rate to the estimated 2011 year-end installed base of PS3 and Xbox 360 in the U.S. and Europe. At this level, we estimate that Grand Theft Auto will generate at least $2.65/share in incremental EPS, making Take-Two's full-year forecast attainable. Should the game sell 24 million units (in line with its historical attach rate), we expect contribution of more than $3.65 per share in incremental EPS. Importantly, the company has a history of providing conservative guidance, and without a GTA game, we would not expect management to be so bold as to provide FY:13 earnings guidance of $1.75 – 2.00. Also, we believe that the game's developers are unlikely to risk delay very far into CY 2013 and battle declining current-generation software sales in the face of the potential introduction of next-generation consoles that year or the next.
Translation: Take Two expects their current business year to get a lot better by the end of March 2013 and it doesn't seem like the boost they're expecting could be wholly attributed to how well Pachter thinks X-Com: Enemy Unknown, Borderlands 2, NBA 2K13 and BioShock Infinite—all games planned for release between now and February—will do.
Pachter is not alone in predicting a looming GTA V release. On a conference call yesterday, another analyst, Mike Hickey, asked Take Two boss Strauss Zelnick about the "believability" of GTA V coming out by the end of March, something Hickey said Wall Street expects it based on Take Two's financial guidance for the year. "We just haven't talked about a release date," Zelnick said. "So obviously we can't talk about the credibility of a release date that we haven't announced."
Are these guys underestimating the possible success of Take Two's announced games? Or are these folks who are paid to understand what Take Two means when it predicts its earnings on to something? It's strange that a potential March release of GTA V would not yet be announced by Rockstar, stranger still that Pachter has even predicted that the game will be out in late 2012. The latter is hard to believe, but it's clear that the financial folks expect GTA V in the next eight months.
