DmC: Vergil's Downfall is available for download today. If you haven't read Evan's review yet, I highly recommend you do. But If you want to see te DLC in action, along with a visual breakdown of a few of the major differences between Vergil and Dante, check out the video above.
With the release of Disney's Oz: The Great and Powerful just days away, the house of the mouse teams up with Imangi Studios once more for another very special version of Temple Run.
Where Temple Run: Brave was a Disney take on the original game, Temple Run: Oz is a Baum-ified version of Temple Run 2, meaning it's prettier, faster, sleeker, and unafraid to go off the beaten path for a relaxing balloon ride. The combo makes sense. Roads are big in Oz, and there's no shortage of angry monkeys ready to give James Franco a chase.
Temple Run: Oz is now available on iTunes for $.99. Just remember to turn your phone off before the movie starts.
1) I sure wish that a game like Battlefield 3 or any other online shooter could be as fun for neophytes like me as it appears in this trailer for the final expansion to Battlefield 3, but I'm sure I'd just die a lot if I tried to hop in and play.
2) There is plenty of grumbling about how Battlefield publisher EA and other big companies stretch their games out with paid, post release content that maybe should have been part of the initial launch version of the game. There are a lot of anxieties about that approach, where the publisher does everything they can think of to get you to pay more for the game and uses everything but superglue to compel you to not take the game's disc out of your system tray (an increasingly obsolete notion as games go digital, I know).
For all the worries about how this could go down, this week and next are going to give us great examples of how it did go down.
This trailer up here, for Battlefield: End Game is the fifth major piece of paid DLC for a game that was released in the fall of 2011. It's out starting today*. Out today is Mass Effect 3: Citadel, is the fourth single-player expansion for a game that was released in March 2012. That game also got multiple multiplayer expansions. In addition, both games received numerous, substantial patches. All of this post-release content turned both games into year-long affairs, making them more like short-run subscription games with episodic updates than like the fire-and-forget releases of old.
I've not played nearly enough of Battlefield to judge how this went (pre-End Game, this guy had). Any judgment on this whole Mass Effect project won't be rendered until one of us on the team has played Citadel.
What we can know now is what a one-year(-plus) worth of support looks like from two very different styles of EA game. I have little doubt that this is going to be more of our gaming future: huge games with gobs of post-release content. They won't sell us a game that's "x" number of hours. They'll sell us a game that's "x" number of months. They'd already teased this back when they'd promise two years of support for a Dragon Age. That's the kind of gaming reality we're now in, at least from EA.
Bonus third thought: Here's the release calendar for Battlefield 3, copied from an e-mail from EA public relations. Yes, this is modern gaming, too:
Aw, look at the little bear. Isn't he cute? Oh my god he's got a little scarf. And look, he's followed around by colorful fireflies. I bet his game is as light and fluffy as his widdle ears. Wait, what's this? These jumps are timed? I've got to do what? Dammit, I'm dead. Again. This is one little bastard of a teddy bear.
Don't let Penumbear's sweet looks fool you—this is not a game for the easily frustrated casual gamer. These 100 levels are classic puzzle platforming, and by classic I mean completely unforgiving and challenging to the point of wanting to fling your iPad against the nearest iPad-breaking thing.
The game's clever name (penumbra plus bear) is backed by even more clever light-based game mechanics. The terrible teddy's firefly friend has the power to turn lights on and off, which goes nicely with Penumbear's ability to walk along the edges of lights and shadows. Switching lights on and off isn't just an ambiance thing—those beams of light are paths to walk or walls to block. Some lights reveal blocks to hop on. Others are the bane of shadowy denizens of the castle our hero is attempting to escape, dissolving them on contact.
When I started Penumbear I expected something light and fluffy, aimed at the less-skilled gamer. While early levels met that expectation, soon I was faced with some of the toughest platforming challenges I'd face in years. The introduction of blinking lights was particularly brutal. Those precisely-timed jumps caught me so off-guard I had to put the game down to keep my cool.
And then I went back, because no damn teddy bear is going to make me look the fool, even if he does have a snuggly-buggly nose and dashing scarf.
A report earlier this morning, citing unidentified sources, suggested that Electronic Arts had terminated its Dead Space franchise—including work on an unannounced Dead Space 4—in light of poor sales of Dead Space 3. The game's studio says the rumors are false, and EA itself disputes the portrayal of Dead Space as a troubled brand.
"The reports of our death were greatly exaggerated," said Dino Ignacio, a member of the Dead Space development team, over Twitter. Another Visceral Games developer, writing on NeoGAF, called the rumor "completely false based on my knowledge."
An EA spokesperson at first told Kotaku that the company wouldn't comment on rumor or speculation, but later added: "While we have not announced sales data for Dead Space 3, we are proud of the game and it remains an important IP for EA." In another statement to Kotaku, echoing comments made elsewhere, she called the rumor "patently false."
When they aren't busy making tablet gaming computers, Razer has been known to toss out the odd gaming peripheral. Today the company assembles a team of official collector's edition League of Legends peripherals that, despite my hopes, did nothing to improve my in-game performance.
A big part of the problem is the League of Legends collector's edition mouse ($89.99). It's a recolored edition of the Razer Naga Hex, the six-button version of Razer's 12-button MMO mouse. The Naga Hex was created specifically for multiplayer online battle arena games like League of Legends, giving players quick thumb access to the all the buttons they could ever need to win the day. In total it has 11 programmable buttons controlling, on top of a 5600dpi laser sensor. It's an amazing little mouse.
So why didn't it help me? First off, I suck, and no machine is going to tell me otherwise. Secondly, I've been using the standard Naga Hex for months now, so one that comes in another color with an unlock code for League of Legends champion Tryndamere is not going to help me.
And then there's the Goliathus collector's edition League of Legends mouse mat ($19.99). It's built for speed, and I do feel that I've gotten just a little bit faster at losing. Insults from other players come more quickly as well.
The basic problem is that I cannot be helped.
"We're ecstatic to be able to bring to market peripherals that are custom-designed for domination in the most competitive e-Sports title today," says Min-Liang Tan, Razer co-founder, CEO and creative director via official announcement. "Partnering with Riot Games is a step forward for hard-core PC gamers everywhere. We have been strong supporters of the League of Legends scene since its inception and continue to sponsor some of the world's top teams."
See? Not even a CEO and creative director quote can help me.
I am a firm believer that one should only use licensed peripherals for a game they are good at, or at least believe they are good at. That should cover just about every League of Legends player—except me, of course.
![Thief Reboot Coming To PC And Next-Gen Consoles In 2014 [UPDATE]](http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/18gkemx46jghhjpg/original.jpg "Thief Reboot Coming To PC And Next-Gen Consoles In 2014 [UPDATE]")
UPDATE: Game Informer's next cover is Thief, a reboot for the series by Eidos Montreal that will be out next year for PC, PS4, and whatever the next Xbox is called.
The game is no longer called Thief 4.
The April issue of Game Informer has more details on the new stealth game, which looks a whole lot like Dishonored. Not that that's a bad thing.
Original story:
Here's a brand new look at Thief 4, thanks to leaked screenshots obtained by a user named Gamesmaniac on the European social network VK.com. Head over there for all the shots.
According to a Google translation of the Russian site gamemag.ru, Thief 4 is being prepared for next-gen consoles, and it will lose the 4. Just Thief now.
This lines up with hints and teases we've heard about the Game Informer cover reveal today, which is planned for 12pm Eastern. Game Informer has promised that they'll be revealing a next-gen title, and in response to rumors yesterday that the cover will be Thief 4, GI editor Andy McNamara said that the cover doesn't have a 4 on it. Maybe it's just Thief now?
Ready to feel like a teenager again? No? Me neither. But one part of gamers' youths will coming back in the form of four mutated reptiles who wield deadly martial arts weapons.
After a report surfaced yesterday of a new TMNT game, Activision has released info on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows:
Activision Publishing, Inc. today announced that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles™: Out of the Shadows, a new, digital download-only video game inspired by Nickelodeon's new hit animated series, will be available this summer. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows is a third-person brawler game set in New York City, taking gamers through articulated, true-to-life environments filled with action-packed adventures as Leonardo, Donatello, Michelangelo, and Raphael. Featuring an original hyper-realistic 3D-style, gamers can experience four-player online co-op play while stomping out the Foot Clan and unleashing turtle torment on any foe that gets in their way.
With an immersive world, deep character development, and an intuitive, skill-based combat system built around combo-driven action, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows puts ‘Turtle Power' in players' hands.
Dev Studio Red Fly is making the game. Previously, they have worked on several Wii and 3DS titles including Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II, Thor: God of Thunder and Ghostbusters: The Video Game (which was also on PS2). Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows should be out this summer as a digital download on Xbox Live, PSN and Steam.
Tomb Raider's reboot as a video game seems to have worked out well, so Crystal Dynamics is comfortable talking about their reboot plans for the film, too.
Speaking to Variety, Darrell Gallagher said his studio is working with GK Films, producers of "Rango" and "The Departed." Gallagher's remarks stress that whatever the next Tomb Raider film is, it'll be consistent with the tone of the game releasing today. "We didn't want to see a film version that was a continuation of the old ‘Tomb Raider' films," he said. "They are working from this new take that we've given them."
A rebooted "Tomb Raider" movie, departing from the voluptuous Angelina Jolie portrayal of Lara Croft to a steelier, yet vulnerable adventurer, has been talked about before. ComingSoon.net discussed the project with Graham King (he runs GK Films) back in 2011.
‘Tomb Raider' Reboot Intros Younger Lara Croft [Variety via ComingSoon.net]
This morning at 12:01 AM Eastern time, my copy of the SimCity digital deluxe version unlocked in EA's Origin service. For the next 20 minutes I experienced download failures, until finally the game began to come down the pipes. While it updated I napped, and when I woke at 3:30 AM the game was ready to play. Apparently I was one of the lucky ones—for many people the game still hasn't even unlocked.
I woke up this morning to reports of a SimCity launch disaster. While the problems with my download, brought on by the sudden rush of everyone that wanted to play the game assaulting the servers all-at-once, were quickly resolved, reports of download failures and network congestion continued well into the early morning hours. Further confusing matters, the initial download is relatively small, with the majority of the game's data being delivered via the launcher. Folks pleased with the quick Origin download were met in-game with a "Processing Large File" meter that took hours to fill (if it finished filling)—that was the actual download.
Completely unrelated to network congestion, EA Support is filled with complaints of the game not unlocking in Origin for folks in territories where 12:01 AM was supposed to be go time. Looking through the support forums I am seeing folks with the issue having some success re-buying the game, so it looks like live purchases unlock just fine—mainly preorder customers are having the issue. Not a very nice loyalty reward.
On top of those issues, our friends over at Rock, Paper, Shotgun point out that some players in the early hours of launch reported experiencing 30-minute server queues just to get into the game once installed. That's 30 minutes even if you just wanted to start up a private region and play by yourself, the always-connected nightmare made flesh.
And here I sit, still connected. I disconnect, log back in, and everything is fine. I've tried each of the servers available, and I have yet to encounter a queue. There seem to be plenty of people playing. I've not encountered any serious bugs or hiccups. It's running just as well as it did this past weekend. I realize it's an illusion, but I feel like I'm the man on the one spot of dry land as the flood waters rage.
I've contacted EA about the launch woes. I expect they'll get back to me once they get a break from dealing with the launch woes.
