What with the holiday and all, here's Release List to start the week. This week brings long-awaited racer Grid 2, intriguing RTS Wargame: Airland Battle, Insomniac's shooter Fuse, the Wii U Virtual Console release of Mega Man X, and more.
It was a murky world, the Parisian nightlife of the 1920s, but sometimes a little shadow can be useful when you're an 8-year-old girl's glamorous imaginary friend. Publisher Focus Home Interactive today announced it's picked up Contrast, a puzzle-platformer where you can shift into shadow to pass obstacles in the unreal world.
For the sake of full disclosure, I never played the original Sanctum. The 2011 title from Coffee Stain Studios was one of the first games to blend together the tower defense and first-person shooter genres. But you don't need to have a full knowledge of the series to appreciate what the Swedish indie developer has created. Sanctum 2 offers a superb shooting experience, though one that's meant more for friends than solo players.
Most video game special editions range around $100-200 on the high end. Grid 2 developer Codemasters has decided not only to outdo that figure, but to blow it away with a world record that is unlikely to be topped anytime soon. The Grid 2 "Mono Edition," which only goes to a single customer, costs a cool $190,000.
Microsoft and Motorola have been continuing to trade legal blows over the last few months, and Microsoft recently scored a victory in the long-running patent war. The International Trade Commission ruled yesterday that the Xbox did not violate Motorola's wireless communications patent.
Two decades after Tower of Doom stormed arcades, Capcom is reviving their highly-regarded Dungeons & Dragons games. After spending some hands-on time with Dungeons & Dragons: Chronicles of Mystara, it's clear that the original arcade experience has been successfully remastered and enhanced without compromising the legacy of the original classics.
Starting up with Shadow over Mystara, the first thing of note is that the HD update is done with respect to the games' 32-bit roots. Everything from the medieval town houses and lush landscapes to the cloak of my selected character (which you can customize the name of), the elf, retains a lightly pixelated look, but with greater clarity and color depth.
Oh, live-action trailers! They're how publishers try to convince us that their games have deep, meaningful stories, and that our parents will definitely respect us now because look, these are actual human beings shooting men in the face and the face-shooting isn't the part we enjoy, honest! So here's a new trailer for Bungie's FPS-RPG Destiny, directed by Jon Favreau (Iron Man; Iron Man 2), which mixes live-action footage with that other hollow trailer medium, CG.
Electronic Arts has announced Need for Speed Rivals, coming from Criterion Games and EA's newest studio Ghost Games. The popular racing franchise is set to come to PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 on November 19, as well as PlayStation 4 and Xbox One later this year. EA had hinted mentioned a new game in the series was coming earlier this month.
Zombies are still in vogue, but it's surprising to see Dead Island developer Techland move onto an entirely different first-person zombie game. While Dead Island could be described as an undead take on The Elder Scrolls, their new game, Dying Light, could be quickly summed as Mirror's Edge with walkers.
Like in DICE's first-person running game, you'll very quickly run through the environment, leaping and vaulting over obstacles, and jumping onto poles, quite easily. However, you'll have a greater repertoire of moves than Faith ever did. While we didn't see any gunplay, we did see quite an impressive array of martial arts moves, with your character able to kick, jump kick, dodge to the side, and even perform a sweeping circular kick--all while remaining in first-person.
Good old Rockstar, you can rely on it to offer special edition goodies slightly more interesting than the usual cruft and rubbish that wants to fill your shelves. The developer today announced a Special Edition and Collector's Edition for Grand Theft Auto 5, offering in-game goodies like bonus outfits and vehicles as well as feelies from blueprint maps to a Los Santos cap. Also, everyone who pre-orders any old edition gets a blimp. A blimp!
Battlefield 4 looks to continue leading the charge on Electronic Arts' FPS offerings, and producer Patrick Bach has opened up a bit about the single-player campaign. Most significantly, he talked about the desire to give players more agency instead of relying on scripted events--one of the common criticisms of the series' chief competitor, Call of Duty.
Read more: 'Picking your tactics, much like you do in multiplayer' »
Infinity Ward has been working on an all new engine for Call of Duty: Ghosts, and while we discussed it our our first preview of the game, a picture--or trailer--is worth a thousand words. Activision has released a new video comparing the current graphics to Modern Warfare 3.
Given that the PlayStation 4 won't run PlayStation 3 games natively, and the Xbox 360's rocky history with emulating Xbox games, it didn't come as much surprise that the Xbox One isn't backward compatible. You'll have to keep your 360 hooked up to play the last eight years of games. Don Mattrick, president of the interactive entertainment division at Microsoft, says the demand for the feature just isn't there.
You've had a week with Metro: Last Light now and perhaps finished it, so what next? You hardly need me to tell you it's getting DLC, but now it's all properly official and everything. Publisher Deep Silver today announced four add-ons are coming over the summer, including new single-player stories. They'll be covered by a $15 season pass.
Read more: Expanding the story and giving "interesting tools" »
With the Xbox One touting the ability to do so much--surf the internet, watch TV, play games--what does that mean for players who are in-game but don't want to stop to check breaking news? Apparently, the new console has that covered.
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