Editorial: Call of Duty fans deserve better than Rezurrection
Call of Duty: Black Ops Rezurrection came out on Friday. The pack adds five new arenas to Call of Duty: Black Ops’ zombie survival mode, except four of them aren’t new at all. Nacht der Untoten, Verruckt, Shi No Numa and Der Riese are all “remastered” versions of zombie maps from Call of Duty: World at War, released in 2008.
That means 80% of the map pack is made up of recycled, three year old content. What’s more, those who bought the Hardened and Prestige editions of Call of Duty: Black Ops received the new maps as part of the deal last year. The asking price? £11.50 / $14.99. This has to stop.
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim voice cast includes Academy Award nominees and Wonder Woman
Bethesda have announced the voice cast behind The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. The man who voices the big bad from Pixar’s Up, Christopher Plummer will voice an elder Greybeard philosopher monk called Arngeir who lives “in silent isolation atop Skyrim’s largest mountain.” That’s right. One of the lead voice star in Skyrim plays a man who lives lives in lonely silence several thousand feet above the ground. Hopefully we’ll hear from him at some point. Read on for the rest of the impressive cast.
The Darkness 2 trailer tells the story so far, features horrible evil arm assassination
The new trailer for the Darkness 2, spotted on Blue’s News, gives us a full recap of the horrible things that happened to Jackie over the course of the first game, which is nice, because the first game didn’t come out on PC. It’s your classic happy go lucky boy meets supernatural entity tale, really. Boy meets evil entity, boy is possessed by supernatural entity, grows evil arms, goes on rampage to avenge girlfriend and lives happily ever after. It looks as though the sequel will be even more violent than the first game, and will let us dual wield machine-guns and demonic arms. It’s due out next February.
Battlefield 3 beta goes live! What you need to know
You can almost hear the CPUs creaking with delight. Battlefield 3 beta keys are getting sent out today! That means there’s a chance you’ll be playing Battlefield 3 this afternoon. Here’s what you need to do to get involved.
ITV documentary can’t tell the difference between gaming and reality; mistakes Arma 2 for secret IRA film
Here’s an upload of a video from a recent ITV documentary into Colonel Gaddhafi’s support of the IRA. It contains shocking footage of a helicopter being shot down using weapons allegedly supplied by that baddie.
Except. Umm. It’s actually ArmA 2.
Words. Fail. What. How. For goodness sake. UK media, can you stop being shit please.
If you’re looking for the footage in the documentary in the ITV player – it’s online here. The footage is in place from 28 minutes, 20 seconds.
Update: Here’s a youtube video that appears to be the same footage. I think we can start to understand how this happened.
(via the Bohemia forums)
Update 2:
We’ve been in touch with Bohemia Interactive’s CEO, Marek Spanel. He tells us that Bohemia weren’t approached by ITV for permission to use the footage, and had no idea that Arma 2 was appearing in a war documentary on British TV. Understandably, they’re quite surprised. “We are going to try to get some explanation from ITV how this could have happenned,” says Spanel.
“Sometimes creativity and realism in our games lead into crazy results and this is one of such example. I just briefly watched the entire documentary and I still can not believe it as it is overall very serious and lenghtly feature,” he adds.
“We are surprised our games apparently may look real enough to some users already that they can not tell it is not real life footage.”
We’ve reached out to ITV for comment. Check out the videos of ArmA below for a sense of exactly how realistic the military shooter really is.
Mojang vs. Bethesda: Scrolls battle heading to court
Mojang’s fight to retain the name for their upcoming fantasy card trading game will go to court. It’s the result of a legal challenge made by Bethesda earlier this year claiming that the word “Scrolls” infringes on their The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim trademark. Notch cheerily announced the news earlier on Twitter.
“The Scrolls case is going to court! Weee! :D”
Notch’s first assumption that “this is hopefully just lawyers being lawyers” doesn’t seem entirely true in the light of a looming court case. It seems that Bethesda are very serious about getting Mojang to change the name of their new game. It could set a worrying precedent, and certainly screw over the scribe-sim I’m currently working on, The Elder Elders: Scroll of Scrolls (V). If only this lawsuit could somehow all be settled with a game of Quake 3.
Guild Wars 2 beta to arrive “this year for sure,” new footage shows public quests and PvP
Lead content designer on Guild Wars 2, Colin Johanson has told Eurogamer that Guild Wars 2 is on track to go into beta by the end of this year. It’s currently in closed friends and family alpha testing. The success of the closed beta phase will decide the date of the open beta, and the eventual release date next year.
“If we tear through the beta and everything’s super positive then obviously it’ll come out faster. And if we go into the beta process and we see things we want to change, then we have the luxury of having the time to be able to sit down and fix that stuff,” said Johanson. “We really don’t know when release is going to be, because we want time to react to things and upgrade and everything.”
There’s no way to register for a place on the beta yet. The best way to keep abreast of beta announcements is to sign up for the Guild Wars 2 newsletter on the official Guild Wars 2 site. Johanson confirms one thing for certain, “we’re going to go into closed beta by the end of this year for sure.”
Guild Wars 2 got a showing at the Eurogamer Expo this weekend, and RPS have highlighted 40 odd minutes of footage, showing The Cynical Brit’s Total Biscuit battling through public quests and a bit of PvP as both a Sylvari Necromancer and a sneaky Norn. You’ll find the videos embedded below.
Total War: Shogun 2 patch to add free maps and castles alongside Rise of the Samurai, out today
An enormous patch for Total War: Shogun 2 will add new maps, castles and a huge list of bug fixes and balance changes along with the release of the Rise of the Samurai DLC later today. The Creative Assembly have posted a full patch list on the Total War forums and it is HUGE.
The highlight has to be the free castle pack. This adds three new castle structures including one top tier fortress, which will be “considerable larger than any other castle in Shogun 2.” The new structures won’t turn up in the Rise of the Samurai pack, but will be added to normal campaigns, and can appear across five different maps. A new time limit in siege battles will encourage attackers to be a bit more proactive. You’ll now have 45 minutes to climb the walls and take the central keep.
The patch also adds eleven new battle maps, and a number of tweaks have been made to the multiplayer side. Changes made by the patch will let The Creative Assembly hold free XP weekends, and there are dozens and dozens of balance changes. Get the full list below.
Batman: Arkham City trailer has Harley Quinn and one armed clowns, Joker’s wild
That Joker doesn’t really have a master plan, does he? He’s just making it up as he goes along. Here he is in the latest Batman: Arkham City trailer, face scarred from the results of the rubbish boss fight at the end of Arkham Asylum. He’s back, and he’s brought Harley Quinn, and an army of enormous one armed clowns. Where does he get his hired help? We’ll never know. The Joker will line them up and the Dark Knight will knock them down, and it will be awesome, probably. Especially if Rocksteady can throw in some more worthwhile boss encounters. Arkham City has been pushed back a bit on PC, and will now be out sometime in November.
Activision: Services like Call of Duty Elite to soon be a “necessity” for games
Game-specific social networks are all the rage right now, with Call of Duty Elite, Blizzard’s Battle.net, and BF3′s Battlelog leading the charge, to name a few. But are they here to stay, or will they be in social network heaven making angsty MySpace posts about their failures before too much longer? Activision, naturally, doesn’t even doubt for a second that it’s the former. VP of digital Jamie Berger didn’t stop there, though. He claimed that future blockbuster games will go the way of Blockbuster if they don’t hop aboard the social bandwagon.
DXHR Missing Link DLC to feature non-outsourced, option-packed boss fight
Tom’s preview of Human Revolution’s upcoming Missing Link DLC already made it sound pretty interesting, but here’s a cherry for your cybernetic sundae: The whole episode culminates in a boss fight of Eidos Montreal’s own design. RIP, GRIP. You really, er… well, honestly, you won’t be missed.
CD Projekt “assures” that 2.0 isn’t last Witcher 2 update, teases Witcher 3
The Witcher 2′s hotly anticipated 2.0 patch, perhaps its witchiest to date, is just around the corner, but CD Projekt’s not letting Geralt hang up his monster-killing swords and lady-killing, well, equipment just yet. There’s plenty more on the way, the developer said during the Eurogamer Expo. As for precisely when it’s coming, well, that’s a bit less clear.
Dead Space 3 details possibly leaked
The next Dead Space game finds that Isaac Clarke has finally escaped doomed starships and space stations, and is safe and sound on a nice, homey ice planet. OR IS HE? Probably not, according to a Siliconera report spotted by Eurogamer. The report comes from a source which previously revealed accurate information about EA’s upcoming Syndicate game.
According the leaked info, Clarke survives a crash-landing on an ice planet and initially believes he is the sole survivor. However, he finds a wounded survivor who tells him that a number of others headed off to another facility, including Ellie (a major character from the second game). Clarke tries to join up with them.
The report also details a sequence where Isaac and his companions are scaling a mountain while possibly being hunted, and the enemies are being referred to as “the hive mind.”
The new setting is a shift for Dead Space, but as The Thing scientifically proved, isolated arctic research stations are the creepiest.
Darkness II director talks narrative and design
Digital Extremes is building The Darkness II around its writing, according to a Gamasutra interview with project director Sheldon Carter. It’s an approach that lets writer and comic author Paul Jenkins shape the narrative experience that Digital Extremes places at the forefront of the game.
Carter explains that while Jenkins writes the script, the Digital Extremes team makes adjustments to it based on gameplay needs. For example, the demo shown at conventions opens with mobster Jackie Estacado nailed to a cross while his demonic powers are siphoned away. Carter explains that scene was the product of how Jenkins and the development team influence each other’s work.
Need for Speed: The Run trailer reveals avalanches and resisting arrest
I have long-since given up trying to predict which Need for Speed games will be amazing, and which ones will be high-speed accidents. This latest trailer for Need for Speed: The Run certainly looks like it has the right premise for a great action movie. As for whether that will translate into a great action / racing game? Your guess is as good as mine.
Still, I am excited about the idea of trying to make a proper racing game that also features credible combat and foot-chases. It will be a tough balance to strike, especially because one clunky game element can sour the whole experience. But the payoff could be huge for those of us who like our car chases with a bit of context. Not that I really need a reason to drive a super-car into a Rocky Mountain avalanche at full speed.
