Resident Evil 6 marketplace listing teases six player co-op
A listing for Resident Evil 6 on the Xbox Marketplace popped up over the weekend. It’s since been removed, but Eurogamer spotted six player co-op as one of the listed features. Last week’s Resident Evil 6 debut trailer showed off three pairs of potential protagonists. A co-op mode that has all of them fighting together simultaneously could be bloody marvellous.
Do check out the Resident Evil 6 trailer, if you haven’t already. The opening scene shows lone defender of ’90s curtain haircuts and treasonous fiend Leon Kennedy shooting dead the President of the United States simply because he happened to be a zombie (they’re not zombies they’re “infected” – Zombie Ed). The madness ramps up from there. It’s set for November 20 on consoles, and an ambiguous “later” on PC. Here’s the debut trailer again in case you missed it.
Max Payne 3 trailer dives, dual wields, is quite well animated
Rockstar are pretty proud of their animation tech, to the extent that they’ve hired a man to talk about it extensively over videos of Max Payne 3. He was chatting about similar things over the last trailer for Max Payne 3 as well. Perhaps they’ve just replaced Payne’s internal monologue with an animation-obsessed new narrator. The Max Payne 3 release date was set for March, but it’s dived slowly backwards through a plate of glass out of sheer force of habit, and will now be arriving on May 29 in the US and June 1 everywhere else.
Max Payne 3 release date pushed back to May
Rockstar have announced that they’re pushing back the release date for Max Payne 3 from March to May 29 in the US and June 1 internationally. “We do not take changes to our release schedule lightly,” said Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick in a statement. “This short delay will ensure that Max Payne 3 delivers the highest quality, groundbreaking entertainment experience that is expected from our Company.”
Maybe Take-Two are taking the time to polish Max Payne 3′s multiplayer mode, new territory for a series that’s so far been entirely obsessed with the life and times of its gurning protagonist. The third Max Payne looks like it’ll try to merge the shadowy film noir stylings of the first two games with the sun-baked slums of Brazil, and will be bringing some of Rockstar’s impressive animation technology to Max’s graceful dives. See some of that animation in action in this Max Payne 3 trailer. Check out our Max Payne 3 preview for more information on Max’s latest adventure.
Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City trailer shows new multiplayer modes and old faces
Resident Evil did a fantastic job of re-inventing itself from its sluggish survival horror roots for Resident Evil 4, even though the resulting PC port was pretty shoddy. Raccoon City features Resi 4′s familiar over-the-shoulder viewpoint, but promises a much greater multiplayer focus.
The trailer shows a lot of familiar foes, including the long-tongued Licker and those great big Tyrant blokes, and there’s a Heroes mode that will let you play as old school Resi heroes like Leon Kennedy and Jill Valentine. As the name suggests, it’s set in Resident Evil 2′s Raccoon city as well, making it a bit of a nostalgia-fest for Resident Evil fans. Hopefully the constant call-backs won’t smother a series with a proven ability to evolve. A PC version of Operation Raccoon City has been confirmed, but there’s no release date yet. It’s due out on consoles at the end of March.
Max Payne 3 screenshots show multiplayer combat
The latest Max Payne 3 screenshots give us our first look at the new multiplayer mode, as season favourites MaxPayneDev3, 4 and 5 take on blue team underdogs MaxPayneDev7, 8 and 9. It’s weird to see nametags floating over people’s heads in a Max Payne game, but it looks as though we’ll be able to dive through things and over things with the same dexterity as Payne himself in multiplayer
The closest comparison I can think to how the whole thing might work is John Woo’s Stranglehold, and that was completely bonkers. You could swing from chandeliers and run up and down dinosaur spines in slow motion shooting each other. Max Payne 3 is likely to take a much more serious tone judging from the screenshots below.
Spec Ops: The Line trailer has dune traps, sandstorms, marines and madmen
Spec Ops: The Line had been lost in the sands until the appearance of last month’s trailers. Here’s another one, featuring more punching, occasional shooting and narration from a suspicious sort in a dark room with a microphone. Where do these madmen keep coming from?
The Gears of War influence is obvious. Beyond the unusual setting, it’ll be interesting to see if Spec Ops does anything new with the familiar cover-to-cover scrambling of the modern third person shooter. The treacherous dunes of an unstable desert city make Spec Ops stand out from the throng, but the early trailers are heavy with the tang of testosterone. We’ll have to wait and see if Spec Ops’ characters do anything to stretch the angry-bro-in-big-armour template. It’s due out next Spring.
Get Crimecraft gold, a deluxe membership, and some Gamer Gear armour for free!
We’ve got 1,000 codes full of digital goodies for free to play MMO/third person shooter hybrid Crimecraft to give away. Crimecraft is split into a persistent city based lobby, in which players can socialise and form gangs before heading into combat instances to shoot the hell out of each other.
If that sounds like your sort of thing, you’ll want one of our codes to try it out. Check inside to see what you get and how to get it.
Sniper Elite V2 CEO on self-publishing and moon sniping
We’ve already covered Rebellion’s decision to self-publish upcoming FPS Sniper Elite on the PC, but we recently had a chance to ask the company’s CEO and creative director Jason Kingsley about how it’s all going to work.
“I’m a great supporter of the PC as a platform, I always have been,” says Kingsley. “I’m always very disappointed when people talk about the PC dying as a platform, and then eight months later PC’s flavour of the month again.”
But, as a PC gamer and developer, Kingsley finds the current situation frustrating. Having worked with the likes of Sega on Aliens versus Predator and Bethesda on Rogue Warrior, Kingsley knows what it’s like to have a big publisher breathing down the back of your neck all the way through the development process.
Sniper Elite V2′s testicular animation detailed by dev: “sniping is such an intimate thing”
Flicking through my notebook on the way back from the Sniper Elite V2 preview event, I find a completely blank page save for the word “TESTICLES” at the top. Underlined several times. It was at this point that I stopped writing and started wincing. A wince that still occurs whenever I think about what I saw and heard at developer and publisher Rebellion’s HQ in Oxford.
You see, Sniper Elite Version 2’s first-person World War II sniping is gilded with a fully dynamic skeletal slow-motion animation system. Aim for an enemy soldier’s neck and their vertebrae will shatter. Shoot at the crown of the head and it’ll smash like an egg. Go for the heart and blood will fill their thoracic cavity. And, inevitably, you can shoot their balls off.
APB Reloaded open beta hits Steam, play now for free
Multiplayer cops and robbers game APB has broken out of its cell and barged rowdily onto Steam. For more than a year, GamersFirst have been rebuilding it as a free to play game after APB’s first run came to an abrupt end after its creators, Realtime Worlds, went into administration.
It’s now called APB Reloaded, and you can download the client for free now. GamersFirst say that this is an open beta phase. They’ll continue to fix bugs and refine things as players go to war. You get to create a cop or a crook using the fantastic character creation suite, and then roam the city of San Paro in squads, where you’ll be assigned missions designed to dynamically match you up with players of a similar level. Will it work? Has it improved since it we gave it 55 in our APB review back in summer 2010? There’s only one way to find out. Are you playing it? What do you think so far?
Max Payne 3 screenshots show Max’s many faces
Things have come a long way since Max monologued his way through the first game wearing this facial expression. Three of the four new screenshots show close-ups of Max’s three new looks. There’s the youthful Don Draper Max, washed up beard-of-sorrow max and Stone Cold Steve Austin Max, all looking mean, all firing guns. What do you think of the new Max? Get ready to judge his face. Three, two, one … GO!
Max Payne 3 preview
This article originally appeared in PC Gamer UK 233.
Mull this over: it’s been eight years since we last saw Max rip a raw, bloody wound through the New York criminal underbelly. Eight years. That is old (staff writer Rich was 17 when Max Payne 2 came out). But no one has managed to take his place. Kane & Lynch tried, and they’re still trying, but for grumpy, hyperviolent third-person action, we really need some more Max.
Despite a new haircut and the sunnier setting of Sao Paulo, as I’m shown the new game in Rockstar’s offices it’s clear they’re sticking to the well-worn path that Max sourly trod before. In fact, we’re in New York. Brazil does feature a lot, but this wouldn’t be the same game without a dingy, Big Apple corridor to tear up.
Spec Ops: The Line trailers return to ruined Dubai, introduce evil flaming doom tower
Spec Ops: The Line has been AWOL for a while. When we first saw it, it was masquerading as a military man shoot featuring gruff soldiers doing war at each other in the bombed out ruins of Dubai. The Line has re-emerged, with a trailer and two montages showing some fire fights. The gruff men remain, and Dubai is still the setting, but there’s a gruesome undertone to the ruins that wasn’t there before. I’m pretty sure the giant evil flaming tower is also new. See footage of the game in action below.
Rockstar’s Dan Houser gets nostalgic about Max Payne
Rockstar’s Dan Houser has been shedding a little light on the creative proces behind the gruff, manly second sequel to Max Payne. Speaking to Gamasutra he rightly points out that the rose-tinted glasses often blur out older game’s deficits – a challenge that Rockstar faces with Max Payne’s legions of dedicated fans. “I think the challenge of nostalgia is a more profound one, because one thing about video games is your memory tends to remove the horrendous,” said Houser. “You want to appeal to the fans of the original and bring in a new audience.”
When asked about Max Payne’s hair rotation (bald with beard), Houser commented that the issue was a contentious one. “We saw a lot of people questioning our parentage, and our right to be doing this and, you know, our right to even exist,” said Houser. “There is a lot of love for this property. The fact that there’s a huge rabid fan base is something that is very much in our favor.” It sounds like Rockstar is taking Max Payne seriously, and has a huge amount of respect for the franchise. We’re so excited that the four months until its launch in March 2012 might as well be taking place in bullet time.
Is Albert De Silva GTA 5′s lead character?
The GTA V trailer provoked a lot of intrigue here at PC Gamer. Are characters from other GTA games going to make appearences? Will it be a retro setting, or will it, like IV, take place in the modern day? Will there be a poorly optimised PC mission where you have to awkwardly pilot a remote control helicopter into a maze-like building?
One element of the game that’s looking increasingly certain is the lead character, and – more specifically – the voice actor lending his tones to him. According to Eurogamer, Ned Luke’s IMDb page currently lists him as “Albert De Silva” in Grand Theft Auto V, and a tweet from actor Jimmy Taenaka said, “My fellow thespian Ned Luke is the lead voice and profile in the upcoming game by Rockstar Grand Theft Auto 5! Way to go Ned! Wholly Molly!”
