This week we talk with Vic Davis about his new game, Occult Chronicles, in which Nick Diamon’s nemesis is a baby grand. Vic also reveals his favorite character in Injustice: Gods Among Us, what he wished he’d named his company instead of Cryptic Comet, and what Microsoft and Saturday Night Live have in common. Stick around for some talk about kicking doors in Door Kickers, shooting up a dynamic galaxy in Drox Operative, and gunning for your chance to get on TV in Defiance.
You won internet! Congratulations! Microsoft is reversing their DRM and online verification policies for the Xbox One. There will be no required 24-hour online check. Singleplayer games can be played offline. Your disc-based games can be sold, lent, traded, or gifted with no restrictions.
We appreciate your passion, support and willingness to challenge the assumptions of digital licensing and connectivity. While we believe that the majority of people will play games online and access the cloud for both games and entertainment, we will give consumers the choice of both physical and digital content. We have listened and we have heard loud and clear from your feedback that you want the best of both worlds.
Enjoy your victory internet! The race for console supremacy just got heated.
EA Sports’ FIFA and Ultimate Team trading card feature has had some ugly issues with security. One of the more popular techniques involved unscrupulous folks accessing other players’ Xbox Live accounts and using the saved credit card information to buy hundreds of dollars worth of points. The thieves would then transfer the points to another Live account to buy Ultimate Team trading card packs. We had a few forum members of Quarter to Three that were hit with variations this exploit.
With the next-gen consoles’ emphasis on a cloud-based future, one can imagine that the bad guys are already thinking up ways to foil the system. EA told Eurogamer that they are thinking very seriously about this issue.
Wilson told us that Microsoft and Sony are re-architecturing their networks to increase security, adding double authentication among other things. As for EA, Wilson said the company has started investing in a brand new ID system to be built on top of the first-party networks that will be rolled out this year. “That should make gamers feel better,” Wilson said.
“We haven’t had any major or serious attacks. You never say never, but we understand the value of information and privacy and the value of maintaining the integrity of the data. We are investing heavily – I mean heavily – in that and I believe first parties also are.”
Both Microsoft and EA maintain that none of the Live account breaches involving FIFA were the direct result of hacking. They point to phishing and user error as culprits. EA hopes that its next-gen approach to security will help solve the issues.
2K Marin and Take-Two Interactive announced that buyers of the Xbox 360 version of The Bureau: XCOM Declassified will get access to an exclusive chunk of DLC. This as-yet unnamed DLC pack will be narrative-driven. Morgan Gray, development director at 2K Marin, says that the XCOM setting provides ample material for many stories.
“The alternate 1962 universe that we’ve created for The Bureau is vast and there are many more stories to tell about the early days of XCOM. We’re excited that our stories will provide a new perspective on the war effort, much like how our critically acclaimed Minvera’s Den DLC for BioShock 2 allowed us to present a unique perspective of Rapture.”
If you PC or PS3 players are jealous of the exclusive content your Xbox friends get to pay for, you can always one-up those guys by preordering from one of the retail chains offering the Codebreakers pre-order DLC. That will show them!
Devolver Digital’s Hotline Miami got players’ blood pumping with frenetic pig-masked killing action tuned to a pulsing soundtrack. Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number promises more violence and mystery.
Step into the murderous mind of several distinct characters – each with their own motivations and methods of execution – as storylines intersect and reality slips away into a haze of neon and carnage. Blistering combat, an unmistakable visual style, and a powerfully intense soundtrack will once again push you to the limit and questioning your own thirst for blood.
Devolver Digital is aiming for a late 2013 release.
Michael J. Bassett might be the new Paul W.S. Anderson when it comes to translating videogaming absurdity into cinematic silliness. So if you’re willing to sit through a Resident Evil movie, there’s no reason not to sit through the latest Silent Hill movie. Bassett is an ideal man for the job, considering his Solomon Kane is another one of the best worst things you can see all week. Say what you will about the guy’s movies, but he’s got style and he knows how to gather watchable actors. This Silent Hill features Carrie-Anne Moss as Edgar Winters, Malcolm McDowell as a really lame boss fight, Sean Bean sitting out most of the action, Martin Donovan as a detective you’ll forget was in the movie before it’s over, and Michelle Williams look-a-like Adelaide Clemens showing the sort of commitment that will serve her better in her small role in The Great Gatsby and in her kick-ass turn in Versus director Ryuhei Kitamura’s surprisingly good No One Lives.
Of course, you don’t come to Silent Hill for the human players. Revelation does an admirable job collecting a bunch of cool sets and weird creatures, all loosely connected by what might be a story. Pyramid Head moonlights variously as a carny, a prison warden with an effective solution for grabby inmates, and even a Big Daddy. The nurses are disturbingly erotic in a way that I’m not sure I noticed playing the videogames. And the movie’s counterpart to Silent Hill 2’s disturbing mannequin rape is a wonderfully creepy introduction to a new creature as memorable as anything from the games. What sense does it make? What story does it tell? What do we find out about the town itself? What motivates the characters? Forget it, Tom. It’s Silent Hill.
Silent Hill: Revelation is on VOD, Blu-Ray, DVD, and Netflix.
