Dead Rising 3 will have multiplayer cooperative zombie killing with new features. Capcom announced the co-op elements of their open-world Xbox One zombie smasher and introduced Dick, the new co-op truck driver character that can accompany Nick as he battles through the undead hordes of Los Peridos. Unlike previous Dead Rising co-op experiences, both players can run off in different directions because they will no longer be limited by an invisible tether. Gamers should also be pleased to hear that they won’t have to repeat missions if they alternate between modes.
Awesomely, the game will save whatever progress you achieve in coop, even when you revert back to single-player. This adds a unique nonlinear element to the game’s story progression. If you’re still in the middle of Chapter 1 but you join your friend’s game online and clear Chapter 3 together, Chapter 3 will become cleared on your own save file, meaning that once you clear Chapters 1 and 2, you’ll have the option of skipping 3.
Dead Rising 3 launches on November 22nd. And no, I couldn’t resist a Dick joke in the title.
Indie developer Matt Round has made a text adventure game in which you play the infamous man-eating shark. Jaws: The Text Adventure takes gamers into the mind of the ocean predator as he hunts for victims and gets into various scenarios. John Williams music not included.
How can we not talk about Grand Theft Auto V? I mean, seriously, come on? What else were we going to do? Talk about the new Metro Last Light DLC? But don’t worry, we only talk about the very early parts of GTA V! Then we force ourselves to talk about Godus, Arma 3, A Machine for Pigs, and Rayman Legends.
For the following press release, imagine Sam Kinison’s voice and his intermittent screaming:
Let’s Sing and Dance combines singing and dancing at the same time. Featuring songs such as Like A G6 by Far East Movement, LMFAO’s Party Rock Anthem or Moves Like Jagger by Maroon 5 (feat. Christina Aguilera), up to two players can dance to professional choreographies to their favorite super hits, while an unlimited number of singers can support them in the background. Using Kinect for Xbox 360, Let’s Sing and Dance scores the players’ dance moves as well as their singing performances.
Let’s Sing and Dance is out October 9th for Xboxs with Kinect. It’s ten dollars. And just to clarify, they don’t pay you the ten dollars.
Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning is closing down. Mythic Entertainment’s embattled MMO based on the Games Workshop fantasy license will be turned off on December 18th. Producer Carrie Gouskos broke the news in a reflective letter to the community.
Games Workshop has cultivated a world class IP. We were lucky enough to play in their universe for nearly a decade, with five great long years live. However, like all things – our contract has come to an end. Both Games Workshop and Mythic agreed to part ways, despite how hard it is emotionally on us to let the game go. It has been a tremendous honor to work with Games Workshop and even though we may be parting ways, our relationship with them remains strong.
According to a notice emailed to subscribers, players will no longer have the opportunity to purchase three month access codes or auto-renew for three month blocks starting today. Warhammer Online launched in September 2008.
Card Hunter features one of the most unique deck building mechanics I’ve experienced in the collectible card game genre. In most strategy games, the difference between a short sword and a mace would largely be in the damage dealt and possibly the damage type. And actually I think a short sword and mace usually deal the same damage. Anyway, Card Hunter instead assigns cards that are the very actions you perform during combat to a given piece of equipment, and these action cards form the deck you draw from while you engage in battle.
After the break, what makes this system work so well. Continue reading →
Earlier in the month, actor Vin Diesel teased the announcement of a new Riddick game made by some ex-Starbreeze developers and his company Tigon Studios. Fans of the 2004 game, Escape from Butcher Bay, were excited to hear about another entry in the series, especially if it was going to be made with some of the folks that did the original.
Get your sad trombones ready because the new game is Riddick: The Merc Files for Apple iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch coming this Friday! It’s just a tie-in app for his latest movie.
In the original Screencrush interview, Vin Diesel did acknowledge that gamers want a new full-blown Riddick game, but provided no details other than the fact that some of the original team members were being gathered. As it turns out, Gaming Corps, the Swedish studio that worked on the iOS tie-in game, was founded by former Starbreeze personnel.
The Red Cross is setting up in SimCity. EA announced that the upcoming Red Cross set DLC will allow the humanitarian aid organization to spring into action in disaster-torn cities mitigating health issues for the tiny citizens.
The downloadable content includes a Red Cross Relief Center, tents and two vehicles that will travel around a player’s city in response to a natural disaster. When a meteor strikes, an earthquake occurs or a tornado touches down, Red Cross tents will appear in various locations throughout a player’s city. Sims that would otherwise have been critically injured are instead offered aid at the Red Cross relief tents.
EA will donate at least 80% of the proceeds to the real-life Red Cross. The DLC will be available for one year.
In other SimCity news, there have been leaks of a Cities of Tomorrow expansion pack scheduled to be released in November. The pack includes multi-zone “MegaTowers” which seem to replicate the function of arcologies in SimCity 2000.
With Card Hunter out and running very well since it’s had a bit of time to stabilize, and now that I’ve talked about the basic mechanics on how to play, I thought I’d next take a minute to look at the actual cards themselves.
It’s no secret that I loves me some Diablo III. I’ve spent a few hundred hours kicking around demons and finding phat lewts while chasing down the big man, but after hitting top level and messing with it for a bit on a couple of characters I completely lost interest. Why? The loot chase might as well not exist in the PC version of Diablo III. You know what keeps people interested in Diablo games? The loot chase.
The problem with eco-terrorists is that they’re just misunderstood by the people trying to infiltrate them. That’s the premise of Zal Batmanglij’s The East, a less interesting but more lavishly cast reskinning of Sound of My Voice, which was about time travel instead of eco-terrorism. Guess which movie is more preposterous. Nope. Guess again.
These eco-terrorists are played by hale good-looking actors pretending to be filthy hippies, or at least rapscallions from some carefree place where people don’t wash their hair so much. Oregon, maybe. It’s really funny when these eco-terrorists bathe and put on suits so they can go on “a jam”. That’s what they call their operations. Jams. “This is my jam,” one of the eco-terrorists says jealously when another eco-terrorist expresses doubt. On their jams, with their hair combed and their nice clothes, they have the carefully calculated scruffy look of a trendy clothes catalog or a TV series about an apocalypse.
Brit Marling, who was fascinatingly cryptic as the guru in Sound of My Voice, just seems lost. She seems equally lost whether she’s kissing Alexander Saarsgaard, kissing Ellen Page, or fishing around someone’s guts with her fingers to look for a bullet. For the conclusion of her character arc, she eats an apple out of the trash in front of her boss, who is played by the similarly lost Patricia Clarkson. Clarkson puts on an evening gown and flies away in a helicopter. Because that’s just what the privileged do. Oh, big pharma, corporate security, and utilities companies! Flying helicopters to parties and throwing away perfectly good apples! You deserve to be eco-terrorized.
The whole movie is trite, from the politics to the performances to the premise. It’s the exact opposite of Sound of My Voice, where Batmanglij’s chief sin was picking the least interesting ending to an interesting story. But by the time The East winds up where it’s going — eating an apple out of the trash — there aren’t even any interesting endings to not be picked.
Ding dong! The witch is dead! Blizzard is removing the auction house from the PC version of Diablo III. The latest blog update says that Blizzard will be shutting down the in-game gold and real money auction houses on March 18th, 2014.
“When we initially designed and implemented the auction houses, the driving goal was to provide a convenient and secure system for trades. But as we’ve mentioned on different occasions, it became increasingly clear that despite the benefits of the AH system and the fact that many players around the world use it, it ultimately undermines Diablo’s core game play: kill monsters to get cool loot. With that in mind, we want to let everyone know that we’ve decided to remove the gold and real-money auction house system from Diablo III.”
“We feel that this move along with the Loot 2.0 system being developed concurrently with Reaper of Souls will result in a much more rewarding game experience for our players.”
The Diablo III expansion, Reaper of Souls, will launch sometime in 2014.
Activision has announced their plan that will allow gamers to upgrade a current-gen console version of Call of Duty: Ghosts to the next-gen version at a discount.
All physical copies of the PlayStation 3 version of Call of Duty: Ghosts will come with a unique code that will allow owners to download a PlayStation 4 copy of the game from the PlayStation Store for $10. Alternately, gamers can purchase the PS3 version of Ghosts directly from the PlayStation Store, which will automatically make them eligible for the $10 PS4 upgrade version. The PlayStation upgrade offer ends on March 31st, 2014.
On Microsoft’s ecosystem, the program works a little differently. According to the Xbox Upgrade web page, they will be offering two options with different pricing schemes. With the first offer, gamers can purchase a digital copy of the game from selected retailers that will come with codes for the Xbox One and the Xbox 360 versions of Ghosts for an up-front cost of $69.99. The other upgrade path is to purchase the Xbox 360 version of Ghosts directly from the Xbox Live Marketplace for $59.99. This will allow players to purchase the Xbox One version through the Marketplace later for $10 more. Both Xbox options are valid until March 31st, 2014.
The Call of Duty: Ghosts Season Pass will upgrade for free with either Microsoft or Sony’s systems provided gamers upgrade the game before the March 31st deadline.
Deep Silver and Volition have made the Saints Row IV GAT 5 DLC free on Steam. It’s free for today only. The simple joy of dressing up like the Third Street Saints’ favorite son and using the included combat knife launcher or .50 cal rifle can be yours today! You just have to neglect that other open-world crime saga. You’re totally willing to do that, right?
The expanse between summer and the holiday season known as September brings movies like The Family. Robert De Niro and Michelle Pfeiffer in the witness protection program in France. What could go wrong? Find out or skip to this week’s 3×3 at the 49-minute mark, where we discuss our favorite military commands.
