The most striking thing about Guitar Hero Live is the audience. They’re not the cartoon characters they used to be. FreeStyleGames’ reboot of the Guitar Hero games features footage of actors on a set reacting to your playing. The third-person view is flipped around and now you’re looking out of the guitar player’s eyes. Mess up and the footage switches to people booing. Rock hard and the people cheer. Your band is filled with real people as well. No stylized video game robots here.
This “live” presentation allows Activision to integrate real music videos into a jump-in-at-anytime 24-hours a day feature called Guitar Hero TV. The “note highway” appears on the video, allowing would-be rockers the ability to play and compete against each other. It’s hoped that this will take the place of DLC tracks. The good news is that access to GHTV comes with the game. No subscription is needed. The bad news is that the footage of GHTV shows the player acquiring coins as they play. Will they be used as a form of F2P currency? Activision wasn’t ready to say just yet how they would monetize GHTV.
The new guitar peripheral (seen here) is also a big change from the old models. Instead of one row of multicolored buttons on the neck, it has a row of black buttons and a row of white buttons arranged one atop the other, with three buttons each. The idea being that it’s easier for new players to learn, but offers more challenge to veteran strummers.
Guitar Hero Live is coming this Fall to PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and mobile platforms.
When I was younger, I was always in awe of the players that could pull off all of Mortal Kombat’s fatalities. It irked me that when I played those guys, I had to always settle for the normal match endings instead of doing something cool like freezing someone and shattering them, or harpooning them in the head. Is it back, back, front, back, up or back, back, up, front, back? Mortal Kombat offers players a path to easier fatalities – for a price. On the PlayStation and Xbox stores, fatality-challenged players can purchase either a 5-pack or 30-pack of expendable tokens that can be used in-game to turn the complicated finishing moves into two button inputs. These simpler kills have not yet appeared for sale to PC players. Players can always earn similar tokens in-game through play, but paying for them with real money offers a shortcut to impatient kombatants that just want to rip someone’s heart out now.
Mortal Kombat X is available on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Windows PC.
Destiny’s second expansion launches on May 19th. The House of Wolves will add a second social hub for players to run around in, so they won’t just be hanging out in The Tower. The expansion from Bungie also adds more “epic” story, another high-level raid, and new Crucible maps. Like The Dark Below expansion, veteran players can expect some nigh-impossible scenarios that will be mastered in a matter of days by the truly hardcore. House of Wolves will be $19.99 on PlayStation 4 or Xbox One if purchased on its own. The expansion is included as part of the expansion pass.
Savvy readers will note that May 19th is also the multi-platform launch date of The Witcher 3 from CD Projekt RED. This sums up my feelings on the potential scheduling conflict. That’s not even figuring in the fact that Grand Theft Auto V for PC launches later tonight with the exclusive cinematic editor.
Update: Bungie has clarified that House of Wolves won’t include a new raid. It will instead add a new battle Arena called The Prison of Elders.
That is Joel McHale playing with Batman, Vitruvius, and Wyldstyle from The Lego Movie. Why is the star of Community playing with Lego? Besides the fact that the toy – ahem – brick building model kit is really freaking cool, the video is announcing Lego Dimensions. Say hello to the next big name in videogame collectible figure systems. Warner Bros. Interactive, TT Games, and The Lego Group are teaming up to take their slice of the pie that Skylanders and Disney Infinity have been carving up.
The initial Lego Dimensions starter pack will include the Toy Pad, the three figures Joel McHale is playing with, bricks to build the gateway, and the videogame developed by TT Games. Additional content that your kids will be pestering you to buy include Level Packs, Team Packs, and Fun Packs that will provide new characters, vehicles, accessories, mission-based levels, and in-game abilities. These will be based on popular properties like Back to the Future, Ninjago, The Wizard of Oz, DC Comics, and The Lord of the Rings. Take that Disney Infinity! Warner Bros. Interactive took the opportunity to dig at the competition.
“Future expansion pack purchases will continue to work with the Starter Pack, even in the fall of next year. No compatibility chart necessary.”
The Lego Dimensions starter pack will be available on September 27th for Xbox One, Xbox 360, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, and Wii U.
Somehow we still don’t have a movie based on Halo or Assassin’s Creed, but Hollywood has started working on one for Five Nights at Freddy’s. According to the Hollywood Reporter, Warner Bros. has picked up the film rights to the low-budget horror game trilogy. The project is currently in the writing stage, but Roy Lee of Warners’ Vertigo imprint will be producing. Lee just wrapped production on the Poltergeist remake that everyone has been clamoring to see. At this early stage of production we may never actually see the movie made, but Five Nights at Freddy’s developer Scott Cawthon thinks there is the potential in his game for a good film.
“The story really lends itself to being a movie and it taps into a largely unexplored niche of horror that a lot of people will be able to relate to.”
How will the Five Nights at Freddy’s movie be any scarier than watching PewDiePie play it?
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is getting two installments of paid DLC. Back in November, developer CD Projekt Red made a big deal out of giving away 16 pieces of DLC to all buyers of The Witcher 3. Apparently, that’s not all players of the third game can expect. The announced Expansion Pass includes 30 more hours of content for $24.99. Heart of Stone will launch in October and brings a 10-hour adventure in the game’s play area. Blood and Wine will release sometime in the first quarter of 2016 and will add the new map region of Toussaint and 20 hours of content.
The Witcher 3 will launch on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC on May 19th.
We can thank 2004’s I Love Bees for the mystifying love affair between big budget game sequels and obfuscated marketing. Decode a hidden website, to read some badly written fan-fiction, to discover the clue, to get to the teaser announcement trailer! So interactive. Thankfully, most of the modern ARG attempts are less convoluted. Hunt the Truth for Halo 5 is almost refreshingly direct.
It remains to be seen if the ARG for the next Call of Duty will be simple or complicated. So far, it only required players to notice a small texture change in a couple of multiplayer levels of Black Ops II. Treyarch pushed out a tiny update to Black Ops II on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 over the weekend that added a Snapchat image link to an in-game asset. Following the link led to this enigmatic video. Is it a hint of Black Ops III or World at War II? The numbers Mason! What do they mean?
Augusta National may not be in EA Sports’ Rory McIlroy PGA Tour. The recently announced 15th installment of the popular golf series may be lacking the course for The Masters Golf Tournament when it launches. Like racing circuits or sports stadiums, real-world golf courses require licensing deals before they can appear in video games. Unfortunately for EA, their agreement with Georgia’s Augusta National has run out, putting the end of the game’s campaign in limbo. Imagine a football game without a Super Bowl or a FIFA game without a World Cup. For a large portion of the fans, it would be a stunning omission. But have no fear! EA told a worried golf aficionado that they could add Augusta later.
“Hey Lewis have the ability to add content (including new courses) post-launch and we’re exploring that option for Augusta.”
At no charge, right? Right? It’s in the game! Rory McIlroy PGA Tour is coming for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in June.
OnLive is shutting down. The cloud gaming company will be turning off their servers and closing down the streaming service on April 30th. According to the announcement, all data, including user accounts, subscriptions, and game saves will be deleted when the company turns off the lights. No refunds will be available for any game purchases, hardware, or services. Gamers that purchased Steam games from OnLive will still be able to play those games with Valve’s software, but the ability to stream them through OnLive will not be possible.
When OnLive launched in 2009, the streaming service was tied to its unique micro-console hardware. That business model never caught on despite promotions to give the hardware away. The company shifted its strategy to just offering the game streaming service in 2012, with no proprietary hardware, but with the PC space being dominated by Steam and other digital storefronts, the writing was on the wall. The company struggled through layoffs and survived with angel investment funding, but attempts to pivot to a pure software service failed.
Sony has purchased the patents that OnLive held. Although neither company has disclosed the details of the sale, the purchase fits into Sony’s broader strategy for game streaming. In 2012, Sony bought cloud computing company Gaikai and currently uses its technology to power the PlayStation Now and Remote Play features of their PlayStation ecosystem.
Dirt 3 no longer uses Games For Windows Live. Codemasters announced that they have removed GFWL from the game and converted the title to use Steamworks. As an added bonus, everyone’s copy has been upgraded for free to the Complete Edition which includes all previously released DLC. Owners of the game on Steam can check out their newly upgraded version now. Gamers that own a retail copy of Dirt 3, or a digital download from another source, should be able to enter their “CD key” (yikes) into Steam and grab the GFWL-less copy as well.
Superhot, the time-stuttering shooter, is now in Quake. Stand motionless, and everything is a black and white and red still life. Move, and the world of Quake erupts around you in gunfire, grenades, and rockets. Each level becomes a staccato puzzle of violence. Do you sprint forward and damn the monsters, or creep up to see the slow-motion firefights? “Superqot” is a free download on the Superhot site.
Go to Google Maps right now. See that little image of Pac-Man in the lower left corner. Click it. Say goodbye to your work day. Google released their April Fools’ Day treat a little early, but if you don’t tell your boss, I won’t tell mine.
Those aren’t glitches. The super-powered punches and kicks you see in the video are benefits of contaminated batches of Antizin, the anti-zombie drug in Dying Light. As a special event for April Fools’ Day, players will receive mega-boosts to the their melee attacks throughout the day. The effect will only last for the holiday, so be sure to use your powers wisely. Punch everything!
All undelivered Antizin crates have been destroyed, and we would like to assure the survivors that untainted drops will resume as of April 2nd. We urge all the survivors to use extreme care when exhibiting symptoms of the contaminated Antizin injections.
According to Techland, players have already killed 378 million zombies in Dying Light.
The Washington Post has a collection of social media tweets and videos from an incident in Nepal in which a rhino wandered into a city. The above image is from this Tweet, which raises the question, “Who in his right mind is going to stand close enough to a rampaging rhinoceros to get that picture?” Unfortunately, unlike similar incidents in Far Cry 4, someone was actually killed by the rhino.
Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege made a big splash at last year’s E3. Unlike other cops versus criminals shooters, Ubisoft’s take on the idea included ways to breach though walls and doors that actually seemed to matter. Players weren’t just tossing grenades to blow up walls or scooting into destructible hotspot patches, they were making their entry points into levels based on tactical needs. Terrorists holding a hostage in the bedroom? Blast through the adjoining study or blow through the floor of the attic and drop in! On the other side, if you think there are too many ways to gain entry to your hidey-hole, block the windows and doorways and set up your temporary barricade.
The Operators, the good guys of Rainbow Six Siege, get the highlight today. The multi-national force is made up of twenty personalities with their own specialties and skills, and one “blank slate” Recruit that allows players to customize their own character. That’s a lot of command voice yelling and breaching.
Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege is coming this year for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.
