Hey, one last Game of the Year thing before we sign off for the rest of 2014. JV and DLeazy hooked up in Chicago to lay down a little lyrical magic about the year in video games. Here's what JV had to say about this...
"Instead of doing a typical top 10 list this year, Dave and I drank a bottle of rum and recorded this song for you guys. We think it is pretty stupid and hope you do, too. :-)
...And special thanks to Justin who let us use one of the beats he did for Ballers back-in-the-day. You are, and will always be, one of the most talented producers in Hip Hop.
So there you go. Johnny V and Lang finishing it off with a Just Blaze beat. Classic material.
I just want to say thanks to everyone who contributed to our guest lists this year, and thanks again to Alex for corralling it all. We tried to make some unexpected moves with the lists this year while also sticking to some of the past favorites. Hopefully people dug it. And, of course, thanks to Jason, Drew, and Vinny for handling the production on our videos. Hope everyone liked those, it was fun to put that stuff together. Oh, and thanks to Brad for handling all those podcasts. Those things can be monsters. Thanks to Patrick and his future employer for sticking it out with us over this last stretch here to get the Game of the Year stuff finished up, too. And thanks to you all for listening and watching. Have a great rest of the year, everyone, and let's get it in 2015!
For as picky as people can get when you say that you don't like something, saying that you are interested in something is what really brings 'em out of the woodwork. Usually that's because you're talking about something you like and someone else wants to know why your list or podcast or whatever didn't include whichever game they're positively rabid about. This manifests in weird ways, from subtle digs to full-on lash-outs.
With all of that in mind, there's no way to build a list of upcoming games that have me wanting to know more without trigging a similar response. But I still found myself wanting to say a few things about upcoming games. These are games that I hope come out in 2015, but these days it's impossible to know, right? While it's weird to say that I hope these games are good--ultimately, I want every game to be great because as someone who plays a lot of games I'd rather not play bad ones--these are projects that I'm currently keeping an eye out for. These are games I want to see more of. There are still plenty of questions surrounding most of these--some more than others, as you'll see--but something about what's already been shown or the potential at hand has me interested enough to say a little bit about it here. I didn't want to limit it to 10 games or some other arbitrary limit, but I also didn't want to go on forever about every single announced game that has at least one interesting feature in it.
So here's what's top of mind for me these days:
Every few months I go through a phase where I remember that Memory of a Broken Dimension is an announced project, and go hunting for more information. I'm hesitant to classify MOBD, but there's a released build that we looked at awhile ago that has elements of text-prompt hacking mixed with a beautiful, glitched-out first-person situation that appears involve the solving of puzzles, in a sense. But that was a while ago. Since then, the game has gone through Steam Greenlight and is said to be on track for a 2015 release on PC, Mac, and Linux. I love the look of this thing. I could stare at it for hours. Assuming it makes it out this year, I fully intend to stare at it for hours.
Blendo Games' Gravity Bone and Thirty Flights of Loving are games I sort of perpetually keep meaning to play. Having skipped those (so far), it might be a little weird that I'm really looking forward to Quadrilateral Cowboy. But the concept--rigging up heists and hacking your way around security systems by writing little bits of pseudocode--sounds amazing. Considering Quadrilateral Cowboy has the same art style as those other games, I should probably spend the time I have left catching up on Blendo's past works.
I guess this is just "Crackdown" right now, and it's not much more than an E3 trailer. Can you reboot a franchise after only two games? Whatever, it hardly matters. Crackdown interests me for a few reasons, but I guess my main feeling is one of curiosity. Can a superpower-focused open-world game work in the wake of Saints Row IV, which basically out-Crackdowns Crackdown? Is the Agility Orb still an effective collectible, or have other open-world games with zillions of paper-thin side missions and trillions of trinkets to grab soured the concepts for everyone else? I certainly wanted to enjoy Crackdown 2. I even played that weird, location-based Crackdown game for Windows Phone that no one else has probably even heard of. I'd like to think that a new Crackdown could still be fantastic cooperative fun. We'll see.
What do we know about this new version of the sequel to Maniac Mansion? Nothing! Is Day of the Tentacle one of the best adventure games ever made? Yes, absolutely! By the time Grim Fandango was released I had already moved on from the adventure genre and I was pretty squarely focused on covering console games for a living at that time, which ate into whatever time I had to play PC games. So I have zero connection to it and the announcement of a new version of that isn't something I can get excited about. DOTT is my wheelhouse. DOTT is fantastic. I was thinking about playing this again anyway, so I might as well save my left-handed hammer for... whatever this new version ends up being.
DID YOU KNOW that WKRP's Richard "Les Nessman" Sanders provided the voice of Bernard in the original game? And that the game was sold in two configurations, a floppy disk-based version without voices at all and a CD-ROM with the magic of real speech? It's true!
Let's assume that, after a year off, EA is going to get Ghost Games back on the hook for a new driving game for 2015. The Need for Speed franchise has been up and down several times over the decades, and 2013's NFS Rivals was a disappointing game that came close to being great. It's time for the franchise to reposition itself, and you'd like to think that taking 2014 off will give everyone enough time to get it right. I'm in the mood for a game that features real cars but doesn't take itself ultra-seriously like a Gran Turismo or Forza would. The Crew was most definitely not the game I was looking for.
I do not worship at any Metroid-shaped altar, whether first-person or third. But Tom Happ might. Casting his game, Axiom Verge, as a simple Super Metroid clone would seem to sell it incredibly short, though. It certainly takes cues from that seminal work, but goes further. As someone who has certainly loved games of this style before (Symphony of the Night, Shadow Complex), Axiom Verge seems to be making some really interesting moves while straddling a great-looking line that recalls the retro style of the 16-bit era without sticking to it too slavishly. At least that's what it looks like from a distance, anyway. I've kept away from preview builds of it so far and look forward to playing it for myself. Sounds like it's on for Spring?
Mortal Kombat X is going through the same, slow character reveal process that Mortal Kombat 9 did, but I feel like it's not hitting as hard or stirring up quite as much fervor as the previous game did. Perhaps that's because MK9 was such a solid return to form for a franchise that took some serious twists and turns throughout the PS2/Xbox era. MKX is taking some neat-looking risks, both with its roster and with how it uses those fighters, with stance choices prior to a fight that give you three different takes on each fighter. It's also a chance for the franchise to introduce a big batch of new characters, which is perhaps why these character reveals seem so sluggish. It's hard to get excited about a new character like D'Vorah until you get to play with it for yourself. It's especially difficult when you start to think about the new characters brought in during that MK5-7 stretch and how MKvsDC and MK9 felt like strong reactions designed to get away from Bo' Rai Cho, Hsu Hao, Hotaru, and all those other forgettable additions to the roster. Hopefully Ferra/Torr, Cassie Cage, Kotal Kahn and the rest of MKX's new additions will fare a bit better.
Dear 17-Bit Games,
Please stop moving to Kyoto or whatever it is you're doing and finish your game.
Yours, Jeff Gerstmann
In playing bits and pieces of Galak-Z over the years, I've really come to appreciate its classic anime-influenced style and the way it moves. The developers also talk very big about its procedurally generated nature, which is something that's a little harder to see during a short demo, but is something that should help make this thing pretty rad when it's released. Whenever that finally is.
Just Cause and the recent Far Cry games occupy a similar space in my mind. Just Cause, obviously, is a bit more destruction-focused, but both games thrive when things get chaotic, and the moments that emerge from said chaos transforms these games from fairly standard twists on the open-world formula into something incredibly special. Hopefully Just Cause 3 will keep all of that up and running. Throw in a few awful/amazing accents along the way and multiplayer that supports thousands of people doing a bunch of weird shit and you've ticked almost every box on my Just Cause Sequel Sheet. OK, the multiplayer probably won't come as a part of the core release, but... well, JC3 had better be just as moddable as its predecessor was, how about that? OK?
SUPER
HOT
SUPER
HOT
SUPER
HOT
I get a knot in my stomach when I think about Mario Maker. It's the thing I always wanted and it might not come together the way I've always wanted it. I hate being in this situation, because it feels like I'm picking apart a thing that'll probably get 90% of the way there, at least. But tools to easily make, play, and share your own Super Mario Bros. levels are some of the most powerful tools in the world. You're essentially being handed the building blocks, the original scriptures of modern gaming and told to "do whatever."
But it comes with caveats. Physics! The game will feature different tile sets from different Mario games but the early word makes it sound like they'll all feel the same. Nope. That's the wrong move, all the way. Make the SMB1 tileset feel like that game. Make Mario World feel like Mario World, damn it. Make sure that people can create packs of levels, functional pipes, new warp zones, and all of the trimmings. Essentially, if you're going to do this, Nintendo, please do it right. Please.
You wouldn't necessarily expect Nintendo to get behind a multiplayer shooter, especially one about splats, platoons, and... spittoons? I don't know, I played a few matches of this at E3 last year and thought it controlled really well, offered a unique take on competitive shooting, and offered some unique tactical options with its weird ink/squid moves. Painting territory to gain ground on the enemy is a cool idea, and the whole thing looked great. It also controlled a lot better once I turned off the tilt controls, which didn't make aiming much fun. Hopefully it'll be good enough to draw in a steady community of players when it's released later this year.
The Tony Hawk franchise deserves a proper reboot. with Tony Hawk getting out on Twitter awhile ago and then recently reconfirming his upcoming console game at Sony's CES keynote (and saying that it'll come to PS4), it looks like 2015 will be the year for this return. But what is it? Who's making it? Robomodo? Some other, unnamed studio? Will it be a big disc game? Will it have Activision's Sierra logo stamped onto it and ship out as a downloadable? I'm excited to hear the answers.
You know what? Forget all those games. What about the sequels and games that people should be making? You know the ones. Let's cover a few, and I'm sure you have plenty of your own to add.
Tony Hawk is coming back, EA. Bring back Skate and reignite the weird competition between two franchises that had vastly different goals while both sort of simulating the same type of activity! It'd be worth it for the big, dumb opening FMV sequence alone, wouldn't it? The Hall of Meat commands you to find whatever's left of Black Box (didn't some of them end up on the Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare team?) and buy those people a half-pipe for their office.
Dear EA,
Fucking come on already.
Yours, Jeff Gerstmann
I am not a businessman. You can tell by the way I just implied that someone like Harmonix should get back into the plastic instrument business. This is perhaps a weird one, since there's technically nothing stopping me from playing more Rock Band 3, and there's plenty of DLC for that game that I never purchased, but something that works with the consoles I actually have connected up at home and a renewed effort to go and secure even more DLC would be much appreciated. Or I suppose we could just wait for the inevitable Guitar Hero resurgence.
Mercenaries 2 was a fucking wreck that bore little resemblance to the original game. Make an actual sequel to the first Mercenaries, that'd be pretty cool. Maybe something like Just Cause 3 scratches this itch a little too well these days, I'm not sure. But the first Mercenaries was pretty rad.
Again, I am not a businessman, but it sure would be cool if Chair/Epic walked away from the zillions of dollars that Infinity Blade brings in and made a full-scale Shadow Complex sequel. Maybe I'd feel less strongly about this if I enjoyed Infinity Blade, I don't know. It just never clicked with me at all.
In conclusion, I'm looking forward to 2015. I'm hopeful. Optimistic, even! OK, maybe that's a bit of a stretch. But there are clearly some interesting games coming along this year and they're once again coming in all shapes and sizes, from teams big and small, on a good variety of platforms. I'm sure some of it will get canceled. And some of it will get pushed into 2016. But for now, it's looking pretty good.
Hello and welcome to the latest edition of the Giant Bomb Community Spotlight, and I am honored to be your host once again! First off I would like to apologize for the late deployment of this edition of the Giant Bomb Community Spotlight! Some things regarding my family came up, and I was unable to get this done until Saturday. Anyways here is your site based housekeeping! First off there are changes ins tore for the Giant Bomb Premium Service, and you can read all about the changes here. Did you miss the Giant Bomb Game Jam? Well don't worry because you can still play all of the wonderful products of the jam session over here. Please if you would give @havochq a found of applause for organizing the event. Another major user run event was the Giant Bomb Community Endurance Run! If you missed the event, but still would like to help their fundraiser for Pencils of Promise you can still donate to the effort here. Anyways with that let's get on with the Giant Bomb Community Spotlight!
So just to clarify because there appears to be some confusion. The link below is for the console version of Mortal Kombat X. There is also a wiki page titled "Mortal Kombat X Mobile," which the Giant Bomb wiki Moderation Team and myself would like to remind you to NOT attach consoles or the PC platform pages to. Anyways even if Mortal Kombat X is not out yet we still have an awesome page for the game as you can see below. Also with the release of Xenoblade Chronicles on the 3DS here is your friendly reminder that we have an awesome wiki page for the game in general.
There hasn't been a Friday the 13th game since LJN's occasionally terrifying (but mostly just annoying) NES adaptation of the slasher film franchise from 1989. If EGM and Friday the 13th creator Sean S. Cunningham are to be believed, that may change later this year.
Cunningham dished to EGM late last week that a new game based on the film was in the works at "an experienced game studio" that, for the time being at least, is going unnamed. The game is targeted for an October, 2015 release, and sounds as though it will be aiming for a multiplayer-focused take on the predator/prey gameplay most recently utilized in Alien: Isolation. Perhaps Turtle Rock's Evolve might be a more apt comparison, as the game will feature a team of "resourceful survivors" going up against the series' unkillable, hockey-mask sporting big bad, Jason Voorhees, in an asymmetrical cooperative/competitive multiplayer environment.
The game seems timed to coincide with the upcoming Friday the 13th TV series (and a new, 13th film, which Cunningham says is in the planning stage). Though it's been 26 years since the last game in this series, there's been a recent uptick in similarly styled horror games of late. Apart from the previously mentioned Alien: Isolation, Supermassive Games' Until Dawn is basically a single-player slasher flick, and the Kickstarter-funded Last Year sounds almost exactly like what this Friday the 13th game intends to be, with some of the game's concept art very clearly calling back to Jason's iconic look.
The EGM story notes that the studio working on the game will be "announced in the coming weeks." In case you want to revisit what Friday the 13th games used to be like without actually having to play one, you can always go watch this classic episode of Spookin' With Scoops.
Hello and welcome to the latest edition of the Giant Bomb Community Spotlight! I, @zombiepie, am honored to be your host as always! As most of you are already aware this week will mark the glorious return of the Big Live LIVE Show: Live! The event will start on the 29th of April at around 11:00 A.M. PDT. Mr. @rorie and the rest of the staff would like to inform you that that any users that live in the California Bay Area can attend. If you are interested then please , but understand that the event is only for users that are 21 or older. Please be aware that commenting on the after-party information thread IS NOT considered to be an R.S.V.P. Moving on to site bugs: If you had issues switching your color scheme on your mobile phone or iOS device the engineers suspect that clearing your cookies will remedy the problem, but if you still have issues report them . Also, the issue with pop-up prompts disrupting commenting and posting on the site has been . Thank you for your patience regarding that issue. With that let's get on with the latest edition of the Community Spotlight!
Halo: Spartan Strike came out this week and is the recent release that features an informative wiki page worth checking out. Donkey Kong 64 and JoyJoy on the other hand both got re-released this week and luckily BOTH have massive wiki pages worth scanning and checking out.
Sometime all the way back in 2013, I was approached by Christopher Grant of Awesome Games Done Quick and presented with an interesting opportunity. He suggested that I should come down to the event and do a speedrun of Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing. This is a game I have some history with, you see.
The idea of speedrunning the worst video game ever made sounded amusing, but I had no idea how that would even work, and somewhere between the initial suggestion and last year's event, communication lines got weird (my fault entirely), and it didn't come together. Then he found me at PAX this past year and suggested it again. I asked him to send me some info on what a Big Rigs speedrun entailed, and he sent me this video. He wasn't joking. There is an official method for speedrunning Big Rigs.
I felt sort of weird about the idea still. I have no involvement in the speedrunning scene, and while I'm always down to help out with charity, I felt like I might be intruding on this cool thing that the AGDQ team has been putting together since 2010. I felt like kind of an interloper, you know?
Ultimately, I got over it and agreed to take a brief jaunt down to Virginia this week for the purposes of Big Rigs-ing for fun and charity but mostly charity, if we're being honest here. I'm really glad I did. Despite finding myself unable to run the game properly on my own PC--thus preventing me from getting much of any practice in whatsoever--I turned in what I'd consider a respectable run, had some laughs with the folks that came to watch the event live, and stuck around to watch some other folks' runs during the remainder of the Awful Block. I watched a man blow through Radical Rex while painstakingly describing every single way in which that game is broken and terrible. I discovered that Beethoven's 2nd is depressingly lacking in any Charles Grodin whatsoever. I learned for the first time what Town With No Name is, and I am forever changed by the discovery.
I also learned that a bunch of you out there are mighty generous. In what I can only assume was intended to be a jokey inclusion, a bidding mark of $3000 was offered, which would require me to show off the "infinite speed" glitch in Big Rigs. You know, it's that thing that happens when you hit the "reverse" button in that game and just keep it held down for a while. Not exactly a difficult task, but y'all hit the donation target with ease. That's super rad.
Awesome Games Done Quick is still going as we speak. They've got stuff lined up through this weekend, and thus far have raised over $500,000 for the Prevent Cancer Foundation.
There's a good chance this is both the beginning and the end of my speedrunning career. If that's the case, I'm glad I got to do it for a worthwhile cause. Thanks again to the whole AGDQ crew for having me out. And thanks to Sean Lee for capturing my run, along with the embedded chat. You can check it out in the video below, if you're interested.
As of last week, we knew that P.T. would be disappearing from the PlayStation Store. The announcement of that pending disappearance came around the same time as the announcement that Silent Hills, Konami's horror franchise reboot that P.T. was created to promote, was officially canceled. As depressing as all that was, at least P.T. would still exist in some capacity. Even if it wasn't listed on the store anymore, those who previously downloaded it would theoretically be able to re-download it at their leisure, should the need to do so arise.
Or, so we thought.
Last night, word broke that P.T. was, in fact, no longer available to be downloaded from the PlayStation Store at all. I caught wind of this via former Polygon editor Russ Frushtick, and since last night, both Polygon and Kotaku have attempted to re-download P.T. from the PlayStation Store and received an error for their troubles. I have been reluctant to try this myself, as I don't want P.T. to be gone from my PlayStation 4, but the reports appear widespread enough to confirm this is a consistent issue--though Polygon notes in their story that European players are reportedly still able to re-download P.T..
P.T. disappearing entirely is an extraordinary thing, not only because of how well liked P.T. was, but because this is not typically what happens when games are delisted from digital stores. Usually, if a game/add-on/demo is removed, the file itself remains on the store's servers, allowing purchasers to reclaim anything they might have had to delete in the past via their download history. P.T. was initially available to re-download following its delisting, but as of last night this is no longer the case. P.T. was a free demo, so no one is out money here, but given the amount of hand-wringing that's gone on since the industry began to shift toward digital marketplaces, it's not surprising that this complete scrubbing of P.T. has sparked strong reactions.
That said, it's worth noting that not all concerns currently floating around are legitimate. This morning, Minecraft composer Daniel Rosenfeld (otherwise known as c418) tweeted out a worrying looking screenshot of his P.T. copy's information screen, which showed an expiration date for the demo. This immediately sparked concern that Konami might be trying to actively kill the demo from people's PlayStations, but that wasn't the case. As it turned out, P.T. was only released in Germany (Rosenfeld's home country) as a PlayStation Plus item, and the expiration date attached to his copy lined up with the expiration date on his Plus account. Just to confirm it for myself, I took a screenshot of my own P.T. screen and came up with no expiration date.
So, at the very least, if you have P.T. on your PlayStation 4 at this moment, you will theoretically be able to keep playing it all you want. At least until Konami CEO Satoshi Sakamoto swoops into your living room in the dead of night and manually deletes it off your hard drive, leaving behind a giant Silent Hill-themed slot machine as the only evidence he was ever there. At the current rate this P.T./Kojima stuff is escalating, I figure we've got about a month until that actually starts happening.
April, 2013 saw what was believed to be the last installment in Harmonix's ludicrously long-running DLC support of its Rock Band franchise. With the release of Don McLean's "American Pie", the studio ended its five-year run of weekly downloadable song updates, seemingly putting the franchise itself on ice for the foreseeable future as well. It was a sad, but poignant conclusion to the plastic instrument craze that gripped seemingly the whole of video games for like a solid four or five years.
Except that it wasn't a conclusion at all. Today, we have learned that Rock Band wasn't dead, but just biding its time, waiting for the right moment to reemerge and rock once again. Finally, the developers at Harmonix have found the songs intended to reinvigorate the brand and return the plastic instrument genre to its former glory.
OK, probably not. In reality, Harmonix has randomly decided to toss out a trio of new songs from the likes of Avenged Sevenfold, Arctic Monkeys, and the Foo Fighters. The new tracks--"Shepherd Of Fire", "R U Mine", and "Something from Nothing", respectively--will retail for the usual price of $2 on the Xbox Live and PlayStation marketplaces, starting tomorrow (January 13).
When asked if this new release would be the start of a continuing trend of new Rock Band DLC releases, Important Harmonix Spokesperson (and, for disclosure's sake, former co-worker of mine) Eric Pope rubbed his spokesburns vigorously and hastily changed the subject to how trim my figure looks of late. So, perhaps this is just a random, one-off thing, or maybe Harmonix is looking to test the waters and drum up interest for something else Rock Band related in the future. Given the rumors kicking around of Activision wanting to bring back Guitar Hero, it would make a certain amount of sense.
We wanted to celebrate the weekend with some of our top 5 war games. Does your favorite make our list? If it didn’t, be sure to share it with everybody below…
Civilizations Wars is a fast thinking RTS/RPG game, with deep tactic capabilities and amazing graphic in unique style. Choose one of three races and lead your people towards the legendary fallen star to find a secret force.
A mix between a defense game and a strategy game, the goal of Age of War 2 is to destroy the enemy base while defending yours. You can build turrets to defend your base and units to attack the enemy’s base.
Defend against the incoming German Nazis in this WWII defense game with 6 exciting authentic weapons to buy including the M1A1 Thompson, M1 Browning, and Bazooka!
Customize 5 unique soldiers with hundreds of weapons, attachments, armour upgrades and camouflages. Play the campaign for an action packed continuation of the Strike Force Heroes storyline or hop into a custom game.
Lead the British or German army through the trenches of Europe in this First World War strategy game. Use infantry, armor and fire support to take control of the ground or bombard your foes into submission.
Next week the Ninjas unleash their rework of RuneScape's Death System � thanks to you, and your help in the ! Mod Hunter's here to take us through the new system.
We also catch up with the Old School Team to see what's coming up for OSRS fans.
Subscribe to our YouTube channel and stay up to date with all our official videos!
Podcast � Ninja Team
You can't move for Ninjas these days � they've infiltrated the podcast as well! Mods Asherz, Chaose, Pi, Kelpie, James join Mod Matthe to reveal the innermost secrets of their plans for the future.
, or head over to or and subscribe to our podcasts there.
Developer Q&A Recap
If you didn't catch the Developer Q&A live stream earlier this week � including a special preview of the Tuska World Event � you'll find a full recap below, and on .
Community Events
Join Mod Lee for a huge attack on the Corporeal Beast � at 22:00 UTC on Sunday 24th May.
Head to the Corporeal Beast's lair on World 37, and join Mod Lee's Friends Chat channel (CoinShare on).
Have a Great Weekend!
Enjoy the , and look out for the Death Rework � and much more � in next week's RuneScape update. Have fun!
A 17-year-old Canadian teen has pleaded guilty to 23 charges relating to online harassment.
Picture supplied by Polk City County Sherriff's Office
The teenager, who cannot be named due to his age, appeared in court to face charges of public mischief, criminal harassment, and extortion.
According to , the teen has previously identified himself as a member of hacker group Lizard Squad. Many of the acts he perpetrated can be classed as swatting.
Canadian news outlet reports prosecutor Michael Bauer described how he focused on young female gamers and their parents in British Colombia, Minnesota, Utah, Arizona, Ohio, and California.
The teen contacted online gamers, many of which were players, by sending them friend requests. When they declined, he would shut down their Internet access, post their personal information online, and call them repeatedly late at night.
He would also contact the police in his victim's area and tell them he was holding a family hostage, had weapons, or had killed someone in the house.
Other activities include ordering SWAT teams to a location, demanding a ransom of $20,000, and threatening to kill law enforcement officers if they interfere.
In one particular case a young woman that had rejected him was forced to drop out from her semester at the University of Arizona as a result of anxiety caused by his relentless pursuits and threats.
He also called the Tuscon police to her home by claiming he had shot his parents with an AR15 rifle, was armed with explosive, and would kill the police if he saw marked vehicles.
The unidentified teen later bragged about the events on Twitter. He also streamed himself swatting and harassing victims on YouTube. Police responded when they were alerted by viewers of the stream.
The Judge has ordered a psychiatric assesment of the teen, who was charged with 40 crimes in total and remanded on Wednesday for 169 days. The sentencing will continue on June 29.
In March a saying that "he felt he was wronged." In one of these cases, he threatened to blow up a house with hostages inside.
Iconic gaming console the Nintendo Entertainment System was released in North America thirty years ago in 1985. To mark the milestone, video game museumhas announced that it will host a special exhibit dedicated to the system later this year. The exhibit is being jointly produced by The Strong and the Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto, Japan.
“Japan is home to a rich history of video game culture and pioneering companies such as Nintendo and Sony. This partnership allows for a cross-cultural exchange of ideas about how best to chronicle and conserve this important history," The Strong director Jon-Paul C. Dyson said in a statement.
The Strong's exhibit, called "Playing with Power: 30 Years of the Nintendo Entertainment System," will debut at the Rochester, NY museum this fall. Specifically, the exhibit will offer insight into the console's development and release, including previously unseen interviews with NES hardware developer Masayuki Uemura. A variety of NES games will also be playable at the exhibit, including two of the console's most memorable titles, and .
In addition, The Strong and the Ritsumeikan University will share research projects, while staff from both organizations may trade places as part of an exchange program.
“This partnership allows researchers and scholars in both the United States and Japan to learn from one another about how best to study and preserve the many contributions video games have had to our shared cultural heritage," Ritsumeikan University program chair Masayuki Uemura said. “Together, we can also help tell the story of the Japanese video game industry to guests of The Strong, beginning with the exhibit about the Nintendo Entertainment System this fall."
Last month, The Strong for the first wave of inductees for its World Video Game Hall of Fame. See all the games that made the cut .
[UPDATE] CD Projekt Red has released a statement regarding the exploit. It's sourced to fictional in-game characters, so make of that what you will.
"Nilfgaardian representatives are currently investigating the issue and exploring ideas to address the rapid influx of cow hides on the marketplace of White Orchard."
"Sustained cow slaughter may influence local economy and job market by allowing an unnaturally fast accumulation of goods, and also produces an undesirable effect of breaking gamer immersion," Said Bobbe Malinka, Senior Scribe, Nilfgaard Press Department. "All instances of poaching will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of Nilfgaardian law, so cow exploiters better be on the lookout. We don't want any beef, but we have zero tolerance for such behavior," Malinka adds.
The original story is below.
Just days after the game's release, a new infinite money exploit has been discovered--and it involves mercilessly killing cows over and over and over.
YouTube user reveals that the trick--which is an exploit, not a glitch--is really quite simple. All you need to do is find some cows (White Orchard is a good place), kill the cows there, and then harvest their hide for a nice fee of 27 gold. Next, mediate for two hours and the cows will re-appear, thus allowing you to repeat the exploit as many times as you want.
There are only a couple drawbacks. First, the cow corpses don't vanish, meaning your heartless bovine slaughter will be an inescapable reality, weighing on your conscience (if you have one). Also, local shopkeepers don't have enough money to pay you once you turn in a certain number of hides.
This isn't such a big deal, however, as you can always travel to another shopkeeper or simply hoard the cash to spend later. And on the plus side, this exploit can be triggered very early in the game, affording you the nice benefit of being flush with cash from the onset.
We have contacted developer CD Projekt Red to see if the team plans to address this exploit in a future patch.
Codemasters has announced will be subject to a four-week delay and will now be available on July 10.
The latest entry in the long-running racing series was originally set for a June 12 release on , , and .
Along with the announcement of the delay, Codemasters also released a gameplay video, which you can watch below.
's "all new version" of the EGO engine and said it aims to deliver the "ultimate Formula One video game experience."
Visually, Codemasters says F1 2015 will "act as a significant step forward in the game's visuals and physics-based handling model."
Enhancements and additions in more than 20 areas are being included, with big improvements to transmission, aerodynamics, fuel tank, force feedback, and suspension.
It has been confirmed that F1 2015 will run at at 60 frames per second.
Blizzard has released new gameplay videos for its upcoming team-based shooter .
Unlike previously released footage, the four new gameplay videos show unedited matches running at 1080p 60 frames per second.
Each of the videos focuses on a specific character. The first, Hanzo, is a Japanese mercenary and assassin that wields a bow and arrow. The second character, McCree is a wild west bounty hunter and outlaw that uses a revolver. Mercy, a guardian angel, functions as the games medic class, while Zenyatta is a mysterious cybernetic monk.
Take an in-depth look at them in the videos below.
Overwatch is Blizzard's first new franchise in 17 years, with development on the title being led by Jeff Kaplan, a former game director.
Blizzard has described Overwatch as a "pick-up-and-play" FPS that throws players together and makes them battle in futuristic maps in places such as London and Egypt. The company's overall goal with the game is to bring the developer's "easy-to-learn, hard-to-master" mantra to the FPS space.
"With every new Blizzard game, we look at our favorite aspects of a genre and put our own spin on things," Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime said when .
"Our goal withOverwatch is to create an awesome FPS experience that’s more accessible to a much wider audience while delivering the action and depth that shooter fans love."
Over the years playing through Codemasters’ popular series, I thought I came to understand how to race rally cars, that I could strap into a Subaru Impreza and hurtle through the rapid twists and turns of any white-knuckle rally stage. I mastered the techniques, perfecting the hairpin turn and the Scandinavian flick, travelling from muddy field to arid desert as I conquered all before me and took my place atop one podium after another.
Try to play it like Dirt 3 and you’ll be halfway up a tree on the very first corner.
Then Dirt Rally and hastily revealed the stark reality that I, like Jon Snow, know nothing. Because, unlike its seminal predecessors, is not an accessible approximation of the lauded motorsport, but a merciless simulation. This marks a drastic shift for the series, with it now being more akin to the decade-old than anything Codemasters has ever done before. It strips away Dirt’s penchant for American flavour, ditching the gymkhana events, destruction derbies, and the extreme sports theme, returning to basics to celebrate the unbridled purity of rally.
And it works. By God does it work. Whether you’re darting through the dense, drizzled forests of Wales and its rolling countryside, careening around a sun-swept dustbowl in southern Greece, or skidding across the undulating roads of Monaco’s snow-capped mountaintops, Dirt Rally captures the essence of its chosen motorsport in a way very few have before. This is a game all about the crucial relationship between drivers, their car, and the road. It’s a game about adapting to a deluge of variables, and of contending with a phenomenal new physics engine that makes your chosen vehicle, the weather, the time of day, altitude, and driving surface all crucial components to each and every stage.
Subtle details, such as a camera drone flying overhead, litter every stage.
Try to play it like and you’ll be halfway up a tree on the very first corner. These aren’t the floaty cars you could throw across the road in previous Dirt games: They’re tight, responsive, and weighty--the wheels digging into the mud and gravel, creating grooves through narrow bends as the road resists your hefty momentum.
Each of the 17 cars currently available is a joy to drive, yet taming them is a great challenge; You’re teetering on the verge of disaster at all times, engaged in a furious battle just to keep the car on the road. You have to be precise and manage each corner, transferring weight to flick out the backend and drift around a tricky bend. You must know when to be careful and when to push the car to its absolute limits, always reminding yourself that one wrong move could irreparably harm your stage time or put you out of action altogether. There’s no margin for error here, with Dirt's rewind feature conspicuously absent.
With no tutorials to speak of, this level of difficulty may prove frustrating for some. It can be hard to figure out where you’re going wrong, and while various online forums are helpful, with people usually willing to lend a helping hand and share tips, this is one aspect of the game that will hopefully be rectified either in the coming months or by the time it’s fully released.
With no tutorials to speak of, this level of difficulty may prove frustrating for some.
During my first few hours, it felt like an accomplishment just to finish a stage, narrowly avoiding the sorts of catastrophic crashes that would put an end to any prospective run. The more I played, however--and I know this sounds simple--the more I unearthed a tangible sense of progression. Not just because I was setting quantifiably better split times, but because of the way I was driving, too.
Eventually I found myself feathering the accelerator to glide around modest corners, as opposed to jamming on the breaks, and pointing my car at just the right angle to ensure that pulling on the handbrake would gracefully slither the vehicle around a tricky hairpin corner. Such a learning process was as intuitive, and it provided me the confidence to take more risks, believing that I was better equipped to deal with the consequences. Before long it wasn’t just about simply finishing in one piece, but about setting competitive stage times, improving on those times, and eventually earning a place on the podium.
This contemporary tale, of triumph over adversity, ended the moment I arrogantly bought the fastest car I could afford. I was back to square one: Skirting off the track, crashing into trees, rocks and whatever else was nearby. The disparity between each vehicle is really quite staggering, and at first I could only fail miserably in my shiny new ride. Going from the relatively meagre 1960s Lancia Fulvia to the blisteringly fast Peugeot 205 T16 Evo is genuinely terrifying. Not only is the rate of acceleration and speed difference profound, but the handling model is completely different. I had to learn how to drive a new car while re-learning each stage, differing my approach from corner to corner to compensate for the adverse shift in power and weight.
Click on the thumbnails below to view in full-screen.
Crashes are nothing to make light of either. Damage is persistent in Dirt Rally, so if you mash your car down to half its size, ruin the radiator, and break the gearbox during the first stage, you’re going to suffer for it the rest of the tournament. Fortunately, you can often repair your car between stages, which trades vehicle performance for time added onto your overall tally--which can then be shortened by hiring better engineers. Go too far, however, and even the best engineer in the business won’t be able to help you.
Heading onto the track with this in mind makes those moments when you skirt a sheer drop completely nerve wracking. One wrong move and it could be calamity. It doesn’t matter if you’re mere seconds away from finishing an eight-stage tournament--if you wreck your car, it’s all over. That's exactly zero points and a lonely spot at the leaderboard’s nadir. Of course, you can always just restart the stage (and suffer a monetary loss) but then you lose the thrill of this persistent threat, of knowing that one mistake could cost so much. It’s like playing by fully embracing its permadeath, constantly forging ahead rather than reloading a previous save back when your top sniper was still alive and well.
Night time excursions are particularly perilous. Just don’t smash those headlights.
Dirt Rally still has room for improvement in terms of production values, but it more than makes up for this with a robust and in-depth driving model that’s as exhilarating as it is rewarding. The stiff challenge it presents won’t be for everyone, but the prospect of mastering its many intricacies is a tantalising proposition I’m sure many will gladly tackle. This is not the Dirt we once knew, but a reinvention of the series that’s going in all the right directions. You should consider getting in on the ground floor.
What’s There?
There’s a career mode that progresses through tournaments, from grass-roots rally to professional championships. Daily, weekly, and monthly challenges are also included that task you with beating other people’s stage times, while online leagues let you create your own tournaments to play with friends. All of these modes utilise the 36 stages spread across 3 countries, and the 17 cars ranging from 1960s classics to modern vehicles.
What’s to Come?
Famous Pike’s Peak will be added later in May, and a Hill Climb mode is already being teased in the menus. There will also be new cars and stages added over time, including those from the 2015 FIA World Rallycross Championship.
How Much Does it Cost?
at of the time of writing, but Codemasters says this price will rise throughout Early Access. All updates to the game will be free.
When Will it be Finished?
Scheduled to go gold by the end of 2015.
What’s the Verdict?
Dirt Rally is proving to be a merciless and rewarding rally sim so far, and we're confident it can get even better.
In , some of the most important tools you have at your disposal are Geralt's special Witcher potions. While they are not necessary for your survival in the beginning of the game, they definitely become more vital as the game progresses. This is why it's a good idea to start farming items in the game's first area, which is filled with an abundance of ingredients you can find and use to craft the game's earlier potions.
So What are Witcher Potions?
Witcher potions are items that can grant you enhancements to your statistics, give you special abilities, and even nullify the effects of status ailments. They can be bought or found in the world of The Witcher, but you ideally want to craft them yourself.
In order to craft Witcher potions, you need each of a potion's required ingredients. These are specified in the game's crafting screen and mainly consist of herbs and other assorted items, such as alcohol and monster body parts.
Witcher potions can be used anytime, but they are best used before the beginning of a fight for maximum efficiency. In order to equip them, you must go into the items menu and assign them to their quick-action consumable slots. Keep in mind, only two can be equipped and be actively used during a battle at a given time.
Each potion has something called a toxicity amount indicated in its stats. Taking a potion will contribute this amount of toxicity to Geralt’s overall toxicity level, which totals 100. If you take too many potions and exceed Geralt’s toxicity level, he will be poisoned and his vitality will start to gradually decrease. A way to cure this is by taking the White Honey potion, which will reset your toxicity level to zero. Regardless, always be mindful of how many potions you consume to avoid getting poisoned!
Quick Tips
Collect all the herbs: Using your Witcher senses will help you spot any nearby herbs in the environment. As a rule of thumb, you should always do your best collect as many herbs as you possibly can.
The Herbalist's stash: There is a goldmine of free herbs that you can collect just outside of the herbalist's cottage. Seriously, don't hesitate to pilfer everything she owns. She won't mind it at all.
Farm the farmer's crops: Another solid location to pick herbs is the farmland in the village located to the left of the Woesong bridge. Same rule from the herbalist applies. Nobody will care.
Secrets always hold rewards: Make sure to scour the area for any secret caches or treasure chests as they will usually contain high priced ingredients, such as Dwarvin Spirit and Water essence. These are typically marked on the map and are often located under bridges or found in secret bandit hideouts.
Drunk Restoration: If you meditate and have any kind of hard liquor in your inventory, any low stock of potions you have will fully replenish. Doing this also replenishes any oils or bombs in your inventory. This is a good way to reduce how much you need to go back and farm crafting materials.
Craft your own booze: You can buy a manuscript from the herbalist for 62 coins that gives you the ability to craft Dwarven spirit, an item that is essential in crafting Witcher potions. It's a handy way to save your coins. Its ingredients appear below:
White Myrtle Petals (1): A super common herb that can be found all throughout the environment. It can also be bought from the herbalist for five coins.
Empty bottle (1): Can be bought from the herbalist for three coins.
Mahakaman Spirit (2): This can only be bought by the Tavern merchant for 19 coins.
List of Potions
A list of all the potions you are able to craft in the beginning of the game and their required ingredients appear below:
Swallow
Main Function:Accelerates Vitality regeneration. Vitality regeneration pauses for 2 seconds upon receiving damage.
Description: Swallow is an essential potion to take into battle when you are caught in a sticky situation. Its effect lasts for 20 seconds and it has 20 toxicity. You get a stock of three upon crafting.
Here's what you need:
Drowner brain (1): This ingredient can be found by killing Drowners, which are blue humanoid sea monsters that are usually be found near water. Common locations in White Orchard include the southern shoreline near the ransacked village, the swamp lands to the south of the Nilfgaardian garrison, and along the shoreline to the left of the Ford signpost.
Dwarven Spirit (1): This alcohol can usually be found in Smuggler caches and treasure chests or bought from any White Orchard merchant for 149 coins.
Celandine (5): This herb is super common and can be easily found in the environment. An easy place to find them is outside the herbalist's cottage. They can also be bought from the herbalist for 5 coins each.
Cat
Main Function:Grants complete sight in darkness.
Description: Cat doesn't serve any particular use in the beginning but the sooner you can stockpile ingredients for it, the better. Its effect lasts for 240 seconds and it has 15 toxicity. You get a stock of three upon crafting.
Here's what you need:
Dwarven Spirit (1): This alcohol can usually be found in Smuggler caches or bought from any White Orchard merchant for 149 coins.
Berbecane fruit (4): This is a common herb you can find around the environment. A key location is nearby the herbalist's cottage. They can also be bought from the herbalist for eight coins.
Water Essence (2): You can find some in the Smuggler cache under the river bridge just southwest of the ransacked village. You can also locate some in treasure chests just south of the Nilfgaardian garrison. And you can purchase some from the herbalist for 149 coins.
Thunderbolt
Main Function: Increases Attack Power.
Description: You are granted access to crafting Thunderbolt right before the Griffin fight. It is a handy potion that gives a nice added offensive edge against any foe. Its effect lasts for 30 seconds and it has 25 toxicity. You get a stock of three of them upon crafting.
Here's what you need:
Cortinarius (2): Mushrooms can be found mostly anywhere. There are some growing outside the tavern by a fence. You can buy some from the herbalist for 13 coins.
Dwarven Spirit (1): This alcohol can usually be found in Smuggler caches and treasure chests or bought from any White Orchard merchant for 149 coins.
Endrega Embryo (1): You receive one upon being given the in-game tutorial of how to craft potions. It's not clear if this item can be found in White Orchard during this segment of the game.
White Honey
Main Function:Clears Toxicity and cancels all active potion effects.
Description: White Honey will basically clear you of all built up toxicity resulting from drinking too many potions. The more potions you consume, the more essential it becomes. It has no toxicity and you get only one upon crafting.
Here's what you need:
Dwarven Spirit (1): This alcohol can usually be found in Smuggler caches and treasure chests or bought from any White Orchard merchant for 149 coins.
Honeysuckle (1): You can buy these from the herbalist for 20 coins a piece.
Ahead of E3 next month, Sony has filed a new trademark application for something called "The Player."
The companywith the United States Patent & Trademark Office. The trademark application is registered to Sony Pictures Television, but also appears to be tied to gaming.
It covers two good/services, the first of which is "downloadable electronic game software; video game software." While the second specifically mentions "entertainment services in the nature of a dramatic television series."
No further information about The Player is available in the filing, though the document also includes the image you see below.
Sony has used the word "Player" before in marketing materials for the PlayStation 4, as you can see here. We've followed up with Sony, asking for more details about The Player.
The filing was published less than a month before E3 is scheduled to begin next month. Sony closes out Monday, June 15's events with its show . GameSpot will bring you all the news from the event as it's announced. For more on E3 2015, check out .
First there were free-to-play games, but are "view-to-play" games next?
That's the goal of a new Finnish studio called Futureplay Games, which is staffed by former Electronic Arts, Remedy, and Rovio veterans. The team defines "view-to-play" as: "entertainment with a natural integration of broadly accessible gameplay and ad-based monetization." That definition may not be very catchy, but Futureplay says "view-to-play" could represent the next era of mobile gaming.
Futureplay founder Jami Laes, the former executive vice president at Angry Birds developer Rovio, said "view-to-play" has the potential to revolutionize the mobile market. “It's faster, cheaper, and more fun to watch an ad than pay for an in-app purchase," Laes said in a statement.
A expands on the concept in broad strokes.
"We believe in F2P and ads--both done right can be great, you will see," the company said. "We want to develop fast and have fun launching multiple games per year and not work multiple years per game."
The developer has not yet announced any games, or further information about how the ads will work. However, he said people can expect these details and more in the coming months.
Futureplay's other founders include former Remedy Entertainment executive producer Kai Auvinen, as well as other ex-Rovio employees Mika Rahko and Arttu Maki. The fifth Futureplay founder is Tuomas Huhtanen, who worked at Finnish software consultancy Reaktor for a decade.
Would you prefer to watch an ad instead of making an in-app purchase? Let us know in the comments below.
Final Fantasy publisher Square Enix tried something somewhat similar back in 2012 through its . However, Square Enix .
Capcom has released a new trailer for the exclusive re-release of , ahead of its digital release on May 26. Additionally, Sony has confirmed the PS4 version will be compatible with sticks.
Posting on the , Sony's director of third party productions, Gio Corsi, confirmed the compatibility drivers, which were created by developer Lab Zero, had been included.
"Ultra Street Fighter IV will support PS4 FightSticks, of course," said Corsi. "But we’ve also included Lab Zero’s drivers so that USFIV will support licensed PS3 FightSticks as well."
Lab Zero's drivers allow any arcade stick that identifies itself as a Generic USB GamePad or Joystick to work. This means the MadCatz's officially licensed line of controllers and sticks, which are incredibly popular among fighting game players, will be supported.
Some smaller brands and custom builds such as GodLike Controls' Cthulhu boards will also work. However, it must be noted that milage may vary for other sticks, particularly those that identify themselves as a DualShock input.
It is advisable to consult or the 's site after Ultra Street Fighter IV launches on PS4 for further compatibility details.
Corsi also confirmed the game will run at 1080p and 60 frames per second. The minor input lag PS3 players of the previous Street Fighter IV titles have endured has also been eliminated.
Ultra Street Fighter IV for PS4 will include all previously released costume DLC. Recently released content such as the Vacation and Wild costumes will also be included, as well as the Omega Mode.
The PS4 edition of Ultra Street Fighter IV was originally announced in December and is due to launch sometime this spring. Pricing has not been announced.
Capcom and Sony previously announced. The game is currently, and will support cross-platform play.
developer Rockstar San Diego is setting its sights on "state-of-the-art" graphics for its next project. That's according to a job listing for a , which spells out the ways in which Rockstar San Diego is hoping to push things forward with whatever its next game turns out to be.
A successful candidate will "develop new and enhance existing graphics technologies (rendering, lighting, shadows, shaders, culling, scene management and others) to help achieve state-of-the-art visuals." This person will also "work with others to expand our next-generation graphics pipeline including advanced lighting and rendering techniques, and special effects."
Another line from the job ad states, "This is an exciting opportunity to develop cutting-edge graphics and visual effect systems, working together with the art department to create optimal, attractive solutions for our games."
In addition, text from another job ad for a specifically mentions "open-world game elements." The person chosen for this job will be tasked with integrating "dynamic multiplayer into all areas of gameplay." What's more, a job ad for an specifically mentions and .
Yet another requisition, this one for a , calls for a person who can help bring the mystery game to life with "densely populated worlds" and the "best combination of realism and responsiveness." Check out the key points from the job ad below.
Artificial Intelligence
Bring our worlds to life by creating believable behaviors and routines for their inhabitants.
Navigate across varying terrain types, avoiding obstacles efficiently.
Work on strategies to produce fun and challenging combat encounters.
Character Mechanics
Create blend trees that combine animations, which are driven from both player and AI input.
In conjunction with animators, finely tune and polish systems to produce the best combination of realism and responsiveness.
Gameplay Mechanics
Weapon and damage systems.
Create the illusion of densely populated worlds.
Rockstar San Diego has a, across a variety of disciplines, which suggests the studio is staffing up for a major project. The studio's most recent game, Red Dead Redemption, was released five years ago this week.
While not confirmed, the fact that Red Dead Redemption and is suggests that a return to the franchise is not a matter of it, but when. For now, you can .
Independent developer Robotoki, the studio founded by former Activision creative strategist Robert Bowling, has shut down as of today, according to a report from Joystiq.
"This week we have ceased operations at Robotoki and the development ofHuman Elementis on hiatus," Bowling said in a statement to Joystiq. "We were actively negotiating a new publishing deal for the premium version of Human Element but unfortunately I was unable to continue to self-fund development until a deal was finalized."
The studio had been working on Human Element since 2012, when the studio was first founded. It was to be a survival game set in a post-zombie-apocalyptic universe. The company released Drop Squad 4, an iOS and Android puzzle game, last year. It also unsuccessfully attempted to fund The Adventures of Dash, a 2D-style platformer, via Kickstarter in 2013.
