Upcoming Releases

[Cliff Hanger]

This is where I remind you all that Shadowrun is less than ten days off.

Also, HOORAY for a new Ratchet game for Xmas. This does nor let them off the hook for getting a PS4 game out to go with the movie.

[Dolfan in NYC]

So this is coming out...

 

[ultimoDANK]

I know people like to get on their high horse and make the Super Ultra Turbo EX jokes but I love that Capcom is still supporting this game. Gives me hope for more UMvC characters.

[The Z]

I'm confused. Do you need to have SSFIVAE to buy this or is regular SSFIV good enough?

Or do you need to upgrade to SSFIVAE first and then to USFIV?

[RIPPA]

I am really disappointed in the fact that Titanfall is basically just being designed to be multiplayer.

And the fact that a different studio is making the current gen version of the game

[Lamp, broken circa 1988]

I'm confused. Do you need to have SSFIVAE to buy this or is regular SSFIV good enough?

Or do you need to upgrade to SSFIVAE first and then to USFIV?

Two options:

 

-$15 upgrades to Ultra from wherever you are in the chain

-$40 retail with all previously released skins and the first wave of skins for the new characters.

[glfpunk]

I am really disappointed in the fact that Titanfall is basically just being designed to be multiplayer.And the fact that a different studio is making the current gen version of the game

That's kind of fucking weird

[ultimoDANK]

The no single player campaign is disturbing and likely a trend for the future. Cliffy B ( gee that's revolting to type or say) was tweeting how big a waste of money a big single player campaign is.

[RIPPA]

The no single player campaign is disturbing and likely a trend for the future. Cliffy B ( gee that's revolting to type or say) was tweeting how big a waste of money a big single player campaign is.

 

Now I am basing this off of what I read in the Game Informer article about Titanfall but basically the developers were like "Yeah - based on the data we saw only 5% of the players finished the single player in Call of Duty so why bother with it."

[J.T.]

The Division is going to fucking rule.

 

A great human being somewhere decided that there should be a YouTube video containing all of the game trailers for WATCH_D0GS,

 

[RIPPA]

BTW - Here is a little more on the Titanfall single player that really isn't single player

 

 

When it comes to shooters, people often draw lines between single- and multiplayer experiences. Some players happily cruise through the storyline soaking up every set piece without once going online and fragging strangers. Their counterparts probably couldn’t even tell you where their favorite multiplayer maps are set; as long as there’s a line of new opponents, they’re happy. That schism creates all sorts of problems for developers.

 

“There’s a lot of times where you’ll spend months and months and months putting together this single-player level that someone will try to run through in six minutes,” says Vince Zampella, co-founder and general manager of Respawn Entertainment. “All that effort you put into it doesn’t get seen, doesn’t get used – it’s kind of wasted.” 

 

As a new studio, Respawn doesn’t have resources to waste. Rather than put out diluted versions of the ordinarily separate modes, the company took the unusual approach of merging the two to create one highly polished experience in Titanfall – something the studio is calling “campaign multiplayer.”

 

“The idea of trying to take a single-player experience and imprinting it onto a multiplayer world was not something we came to immediately,” says producer Drew McCoy. “It actually was a couple years into the process where we realized that we have people here who are really good at making addictive, fun, fast, fluid multiplayer games, and we also have people who are making believable characters, moments, and situations. There’s this huge bifurcation of those two experiences in current offerings of games.”

 

Single-player modes in shooters usually offer a narrative – hardly a strong suit for multiplayer – but the differences go deeper. Campaigns are normally built around players going from point A to point B, instead of dumping them in unstructured arenas. As such, designers can create bombastic moments when players reach certain spots on levels. It’s more difficult to incorporate those kinds of storytelling techniques in multiplayer matches, where a dozen players are too busy scrambling to fulfill their own in-game needs to notice a collapsing bridge in the background.

 

“We really wanted to try and meld the two together and get our strengths combined and just make one big, deep, awesome experience that everyone could see all of,” says producer Drew McCoy. “We wanted to reconcile the two of those things together and make one cohesive game.”

 

.....

 

The campaign multiplayer approach plays to the team’s strengths, though it creates a new set of challenges. “From the art side, levels are a bear,” says lead artist Joel Emslie. “When you’re doing a single-player game, you’re just on a rail usually. It’ll open up and bottleneck and do that stuff, but that makes wrapping your head around building and making things look gorgeous as you can get them pretty manageable. When we stepped into this stuff, you have to go over every square inch of these environments because the player is going to be at some point, someone is going to go there, and it needs to look up to par.”

 

The entire team is working on the game as a whole – without divisions between the single- and multiplayer development – and Respawn says the approach is paying off. “[W]e can take all that effort and instead put it into multiplayer, where you’ll see it multiple times, you’ll see it again and again, so now the animations are going to be richer, the world is going to be more alive and more engrossing, and you’re going to see it more,” Zampalla says. “The work that people do here is more appreciated, so it makes the team feel better. The world that the players see is going to be more enriched, so they’re going to appreciate it. So it’s a great feeling for us.”

 

One of the unknowns at this point is how Respawn plans to tell a story when players are essentially experiencing a set of linked multiplayer matches. How does the campaign account for the times when your side loses? Respawn won’t elaborate on how it works, though the team says you don’t have to replay missions. The developers have set a stiff challenge for themselves that could nonetheless have a hefty payoff in delivering a satisfying and at least semi-cohesive story out of these seemingly fragmented sections.

 

 

[J.T.]

Curse Titanfall for having the audacity to force me to actually play with other people and maybe even use a microphone while I am gaming!

[RIPPA]

I don't mind if I am playing with friends. But using Borderlands as the example - it's virtually impossible to get us all online at the same time

[J.T.]

I don't mind if I am playing with friends. But using Borderlands as the example - it's virtually impossible to get us all online at the same time

 

I absolutely agree that having campaign multiplayer only is a really bad idea, but TMK there is no real franchise out there that actively enourages co-op multiplayer other than the Borderlands games.  Even ME3 allows you to opt out of multiplayer for good after a few character promotions.

 

Halo's co-op has turned into a joke.  I completed the Spartan Ops missions because I was compelled to see the story through to the end.  I enjoyed the narrative but the gameplay was the same old shit.

 

The fact that there has been no real effort to create a new season of Spartan Ops should tell you how well it's going over with the usual Halo crowd.

[Andrew POE!]

There's a Kickstarter for a game from the original creators of Syndicate Wars coming.

 

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/5livesstudios/satellite-reign

[SirFozzie]

Plus one by the developers of Interstate 76, and yes, it's a car combat game:

 

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1517270521/motorgun-return-of-the-auto-duel

[SirFozzie]

Got my Shadowrun Returns Steam Key.. yeah, I know, I have to wait eight days for it to unlock..

 

but still, I must squee.

[Cliff Hanger]

Very cool of them to give high-level backers extra keys to make up for not being able to load the game onto the USB drive that comes in the boxed version.  (Mine are spoken for, sorry.)

[Ellsworth Toohey]

I can't believe that for the Duck Tales remaster they actually spent the money to drag 93-year old Alan Young into the recording studio to play Scrooge McDuck and the even older June Foray to play Magica DeSpell (I just have visions of the guy who played George Jetson literally dying in the recording studio while recording lines for The Jetsons Movie, though to be fair Young seemed to be in pretty good health for a 2011 interview he did on Youtube).

 

Oh, and they actually shelled out the cash to get Frank Welker to play the Beagle Boys.

 

I mean, that's awesome that they did that, but this has got to be the most expensive voice cast for a download-only game in existence.  Welker alone probably charges more than Michael Biehn did for Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon.

[Big Fresh]

Now I am basing this off of what I read in the Game Informer article about Titanfall but basically the developers were like "Yeah - based on the data we saw only 5% of the players finished the single player in Call of Duty so why bother with it."

 

Well if that data is correct, you can't really blame them.

[Big Fresh]

Plus one by the developers of Interstate 76, and yes, it's a car combat game:

 

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1517270521/motorgun-return-of-the-auto-duel

 

Isn't David Jaffe working on a new IP that's a car combat game too? I'd like to see that genre come back. (Everyone! Go buy the latest Twisted Metal!)

 

EDIT: Oh wait. Same game.

[Cliff Hanger]

I was *stunned* when I realized just how much voice work Young had done, and that Wilbur Post was Beauty in the "Black Beauty" adaptation that ran over and over and over on Nick in the 80s.  Very weird that he played Scrooge and Haggis McHaggis (on Ren and Stimpy) at basically the same time.

I can't believe that for the Duck Tales remaster they actually spent the money to drag 93-year old Alan Young into the recording studio to play Scrooge McDuck and the even older June Foray to play Magica DeSpell (I just have visions of the guy who played George Jetson literally dying in the recording studio while recording lines for The Jetsons Movie, though to be fair Young seemed to be in pretty good health for a 2011 interview he did on Youtube).

 

Oh, and they actually shelled out the cash to get Frank Welker to play the Beagle Boys.

 

I mean, that's awesome that they did that, but this has got to be the most expensive voice cast for a download-only game in existence.  Welker alone probably charges more than Michael Biehn did for Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon.

[RIPPA]

THERE IS GOING TO BE A FIREFLY GAME!!!!!

 

This is going to be great. Let me read all about it...

 

 

"a multi-user, social online role-playing game that will initially be available for smartphones and tablets, including those based on iOS and Android operating systems."

 

 

[J.T.]

Okay, I hate that game already.

[Tromatagon]

Flashback: The Quest for Identity is getting a HD remake for xbla/psn that also comes with the original version. This is my favorite game of all time,