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Archived News:
Shacknews has a list of
15 exclusives coming to Xbox One over the first year of Microsoft's upcoming
new console. They also have word from Matt Booty, general manager of Redmond
Game Studios and Platforms, that as far as those platforms go, the PC will not be
receiving any more attention from them than it's been getting lately, which
isn't much. He tried to explain to them they would offer Windows 8 gamers a
range of experiences "from very, very casual games, like our very much improved
and reimagined Solitaire, all the way to graphically complicated games like The
Harvest." They called him on this, noting that as a port of a Windows Phone
game, The Harvest was not exactly AAA material, and when they asked if Microsoft's
first-party games for Windows 8 were lower-end, he didn't deny it: "We're
talking about console games, but there could be some franchises that also end up
with a PC game," Booty told them. "When I think about more connected experiences
across those platforms, it's things that show up within that family of devices
where we've got Xbox Live, like Windows Phone and Windows 8," and "not what you
might consider a more traditional desktop PC game."
Call of Juarez Gunslinger is now available, offering the new installment
in Techland's series of western-themed first-person shooters. Here's word on the
game's availability via digital distribution: SAN FRANCISCO, CA — May
20th, 2013 - Ubisoft announces that Call of Juarez® Gunslinger will be available
on Wednesday, May 22nd, for $14.99 as a downloadable console title and on PC
through digital distribution channels. There are just two days left before Silas
Greaves starts dispensing his own justice in the old Wild West.
Call of Juarez® Gunslinger is a real homage to the Wild West tales and era.
Players will live the epic journey of Silas Greaves, a ruthless bounty hunter
who spent his life on the trail of the West’s most notorious outlaws. Now it is
Silas’ time to tell his story, which is linked to the history of the Wild West
era: a mix of myths and historical facts.
Made of memorable encounters with some of the West’s most notorious names such
as Billy the Kid, Pat Garret, Jesse James and Butch Cassidy, the game blurs the
lines between man and myth. Call of Juarez® Gunslinger lets players live the
greatest legends of the Old West.
Neocore Games announces that The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing
is now available via digital distribution. Here's what to expect from the
action/RPG loosely based on Bram Stoker's Dracula: The Incredible
Adventures of Van Helsing is an isometric Action Role-playing hack and slash
video game. You can move and interact with point and click controls or hotkeys.
You have a beautiful follower, the ghost of Lady Katarina, who is a great help
for our hero and also his biggest critic at the same time. You can customize
your character through a level-up system with improving different skills and
combine them in several ways. You can tailor your skills on the spot with the
game's unique PowerUp System: all active skills have 3 modifiers, called
PowerUps. They are activated (charged) from Rage points that you gain as you
kill your enemies, then you can boost your active skills in many different ways
by combining these PowerUps. You can equip your character and also your follower
with several items you picked up from the ground or bought from NPCs. The game
also offers a co-op multiplayer campaign for up to 4 players, where you can hunt
down the scientific nightmares with other members of the Hunters' Guild. In
single-player mode you don’t need to stay online to play The Incredible
Adventures of Van Helsing.
WBIE announces that Mortal Kombat Komplete Edition is coming to Windows
PCs this summer, offering the fighting game kollection that was
released for consoles over a year ago. The
bundle combines the most recent installment in the fighting series along with
all its post release content, "including intrepid warriors Skarlet, Kenshi and
Rain, as well as the notorious dream stalker Freddy Krueger. Additionally, the
game offers 15 Klassic Mortal Kombat Skins and three Klassic Fatalities
(Scorpion, Sub-Zero and Reptile)." The port is being handled by High Voltage
Software, and the plan is to have this out via digital distribution on July 3rd,
followed by a release in retail stores on August 6th. Here's more: Mortal
Kombat Komplete Edition for PC features dynamic gameplay including Tag Team,
Challenge Tower and a full feature length story mode. Players choose from an
extensive lineup of the game’s iconic warriors and challenge their friends in
traditional 1 vs. 1 matches, or gamers can spectate battles and interact
directly with Kombatants online during the King of the Hill mode. The game
supports the Mortal Kombat Tournament Edition Fight Stick and delivers full
controller capability. Players will also be able to access achievements and
leaderboard stats.
Deep Silver announces plans for DLC for Metro: Last Light
while also revealing a Season Pass program for such additional content 4A Game's just-released
first-person shooter sequel. Here's word: Larkspur, Calif., May 22, 2013
-- Deep Silver today announced that 4A Games will support the critically
acclaimed Metro: Last Light with a series of original single player content
packs throughout the summer.
- The ‘Faction Pack’ and the ‘Chronicles Pack’ will
include new, original single player gameplay that expands on the Metro: Last
Light universe and story
- The ‘Tower Pack’ will present a unique solo
challenge to Metro veterans
- Meanwhile, the ‘Developer Pack’ will give creative
players some interesting tools with which to explore the world of Metro...
“Artyom’s story may have been concluded in Metro: Last Light, but there are
other characters with stories to tell, some familiar locations that fans of the
Metro series wanted to revisit, and some new challenges that 4A wanted to
explore,” said Andrew Prokhorov, Creative Director at 4A Games. “Since
completing the game we have been working on these new stories and hope to
release them throughout the summer.”
The Metro: Last Light Season pass is available to download now from Xbox Live,
PlayStation®Network and Steam for $14.99 / £11.99 / €14.99 or 1200 MSP now.
The first chapter will be the ‘Faction Pack’, set for release in June 2013.
Metro fans can pre-purchase all future DLC at a discount with the Season Pass,
now available on Steam, Xbox LIVE® Marketplace for the Xbox 360® video game and
entertainment system and the PlayStation®Network. The Season Pass also grants an
additional weapon, the deadly Abzats, a semi-automatic shotgun rifle with a
devastating secondary fire mode that unleashes six shells in one blast.
The
Epic Games website reminds us today is the 15th anniversary of the release
of Unreal, celebrating the occasion with a sale on Steam, though they seem to
have overlooked the link to that ( here
it is, they offer 75% off on a five game bundle). Here's word on the
anniversary:
It was 15 years ago today that Unreal started appearing on store shelves. Who
could forget walking out of Vortex Rikers and seeing Na Pali, and the dreaded
Skaarj for the first time.
How many hours did you spend exploring that amazing world? If you’d like to go
back to experience it all again, we’re having a Steam sale to help you on your
journey!
The Unreal Deal pack is on sale this week for an amazing 75% off. The Deal Pack
includes, Unreal Gold, Unreal Tournament: Game of the Year Edition, Unreal 2:
The Awakening, Unreal Tournament 2004: Editor’s Choice Edition and Unreal
Tournament 3 Black. That’s five games for $10.oo!
Tell us your favorite moments from the original Unreal below in the comments.
We’ll chose two random winners this Friday to receive a Steam code for an Unreal
Engine game and a vintage Unreal poster!
Don’t forget, you can get the original Unreal Main Theme on the
Epic Games 20th Anniversary Original
Soundtrack,
HERE.
Stardock announces the release of Fallen Enchantress – Legendary Heroes,
saying the standalone expansion for Fallen Enchantress is now available via
digital distribution for $39.99 for newcomers to the series or $19.99 for those
who already own Fallen Enchantress.
This release video offers a developer overview of how this adds onto the
fantasy-themed strategy game, showing why they state that "nearly every aspect
of Fallen Enchantress – Legendary Heroes has been improved, reworked and
enhanced." This page
offers an outline of the new content and features in the new release. Continue here to read the full story.
Deep Silver announces DLC plans for Metro: Last Light and also confirms plans
for a Season Pass to allow
new video from Call of Duty: Ghosts offers a tech comparison between
the new installment in the Call of Duty series and Modern Warfare 3.
Here's word: "Call of Duty: Ghosts brings lifelike characters and immersive
worlds together on a new, next-generation engine. Side-by-side graphical
comparisons show the advances made from Infinity Ward's last release, Call of
Duty: Modern Warfare 3." Continue here to read the full story.
Here's a video from
GRID 2 celebrating this weekend's Indy 500 with a look at extra downloadable
content players can get by preordering the upcoming racing sequel from Best Buy.
This bonus content is The IndyCar Pack, which contains "two extra routes at the
Indianapolis Motor Speedway Circuit plus the Dallara IndyCar and Indy 500 Pace
Car liveries for the Chevrolet Camaro SS and Corvette Z06 Centennial
Edition." Continue here to read the full story.
The
Kickstarter for an Adventure Mode for
Guns of Icarus Online, has concluded after raking in almost twice the
$100,000 Muse Games sought to create this new persistent gameplay mode for their
game of airship combat. This means they will be able to create the planned
PvE/Co-Op AI Director, but have fallen short of the $350K to create a proposed
Econo-Political System, the $500K to offer World-Building Tools, much less the
ambitious goals they laid out beyond that. That said, it sounds like they are
looking to fulfill that second goal anyway. "First I would like to thank all of
our supporters, including those that purchased our current game as well as those
that are helping fund the next phase. We're absolutely certain we can deliver a
PvE experience that will live up to everyone's expectations and be a blast to
play and explore. Says Muse Games CEO Howard Tsao. "On top of that we're going
to strive to deliver the Econo-Political structure discussed in the Kickstarter
event, adding dynamic quest and political relations to the PvE framework. While
we fell a little short of the funding goal for that addition, we believe it is
still within our grasp."
Funcom sends word that tomorrow marks the fifth anniversary of the release of
Age of Conan, surprising us with a
reminder of how long their barbaric MMORPG has been running. They are
celebrating the occasion with special in-game events as well as changes to how
member accounts progress going forward. All the details can be found
on this
page, and here's an overview: Come join the celebration of Age of
Conan’s 5th year anniversary, starting Thursday the 23rd of May 4pm CET/10am
EST! The world of Hyboria is being invaded by huge boss monsters for five days
in a row. Everyone can join in the fight against the creatures and have a chance
of earning great rewards if the massive monsters are defeated.
But the in-game event is just one part of the anniversary celebration.
Membership in Age of Conan: Unchained is getting greatly improved. All
characters on Member accounts will now receive the Blessing of Asura item, which
doubles experience points from killing monsters for one hour per day. They also
earn one Alternate Advancement point, which can be spent at level 80 to learn
handy abilities, for each level they gain. In addition Members more than triple
the amount of Bonus Points they receive each month, which can be spent in the
Item Shop, and still of course retain all previous benefits Membership entailed.
Everyone will also be receiving several gifts during the celebration, which
among other things include Access Passes to Khitai – the great lands to the
east, introduced through the Rise of the Godslayer expansion.
A tweet from
Rob Hodson has word from the EA Sports community manager that as of FIFA
14, the PC edition of the association football/soccer simulation will once
again be using an older game engine than the console installments in the series
after finally using the same engine for the past two games. Even though the next
generation consoles are closer than ever to high-end PC specs, word is the PC
version will be hamstrung with the last generation engine rather than the
EA SPORTS IGNITE
engine they've announced. Here's word: "Clarification for the PC related
questions earlier - EA SPORTS IGNITE will power FIFA 14 on Xbox One and PS4, not
PC http://bit.ly/192nrNz." Thanks
Strategy Informer.
Computerworld notes a
recent presentation ( Adobe Acrobat format) from ReVuln, a security firm based in
Malta, outlining vulnerabilities in several game engines. According to ReVuln,
they have identified client and/or server vulnerabilities in CryENGINE 3, Unreal
Engine 3, id Tech 4, and more, which can be used to launch remote code execution
or denial-of-service attacks. The CW article notes that the developers of these
engines, which power a significant number of games, were not informed of these
issues in advance of this release, saying: "ReVuln doesn't report
vulnerabilities to affected vendors. The company sells information about newly
discovered vulnerabilities to third-party companies and government agencies as
part of a subscription-based service." Thanks Ant.
I missed a call yesterday from the optician saying my new glasses are ready, so
I didn't learn this was the case until after they closed. This has me a little
crazy that I could be rid of my scratched-up old pair already, so I can't wait
to head over today and pick up the new pair. They've been a problem for quite
some time now with no such sense of urgency, but now that I'm this close (*holds
fingers really close together*) to a solution, I no longer have any patience for
this situation.
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