Lost Planet 3's multiplayer allows players to customize their character's abilities through a progression sphere and play through multiple team scenarios.
We spent some time with the game's multiplayer at E3. During our demo, we engaged in five-versus-five multiplayer as part of the NEVEC team. NEVEC's goal was to protect a series of points around the map, while the Pirates simply needed to stall and keep NEVEC from completing its objective. A menu at the top left of the game's screen informs players of their progress by displaying bars that brighten as different objectives are achieved, which made it easy for us to track our goals at a quick glance.
The match we played was a standard 10 minutes, though a representative told us they can last anywhere from five to 20. Players have two...
PlayStation 4's social features will not require a PlayStation Plus subscription and all PS4 users will now be able to use the auto-update functionality for free, VideoGamer.com reports.
On the PlayStation 3, only Plus members had the ability to auto-update. Speaking with SCEE UK and Ireland MD Fergal Gara, the site reports that television and movie streaming services will also still be free.
"A PlayStation Plus subscriber for PlayStation 4 comes away with a hell of a lot," Gara said. "First of all, the subscription applies across all three platforms [PS4, PS3 & PS Vita], so if you have the three platforms then you have an instant game collection on all three. So that's hugely powerful in its own right. But it is true to say that the online multiplayer element for PS4, you do require...
Takedown: Red Sabre, the squad-based tactical shooter from Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon creative director Christian Allen's development studio, is a step away from traditional AAA military shooters and flaunts an emphasis on tactics, realism and teamwork. The result is unforgiving, gratifying and addictive.
Serellan is an indie start-up of roughly ten people. Everyone on the team holds no less than ten years experience in the game development industry. The studio's founder Christian Allen, has 20 years experience within the industry alone, working on several tactical shooters like Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six.
Allen said it is a mid-core game, not a hundred million dollar game and the team is obviously not trying to compete with likes of Call of Duty. His goal is to bring quality games to the...
Sega is looking to hit thirtysomething gamers square in the nostalgia zone with Castle of Illusion starring Mickey Mouse, a 3D update to the simple but classic Disney platformer for the Sega Genesis. In that regard, developer Sega Studios Australia is already successful.
The gameplay is largely unchanged, merely modernized. Mickey jumps through the game's varied castle environments much as he did in 1990. He'll navigate through Castle of Illusion's fantasy worlds via a 3D hub, unlocking new environments as he collects gems. Mickey relies on a jump stomp to crush his enemies, and has access to a limited number projectiles, like marbles and torches.
At E3, Sega showed off two levels from the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 version of Castle of Illusion, including the game's take on the...
Time and Eternity is what you'd call a looker. Even as a Japanese role-playing game, it's anything but typical in its hand-drawn visuals and battle system, we learned while demoing the game at E3. But though the game is unlike many titles we've played in the genre, the novelty we experienced during the demo eventually wore off to mediocre results.
In Time and Eternity, players take control of Toki, a young woman whose body is inhabited by two souls. During Toki's wedding, her soon-to-be husband is murdered by assassins. Joined by her alter ego Towa and pet dragon, Toki must travel back in time to prevent the attack.
The game features bright, hand-drawn 2D visuals layered on top of a 3D world. Time and Eternity's animation is easy on the eyes, but the demo's background lacked the same...
The Cave, Double Fine's modern adventure game staring a large cast of mismatched characters and an anthropomorphic cave, is headed to iOS this summer, a representative from the developer confirmed to Polygon.
According to a hands-on report from TouchGen, the mobile version remaps the control scheme to focus on taps instead of a virtual stick for movement and adds swipes for jumps. The Cave is already available for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii U, Windows PC, Mac and Linux.
For more on the game, be sure to read Polygon's review for The Cave.
During E3 2013, we spent some time with Dragon's Crown, an action-packed, side-scrolling role-playing game with the heart of an old school arcade title.
The game supports four players on-screen at the same time, and those spots can be filled with human or computer players. During our run through the Ancient Temple Ruins levels, we accompanied the Amazon, Sorceress and Elf as the Dwarf. The Dwarf is a more melee-based character who deals heavy damage. His attacks are sometimes harder to land, but deliver a devastating blow when successful. Switching to the Elf character, we were able to perform long-range attacks with a bow and arrow. Arrows are not infinite, however, and must be rationed or picked up off the ground to replenish the Elf's quiver. The Elf can also perform physical blows,...
Battlefield 4's alpha trial kicks off today for select users and will run until July 1, as revealed by a photo posted by MP1st.
According to a post from one of DICE's battlelog producers, there will be only one alpha trial. Everyone that will be included in the trial has already received emails, and players will need the following specs, posted by MP1st, to run it:
OS: Vista SP2, Win7 (Win8 not supported)
64 bit (32 bit not supported)
Dx10 or Dx 11 GPU with 1+GB of RAM, Dx 11 highly recommended
25GB HDD free space required
Latest Origin version required
Photos of what appears to be the game's vehicle customization options have also been posted by NeoGAF user shinobi602. According to the screenshots, vehicles include a primary and secondary weapon, countermeasure, optics, upgrade...
Approximately 48,200 people attended E3 this year, and we've got a few more deep dives of some of the biggest games from the event. Sony president and CEO Kazuo Hirai believes the company's electronics and entertainment units should be kept together. Hitman developer and Square Enix subsidiary IO Interactive laid off almost half its staff and canceled all non-Hitman projects. Popular mobile game Plague, Inc. will add in-game content from the Centers for Disease Control in a free patch next month.
E3 2013 attendance totaled 48,200, E3 2014 set for June 10-12
Superpower and meaning in Infamous: Second Son
The team reviving Wolfenstein
The Division: a massive step forward
Dying Light: Techland finds life after Dead Island
The Indie Eight: Polygon talks with the showcase indies...
At last week's E3, Avalanche Studios CEO Christofer Sundberg added an interesting twist to one of video game's most befuddling creative timelines. According to him, Avalanche Studio 's Mad Max isn't the same Mad Max game Avalanche Studios was rumored to be making.
The first mention of a new Mad Max game came in 2008. Cory Barlog, the game director for God of War 2, left Sony Santa Monica to collaborate with George Miller, the creator of the Mad Max films, on a video game tie-in for a Mad Max animated film. In October 2008, Barlog wrote on his personal blog: "My last trip to Sydney in September marked the completion of that stuff. I gotta say, and I know I am totally biased here, but I gotta say that this story — as well as this game — is pretty freaking bad ass!" Barlog added that...
Dark Souls 2's new engine will allow the game's soft-spoken co-director, Yui Tanimura, to fulfill his long-held desire to include new, subtler expressions in the game, Tanimura told Polygon at E3 2013.
At the macro level, the sequel's graphical upgrade will allow players to "dive in and immerse themselves within the actual gameplay and feel as if they are actually part of the game itself," Tanimura told Polygon through a translator. In the micro, the new engine allows Dark Souls 2 to include flourishes that weren't possible in the original Dark Souls engine.
"The idea of gimmicks in the game is now doable with this new engine," he said. "Things like representing an enemy that is perhaps off-screen but with movement of shadows, or that kind of expression in the game. It's something...
At E3 last week, Polygon jumped into a game of Tiny Brains with three random players who had been pulled into Spearhead Games' booth on the show floor. After a quick tutorial from studio co-founder Simon Darveau where he explained that we would be playing as lab rodents who had developed physics-based super powers after being experimented on, we were tossed into our first obstacle course.
During the first few minutes, the four rodents ran around like confused blind mice, testing out their powers. The Polygon rodent had the ability to attract objects. One of the other rodents could repel objects, similar to the way The Force works in Star Wars. The third rodent could switch places with objects and the fourth could create ice cubes from thin air, although these cubes would melt within...
Saints Row: The Third and Gods Eater Burst will join the PlayStation Plus Instant Game Collection tomorrow, Sony Computer Entertainment announced today.
Volition Inc.'s Saints Row: The Third was originally released on PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Windows PC in November 2011 by now-defunct publisher THQ, and was one of the most well-regarded games of that year. The PlayStation Portable title Gods Eater Burst, developed by Shift and Namco Bandai, was published in North America by D3Publisher in March 2011; it is playable on PlayStation Vita.
Saints Row: The Third's regular price on PlayStation Network is $39.99, while Gods Eater Burst costs $19.99. Sony previously announced that Saints Row: The Third would be added to the Instant Game Collection this month. Other games currently...
NCAA Football 14, the next installment in EA Sports' collegiate sports franchise, will receive a playable demo tomorrow on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, the game's official Twitter account revealed.
The demo will allow players to participate in a full game with three-minute quarters, however, EA has yet to reveal the teams that will be playable during those skirmishes.
NCAA Football 14 will feature improved progression mechanics like Power Recruiting and Coach Skills, and will incorporate the Ultimate Team mode that has become a staple in EA's Madden franchise. For more on NCAA Football 14, which launches in North America July 9, check out our preview.
Update: Kotaku reports that the demo will feature three match-ups for players to choose between: Alabama vs. Virginia Tech, Oregon vs....
Io Interactive, best known for games like Hitman: Absolution, has laid off almost half its staff.
The Danish-based Square Enix subsidiary issued a statement to Develop saying that the company had canceled all projects unrelated to its Hitman franchise.
"We have taken the difficult decision to cancel other studio projects and initiatives at Io and reduce the workforce in this studio," the statement read, "which will impact almost half of the employees currently at Io, as we make internal adjustments to face the challenges of today's market."
The statement added that, "Hannes Seifert, formerly Production Director for three years at the studio, will take over the position of Studio Head." It is unclear which senior staff have been released. Polygon has contacted Square Enix for...
The Electronic Entertainment Expo is a week's worth of executive sniping and news, parties and celebrity, and of course video games.
The artists and executives for Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony struggle to rise above the din of explosive trailers and bombastic speech. The fervor surrounding this year's dual launch of the next PlayStation and Xbox only made things worse, churning carefully planned press conferences into indistinguishable white noise.
With one very clear exception.
Standing on a stage set up in the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena last Monday, Sony Computer Entertainment of America CEO Jack Tretton ignited an uproar of applause with a series of promises directed straight at competitor Microsoft.
The PlayStation 4, he said, won't impose any new restrictions on the use...
Successful retail sales of Final Fantasy X and X-2 HD could spur developer Square Enix to consider remastering more titles in the 25-year-old fantasy role-playing franchise, according to game director Yoshinori Kitase.
Speaking with RPGSite, Kitase said good sales of the high-definition editions of the games, initially launched for PlayStation 2 in 2001 and 2003 respectively, could "pave the way" for more upgraded remakes.
"We'll have to wait and see if these remasters are going to be successful, first," Kitase said. "If they do well, I think this will pave the way for more of the previous games to remade in an HD sort of quality."
When asked which title he would like to see updated next, Kitase responded that 2006's Final Fantasy 12 was his first choice.
"I mean, if we had to...
The used games market and pricing model for AAA games cannot co-exist, the later being unsustainable while the former continues to grow, according to Gears of War creator Cliff Bleszinski.
Bleszinski took to Twitter to argue that Sony's announcement that there will be no restrictions in playing used games on the PlayStation 4 may not have been entirely correct.
"I'd bet Sony has some similar stuff up their sleeves, they're just playing on the internet outrage for free PR," he tweeted. "You're all being played!
"You cannot have game and marketing budgets this high while also having used and rental games existing," he added. "The numbers do not work people."
Last week during Sony's E3 press conference, Sony Computer Entertainment CEO Jack Tretton's announcement there would be no used...
Sony president and CEO Kazuo Hirai believes the company's electronics and entertainment units should be kept together and said the company's new board will hold a shareholders meeting on June 20 to discuss Third Point's call for the sale of its entertainment division, according to Nikkei.
In May, the CEO of Sony's "largest owner" Third Point LLC, Dan Loeb, wrote an open letter to Hirai calling for the company to sell over 20 percent of the Sony Entertainment division to increase performance. "Sony Electronics has suffered frustrating results for the past decade, brought about by low margins, persistent losses, and weak returns on capital," Loeb wrote at the time.
Last week, Sony announced that its PlayStation 4 will cost $100 less than Microsoft's Xbox One and will not have...
Defiance, Trion Worlds' bombastic MMO shooter, has always seemed like a sturdy base product that was ready to be expanded. With its upcoming, first DLC pack, Trion plans to do just that.
During a hands-on demo of the DLC at E3 2013, we got a chance to tool around with some of the content's biggest new features, which look to bolster the game in a number of meaningful ways.
First up is a third playable race for characters to choose from: The gaunt, pale Castithans. If there were any mechanical differences to the class, they weren't apparent during our demo, but the aesthetic differences for the Castithans — a prominent race in the TV show's fictional, titular town — were striking. It's not just their pigmentless skin and hair tones that set them apart from the game's burlier races;...
Square Enix's upcoming HD remasters of Final Fantasy 10 and the Kingdom Hearts 1.5 Remix bring a welcome graphical overhaul to two fan favorite franchises.
We spent time with both games at this year's E3. It appeared that neither title was shown as a demo, but rather in its full form. Kicking off a new game in Final Fantasy 10, we explored the game's opening sequence and battles. Although the game's FMVs appear to be the same as in its PlayStation 2 release, in-game characters show the difference. During lesser cutscenes on the previous release, characters would often appear to have strange, mask-like facial experiences. They were also incapable of expressing any kind of emotion. With the HD remaster, characters now have noticeably improved facial control.
Cutscenes that were...
The experience pitched by the Sportsfriends bundle, a Kickstarted package of four local multiplayer indie games for PS3 and PC, can be seen in a single match of Super Pole Riders, QWOP creator Bennett Foddy's contribution to the package.
The game's un-Super version is already free to play on browsers, and serves as the mechanical backbone for its sequel. Track-suited athletes carrying vaulting poles attempt to kick a ball hanging from a rope overhead to move it into their opponent's goal. Like Foddy's best games, it's purposefully cumbersome; your pole rarely plants where you want it to, leading to gleeful accidents and frantic jousting. You can eschew kicking altogether, attempting to sweep the ball into the goal by holding your pole straight up and running alongside it. You can also...
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