Deadly Premonition: The Director's Cut is like the winner of an ugly pet competition: Its faults somehow make it adorable.
Access Games' open-world survival horror game obliterates the distinction between odd and broken with such regularity that it becomes difficult to distinguish between the two. Even with the Director's Cut treatment, its cumbersome controls, dated presentation and sometimes excruciating pacing are as central to the experience as what it gets right. To be frank, Deadly Premonition: The Director's Cut is kind of broken. It's also a riot.
The oddities in Deadly Premonition: The Director's Cut — particularly its ragtag cast of oddball characters — combine to create a unique and fascinating cocktail that works despite its flaws.
Deadly Premonition: The...
The launch trailer for Techland's downloadable FPS Western Call of Juarez: Gunslinger is all about main character Silas Greaves, his mysterious story and his penchant for shooting people in the face.
Call of Juarez: Gunslinger pits the player and Silas against infamous legends of the Wild West like Butch Cassidy and Jesse James, though it calls into question Silas' memory — perhaps he gets details wrong, if he's not making the whole story up as he tells the tale. Silas has a number of face-shooting tools in his ornately carved pistols and rifle, or a shotgun for close-range combat.
The trailer also features Silas' abilities, like his Sense of Death that lets him dodge incoming bullets and the Concentration mode that slows down time to pick off enemies. We also get a glimpse at the...
The Connected Careers mode that debuted in Madden NFL 13 last year was a watershed moment for the Madden NFL series, representing one of the franchise's biggest leaps in a single year. But it also highlighted a couple of the game's greatest failings: a clunky interface and poor or nonexistent tutorials. Madden's developers at EA Tiburon are attempting to deliver one major addition to Connected Careers in Madden NFL 25 this year, and they're doing a lot of work on its existing pieces, but they knew they had to tackle those two issues first.
"Due to the massive amount of stuff we had put in the game last year, we really didn't get a lot of time to sit down and add that extra level of polish that walks you through understanding why things are happening," said Josh Looman, lead designer on...
Watch Dogs pre-order customers at Amazon and GameStop in the U.S. will receive their own exclusive single-player missions, publisher Ubisoft announced today.
Amazon pre-orders come with the Signature Shot Pack. The mission will task players with infiltrating the hideout of the Black Viceroys, a gang in Watch Dogs' near-future Chicago, and steal a package including the Biometric Assault Rifle — so they can imprint the gun with their hand and claim it — and a Black Viceroys outfit for protagonist Aiden Pearce.
Players who pre-order Watch Dogs at GameStop will get the Palace Pack. The mission within focuses on a police raid of a palace owned by an internet millionaire; it's up to Pearce to get in, wipe the guy's hard drives and get out before the cops show up. The Palace Pack also...
Batman: Arkham Origins stars noted voice actors Roger Craig Smith as Batman and Troy Baker as Joker, reports Joystiq.
Smith replaces longtime Batman voice actor Kevin Conroy; it was initially reported that Conroy would not appear in Arkham Origins at all, but he said last week that he is involved with the franchise in some capacity.
Smith's credits include Ezio Auditore da Firenze in the Assassin's Creed games and Chris Redfield in the Resident Evil series. Baker most recently lent his voice to BioShock Infinite protagonist Booker DeWitt, and stars as Joel, the male lead in Naughty Dog's upcoming survival title The Last of Us. He also appeared in Batman: Arkham City as the actor behind Two-Face and Robin.
Batman: Arkham Origins, which is in development at WB Games Montreal, launches...
Sam Fisher may be a super spy, but this new trailer for Ubisoft's Splinter Cell: Blacklist shows that even the best secret agents need a hand sometimes.
According to the trailer, Splinter Cell: Blacklist will ship with 14 different missions for co-op play across four mission types. This is at odds with what Polygon learned in our co-op preview, when we were told that Blacklist would have 16 co-op missions. In the co-op mode, players can either take charge of veteran Splinter Cell agent Sam Fisher or his CIA counterpart Isaac Briggs. Briggs and Fisher must watch each others' backs, and are shown assisting one another to get to areas they wouldn't be able to reach on their own.
According to the trailer, Splinter Cell: Blacklist supports couch co-op play with a split-screen mode. For...
Batman: Arkham Origins pre-orderers will receive DLC allowing them to play as Deathstroke in all of the game's challenge maps, and unlocks a few other bonuses for the masked assassin, Warner Bros. confirmed today.
Deathstroke's availability in-game was revealed this past weekend in an Amazon pre-order listing, but details of how he'd be featured in the upcoming title were not explained. Today, those details were announced: Deathstroke will be playable in Arkham Origins' challenge mode, a game type which, in previous series entries, tasks Batman (or other playable characters like Catwoman and Robin) with completing combat and stealth challenges to earn high scores and compete with their fellow players.
"Deathstroke will come complete with his own unique weapons and special moves, and...
Arc System Works' fighting game franchise BlazBlue is getting an anime series, set to launch in Japan this fall, reports Anime News Network.
The anime was unveiled at the Arc System Works Festival yesterday in Yokohama, where the company unveiled the anime's story, cast and staff members. BlazBlue Alter Memory will be based on 2008 title BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger, which launched initially for arcades and was ported to PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PlayStation Portable and Windows PCs in 2009 and 2010.
BlazBlue Alter Memory takes place in December 2199 during New Year celebrations. The powerful rebel Ragna the Bloodedge, who has an incredibly high bounty on his head and is also known as the "Grim Reaper," appears to wreck havoc and destroy the world. A ragtag gang of fighters —...
A brief teaser trailer for Flying Wild Hog's "total reimagining" of 1997 FPS Shadow Warrior juxtaposes brutal violence with the peaceful beauty of a Japanese garden.
Set to a cover of The Peanuts' "Kawaii-Hana," the trailer moves past a sleek black sports car parked in front of a stairway, and sets sounds of combat against scenes of idyllic beauty splattered with blood. We catch a glimpse of what is presumably the protagonist walking with pistol and sword in hand into a candle-lite chamber, but his foe isn't alone.
There is currently no available information about Shadow Warrior's platforms or release date.
Four beloved Mass Effect characters will make their way to LittleBigPlanet tomorrow in the Mass Effect Costume Pack, publisher Sony Computer Entertainment announced today.
Skins for male Shepard, Liara, Garrus and Wrex will be available in the pack, along with accessories like armor and gloves and a bunch of in-game stickers for Mass Effect. Like all costume packs, the DLC will be compatible with LittleBigPlanet 2, LittleBigPlanet Karting and LittleBigPlanet PS Vita.
The costume pack will sell for £4.79 in the U.K., where it will go on sale May 22. No price for North America is available yet, but the most expensive costume packs have all cost $5.99. You can check out images of the content in the pack on the LittleBigPlanet website.
Former Grand Theft Auto producer Jeremy Pope left Rockstar games determined never to work on violent video games again, because explaining to others he was working on the controversial and mature titles made him uncomfortable, he said in a recent Games Industry International interview.
Pope — who served as producer for Grand Theft Auto 3, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and Max Payne and now runs his own mobile startup Rally Games — left Rockstar during the development of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas when he began to have mixed feelings on the titles he was creating.
"I think at the time it was really only an inkling that I had," he said. "I was still in my early to mid-20s, I had grown up playing all types of games, violent games included, and worked on Max Payne and Grand Theft...
Speaking to Polygon, Holmes said one of the things he learned as a game designer from playing Batman: Arkham Asylum and Arkham City was about pacing, and the development team behind Origins has worked to bring those lessons over to its game.
"The pacing in [those games] is fantastic," Holmes said. "There's a certain rhythm that [Rocksteady] hit, where there's a fight, and there's a certain number of people in that fight, then once you're done fighting you navigate for a bit, you grapple and crawl through vents, you swing from gargoyle to gargoyle, and just when you get to a point where you think, 'Dammit, I'd really like a fight,' they bring it back.
"You always finish every single part of the game with a sense that you could have done a bit more, so when they bring it back, you're...
FreeStyleGames, the developer behind the DJ Hero games, is looking to hire an IPTV producer for a multiplatform game incorporating "online infrastructure-heavy" video elements, according to a listing on LinkedIn.
According to the listing, the Coventry-based studio is looking for a producer with experience in the development of software applications for IPTV technology, television services delivered over the Internet. The producer also must have relevant experience in the production of multi-platform content. This producer will lead development on FreeStyleGames' title, which will feature "specific emphasis on online infrastructure-heavy video applications."
The listing also notes the producer will work closely with stakeholders to make sure the game is produced within its allotted...
The latest developer diary for upcoming PlayStation 3 game The Last of Us highlights the significance of crafting and scavenging during a bleak apocalypse.
In this third episode of the diary series, the team behind the anticipated title discuss the development of a streamlined menu and crafting UI, in addition to the creation of difficult in-game choices for the player to face.
The Last of Us, a PlayStation 3 exclusive will hit retail stores on June 14 across the globe. Check out our recent hands-on preview of the upcoming title right here.
The voice of Batman in Batman: Arkham City and Arkham Asylum, Kevin Conroy, is involved in the upcoming Batman: Arkham Origins, according to Conroy in a Q&A session at the Dallas Comic Con.
"Well, I can talk about it now," Conroy said when the panelist asked him if he could talk about what he has been working on. "We've been working for the past nine to ten months on the next Arkham. We all signed these contracts that we weren't allowed to talk about this, the studio likes to completely control the roll out of any product."
It wasn't made clear during the Q&A session in what capacity or role Conroy has in Origins.
Last month, NAG Magazine reported that Conroy will not be reprising his role in Origins because WB Games Montreal wanted a younger voice actor to fit with the vision of a...
Infinity Ward released a brief teaser for Call of Duty: Ghosts that features a look at the game in an early design state.
The video, which you can watch here, was posted via Vine and loops approximately five seconds of footage. Following rumors and a leaked promotional poster, Call of Duty: Ghosts was officially announced earlier this month for Windows PC, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and next-gen systems. Few details are currently known about the game, but it will deliver a new story, cast and setting.
A first look at the game is expected at Microsoft's next-gen Xbox unveiling taking place on Tuesday, May 21.
Call of Duty: Ghosts is currently slated for launch Nov. 5 of this year. The game is available now for pre-order.
Deathstroke, the villain in Warner Bros. Montreal's upcoming game Batman: Arkham Origins, will be available as a playable character through downloadable content, according to a posting on Amazon.
The post is part of a pre-order offer, but does not give details on the extent of Deathstroke's playability. In Batman: Arkham City, players were able to take on the role of Catwoman through downloadable content. Batman: Arkham Origins was announced in April for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Windows PC and Wii U. The game takes place before series predecessors Arkham City and Arkham Asylum, where Batman is still young and "unrefined." Early reports suggest that the game will have multiplayer options.
Batman: Arkham Origins is currently scheduled for release Oct. 25.
BioShock Infinite, Irrational Games' widely acclaimed first-person shooter, is now on sale through Amazon's Deal of the Day special across all platforms.
Both the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 version are available for $39.99. Windows PC players can pick up Infinite as a physical copy or digital download for $34.99, a 42 percent discount off the game's usual price. The sale will only run today.
Publisher Take-Two Interactive has shipped more than 3.7 million copies of BioShock Infinite since its launch March 26. Irrational Games also recently announced that it would release a cuddlier, plushie version of Songbird, the game's mechanical, bird-like creature.
A teaser trailer for Alien Rage, the first-person arcade title formerly known as Alien Fear, gives viewers a first look at the game.
Alien Rage is being developed by City Interactive, the company behind titles such as Lords of the Fallen, Sniper Ghost Warrior and Dogfight 1942. Alien Rage is a downloadable title that, according to the game's description, will feature 10 different weapons and 14 boss fights. You can watch the trailer above for a brief glimpse at the game in action.
Alien Rage will launch later this year for Steam, PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Arcade. City Interactive recently announced that it would debut a playable version of its fantasy action-RPG, Lords of the Fallen, at E3 2013.
A new trailer posted by All Games Beta for the recently announced Gran Turismo 6 offers a conceptual look at the game's visual style and cars.
Check out the video above to see the game in basic form. Gran Turismo 6 will include seven new locations and 1,200 vehicles, which includes every car from Gran Turismo 5. According to a recent press release, the game will "bring new levels of authenticity to the ‘Real Driving simulator,'" in addition to its new features.
Gran Turismo 6 was outed a day ahead of Sony's planned event by a product listing on the franchise's official site. The game has since been confirmed for a holiday release this year on PlayStation 3, with a demo coming in July. You can watch the announcement trailer here.
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