According to a report by the Wall Street Journal, software behemoth Google is planning to release a games console. The article claims that the console will be Android powered, and will act as a direct rival to Apple, who is allegedly making plans to launch a similar Apple TV device that will play games.
The report also suggests that, in addition to the console, Google is also working on a cutting-edge wristwatch, which will allow users to play media on the move. We already know that Google has a second version of the Android powered, Nexus-Q in development.
What does all this mean for us? Microsoft and Sony have both made it clear that their respective consoles are aiming to dominate the living room by being much more than just 'games players'. If this report is accurate, it looks like there will be a little more competition for space under your TV, although Google's console is unlikely to play true next-generation games--its Android architecture is currently built for tablet / phone style titles. Nintendo isn't safe either. A media-enabled wristwatch could provide competition for their handheld devices.
Even more intriguing, The Wall Street Journal piece suggests that one of Google's devices could be available as early as autumn 2013.
American McGee and his Spicy Horse studio are turning their twisted fairy tale gaming machinations to the marvelous land of Oz. A single-player focused action-adventure, OZombie will star Dorothy's great granddaughter and her quest to liberate Oz from a mind-numbing regime led by the brain-hungry Scarecrow.
That's all well and good, but it also has a Kickstarter video starring McGee and Pandora Boxx of Ru Paul's Drag Race, who is apparently a big fan of the Alice games.
OZombie is "first and foremost a single player game:" players will work their way through the main story, recruiting memorable characters to the cause of Oz's salvation. That said, it will feature unlockable multiplayer with raids and tournaments.
It's also pay-to-play, unlike Spicy Horse's other recent freaky fairy tale, Akaneiro: Demon Hunters. Players need only pay once to access the single player campaign and multiplayer, though there may be an item shop of some kind.
Spicy Horse is looking for $950,000 to produce the game, and about $84,000 has been pledged as of its second day. A minimum pledge of $15 is required to get the game across PC, Mac, Linux, and mobile, loosely predicted to launch in March 2015.
Sony has released a new firmware update for PS3. This follows a number of complaints that the previous version was bricking some consoles by totally removing the XMB. Obviously, you can't navigate through PS3's functions without the XMB... Whoops.
If you're one of the unlucky few who downloaded version 4.45 and lost your XMB, you can update your PS3 by downloading 4.46 to a memory stick, rebooting your PS3 in Safe Mode, and installing the new firmware from there. Here are the instructions on using Safe Mode via the official PlayStation website.
What is actually in the system update? Not much. General improvements to make your PS3 run more smoothly, and the option to turn off Trophy notifications.
BioShock Infinite has received its first morsel of DLC on Steam, and creator Ken Levine is assuring fans that more Columbia stories are coming. Columbia's Finest costs $5 and combines all the upgrades accessible from the pre-order only Industrial Revolution Pack, and the Ultimate Songbird Edition's Upgrade Pack.
With Columbia's Finest, players start the game with five extra lockpicks, 500 Silver Eagles, six new gear items providing unique passive bonuses, and two upgraded weapons: Comstock's China Broom Shotgun and Comstock's Eagle Eye Sniper Rifle.
Don't worry, Columbia's Finest doesn't count against the three-episode, $30 BioShock Infinite Season Pass. Ken Levine took to Twitter to confirm that development is proceeding on the post-release episodes.
DLC Update: We are working on it- have been since the game shipped. Things are going well, but plz understand: game development takes time.
— Ken Levine (@IGLevine) June 26, 2013
Given how long BioShock Infinite took to escape Irrational Games, we're not surprised by the wait.
Plants vs. Zombies 2: It's About Time needs a little more time to bloom. Developer PopCap today announced on the free-to-play tower defense title's official Twitter account that the game will miss its original release date of July 18.
Plants vs. Zombies 2, originally slated for a July 18th release, will now be released later in the summer. Stay tuned for more details.
— Plants vs. Zombies (@PlantsvsZombies) June 26, 2013
Players can expect PvZ 2 to arrive on iPad "later in the summer." The original Plants vs. Zombies grew to encompass just about every platform short of Virtual Boy, so we can't imagine it will take much longer to appear on other systems.
Some peril is inherent in making a sequel's subtitle reference how overdue it is, we suppose.
The debut trailer for Dragon Age: Inquisition gave us a tour of some impressive visuals, but it all went by so fast it was tough to pick out any details. Today BioWare released the first official screenshot for the third primary game in the fantasy RPG series.
It's a much prettier version of a scene we already saw in action--armored warriors watch as their leader draws out a battle plan. But now we can take a leisurely look at the smooth, Frostbite 3-powered visuals--and the kind-of-plasticky hair which at least indicates this is indeed an in-game shot.
The shot was included with a staff blog for BioWare programmer Matt Komsthoeft, who worked on Mass Effect 2 and 3 before moving on to Dragon Age: Inquisition.
"We are trailblazing with an engine that has never been used to make an RPG before yet already has a number of beautiful games using it," Komsthoeft wrote.
Hotline Miami, the gloriously violent and effortlessly cool puzzle-action game, is now available on PSN in the US. UK and Europe will have to wait until tomorrow for the game. For the super-reasonable price of £7.29 or $8.99 you can grab Hotline Miami as a cross-buy, which means you'll be able to play the same copy on both PS3 and Vita.
We've had the game since yesterday, and have been playing it for hours. Although there's little gameplay difference from the PC version--read our review right here--the controls have been adapted for both PS3 and Vita. While the PS3 version struggles to translate to the pad (constantly having to switch between movement and scouting the area is a chore) the Vita game benefits from smart use of the touch-screen. Here you tap to lock onto enemies, and drag to look around each level. The smaller thumbsticks make the game's precise movements feel more accurate on Vita too.
Importantly, though, both versions restart instantly after death, and feature that insanely cool 80s soundtrack. There's an exclusive mask to unlock; the lone new piece of content. A little stingy perhaps, but at £7.29 / $8.99 Hotline Miami is still brilliant value and hugely recommended.
Want to see the game in action? Yes, you really, really do. Here's an extremely disturbing trailer:
Ubisoft says it hasn’t ruled out releasing newly announced Tom Clancy game The Division on PC. In development at Ubisoft Massive, which previously contributed to Assassin's Creed: Revelations and Far Cry 3, the online action RPG was revealed at E3 for release on Xbox One and PS4. The PC community was quick to make its voice heard - in just two weeks, over 110,000 people have added their names to a petition calling on Ubisoft to release the title on PC too – and the publisher has taken note.
Speaking to IGN in a video interview seemingly conducted at E3 but just recently published online, a Ubisoft spokesperson confirmed that the game is set for release in “winter 2014” on consoles, adding: “We're not ruling out other platforms because we do also read the internet. I think Ubisoft as a company considers maximising the potential of a game, so if the audience is there and the desire is there..." Ubisoft Massive creative director Niklas Cederstrom added: "It's very clear when you read the forums what people miss."
The Division is set in New York three weeks after a lethal manmade virus has brought the city to its knees. Players take on the role of agents from The Division, a classified unit trained to operate independently of command and battle to prevent the collapse of society. With amazing visuals, a massive open-world and dynamic PVP, we came away highly impressed after seeing the title earlier this month. So much so, in fact, that we named it ‘Best game we're worried might be cancelled’ in our GamesRadar E3 2013 awards.
Microsoft's talked up its comprehensive new cloud functionality for Xbox One games since it revealed the system in May, but mostly with abstract examples. Today Respawn Entertainment gave its forecast for the cloud in Titanfall: dedicated servers.
"I personally talked to both Microsoft and Sony and explained that we need to find a way to have potentially hundreds-of-thousands of dedicated servers at a price point that you can’t get right now," Respawn engineer Jon Shiring said in an official blog post. "Microsoft realized that player-hosted servers are actually holding back online gaming and that this is something that they could help solve, and ran full-speed with this idea."
How are player-hosted servers holding games back? Spotty bandwidth and latency, unfair performance between hosts and clients, host migrations, and uneven distribution of CPU loads (i.e., the host's machine chugs to keep the match going while every other player's machine sits underutilized) were a few of Shiring's examples.
Of course, they remain popular because it's free to tell your players to run their own servers instead of renting out dedicated ones, Shiring said. But using Microsoft's cloud is relatively cheap in interest of attracting games to the ecosystem--not just Xbox One, but even the PC and Xbox 360 versions will dwell exclusively in Microsoft's cloud.
With dedicated servers hosted in data centers across the world, Titanfall can use each player's machine explicitly for their own experience, and the server can handle everything else, including AI enemies and Titan mechs on autopilot.
Sony has confirmed that a demo of Gran Turismo 6 will release next week. As of 2 July, you'll be able to grab it from PSN for free. The demo celebrates the start of GT Academy 2013, which asks fans to compete against each other for a chance to win a place on the real Nissan Racing Team.
If you want to compete in GT Academy, you need to download the GT6 demo and start submitting times. There are separate qualifying events for the US, Russia, Germany and the rest of Europe. As you'd expect, the demo exclusively features Nissan cars, and the track on offer is Silverstone. The GT Academy competition only runs until 28 July, but the GT6 demo will be available on PSN until 31 August.
GT6 is due on PS3 at the end of 2013. You can find more details on the demo and the GT Academy 2013 competition at the PlayStation Blog.
If you can make it through this alpha footage of Routine without shivering, you're more courageous than us. Let's set the scene: the first-person horror game from tiny studio Lunar Software takes place on a deserted moonbase.
Its disappeared crew left behind clues regarding their fate, and players are free to explore wherever they want in search of them. But just because no other people are around doesn't mean you're alone...
The distinct, hard sci-fi aesthetic (it's like Moon and System Shock 2 had a baby!) would be enough to intrigue us, even without the promise of randomized hazards to overcome and clues to analyze. Throw in permadeath and Oculus Rift support and the cash is running, screaming, from our wallets.
The Order: 1886 briefly grabbed the spotlight at Sony's E3 press conference as a stylish steampunk thriller for PS4. Of course, by the end of the night everybody was gibbering about the console itself, so the PlayStation Blog caught up with developer Ready at Dawn to get under 1886's grimy surface streets.
First off, it's a linear, third-person action adventure with some kind of shooting. It takes place in an alternate London which is even more gaga about the Industrial Revolution than usual--as indicated by the airships on its horizon and the big, clanking guns on its heroes' backs. But its historical divergences will be more Assassin's Creed than Crimson Skies.
"Because this game is based in the real world, we wanted to feed off that and use some of the events, the people and the stuff that existed in that time to accentuate and bring our IP into a world that is believable," Ready at Dawn co-founder Ru Weerasuriya said.
Weerasuriya repeatedly referred to The Order as a "filmic experience," to the extent that it incorporates multiple camera lenses and grain effects.
"Games have a tendency sometimes to be too clean and crisp," he said. "We thrive in the dirt. We just love the fact that it feels dirty. It’s filmed in a very realistic way."
Ready At Dawn is best known for its PSP God of War titles Chains of Olympus and Ghost of Sparta. We'll see what it can do with a new world and a powerful home console.
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