New Prototype 2 Characters Revealed

When thinking about what is most important in life, family would almost certainly come top of the list. If someone was to then take away those people, it would surely be enough to turn the average man into someone consumed with hate and revenge. Sgt. James Heller is such a man. A man whose family has been killed and he will stop at nothing to gain vengeance on the person who is responsible. As Prototype 2 begins, we join him on this mission.

Before the Blacklight virus ravaged New York, the Hellers were an example of the perfect American family; two loving parents, James and his wife Colette, with a young happy child called Amaya. James was serving in the Middle East and when the second outbreak hits, Colette suspects it is more serious than what the public are being told and grows to distrust Blackwatch. The loving and devoted wife expresses these fears to James over the phone but he urges her to trust them and do as they say. The after-effects of this prove to be catastrophic as Colette’s trust of Blackwatch leads to the Infected entering their home and their untimely deaths. The loss of his family transforms James Heller from good husband, father and soldier to a killer consumed with anger who is on the hunt to track down the person he feels is responsible; the original Prototype protagonist, Alex Mercer – and what ensues is most certainly explosive.

PROTOTYPE 2’s RADNET Edition Emerges

Radical Entertainment have today announced the arrival of  PROTOTYPE 2’s RADNET Edition. This limited content will contain free access to RADNET via a one-time use code that offers 55 free pieces of additional content delivered over seven weeks following the game’s launch.  This weekly scheduled content will include in-game Events, Challenges, Avatar Items, Dynamic Themes and Behind-the-Scenes videos, as well as bonus Mutations for PROTOTYPE 2‘s main campaign. Anyone who participates in all of RADNET’s weekly challenges and events will unlock the ultimate shape-shifting reward that is yet to be revealed until March.

PROTOTYPE 2’s RADNET Edition content is set to launch on April 24th for Xbox 360 and PS3, and will only be available for free while supplies last so move fast!

Sine Mora To Feature Mechanical Designs By Prominent Anime Creator

Sine Mora, the colourful dieselpunk shoot em’ up by created by Digital Reality and Grasshopper Manufacture, is one of the most visually stunning titles coming to Xbox Live to date. Beyond its intensifying, high-flying gameplay, much of Sine Mora’s greatness is thanks to the intricately designed boss battles derived from the very concept work of famous anime creator, Mahiro Maeda who’s various credits include directing Blue Submarine No. 6, Final Fantasy: Unlimited and The Animatrix , as well as designing art for Neon Genesis Evangelion, Magic User’s Club and many more.

Coming exclusively to XBLA, Sine Mora provides a unique take on the shoot em’ up genre, where time is always the key factor. Intertwining classic shooter sensibilities with next-gen presentation, Sine Mora is a beautiful title that appeals to both hardcore and casual gamers alike. Sine Mora features over 60 combinations of planes, characters and time manipulation devices to complete every intricately-crafted stage with increasing difficulty. All of this is set to an epic score of soaring heights, composed by Akira Yamaoka, acclaimed for his works on Shadows of the Damned and the Silent Hill series.

Epic Games On The Xbox 720

With the ever building noise surrounding the Xbox 360′s eventual successor, even Epic Games, developer behind the Gears Of War series and creator of the Unreal Engine has reached out and had their say in all this.

Founder of Epic Games, Tim Sweeney stated that they are investing heavily with their engine, as well as game development for the next generation of console technology and games:

“With every console transition, people ask if there will be another console transition or another successful console platform. We are betting big that there will be. If you look at games like Call of Duty and Gears of War, it’s clear that console is the pinnacle of the gaming experience. so we are investing heavily with our engine and game development efforts for the next generation of console technology and games. But at the same time, we actually see this wonderful thing happening where the mobile platform and web platforms are getting to the point where they can run a AAA game. One consistent game engine technology can run across console, PC, mobile and web games. We’re really happy with that position. It lets game developers target lots of different platforms. We have shipped Infinity Blade of iOS. We have announced a new game Fortnite for an entirely different audience, more casual. It appeals to a wider audience than a hardcore game like Gears of War. We are branching out, but we tie it all together with AAA production values.”

Sweeney continues:

“The longevity of this console generation has been a mixed blessing. On the game side, it’s been really great for our business. We have been able to ship three Gears of War games on the same generation of hardware, each one with dramatic improvements over the last and a two to three-year development cycle. So it’s been a very good thing for a game business today. With each new title, there is a bigger and bigger Xbox 360 installed base of users, so the games can sell more. On the other hand, it gets harder to generate the same excitement from the same hardware. That is when the new hardware is justified. But then you reset the installed base to zero and it’s a lot harder to sell a lot of games again. So you should only replace the hardware when you can make a dramatic leap in quality, not just 2X or 3X. It has to be huge and fundamentally new.

If you create awesome technology for the wrong platform, then nobody will ever adopt it. Epic in general has always tried to be really savvy on the business side. We look at the business models and changing trends and try to stay on top of them. If you look at Epic, we began as a shareware game company in the 1990s making really tiny games. Then we pulled together into one huge team and created the first Unreal game. At that point, we needed to build a huge game to compete with the likes of id Software. We changed our company dramatically to do that. Around 2004, we decided the game industry’s sweet spot was moving to consoles. So we made the transition from a PC game company to a console game company with Gears of War. Now we see new changes afoot with the move to mobile and web gaming with Adobe Flash. So we put together business relationships with Apple and Adobe and other folks to do what we need for the future.”

With some luck, this latest comment from Epic Games will spawn a host of unique opinions about the Xbox 720 from some of the other big names out there so be sure so keep checking in for all the latest updates.

SoulCalibur V Preps A Number Of Launch Month DLC Packs

While we all prepare ourselves for the next few days in wait for the onslaught to begin, Namco Bandai has also prepared itself with a set of three premium DLC packs scheduled in the first month of SoulCalibur V‘s release. How’s that for a Kick in the crotch?

It seems Namco Bandai took a creative turn this month with music and customization on their minds for the DLC. Each of the three packs feature music tracks from two previous games in the series, alongside special customization gear to enhance the power of the game’s character creation tool.

The first pack  will emerge in time for the game’s launch. It comes with music from Soul Blade and the original SoulCalibur, plus nine “exotic” costume options: Wings, face paints, bikinis, etc.

Pack two makes its appearance on Valentine’s Day, February 14. This time the music is from SoulCaliburs II and III, and the nine customization items include a breast plate, a kimono, and a number of animal heads.

Towards the end of the month we’ll get our third helping of DLC with masks, more face paint, skulls, and camouflage, all the while listening to the sweet sounds of SoulCalibur IV and SoulCalibur: Broken Destiny.

Prices for each pack are set at €1.99 or 160 MS points in Europe.

Resident Evil 6 To Have 6 Player Co-Op

In the past few days we have heard many rumours of Resident Evil 6′s co-op mode that will feature support for up to six players. Thankfully as confirmed by Xbox.com, the games product page gives us a little more than mere rumors of whats in store.

However, we are still unable to tell if the co-op mode will be  tied to the campaign. According to the listing, between 2-6 players can jump into the game’s online co-op mode, with offline split-screen co-op restricted to two players.

In this early stage, it is unknown whether Resi 6′s co-op will be linked to the game’s campaign or will form part of a separate online mode. Previous multiplayer titles such as Resi 5 hint that a six-player Mercenaries mode could be possibility.

According to Capcom, the game has already been in development for around two years and has the largest staff count in the series’ history, with over 600 people involved in the project. Let’s hope all this extra man-power was worth it in the end.

Resident Evil 6 launches on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 on November 20th with a PC version due for release at a later date.

The Last Story Limited Edition Details Arise

Nintendo have announced an exclusive limited edition bundle coming for The Last Story , the latest action-packed RPG from legendary Hironobu Sakaguchi (founder of the Final Fantasy series), available exclusively on Wii across Europe from February 24th.

The limited edition The Last Story bundle will be available for pre-order while stocks last, featuring a copy of the game, an exclusive SteelBook cover decorated with stunning artwork, and a The Elements Of The Last Story package which includes The Premium Soundtrack CD and The Illustrations art booklet. The CD features a 7-track selection of music from the game composed by Nobuo Uematsu who has worked on many projects within the Final Fantasy series.

The Last Story adds a modern twist to the traditional RPG style, offering a strategic, real-time combat system and allowing you to customise your character and weaponry. By mastering a mysterious ability called The Gathering you will be able to help the main protagonist Zael and his band of mercenaries complete the many missions and battle vast bosses by discovering their weak spots and using teamwork to bring them down. The Last Story not only features a story-driven single player campaign, but also two online multiplayer modes, Deathmatch and Co-op, allowing you to battle against or alongside up to five other people across Europe.

Final Fantasy Creator To Speak At Midlands Comic Con

World famous videogame developer, director and producer Hironobu Sakaguchi, creator of the massively popular Final Fantasy series, will be attending the MCM Midlands Comic Con in Telford on 18 February. He will be talking about his career and latest project – Nintendo’s critically-acclaimed The Last Story for Wii ahead of its UK launch next month.

An icon within the gaming industry, Sakaguchi is not only the founder of the epic Final Fantasy franchise, but has produced a number of great titles including Lost Odyssey; Vagrant Story; Xenogears; Chrono Trigger and Kingdom Hearts. His newest game, The Last Story, a huge fantasy tale that sees the player take charge of a band of mercenaries as they explore and battle their way across Lazulis Island, the heart of an empire filled with hardship and strife.

Mass Effect 3 and Kingdoms Of Amalur Demos Come With Exclusive DLC

Much like last year’s Dead Space armour finding its way onto Dragon Age II, it’s more than obvious that EA likes to indulge itself in the various collaborations of its popular franchises. And so in this new year, the tradition continues as Mass Effect 3 and Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning both look to make some serious noise in the coming months, and what better to do while waiting in anticipation than checking out each of their demos and grabbing yourself some epic downloadable content completely free!

Just as the image shows us, both games will feature exclusive in-game items inspired purely by eachother with Mass Effect 3 weapons/armour in Kingdoms Of Amalur and Amalur weapons/armour in Mass Effect 3. Both demos will be available to download on Xbox LIVE and PSN with Amalur coming Jan 17th and ME3 following soon after. By simply completing each demo, you’ll be rewarded with the items specified below.

Playing through the Kingdoms Of Amalur: Reckoning demo will land you these two items for use in ME3:

Reckoner Knight Armor: This armor will maximize damage done in close-quarters combat while a beefed–up power cell feeds energy into weapon systems to increase projectile velocity.

The Chakram Launcher: This weapon uses a fabricator to manufacture lightweight, explosive ammunition discs. This weapon is earned after completing the Reckoning demo and watching the trailer at the end.

And playing through the Mass Effect 3 demo will get you these items for use in Amalur:

N7 Armor: Players can unlock special armor inspired by Commander Shepard’s iconic N7 battle armor including Helm, Cuirass, Gauntlets, Chausses and Greaves.

Onmiblade Daggers: A holographic blade stemming from Commander Shepard’s Omni-Tool, the Omni-blade allows players to stab enemies in close combat. Once players install and play the Mass Effect 3 demo, they will unlock the daggers.

Snakeskin 3DS Bundled With MGS: Snake Eater 3D

That was no spelling mistake, that’s right, Hideo Kojima has lately been throwing around some rumors of a ‘special’ 3DS to accompany the upcoming remastered version of Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater 3D. The famed designer recently tweeted the first teaser image of the custom console that will soon go side-by-side with the action-packed jungle thriller.

Kojima claims that this is the games industry’s “first snake pattern-embossed design” – which only begs the question, will it be the last? Further details on this unique bundle are due to go public before the end of January.