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.
Bungie to Officially Hand Over Halo Community Services to 343 in March
On March 31st, the master minds behind the sci-fi epic Halo are to officially hand over Community Services to 343 Industries. That’s right; Bungie will cease to host any and all Halo services on Bungie.net. Current Halo data is to be transferred to 343 and, at that time, “all live Halo data will be managed by 343 Industries, and Bungie will no longer be 
able to update game stats and player service records, to host new user generated content, or to operate the Bungie Pro service.”
For Halo fans everywhere, March 31st will be one of those gaming moments. It’s a day that a beloved series concludes its journey to a new home. 343 Industries certainly has some big boots to fill don’t you think?
EA Confirms, Syndicate will not ship with an Online Pass
EA, breaking a habit of what seems like a lifetime, has today announced that its upcoming title Syndicate will not be hindered by an online pass. EA Partners executive producer Jeff Gamon stated that Starbreeze’s reboot would ship without an online pass, in the hopes of lowering the barrier of entry for the game’s multiplayer side.
“We want as little resistance or barriers to entry as possible,” Gamon said. “The co-op is equal billing in this. We wanted everyone who owns a copy of the game to have access to the entire product.” It’s policy for EA to include an online pass 
in all of its games but it is very interesting to see them changing it up a little.
“Under normal circumstances it would have had an online pass, but because it didn’t have competitive multiplayer and because we wanted as many people as possible to be playing co-op, we got away with it,” Gamon added. “Maybe another reason for not having the Online Pass is we were confident in the scope of the online game.” Throughout the nine multiplayer maps, he says players can expect “a good six, seven hours” on a single play through. “That and the single-player campaign means hopefully we won’t see much in the way of early second hand sales and rentals,” Gamon concluded.
So, will the lack of an online pass make Syndicate a more entice buy? Please share your thoughts.
Gotham City Imposters: Causing Havoc on All Platforms Next Week
You’ve flown through the streets of Gotham City with real Batman and you’ve taken on the madness of the real Joker… but are you ready to battle their imposters? If not, too bad! Gotham City Imposters will be coming to the PC on February 7th and to Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 the very next day.
Gotham City Imposters is certainly an interesting take on the Batman franchise. Coming to you from Monolith Productions, the twisted minds that brought you both F.E.A.R and Condemned, Imposters is a multiplayer based first person shooter that provides you with 12 player battles between Batman and Joker wannabes. The game has multiple game modes including Psych Warfare, a capture the flag variant as well as a straight-up Deathmatch. Imposters also house an impressive array of weaponry and homemade gadgets, among them the grappling hook and the jack-in-the-box.
Gotham City Imposters will be available for digital download only and will set you back $15 or 1200 Microsoft Points.
Trials Evolution gets Leaked
In the past, RedLynx has been known to “leak” their own game in an attempt to boost publicity but, unfortunately, this time around it wasn’t the devs poking holes in the boat. Sources state that RedLynx have denied claims that it was behind the recent leak of Trials Evolution. “We want to be clear that is not something we did ourselves,” said RedLynx managing director Tero Virtala.
Virtala goes on to say that those who have pirated the the upcoming Xbox Live Arcade exclusive will have the bare minimum of the Trials experience. ”Trials Evolution is a game that makes full use of being continuously connected,” he pointed out; online-based additions like leaderboards and online multiplayer are unavailable in the leaked version due to Microsoft’s monitoring of hacked Xbox 360s.
A PEGI rating provided a vague launch time for the full launch of the game. We can expect to see Trials Evolution hitting the Arcade sometime soon. Virtala also went on to tease a “new trailer coming soon which will give people a much better look into everything the game will hold and when they can expect to see it.” We’re especially interested in that last part.
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!
Dragon’s Dogma Gets May Release Date, Resident Evil 6 Demo Included
Capcom today have confirmed that Dragon’s Dogma will release in North America on May 22 and across Europe on May 25. Capcom is also pleased to announce that purchasers of Dragon’s Dogma will have the opportunity to be the first to experience a playable demo of Resident Evil 6, ahead of its release on November 20.
If you purchase a retail version of Dragon’s Dogma, then you will be happy to know it will contain a redeemable token that will allow you to download the Resident Evil 6 demo. Xbox 360 purchasers will also have more of an incentive as Resident Evil 6 will first come to the Xbox LIVE Marketplace 60 days earlier than any other platform beginning July 3.
The demo for owners of the PlayStation 3 version of Dragon’s Dogma will go live on the PlayStation Store on September 4 in North America and Japan and September 5 in Europe.
Press Release:
An exciting new franchise which redefines the action genre, Dragon’s Dogma is from the team that produced some of Capcom’s greatest action games. Set in a huge open world, Dragon’s Dogma offers an exhilarating and fulfilling action combat game with the freedom to explore and interact in a rich, living and breathing world.
Dragon’s Dogma introduces an innovative team system to the genre. Known as Pawns, these three AI partners fight independently, demonstrating prowess and ability they have developed based on traits learned over time from the player and their actions. By utilising the Xbox LIVE online entertainment network or PlayStation Network players will journey to the Rift where they can share their own Pawns with friends and be rewarded with treasure, knowledge of the world and strategies for taking down enemies. Conversely, players can borrow friends’ Pawns with the specific skills or experience required to tackle a particular quest. In addition, Dragon’s Dogma will ship with thousands of ready-made Pawns for players to pick their allies offline.
For those wishing to reserve their day one copy of Dragon’s Dogma the following pre-order initiatives will be available:
The ‘Pawn Upgrade Pack’ will give players additional Rift Crystals allowing them to rent higher level experience Pawns from the outset. The ‘Armour Upgrade Pack’ and ‘Weapon Upgrade Pack’ deliver higher level armour and weapons respectively giving players a real advantage when tackling the toughest of enemies. Please check local retailers for details.
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.
Aliens: Colonial Marines ‘Contact’ Trailer sets the mood
Games are coming ever closer to achieving visually and emotionally what cinema has provided us over the years, with developers now using pre-rendered trailers to convey the mood they are aiming to provide with their latest and greatest. While you may have your opinions on gameplay vs. cinematic trailers, you can’t deny that they don’t get you excited.
Dead Island impressed everyone last year with the slow moving emotional story told in reverse, and now it looks like Gearbox wants some of the limelight with their latest Aliens: Colonial Marines ’Contact’ Trailer. Set to a fantastic track from the Moon soundtrack, follow the trail of the acidic alien blood as it moves from floor to floor, each providing you an idea of the various moods and gameplay scenarios that you will be encountering later this year in up to four player co-op.
Recently pushed from its March release, Aliens: Colonial Marines is currently aiming for a summer release for the Xbox 360, PS3 and PC, with a WiiU version reportedly in the works.
