Some sad news on the Darksiders front chums. Joaby's first look at the game and jevans' outstanding hands on made me incredibly excited for the end of June, but now word has come down that we are going to have to wait until August, as Vigil have asked THQ for a bit more time to polish things up and to "meet the high-quality bar the team is targeting."
This all comes about after THQ's Executive Vice President Danny Bilson was unable to confirm Darksiders II's release date in an interview with RipTen. When questioned directly on the release date, Bilson said:
We haven’t announced anything… but the team is working really, really hard. We’re not going to ship it before it’s done.
Given THQ's considerably rocky past couple of months, this was naturally a cause for distress amongst fans - so some certainty is definitely good news, regardless of the push. You can read more on Vigil's explanation of the new release window on the official Darksiders II site.
Last week I made a mistake friends. I told you you could watch two amazing episodes of the floppy in one week, making it the world's greatest week. Well thanks to NDAs, Junglist's Trials Evolution episode was not allowed to air on its regularly scheduled timeslot - making me look like a liar and no doubt making you lose all trust in me, Junglist and the entire god damned establishment.
Well fear not chums! I can guarantee* you will instead get your double dose of the 5 Inch Floppy this week instead, beginning with this outstanding episode on Trials Evolution. The follow up to the incredibly popular Trials HD, Trials Evolution is certain to result in even more controller shaped holes in plasma tvs the world over. You can watch Junglist's take on the game embedded below or in our videos library - going full screen for HD of course. And as always, you can get more of your Junglist fix by checking out the 5 Inch Floppy on Facebook and the 5 Inch Floppy Blog!
I wouldn't be particularly surprised if you weren't familiar with Dishonored. The stealth focused first person shooter was announced last year and followed by silence. Like the assassin its gameplay is based around, it popped up here and there let everyone know it was still quietly moving along - staying to the shadows and avoiding the hype machine until it was time to strike.
And that time is now. As far as cinematic trailers go, this one is outstanding. Our protagonist Corvo begins in jail accused of killing the Empress he had sworn to protect, is visited by a mysterious magic man who sets him on his path of vengeance. You might notice that in the trailer, Corvo seems to have a pretty good time slaughtering everyone with abandon, but Dishonored will also let you take on every enemy - even bosses - non-lethally. You can watch the trailer embedded below or in our videos library - and definitely go full screen for this one.
Yesterday twitter was all a flutter with Halo 4 talk, with the release date apparently set to be unveiled on Conan O'Brien's tv show today or yesterday, or at some point in time in the near future or the near past. Either way, The Verge were on the ball before the announcement, learning from reliable sources that the Halo 4 release date was set for November 6th this year.
This would be little cause for celebration regardless of whether you were from the future or the past, until Microsoft decided to let the cat out of the bag, announcing that said sources were correct, and we can look forward to starting another fight at the beginning of November this year. Said Microsoft Studios VP Phil Spencer:
"We are beginning a new saga with Halo 4 and embarking on a journey that will encompass the next decade of Halo games and experiences, Millions of fans worldwide have been eagerly awaiting the opportunity to step back into the boots of Master Chief, and, with Halo 4 leading the charge, we're confident 2012 will be the most successful year in Xbox history."
Are you looking forward to The next decade of Halo games and experiences? Let us know in the comments below!
I've been holding off on Star Wars: The Old Republic until the Aussie Transfers began again - I don't want to relevel a character, you see. So I was very pleased to see an email languishing in my inbox this morning saying Transfers are now open! To qualify for a transfer,
...players in Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Singapore must have purchased their game, redeemed a Game Product Registration Code and either have or have had entered valid billing information or a Pre-Paid Game Time Card prior to 5:01PM AEDT / 7:01PM NZDT / 2:01PM HKT / 2:01PM SGT on Tuesday, February 28, 2012. Only characters created before this time qualify for transfers. You can check to see if you qualify by going to your “My Account” screen on www.StarWarsTheOldRepublic.com and clicking the “Asia Pacific Transfers” link on the right-side menu.
If you meet this requirement you have to submit a form via that Asia Pacific Transfers link before 8pm AEST on April 24 - the only catch is that the form doesn't appear to be working yet (at least not for me or a bunch of other people. We'll let you know when the form gets fixed and Character transfers are actually possible for reals. For more details on the APAC Character Transfers you can read up on the FAQ. Or not. I'm not your boss.
After reading Joaby's awesome piece on DOTA 2 you are surely interested in checking out some MOBA action. It's exactly like basketball and if everything I know about basketball is true, it is infinitely better when combined with other, more excellent things - like cartoons or dogs or teen wolves. Enter Minecraft. As spotted by Joystiq, a team of dedicated individuals have created a map - not a mod - for Minecraft, building the entire thing with shops and creeps and sick PVP action using two hands, a map editor and an incredibly intricate array of redstone.
I've jumped into the map and checked it out and while it is obviously a more simplistic MOBA than HoN or DOTA 2 due to its lack of modding, there is a massive amount of detail and it's overall quite impressive. If I had time, the rest of my day would be spent playing this. You can grab the map from the Minecraft forums and you can watch the trailer here or embedded below - although as a Youtube clip it will be metered content for Bigpond users.
Prototype 2 launches next week and two new trailers just hit GameArena, making me wish I could invent time travel - just to go forward one week and play it already. Ok, I might be overhyping it a little. But get this, one of them is a live-action trailer - and it still made me excited for the game. Called The Power of Revenge, it has an actor playing James Heller jumping off a building to fight Alex Mercer to the sound of Johnny Cash's immortal rendition of Nine Inch Nail's Hurt.
If you prefer a little more gameplay, the second trailer focuses on Heller running around slicing and dicing helicopters and people with his arm blade thing, which is almost as cool. You can watch the first trailer embedded below or in our videos library and you can watch the second in our videos library too - going full screen for HD of course. I am obviously excited for Prototype 2, but how about you? Personally, while I like the looks of the changes in Prototype 2 I feel that Prototype is one of those open world games - like Crackdown or Just Cause 2 - where I don't particularly care if they revolutionise the concept in a sequel. As long as they don't ruin the free-form chaos which made the predecessors so great I'll be more than happy. What do you think?
This is a bit of a strange piece - apparently about a month ago on the 8th, EA lightened the heavy load of multiplayer bans on the Origin service - stopping them from affecting your ability to play single player games and DLC. Instead of letting everyone know that they are doing something decent for their customers however, EA sat on it until the 8th so they could get their legal stuff in order. Then on the 8th, they still weren't out and about trying to mitigate their recent nomination and success at The Worst Company In America Awards, which is why you're only really hearing about it now.
How did they manage it? They fixed Offline mode, which evidently dictates the switch which flips between "This person can play any games which don't require human interaction, which they apparently fail at" and "NO NO NO, NO GAMES EVER." The updated policy reads as follows:
If you find yourself with a disabled account, please note that you can still play EA games in single-player mode. For PC games you will need to enable Origin's offline mode to play games with a disabled account. Go to the settings tab in Origin (the gear icon) and select Go Offline.
If you were thinking about celebrating EA's new terms by spamming the EA forums with goatse however, you might want to hold off - while from what I've been able to learn, EA's new terms also apply to the forums, I haven't yet gotten official confirmation - we'll update the story once we know more.
While Crysis 3 was a given before Crysis 2 was released, details were unknown until now, as EA have announced that the FPS will be coming to PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in 2013. A flub accidentally listed the game on Origin last week, but back then details were little more than 'Crysis 3 is coming out at some point' - now EA have announced some info about the game.
Set in New York once again, this time the city has been encased inside one of the Cell Corporation's Nanodomes - which they claim to have set up to isolate the alien Ceph. Because of the dome, the city has been transformed, filled with plant life growing amidst the buildings and once bustling streets - there are apparently seven distinct environments known as The Seven Wonders which will feature in the game. The character plays Prophet (as you might expect) who finds out that the Nanodomes are not so much helpful containment areas as they are part of a plot for world domination. He then sets about on a vengeance fueled spree against the Cell Corporation, corrupt megalomaniacs that they are.
I've been playing in the Dota 2 beta for the past weekend, and it wasn't until I actually learned how the game works that I realised the ultimate truth about it - I don't want to play Dota 2.
I'm not saying it's a bad game, because it's not. Some people mistake an aggressively steep learning curve for failure on the part of the creators, but that's a mistake which is slowly killing what video games can be. It's a good game, it's just hard to play.
It's not the community, because I had something of an epiphany about the rampant f@#$headed-ness (that I'll explain later), and there are a significant amount of players who are actually attempting to be helpful. Props to 'AFK Farmer', who was very patient with me in my first game.
Trust me, this isn't even remotely as bad as it gets.
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