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Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag to tell true pirate stories, says trailer

Image If the paranoia weren't already palpable of young students raising their hands in history classes to correct their teachers about how Ezio dealt with the Borgia family, or how Connor handled Washington, now Assassin's Creed's marketing is passing itself off as "true stories." This'll end well. ... Continue Reading

Pokemon X and Y gets four new characters of various types

Pokemon X and Y gets four new characters of various types
Four new Pokemon for Pokemon X and Y grace the pages of CoroCoro magazine, spotted and captured on film by Serebii.net. The fresh faces are a Fighting-type panda, Yanchamu; a rideable Grass-type, Gogoat; a Normal, Flying-type bird, Yayakoma; and an Electric-type, floppy-eared lizard creature.

The scan places Pokemon X and Y in the Karos region and says the game will support trainer hair and skin color customization. These four new Pokemon follow Pokemon X and Y's Mewtwo-inspired character, whom we've come to call Mewtwo With a Handle, or more lovingly, Super Saiyan Mewtwo.

Final Fantasy XIII-2 DLC Collection announced for Japan, coming in July

A DLC-stuffed version of Final Fantasy XIII-2 is headed for Japanese retail shelves on July 18. Square Enix released a ton of additional content for the JRPG sequel, and the 'Digital Contents Collection,' going for around $50, offers most of it.

The bundle features the Snow, Lightning, and Sazh episodes, as well as three weapons, seven costumes, and six Coliseum opponents. Gematsu has the full list. Also, the DLC from the Collection is coming in its own bundle to PSN and XBLM.

Square Enix is also re-releasing the game in the country under the 'Ultimate Hits' label. That version arrives in stores on the same day, but also on PSN and XBLM two days prior.

Eric Ruth goes crowdfunding route for 'Hauntlings' project

Eric Ruth of Eric Ruth Games has an extensive history of creating de-makes, and now he's branching out to create the original title Hauntlings. Using Indiegogo for crowdfunding, Ruth is seeking $35,000 to create his 2D 2-vs-2 side-scrolling multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) game featuring supernatural entities.

"I've always had the means to create a free project on my own from beginning to end on my own, however this particular title actually has expenses and I can't afford them on my own," said Ruth in his pitch video. "Unfortunately, I'll need the assistance from my awesome – and very sexy – fan base to complete Hauntlings and make it the very best it can be."

Being a competitive online game, it would seem Ruth is seeking to hire some help and cover infrastructure costs. Ruth's previous projects include the Team Fortress 2 arcade beat-em-up and Pixel Force: Halo.

Among the Sleep free public alpha coming tomorrow

Everyone can freak out at Among the Sleep as of tomorrow, when developer Krillbite releases an alpha build of the indie horror game for free. Krillbite told Polygon it's delivering the free version via its Kickstarter page, freely available for all.

Among the Sleep places you in the eyes of a two-year-old, and significantly at the eye level of a two-year-old, experiencing the daunting scale of the world around you. If it's funded on Kickstarter - with five days to go it's at around $180,000 of its $200,000 goal - it'll chill the spines of PC, Mac, Linux, and Oculus Rift (see for yourself) in Q4 this year,

Dead Island Riptide tops the UK charts for third week running

Dead Island Riptide is the second game this year to keep the competition at bay for three weeks in a row. Despite a 55 percent drop in sales, the semi-sequel repeats the run of BioShock Infinite earlier in the year. That's no surprise given the new releases shelves are just tumbleweeds rolling past each other.

The charts do include two (sort of) new releases, and both did well. Coming in at ninth is the physical box set of The Walking Dead, which released in North America late last year. Another latecomer to Europe is Persona 4 Arena, and distributor Zen United must be pleased with the fighter punching in at 11th.

As we said last week, you know it's quiet season when Call of Duty's re-gunning for the top; Black Ops 2 is now up to second place, a full six months after being released. Oh, and on the day Square Enix releases its financial results for the fiscal year, Tomb Raider makes it 10/10 - that's ten weeks in the UK top ten. Just. Saying.

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Being a Bureau dude in XCOM Declassified


You always remember your first alien invasion. The Bureau: XCOM Declassified puts you on the ground in 1962 as William Carter, a crucial member of what will eventually become the planet-guarding, all-caps organization known as XCOM. The game brings it own brand of agency to the revitalized strategy series, though not in the drastically simplified form you might expect from a third-person shooter.

Once Earth becomes unwilling host to "The Outsiders," a race of aliens that have enthralled other extraterrestrial creatures, Carter and a crew of two are ordered to investigate the fate of a fallen agent in New Mexico. The Outsiders have a few slaves up their sleeves, including XCOM's classic sectoids. To compensate, Carter has a dapper vest that effectively says, "Everyone, listen to me, I am going to use some tactics on these aliens."

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Square Enix posts $134M fiscal net loss, projects profit for coming year

As approximately projected, Square Enix posted a net loss of ¥13.7 billion for the fiscal year ending March 31 2013, that converting to around $134 million. Back in March, Square Enix announced it was implementing major restructuring that would produce an "extraordinary loss". Today the company further detailed its new strategy for the next fiscal year, in which it projects a return to profit.

"The business environment surrounding the [Square Enix] Group is in the midst of major changes, where smart devices such as smartphones and tablet PCs are spreading rapidly," Square Enix stated in today's results, "while the console game markets in North America and Europe are increasingly competitive and oligopolistic. In light of such environmental changes, the Group is focusing all efforts on a substantial earnings improvement through driving reforms of business structure in order to establish new revenue base."

Square Enix previously noted "weak" sales of "big console titles" in North America and Europe, including Sleeping Dogs, Hitman: Absolution, and even Tomb Raider. Today the company said it will increasingly target smartphones and tablets, citing Final Fantasy Airborne Brigade and Kaku-San-Sei Million Arthur as satisfactorily profitable. Square Enix also noted Dragon Quest X as "showing steady performance."

As such, the restructuring brings overhauls to Square Enix's larger-scale development,with the company looking to improve turnover and produce content better tailored for different regions. Square Enix was clearly dissatisfied with the performance of its western portfolio, and layoffs were incurred in the company's North American and European divisions.

Square Enix believes these changes will be the platform for profit in the coming fiscal year, projecting net income of between ¥3.5 billion and ¥6 billion, or $34.4 million to $59 million.

Report: Final Fantasy X-2 HD could include 'Last Mission'

Report Final Fantasy X2 HD ruminating on 'Last Mission' inclusion
Final Fantasy X-2 HD could feature content never previously released outside of Japan, although Square Enix is reportedly "undecided" about including it. According to Famitsu (via Yahoo Japan), the publisher is considering the "Last Mission" content from the Japan-only 'International Version.' It features an extra mission set after the original's ending.

Extra content would definitely make the HD remaster more enticing for western fans - although some might argue X-2's perfect ending (spoilers) tinkered with the storyline quite enough thank you. In any case (we're not bitter honestly) the remasters of X and X-2 come west (really we're not) later this year, arriving together on PS3 but separately on Vita.

Harvest Moon: A New Beginning ratings point to PAL produce

Harvest Moon A New Beginning ratings point to PAL produce
Harvest Moon: A New Beginning may enter its European phase soon. The 3DS sim, which arrived in North America last October, cropped up on the Australian Classification Board and German ratings board USK over the weekend.

Both ratings list Zen United as the publisher - Zen distributed Persona 4 Arena in Europe recently, and has a history of bringing BlazBlue and Arcana Hearts games to the region. We've reached out to Zen in the hopes of cultivating some comment.

Stiq Figures, April 29 - May 5: Arcade cabinet edition

Welcome to Stiq Figures, where the sales data is after the break and the posts don't matter. Every week, we take a look at, uh, something – meanwhile, the previous week's Japanese hardware sales figures are posted after the jump, and a discussion of said figures takes place in our comments. It may not be conventional, but it's a time-honored Joystiq tradition.

Stiq Figures, April 29  May 5 Arcade cabinet edition
Reddit user mystery_smelly_feet recently posted a gallery of photos showing off the construction process for a custom arcade cabinet. The cabinet sports a classic Nintendo theme, complete with iconic grey, red and black controls that are vaguely similar to the NES game pad we all know and love. We're looking at it this week on Stiq Figures out of pure awe and jealousy. Make one for us, Mystery Smelly Feet!

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The Last of Us does whatever it takes in second TV spot

Image This video is the second TV spot Sony created for The Last of Us. The game is due out on June 14 for PS3 ... Continue Reading

C-Wars Kickstarter ends with over $95K raised, heading to Wii U, iOS and Vita

C-Wars, the cyberpunk roguelike RTS by Beijing developer OniPunks Studio, raised a total of $95,574 in its Kickstarter campaign, which ended Saturday. That's $63,574 more than its initial $32,000 goal, just under 300 percent of its funding aspirations thanks to 3,348 backers.

The campaign hit a number of stretch goals along the way, which will result in the PC, Mac, Linux and Android game also coming to 3DS, Vita, Wii U and iOS. C-Wars is estimated to launch in late 2013.

MMO Week in Review: Quarterly financials

SWTOR
At the end of every week, we round up the best and most popular news stories, exclusive features, and insightful columns published on Massively and then present them all in one convenient place. If you missed a big MMO or WoW Insider story last week, you've come to the right post.

Every three months, we gawk at the revealed financial health of various gaming companies, collectively cheering and jeering and sometimes both. This week, we fixated on NCsoft's mixed fortunes, Star Wars: The Old Republic's vindicating free-to-play success, and World of Warcraft's 1.3 million subscriber losses.

Blizzard was further vexed this week by a duping bug that saw the Diablo III auction house taken offline for several days before its restoration sans rollback.

Read on for a roundup of the rest of this week's top MMO stories.

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Half-Life 2 on the Oculus Rift looks like double the trouble, fun



Oculus Rift owner and YouTuber Vaecon recorded a 15-minute session of Half-Life 2 on Oculus Rift, and the entire experience can be summed up in a few words, spoken less than two minutes into his gameplay demo: "Whoa. This is really cool."

Valve launched official support for Half-Life 2 on the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset, in beta form, on Friday. Valve programmer Joe Ludwig cautioned that this beta was "a bit more raw" than Team Fortress 2's Oculus Rift prowess, noting HUD and UI issues.

Vaecon sported some anti-motion-sickness bands during his Half-Life 2 session, since previous games on the system left him woozy. Whether because of the bands or the game itself, Half-Life 2 on Oculus Rift didn't appear to affect Vaecon's stomach.

"This is the perfect scene to show on the Oculus because there's a lot of action, jumping and – oh, I feel like I'm swimming," he said.

Diablo 3 Auction House back online sans bug, exploiters punished

Diablo 3's Auction House is back online after Blizzard took it down earlier this week, following an update bug that allowed players to duplicate trillions in gold. Blizzard found the bug, exterminated it, and will now donate all proceeds generated from the exploit to Children's Miracle Network Hospitals.

Blizzard will not roll back the servers across the board, but will instead target specific accounts that used the exploit, banning or rolling back those users depending on their activity.

"Only a relatively small number of players had the billions of gold necessary to exploit the bug, and only 415 of those players chose to use this exploit for personal gain," Blizzard Production Director John Hight writes in the Battle.net forums.

As of yesterday, Blizzard had recaptured 85 percent of the erroneous gold and was working to track down the remaining currency.

GREE lays off 30 from San Francisco offices

Japanese publisher GREE has laid off 30 members of its San Francisco office, according to a report from GamesIndustry International. Anil Dharni, COO of the mobile and social publisher, told GamesIndustry that GREE has recently aligned its US studio "to focus on creating the next generation of mobile social games. This shift in focus has been clearly demonstrated by the success and growth of our games."

"As part of ensuring that we are operating as efficiently as possible, we have made the difficult decision to reduce our work force. The employees leaving today have made great contributions to our success and we wish them all the best," he added.

We have contacted GREE for confirmation of the layoffs, and will update accordingly.

Double Fine wants to win back Stacking, Costume Quest rights

Double Fine wants to win back Stacking, Costume Quest rights
Double Fine wants to tie up all of the loose ends within its catalog and is seeking the distribution rights to its games formerly published by THQ, Stacking and Costume Quest. Nordic Games picked up the distribution rights to these games during THQ's bankruptcy auction in April, though Double Fine attempted to secure the rights from THQ as early as February.

Double Fine owns the intellectual properties for Stacking and Costume Quest, so if it wants to make new games within each series, it can.

"We're still trying to get the rights to Costume Quest and Stacking," Schafer told Game Informer. "We can still make more of those games. We still have the IP, but we'd love to have all of the IP and distribution rights in house."

On top of those distribution rights, Double Fine wants to regain the Brutal Legend IP from EA and the Iron Brigade IP from Microsoft, Schafer said. These are difficult positions for Double Fine, but for us, deciding which war to watch is just as hard: Battle of Heavy Metal and Mechs or the Battle of Kids in Costumes Playing with Toys From the Old Country. Decisions, decisions.

ANNE passes its Kickstarter goal with more than a week to go

ANNE reaches Kickstarter goal with 11 days left
ANNE, the 2D nostalgia-laden platformer from developer Mo, hit its $70,000 Kickstarter goal, and from today it still has nine days left to earn more money. In a multilingual thank you update, Mo said words couldn't express his gratitude, so he created the happy robot image above.

"For sure the money is what will allow me to get the job done, but knowing that there are people like you out there that believe in my game, in me, just this is worth more than money," Mo said.

The first stretch goal for ANNE is $80,000 and it would add Mac and Linux versions of the game to Mo's development schedule. At $90,000, ANNE would have achievements and a Gender Swap mode, and later stretch goals (up to $150,000), add Ouya, PSN, Vita and Wii U versions.

ANNE is a combination of ideas from some of Mo's favorite 16-bit games, including Mega Man, Contra, Gradius and Super Metroid. That last one was a big inspiration, Mo told Joystiq in April.

"I remember at the beginning, you had this amazing ship," he said. "A crazy sprite landing slowly and then, the next thing you know, you're just on foot. And I was just, 'What a tease.' What if you could actually go in [the ship] and fly? What would that look like, and how fun would that be? So basically, it's picking up from just questioning myself and just trying to see what, you know, what am I really looking for as a player right now?"

Google Play Games leaks out, will feature matchmaking and achievements

'Google Play Games' leaks out, will feature matchmaking and achievements
The Android answer to Apple's Game Center app on iOS will be Google Play Games, according to information obtained by Android Police from a Play Services APK teardown. The service will bring lobbies and invites for matchmaking, in-game chat, cloud game saves, achievements and leaderboards to the platform for developers to make use of.

The APK Android Police pulled apart is a file package primarily used to update Android apps, so this update was riddled with code that indicated what features would be coming to the platform down the road, but aren't accessible just yet. There is certainly a good chance Google Play Games will be fully unveiled at Google's I/O event next week in San Francisco.

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