Remedy Entertainment announced just a few weeks ago that they will be releasing a new title for the upcoming new Xbox One console. This game is Quantum Break.
Remedy has made it known that the game will blur the lines between what is a game and what’s tv. The studio’s previous title, Alan Wake, did a great job in creating a game and using the tv episodic narrative to help propel the gameplay forward. It was like playing a tv show throughout a full season.
Will Quantum Break finally break the wall which separates the two entertainment medium? Only time will tell, but if Remedy promises to have the game run on the very graphics engine the trailer was using then it may just end up being the standard bearer of what a next-gen console game should look like.
Quantum Break has no set date for release but will only be available on the Xbox One.
One of the most critically-acclaimed video game titles of 2012 returns sometime in late 2013 with a new season of episodic content. The Walking Dead by Telltale Games announced at E3 earlier today that new DLC content will be arriving sometime later this year.
This new season will be called The Walking Dead: 400 Days and it looks to take adventure point-and-click success story of 2012 further into Robert Kirkman’s zombie apocalypse world. There’s no word on whether a certain Clementine will make an appearance in this new season, but the producers from tElltale Games have made it known that they plan to try and get the video game more in line with the tv series on AMC and maybe even get the acting talent from the show in showing up on the game.
The Walking Dead: 400 Days is set to be released in late 2013 for the Xbox 36, PS3, PS Vita, Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X and iOS.
I will admit that zombie entertainment will always catch my attention. Yes, it probably has reached oversaturation, but guess what…I don’t care. I’ve always enjoyed the apocalyptic, Last Man On Earth possibilities that zombie entertainment has offered gamers, readers and viewers. This was the case with the first Dead Rising by Capcom and then by it’s sequel Dead Rising 2 a couple years ago.
Dead Rising 3 has now been announced as an exclusive title for the Xbox One and it looks to take the power of the One to upgrade the graphics, gameplay and overall experience of the title. This time around instead of set inside a mall or a Las Vegas strip-style location we have a game that’s more akin to Grand Theft Auto or Saints Row in terms of open-sandbox gameplay. This looks to be a natural progression for a franchise that seem to get bigger and bigger with each each release.
This gameplay trailer during the Microsoft E3 Presser just shows how much bigger and interactive Dead Rising 3 than it’s two previous predecessors.
Dead Rising 3 is set to be a launch title for the Xbox One.
Panzer Dragoon is a video game franchise that’s beloved by small, but very vocal group of gaming fans. The series first appeared in the SEGA Saturn way back in 1995 and last made an appearance on the Xbox in 2003 with Panzer Dragoon Orta.
It’s now been a decade since that last title and now the franchise returns with Crimson Dragon which also includes the return of the series’ original creator in Yukio Futatsugi and the series’ composer in Saori Kobayashi. Crimson Dragon doesn’t look to deviate away from it’s rail-shooter origins and for fans of the franchise that’s a relief. This new title looks to upgrade the series’ usual beautiful graphics by using that venerable graphics engine from Epic: Unreal Engine 3.
The title will be an Xbox One release but also only available through Xbox Live Arcade. There’s been many titles announced for the Xbox One, but Crimson Dragon looks to be the first one that’s developed to be released for the Xbox One through the Xbox Live Arcade game download system. Also, it looks like the game will feature the use of the Kinect sensor on the Xbox One to monitor a player’s right and left hand when it comes to aiming the homing missiles at targets.
Crimson Dragon has a tentative release date sometime in late 2013 and just in time for the Xbox One release.
Titanfall is the first title to come out of Respawn Entertainment. This is big news in the gaming community. It’s the title many have been waiting for not because it’s any good (it’s not out yet so no way to gauge whether its good or bad), but because of who is making it.
Respawn Entertainment is the studio made up of former Infinity Ward developers and it’s two co-founders after a very acrimonious split (which included lawsuits and counter-lawsuits) with parent company Activision. There’s little love-lost between these two groups. Those who left had wanted to make something other than another Call of Duty title while Activision only wanted more Call of Dutytitles (it continues to be a billion-dollar money maker for the company).
So, it’s now 2013 and at this year’s E3 we finally get a glimpse at Titanfalland exactly what Respawn Entertainment wanted to make but couldn’t while they remained with Activision. It’s been called a mecha first-person shooter. It looks to try and combine the run-and-gun aspects of this team of developers’ Call of Duty and Medal of Honor lineage with some Mech action.
Titanfall looks great from the announcement trailer released today at the Microsoft E3 Presser. It looks to be a title being put in the forefront as one of the new Xbox One’s exclusive titles. This means if one wanted to play this title when it comes out they can only play it on the Xbox One (Xbox 360 for those not willing to adopt the new system early) and not on the PS3 or the upcoming PS4.
Titanfall looks to drop on the Xbox One, Xbox 360 and Microsoft Windows sometime in the Spring of 2014.
With Mass Effect 3 now over a year gone it’s time for BioWare to concentrate on moving forward with it’s fantasy rpg franchise which seems to have languished on the sidelines after the very controversial second title in the series. I speak of BioWare’s Dragon Age series and what fans of the title seem to consider a lost opportunity to make it the fantasy equivalent of Mass Effect.
The first game in the franchise was well-received but not without some complaints about the title’s gameplay mechanics being too reliant on micromanaging and less on intuitive controls. The second title was suppose to fix the problem when it came to combat which it did, but then this sequel brought up complaints about a storyline that felt rushed and game environments which relied too much of reusing the same backgrounds and layouts.
Now we have the announcement from EA and BioWare that the third game in the franchise will look to combine the good things about the first two games while looking to fix the problems which many saw as keeping the franchise from reaching great status.
Dragon Age: Inquisition arrives at this year’s E3 with a trailer which looks to be pre-rendered cinematics but with the title set to be released on the upcoming nextgen systems of the Xbox One and PS4 there’s a good chance that future gameplay trailers will look exactly like this trailer. Only time will tell whether that’s the case or not.
Dragon Age: Inquisition looks to drop on the Xbox 360, Xbox One, PS3, PS4 and Microsoft Windows in the Fall of 2014.
Decade of last.fm scrobbling countdown:
45. 東野美紀 (Miki Higashino) (705 plays)
Top track (31 plays): Beautiful Golden City, from Suikoden (1995)
Ms. Higashino is the first of a handful of video game music composers to have risen through my ranks over the years, thanks almost entirely to her beautiful contributions to the soundtracks of Genso Suikoden I and II. (Funny, I would rank Suikoden II in a three way tie for my favorite video game ever, and all three relevant composers made it onto the charts.) Her discography is small but compelling, showcasing an appreciation for traditional Asian and European folk music that rarely surfaces with such force among her contemporaries. Paying special attention to Japanese and Irish folk in particular, she managed to imbue the first two Suikoden titles with a lively earthiness ideal for an unprecedented model of gameplay made possible by the Playstation. The Suikoden games eschewed fantasy in the raw for an appeal to political and military strife in which the hero moves from town to town gathering an army and waging war along grey lines, the quintessential naivete of the RPG hero being frequently exploited to generate scenarios in which the moral high ground stood open to debate. If the main plots centered around those characters most aware of war’s many faces, the hero and the bulk of his officers–108 recruitable characters in all–were simple folk, fighting for personal reasons without a grasp of the big picture. Miki Higashino’s success in the Suikoden soundtracks rested in her ability to score appropriate music for the simple majority–those characters with deep ties to the land, who lacked a grand vision and swallowed whole the political propaganda which cast their homes and country in jeopardy. Songs like Beautiful Golden City capture what the majority of the Suikoden cast fought to preserve.
Higashino has a long history in the video game music industry in spite of her short list of works. She composed her first two soundtracks–Gradius and Yie Ar Kung-Fu–in 1985, at the surprisingly young age of 17. Yie Ar Kung-Fu in particular reveals that Higashino bore an appreciation for folk music from the very beginning of her career. I’ll leave you with the NES version of this remarkably early score.
Dave Johnson has earned the reputation of being one of the comic industry’s preeminent cover illustrator. His work has graced the covers of such titles as Vertigo’s 100 Bullets (where he creates the covers to all one hundred issues and the 11 trade paperback collections) and Marvel Comics’ Punisher MAX series. Dave Johnson’s work as a cover illustrator has won him one of the top awards in the comics industry with his 2002 Eisner Award for “Best Cover Artist”.
Born on April 4, 1966, Dave Johnson continues to work as a cover artist for all the different publishers from DC, Marvel, Dark Horse and a slew of independent houses.
Last night, my BFF Evelyn and I watched yet another episode of the 90s sitcom, California Dreams.
Why Were We Watching It?
As I’ve mentioned in my previous posts about California Dreams, I started watching this show because all of the old episodes of Saved By The Bell: The New Class were taken down from YouTube.
Actually, last night was my fourth or fifth time to watch this particular episode. For the past few weeks, I’ve been meaning to do a write-up on The Treasure of PCH and each time, I’ve ended up not having time to get it written. However, since this feature is called What Lisa Watched Last Night, that meant that each day I tried to write this review, I also had to rewatch the episode the night before. Last night, as I sat through the Treasure of PCH for yet another time, I promised myself that I would not let this day end without writing the review you’re currently reading.
Evelyn was watching with me because I asked her too and she’s the best! That said, she did say that she’s never going to forgive me for making her watch this episode. (Then again, she said that after the last episode we watched, as well…)
What Was It About?
Fueled by their mellow take on California reggae (yeah yeah yeah), the California Dreams are rich! Well, they’re not really rich but they are making more money than they’ve ever made before. Lorena (Diane Uribe) is concerned that the Dreams are getting greedy. Jake (Jay Anthony Franke) argues that the Dreams don’t care about money.
Jake’s belief is touching but rather odd, especially when you consider the fact that, in the previous episode, the Dreams dishonored the memory of Sam’s (Jennie Kwan) grandmother in order to make money and the fact that, in the very next episode, Tiffani (Kelly Packard) would be driven to abuse steroids in order to make money. In fact, just about every episode of California Dreams seems to be about the Dreams doing something weird and/or stupid to make money.
Maybe Jake just isn’t that smart.
Anyway, Lorena bets Jake that greed can tear people apart. They proceed to come up with a plan to test everyone’s loyalty. Will the Dreams prove Jake right or will they behave in the exact same way that they behave in every other episode of this show?
What Worked?
I always enjoy the Lorena-centric episodes, just because Lorena’s the character that I tend to have the most in common with.
I actually appreciated the fact that Lorena and Jake’s plan fell apart because they made a fairly believable mistake. Admittedly, it’s a pretty stupid mistake but, for the most part, this episode is about people acting stupid.
“Gotta find the money…gotta find the money…” I have to admit that I laughed at that. That said, for someone so intent on finding the money, Sly (Michael Cade) didn’t really seem to be looking as much as he was just randomly running about.
“DIAMONDS!” Jay Anthony Franke’s delivery of this line was so over-the-top that it was oddly charming.
What Did Not Work?
“Surf dude with attitudes…” Seriously, the blandness of that song never ceases to amaze me. (And who is that old guy fishing?)
It’s difficult to take the show’s lesson seriously when that lesson is more or less dependent upon everyone acting like a total idiot.
“Oh my God! Just like me!” Moments
Since this episode was pretty much dependent upon everyone acting like a total and complete idiot, I would like to say that there weren’t any “Oh my God! Just like me!” moments in the entire show.
However, I do really like diamonds…
Lessons Learned
Greed can tear apart even the best friendships…or something like that.
I can’t wait for Anchorman 2 to be released later this year. Until then, here’s my favorite scene from the first Anchorman. How did Brick manage to get a hand grenade and a trident?
Through the Shattered Lens 