Digital Extremes
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Shatner plays Kirk in Star Trek trailer
There's around a half-minute's footage of Star Trek: The Video Game in this trailer, but we admit it, we just wanted the excuse to post a video with William Shatner in it. Either way, we reckon you're Gorna enjoy it.
Paramount: Star Trek's development prolonged to coincide with Into Darkness
Star Trek has been in development for about three years at this point, which is a "huge amount of time when you're talking about a movie game," Paramount Pictures Senior Vice President Brian Miller told us during a GDC-adjacent demonstration of the game earlier this week."Most movie games that we've ever worked on, and I would say most people ever work on, you're lucky to get twelve months," Miller said. "You're in the middle of production on a movie, you're trying to hit a target date of when the movie comes out, all the assets aren't in there, so you wind up having to rush things through."In Star Trek's case, however, the situation was reversed – development on the game was extended by a full year in order to coincide with the release of Star Trek Into Darkness, the franchise's latest theatrical romp."This game was going to come out at a different time," Miller said. "We didn't know when the next movie was going to be, we didn't know if it was going to be holiday, we didn't know if it was going to be summer, and we were just striving for it to make a game. Then when they all started lining up, it was like 'Okay, the movie is going to be here, let's give ourselves a little more development time to make sure they line up and come together.'"An entire extra year may seem like more than "a little more development time," but that's the sort of call you get to make when you're Paramount. Miller told us that while interaction between Paramount, developer Digital Extremes and writer Marianne Krawczyk was an "amazing collaborative back-and-forth," Paramount's wishes are still, well, paramount.
Warframe soft-launches open beta, celebrates with Update 7
Digital Extremes has soft-launched Warframe into open beta. This most historic occasion has been marked with the launch of Update 7, which brings with it a host of fixes, updates, and new features. Two new warframes, the poisonous Saryn and sonic Banshee, have been added to the game along with a few new weapons and melee stealth attacks. A new training challenge and endless defense mission have been thrown in as well. The game's mod system has undergone pretty significant changes. Weapons have see tuning and balance updates, and a large list of fixes have been added. Check out the forums for a full list of changes in Update 7. Thanks to intrepid internetter Ken for the tip.
Warframe hosts open beta weekend
Dude, you have a futuristic pistol that can probably sever a building in half. Do you really need a sword as well? In any case, Mr. "Can't Make Up My Mind" up there and practically everyone in the universe is invited to checking out Warframe this weekend for the open beta. The open beta event begins on Friday the 15th at 12:00 p.m. EST and goes all the way until Tuesday the 19th at 9:00 a.m. Anyone can check it out during this timeframe provided that he or she registers on the official site (which is common sense, really). As a bonus incentive to seeing the marvel that is Warframe, all players who participate in the open beta will have access to an exclusive Braton Vandal weapon in the game's marketplace.
Spock and Kirk battle it out together in this Star Trek trailer
The latest trailer for Star Trek: The Game shows off the daring heroism of a true bromance, this one between Kirk and Spock. It's OK, Spock, you can cry a little if you need to. This kind of love really gets to us, too.
Star Trek boldly goes on April 23
Star Trek, the co-op game set in J.J. Abram's rebooted movie universe, will launch on April 23, with pre-orders beginning tomorrow, December 21, at participating retailers. Star Trek is coming to Xbox 360, PS3 and PC, and will be available digitally via PSN.All pre-orders get access to the Elite Officer Pack, which includes exclusive specialty items for the game's main protagonists, Kirk and Spock. Check out those bad boys in-game in the above screenshot. Looks like Digital Extremes is going for the "set phasers to stunning" look, no?
Warframe, a free-to-play shooter Digital Extremes wants you to try
Digital Extremes, the developer behind The Darkness 2 and the coming Star Trek title, is working on a free-to-play, co-op focused shooter called Warframe. The beta is "coming soon," Digital Extremes promises, and signing up now will get players an exclusive beta-only weapon.The above pre-alpha trailer pitches Warframe as a futuristic, time-bending, sword-slashing sci-fi shooter. If it looks like your cup of bloody tea, add your name to the beta list right here.
Star Trek and some hardcore Gorn
The gorn will be a primary antagonists in the upcoming co-op-centric Star Trek game from Darkness 2 developer Digital Extremes. The humanoid lizards of the Gorn Hegemony are quite agile in the new game, a significant departure from their appearance in the "Arena" episode of the original Star Trek from 1967.The race may come off as blood-thirsty killers in the new Star Trek, based off the JJ Abrams reboot of the space exploration franchise, but that's not how we remember them. The gorn are featured in one of the two most famous fight scenes in the original Star Trek series. Captain Kirk's fight with a gorn doesn't exactly hold up against Yuen Woo-ping choreographed fight scenes in modernity, whereas his fight with Spock during the vulcan's pon farr is hilariously awesome.We asked the developer during E3 if there would also be a Kirk v. Spock fight featuring the classic music in the game, but our question was deflected with shields at full power.We've placed clips of both amazing fight scenes from the original Star Trek after the break.
You can totally get The Darkness 2 for $12 at Best Buy today
The Darkness 2 is Best Buy's deal of the day, on sale for $12 for Xbox 360, PS3 and PC. If you're into juicy, demonic mutilations, psychotic episodes of extreme violence and solid voice acting, this may be the best $12 you spend all year.The sale extends to in-store purchases only, meaning while you can gaze longingly at the low price point online – you can't have it unless you get up and grab it.[Thanks, ZombieFever.]
Star Trek trailer 'beams' down the old-fashioned way
Virtual Chris Pine jumps off of all kinds of things in the latest trailer for the Star Trek game. Whether on land or in space, if there's a chasm, James T. Kirk will leap right into it, arms akimbo.
The Darkness 2 review: Shooting bullets off a list
On paper, The Darkness 2 is a "linear, first-person shooter with some neat twists." It sounds boring, and it was every time I played the game in a preview session before it launched. I'd hole up at some PR office in Manhattan and they'd run down a prepared spiel about "quad-wielding" or "the Darkling." The what?In reality, The Darkness 2 is a beautiful, hand-drawn game from a team with derivative dreck like Dark Sector and Pariah in its past. It also has surprisingly realistic and impressive voice acting, which gets paired with gorgeous art direction right off the bat for a "last time on The Darkness" reintroduction.But as impressive as the game's art style and voice acting chops are, it's not very easy to shape a marketing-driven preview session around technical aspects like that. But that's the case for most of what's so great about The Darkness 2 -- touches, moments and experiences that don't fit onto a bullet point list.%Gallery-137848%
Namco Bandai co-publishing Star Trek in Q1 2013
The co-op-centric Star Trek title unveiled at last year's E3 has found itself a publisher. Namco Bandai will be "co-publishing" and distributing the Digital Extremes-developed space romp alongside Paramount Digital Entertainment sometime during the first quarter of 2013.The Q1 2013 window puts this immediately before the May 17 theatrical release of the next Abrams Trek film -- marketing synergy that may explain the game's quiet delay from its original 2012 release window. We like Abrams' take on the Trek universe just fine, but we can't help but wish for someone to throw this much money at remaking Star Trek 25th Anniversary for the NES.%Gallery-147059%
The Darkness 2 demo creeps toward Xbox Live, PSN and PC later this month
Do you want an evil spirit bound to you for the rest of your existence? How do you really know? If only the forces of evil got together and decided to offer some kind of pilot program. Thankfully, in this day and age of video games about evil things, we have demos. 2K Games is set to offer an early taste of The Darkness 2, starting with Xbox Live Gold subscribers next week, January 17. PC and PS3 users will be able to sample it on January 24. PS3 users in Asia/Pacific and Europe regions will have to wait an additional day, until January 25. 2K didn't offer any details on the contents of the demo, so we just hope it helps us gauge whether we're going to pressure our friends into buying it -- not to mention our tolerance level when it comes to evil hissing things and guys talking in thick, wiseguy accents.
The Darkness 2 breaks off a pre-order bonus on Steam starting today
The Darkness 2 is available right this very second for pre-order on Steam for $49.99, with a free upgrade to the limited edition included. Remember: 2K Games is offering this same deal to all pre-orders, from any retailer, which kind of makes the Limited Edition like the Normal Edition, and then anyone who buys it after release gets the Sub-Normal Edition. If that's how you want to view the world, that is.
The Darkness 2 gets 4-player co-op mode in 'Vendettas,' we count the wieldings [update: video, more screens!]
So, we're not mathemagicians but we're pretty sure we've got this worked out. The big marketing gotcha in The Darkness 2 is quad-wielding, meaning your character, mob boss Jackie Estacado, can not only dual wield pistols but also dual wield Darkness arms at the same time. With 2K's announcement of a co-op mode in the game, playable by up to four friends, we had to use all of our fingers and toes to figure out how much wielding is going on and ... we think we have it. Ladies and nerds, allow us to introduce: hexadeca-wielding. Google says that's the Greek prefix for "sixteen." The co-op mode, dubbed "Vendettas," is a "team-focused, mission based experience" with new environments and new story elements, "that takes place parallel to the single-player story." And instead of getting stuck with ol' Jackie Boy, perhaps you might try your hand(s) at another of the new co-op characters: Inugami, "a dark and mentally unstable character with revenge-driven motives" ... and a samurai sword; Shoshanna, an Israeli Intelligence agent with a gun that fires "multiple rounds of gunfire at one time" which, real talk, is impossible; Jimmy Wilson, an alcoholic Scotsman (really!) who hates the English and summons Darklings with his "Dark Axe"; and lastly, J.P. DuMond, a New Orleans-based practitioner of voodoo medicine or, as he would perhaps be more commonly called, a witch doctor! So that's Vendettas, the first game to feature four-player hexadeca-wielding co-op play, a back-of-the-box feature that's sure to bring all the boys to the killing yards. %Gallery-141146%
This new Darkness 2 trailer is impressively gross
For the most part, we as a culture have become desensitized to the ridiculous level of extremely graphic, realistic violence pervasive in most forms of entertainment media, which is why we're so damn impressed by how incredibly disgusting the latest trailer for The Darkness 2 is. Watching a man's spine and skull get ripped out through his scrotum (by chattering tentacle creatures, no less) wasn't really something we had planned on doing today, but there you go. While you check out the trailer, we're going to go cleanse our palate with something a little less violent, like Mortal Kombat.%Gallery-137848%
The Darkness 2 illuminated in trailer blowout
Perhaps today's news that The Darkness 2 will give players a chance to terrorize "The Brotherhood" with Jackie's little Darkling friend wasn't enough to sate your thirst for dark essence ... or, uh, information about the game? This volley of trailers should more than suffice!
Darkness sequel adds contextually playable Darkling
At various points throughout The Darkness 2, main character Jackie Estacado will relinquish control to his limey compatriot, the Darkling. During the past several preview events featuring next year's Digital Extremes-developed Darkness sequel, said Darkling has been a part of the environment, wantonly assisting in the murder of Jackie's foes but not allowing himself to be commanded. In a preview session this past week in Manhattan, however, I was shown how one specific Darkling section will play out in the final game. After somewhat stealthily winding Jackie through a dingy brothel, he arrived at a brightly lit area (which can't be accessed due to his dark powers) with a conveniently placed Darkling-sized ventilation shaft just above the door. Moments later, and I'm inside the Darkling, piloting him through the vent and out into a new area. I was told that these sections are scattered throughout the game, allowing for limited, context-specific Darkling action sequences (read: you can't use him whenever you want). The emphasis during his brief scene was on puzzle solving, allowing Jackie to progress through the door -- the Darkling had to navigate bright lights (which hurt him), enemies with guns (bullets hurt, too), and unknown corridors to find the solution. Sneaky Darkling pilots can pounce on unsuspecting enemies from behind, quietly murdering the bad guy and allowing for an escape. After a few more moments of sneaking around, I disconnected the light's power source with the Darkling and was instantly zipped back to Jackie, thankfully skipping an unnecessary trek back through where I had just come from. Unfortunately for Jackie, however, the demo was just about to end, which meant he was moments from being trapped by the forces out to steal his powers. Maybe next time, Jackie boy!%Gallery-136166%
The Darkness 2 spawns pre-order bonuses
All pre-orders of The Darkness 2 will be upgraded to the "Limited Edition," publisher 2K Games announced today. The pre-order edition includes an alternate "Crazy Abdul" darkling outfit, "Gourmet Hearts" and "Relic Hunter" character ability upgrades, an illustration by Marc Silvestri and download codes for The Darkness Origins Volume 1 and Volume 2 comics. 2K Games also reiterated that The Darkness 2 will arrive at retail on February 7 and 10 for North America and "internationally," respectively. Fleeing the packed holiday schedule, the sequel was originally planned for October.%Gallery-131815%
The Darkness 2 delayed until February 2012, making an appearance at Comic-Con
Hey, Jackie boy. The Darkness 2 has been delayed until 2012, with 2K Games announcing new launch dates for both the console and PC versions of February 7 and 10 for North America and Europe, respectively. The sequel was originally scheduled for this October. If you're attending Comic-Con in San Diego this weekend, there will be eight playable demo kiosks of The Darkness 2 at the Top Cow booth (#2629). There will also be a "Spreading The Darkness: From Comic Book to Video Games and Entertainment" panel on July 21 at noon in Room 9 of the convention center, featuring the co-creator of The Darkness comic, along with talent from the game. No word on whether or not the actual Darkness will show up and eviscerate the audience, but we're going to recommend keeping your distance just in case.
