2k
Latest
Evolve launches in fall, pre-orders open today
Evolve, the four-on-one shooter from Left 4 Dead creator Turtle Rock and publisher 2K, will launch this fall for Xbox One, PS4 and PC, with pre-orders open now. Order the game through Amazon, Best Buy, Gamestop, Target, Toys R Us or Wal Mart to receive the Monster Expansion Pack, which includes the Savage Goliath skin at launch (for the game's first monster, Goliath), and adds a new monster once that's released later on. All pre-orders are available here. In Evolve, four hunters take on one monster – the hunters are playable in first-person, while the monster is third-person. There are four hunter classes: Trapper, Support, Assault and Medic. As a monster, players will have "savage abilities and an animalistic sense," Turtle Rock says.
MLB 2K baseball series canceled
2K Sports has officially canceled its MLB 2K baseball game series. A 2K representative told Joystiq today that it has "decided not to renew our MLB 2K series for 2014. We are very proud of the achievements made by the MLB 2K team and look forward to their contributions to our future titles, including NBA 2K - our industry's #1 rated and #1 selling basketball franchise." The final game in the series was MLB 2K13, a game that was panned critically for its stark similarities to its predecessor, MLB 2K12. The confirmation of the series' closure comes after the publisher took steps to remove the brand from its various pages – an indicator that it no longer has the appropriate licensing obligations to fulfill. As pointed out by Pastapadre, 2K Sports recently took down its Facebook page for the series, videos from its YouTube page and forwarded each landing page for games in the series to its global 2K website. Of the few MLB-branded pages that remain are a few of the game's online manuals, though it's uncertain how long those will be available to view. Being that 2K Sports was the only company delivering a simulation baseball game for Microsoft's Xbox 360, thanks to an exclusive third-party licensing agreement it signed with the MLB, the Xbox One will be without a Major League Baseball game for the time being. The MLB: The Show series is developed by Sony's San Diego studio, which will launch MLB 14: The Show this spring on PS3, PS4 and Vita.
Vivo Xplay 3S unveiled with a 6-inch 2K display, powerful audio amp and fingerprint reader
We came away rather impressed with the Vivo Xplay from China, so today's launch of its successor, the Xplay 3S (which is a bit odd as there was never an "Xplay 2"), is something that we've been looking forward to since the teaser way back in October. As mentioned before, this new Android phone is still the first to pack a 2K (2,560 x 1,440) display, which works out to be a ridiculously high 490ppi density on the 6-inch panel. Like other recent Vivo phones, you'll find a pair of dedicated audio chips on the Xplay 3S -- here you have ESS Technology's ES9018 DAC and Texas Instruments' OPA2604 amplifier, both of which are said to be the crème de la crème in their respective categories. This should go nicely with the built-in DTS Headphone:X feature that brings 7.1 or even 11.1 surround sound effect to your stereo headphones; plus Vivo's video streaming service already hosts about 200 Headphone:X-capable movies (along with over 400 movies in 1080p and over 1,000 movies in 720p), with more to be added each month.
Dolby demos new imaging tech that pushes more light to your television (eyes-on)
You may think your current HDTV is bright enough, but Dolby disagrees. The company, which is known more for its audio tech than its imaging capabilities, has been putting a lot of effort into developing a new type of imaging technology that offers up to 4,000 nits of backlight out of an LED panel. Compared to the TV standard of 100 nits, this is certainly a hefty improvement. Why is such a thing helpful? The 100-nit limit makes life difficult for filmmakers in post-production because they're not able to represent their masterpiece with perfectly accurate colors; there's only so much you can do to accurately portray the real world on such a limited budget of light. Bumping the display up to 4,000, however, allows the viewer to enjoy a much better experience. Dolby showed us a prototype of this experimental tech, which we're told will likely be exhibited at CES next month (either in prototype or in a consumer product, though this will be up to individual manufacturers). The 2K panel sat next to a production monitor that many filmmakers use as their current reference -- in other words, what they use for viewing their footage before it goes through the process of compression and other tweaks -- and the difference was night and day. Despite the fact that both monitors have the same resolution, the prototype (on the left in the above image) offered far more realistic colors, higher dynamic range and more contrast sensitivity, all of which were factors that created a fantastic viewing experience. As an example, the skies were bluer on the new monitor, and clouds that were barely noticeable on the production model actually popped out far more accurately on the prototype. We're told that the new imaging technology has already been shown off to key filmmakers in the industry, and that we'll likely see a lot more (including, we hope, an official name) on display at CES. Where it goes from there, Dolby tells us, is all up to manufacturers. And while we may see a lot more of this tech in the near future, there's no guarantee that other companies will build their monitors to the same spec (manufacturers aren't forced to go all the way up to 4,000 nits, for instance). Regardless, we'll happily take one when they start making their way into production.
XCOM: Enemy Unknown among 2K games discounted on iOS this week
2K is discounting a number of its mobile games this week, the publisher announced. The Mobile Fall Sale runs from November 27 through December 2 and applies to six iOS games. Among the 2K-published games on sale this week are NHL 2K11, Civilization Revolution and Sid Meier's Pirates, each discounted to 99 cents. Lucid Games' racer 2K Drive, which launched in September for $7, will be $1.99 on iOS as of Wednesday. Lastly, NBA 2K14 will drop down to $2.99 while XCOM: Enemy Unknown will be $9.99.
Shoot things in Borderlands 2 for a chance at winning loot, cash prizes
Borderlands 2's upcoming Loot Hunt competition will give you a shot at earning in-game and real-life prizes as you mow down the inhabitants of Pandora. Once players register at the event's site, they can enter themselves in the raffle by hunting Daily Targets within the game starting on October 11. The prize pool will include loot chests filled with Nvidia Shield and Falcon Northwest Tiki PC combos, Nvidia GeForce GTX 660 Ti GFX cards, PlayStation Vitas with copies of Borderlands 2 Vita (once it's released), and lifetime passes to everything 2K ever has and will put out on Steam. One player will also win $50,000 in cash while four others earn scaled amounts from a second pool of $50,000. If you don't win a physical prize, you'll still have a collective chance with other players at "unique in-game loot" by completing the loot hunt's Community Goals. The event's site describes these as daily campaigns of genocide against "a special type of enemy with that day's unique gun." If enough are slaughtered in the name of personal benefit, those involved will earn a special gun at the end of the week. Only players in the US are eligible for the physical rewards, but the in-game rewards will be available to vault hunters worldwide.
Former Epic, Irrational head Rod Fergusson starts new 2K studio
Rod Fergusson is launching a new studio for 2K Games in the San Francisco Bay area, he announced in a tweet today. The studio is already working on something new: "It's official: I'm launching a new studio for 2K in the Bay Area with an exciting new project! Details soon!" Fergusson most recently spent a year at Irrational Games, a subsidiary of 2K Games, as Executive VP of Development, where he helped polish up BioShock Infinite. Before that, Fergusson was Director of Production at Epic Games.
XCOM: Enemy Within 'War Machines' trailer
The XCOM initiative is up against new, vicious extraterrestrials, but enemies aren't the only ones with aces up their cybernetically enhanced sleeves. Choose between alien psychic powers or heavily armored mecha exoskeletons and get to augmenting your soldiers in this XCOM: Enemy Within trailer.
Black Betty 2K camera can shoot, cut and upload video with built-in Mac Mini
The Black Betty company has just hit the scene with a cinema camera that pulls an astounding trick -- it's got a freaking desktop computer jammed into the body. Camera-wise, there's a 2/3-inch 2K sensor with a 16mm lens mount developed by Silicon Imaging and used in films like Slumdog Millionaire. That'll capture 2K or 1080p, 160-500 ISO footage at up to 30fps (or more for lower resolutions), and bring 11 stops of dynamic range via CineForm compressed RAW files. The feature that made us triple-take, though, is the built-in Apple Mac Mini with a special dock for swapping in and out 2.5-inch SSDs. That Mini isn't just for recording, either, you can leverage its semi-portable power to edit and even upload videos in-camera. And, if you'd like, you can detach the camera head and 7-inch, 720p monitor from the computer and tether it via ethernet. It can only be rented for now, but No Film School said the 10-pound heft made it very well balanced, and it sports a nice retro look, too -- who knew a sideways Mac Mini could double for a movie camera magazine?
Borderlands 2 'Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep' DLC review: Roll for initiative, suckas
Borderlands 2's Tiny Tina has got some bizarre quirks and qualities a vocal few openly denounce, but she's memorable in a way so few women in games are. All that, and she's still a little girl. The frenetic little firecracker is a bundle of energy, so it makes perfect sense that she should host a game of Bunkers & Badasses, an obvious parody of Dungeons & Dragons. In "Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep," your go-to Vault Hunter rolls for initiative with Lilith, Brick, and Mordecai as part of the very first play session ever sanctioned. The final piece of Borderlands 2 DLC serves up a hilarious send-up of nerd culture sprinkled with nods to D&D, marinated in Tiny Tina's peculiar blend of humor. Fast-traveling to the Unassuming Docks of Little Importance, we find our heroes embarking on their first role-playing adventure while a certain "Hyperion informant" is roughed up downstairs. After a brief interlude, the stage is set (by Bunker Master Tina of course) at Flamerock Refuse – a "nice place until the Handsome Sorcerer messed it up." The rainbow etched across the sky in this land of make-believe you're suddenly transported to doesn't exactly reflect an air of desolation, so Tina rectifies her mistake by instantly changing the scenery to something more eerie and hopeless, music included. It's immediately obvious this scenario is a meta look at playing dungeon master and the way a D&D narrative can be altered so hastily. From then on, you're exploring the entire imaginary landscape on Tina's terms, which results in some giggle-worthy location names and terrain altering, as well as a bundle of surprises.%Gallery-189391%
The Bureau: XCOM Declassified files 'Battle Focus' trailer
Unearthed from a crate thought lost to Hangar XCOM, this gameplay trailer shows how 2K Marin meshes real-time shooting with strategy in The Bureau. Time can be slowed down while players get tactical via a radial menu, from which they can command Special Agent Will Carter and his trusty squadmates. Also, it shows us that if you're going to see off an extraterrestrial invasion, you may as well do it dressed to the nines - Carter is the definition of dapper in that vid. Independence Day could only have been improved if Jeff Goldblum had boarded that spaceship in a tux. The fashion of alien warfare aside, The Bureau: XCOM Declassified touches down on PS3, Xbox 360, and PC on August 20. %Gallery-191760%
Sony teases PlayStation 4 developer list, includes many of the majors (update: Blizzard and Bungie)
Want to know just who's developing for the PlayStation 4? Sony just gave us a very good peek: it's promising worldwide support for the console, and quickly flashed just which companies that entails. The cursory look shows us many familiar heavyweights, such as 2K, Activision, Capcom, EA, Konami and Ubisoft. We've also spotted Rockstar, Square Enix and other names that most would have hoped for with the new PlayStation. Suffice it to say that Sony hasn't had any problems attracting the support it needs for a decent early lineup, although we don't know how many of these developers will have something ready for launch day. Update: A few exist that aren't (directly) mentioned in the graphic above: Blizzard is porting Diablo III to the PS4, and Bungie will put its future MMO-like shooter, Destiny, on the game machine. Check out our liveblog of Sony's event to get the latest news as it happens!
Borderlands 2 Big Game Hunt DLC now on Mac
Attention dapper players of Borderlands 2 on Mac: "Sir Hammerlock's Big Game Hunt" is now available on Apple's OS. The DLC can be snared on Steam for $9.99.Meanwhile, members of Mac developer Aspyr's GameAgent service can grab Big Game Hunt at a 25 percent discount. Members need only log into GameAgent and use the coupon code on the front page. Just don't say we didn't warn you.
Report: THQ's WWE license going to Take-Two
While most of THQ's coffers have already been cleaned out, there's been no official word on any party making a move on the WWE license. An IGN source suggests Take-Two will take over the WWE line of games. The negotiations for the WWE license apparently took place outside of the formal THQ auction, IGN notes. According to documents obtained by Joystiq, Take-Two has already spent $10.9 million snagging Turtle Rock's Evolve from THQ.
XCOM: Enemy Unknown designer Jake Solomon on the importance of PC
X-COM has quite a history on PC. In fact, apart from a pair of PlayStation ports (and for the Amiga and CD32!), the franchise's home is entirely bound to the PC. Developer Firaxis is definitely aware of the franchise's history, lead designer Jake Solomon tells me, and that history was taken into account when developing XCOM: Enemy Unknown, not to mention Firaxis' own history with the platform."When we first talked about reimagining X-COM, it made a lot of sense, because we were Firaxis, and we have a lot of experience with PC-based, turn-based games," he says. The studio always intended to make the game for consoles as well, but unlike an action game or a first-person shooter, Firaxis couldn't simply port the console version over to PC. "You couldn't say, 'Well, let's just do the least amount of work,' because interfacing with the characters, interfacing with the world, is so different."%Gallery-164464%
Here, watch this hour of XCOM gameplay
Were you looking to watch an overabundance of new XCOM footage? 2K Games and Firaxis are sure hoping so, as the two companies took to Twitch.tv yesterday afternoon for just that – an entire hour of XCOM: Enemy Unknown hosted by Firaxis' Jake Solomon and Garth DeAngelis.What's that? You want even more XCOM coverage? We've got this handy, international-flavored podcast with the aforementioned Firaxis devs right here. You can almost taste the Gaffel Kölsch!
Citizens! Rise up against the alien scum by joining XCOM!
The time is now: war is upon us, and the alien invaders must be beaten back. Luckily for us, the aliens operate on a turn-by-turn basis, so there's plenty of time to decide how best to defend Earth. The XCOM awaits, soldier. The enemy, however, remains unknown.
Co-opinion: XCOM: Enemy Unknown multiplayer
.portal-left { padding: 10px; background: #CCC; margin: 20px 0; min-height: 85px; } .portal-right { padding: 10px; margin: 20px 0; min-height: 85px; } .portal-right img { padding-left: 5px; } .portal-left img { padding-right: 5px; } Richard Mitchell: So Alexander and I got a chance to try out the XCOM: Enemy Unknown multiplayer mode at Gamescom. Both of us played single-player before, so we had some idea of what we were getting into – but multiplayer is an entirely different beast. Using a pool of points, players "purchase" the units that will comprise their team: XCOM soldiers, aliens, or a mix of both. The standard match has a pool of 10,000 points and a turn time of 90 seconds. For this press demo, we had a whopping 20,000 points and 120 seconds. It sounds like a lot of time, but it wasn't – more on that in a bit. What units did you pick? (Keep in mind, folks, I had no idea what I was going to face on the field, and neither did Alexander.) Alexander Sliwinski: I believe in the power of humanity! Actually, no, it's mostly that I'd never played an XCOM game prior to the E3 demo, and I had no idea about each race's powers. So, I went with three human soldiers, two Thin Men and then spent a massive 7,300 points on an assault gunner with an alloy cannon. I figured I'd wipe out any alien scum you threw at me.%Gallery-162799%
Exploring the unknown parts of XCOM: Enemy Unknown
Speaking with XCOM: Enemy Unknown producer Garth DeAngelis earlier this year, I managed to unearth a little information that had been (appropriately) unknown about the game at the time. Specifically, I learned that aerial combat is returning in Enemy Unknown. Dogfighting alien aircraft played a huge role in the original X-COM, a game that developer Firaxis is trying very hard to live up to.But what other secrets are housed within Enemy Unknown? We've been privy to plenty of information when it comes to ground combat and tactics. Make no mistake, that's the meat of the XCOM experience, but the core gameplay of outwitting alien combatants is all supported by the structure of scientific research and aerial combat.To uncover more pieces of Enemy Unknown's intricate design puzzle, DeAngelis has returned alongside designer Jake Solomon to exclusively explain to Joystiq about gunning down UFOs, scouring its wreckage, and turning its alien tech back against the invaders.%Gallery-161402%
Avoid society with this great Civilization IV + V bundle deal
Amazon has a pretty killer deal going on. For $20, you can nab downloads of Civilization 4: The Complete Edition, Civilization 5: Game of the Year Edition and The Stronghold Collection. It's perfect for the strategy gamer in your life who's been out of the loop for a decade.[Thanks, Patrick!]
