sdcc-2012
Latest
Beyond: Two Souls discussion with Ellen Page and David Cage
There was a lengthy panel on Beyond: Two Souls back at SDCC, which revealed Kadeem Hardison will also play a starring role in the game. Immediately following the panel, both David Cage and Ellen Page sat down with the PlayStation Blog for the video interview above.Within, Page discusses her own relationship with games and how Heavy Rain really got her on board with what Cage is trying to do in Beyond: Two Souls. There's also a good deal of mo-cap footage, giving us a glimpse at some of the more physical acting Page has done so far for the game.
Watch The Last of Us Comic-Con panel without waiting in line
Naughty Dog waxed poetic about The Last of Us in front of a packed panel room at San Diego Comic-Con, sharing design processes and story hints, and you now have a front-row seat (which is more than we can say when we were actually there).We've already covered the new character announcement, a cranky old man with a familiar name and face. In the above video creative director Neil Druckmann and game director Bruce Straley discuss the intricacies of post-apocalyptic survival with Joel and Ellie, while actors Troy Baker, Ashley Johnson and W. Earl Brown talk performance capture.
Sam Raimi off World of Warcraft film in light of Oz: The Great and Powerful
Camp director extraordinaire Sam Raimi is no longer in charge of the World of Warcraft film, he tells Crave Online. "They don't have me directing World of Warcraft anymore," he told the site. "Because when I took the Oz job, they had to move on to another director. They had to start making it."Given that Oz: The Great and Powerful is due out next March, it stands to reason that Raimi's been off the WoW film for some time – and that the film may actually be in production. Blizzard has yet to comment publicly on the news, or to say who is replacing Raimi, but we've reached out for more info.News arose that Raimi was out as early as October 2010, when Deadline reported that Raimi was out (due to his Oz gig) and the WoW film was on hold. It appears that the information was accurate, though it's still unclear whether or not the WoW film has begun production.
In-fighting to win in Behemoth's Battleblock Theater
I really wish The Behemoth didn't always have such an awesome booth set-up.The giant, colorful arcade cabinets, adorable cartoon-emblazoned fight sticks and beautiful screens running Castle Crashers and Battleblock Theater are all an elaborate tease of things that only exist in the magical world of conventions. Every player's excited laughter turns into a cry of remorse as soon as he steps away from the booth and realizes this experience may never again be repeated, at least not in the comfort of his or her own home.Battleblock Theater is poised to follow in Castle Crashers' footsteps as an addictive, enthusiastically fun cooperative platformer with oodles of replay value and longevity when it eventually launches on the XBLA. I played through two levels on two separate cabinets, on two separate days with two different people, and had the same joyful experience with both. Battleblock Theater is a game to be enjoyed with friends, or with people who seem to have a good attitude about getting hit with friendly explosive Frisbees in the middle of complicated platforming maneuvers.
Battleblock Theater is 'code complete' [Update]
Battleblock Theater, the long, long-awaited title from Castle Crashers developer The Behemoth, passed its code complete milestone just before San Diego Comic-Con kicked off last week, project manager Emil Ayoubkhan told us. We played a few rounds of Battleblock Theater at another fantastic installment of the Behemoth booth at the con. Battleblock Theater still has no set release date, and has a few more stages to complete before The Behemoth gives it one. Right now the speed of development is "all on us," Ayoubkhan said, and every day is one step closer to a final version. Update: The original story read that Battleblock Theater had passed Microsoft certification, and that The Behemoth planned to release it before the end of the year. We have received confirmation that this is not the current schedule, no matter how excitable anyone may have been at Comic-Con.
Two Defiance videos emerge from SDCC
Two new videos about Defiance, the upcoming third-person shooter coupled with a television show, have emerged from San Diego Comic-Con 2012. While sometimes only snippets of videos highlighting key things get released, the first video actually serves folks who couldn't attend to the entire Defiance panel. During the 54-minute video, developers and actors of the Syfy and Trion collaboration discuss the game/television show combination and field questions from the audience. In the second video (which is much smaller by comparison at 13 minutes), Rob Hill, senior producer, and Grant Bowler, the actor who stars as the lead in both the game and the show, discuss the project further. They touch on the background of the post-apocalyptic world setting and discuss how the game and show will influence each other and evolve together. This video also shows game footage of vehicles and combat. The game, which begins before the show, will launch simultaneously on all three platforms: PC, XBox 360, and PS3. You can check out both videos after the break.
Wii U Mass Effect 3 will include 'Extended Cut' ending by default
Those who start with Mass Effect 3 on the Wii U won't have to go through the (apparent) heartbreak of seeing an unsatisfying ending, then waiting to download a better one. The new "Extended Cut" will be built in."The extended ending is basically going to be part of the game instead," series producer Michael Gamble told Siliconera during Comic-Con. "You won't have to download it." That makes sense given the DLC's status as a "fix" for the controversial ending. We can only hope the ending is extended even further, to show you even more ending on the WiiPad screen while the Extended Cut ending is happening on your TV.The Wii U release of Mass Effect 3 is scheduled to coincide with the launch of the system.
Kojima: 'leaked' Metal Gear Solid 5 logo is fake
Even after Konami UK debunked the Metal Gear Solid 5 info supposedly leaked out of Comic-Con, there were still weird lingering questions. Those questions have now been decisively answered by someone who would know his own logo: Hideo Kojima."Since I've received inquiries about the MGS5 title screen/the announcement made at ComicCon which I had no idea of, I looked up on the net and found the source," Kojima tweeted. "But please note that title logo is completely FAKE. I apologize to those who were looking forward. Anyway it proved I can still create the buzz," concluded the designer, who has never had any problems creating "buzz." Kojipro senior producer Kenichiro Imaizumi also denied the veracity of the images, saying, "I've been asked about the screen shots of MGS5 on the game sites. These're ALL FAKE."Just because that logo's a fake, of course, doesn't mean the game isn't real: Kojima has already been talking about the features of the sort-of-announced sequel, and has been hiring for the "'next' MGS."
Epic shares Gears of War insight and trivia at Comic-Con panel
Cliff Bleszinski, Design Director at Epic Games, along with Production Director Rod Fergusson, voice actor Fred Tatasciore (the voice of Baird as well as "most of the Locusts") and writers Rob Auten and Tom Bissell all took the stage at Comic-Con 2012 for a panel about Gears of War: Judgment. The biggest piece of news out of the panel was that Judgment has a release date: We'll be killing grubs as Baird in the prequel on March 19.The rest of the panel, however, contained a few juicy bits of Gears trivia, just for fans of the series. If you've lived and died with the COGs for three games now, read on.
Mass Effect 3 single-player DLC to focus on Shepard
So, what's next for Mass Effect? Producer Mike Gamble showed off one picture of future Mass Effect 3 content in his panel at Comic-Con, and from what he told Joystiq it seems to point to more single-player DLC. "We want to do single-player DLC," he said. "We want to do single-player, maybe more multiplayer if people still play it."That single-player DLC, whatever it is, will still be about Shepard, not someone else in the universe. "Mass Effect 3 is Shepard's story," said Gamble, "so the single-player DLC for Mass Effect 3 will probably focus around Shepard."The Earth DLC pack for Mass Effect 3 will be the fifth update to the game since launch, following three other multiplayer updates, and the Extended Cut update that fans begged for. Mike Gamble and his team have learned a lot over the course of these updates, but he told us there were quite a few things that surprised them about the reception to Mass Effect 3 multiplayer."We see people who have everything unlocked all the way up to level 20 on everything, plus all the mods, plus all of the gear, everything," said Gamble. "It takes a lot of time, a lot of time to get that stuff, like hundreds and hundreds of hours of play to usually get up to that level. And some of these people had done it in the first month to two months."Gamble was also been surprised by the response to the Vorcha class, playable for the first time in the Rebellion Pack DLC. "I expected people to shy away from the Vorcha because they're Vorcha, but everyone seems to love to play with them."
Co-opinion: Avengers: Battle for Earth
.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; } Mike Schramm: I'm sure at some point in this writeup, we'll probably talk about how Avengers: Battle for Earth is a Kinect game, and that means, like most Kinect games, it works much better in theory ("A fighting game where you control Marvel characters by making moves on Kinect") than it does in actual practice. But I don't want to get to that point yet, because here's the thing: I had a lot of fun playing it. There's something awesome about sticking your hand up in the air and then pushing it forward to make Thor fling electricity from his hammer, or crouching down and then bringing your arms up high to make the Hulk chuck some ground at his opponent. These are iconic characters from my childhood all the way up to the popular movie, and this game portrays them in a really colorful and fun way. Jess Conditt: Let it be known that Mike Schramm makes an impressive (nay, an incredible) Hulk. I wasn't so bad either, I think. Especially for rippling-muscle-challenged people like myself it's wonderful to embody the larger-than-life heroes in Marvel's repetoire, as Mike suggested. I played our multiplayer battle as Venom and Iron Man, two of my personal favorite characters, and they didn't disappoint. Most motions are shared by each character – punch, knee up, arms out and clapped together, etc. – but the resulting moves are different. With the same punching move, Iron Man shoots a beam of light from his palm and Hulk rushes the player, fists-first. It's a powerful feeling to throw a punch "at" your friend and watch his hero respond on-screen.%Gallery-160465%
Hello Kitty X Street Fighter plushies heading to a Hot Topic near you
The Chun Li Hello Kitty plushies available at Comic-Con last weekend were sold out by Saturday morning, but there is still hope for the thousands of remaining fans clamoring to get their hands on one. The Hello Kitty Ryu, M. Bison and Chun Li plushies pictured in their Comic-Con display above are soon coming to "as many stores as we can get them into," a Capcom booth employee told us. He mentioned specifically Hot Topic, Sanrio stores and Toys 'R' Us as possiblities for the plushies, which are "Series 1" in a planned line of Hello Kitty X Street Fighter toys.
Meet Bill, the grizzled elderly gentleman in The Last of Us
Bill's doing fine on his own ... then Ellie and Joel come busting through his boobytraps, calling on old favors for him to piece together a workable vehicle. Like so many characters we've seen in The Last of Us, Bill isn't what we'd call "all there." The end of society will do that to a man, it seems.
Konami calls Metal Gear Solid 5 Comic-Con screens 'fake rumours,' denies secret reveal
Screens depicting a logo for Metal Gear Solid 5 tie the game to Hideo Kojima's mysterious "Project Ogre;" the screens were allegedly leaked out of this weekend's San Diego Comic-Con, from a behind-closed-doors presentation given by Kojima to developers, showing off the Fox Engine. At least, that'd be a reasonable story to believe – but Konami's saying it's all bunk.After (irresponsibly) tweeting ambiguous notes like, "Fake or real, we love a bit of speculation! #ogre #mgs5," Konami's UK account directly clarified that, "Seriously, just in case the #pinch #salt hashtags weren't enough - the chap who claims to have set up the fake rumours has been in touch," as spotted by Kotaku's Jason Schreier.Project Ogre is Kojima's current in-development game, though few details are known about its theme, or gameplay, or ... well, much of anything regarding it. Kojima has also spoken of a fifth Metal Gear Solid game, though its unclear if development of that game is already underway.Whether or not the game was shown behind closed doors, Kojima was definitely at Comic-Con this past weekend, and he appeared to be showing something secret. Epic Games design director Cliff Bleszinski tweeted, "Just got pulled into a back room at Comic Con by @HIDEO_KOJIMA_EN and showed some crazy new secret stuff. Wow." We're doing pretty much everything we can right here to not make a lurid joke.
Marvel Heroes Comic-Con trailer shows off combat
If you haven't been watching this year's San Diego Comic-Con closely to see what tidbits are revealed, don't worry -- we've got you covered. One such tidbit is the new Marvel Heroes trailer released by Gazillion Entertainment as part of the free-to-play game's panel at the convention. Although short, the video shows off a few of the playable superheroes demonstrating their evil-vanquishing moves. For 40 seconds, fans can watch Iron Man, Black Panther, Captain America, The Hulk, Human Torch, Deadpool, and Black Widow kick, smash, pound, and blast their foes. Check out the combat preview in the video after the break.
Baird explains the finer details of Gears of War: Judgment's 'OverRun' mode
When Gears of War: Judgment is launched next March, its "OverRun" mode will add a new wrinkle to the multiplayer you've grown accustomed to in Gears titles. For instance, you can totally ride a blood mount! See what we mean above.%Gallery-160442%
Cole McGrath, Jak and Daxter added to PlayStation All-Stars: Battle Royale roster [Update: Now with trailers!]
Cole McGrath of Infamous fame and Jak and Daxter of, well, Jak and Daxter fame were just revealed as the two latest additions to the PlayStation All-Stars: Battle Royale cast during a panel at SDCC. As seen in the announcement trailer above, Jak and Daxter will function as a pair of characters working in tandem and controlled by one player, sort of like Ice Climbers in Smash Bros. Jak will utilize signature weapons from his series, such as the Gyro Burster and Mass Inverter, and also has the ability to transform into Dark or Light Jax. Daxter will lend a hand with melee attacks, and probably provide moral support. Meanwhile, McGrath's move list is predictably lightning oriented. Head on past the break for two more trailers showcasing the new characters.
PlayStation All-Stars' combo system is more Marvel than Smash Bros.
PlayStation All-Stars: Battle Royale faces an interesting challenge in ingratiating itself to the patently skeptical fighting game world, as not only is it a brand new IP, but it's also a four-player brawler, rather than a "traditional" 2D or 3D fighter.The game's combo system, however, has more in common with Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 than it does any iteration of the Super Smash Bros. series, as is evident by the trailer above. Speaking personally, we love the idea of legitimate combos in a brawler setting, but we're also worried about keeping track of something that complicated during a fully-zoomed four-player fight. What if we get confused and do a forward quarter-circle instead of a backward quarter-circle? How embarrassing.
Tekken Tag Tournament 2 receiving 'over 100 swimsuits' as pre-order bonus
Bikini downloads in fighting games must be the "in" thing to do these days, because Tekken Tag Tournament 2 will be following in SoulCalibur 5 and Dead or Alive 5's footsteps, offering "over 100 swimsuits" in a "big bikini bundle," according to this "Tekken Bad Girls" trailer.While the trailer frames the costumes as a pre-order bonus, Tekken godfather Katsuhiro Harada spoke of them as DLC during SDCC (according to Andriasang), which indicates that they may be made available to people who don't pre-order at some point in the future. Surprisingly, the bundle includes swimsuits for every character in the game, not just the ladies. And yes, that includes the animals.
Rampant Speculation Theater presents: BioWare teases single Mass Effect 3 image
The picture above, snapped by Joystiq's Mike Schramm at SDCC, is the only clue BioWare gave during its panel of what's next for Mass Effect 3. It clearly shows a Cerberus Atlas mech, but what is that environment? Could it possibly be an underwater landscape? Something to do with Leviathan, perhaps?
