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There's No Escape from the latest Alien: Isolation trailer
Alien: Isolation has officially gone gold and to celebrate this momentous occasion, publisher Sega has kicked off a new series of trailers, starting with the vignette you see above which poses the question, "How will you survive?" before demonstrating exactly how to do the opposite. [Image: Sega]
Silent Hills Swedish radio broadcast hints at aliens
The playable teaser for Hideo Kojima and Guillermo del Toro's Silent Hills offers a hint at the game's premise: aliens. A creepy Swedish radio broadcast outlines a world of tortured paranoia, including the phrase, "The radio drama from 75 years ago was the truth," as translated by YouTube user dimhoLten. This timeline aligns with Orson Welles' radio performance of The War of the Worlds on October 30, 1938. Welles' broadcast of The War of the Worlds incited mass panic among the US radio audience, as it was presented as a series of news bulletins describing a live alien invasion, which many listeners took at face value. The radio drama was based on HG Wells' 1898 novel The War of the Worlds.
Meet the xenomorph in this behind the scenes Alien: Isolation trailer
In lieu of serving up in-game footage or even pre-rendered cutscenes from the upcoming sci fi survival horror game Alien: Isolation, the developers at Creative Assembly instead offer this behind-the-scenes look at how the team is translating Hollywood-style horror for the virtual world. The focus of the clip is on the creation of the game's titular xenomorph, and specifically the artificial intelligence ruling its in-game behaviors. According to the game's designers, the alien utilizes a unique set of "senses" to actively hunt players down, leading to encounters with the creature that can last up to half an hour, depending on how cautious a player is in approaching the confrontation. The development team claims this just isn't possible with scripted cutscenes and traditional enemy behavior patterns, but the extra effort poured into the birth of the xenomorph pays off by presenting players with an enemy that is both deadly and unexpectedly cunning. Alien: Isolation is slated for release toward the end of 2014, when it will debut on the Xbox 360, Xbox One, PC, PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 platforms. [Image: Sega]
Curve Studios leads a Titan Invasion on Sony systems this summer
Curve Studios will bring a game bundle called Titan Invasion to PS3, PS4 and Vita early this summer. The pack includes two arcade-style games from UK developer Puppygames, Titan Attacks and Revenge of the Titans. Titan Attacks is an arcade shooter in the same vein as Galaga and Space Invaders, though Curve Studios says it includes "modern features, new strategies" as well as online leaderboards and an upgrade system. The game features over 100 levels, spanning five worlds. Puppygames' other creation, Revenge of the Titans, is deemed a thematic sequel that mixes real-time strategy and tower defense elements together. Both Titan Attacks and Revenge of the Titans are available for $9.99 on Steam for PC, Mac and Linux. The Titan Invasion bundle will be Cross-Buy compatible on all three Sony systems. [Image: Curve Studios]
Alien-jamming basketball game NBA Rush downloaded one million times
Nearly one week after its launch on iOS, NBA Rush has been downloaded over one million times. This is according to a tweet from Other Ocean developer Frank Cifaldi. While the game's developer is listed as Renren Games on iTunes, Other Ocean handled its creation. NBA Rush is an endless runner game with action similar Temple Run (but with basketballs). Players control one of 90 real-life NBA players, each armed with individual abilities and power-ups, guiding them through obstacles and slam-dunking over aliens. The wacky, licensed arcade-style game is free to play.
Alien: Isolation screens burst from Creative Assembly's horror game
A set of screens confirmed to be from Creative Assembly's Alien: Isolation hit the net last night, Eurogamer reports. The game is said to a first-person stealth-and-horror fest that tells the story of Amanda Ripley, daughter of Ellen Ripley from the Alien film series. Twentieth Centry Fox Film trademarked Alien: Isolation, just as it (unfortunately) did with Aliens: Colonial Marines. An Alien game from Creative Assembly has been in production since May 2011 at least, when the studio posted a job listing and Sega confirmed the project's existence. You heard and saw it here, folks: Alien exists.
Gallery: The Tokyo Game Show 2013 Square Enix/Play Arts Booth
An annual staple of the Tokyo Game Show's shopping area, this year's Square Enix/Play Arts booth spared no expense in showcasing the future of its incredibly cute and/or highly detailed lines of action figures and statues. Now, we don't really have room for this sort of stuff in our tiny, hopeless apartments, but we'd be lying if we said we haven't already priced out Ikea display cases for some of this loot. But for the folks out there with ample shelf space and a proclivity for placing plastic personnel on pedestals, take note: You want some Metal Gear? You want some tiny little adorable Theaterhythm dudes? You want a hyper-future robotic samurai Batman? Our gallery has you covered, yo.
CIA documents tip Area 51 as Cold War surveillance site, definitely not an alien cover up
span.redacted { color: black; background-color: black;} The truth, as a great man once said, is out there. It's just not 125 miles northwest of Vegas. And while no one's denying the seemingly great potential for extraterrestrial life on the outskirts of Sin City, newly declassified documents have shed further light on the long mysterious nature of Area 51. The good news: yes, the CIA acknowledges that Area 51 is , indeed, a thing. And it has the map to prove it. The bad news: there's nary a mention of aliens on stretchers or a besuited Will Smith. Nope, there's no one wearing cool sunglasses so far as we can tell -- heck, even the references to the U-2 program are largely Bono-free. Nope, the area was reportedly the site of Cold War surveillance -- programs that like Oxcart, which have been previously acknowledged. All in all, a perfectly normal base, as far as the government is concerned. Likely story, CIA.
UK Ministry of Defence's UFO department was disbanded three years ago, had 'no defense purpose'
National Archive documents recently released show that the UK government's very own UFO department, which had reported on sightings for over 50 years, was shut down three years ago. The department apparently never revealed any "potential threats" to the country, so the Ministry of Defence closed both the hotline and email address that fielded the public's sightings of UFOs. A civil servant briefed the current defence minister, Bob Ainsworth, saying: "The level of resources diverted to this task is increasing in response to a recent upsurge in reported sightings, diverting staff from more valuable defence-related activities." The recently released files also covered some of the sightings reported from across the UK in 2009, which included, perhaps unsurprisingly, Stonehenge.
Captain's Log: Playing with Legacy of Romulus characters in Star Trek Online
In just over two weeks, Star Trek Online's first expansion, The Legacy of Romulus, will be released. The developers at Cryptic Studios have been working furiously, and we'll all get to see the results of all of the hard work on Tuesday, May 21st, 2013. I've had the opportunity to jump into the Star Trek Online's test server, Tribble, to catch a few glimpses of some of the character works in progress. With more material being pushed to Tribble on almost a daily basis, there should be lots to see in the next couple of weeks!
Sega and Gearbox targeted in Aliens: Colonial Marines lawsuit
Gearbox Software and Sega have both been named in a class action lawsuit alleging that the two companies knowingly misrepresented Aliens: Colonial Marines in trade show demos. After the game was released to negative reviews, some players and critics claimed the game's trailers and demonstrations didn't match up to the final product. The lawsuit's plaintiff, Damion Perrine, and the law firm of Edelson LLC have decided to take the matter to court for consumers. The suit cites a tweet from Gearbox head Randy Pitchford, who called initial complaints over the delta between demo and final game "understood and fair." The legal action also suggests demos were misleadingly labeled as "actual gameplay," and that Sega embargoed press reviews until the early morning of Colonial Marines' release date, preventing early buyers from discovering the differences. Accordingly, the suit asks for class action damages for anyone who pre-ordered the game or bought it on release day. The next step in a class action suit like this will be for the courts to certify the class. Unless Sega and Gearbox fight for a settlement right away, Edelson will next need to figure out how many players were mislead in the way described in the lawsuit. Once determined, the class will be notified of the suit, and the case can move forward.
Aliens: Colonial Marines gets new mode with Bug Hunt DLC today
The Bug Hunt DLC for Aliens: Colonial Marines is available today on Steam, Xbox Live, or the PlayStation Network.Bug Hunt is a new mode in the game that pits up to four players against waves of incoming xenos and enemy soldiers across three new maps: Broadside, Mercenary, and Tribute. You can earn money on the map by killing enemies, and then spend that money to open up extra areas, or buy more guns, ammo, or health.If you invested in the Season Pass for the game, you'll get this DLC for free. Everybody else has to pony up the equivalent of around $15, though Steam has the game itself on sale for 33 percent off.Careful, as fighting giant monsters with acid blood in cramped quarters might be exactly as fun as it sounds.
Hey humans, check out this video that shows the making of Defiance
Defiance has been slowly working its way up the hype ladder lately. We here at the Massively offices are wondering whether it will be a smash hit or just a head-scratcher, but either way, you can color us intrigued. In a recent developer video, we learn about the Votan races, a general term for the different aliens who now inhabit the war-torn Earth. Remember, these are the creatures we have to get along with, so it's good that many of them are described as the "supermodels of the Votan races." That certainly helps relations run more smoothly. We also learn more about the Irathients, the sort of misfit toy race of the universe. Although they're described as violent and ferocious, they're also known to be very spiritual. That seems to us to be a prescription for trouble. We see the Indogenes as well, a smooth-faced batch of aliens who are obviously the brains behind the operation. There are even more races that we can mention here. Does that all make sense? No? Well, check out the video after the cut and maybe it will make more sense after.
What could have been in Obsidian's Aliens RPG
In 2009, Sega had three games in the Aliens universe under its control: Gearbox's Aliens: Colonial Marines, Rebellion's Aliens vs. Predator and an Aliens RPG subtitled Crucible from Obsidian. Sega decided to cancel one of these projects – we assume through a sophisticated "close your eyes, spin around and point" method – and Obsidian's RPG got the boot.Back then Sega didn't offer a taste of what the game would look like, but now we have a video of some creepy-crawly creatures from Obsidian's Aliens RPG, courtesy of character animator Danny Garnett.In 2010, Obsidian CEO Feargus Urquhart said the Aliens RPG was basically a finished game when Sega pulled the plug. "That's how close we were," he said. "It looked and felt like it was ready to ship." We wish we could say the same about Colonial Marines.
Aliens: Colonial Marines 'Bug Hunt' DLC coming in March, more on the way
Aliens: Colonial Marines will receive four add-on packs starting with the launch of the Bug Hunt DLC in March. Bug Hunt has players cooperatively taking on waves of enemies in three new maps. The other three content packs, a mixture of campaign and multiplayer DLC, will be available by the end of August.All four of the DLC packs will be available individually and for Season Pass holders, which Sega confirmed is "a $29.99 / 2400 Microsoft Point bundle that offers a savings of almost 40% over buying the content individually." The Season Pass can be bought on Steam right now for $27, and will make its way to Xbox 360 and PS3 in the near future.
Rockstar: Grand Theft Auto 5 delay for quality purposes only
Grand Theft Auto 5 has a release date of September 17, which is later than its original launch window of spring this year. Yes, this is a delay. No, it isn't because aliens beamed down to Rockstar headquarters and possessed the entire Grand Theft Auto 5 development team. At least that's what Rockstar is telling its fans:"To those of you saying or seeing various conspiracy theories about there being some other ulterior motive for this delay, rest assured that they're all nonsense – literally the only reason we've delayed the release is because we want the game to be as good as it needs to be," Rockstar writes in the comments of its launch date announcement.When Rockstar first posted the September release date, it said, "We know this is about four months later than originally planned and we know that this short delay will come as a disappointment to many of you, but, trust us, it will be worth the extra time." While we study the weaknesses of your puny human race, we assume is how that originally ended.
Game on, man! Aliens: Colonial Marines is ready for pre-order
The release of Gearbox's Aliens: Colonial Marines is finally zeroing in towards us, with publisher Sega launching a new television teaser to promote the oft-delayed title. For PC soldiers, Colonial Marines features a number of bonuses on Steam if players are willing to sign up for the Weyland-Yutani sponsored expedition before its launch. Steam pre-order bonuses include a Sonic-Harpoon Artillery Remote Projectile (or S.H.A.R.P.) stick rifle, a weapon referenced in James Cameron's Aliens that fires explosive darts. Aliens: Colonial Marines will also be available for Xbox 360, Wii U, and the PlayStation 3, when it launches on February 12.
Aliens: Colonial Marines story trailer investigates a deserted ship
This trailer for Aliens: Colonial Marines shows a certain Captain Cruise ordering his crew to investigate a 17-week-old distress signal on the U.S.S. Sulaco. As indicated by the trailer's dramatic music and the word "aliens" in the game's title, the "liquid situation" has players leading the highly-skilled group of marines into battle against hostile alien beings (surprise!).The Gearbox-developed game uses environments drawn specifically from the movie series of the same name, such as LV-426 and Hadley's Hope. Aliens: Colonial Marines is coming to Xbox 360, PC, Wii U and PS3 on February 12, 2013.
Alt-week 12.22.12: strange skulls, solar portraits and 17-minute code cracking
Alt-week takes a look at the best science and alternative tech stories from the last seven days. Despite all the bad press, the 14th baktun is actually turning out pretty good so far. Okay, we're barely a day into it, but it's a promising start. To celebrate we've got a stunning postcard from the sun at the exact moment of solstice, some curious Mexican skulls and an amateur codebreaker who thinks he beat British intelligence agencies at their own game. This is definitely alt-week.
Aliens: Colonial Marines trailer is looking stylish
The latest trailer out of Gamescom for Aliens: Colonial Marines has it all: Gruesome scenes of H.R. Giger's creations terrorizing marines, and a little behind-the-scenes on the upcoming release. The trailer talks about both the tension buildup that's so important to the Aliens franchise, and the freedom that Gearbox had to both make use of the movie's most familiar locations, and also create their own in new and interesting ways. Oh, and there are some weirdly extraneous "action" shots of the game's creative team, mixed in among the commentary and game videos. Gearbox's Chief Creative Officer Brian Martel is a standout offender on that one. Nice hat tip there, bud.
