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PS3 Essentials announced for European PlayStation Network
Sony announced the "PlayStation Essentials" program this morning for Europe, hot on the heels of yesterday's "PSN Day 1 Digital" program. The difference between the two PlayStation Network initiatives is that while Day 1 Digital is all launch titles, Essentials covers the classics – well, some are classics, others are just old and tired.Highlights of the of program include the first three Assassin's Creed, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Far Cry 2 and Infamous. The prices begin at £9.99/€14.99, which may be a tough sell as a "bargain," since you can pick up many of these games for less by walking (ew, who wants to do that?) to the store. The main point here is that Sony continues drawing attention to its digital distribution of full games.Check out the full list on the PlayStation EU blog, more games will be added this year to the current offerings.
Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood stealthily reduced to $25 on Amazon today
If you've yet to partake in some of the most interesting multiplayer of 2010, you can now snag (and stab) Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood for a mere $25 on PS3 or 360 (today only). We're not sure how many Florins $25 is, but it can't be much.
Amazon Lightning Deals get grounded today
Amazon's Lightning Deals are generally super-effective, and today looks like no exception. Amazon has some some smokin'-hot goodies up for grabs this afternoon, including what appears to be the Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood Collector's Edition. Check out the schedule of game deals below, along with our interpretations of Amazon's oh-so-sneaky clues: 2 p.m. EDT: Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood Collector's Edition (Take to the rooftops of Italy with this limited edition) 2 p.m.: Marvel vs. Capcom 3 (Ryu vs. Thor) 4 p.m.: Call of Duty: World at War (Wage war from the remains of Russia and the ruins of Berlin) 4 p.m.: Call of Duty headset (Hear the Call of Duty) 6 p.m.: Body and Brain Connection for Kinect (Solve puzzles using your mind and body) 6 p.m.: Brunswick Pro Bowling for Kinect (Hit the lanes with your Kinect)
PSA: Steam Summer Camp Sale ends today
It's time to strip down your bunks, throw your macaroni necklaces in a suitcase and get back to town -- it's the final day of the Steam Summer Camp Sale. Today Steam is featuring some of the sale's biggest titles (which means you probably already have them), including franchise deals on Fallout, Battlefield, Borderlands, Just Cause and Assassin's Creed. One game you may not have bought yet, Terraria, is also 50 percent off today. If there's a better way of forming one last Summer Camp memory than a 2D, Minecraft-inspired sidescrolling goldmine of fun, we can't think of it.
'UbiCollectibles' shop offers exclusive Assassin's Creed, Might & Magic swag
For die-hard fans of Ubisoft's major franchises, the company offers a new way to own physical totems of those fandoms. It just launched a line of exclusive "UbiCollectibles" available exclusively through its online shop (and, at the moment, exclusively in Europe). For those of us outside of Europe who get redirected out of that region's online shop, Ubiworkshop posted images of two of the first offerings: an Assassin's Creed Brotherhood "Ezio's Fury" statue, limited to 2,000 units, that depicts Ezio furiously skipping on some broken columns, and a statue of Might & Magic Heroes VI's Archangel Michael, limited to 500. The shop will also sell Ghost Recon "Production Team" t-shirts, as seen on ... the Ghost Recon production team at E3.%Gallery-127589%
Assassin's Creed Brotherhood: Designing the Considerate Kill
Before playing the upcoming Assassin's Creed: Revelations, Joystiq looks back at the creation of the franchise's first multiplayer installment, Brotherhood. "It was a very difficult game to design, and making it accessible was even harder. We were starting from scratch, with no benchmarks. It's not like a shooter where all you need to know is how to shoot the bad guys." If there's one thing we get, in every way that anything can possibly be gotten, it's the shooting of the bad guys. Games don't even bother to include tutorials for that part anymore, and reviewers treat it as a begrudging axiom when they have to differentiate between the year's big multiplayer offerings. When Damien Kieken, multiplayer game director for Assassin's Creed Brotherhood, says it was difficult to make the game -- and then to make it accessible -- he's speaking to a peculiar and notable absence. If you're shooting the bad guys in Assassin's Creed, you're doing it a bit wrong.
AC: Brotherhood 'Da Vinci Disappearance' DLC preview: Art snob
The Da Vinci Disappearance is an ambitious piece of DLC for Ubisoft, granting players access to a large chunk of single-player content, but also some new modes, skins and a map for the multipayler side. At the February Games Showcase in San Francisco, I was able to play through two missions in an Xbox 360 build. %Gallery-117567%
Assassin's Creed Brotherhood, Black Ops rack up BAFTA nominations
The British Academy of Film and Television Arts has announced the nominees for its GAME British Academy Video Games Awards, which manage to be prestigious despite the inclusion of a sponsor's name in the title. Even before any winners are announced, Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood is representing well, with nominations in seven categories including Action, Artistic Achievement, Gameplay, Multiplayer, Technical Innovation, and, of course, Best Game. Call of Duty: Black Ops is also nominated in seven separate categories. Other nominees include Heavy Rain (six nominations), Mass Effect 2 (five), and XBLA favorite Limbo, receiving nods for Audio and Artistic Achievement. Best Game nominee Super Mario Galaxy 2 is also nominated for Technical Innovation, an area in which that game is not typically lauded. In addition, the first Social Network Game award includes Bejeweled Blitz, Farmerama, FIFA Superstars, My Empire, Zoo Mumba, and Zuma Blitz as nominees. Winners will be announced at an awards ceremony on March 16. Until then, you can vote for the GAME Award winner online.
Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood reaches 6.5 million shipped
Ubisoft announced that it has surpassed its projected third-quarter sales performance -- partially due to its uber successful dancing-centric games, which sold-in a collective 10.5 million units in this past quarter alone, but also due to the strong performance of its historical murder title, Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood. According to the company's latest financial report, the game has reached 6.5 million units shipped to various and sundry retailers across the globe. Time will tell how many of those units will be sold-through to consumers, but we don't foresee sneaky stabbings going out of style any time soon. Nor do we see random spurts of la bella, la lingua ricca d'Italia becoming any less fashionable.
Jade Raymond optimistic of new studios, IP development
Ubisoft Toronto Managing Director Jade Raymond's presentation at DICE expressed her belief that despite the current upheaval in the industry, she believes now is a great time to start a studio. Referencing EA Sports boss Peter Moore's speech about the industry being on a "burning oil platform" -- the idea being that it only changes when it has to -- Raymond believes it's more like a burning oil tanker that can course correct. One would hope she'd be optimistic about current core development being viable, considering she manages, what will become in time, one of the biggest studios in the industry. In terms of IP development, she explained that the Ubisoft team spent a year of pre-production building the foundations of the Assassin's Creed franchise. "We spent quite a bit of time during conception thinking about the franchise metastory and story arc. And, most importantly, thinking of how to make sandboxes that future game teams and future teams in other media would be able to experiment and come up with their own stuff in this franchise." Regarding the ability to do Assassin's Creed comics, TV or a movie down the road, "You'll never get the best out of people if you just hand them this stone tablet." Clearly showing her roots working on The Sims Online, it's quite obvious Raymond is a disciple of Will Wright's ideas about fan involvement in franchises. "I think you need to rely on fans," believing that the fan community will identify the best ideas to work from. She Iterated a quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson for the video game industry: Foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small franchises. Raymond made clear that Assassin's Creed was designed as a franchise that could be handed over to professionals to expand the world, she said that the next IP Ubisoft is creating in Toronto will hopefully be "handed over to fans."
Assassin's Creed: The Fall comic issue three is out
The third issue of Assassin's Creed: The Fall concludes the story arc and is now available in stores and on Ubisoft's website for $5. What will become of Daniel Cross? And of the results of the Tunguska event? We're not telling! We do have a pretty image from it after the break for you, though.
Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood wins Writers Guild award
The Writers Guild of America awarded Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood with the 2011 award for best video game writing -- which you may or may not agree with, but considering the nominees, at least Star Wars: The Force Unleashed 2 didn't win. The prize was given to Ethan Petty, Nicholas Grimwood and Matt Turner for Script Writing; and Jeffrey Yohalem, Corey May and Patrice Desilets for the story (hopefully someone at Ubisoft has Desilets' forwarding address over at THQ). Past years' winners were Star Wars: The Force Unleashed and Uncharted 2. The WGA stood up for itself this year regarding its nomination process, saying it can't nominate writers if a developer doesn't bother putting a name to a script. Hopefully we'll see more publishers and developers giving their game writers credit, so future nominees won't have us scratching our heads in utter befuddlement.
Free Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood multiplayer map when Facebook page hits 1m fans
Accept enough charity and, eventually, you're going to be asked for a favor. After handing out two free DLC packs in the forms of Animus Project Update 1.0 and Animus Project Update 2.0, Ubisoft is asking fans to give something back if they want another new multiplayer map in Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood: simply "Like" the official Assassin's Creed Facebook page. Once it hits 1 million Facebook fans, Ubi will release a new t-shirt to "commemorate the event"; share a "THANK YOU" all-caps video, featuring AssCreedBroHo devs; honor a 24-hour, 15% discount at UbiWorkshop; conduct special giveaways on the Facebook page; and (finally!) release a new multiplayer map titled "Venezia by Night." Right now, the Assassin's Creed series Facebook page has 952,177 fans. If you're not mathematically inclined, we'll do the hard work for you: 47,823 of you need to head to Facebook and give that Like button a real working over. Or don't. Simply take and take and take and never give anything back. Is that how you want people to think of you? [Thanks, Josh]
Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood 'Animus Project Update 2.0' coming today
Despite some recent hiccups in the multiplayer service for Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, we have quite a serious crush on the game (as evidenced by our nod to it in 2010's GOTY list). And that's why we're so glad to hear of today's impending "Animus Project Update 2.0," said to add a new team-based multiplayer mode ("Chest Capture") and the Pienza map. It appears that the free download isn't available just yet, but should be popping up on XBLM and PSN in the coming hours. In the meantime, we've got a trailer of the update's content in action. Join us just after the break ... but watch your back!
Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood Xbox update glitch fixed [update]
Good news, Abstergo Agents -- you've got the day off! Your rigorous training exercises on the online multiplayer portion of the Xbox 360 version of Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood have been interrupted. That's not due to the current national holiday; rather, it's because some players seem to be having trouble downloading the game's latest title update, locking them out of any and all of Brotherhood's online offerings. Ubisoft has acknowledged the error, and is currently working to repair the damage. We'll let you know when you can get back to your regularly scheduled murder and stuff. Update: Whatever was causing the update hiccup has been remedied, according to Ubisoft. We just downloaded the patch with no problem, and would wager that you can now do the same.
Joystiq Top 10 of 2010: Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood
Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood took the single-player mechanics of one of our top games for 2009, Assassin's Creed 2, and sharpened them to a fine point; but that's not why Brotherhood clambered so high on our best of 2010 tower. The sequel is here for blindsiding us with a panic-fueled, engrossing multiplayer component. Like many of you, we've grown cynical watching companies cram unnecessary multiplayer into games with solid single-player experiences. Upon its announcement, that's exactly what Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood's stab-or-be-stabbed multiplayer sounded like: typical padding to a cash-in sequel, still riding high on the last game's wave of success. Wrong. Not only did Brotherhood's single-player campaign offer a focused, distilled romp through Rome, but its multiplayer gave us a unique experience that, refreshingly, didn't have shooting at its heart.
Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood patch to correct 'Animus bug'
Ubisoft has announced an upcoming title update for Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood that should spur stalled multiplayer matchmaking, restore PlayStation 3 Trophy acquisition and give the notorious Animus bug the boot. And that one's a detrimental glitch, mind you. If you've played Brotherhood's online component, you'll know that a lot of the bugs, cheats and exploits used by Abstergo employees in Animus simulations are features, first and foremost. Due to arrive "very soon," Title Update 3 aims to free players who get stuck either during the match search process, or in the Animus seat when they visit the 2012 timeline in the single-player campaign. It'll also address a fast travel glitch in Rome and a bug that can prevent PS3 players from unlocking further trophies after a certain point in the game. You can see a more detailed list of fixes after the break. We'll let you know as soon as the update becomes available on Xbox Live and PlayStation Network.
Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood bonus mission free to European Uplay users [update]
Launched last year with Assassin's Creed 2, Ubisoft's Uplay has served as an in-game rewards system on top of Xbox Live's Achievements and PlayStation Network's Trophies, letting those who sign up for it unlock bonus items using accrued points across supported games. Recently, these same folks got an email offering them a free bonus mission in Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood called "The Trajan Market." The mission was originally available as part of the game's "Codex Edition" and sends Ezio into a marketplace in the middle of Rome, where he fights Borgia guards and discovers a treasure hidden in a ruined tower. As you can see in the screen grab above, the code was even sent out to Uplay members who don't own the game. If you're not yet a Uplay member, you can sign up on the official site. Also, you didn't tell us there'd be free stuff, Ubisoft! Oh wait, maybe you did. Update: Ubisoft has clarified that this offer is for European Uplay members. [Thanks, RobLink and Jason]
Assassin's Creed: The Fall comic #2 out now
Good news for fans of stabbing and comic books (a bigger audience than you might think): Assassin's Creed: The Fall issue two is now available in comic shops. Lest you haven't been keeping up, The Fall tells the story of mustachioed assassin Nikolai Orelov, who operates during the Russian revolution. Look out -- he'll stab you right in your warm, furry hat.
Assassin's Creed Brotherhood adds more free DLC in January with 'Animus Project Update 2.0'
Ubisoft, you're doing this wrong! If you want to squeeze more money out of Assassin's Creed, you'd best charge for these frequent updates to Brotherhood's multiplayer mode. Animus Project Update 1.0 launches today, augmenting the game with a new "Advanced Alliance" mode and the Mont Saint-Michel map, for free. The predictably-named Animus Project Update 2.0 will be available in January and, like its predecessor, will add yet another map and mode into the mix: the Pienza Map and a new "Chest Capture" team mode. Once again, Ubisoft is releasing this pack for free -- earning useless things like "fan appreciation" and "loyalty" instead of what really matters: cash money. Check out a not-so-stealthy preview of the Advanced Alliance mode in a new trailer, after the break.
