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Mortal Kombat 'Season Pass,' Deadliest Warrior: Legends are today's XBLM holiday deals
Microsoft's end-of-the-year countdown has Mortal Kombat's "season pass" and Deadliest Warriors: Legends discounted for day four. The Mortal Kombat "Season Pass," available half-off today for 600 MSP ($7.50), will unlock DLC characters Skarlet, Kenshi, Rain and Mr. Freddy Krueger. Individually, the characters are 400 MSP ($5) apiece. Deadliest Warrior: Legends, a "cerebral, satisfying and deep" fighter, is also on sale. Both the core game and Joan of Arc DLC are half-off for 400 MSP ($5) and 120 MSP ($1.50), respectively. Now ... FIGHT!
Report: Deadliest Warrior studio head misrepresented military experience
IndustryGamers reports on a new allegation that Robert Daly, head of Deadliest Warrior developer Pipeworks Studios, may have misrepresented his military history. A little background: Daly has claimed in interviews to be part of the Special Forces, which is of course an important qualification for making games about Vikings whaling on ninjas. Jeff Hinton, owner of Special Forces community site ProfessionalSoldiers, read Daly's claim and then looked him up. "Robert Daly's [National Personnel Records Center] military records state he was some sort of imagery analyst," Hinton told. [United States Army Special Operations Command] has absolutely no record of him in their system." So, according to Hinton's research, Daly was in the army, but not in Special Forces. We're contacting Pipeworks for a response to this allegation, as well as the related claim that Deadliest Warrior's pirate was actually a privateer.
Deadliest Warrior: Ancient Combat brings first two games to retail this December
If you haven't purchased either of the downloadable brawlers based on Spike TV's historically violent Deadliest Warrior franchise, nor have you seen any episodes of the show itself, then let's be frank: You're just not that into Deadliest Warrior. That's fine! Different strokes, and all that. Still, if you'd like to have as complete and deadly an entertainment experience as is possible, you'll want to grab Deadliest Warrior: Ancient Combat when it lands at retailers this December. The $29.99 package includes the original Deadliest Warrior: The Game and Deadliest Warrior: Legends, as well as all the downloadable content (and a few new weapons and arenas) for each. It also includes some never-before-aired episodes of the show for diehard fans. We hear the hypothetical skirmish between Lumberjacks and Investment Bankers is particularly engaging.
Deadliest Warrior Legends review: A stab, crush and cut above
Pipeworks Software's Deadliest Warrior was a game characterized by happy surprises. Most were intrinsic to the over-in-a-second combat the title presented -- nothing's more surprising than having your delicate, evasive foxtrot interrupted by a spear through the face. All, however, served to enforce the biggest surprise of all: Someone made a licensed game that allowed ninjas to engage in one-on-one bouts with vikings, and then they made it good. Much like its predecessor, Deadliest Warrior: Legends is peppered with fleeting, unexpected delights. It also contains a shocker of its own; that the original title wasn't just a qualitative anomaly. The series' second coming is full of so many inspired, innovative improvements over the surprisingly solid original, you'll temporarily forget that it's based around an anachronistic bloodsport that's far too ridiculous to exist, even virtually. Until, of course, Shaka Zulu stabs Atilla the Hun so hard that his torso falls off. %Gallery-127597%
Say hello to nine surly fighters in Deadliest Warrior: Legends
Gone are the ambiguous archetypes of Pirates, Vikings and Centurions -- Deadliest Warrior: Legends will feature nine real-ass soldiers pulled from history, Bill and Ted-style. Check out the list of fighters, as well as some concept art for their inevitably brutalized character models, after the break.
Deadliest Warrior: Legends preview: Risk-y business
Deadiest Warrior has a long history of surprising me at trade shows by being much, much better than any licensed downloadable game has a right to be. That trend wasn't bucked at this year's Electronics Entertainment Expo, where the newly rebranded publisher 345 Games -- not to be confused with 343 Industries or 505 Games, mind you -- showed off Pipeworks' second stab at the combatative franchise, Deadliest Warrior: Legends. The title appears to bring a number of intriguing, necessary additions to the core one-on-one combat system, possibly bringing it into parity with deeper entries in the genre. However, the aspect which provided me with my annual jolt of surprise didn't involve dismembered, anachronistic soldiers: It involved the game's new strategic game mode, "Generals."
New Deadliest Warrior and Ugly Americans titles coming to XBLA and PSN under 345 Games
Emboldened by the success of last year's anachronistic fighter Deadliest Warrior: The Game (which has sold over 400,000 downloads to date across XBLA and PSN), MTV Networks Entertainment has announced the opening of a new development studio called 345 Games. We spoke with Dan Yang and Prithvi Virasinghe from the newly incorporated studio about its plans to create game adaptations of Spike TV and Comedy Central programming. They revealed that they're starting with one distinct project from each network: Deadliest Warrior: Legends and Ugly Americans: Apocalypsegeddon. The first, a follow-up to last year's Deadliest title, will feature all new fighters pulled from across the fullness of time, and more than twice as many arenas as the series' first installment. Each warrior type will be represented by titular legends such as William Wallace or Shaka Zulu, who can lead their armies in the new "Generals" campaign mode. Skirmishes between factions in this mode are carried out using the same battle simulator used in the show, and players can affect their troops with certain "X-Factors," such as training exercises, or unique General strategies.
Xbox Live April schedule: Bad Company 2 DLC, Comic Jumper discounts
Microsoft has revealed some of the content and deals coming to the Xbox Live Marketplace in early April, which include quite a few discounts. It kicks off this week with the launch of DLC for Mass Effect 2 and You Don't Know Jack, as well as some discounts on Comic Jumper, Deadliest Warrior and the "Dead Money" DLC for Fallout: New Vegas. Hit the jump for the full list.
Deadliest Warrior DLC available now, adds three characters and new mode
Have you mastered the art of dismemberment on all of Deadliest Warrior's anachronistic fighters? A DLC pack for the game released today has added a handful of new combatants for you to master, including the Rajput, Zande and Shaolin Monk -- three archetypes from the television series that were chosen for the game in an online fan poll. The pack also includes a medium-range taunt for each of the game's original eight fighters, and a new mode, Skirmish, which lets two players choose four of their favorite combatants and fight the opponent's picks sequentially. The first person to clear out the other player's roster wins, which sounds like a pretty clever way to lengthen the game's typically seconds-long encounters. The pack is available now for 400 Microsoft Points on Xbox Live Marketplace, and $4.99 on the PlayStation Store.
Deadliest Warrior devs reveal 225K-plus sales in postmortem
In a recent postmortem on Gamasutra, the team behind Deadliest Warrior discussed the game's successes and failures. Slotted firmly in the success column are the sales numbers, with Gamasutra noting that Deadliest Warrior has racked up over 225,000 units in sales since its XBLA launch in July (it later arrived on PSN in October). Spike Games' Prithvi Virasinghe and Pipeworks Software's Jeremy Mahler agree that one key to the game's success was its realistic approach to combat. Strangely enough, Spike and Pipeworks independently reached the same conclusion: An approach similar to Square's classic Bushido Blade would help Deadliest Warrior stand out in a genre dominated by combo-heavy fighters like Street Fighter, Tekken and Soul Calibur. The two also discuss the challenges of overcoming the stigma associated with licensed games. The team opted to preview the game to as many outlets as possible to dispel any reviewer's desire to undeservedly write the game off. "We wanted the game to speak for itself on its own merits," recalls Virasinghe. In Joystiq's case at least, the strategy certainly worked.
PSN Tuesday: Deadliest Warrior, Alien Breed: Impact
The surprisingly not bad game Deadliest Warrior is available now on the PSN. The service also adds Alien Breed: Impact and it's likely worth your time to check out the demo for Castlevania: Lords of Shadow. If for some reason you're a fan of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and still haven't picked up the game's two map packs, those are now on sale for 50 percent off at $7.49 apiece. Check out the full PSN update after the break. Choose your platform to view the corresponding release list: (Note: Continue past the break to view both release lists.)
Deadliest Warrior impales the PlayStation Store today
Spike Games' surprisingly fun and unsurprisingly gory downloadable fighter, Deadliest Warrior: The Game, will make its way to the PlayStation Store later today in the next PSN update. The fighter, which arrived on Xbox Live in July, will cost PSN shoppers $9.99. It may also cost them an arm and a leg. And a head. Or any combination of those appendages. According to an announcement on PlayStation.Blog, developer Pipeworks Software is making plans for a three-character DLC expansion to the game. The only fighter announced so far is the "Rajput," which, according to Wikipedia, is "a member of one of the major Hindu Kshatriya (warrior) groups of India and are a ruling class of the Indian subcontinent." Hey, we learned something today! Thanks, video games.
Review: Deadliest Warrior
There are few things I love more in video games than the juxtaposition of two elements that clearly should not be juxtaposed. It's the peculiar desire which first attracted me to Deadliest Warrior, though, the sincerity of that attraction was questionable. Was I psyched to play a game that finally gave me the chance to see who would emerge victorious in a melee between a Pirate and a Viking? Yes, of course, because that's silly. Was I legitimately excited to play the game itself? Not so much. Fortunately, behind all the comedically anachronistic battle pairings is a brilliantly simplistic and entirely entertaining fighting game engine -- one which rewards second-to-second survival instincts rather than a comprehensive knowledge of esoteric, nigh-impossible-to-execute techniques. If you're a fighting game purist, the absence of dash-canceling or air-to-ground linking might put you off. If you've never, ever understood, nor do you possess any desire to ever understand what those things are, then Deadliest Warrior will land right in your wheelhouse. %Gallery-88124%
XBLA in Brief: Deadliest Warrior, DeathSpank
XBLA is all about death this week. First up we have gruesome, deadly martial arts with Deadliest Warrior: The Game and then we have just, heroic, loot-driven murder with DeathSpank. Honestly, both causes of death have their appeal. Watch the latest XBLA in Brief and see just how fun death can be. [iTunes] Subscribe to XBLA in Brief directly in iTunes. [Zune] Subscribe to the XBLA in Brief directly. [RSS] Add the XBLA in Brief feed to your RSS aggregator and have the show delivered automatically. [M4V] Download the M4V directly. There are new Xbox Live Arcade games released every week. We realize that our readers are busy, attractive people, and may not have time to download and examine each and every new XBLA game. You've got busy, attractive person stuff to do, after all. Not to worry though, because we've done the work for you, downloading every single trial game and giving you a taste of what to expect. Watch XBLA in Brief every week to see which games deserve a closer look. When you have the time, of course.
Deadliest Warrior coming July 14 to XBLA
An Apache, Spartan, Pirate, Ninja, Samurai, Viking, Knight and Roman Centurion walk into a bar -- and then murder each other. That's not a joke. It's Deadliest Warrior: The Game on XBLA next Wednesday, July 14 for $10. (Head past the break for a complete XBLA release schedule.)
Preview: Deadliest Warrior
I worried as I walked to the Spike Games booth for my E3 appointment to check out Deadliest Warrior that I might have been undeservedly kind to the game when I first saw it at GDC. Is it possible I liked the game so much because it was surprisingly un-terrible? Did I enjoy the game solely because I have a thing for preposterous juxtaposition in video games? Was I perhaps tainted from the start by the game's entertaining, edging-on-silly debut trailer? After my second getting my hands on the game, which was recently dated and priced at July 14 for 800 Microsoft Points (the PSN version will come shortly thereafter), I feel confident in saying that I was totally right the first time around. Moreso, the delight I experienced the first time I played the game was only expounded by the arrival a few new anachronistic combatants. %Gallery-88124%
GDC hands-on: Deadliest Warrior (XBLA)
Okay, honesty time. Most of the preparation for my GDC appointment to check out Pipework Foundation's TV-to-game adaptation Deadliest Warrior was spent thinking up jokes about the game's cast of anachronistic characters. "So, what are we looking at," I would snidely remark, "Templars? Cavemen? Wizards? Robots? Robot Cavemen? Grizzly bears?" To which Pipework would politely laugh, as I would insist, "No, seriously. What's the grizzly bear situation?" I was prepared to be underwhelmed by the game, so I'd attempt to cajole an entire preview out of this line of questioning. Fortunately, this precaution wasn't necessary, as Deadliest Warrior looks to be a surprisingly competent, enjoyable fighting game, and a welcome addition to the Xbox Live Arcade lineup. Here's the takeaway: Think Bushido Blade; but instead of being stuck with controlling boring ol' samurai, there are ninjas, Spartans, Apache, knights and four other yet-to-be-announced warriors (Including, hopefully, wizards). %Gallery-88124%
Spike VGA 2009 Wrap-up: The awards, the trailers, the premieres
As you can probably tell by looking at our front page, last night's Spike Video Game Awards show was a pretty prolific source of gaming news. From the big reveals of games like Batman: Arkham Asylum 2 and Star Wars: The Force Unleashed 2, to new trailers for Crackdown 2 and Halo: Reach, to ... well, the actual awards, it was a pretty busy night for all parties involved. We've collected all the stories, trailers, and winners of each award in this post to prevent you from hunting through our archives -- or our hateful, hateful liveblog -- to find what you're looking for. You'll find them all listed after the jump!
Deadliest Warrior video game announced during VGAs
Oh, you've never heard of the television show known as Deadliest Warrior? We'll break it down for you: Each episode pits two different types of warriors from different time periods against each other to see who would win in various forms of combat. For instance, one episode might show the results of a Ninjas vs. Spartans throwdown. One might show how a conflict between Marines and Medieval Knights would resolve itself. Robots vs. Wizards? A bit less likely, but still within the realm of possibilities. The VGAs brought great news involving this series -- Pipeworks Software is making a downloadable video game based on it. The announcement was accompanied by a lava-hot trailer showing a battle between a ninja and a heavily armored knight, which we've posted after the jump. What? Who wins? The ninja does. Of course.
