gamescom-2012
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Capcom media megapost: Resident Evil 6, Lost Planet 3, Remember Me and more
Capcom just left a massive pile of trailers and screenshots on our doorstep, and rather than breaking them down into a bunch of tiny, annoying posts, we figured it'd be more convenient for you at home to bunch them all together into one big cornucopia of media consumables. Mediumables, if you will.Above and below, you'll find a gameplay trailer of Remember Me, as well as a corresponding gallery. Then, after the break, you'll find trailers and screenshots from pretty much everything else Capcom has going on for a while: Lost Planet 3, DmC: Devil May Cry, Resident Evil 6, Street Fighter X Tekken Vita, Okami HD and Jojo's Bizarre Adventure HD.%Gallery-162365%
Super Joystiq Podcast Gamescom 2012 special: Day 2
We're back with more Gamescom 2012 coverage. Day 2 was a big day of press conferences, and we have 'em all covered.Alexander, Ben, Richard, and Jess are joined by Engadget contributing editor Mat Smith, and VG247 head honcho Patrick Garratt to discuss the big announcements from the four big press conferences of the day. Highlights include Capcom's Remember Me, Half Life 3 not getting announced, and a good showing by Sony with the likes of Rain, Tearaway, Call of Duty: Black Ops Declassified for Vita, and more.Stay tuned throughout the week for more daily specials out of GDC Europe and Gamescom 2012 in Germany.Listen to the Super Joystiq Podcast: Subscribe to the Super Joystiq Podcast in iTunes Super Joystiq Podcast is also available in the Zune Marketplace Add the Super Joystiq Podcast feed to your RSS aggregator Download the MP3 directlyA stream of the show and details about each segment is available after the break.
Indie dev PerBlue makes millions, sees Android dominating iOS
Justin Beck launched PerBlue while finishing college in 2008. He got to work on the company's first title, Parallel Kingdom, with his co-founder and a staff of seven in Madison, Wisconsin, surviving on $20,000 of savings from a stint at Microsoft. Today, PerBlue generates $3 million a year, supports 35 employees and has successfully launched three free-to-play MMOs in the Parallel universe on Android and iOS.PerBlue's Parallel Mafia and Parallel Zombies both hit mobile devices in 2012, but during his talk at GDC Europe, Beck discussed the specific finances of Parallel Kingdom, which has been live since 2008.Parallel Kingdom doesn't have a massive number of players, hype or notoriety in the wider gaming world, but it proves that when managed efficiently, a mobile game can provide huge profit for a small developer. Parallel Kingdom has 1.5 million registered accounts, but only 15,000 daily active users, which Beck admits is "not that big." These users, however, represent $0.40 - $0.50 per user, per day for PerBlue. Extrapolated to 50,000 monthly active users, that's more than $200,000 each month in microtransactions from one title alone.
Tearaway takes iota on a journey through PS Vita, our heart
Tearaway, a new 3D adventure game for the PS Vita, was revealed earlier today during Sony's Gamescom 2012 keynote. But aside from some brief gameplay snippets and specific features possible only on the PS Vita, we weren't given much detail.Thankfully developer Media Molecule just published a lengthy blog post on the subject. Within, the premise of the game is detailed: iota, a cute little paper messenger thing from an alternate dimension, is on a mission to deliver a message to you, the player. Players must team up with iota and "journey through the vibrant papery landscape" to take on enemies and help those in need.Controlling iota is very reminiscent of other 3D platformers, but with the unique hardware of the PS Vita, players can touch and breathe on and shake their PS Vita to affect the game world. "Tearaway is still very much an extension of the creative gaming genre, so rest assured you'll be able to personalise and customise your world to your heart's content," Media Molecule's Alex Evans assures. "We'll have to be secret Susans about that until a later date though!"But, hey, as much as we like information, we'd be remiss if we didn't point you to the real value in Media Molecule's blog post: a pdf link to make your own papercraft elk, the very same seen in the gameplay trailer above. We shall call ours ... Tim.
Gamescom 2012: Guild Wars 2 giveaway for Gamescom attendees
It's that special time of year again. There are thousands of people packing bags, boarding trains, and piling into Cologne, Germany. Soon the halls that host Gamescom will be filled with people, the din of dozens of competing booths, and the scent of unwashed masses. What does that mean for you if you're a Guild Wars 2 fan in attendance? It means that along with a weekend with tens of thousands of your best buddies, you get a chance for super-special in-game items. Every day, ArenaNet staff members in the team's booth will be giving away an in-game goodie to anyone who can tell them the day's password. The passwords for each day will be announced via Twitter, so be sure to keep one eye on the Guild Wars 2 Twitter feed and another on an ArenaNet employee who'll accept said password. Aside from setting themselves up to be trampled by a seething horde of item-hungry fans, the ArenaNet team members will be chilling in Hall 8, chatting with folks, and generally keeping low-key. They might be saving their energy for something; I hear there's a game of theirs coming out soon. Every summer, the gaming industry descends on Cologne, Germany, for Gamescom, the world's largest trade fair for interactive games and entertainment. Massively's on the scene in 2012, bringing you all the best scoops, impressions, and interviews from the MMOs at the show!
Dead Island's lifeblood was co-op, 4 million units shipped
Dead Island's success was all due to that stunning trailer, right? Well, according to Guido Eickmeyer, development director and executive producer of games at publisher Deep Silver, the resort-vacation zombie simulator sold 4 million units because of its cooperative gameplay."This is why we got all the good reviews from users. This is why we got high user ratings, because it is the most exciting co-op experience that is on the market," Eickmeyer said.Despite investing less than $25 million dollars in the project – low for a major triple-A video game – Dead Island has been played for 56,907,547 hours in co-op, which is approximately 6,500 years total.After the success of the trailer, there were talks of forming the game around that, but there simply weren't the resources. Dead Island showed strong potential in its co-op, so the focus shifted to that and that game was a huge hit. Dead Island: Riptide is another "huge co-op experience" being revealed this week at Gamescom.
Call of Duty: Black Ops Declassified Vita bundle announced [update: trailer]
Call of Duty: Black Ops Declassified will be included in a special PlayStation Vita bundle, Sony Europe president Jim Ryan revealed at Sony's Gamescom press conference. The bundle will include a Vita, a copy of Call of Duty: Black Ops Declassified and a pouch. Presumably the bundle will launch alongside Declassified this November. The price was not announced.Declassified will take place between Call of Duty: Black Ops and the upcoming Black Ops 2. It will feature singe-player content as well as 4-on-4 multiplayer, featuring maps built specifically for Vita and familiar modes like Team Deathmatch and Kill Confirmed.Update: See the first gameplay footage of Declassified above.
GoldenEye 007's multiplayer was added last minute, unknown to Rare and Nintendo management
You might know that the multiplayer mode for GoldenEye 007, the seminal N64 shooter, was only added to the game late in development. What you probably don't know is that the mode was also added unbeknownst to the management at developer Rare and publisher Nintendo. The revelation comes by way of GoldenEye 007's director Martin Hollis, who delivered a postmortem presentation on the game at GDC Europe.Hollis' presentation included stories from many of GoldenEye 007's developers, including Steve Ellis, who was responsible for programming the multiplayer mode, a feat he accomplished in a month. Wrote Ellis: One of the things that always strikes me as crazy in retrospect is that until something like March or April of 1997, there wasn't a multiplayer mode at all. It hadn't even been started. It really was put in at the last minute – something you wouldn't dream of doing these days – and it was done without the knowledge or permission of the management at Rare and Nintendo. The first they knew about it was when we showed it to them working. However – since the game was already late by that time, if we hadn't done it that way, it probably never would have happened.Hollis said that "quite a few features" were "snuck in" throughout development, which he chalked up to management trusting the team. "I'm sure there were six-month stretches where no member of Rare or Nintendo management came into the team offices," he said. "Which is really quite extraordinary, and all credit to them that they felt able to take that much of a leaned-back approach and place that much trust in the team."So there you have it, GoldenEye 007's multiplayer mode – a vital, fondly-remembered component of a landmark game – was unplanned, coded in a month and might never have existed at all if it weren't for some serendipitous managerial oversight.
FIFA 13's Move support demonstrated
The PlayStation 3 version of FIFA 13 will support the PlayStation Move, and the special controls were demonstrated during Gamescom press conference. Players will be able aim precision passes, paint paths for teammates to follow, shoot with a flick of the wrist and add spin by turning the Move.For added realism, we suggest you duct tape the Move to your foot.
Live from Sony's Gamescom 2012 event
We're at Sony's Gamescom 2012 press conference! It's due to begin at 1pm EDT, at which point we'll bring you all the latest PS3, Vita, and ... maybe PSP news .... live from Germany.Those of you not in Germany can play along at home by watching the stream – and, most importantly, by reading our liveblog in this very post.
Puppeteer pulls back the curtain on PS3 [update: trailer!]
Gavin Moore from Sony Online Entertianment took the stage during Sony's Gamescom 2012 press conference to reveal Puppeteer, a new platformer from Sony's Japan Studio. Puppeteer stars a boy who is unluckily transformed into a puppet, and as a result is imbued with special powers. After showing off the brief gameplay trailer above, Moore promised that we'd hear more on Puppeteer "soon."
Diggs Nightcrawler, Walking with Dinosaurs are two new chapters in Sony's Wonderbook
Sony's augmented-reality Move accessory, Wonderbook, has two new, official stories to tell: Diggs Nightcrawler and BBC's Walking with Dinosaurs. We heard the Diggs Nightcrawler name at E3 this year, but today at its Gamescom press conference Sony showed a video, featuring a multi-armed insect detective in a noir setting as he solves fairy tale crimes. Diggs Nightcrawler is in development from Moonbot Studios.Walking with Dinosaurs, from Supermassive Games and the BBC, allows players to interact with a range of extinct creatures, including T-rexes and Allosauruses, in a suspiciously educational way.Disney has also signed on to lend its properties to Wonderbook, though Sony has yet to reveal any details about potential titles. Sony also showed off more footage of Book of Spells, the Harry Potter Wonderbook game, leading us to conclude that this bit of hardware is indeed intended for a family audience.
'Rain' announced for PSN from SCE Japan Studio
Rain, an atmospheric looking PSN game from Sony Computer Entertainment's Japan Studio, was just announced during Sony's Gamescom presser. The story centers on a little boy who has become invisible, and the player's only distinct impression of the boy's position is through interacting with the world's ever-pouring rain.It's like that scene from Hollow Man, but way more endearing and way less super freaky. No information was given regarding a release date, and it's worth noting that Rain is the game's working title.
Until Dawn is a new 'teen horror movie' style game for Move [update: trailer]
Until Dawn, a new PS3 game for Move, was described at Gamescom as "just like your favorite teen horror movies." You play as seven different teens, facing unspecified terrors out in the woods overnight, with the goal of keeping them all alive.Judging from the dialogue, the challenge comes from finding the motivation to save any of them. This title was trademarked just before Gamescom, and now we know what it is!
PlayStation Plus coming to Vita, cloud storage capacity to hit 1GB
Sony's annual subscription-based PlayStation Plus service will be extending its existence to the PlayStation Vita, the company announced today during its Gamescom press conference in Cologne. No information was given regarding when the service would make the jump from console to handheld, or what offers will be used to entice new subscribers.Additionally, it was announced that Plus' cloud storage limit will be increased from 150MB to 1GB. The increase will take place sometime before the end of the year in September, according to the PlayStation Blog.It was also announced that Red Dead Redemption would be Europe's free PlayStation Plus game for the month for September, though it does not appear that North America will get the same deal.
PlayStation Plus coming to the PS Vita this year, cloud storage increasing from 150MB to 1GB 'from September'
Sony's decided that you've been playing so much with their dedicated online service, you deserve more space for your cloud saves. From next month, users will see their cloud storage increase from 150MB to 1GB. We were also teased that the PlayStation Vita would be getting into PlayStation Plus soon, but it looks like SCEE CEO Jim Ryan is holding onto that tantalizing nugget for now. Hopefully we'll hear more on this a bit later.
Killzone Mercenary takes a stab at Vita's neck
The next game coming to Vita is Killzone Mercenary, Sony announced at its Gamescom press conference today. Sony showed off a live-action video that transitioned to a back-stabbing, screen-swiping Vita frenzy of glowing gas mask eyeballs.If this is the previously rumored Killzone title, it is in development from Sony's Cambridge studio. Sony hopes to share more information about it in the coming months.
PlayStation Mobile detailed: different screens, same games
Sony's decided to spill the beans on PlayStation Mobile, its upcoming cross-platform gaming service. It will connect to your own PSN ID, linking into its software store and aiming to offer up a "wide range of portable experiences." We're still looking at PlayStation-certified devices here, but Sony's also announced that ASUS and (bizarrely) Wikipad hardware will join the (pretty Sony-centric) line-up. We can already recognize a handful of Xperia phones alongside the Tablet S and, of course, Sony's premier handheld, which will also be able to play the incoming selection of mini-games. %Gallery-162377%
PlayStation Vita Call of Duty: Black Ops Declassified bundle announced, pricing MIA
Sony's handheld will get its own companion bundle for its incoming (and exclusive) Call of Duty title. The set will include the game, a PlayStation Vita and a carry pouch -- camouflage pattern TBC. Unfortunately, Sony it neglected to mention a price or a date -- though it's likely to arrive around the same time as the game, later this year.
Tearaway is a new PS Vita game from Media Molecule
Taking stage during Sony's Gamescom 2012 keynote, Media Molecule representatives have shown off their latest original IP: Tearaway. It looks like a 3D puzzle-platformer for PS Vita, where players manipulate the environment using touch. Tearaway also supports the PS Vita's built-in camera and motion-based controls.
