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Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare review: House of CoDs
PC, Xbox One, PS4, Xbox 360, PS3 You get just a novel snippet of peace in Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare. In this shooter's future, technology has trumped terrorism, rooted out the last evil masterminds and flexed its bionic muscles in total defiance of lead-footed politicians who'd rather talk than get things done. "The world is running out of bad guys," your partner says, hopeful but tragically unaware that he's basically describing a video game glitch. Call of Duty never runs out of bad guys. This one gets points for honesty, though, in that there is no pretentious cover-up of why the good guys beat the bad guys (or why the plot finds them easily interchangeable). In Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, you win because you have better guns, stronger sights, super abilities and superior movement. Whether it's in the rich and varied multiplayer mode, or the frantic, thrill-a-minute single-player campaign, you're constantly relying on cool weapons and combat data to make taking lives easier. Advanced Warfare front-loads the benefits of power in a franchise that has always made technology the exalted, almost fetishized solution to every problem. And you know what? It's more fun when it admits as much.
WWE 2K14, Amazing Spider-Man and DLC discounted on Xbox Live this week
This week's Xbox Live sales include two games and their associated DLC packs. Starting now through Tuesday, April 8, Xbox Live Gold subscribers can pick up WWE 2K14 for 25 percent off ($29.99 / £29.99 / 44.99 euros) and The Amazing Spider-Man at 66 percent off ($13.59 / £10.19 / 13.59 euros). Downloadable add-ons for WWE 2K14 are half-off this week as well, including the game's online pass ($4.99 / £3.99 / 4.99 euros) and season pass ($9.99 / £7.99 / 9.99 euros), the latter granting access to all of the game's DLC except for Undertaker's "American Badass" character and the Ultimate Warrior, each on sale for $0.99 / £0.64 / 0.94 euros. For The Amazing Spider-Man, each of the game's four DLC packs are 66 percent off, including the Stan Lee Adventure Pack ($1.35 / £0.91 / 1.28 euros) and the Oscorp Search and Destroy Pack ($1.01 / £0.67 / 0.96 euros). [Image: 2K Sports]
Sony refunding Deadpool PSN price disparity
If you purchased Deadpool from the North American PlayStation Network, it's possible that you paid too much and will soon be receiving a refund from ol' Aunt Sony. The game, originally listed for $60, should in truth have cost $50. Affected customers will soon receive an XMB notification informing them of their impending $10 refund, according to the official PlayStation Twitter. We wish more of the world worked this way. Like this one time, we bought a tiny paper cup of lemonade from a tiny child's ramshackle stand for 10 cents, only to discover that a different tiny child was selling equally small paper cups of lemonade at their ramshackle stand for seven cents! That first kid wouldn't price match, even after we threatened to call the Better Business Bureau! Can you believe that?
Metareview: Deadpool
So you want a stupid action game? Good, you're in luck. EGM (80/100): "If you're a fan of Deadpool, you'll certainly appreciate the experience, but if you're really unfamiliar with the character (even though I don't know how that's possible at this point), you might be a bit wary of having this game be your first experience" Game Informer (60/100): "When I finished this game, I walked away unfulfilled. After a weekend away from it, I found myself chuckling over the crazy things Deadpool said and did. His obsession with Wolverine is particularly funny. The memories I took away from the game were worth the time I put in, even if playing it was a chore." Eurogamer (60/100): "Even with this crudely skewed difficulty curve, it's not hard to romp through the game's six stages without too much trouble, and once it's done there's not much else to do, beyond replaying it all again to max out those upgrade trees or dipping into a selection of one-note challenge stages based on locations you've already grown tired of." IGN (60/100): "On the other hand, much of the Deadpool gameplay experience is formulaic and safe...so safe you might think developer High Moon Studios is playing some sort of self-referential "hey, isn't it ironic how normal this is?" meta-gag on you. But it's not." VideoGamer (50/100): "Deadpool is a great character wrapped in a standard (and short) action experience."%Gallery-192212%
Deadpool review: Crazy for thinking
Deadpool depicts the exploits and gleeful eviscerations of a giggling psychopath, gifted with guns, swords, and style. We've had plenty of that, thank you, but this one's novelty is a self-aware protagonist, starring in a game that's absurd, flippantly violent and incoherently narrated by its own admission. Here we have proof that it's possible for a game to throw itself on the mercy of the court, provided Mercy is the name of a totally sweet sword. Deadpool is an impulsive egomaniac drawn from Marvel's weirder pages, and he's oh so happy to exist in a world designed expressly around him. Jolted to immortal life by a delirious performance from Nolan North, Deadpool is a pithy vector for the player – rather, the nightmarish caricature of a player as envisioned by a cynical game designer. His attention spans the pinch of two fingers, he makes extravagant demands with no care to their consequences, he slobbers over Unreal women and he'd rather die than listen to a syllable of exposition from the poor, plot-mandated X-Men. Their anguish must be akin to the people who worked on a cutscene you skipped in your monstrous impatience, unaware that it took four agonizing months of wrangling manatees in motion-capture suits. There's no dearth of idiocy in Deadpool, but it's more palatable when paired with honesty – something that often feels amiss every time a new bad-ass action game struts out with the immaculately rendered Tear of Real Emotions This Time rolling off its cheek.%Gallery-192212%
Rogue joins the gallery of guest stars in the Deadpool game
Cable, Wolverine, Psylocke, and Domino were already announced as making appearances in the upcoming Deadpool game by High Moon Studios (due out on June 28), and now you can add one more X-(wo)man to that list. Rogue is joining the team, and as you can see above, she's brought a new look with her.%Gallery-191728%
Deadpool listed for Wii U by Amazon Canada [Update: Activision responds]
Irreverent Marvel antihero Deadpool may be gracing the Wii U, at least according to a listing by Amazon Canada. Spotted by NeoGAF over the weekend, the retailer has High Moon Studios' madcap action game pinned for the Nintendo console. Unlike other platforms listed by the retailer, the release date is apparently a placeholder (December 31 2013) and the listing is minus details and box art. Even if a Wii U version is on the way, given the timing it seems unlikely it'll launch alongside the PS3, Xbox 360 and PC ones on June 25. We've reached out to Deadpool himself (and Activision) to clear things up. Update: Activision reps got back to us and have said, "There are currently no plans for DEADPOOL to come to Wii-U."
High Moon Studios lays off 40 from the Deadpool team
Forty full-time employees from Activision's High Moon Studios were laid off today after completing their work on Deadpool, an Activision spokesperson tells Joystiq."Activision Publishing consistently works to align its costs with its revenues – this is an ongoing process," Activision says. "With the completion of development on Deadpool, we are taking a reduction in staff at High Moon Studios to better align our development talent against our slate. Approximately, 40 full-time employees will be impacted globally. We are offering those employees who are impacted outplacement counseling services."Deadpool is slated for a launch this summer on PS3, Xbox 360 and PC.
Deadpool shows off some sick moves, a few of his favorite things
Wade Wilson is a simple man with simple tastes. He likes two things in particular, and you can probably figure out what those are by watching the latest trailer for High Moon's Deadpool game. Check it out here.
Deadpool sneaks in a summer 2013 launch window [Update]
The Deadpool game from High Moon Studios and Activision is creeping up on us, now with an official release mention of "summer 2013." The Deadpool Bugle spotted an ad for Deadpool in some comics last week, complete with the launch window right in everyone's faces. We previously heard half of that – the "2013" part – so it looks like things are narrowing down.We've contacted Activision to clarify the launch window for Deadpool.Update: Activision confirmed to Joystiq Deadpool's "summer 2013" release window.
Get a good look at Deadpool's huge gun
We know Deadpool is joined by Cable, Death and Domino in the High Moon Studios game set to launch this year, but he's bringing along some more friends, as shown in the gallery below. We don't know their names, but we'd wager they're something like "Swordy One", "Swordy Two" and "Super Blammo-Maker."
Transformers: Fall of Cybertron review - Heir to mobility
Any fun-loving game that goes out of its way to explain the grim origin of a Tyrannosaurus robot – which I'd consider a kind of self-evident narrative atom – deserves a hug. Transformers: Fall of Cybertron, you are adorable.That adjective should slide right off the metallic war machines that inhabit and eventually disintegrate their home planet of Cybertron, but it sticks somehow. Developer High Moon Studios exhibits earnestness in its depiction of a civilization-turning-scrapheap, alongside a mastery of what Unreal Engine 3 is best at: huge, vivid, shiny, exploding stuff. You could probably nitpick the adherence to Transformers canon if it weren't for the distracting fact that most of the characters, err, transform into cannons.%Gallery-163295%
Stiq Flicks: Transformers: Fall of Cybertron and Real Steel
Stiq Flicks – from film and video game industry freelance writer Kevin Kelly – examines video games and attempts to pair them with matching films. It's like wine and cheese, but with more aliens. Transformers: Fall of Cybertron rolled out this week and while we wouldn't have such a renewed interest in the franchise without the shudder-inducing films of Michael Bay, thankfully there have been other giant robot movies to turn to. Equally as thankful is the fact that High Moon Studios didn't have to tie their game, which is highly enjoyable, into one of Bay's awful films. When I was working at Jim Henson Pictures, we had a film tentatively titled Giant Robot on our slate, and while it sadly got stuck in development hell (the place where Hollywood projects go to die), working on that script with the writers was one of those perfect geek moments where you get to combine something you love with something you love doing. We would not have been the first to tackle such a project, with a long line of Japanese films and television shows before us, as well as the cheesy yet enjoyable Robot Jox having preceded us by many years. But what tends to boggle the mind is that with a concept as awesome as a massive robot, the best that the movie industry has been able to give us has until recently been The Iron Giant. Heck, they even fumbled the iconic Japanese Astro Boy, which should have been nigh-impossible. Then again, this is Hollywood we're talking about. With Guillermo del Toro's awesome Pacific Rim towering on the horizon, and a possible Transformers reboot (albeit still with Michael Bay at the helm) on the way, there are a lot of fighting robots in our future. But as far as circuits and steel pounding it out in the ring, we're highlighting the fun and often overlooked Real Steel to go with Transformers: Fall of Cybertron. %Gallery-163295%
Diving into Deadpool at Gamescom
I can't speak with great authority on the character of Deadpool, but I've played more than my share of third-person action games, and High Moon Studios' interpretation of the ludicrous anti-hero is shaping up to be an over-the-top experience.%Gallery-162446%
PSA: Transformers: Fall of Cybertron demo out now
The Transformers: Fall of Cybertron demo is available now on Xbox Live and will be out later today on PSN when the store updates. The demo features both single and multiplayer modes of cybernetic warfare. The single-player mode, sadly, does not let you try out Dinobot Grimlock, instead placing youin the role of Bumblebee, along with the Decepticon Vortex.The multiplayer portion features Team Deathmatch and Conquest modes, along with the option to try out the game's character customizer.Transformers: Fall of Cybertron will transform into a retail box and roll out on August 21.
Pre-order Transformers: Fall of Cybertron, get G1 Optimus Prime
This trailer for Transformers: Fall of Cybertron features sweet guitar solos and a transforming G1 Optimus Prime. Players that pre-order the High Moon Studios-developed game at GameStop receive exclusive weapons and the G1 Optimus Prime character for use in both single-player and multiplayer modes.
Transformers: Fall of Cybertron demo available next week, now for GameStop preorders
If you've been waiting to get your hands on the latest Transformers title, the wait is nearly over. Activision has announced that the Transformers: Fall of Cybertron demo should be arriving on Xbox Live and PSN on July 31. Players who download it will be able to play through two single-player missions (High Moon Studios has been showing off two missions starring Bumblebee and Grimlock at various events recently, so odds are it's those two), as well as dip into multiplayer and the in-depth customization system.And if that's even too long for you, you can preorder the game at GameStop. Customers who preorder the game there are getting access to the demo as soon as, well, now. Imagine this one in your best Peter Cullen voice: Autobots, roll out!
UK pre-order bonuses take shape for Transformers: Fall of Cybertron
Transformers: Fall of Cybertron is dropping some hot pre-order bonuses across the UK, if fans order early through Game, Play, Shopto and other independent retailers. Pre-ordering from Game gets players a code to unlock the G1 Retro Pack, which includes a playable G1 Optimus Prime from the original 1980s animated show, for both single and multiplayer campaigns. The G1 Retro Pack also includes the G1-inspired Megatron gun and Shockwave Blast Cannon for single-player runs.Play pre-orders unlock Swoop, the flying Dinobot, for multiplayer. Shopto and other independent retailers will offer the G2 Bruticus skin, taken from the classic toyline model, for single-player.
Deadpool comic author Daniel Way is writing the Deadpool game
Daniel Way, the current author on the Deadpool comic series for Marvel, will also pen the story behind High Moon Studios' upcoming game slated for 2013. One of Swords revealed as much in a primer for those who are unfamiliar with the "merc with a mouth.""One of Swords" Dan Amrich suggests fans catch up on Way's current Deadpool run, Volume 3. "Daniel Way is also writing the game, so this series will likely sync up with the game's definition of Deadpool," Amrich says – for further information, you could just read Deadpool's massive Wikipedia entry, we suppose.
High Moon's Deadpool game announced, coming 2013 [Update: Now with trailer!]
That Deadpool game we caught wind of earlier today has been officially announced during a Marvel panel at this year's San Diego Comic-Con. Developed by High Moon Studios and published by Activision, the game looks to be an action shooter and is expected to launch on undisclosed platforms sometime in 2013.Marvel's T.Q. Jefferson was cagey during the panel's Q&A session, unable to specifically answer questions from audience members regarding the game's expected platforms and genre. "There will be lots more to come," he said. Nolan North will be reprising his role as the assassin, having previously portrayed him in Marvel vs. Capcom 3, Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions, and that Hulk vs. cartoon.%Gallery-160452%
