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Sony's Back to 2013 Sale brings price drops for Ni no Kuni, WWE 2K14
It's been almost two whole months since we bid farewell to 2013, but it's so hard to let go of the good times. Sony takes a nostalgic look back at the year we left behind with an upcoming round of PlayStation Network price drops on some of 2013's notable digital releases. Sony's Back to 2013 Sale has a lot to offer for RPG fans, with Tales of Xillia available for $19.99 ($14.99 for Plus members), Dragon's Crown up for $24.99 ($17.49 for Plus), and Ni no Kuni dropped to $9.99 ($6.99 for Plus) -- its lowest digital price to date. Atlus' classic PSone RPG Persona 2: Eternal Punishment is also on sale this week for $4.99, or $3.49 for Plus subscribers. Other noteworthy drops include Diablo 3 for $39.99 ($34.99 Plus), Rayman Legends for $41.99 ($29.39 Plus), and WWE 2K14 for $39.99 ($29.99 Plus). Sale prices start tomorrow, and last through next Monday. [Image: Sony]
WWE Network wrestling is now streaming on virtually every device you own
WWE promised that Americans would be watching body slams and piledrivers on a myriad of devices toward the end of this month, and that moment is finally at hand. WWE Network apps are now available in the US for almost every major platform under the sun, including Android, Apple TV, iOS, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Roku players, Xbox 360 and Xbox One. In all cases, you'll pay $10 per month to stream live wrestling events as well as beyond-the-ring content like documentaries and classic matches. The app also serves as a second screen companion when you're watching live TV shows. International grappling fans will have to remain patient, however -- WWE Network won't reach other countries until late 2014 or early 2015.
WWE Network app struts down console, mobile ramps today
The WWE Network app is now available on PS4, PS3 and Xbox 360. Announced in January, the subscription-based service gives viewers access to over a thousand hours of wrestling on-demand video content spanning the WWE's lengthy history, including archived WCW and ECW events. Subscribers also gain access to future WWE programming, including all 12 of the brand's monthly pay-per-view events such as SummerSlam and WrestleMania. In addition to the home consoles, the app also launched on iOS, Android, Kindle Fire and Roku today. Those looking to spring for the $9.99 per month subscription to watch the Attitude Era all over again will need to commit to six months with the service at minimum. Xbox 360 owners are also required to have an Xbox Live Gold subscription to use the WWE Network app. Xbox One owners will gain access to the app this summer alongside other devices. The app was developed in partnership with Major League Baseball Advanced Media, the professional baseball league's creator of the MLB.TV service and the upcoming return of the RBI Baseball series. [Image: WWE]
Wolfenstein: The New Order tries hard with a vengeance
MachineGames talks about Wolfenstein: The New Order being a story-driven, single-player adventure, and it's true there's some finesse and direction to the cutscenes, a suggestion of secondary characters with personality and backstory. Much the same can be said of Die Hard, though, and it's no War and Peace. That's not to dismiss the storytelling in The New Order, but based on what I see in its first two hours, it mostly sticks to the action movie spirit of tearing up Nazis, saving the day, getting the girl, and blowing shit up. The return of William "BJ" Blazkowicz provides a gruff-voiced American hero with McClane-like hardened features and self-whispered one-liners, while Gruber is all but resurrected in the campy glares and maniacal laughs of the game's arch-villains. More important than that, I've got waves and waves of "Nazi scum" to kill, to use the blunt words of Blazkowicz, and machine guns in each hand. A story-driven romp The New Order may be, but a romp is still a romp. That said, the game shows a hand for ripping up preconceptions.
Thief Review: For the Hoard
Thief certainly lives up to its name, having borrowed and filed it down from 1998's eye-opening classic, Thief: The Dark Project. Eidos Montreal's take strays from pure stealth in its contemporary design, but earns success from one crucial perspective: that of a man who sees glittering objects everywhere. Though it's too dark to classify as comedy, Thief made me laugh at myself as I inhabited the role of Garrett, master thief and perpetual pincher of private items. Between the closeness of the game's first-person perspective and the oppressive gloom cast by its cobbled, medieval architecture, Thief effectively imparts the ideal mindset to match Garrett's quiet and crouched movements. That mindset, I learned while running from guards and stupidly stopping to unscrew a shiny plaque on the city's wall, is tinged with insanity and distraction. I just couldn't help myself.
UK Charts: Lego Movie Videogame puts together a two week run
The Lego Movie Videogame achieves something of a rarity in the UK charts this week - not just keeping FIFA 14 off the top, that is. It's one of few games to achieve more sales in its second week than in its first, albeit only 7 percent more, but it's still something to build on. A price reduction helps FIFA 14 back into second, while lower down the charts Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze debuts in ninth. The Wii U game is just ahead of Rayman Legends, which sees a 300 percent rise in weekly sales on the back of PS4 and Xbox One ports. All those games beat Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy 13 to the top ten, as the last chapter in the FF13 saga sinks from a debut third spot to 11th.
Garrett channels his inner Bruce Willis in Thief launch trailer
"I've been a ghost all my life," Thief protagonist Bruce Willis Garrett says in this trailer for his soon-to-be-released game, in which he may or may not literally be a ghost. Where's Haley Joel Osment when you need him? Check out our video preview for more ghost-thief action.
Netflix to pay Comcast for better connection and speed [Update]
Pretty much every contemporary gaming machine - be it a tablet, smartphone, console, handheld or PC - has the ability to connect to the internet for streaming media content. If you're using such a device to watch Netflix on a Comcast network, your speed and stability should see a bump in the near future. Netflix and Comcast have announced a new joint partnership in which Netflix will pay the internet and cable service provider for direct access to its broadband systems. Netflix previously worked with a middleman company called Cogent through which they bought their bandwidth, but now that company has been cut out of future proceedings. The Wall Street Journal reports that the deal was originally struck in January, but it wasn't until today that the companies released a joint statement confirming the new relationship. January was also when a Washington, DC appeals court voided the anti-blocking and anti-discrimination rules that the FCC used to enforce net neutrality, which you can read more about thanks to our friends at Engadget. Update: To clarify, although the net neutrality ruling and Netflix/Comcast deal both occurred in January, the two are separate affairs. The Netflix/Comcast deal is a paid peering agreement securing Netflix's access to Comcast's network, but the deal does not grant them preferential access. The story's text has been changed to reflect this. [Image: Netflix]
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Joystiq Weekly: Irrational Games, co-op Pokemon and a Doom beta
Welcome to Joystiq Weekly, a "too long; didn't read" of each week's biggest stories, reviews and original content. Each category's top story is introduced with a reactionary gif, because moving pictures aren't just for The Daily Prophet. Between the new Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, Tony Hawk's involvement in a new game and talk of a Doom beta, this week feels like a list of lost events from the '90s. Not that we're complaining, of course - the days of platforming in mine carts, feeding arcade machines quarters and hogging family computers from siblings were pretty wonderful times. They were simpler, too - just 151 Pokemon to keep track of, with full games and expansions instead of publishers scattering in-game content to retailers and adding season passes to everything or-- Well, it didn't take us long to trip into the "back in my day" style of reminiscing. We'll excuse ourselves for a stint of warning kids passing by to stay off our lawns, but we've left you a recap of the biggest events from this week after the break. Er ... this week being in 2014, not the '90s.
Deep Down features fancy face coverings ... also monsters
Forget the giant, wormy monsters out for blood and giant, walking teeth creatures – check out the head gear on the protagonists in this Deep Down trailer. An old-school deep-sea diving mask and a pointy, silver piece that looks difficult to ... well, look out of. [Image: Capcom]
Tales from the Borderlands SXSW panel presents first details in March
Telltale Games will share its first Tales from the Borderlands details at an upcoming SXSW 2014 panel, the studio announced this week. Attending Telltale Games representatives include president Kevin Bruner and designer Harrison Pink. Gearbox president Randy Pitchford, Borderlands series director Matthew Armstrong, and Borderlands 2 writer Anthony Burch will also attend, presenting new insight into the game's creation and fielding audience queries in a Q&A session afterward. The panel runs from 5:30 through 6:15 p.m. on Saturday, March 8, at the Palmer Events Center in Austin, Texas. [Image: Telltale Games]
Ferrari, Jaguar car packs pull into the Need for Speed: Rivals garage
EA has unveiled two new car packs representing Jaguar and Ferrari for its hit arcade racer Need for Speed: Rivals, though arguably more intriguing is what the publisher isn't telling us. The Ferrari pack (highlighted in the trailer above) features the 1987 edition of the Ferrari F40 alongside 1995's F50. The Jaguar pack also includes two cars, the Jaguar XJ220 supercar and the C-X75 prototype, a hybrid-electric coupe that Jaguar describes as "the ultimate expression of the brand's design and engineering innovation." Both of these car packs feature a $6 price tag. Immediately following the above reveal, EA dropped a not so subtle hint that these may not be the only new cars joining the racing game this month. "[T]hese aren't the only new cars that will be hitting the streets of Redview County in the coming weeks," the publisher's announcement states, before urging players to keep an eye on the official Need for Speed: Rivals Facebook account. [Image: EA]
Space cats render Call of Duty: Ghosts a bit more cuddly-wuddly
The above trailer highlights the numerous new customization options found in Call of Duty: Ghosts, though if you're any sort of legitimate hard-nosed, elite, military killing machine, you'll obviously want to equip yourself in head to toe images of chubby orange cats floating in space. [Image: Activision]
Watch as the PlayStation 4 finally comes home to Japan
At 10AM ET/7AM PT today, it will be midnight on February 22 in Japan, marking the launch of the PlayStation 4 in its home country. After three months of watching the rest of the world play a new console, for once Japan has had to wait to join the party. If you'd like to see the moment as it happens, you can tune in to Sony's official stream of its launch event. The launch details: The base console is priced 39980 yen (around $390), and comes with a download voucher for Knack, one year's warranty, and a DualShock 4. Going by a Famitsu list, the launch line-up includes plenty of day 1 games across retail shelves and the PS Store - we've listed them below the break. One big name you won't find there is Final Fantasy 14: A Realm Reborn, but today also marks the worldwide launch of the first phase of its beta on PS4 - the game proper is due on April 11.
Sit back and take a gander at these idyllic The Witness screens
It's unfair of Braid designer Jon Blow and his indie team Number None to show these The Witness screens now, not only because we have to wait until "mid-2014" to play the game, but because they look much warmer than the bitterly cold winter that surrounds us. Brrr. The area in these screens of the PS4, PC, and iOS exploratory puzzler is apparently "the marsh," and if the marsh in this game is that colorful and vivid, then surely the rest of this game is just an endless field of double rainbows. But what does this mean? [Images: Number None]
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Mafia designer's medieval RPG raised nearly $2M in crowdfunding
Kingdom Come Deliverance is part of an elite group of games-to-be that've raised more than $1 million on Kickstarter. Warhorse's medieval European first-person RPG, creatively led by Mafia and Mafia 2 designer Dan Vávra, galloped to just over £1.1 million in funding this week. That converts to something like $1.84 million, and according to Kickstarter's own list it's the 26th most funded project on the site to date. Not to mention that's in addition to the $1.5 million in investment raised privately by Warhorse prior to the campaign, so that's one heck of a launchpad for the Czech developer to work from. It brings an end to what's been a heady few days of announcements for Warhorse, who started the week by revealing Microsoft and Sony have given their approvals to Kingdom Come Deliverance. That means the game's CryEngine 3-powered open world is on the way to PS4 and Xbox One, as well as PC - Warhorse had already stated it wanted to bring the game to next-gen systems, but that was the first word of official confirmation. That was followed by news of a partnership with another prolific fundraiser, namely Chris Roberts of Star Citizen. The move will see the Star Citizen team share some of its tech with Warhorse, and vice versa, and while it's hardly the first of its kind in the industry, it's still an alliance that should be interesting to watch unfold. As for when the game will make good on its Deliverance, as it stands it's going to be a long wait. It's a Q4 2015 release window for Windows, Mac, and Linux, with no word yet on when to expect it on PS4 and Xbox One. In the meantime, backers and fans can make do with a livestream that showcases 57 minutes of a playable build. [Image: Warhorse Studios]
Octodad: Dadliest Catch fishing for an April release on PS4
Eight-armed fatherhood sim Octodad: Dadliest Catch is set to make its PlayStation 4 debut in April, developer Young Horses confirmed today. An Xbox One port is also under consideration, though a release for Microsoft's platform has not been confirmed at this time. "Basically all you need to know is this is our first ever console release and we want to do it right the first time," the developer explained. Young Horses additionally ruled out the possibility of a Wii U port, and noted that a PS3 release is "unlikely." [Image: Young Horses]
Basement Crawl emerges on PS4 next week in US and Europe
Heads up, Bomberman fans: Bloober Team's PlayStation 4-exclusive competitive multiplayer game Basement Crawl has finally surfaced after a series of delays, and is set to arrive digitally via the PlayStation Network next week in North America and Europe. Basement Crawl pushes the Bomberman formula to M-rated extremes, letting players messily exterminate their friends in four-player local and eight-player online multiplayer modes. The game also offers a single-player campaign that pits solo players against murderous AI-controlled psychopaths. Basement Crawl will be available for $9.99 when it hits PSN in North America on February 25. A European release, priced at €9.99, will follow on February 26. [Image: Bloober Team]
Daylight hits PS4, PC on April 8 for $15, includes Twitch interaction
Winter is almost over. Know what that means? That means more daylight! And starting on April 8, more Daylight. An email sent to Joystiq reveals that the procedurally-generated horror game for PC and PS4 from Zombie Studios has been given a new release date that corresponds with comments from studio director Jared Gerritzen's made earlier this week. Zombie Studios has also announced that the game will feature not just Twitch integration, but Twitch interaction. Twitch interaction should be familiar to anyone following the Twitch Plays Pokemon saga, where viewers control the in-game avatar using commands typed into the stream's chat. In the case of Daylight, the game will recognize certain words from chat and produce correlated results in the game. For (non-finalized) example, if someone were to type "meow" into a stream's chat, the game would make the sound of a cat. The commands will be on timers so they can't be spammed, and Zombie doesn't plan to release the list of compatible words. Zombie also revealed two new areas that players will explore - should they survive long enough, of course. The Prison and Forest take place in, you guessed it, a prison and a forest. These levels, along with everything else in the game, will also support RealD 3D rendering. If you've got an Oculus Rift, the game is designed to be compatible with the virtual reality headset as well. Daylight will cost $14.99 on both PC and PS4 when it launches. [Image: Zombie Studios]
Shadow of Mordor enemies less devious on Xbox 360, PS3
Monolith Productions is doing "whatever we can" to ensure feature parity between the Xbox 360, PS3 versions of Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor and the Xbox One, PS4 offerings. But the developer admits this may be an impossibility and reveals the game's core hook, the Nemesis system driving its procedurally-generated enemies, will likely lack some complexity on Xbox 360 and PS3 when the game launches this year. "To break it down, some of the stuff we're pretty confident will still be very similar on current gen: the core mechanics, like combat, stealth, ranged and movements; the basic control and gameplay, that should all be really solid," Monolith Design Director Michael De Plater told IGN. "What it won't have is the same level of depth and variety and simulation within the 'Nemesis system.'" De Plater added that the Nemesis system is "just so huge in terms of content, calculations and AI we'll just have to try and get as much of it in as we can." The Nemesis system is the mechanic driving Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor's core gameplay loop. Protagonist Talion, on a mission of revenge, explores Mordor and isolates Orcs in order to extract information on Sauron's army. This information reveals not only Orc hierarchy, but also the vulnerabilities and strengths of individual Orc commanders, each of which are procedurally-generated by the game. We were able to go in-depth with Shadow of Mordor's Nemesis system last month, though admittedly all we saw was the next-gen version running on a high-end PC. Monolith was unwilling to discuss the planned Xbox 360 and PS3 versions at the time. [Image: Warner Bros.]
