Although I’m certain neither one them actually read this column, I would like to tell my brother and his wife Happy Anniversary. What is it now? Ten years? How have they not killed each other yet? For the rest of you, let’s get to the news:
Since you’re reading this, I imagine you must have finally decided to take your first break from Resistance 3 since it released on Tuesday. So isn’t it great that the first Quick Hit is about the DLC recently announced for October 4th? The Survival Pack will be $3.99 and includes a new Invasion multiplayer mode (similar to Bad Company 2‘s Conquest mode), a multiplayer skin pack, and an XMB theme. It’s hardly the most robust add-on, but at least it’s priced about right for it, not the $15 a certain other company would charge.
Since being included in the Welcome Back package after the PSN hack, Dead Nation has reached 3.8 million downloads. That’s a pretty impressive figure for any game, let alone a downloadable title that didn’t get much press. How best to follow up on that success? DLC, of course. Have to make some money on those that got it free, right? Actually, “Road of Devastation” sounds pretty good. The story picks up right where the main game ended, with your character waking up in a laboratory and needing to escape. More zombies, new locations, new challenges, an addition to the story. Sounds like this DLC has everything you want in an add-on. Too bad there’s no price or date attached yet.
Should I just change this column to the DLC Round Up? Because Driver: San Francisco is getting some free multiplayer additions. Next week will see the addition of 12 new routes, with ten more coming over the next ten weeks. That’s a nice, steady supply of extra content for online players, all at no extra charge. In addition, the Driver Club was added earlier this week to give players extra achievements, user friendly stats and leaderboards, better director’s clip functionality, and the ability to follow your friends with the social feed. And, because North American copies were missing their Uplay redemption codes, you can even get the online passport free for a limited time. I don’t know about you, but I’d call that excellent support from Ubisoft.
For some reason, I actually have the soundtrack for Batman Forever in my basement. It’s not all good, but it was better than the movie. If the same can be said for the recently announced soundtrack for Batman: Arkham City, then this is going to be a must have (because the game is going to be amazing). The album features Batman inspired tunes from the likes of Coheed and Cambria, Panic at the Disco!, Daughtry, etc. It launches October 4th, with the game following two weeks later. Those buying the Collector’s Edition will get the album via a free download code. Everyone else can get it from Amazon.
Full track list:
- Panic! At The Disco – Mercenary
- Coheed and Cambria – Deranged
- The Duke Spirit – Creature
- Black Rebel Motorcycle Club – Shadow On The Run
- Blaqk Audio – Afterdark
- The Raveonettes – Oh, Stranger
- ††† (Crosses) – The Years
- The Damned Things – Trophy Widow
- Daughtry – Drown In You
- The Boxer Rebellion – Losing You
- Serj Tankian – Total Paranoia
- A Place to Bury Strangers – In The Shadow (only w/ Collector’s Edition)
And just because you can’t get enough news about Batman: Arkham City, how about New Game+? Rocksteady has announced that you will be able to restart the main story after completing it on normal or hard with all of your previous upgrades. You’ll need those upgrades too, because the enemies will be more difficult and come in different configurations. Counterattack icons won’t be appearing over their heads either. Though your Batman will be tougher, it seems the bosses will have learned a few tricks from their first fight too, making them more difficult to handle as well.
The latest game to join the Collector’s Edition craze came as a little bit of a surprise to me. Then again, considering the audience, I can’t figure out why I hadn’t expected it. It’s sort of an obvious one. This edition of Sonic Generations is pretty standard fare for Collector’s: figurine with classic and modern Sonics, numbered collectible “Gold Ring,” “20 Years of Sonic Art” book, “20th Anniversary Sonic Soundtrack,” “History of Sonic: Birth of an Icon” documentary, special box, and DLC. I’m actually glad to see the bonuses don’t focus solely on the new game, opting instead to celebrate the rich, 20 year history of our favorite bue hedgehog. The only pricing I’ve seen for the bonus edition is £99.99 from a UK retailer. That’s about $160US. I actually haven’t even seen it from a US retailer, so it may be region-exclusive. But at $160 that better be a real gold ring (doubtful). The game is scheduled for November.
I’ve found it a little hard to get excited about Max Payne 3, but the recent announcement of a release window may be the first step to changing my attitude. The game takes Max to Brazil where he works as a private security contractor. When gangs attack the family he’s protecting, Max has to battle new enemies and his old demons as he fights to save them. Part of my hesitation is that the story doesn’t seem to fit the epilogue I wrote for the character in my head after his second game. I also wonder if the game play can be successfully integrated into a more modern game. Regardless, it looks like I’ll be finding out in March 2012.
Final Fantasy XIII-2 has had a few details released regarding a device called the Historia Crux allowing for New Game+ type options that may also be able to break up the linearity of the game play, something much maligned in Final Fantasy XIII. That seems to be the most important part of the announcement, but it’s pretty extensive and way too deep for VGQH. As I dive more into the release I may do a full write up on the story (which means I’ll come back here and edit those last few sentences into a link to the full story). This sounds pretty impressive and indicates more than a little motivation from another great Square franchise, Chrono Trigger. We also got a ton of screens from the announcement, but I really liked this one (mostly because it felt like a Baby Diego reference):
In keeping with their typical pattern, Capcom has announced two more members of the Street Fighter x Tekken roster. The latest reveals are Lilli from Tekken and Zangief from Street Fighter. Frankly, these idiotic teasers for each character are getting lame. Could someone please just leak the entire roster like they did with MvC3 so we can get it over with?
And that’s pretty much it for Friday’s edition. Just a few last things to mention if you’re a PS3 user that digs the Play, Create, Share concept. The free Move expansion for Little Big Planet 2 is coming September 13th (along with a retail price drop to $40) and Sucker Punch has expanded the user-generated content for inFamous 2 again – this time adding bosses and level-linking to create your own stories. So get creative. I want to play more of your levels. And no, you can’t play mine. I’m awful at that stuff, though I do have a few decent creations in ModNation Racers.