Walking Dead Creator Tell Tale Games announced that Walking Dead: 400 days will be releasing right away.

The release schedule is as follows

• Tuesday July 2, 2013 Playstation Network (U.S.)
• Wednesday July 3, 2013 Mac and PC (Steam)
• Friday July 5, 2013 Xbox Live (Worldwide)
• Wednesday July 10, Playstation Network (Europe)
• Thurday July 11, iOS (worldwide)

IGN, got the official word from Tell Tale earlier today, and I can promise you that I am waiting with so much excitement for this next piece in the series. Adding to the initial 5 episodes from volume 1 you will be required to have at least one of the games on your device to purchase this, let’s hope the price is right!

It’s time for some StarCraft Lunch, can Zombietron hold his own with little to no experience? Or will there be mass yelling?!

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Ever wondered what gaming would look like filmed live action? This series hosted by Machinima sends an attempt to show the different mission statements.  Based on video game combat, and filmed in a first-person view the new series launched this morning.  Episode one is available after the press release!

Ever want to play the drug smuggler, bomb technician, or sniper. Well, Machinima is ready to give you the chance. There is only one catch…you will die at the end. You don’t know how you are going to die and the cause of death is always a surprise…but when the episode is over, one thing is certain…It is Game Over.

Shot from first person perspective, every story will play out before your eyes like a live action video game. Only this time there is no making it to the next level.

Game Over delivers action from a whole new point of view. The nine-part series puts you in the middle of adrenaline packed scenes that feature non-stop action and frequent twists and turns. Every episode you, the viewer, will be a different character, in the middle of an all-new experience that places you in locations such as the desert, a government laboratory, and a Russian submarine, just to name a few. No two episodes are the same but they will all get your heart racing.

We’re halfway through 2013, and the latter half of the year is shaping up to be a landmark in gaming. We’re still in the summer drought for games, but the Fall and Holiday seasons this year will be bringing us some huge games and two new consoles.

As reported on Tuesday, Saints’ Row IV was denied classification in Australia, effectively banning the game in the region unless the offensive content is removed. Further details have surfaced from the Australian Classification Board:

The game includes a weapon referred to by the Applicant as an ‘Alien Anal Probe’. The Applicant states that this weapon can be ‘shoved into enemy’s backsides’. The lower half of the weapon resembles a sword hilt and the upper part contains prong-like appendages which circle around what appears to be a large dildo which runs down the centre of the weapon.

When using this weapon the player approaches a (clothed) victim from behind and thrusts the weapon between the victim’s legs and then lifts them off the ground before pulling a trigger which launches the victim into the air. After the probe has been implicitly inserted into the victim’s anus the area around their buttocks becomes pixelated highlighting that the aim of the weapon is to penetrate the victim’s anus.

The weapon can be used during gameplay on enemy characters or civilians. In the Board’s opinion, a weapon designed to penetrate the anus of enemy characters and civilians constitutes a visual depiction of implied sexual violence that is interactive and not justified by context and as such the game should be Refused Classification.

Frankly, this is the kind of potty humor we expect from the franchise. But it is exactly what the board describes: “sexual violence that is interactive and not justified by context.” It may not be realistic “sexual violence” but it’s in there just for the hell of it. Which makes me question how they’d treat a rape scene. If you’re playing a cop, interviewing a rape victim, and it shows you a detailed flashback from the victim’s perspective, how would they rate it? Would it be denied classification simply for being lascivious and terrible? Or would they consider that sexual violence justified by the context? Irrelevant I suppose. For what it’s worth, there is also drug use in the game that shares some of the burden for the denial: “The game contains an optional mission which involves the player obtaining and smoking drugs referred to as ‘alien narcotics’. Smoking the ‘alien narcotics’ equips the player with ‘superpowers’ which increase their in-game abilities allowing them to progress through the mission more easily.” Deep Silver and Volition are reworking the game to apply for resubmission. It is scheduled for release on August 20th in the US.

The Australian board has also denied classification to Undead Labs’ State of Decay, purportedly for drug use. According to the developer’s founder, Jeff Strain, they’ve “run afoul of certain prohibitions regarding the depiction of drug use.” Undead Labs’ is also working with Microsoft to resubmit the game after changing the names of certain medications. Among the culprits are methadone, morphine, and amphetamines; these are real drugs that are often prescribed. Allowing the player to “self-administer proscribed drugs which aid in gameplay progression” is enough to disqualify the game from classification according to the ACB. It seems their R18+ rating, designated for games that should only be played by responsible adults, hasn’t actually resulted in much change to their policy.

If you purchased the Season Pass for Bioshock Infinite‘s DLC, you may be wondering when you’ll get your money’s worth. According to Ken Levine’s Twitter, “DLC Update: We are working on it – have been since the game shipped. Things are going well, but plz understand: game development takes time.” It’s been three months since the retail game hit shelves, which is a bit longer than should be expected. Generally, the first episode of Season Pass DLC drops about a month after the game. You can still purchase the Season Pass, which is basically a two for one deal, but there’s no telling when it will become worth the purchase.

With E3 now over, and Sony’s outright jabs at Microsoft’s policy fading memory, multiple sources have told IGN that Sony basically tricked their competitor on the price point. According to several retailers, Sony had already informed them that all PS4 consoles would come with the new camera and retail at $499, the same price currently planned for the XBox One. Leading up to E3, Sony informed these retailers that the camera bundling was being dropped but did not mention lowering the price to $399, an announcement that came with huge cheers at E3. This was apparently a ploy to not let Microsoft know about the lowered cost, giving Sony the upper hand. It’s a little devious, but if you know you’re going to have leaks to your competition, why not sow some disinformation? Oddly enough, it’s still going to be about $40 cheaper even if you do plan to purchase the new Eye camera. However, this could easily backfire for Sony. Kinect’s inclusion means a 100% install base, something that will encourage developers to use it. Without the Eye, the LED light on the DualShock 4 is pointless, and developers may not be encouraged to utilize the feature in their games if they don’t think it has enough market saturation. Between this possible slip-up, and Microsoft’s back-pedaling on used games and DRM, the benefit gap between the two consoles seems to be closing.

Another potential boon to the XBox One is an adapter that is still in the works at Microsoft. It’s eventual release is not guaranteed at this point, but it’s another example of the manufacturer responding to its vocal customers. The XBox Support Twitter was asked “Will current headsets such as X11 and Astro A40 work properly on the new consoles?” To which they responded that they “are working to develop an adapter for current wired headsets to connect. More details as we approach launch.” The next-gen hardware will not include a headset, unlike its predecessor, as Microsoft feels the Kinect’s microphone will be adequate. A feeling not shared by many fans.

The larger format, downloadable spin-off model seems to be working for Ubisoft and will likely become a larger part of their business model in the near future. Both Call of Juarez: Gunslinger and Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon have done well for them. Blood Dragon has reportedly seen over 500,000 downloads in only two months. At $15 each, these two have proven very profitable. Thanks to the positive response to these games you could very likely see sequels to both, as well as downloadable spin-offs to other Ubisoft brands. (Assassin’s Creed anyone?)

DICE looks to be changing things up a bit for Battlefield 4. In hopes of making the game less linear than Battlefield 3, they’ll be incorporating multiplayer-style elements into the single player experience. They’ll also be bringing vehicular elements from Bad Company. Karl-Magnus Troedsson, DICE General Manager, says “There are signature multiplayer elements that we want to bring into single-player. We want to give the player a choice. Do they want to go for the sneaky approach with a sniper rifle and a silenced pistol, or do they want to take a jeep and have the entire squad shoot at everything they see?” More option for objectives is usually a good thing, provided they are fairly balanced. Too often developers suggest that you can solve problems however you like, but it’s clear that one way is the right way, and the other methods occasionally work. We’ll find out October 29, 2013.

That’s all for this week. The weekend looks to be a scorcher in many parts of the US. Turn on your AC and fire up a console, because going outside will roast you. Or, if you’re as crazy (stupid) as I am, you can head out in the 100+ degree weather for a 12+ mile obstacle course. I’ll be making a Spartan Beast of myself in that heat.

I was lucky enough to have a phone conversation with Brent Triplett from Battlefield Friends. The show is featured on Machinima’s Happy Hour and has moved into season 3. I can’t stress how good the show is, fans of any shooter should be watching this for the ridiculousness that is the show. Without further ado, the creator, animator, and voice of the n00b. Brent Triplett.

You Can Download Audio Here

For those who would rather read

BSR:  Hey guys, this is Tom also known as Zombietron from Big Shiny Robot! Here with Brent Triplett the creative genius behind Battlefield Friends, one of my favorite web series. 

Brent: Yup, writer, animator, voice actor, well one of the voice actors we have several people on our team that write and voice act and 2 animators at the moment.

BSR: That’s bigger than your intial start up right there were only a few of you to begin?

Brent: Well, my whole team always wrote and voice acted, but in the me it was just me always animating.  We’ve grown in the animating department.

BSR: Oh I see, based on the bio I read you have a degree in recording is that audio recording?

Brent: I went to a school called Full Sail and they had a few tracks, I picked video recording for my track. I believe they do audio recording now, they’ve expanded since I attended in ’93.

BSR: Looking at the series you’ve created, I’ve watched a few episodes of Doraleous and Company and I blew through every episode of Battlefield Friends. How do you create these ideas?

Brent: Pretty much as I’m playing Battlefield I have a note pad next to me, if anything frustrating happens we write it down and then try to write a story around it.

BSR: With Doraleous are you a pretty big RPG gamer as well?

Brent: No, not really, we just wanted to tell stories and this was a pretty fun world to be in so we picked that genre.

BSR: Are there any other web series you watch that inspire you on this? Or is this unique.

Brent: We always like to shoot film and tell stories, but we moved to animation because of budget. This gave us access to big locations without having them. But Venture Bros. is what got me into animation.

BSR: Who are the characters from Battlefield Friends based on? Is it a group of friends, or people you know?

Brent: Yeah it’s based on the classes in Battlefield, my friends and i, or business partners picked a class and we try to play those set classes.  I was pretty new, this is the first time I played Battlefield 3, I had never played before. It was really easy for me to write things from the n00b perspective because I hadn’t played, so I could speak to the overwhelming feeling and sensory overload.

BSR: Which character do you voice then?

Brent: The n00b.

BSR: Along with you I connect with the n00b very well, I left them around Halo 3. I find it interesting that even myself who doesn’t play Battlefield I can find that group of friends. Here at Big Shiny Robot we have a group of four that plays Battlefield, and in your writing I can see their personalities come out.

Brent: As far as?

BSR: I feel like you’ve perfectly captured the usual group of players with after game talk.

Brent: That’s kind of a natural thing, because all of the writers play together and work together. So you know we have the one guy who can’t stay focused and we have to be like “okay, play as  a team this is what we’re doing”. And we have the guy who grabs a helicopter and he’s off, and now we’re a squad of 3. And these are things that happen to everyone, so we connect by writing stories about what happens to us.

BSR: Have you been following E3?

Brent: A little bit here and there, I spend so much time animating that I haven’t seen much, but the other members have been sending me emails and clips of Battlefield 4. I hope to find more time to watch it and maybe even attend it.

BSR: Do you plan to move this into Battlefield 4?

Brent: Oh yeah, if there’s still an audience and demand for it we’ll keep creating. It seems that we’re picking up momentum and everyone is excited about Battlefield 4 so it’d be the right decision.

BSR: What’s next for the friends? Do you have more storyline invisioned?

Brent: This season we want to try to cover everything that we’ve missed. We haven’t had a chance to do much in game with season 1 and 2, so we’ll try to cover as much in game as we can. By the time we’re done with that we’ll have all these different topics so yeah.

BSR: During season 2 you did an episode about the Battlefield patch, where this old man describes how they ruined the game.

Brent: Yeah I think there had just been a patch and for me personally playing tank, you could switch from shell to cannister and just clean up the map.  After the patch there was some excitement, personally I was frustrated. You know you could hit someone with a direct hit and they wouldn’t die. How can a direct hit from a cannister not take out a guy. I was also reading all these comments on line about losing their second player and whatnot and wanted to do an episode about that. I couldn’t picture anyone better than the old grumpy guy.

BSR: I love that episode, that and bunny snipers were pretty much top 2. Like I said earlier you have so much that ties into peoples lives we have a group here at BSR that plays and when I see that old man complaining I instantly think of Arse Bot who hates everything, so thank you for the ammo.

Brent: The bunny sniper thing is funny because I was frustrated not being able to shoot these guys, so the bunny sniper was in the first episode in season 2. I don’t know if you noticed but he’s hidden in every episode after that. Sometimes he’s easier to find then others but he’s in every episode.

BSR: I love how you use recurring jokes, there is the helicopter guy with the n00b rivalry. I can’t remember his name he has black hair and square glasses Kevin maybe?

Brent: Randy

BSR: I love how you use recurring jokes with him and the series.

Brent: We try to keep it that way on purpose, Doraleous is very linear and you have to watch a few episodes to get the story in line, but with Battlefield we want you to watch from anywhere.

BSR: Brent, thank you so much for your time, before we let you go tell us what’s going on with season 3?

Brent: The first episode premiered June 9, on Machinima’s Happy Hour, about capture the flag. We’re going 13 episodes this season and then we’ll see what Battlefield 4 does.

BSR: Thank you so much for your time sir and I wish you all the best in your adventures.

Brent: Thank you.

Thomas Winkley is the video game editor for Big Shiny Robot! Reach him at thomas@bigshinyrobot.com or on twitter @thomaswinkley

Triscut, Kill-Tacular-Tron, and Senador go 3v3 for an hour all day e’ry day. They’re gangster like that when it comes to the Starcraft, check it out!

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Rich and Tom discuss the finer points of digital downloads. Although you’d think Rich would be 100% on board to DL everything on the internet he has found reasons to express disdain for digital distribution. While Tom finds himself in a digital euphoria, never leaving the house or making human contact. Armikrog is approaching the final days of it’s Kickstarter campaign and the two are going to discuss why they never really got into Earthworm Jim. Maybe Armikrog will be cool, maybe. Though it looks like an interesting topic Star Citizen looks to be much more up the alley of the two. Coming from the creator of Wing Commander (which is an admitted favorite of both fellows) the crowd sourcing campaign has reached over 10 million dollars, and is still growing.

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I didn’t realize this was an issue, but I’m also not that into Halo so I wouldn’t have noticed if there was a problem. Apparently there has been some concern expressed over the XBox One game that debuted at E3. Is this part of the Reclaimer Trilogy, or is it a second-rate loner in the franchise? The answer to both is a half-hearted “no.” Phil Spencer, Microsoft Game Studios corporate VP, says it is a “legitimate” title. He says they’ll talk later about the story arc and where it fits. Presumably it’s not part of the planned trilogy, but it is part of the saga. Apparently the Reclaimer story may be too big for just three games according to Spencer, “While we originally said trilogy, we’ve actually expanded this to more of a saga, so we don’t want to limit the Reclaimer story within a trilogy.” Curious. They’ll want to clear any questions about this franchise up as quickly as possible. Microsoft has reversed course on some controversial decisions since E3, but if your longtime fans have concerns about your flagship franchise you’re going to find recovering from early missteps to be much more difficult.

With Tekken Revolution now free-to-play on PS3, players are already questioning whether it can come to Vita. Series’ creator Katsuhiro Harada says it’s certainly possible. He just asks that “the number of downloads of PS3 becomes large.” So he’s saying that if the game is successful, he’ll make more of it. Why am I reporting this in a news column again?

I mentioned last week that Amazon had the XBox One listed for release on November 27, 2013. Microsoft has officially denied that date, saying it is just a placeholder for the mega-retailer. A Microsoft spokesperson has said they “have not informed… retail partners about a specific launch date for the Xbox One. It is commonplace for retailers to put placeholders dates and prices into our system until they are given a specific date and price. We are excited to release the Xbox One in November 2013.” So, nothing official on either console yet, but I’m still thinking we have the right ball park.

Microsoft is now accepting beta sign ups for Project Spark. The exact nature of this project is still unclear, but we do know that it’s cross-platform on PC, Windows 8 tablets, XBox 360, and XBox One. You can sign up for the beta here. If you get in, let us know. We’d love to hear more about it.

Things were looking up for Australia when ratings board added the new R18+ classification for games last year. Previously, any games not fit for people aged 17 and under simply couldn’t be sold in the country. Under the new classification, adult games are a whole new market. But it’s not all peaches for the land down under. Saints’ Row IV has been refused even the adult classification, effectively banning the game. This is the first game to earn the dubious honor under the new classification; seventeen games have been granted the rating. According to the Australian Classification Board, the game “includes interactive, visual depictions of implied sexual violence which are not justified by context. In addition, the game includes elements of illicit or proscribed drug use related to incentives or rewards. Such depictions are prohibited by the computer games guidelines.” Developer Volition says they are looking at “removing the content which could cause offense without reducing the outlandish gameplay that Saints Row fans know and love.” In the meantime, the M-rated US edition is scheduled for release August 20, 2013.

On a related note, Design Director Scott Phillips apparently expects the Saints’ Row IV to end the saga. The story has featured quite an arc, starting as a low man gang member peddling drugs and killing rivals while gradually working your way to being President Superhero battling aliens in a virtual reality. I guess if you can’t go anywhere from here, you just stop moving. Which is fine. They’ve had a good run and are now under new ownership (after the THQ collapse), so it should be interesting to see what new projects they find.

Being a gamer doesn’t necessarily mean you’re a techie with a deep knowledgeable of hardware and advantages or disadvantages thereof. That’s certainly the case with me. So you may be wondering what the big deal is about Microsoft’s cloud-based processing for XBox One (which has just seen Microsoft spending $700 million on the infrastructure). Respawn Entertainment, the brains behind the upcoming Titanfall have decided to put it in simple terms for those like me. It seems one of the biggest benefits is that you don’t have one player hosting online matches. Those matches are hosted by the cloud. This means the match doesn’t crash if the hosting player leaves, and the host doesn’t have any extra advantages. Other benefits include: more CPU on your dedicated servers for dozens of AI and autopilot titans, guaranteed bandwidth for the servers, all available CPU and memory on the player machines go to visuals and audio, no Hacked-host cheating, and faster matchmaking. Check out Respawn’s article for more details.

That’s all for this week’s early edition. Check back Friday for more news from the week.

If you visit BaldursGate.com you’ll find a disturbing message. In a recent move due to undescribed “legal issues with our publisher.” The Baldurs Gate remake has been removed from the aforementioned app stores. Sadly, this also delays the release for Android and the sequel which were slated to come out in the coming months. The developer states that they are “frustrated with this issue, and are working to resolve it urgently.” Makes you wonder who didn’t get paid, or didn’t own the rights doesn’t it?

Triscut of Doom brings in Lance and Ryan to discuss the difference between PC and console and puts to rest rumors about the switchover troubles. Join the conversation in the comments below!

Thomas Winkley is the gaming editor for Big Shiny Robot! Follow him on twitter @thomaswinkley
Rich Porter (Triscut of Doom) is his partner in crime for gaming and multimedia follow him @triscut109

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