11bit has released something that I’ve never played before, it’s new, unusual and a ton of fun. Here is our first look into Anomaly 2!

left to right: Scott (3rd), Renzo (2nd), Gustavo(1st)

That’s right folks, you thought SLC NERD was over?!?! NEVER! Here are the videos from our Street Fighter tournament, starting with the preliminary rounds going into the finals! Congratulations to Scott, Gustavo, and Renzo for showing the SLC Nerd kids how to play fighting games, and for winning the awesome prizes from Secret Compass!. See you all again for another tournament real soon!

The First Rounds

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The Second Rounds:

The Finals

Thanks again to everyone who attended and stopped by our booth. We’ll have more events coming this year, and even more at SLC NERD in 2014. Be sure to follow us on twitter: @bigshinyrobot, @thomaswinkley, and @triscut109 for your gaming fix!

What we see from the next Mass Effect game is all speculation at this point. But it’s fun speculation, even for the people that will be making the game. Some of the team recently discussed a few characters that sound interesting for “spin-off” titles. Game Director Casey Hudson says, “It’d be cool to do something completely unrelated to the larger storyline, like a story about a private investigator on the Citadel. Or maybe something detailing Garrus’ time in C-Sec.” Could be interesting. Preston Watamaniuk, Lead designer, expressed a similar sentiment: “While being one of Shepard’s most loyal friends, Garrus has also had some of the most driven personal goals. He’s a hero in his own right, as Archangel and beyond. Who wouldn’t want to see the further adventures of the bold, charming Garrus Valkarian?” Of course, Watamaniuk also thinks “a game centered on brutal Krogan combat with more of a melee focus could be pretty exciting.” I’m not so sure about that one. I like using Krogan in ME3‘s multiplayer, but they’ve got a pretty solid third person shooting mechanic and I’d hate to see it go to waste. But that’s not all. Lead Writer Mac Walters has a few other characters that we actually know less about: “Aria. The Illusive Man. Kai Leng. Any henchman. The list goes on. I think most of them could have successful spin-offs of their own in some fashion.” I could see that. Maybe even lots of minor characters in episodic gameplay, like Tales from the Galactic Citadel or Tales from the Cerberus Ranks. The one that sounds most interesting to me actually come from Producer Mike Gamble, “Following the story of Javik a little bit more would be pretty cool. As the last remaining member of a lost race, I think that we could tell a lot of stories about his adventures in the Milky Way, and coming to terms with his place in the new Galaxy.” If I had my druthers, though, I’d focus more on his time when Protheans ruled the galaxy. It would have all the standard prequel problems, like knowing how it ends, but it would be interesting to see how a different species with different values and social structures took on the same threat. Ultimately, the integrated society led by a human succeeded, where they failed. I want to see what makes the difference. Alas, none of this may come to pass; we’ll just have to wait until they give the next game a full reveal – and that’s at least months, if not years, away.

Fresh off Bioshock Infinite, it’s no secret that Ken Levine is a badass when it comes to writing games. Which is why so many fans got excited when he recently tweeted that he was starting the writing process for his next game. Obviously we have no idea what it will be, since he won’t know everything until he’s finished, but we can expect greatness. Especially when you look at his inspiration. When asked what has been influencing his writing he responded with a pretty eclectic variety: “mad men, pt Anderson, Coen bros, Kubrick, soderbergh, Stoppard, Sondheim, games. [sic]” So we could be getting a period piece about a cult leader that bowls, rides atomic bombs, robs casinoes, and slits people’s throats while he cuts their hair. Sounds good. (Yes, I ignored Tom Stoppard in that as I’m not actually familiar with his work. Sorry.)

Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag isn’t out until October 29th, but Ubisoft is already making it possible to pre-order DLC. Sort of. The various sails Edward Kenway can use to adorn his ship’s masts are actually just a bonus for ordering their Blackbeard figurine, which looks great. It’s supposedly available in their shop, but I didn’t find it easily. It could be a regional thing, as it was a source in the EU that brought it to my attention.

Ubisoft has confirmed that co-op mode is making a return in Splinter Cell: Blacklist. As in Conviction, co-op mode will be a separate campaign for two players online or via local split screen. Their last outing with co-op was well-received, so expectations are high this time around. The game is scheduled for August 20, 2013.

Take Two won’t be taking any time out for the WWE franchise they picked up from the THQ auction. WWE 2K14 has been given a release date of October 29, 2013. It is still developed by Yuke’s, despite the change in publisher. Obviously the game was well under way when the THQ collapse came; we’ll have to wait at least until next year to see if Take Two plans on making any major changes with the license.

The seventh DLC pack for DC Universe Online launches today. The “Origin Crisis” add-on seems to make even less sense than most of the Crisis stories in the comics, which is to say absolutely zero. There’s all kinds of stuff about future Lex Luthors, future Batmen, and a Nexus of Reality. Which is fine, but what about the gameplay? You’ll be able to travel back in time with multiple companions and alter the origins of popular heroes while visiting Gotham’s Crime Alley, or Krypton’s House of El. A new Quantum Power is also included, allowing you to manipulate time and space. Looks like this could be a decent enough reason to get back into this one if you’ve been out for a while.

What began as a robot-on-robot smackdown over differences of opinion on Star Wars games became an all out rumble – one so epic we couldn’t stand to keep it to ourselves. So we did our best to put into a cohesive roundtable to talk about the relative merits of all games based on Star Wars, call each other names, and generally be asses to each other. You know, like a text-based version of the TV weekly stream on Twitch, last week’s episode of which was what inspired this whole fight after a discussion about their favorite Star Wars games.

And with that, we present. . . What are your five favorite Star Wars games?

Kill-Tacular-Tron:  Knights of the Old Republic 1 & 2

Senador Kooch:

Shadows of the Empire
Rogue Squadron
Knights of the Old Republic
Force Unleashed
Star Wars Episode I: Racer

Vagabond Prime:  Shadows of the Empire was a travesty. Everything about it: Comics, book, game, you name it. In my opinion, of course.

Scarlett Robotica:  I liked the Hildebrandt artwork that accompanied Shadows.

Vagabond Prime:  That in itself was good. And I liked aspects of Dash Rendar, but what a shitty, lazy name. Dash? Oh, cause he’s fast! And Rendar! Yeah! He’s RENDERED! Oh god, we’re clever! His name should have been San Holo.

Kill-Tacular-Tron:  Oh man, I loved shadows. I even have that art book. I read the novel in Jr High and it blew my mind. I think it was my first venture into the EU.

Scarlett Robotica:  I have the soundtrack. It’s pretty cool. By Joel McNeely of Young Indy fame

Vagabond Prime:  Perspective is a funny thing! I was in my early 20’s, and it was the first time I felt like a cash grab was coming. There was a lot of development stuff that I loved; let’s just say I couldn’t stand the execution. Xizor felt like an also-ran as opposed to someone who could challenge Vader. If Dave Filoni had been in charge, you wouldn’t be hearing a peep in complaint from me. There was a ton of potential that felt kinda rushed. Seriously, if it had been in better hands I would have been cheering!

It was also the first time I was challenged by what “I would have done” vs what was actually done. I had painted a different picture of those events in my mind, and the whole dealio taught me a valuable lesson. If not for Shadows and my nerd-rage over it, and learning to deal with that, I would have probably hated the prequels instead of just letting go and enjoying them.

Scarlett Robotica:  I didn’t encounter the “what I would have done” until I read Crystal Star. Then, I decided to write a 50,000 word fanfic where I killed off Anakin Solo long before he died in the books.

Kill-Tacular-Tron:  Ah I see. Perspective can change a lot. Shadows of the Empire is still one of the games I’ll pop in when I dust of the N64 every couple years.

Senador Kooch:  I’d love to play Shadows again. I wonder if there is a way to play dual stick.

Kill-Tacular-Tron:  Pussy.  We should stream some vintage replays.

Senador Kooch:  The controls for Shadows were terrible.

Citizen-Bot:  First, I wanna read that fanfic. Second:

KOTOR 1 (not necessarily 2)
SW:TOR (still loving it)
Super Empire Strikes Back
Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast (esp adding the Raven/Soldier of Fortune cheat where you can chop people’s limbs off with your lightsaber)
X-Wing vs TIE Fighter or the TIE Fighter game itself

hon mention: Rogue Squadron, the Star Wars Trilogy arcade game, and the original wireframe Star Wars arcade game (still might be my favorite arcade game)

Scarlett Robotica:  The only games I played were the trilogy ones for the Super Nintendo. <—-not a gamer.

Senador Kooch:  I played those a bit Kelly, they were awesome weren’t they?

Scarlett Robotica:  oh I loved them. Though I wanted to throw my controller at the asteroid field level in SESB

Citizen-Bot:  Agreed. And I still could never beat the escape from the Death Star level. (In Super ROTJ– I could never even make it out of the Cantina in Super Star Wars)

Vagabond Prime:  Here’s mine:

1: SW:TOR (love!), Rogue Squadron, Battlefront 2 (modded), KoTOR 1 and 2, and I have a soft spot for Rebellion.

Arse-bot:  My faves were those old Tie Fighter and X-Wing pilot games on PC.

Kill-Tacular-Tron:  Derek and I talked a bit about this yesterday. Those old games were awesome because they were so hard. Kids these days (I know how I sound) are handed tutorials and upgrades so easily.

Mario as a kid was run right and don’t die. Oh did you die? Do it again and do it better. Those old Super games were great for that.

Senador Kooch:  They also caused gaming to be very niche. Niche doesn’t do well for mass market. I see both sides. Meh. As long as they are still fun.

Triscut of Doom:  Here is the proper list from someone who doesn’t like star wars and rates the games based on technical merit for the time they were released

1) tie fighter pc
2) rebel assault pc
3) rouge leader gcube
4) kotor 1 xbox
5) republic commando Xbox/pc

As a side note this week went really well

Kill-Tacular-Tron:  I always wanted to play Republic Commando.

Senador Kooch:  Republic Commando! I only played that one for a bit but it had potential. I wish I had gone back and finished it.

Arse-bot:  DickBot has a pretty strong list there

Senador Kooch:  Now I feel like I should have cashed in on the Steam Star Wars sale.

Triscut of Doom:  Summer sale is coming

Senador Kooch:  http://www.polygon.com/2013/5/3/4298826/steams-star-wars-weekend-sale-includes-14-games-for-49-99

Most are Windows only so oh well.

Triscut of Doom:  Honorable mentions that didn’t make the list go to The old republic for the huge undertaking it was, Lego star wars for tapping into something everyone thought was going to be stupid, and star wars trilogy arcade which could have made the list if they hadn’t only put it on 32x as the home console release.

Kill-Tacular-Tron:  This list of domain names is interesting: http://fusible.com/2013/05/lucasfilm-registers-slew-of-domains-for-star-wars-alliance-bothan-spies-order-67-star-wars-rebels-many-more/

Lucasfilm registers slew of domains for Star Wars Alliance, Bothan Spies, Order 67, Star Wars Rebels

Citizen-Bot:  many bothans died to bring you that information. Anyway, if those are the games we’re going to get in the future from EA, I’m sold.

There has been a lot of speculation about how Patrice Desilets would be welcomed back to Ubisoft since his former employer picked up THQ Montreal in their fire sale. That speculation has ended, in a rather unfriendly way. Desilets had worked for Ubisoft up to 2010, helping to create and develop the Assassins’ Creed franchise during his tenure with them. After THQ’s financial collapse, he found himself working for his former employer again on projects he had created at THQ, namely 1666 and Underdog. According to an Ubisoft statement earlier this week, “Unfortunately, since the acquisition, the good faith discussions between Patrice and Ubisoft aimed at aligning Patrice’s and the studio’s visions have been inconclusive. As a result, Patrice has left the studio. Our priorities remain with the teams already hard at work on projects in development. They are at the root of Ubisoft Montréal’s past and future successes.” Which doesn’t make it sound so bad. Desilets’ own statement, however, is not as friendly:

“Contrary to any statements made earlier today, this morning I was terminated by Ubisoft. I was notified of this termination in person, handed a termination notice and was unceremoniously escorted out of the building by two guards without being able to say goodbye to my team or collect my personal belongings.

“This was not my decision.

“Ubisoft’s actions are baseless and without merit. I intend to fight Ubisoft vigorously for my rights, for my team and for my game.”

An interesting, but not entirely surprising turn of events. Desilets’ and Ubisoft didn’t exactly have a clean break the first time around. Jean-Francois Boivin, a producer who followed Desilets from Ubisoft to Montreal and back again, was also fired. Hopefully this will not impact the games in development in any significant way. Although that’s not likely, as two of the biggest creative minds behind their projects are gone, while Ubisoft apparently has the rights to the IP.

EA was recently awarded a lucrative publishing deal from Disney, being named the sole provider for “core” Star Wars games. Which is probably unnecessary for the publisher, as they’ve clearly got big plans for this year already. An investor’s call earlier this week revealed at least some of their plans for this fiscal year (ending in March 2014). All of the standard sports titles are in the plan: Madden, FIFA, FIFA Manager, NHL, and NCAA Football. NBA Live is supposedly back on the release schedule, while Tiger Woods will be taking a year off. Fuse and a new Battlefield have also been previously announced. But the call did reveal that new titles from Bioware and DICE will be announced at E3 in June. Dragon Age 3 is the obvious bet from Bioware, but that’s not entirely certain. A new Need for Speed is expected, but it might not be coming from Criterion. Despite three EA studios being tied to the Star Wars franchise (DICE, Bioware, and Visceral), it was confirmed that no Star Wars titles are coming in this fiscal year.

Capcom’s upcoming Remember Me has gotten its preorder incentives. Ordering from Best Buy or Amazon will get you some extra combat moves inspired by another famous Capcom franchise, Street Fighter. Nilin apparently won’t be throwing hadokens, but she can do a Spinning Bird Kick and Dragon Punch. Alternatively, ordering from Best Buy scores the prequel comic from Dark Horse. Preorders are available now and the game releases June 4, 2013.

Having recently revealed Wolfenstein: The New Order, Bethesda has no provided some details on what to expect with this return to a classic franchise. Players will see the return of BJ Blazkowicz in an alternate history timeline. BJ is in an asylum following his takedown of Robo-Hitler, but he didn’t exactly save the world. It’s now the 1960s and the Nazis have won WWII as well as the space race. Expect to fight plenty of Nazi robots, including dogs. Which is all well and good, but how are they working the multiplayer? Simple, they aren’t. That’s right, a first person shooter coming in fourth quarter 2013 is actually going to be single player only. Kind of a bold move for Bethesda, but it’s still a safe bet that they won’t bother making the PS3 version functional.

How are you liking the Lobo DLC and the extra skins for Injustice: Gods Among Us? Does it have you excited for the recently confirmed Batgirl add-on? Long time comics fans might be even more excited about the other add-on coming with Batgirl: the Killing Joke pack. Seems a bit obvious now, doesn’t it? I haven’t confirmed everything that will be included the extra pack, which will not be part of the season pass (Batgirl will be), but it will definitely include Joker’s Hawaiian shirt outfit that proved a crippling sight to Barbara Gordon. No dates or prices confirmed yet for the add-ons, but I’d expect them soon and run the same cost as this week’s releases.

Rockstar seems to have done well with releasing their older GTA titles as classics on PSN. They’ve now slated two of their other titles to get the same treatment. Manhunt will be coming next week ($9.99), followed soon after by The Warriors. First released in 2003, Manhunt got a lot of (justifiable) heat for its extreme levels of violence and the rewarding the player for prolonging kills. No word yet on a date for The Warriors, a beat ’em up based on the 1979 film.

Marvel and Gazillion Entertainment just announced that the new Marvel Heroes game will be in Open Beta this weekend! Just in case you haven’t heard of Marvel Heroes yet, here’s the official game overview:

Marvel Heroes is a FREE-TO-PLAY action-packed massively multiplayer online game created by David Brevik, the visionary behind Diablo and Diablo 2. Set in the iconic Marvel Universe, Marvel Heroes combines the core game-play style of Action RPGs and MMOs with the expansive library of heroes from the Marvel Universe. In the game, players can collect and play as their favorite Marvel Superheroes (including Iron Man, Thor, Wolverine, Hulk, Spider Man, Captain America and many others). Team up with friends and try to stop Doctor Doom from devastating the world with the power of the Cosmic Cube in a story written by Marvel comic super-scribe Brian Michael Bendis.

Starting heroes are pretty limited, but we have been promised full access to the entire stable of available heroes. You can, of course, spend some cash to unlock your favorite Marvel characters early. The Marvel Heroes Open Beta runs from 5:00pm PT Friday, May 10th through 10:00am PT Monday, May 13th. Currently, the game client is only available for PC (sucks to be Sithbot), but full Mac integration will be available after launch.

If you’re interested in checking out this awesome looking game, head over to the game client DL page here! I’ll see you in-game!

Wolfenstein trailer, EA gets exclusive on Star Wars Games, Triscut is going to rage out about it, because he rages about everything. Leigh George Kade aka Vagabond Prime teaches Tom and Rich about D and D. Tom zaps stuff and trolls unfortunate souls on the server.

Watch live video from bigshinyrobot on TwitchTV

NetherRealm has confirmed last week’s rumor that Batgirl will be the next DLC character for Injustice: Gods Among Us, following Lobo who will be available soon. Also on the slate are two skin packs: Bad Girls (Harley’s Jester, Catwoman’s Selina Kyle outfit, and Wonder Woman’s #600 outfit) and Teen Titans (Cyborg, Deathstroke, and Raven). The skins are not part of the Season Pass. Two other characters are planned for the Season Pass, and the rumor mill seems quite certain they’ll be General Zod and Mortal Kombat‘s Scorpion.

The Australian ratings board has outed yet another game without an official announcement. Considering how excited most of our contributor ‘bots are to see Pacific Rim, I have to wonder how many will be excited to play it on XBLA and PSN. It’s apparently developed by Yuke’s, who have done many of the recent WWE titles. It’s also being published by them, which is interesting only in that THQ used to publish their retail releases. No official confirmation, release date, price, etc. but keep your eyes and ears open.

Lucid Games, the studio created a couple of years ago from ex-Bizarre Creations’ talent, seems to have an incoming announcement about a new game. A picture posted from their Facebook indicates a London setting for what will likely be a racing game. They’ve also stated that “Mid-May will be interesting for the studio. We have some exciting updates coming. Stay tuned!” Turning to the rumor mill once again, we may be seeing that “exciting update” on May 21st at the Microsoft reveal. This could be a next-gen racer along the lines of Project Gotham Racing.

LittleBigPlanet doesn’t get mentioned often in VGQH, at least not in comparison to how many updates come through for it. But this week LittleBigPlanet Karting is getting a sweet set of geeky DLC. You’ll be getting Tron‘s Light Runner and two Light Cycles to go with the costumes that have been available for the franchise for some time.

If the always-online rumors about Microsoft’s next XBox, codenamed Durango, were ever true, it appears the will of the people has been heard by the men in suits. Possibly. The basis for what appears to be an about face by the console manufacturer is a supposedly leaked internal memo. According to the memo, “Durango is designed to deliver the future of entertainment while engineered to be tolerant of today’s Internet. There are a number of scenarios that our users expect to work without an Internet connection, and those should ‘just work’ regardless of their current connection status. Those include, but are not limited to: playing a Blu-ray disc, watching live TV, and yes playing a single player game.” I would still expect the system will require an available internet connection. Online activation codes could still be required to begin playing your single player games, similar to the pass codes currently in vogue for online games. But, once you’ve activated your game, you may not need to be continually online in order to play it. Yes, this may still have affect users who have no internet connection, but that’s a far cry from affecting everyone who doesn’t have a reliable high speed connection for constant use.

All is apparently not lost in the world of Star Wars video games. Following Disney’s shuttering of Lucasarts, EA has now secured a multi-year deal to publish “core” games set in the galaxy far, far away. Disney Interactive will still be publishing “casual” games in the franchise. EA’s agreement reportedly includes publishing games from multiple developers. DICE, Bioware, and Visceral were specifically mentioned. Any titles currently in development will be announced “in the coming months.” Does this mean a second life for Star Wars 1313? Help us Electronic Arts, you’re our only hope.

The sixth playable character for Borderlands 2, Krieg the Psycho, is scheduled for release on May 14th. Krieg is a little weird, you might even say psychotic, and focuses on melee attacks with his Buzz Axe weapon. He is not part of the Season Pass and will cost 800 MSP / $9.99.

Here’s one for the classic PC gamers: Bethesda Softworks has announced they’ll be publishing Wolfenstein: The New Order, currently in development at Machinegames. The Wolfenstein franchise is one of the earliest first-person shooters available, arguably having as much or more influence on the genre than id’s Doom. Release is planned for fourth quarter 2013 (unclear if that’s calendar or fiscal year) on PS3, 360, and next-gen consoles.

May is shaping up to be a good month for PlayStation Plus members. Sleeping Dogs has been out for a while, but it’s a very good game and there’s some fun DLC to add on as well. That one will be added to the Instant Game Collection starting today. Other titles coming to the service in May will be Knytt Underground (cross-buy), Germinator (Vita), BlazBlue: Continuum Shift EXTEND (Vita), and Pinball Arcade (cross-buy). Leaving the IGC this month, in weekly order, are: Demon’s Souls, Mega Man 9 & 10 Combo Pack, Tekken 6 (PSP), Darksiders, and Zombie Tycoon 2. Other discounts and such will apply as usual.

You see what I did there?

That’s right folks, in a dramatic sweep equal only to the Madden grab of 2004, EA has acquired exclusive rights to make Star Wars video game titles from Disney. Disney will retain the rights to online, mobile, and web based content, while EA will focus on console and P.C. Those excited for the move are thinking about developers like Visceral getting their hands on Star Wars Force Unleashed, and DICE getting back into Battlefront.

Others, such as our local bot, Triscut (@triscut109 on twitter), are thinking more along the lines of EA Bright Light, developers of the Harry Potter video games. Whether good or bad, Star Wars game titles will live on. While I do see potential for greatness, it all depends on how much faith you have in EA.

Thomas Winkley is the video game editor here at Big Shiny Robot
You can follow him on twitter: @thomaswinkley

Mechanist Games launched a closed-beta test for it’s City of Steam MMORPG a few months back, and I was invited to participate. I was pretty excited to jump in; I love the Steam Punk genre, and I really enjoy a good MMORPG. Unfortunately, I fell victim to the Curse of the Closed Beta. City of Steam sure looked pretty, but it played about as smooth as a T-Rex in a chicken incubator. I played for a few hours, hoping that I would work through the rough spots, but it was all rough spots! The tutorial was clunky and confusing, lag was horrible, and the game mechanics were barely there. I could see what they were trying to do with the game, but I was not in any way impressed.

I wish I had been a better beta tester, because I never went back after that initial play period. I was bored silly by the whole process, but I am willing to admit my mistake and give it another shot. City of Steam is going to a live beta on May 10th, and it looks like the Dev Team has been working really hard on smoothing out some of the wrinkles in the game (and it still looks pretty). For more information, and to register for the open beta, follow this link. I’ll see you in the City of Steam!