When Tuesday’s edition came up pretty short on news I expected today’s update would be more robust. I wasn’t wrong. Obviously there’s news related to the PSN debacle but there’s also other stuff.
First up, let’s talk about Supremacy MMA. This isn’t necessarily the most anticipated game among BSR! readers but if you’re into the sport it looks to be a good alternative to the cage, instead of EA’s glossy version. The UK preorder incentives have been announced, and I feel it’s safe to assume the North American bonuses will be similar at the various retailers. Two places get you a new venue: HMV’s is The Glass Slipper (a strip club), and Play.com is giving away the Slaughter House (for the Rocky fans?). If you’d prefer additional fighters, you should order from Amazon.co.uk (Bao Quach) or GAME (Shane del Rosario). The US release date is June 7th. If/when I can confirm US bonuses I’ll bring the update here in VGQH.
FEAR 3 has been delayed. Originally scheduled for May, Neil Castle (Community Manager) has confirmed the push to an unspecified date in June. According to Castle, “The F.E.A.R. 3 launch date will now be in June 2011 as we look to deliver the best possible game for you, the players. The reason for this delay is so that more time can be spent on optimization in order to provide the best experience possible.” Warner Bros. has promised a definitive date soon.
If you played Hydrophobia or its update, Hydrophobia Pure, on XBLA you’ve been able to enjoy a great game that had a few issues. Steam users will get their chance at the game in its new form, Hydrophobia Prophecy, on May 9th. It will be coming to PSN soon after. “We could’ve just ported Hydrophobia Pure over to Steam and PSN after the positive response it received, but we decided to go much further,” says Dark Energy Digital’s Pete Jones. “The community really blew us away with the incredible response to Hydrophobia Pure and the outstanding level of feedback on the listening post, so we wanted to return the favour and ensure we created a bigger and better experience in every possible respect with Hydrophobia Prophecy for Steam and PSN.”
More news on the Hitman Absolution front (probably) comes from IO Interactive’s not so subtle “leaking” of footage. In addition to licensing the title (as reported on Tuesday) they’ve changed their Twitter picture to a clear shot of 47’s glove. Additionally, Tore Blystad, known for his Hitman work with IO, has been tweeting pictures from their “next big project” that they can’t comment on yet. they aren’t fooling anyone, this is clearly Hitman.
Treyarch has released a few details about their upcoming Escalation DLC for Call of Duty: Black Ops. The zombie level included in the pack (XBLA on May 3rd, PSN to follow) has quite the star power. They’ve dedicated the zombie add-on to the legendary George A. Romero and included him in the game. Other icons of undead media are also contributing their voice and likeness, including Sarah Michelle Gellar, Danny Trejo, Robert Englund, and Michael Rooker.
Gatling Gears, the next big thing in downloadable titles from EA, has been given a release date. Like so many downloadable titles, this one has been developed and planned pretty quietly, but looks fun. It’s a top down, twin stick shooter featuring mechs and giant bosses. Surely their claims of it “setting the bar for downloadable titles” is overblown marketing, but it looks like a top tier title. We’ll find out on May 18th when it releases for PSN and XBLA for $15.
The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings is still planned for release next month on PC. But what about consoles? CD Projekt’s Michael Kicinski recently made an appearance on a Polish TV show. During the show, he let slip that they are developing console versions of the game as “separate projects.” The publisher, Namco Bandai, has been mum on the subject. Kicinski admitted consoles are a new territory for the developer and hinted that we’d hear more about it at E3.
With the announcement of an SSX reboot, fans have been trying to find out which characters will make their return. Guess what fans, it’s up to you. That’s right, EA has opened a poll on their Facebook for you to pick which characters will make it into the reboot. First, you have to be on Facebook (guess I’m out). Next, “like” SSX. Finally, you’ll get your choice of four characters. This week it’s Kaori, Moby, JP, and Viggo. Next week’s options are Zoe, Mac, Nate, and Allegra; week three is Psymon, Eddie, Griff, and Tyson. I’m not sure how far into development they are with the project but I’d be shocked if they cut nine characters based solely on the voting. They’ll clearly pick at least the top two from each poll, or relegate the losers to DLC.
I’m not sure what exactly this means, but Eidos Montreal has released encouraging news for those awaiting Thief 4. The studio’s recent focus has been on Deus Ex: Human Revolution. That game is nearing completion and is scheduled for August 2011. As the studio starts pulling resources from its development, they are moving them to Thief 4. This makes sense for a project-based company like a video game developer. You can work on many projects at once, but some areas have high intensity staff requirements. As you finish those intense sections of one game, moving on to the more delicate work, you can shift the heavy laborers to another project. This still doesn’t tell me when Thief 4 is coming though.
L.A. Noire is swiftly becoming one of the most anticipated games of the year. With that popularity many “casual” gamers have shown an interest but worry that it may be too difficult. Apparently there were a lot of players who didn’t finish GTA IV due to some difficult combat stages. With L.A. Noire‘s focus on detective work, an easy mode isn’t exactly an option. To appease the less skilled gamers, they have chosen to include an option to skip combat after multiple failures. It does not appear you’ll be able to skip the detective work though. Plenty of the “hardcore” gamers are up in arms about catering to the lowest common denominator. To them I say, get over yourself. Don’t use the option. I doubt I’ll use it, but I’m glad there is a way for people to enjoy what looks to be an incredible story without getting tied down in gunplay they don’t enjoy. Now there will be a wider audience meeting crime boss Mickey Cohen, shown below:
Then again, maybe you’re good at combat, but the detective portions get too hard for you. Rockstar has a plan for that as well. Enter the Social Club. First thing you’ll get is the Chicago Lightning suit that improves your aim with certain weapons, those closely associated with Al Capone’s style of “aggressive negotiations.” Also included is an “Ask the Community” section. If you’re having trouble getting information out of a suspect, check the Social Club. The answer will presented in the form of what percentage of players suggest each method for the suspect. Again, this is optional, so the purists can ignore it if they like. Frankly, plenty of players were going to go to the internet guides anyway, might as well just build it into the game.
Doug Lombardi, VP of Marketing for Valve, has some good news for fans of Portal 2. PS3 users clearly haven’t finished the co-op missions yet if they were planning to play online, but they can still look forward to DLC coming this summer. Lombardi didn’t give any specifics, just saying they’ll “be putting more details out about that in a week or so. We’ll support that with more videos or more comics.” Is it co-op, single player, a new mode? Guess we’ll find out this summer.
Driver: San Francisco has been given a firm release date of August 30th in the US. While the players will once again be assuming the role of master wheelman, Tanner, it’s in a bizarrely different form. Tanner has suffered a terrible accident and is stuck in a coma. Which, in video game world, now means he can send his consciousness into any car he chooses, jumping from rust bucket to muscle car and back again at will. Huh?
If that’s not your driving cup of tea, EA has good news for you. After it was accidentally leaked by an onliner retailer they’ve decided to go with a full announcement. Need for Speed: The Run is scheduled for November 15, 2011. Expect the typical NfS style, this time going cross-country. Yup, “The [Cannonball] Run” means you need to be first from San Francisco to New York. That’s a long race, but I’m hoping you’ll be turning right around and going back in the master quest.
Red Faction: Armageddon has been delayed by one week. It’s now coming on June 7th. If you can’t wait that long to get your hands on the magnet gun and nano forge, you can get the demo next week. It’s skipping PC, but XBLA and PSN (assuming it’s up) will have the demo available on May 3rd.
Speaking of the PSN being down (and my poor segue skills), it gets its own special section today:
For those lucky few who got their beta codes to inFamous 2 and managed to redeem them, I hope you’ve been having fun. How is it? I hope you like it, because you’re getting more of it. For those who have a code they can’t redeem right now, don’t delete the email. Sucker Punch has decided to prolong the beta. They haven’t decided how much longer to run it, and won’t until the PSN outage is resolved. But at least you will still get a chance to experience the gameplay and make some levels. The full game is scheduled for a June 7th release.
There’s a lot of speculation flying about the internet, some true, some exaggerated, and some outright incendiary. The ‘bots here at BSR! have been doing their best to sort the credible news and keep you up to date, but I would suggest you get your news directly from Sony. The best place to do that is the PlayStation blog. They aren’t updating as quickly as some people would like, but at least you’re getting it from the people you know have the most correct information.
Those of you fearing the worst about the electronic break in at Sony may have some good news. According to their official Q&A (follow the link at the bottom of this section):
- Sony is working with a respected third party security company and law enforcement to track the criminals that invaded their network.
- Credit card data was encrypted and electronically locked.
- Personal data was locked, but not encrypted.
- “While all credit card information stored in our systems is encrypted and there is no evidence at this time that credit card data was taken, we cannot rule out the possibility.” This data does not include the CVC, CVS, CVV, or whatever your company calls it – it’s that three or four digit code on the back of your card that you give when ordering online or over the phone. [By the way, paying for your pizza over the phone with a card to the methed out teenager is a way bigger security risk than giving your info to Sony, but the internet commenters aren’t mentioning that one.]
- “For your security, we encourage you to be especially aware of email, telephone, and postal mail scams that ask for personal or sensitive information.” You should be doing this anyway. Also, once PSN is restored you will be prompted to change your password. Do it! And if any of your other online identities (gmail, Facebook, etc.) share the same username and password, change those too.
- In addition to contacting the media, Sony has been contacting all 77 million registered users via the email address used in the account. This takes time, but you should have received your email by now.
- Moving forward, Sony is not only beefing their e-security, the actual data center is being moved to a more secure physical location as well.
- Restoring PSN services is expected to begin on or before May 3rd. However, they will take as long as they need to make sure it’s secure.
- Your download history, friends list, trophies, Cloud saves (PS+), etc. will all be recovered once the PSN is back online.
- What about your paid services? “We apologize for any inconvenience players may have experienced as a result of the recent service interruption. As a global leader in online gaming, SOE is committed to delivering stable and entertaining games for players of all ages. To thank players for their patience, we will be hosting special events across our game portfolio. We are also working on a “make good” plan for players of the PS3 versions of DC Universe Online and Free Realms. Details will be available soon on the individual game websites and forums.” Other compensation should not be expected, but they are “evaluating ways to show appreciation” for our patience. I don’t know how they would separate us patient users from the whiners though.
Again, please check the official blog rather than swallowing some internet commenters pessimistic conspiracy theory. Yes, there’s always a possibility that they’re lying. But your wife could be too. Do yourself a favor and don’t live your life that way. I’ve tried and it’s not worth the stress. [Feel free to blast me as a Sony apologist in the comments now.]
That’s what we’ve got for now. Come back Tuesday for more gaming news (assuming I don’t die in my first triathlon attempt tomorrow). And keep checking the site for more updates on PSN, we’ll be covering any new information as best we can.