Capcom spin-off reprises horror action game with Frank West in the starring role; Xbox 360, PS3, and PC title to feature new enemies, missions, combo weapons.
Capcom’s crossover fighters have shown it is no stranger to the Marvel Universe, but now the publisher is taking a page from the comic company’s “What If?” series. Capcom today announced Dead Rising 2: Off the Record, a stand-alone spin-off that answers the question, “What if Frank West had been present at the Fortune City outbreak?”
Set for release this fall on the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC, Off the Record offers an alternate storyline to last year’s horror action game, with photojournalist West–the star of the original Dead Rising–getting the scoop on a zombie outbreak in the Las Vegas-like Fortune City. In addition to the combo weapon feature introduced in Dead Rising 2, Off the Record will bring back the original game’s photography feature, where players gain experience for snapping pics that are judged for their horror, drama, brutality, and erotic content.
As for new features, Off the Record includes new missions, enemies, combo weapons, environments, items, and vehicles. The game will also feature technical improvements like reduced load times and better network performance for online play. Capcom is also promising “enhancements” to the save system and co-op modes.
Legendary skateboarder says fresh series entry “probably” coming sometime next year; developer/publisher not named.
In early February, Activision announced that it had put the Tony Hawk skateboarding series on hold, saying that no new franchise entry would arrive in 2011. However, the birdman will crash back onto the scene in 2012, if comments from Hawk himself prove accurate.
In an interview with PixelatedGeek, Hawk was queried as to whether or not gamers can expect more Tony Hawk games in the future. He responded, “We’re going to do something probably for next year but I can’t give too much away.” Activision officials have said they still see potential in the franchise, saying in December that Tony Hawk has the staying power of Michael Jordan.
Meet John, he is a man with a mission who refuses to die!
Sony launches a very clever viral campaign about Little Big Planet 2 focusing on the actual people responsible for building & developing the game.
“What would be your dream job? How about designing video games that are exploring new creative possibilities and pushing the medium to its limits?
No other medium has the creative possibilities and imaginative potential of video games – right now we’re seeing new generations of game designers ripping up the rule book and using their energies and imaginations to stretch the platform’s capabilities and explore uncharted ground.
Gamers who honed their craft as hobbyists and invest their creations with great passion, wit and wonder. And who doesn’t want to play games like that?”
June 23, 2011, will mark the 20th anniversary of the release of the first ‘Sonic the Hedgehog’ for the Genesis, and Sega will mark the occasion with a new title for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.
Sega’s teaser trailer begins with a rendered Sonic being shown running around a 3D recreation of one of his typical landscapes — almost ‘Sonic Adventures’-ish — before he is joined by a version of his less-detailed older self, complete with the origianl black eyes.
What does the presence of a second Sonic mean? Multiplayer? Alternate universes a la ‘Spider-man: Shattered Dimensions’? Sega hasn’t said anything, not even the actual name of the game.
Certain people you just can’t please. And by “certain people,” we mean Sonic fans. In the hedgehog’s two decades on this earth he’s garnered an incredibly broad fan base from 16-bit platforms, 3D games, comics and TV shows. Meaning poor Sonic has to cater to several different sects of conflicting expectations, that’ll ultimately leave someone unreasonably dissatisfied. But that’s not gonna stop Sega from trying!
First of short series to debut on Machinima.com next week, one week before next game in franchise launches.
It looks like April will be a busy month for Mortal Kombat fans. On April 19, the latest game in the series, titled simply Mortal Kombat, will debut on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.
The eagerly awaited next installment in the franchise–which just went gold–will see the return of the gruesome fatalities and hardcore violence that the series is known for.
Now, it appears that the prior week will also have something new for Mortal Kombat fans. Hadoken.net reports that at 4 p.m. PDT next Tuesday, Machinima.com will stream the first episode of a live-action series of shorts based on the Mortal Kombat universe.
The event will apparently be available via the network’s YouTube channel, on a page currently marked as private. However, the screening was tacitly confirmed by series director Kevin Tancharoen via his tweet.
The live-action series, first teased via an eight-minute film released last June, features a reimagined Mortal Kombat universe and will feature such characters as Reptile, Baraka, and Sonya. It will be produced by Warner Bros., which is also publishing the game.
The company promised that the series will “take gamers deep into the history of warriors they know and love such as Scorpion, Johnny Cage, and Liu Kang.” Black Dynamite and Spawn star Michael Jai White will reportedly play Jackson “Jax” Briggs in the series.
Green Lantern: Rise of the Manhunters is an action adventure that will be available in conjunction with Warner Bros. Pictures’ superhero feature film, Green Lantern – Rise of the Manhunters takes flight on June 7.
Game and book publishers teaming up to create transmedia properties across “multiple mediums,” plan to translate more offerings from game library into novels.
THQ is a big fan of transmedia. The game publisher is currently helping with a SyFy channel miniseries that will bridge the story between Red Faction Guerilla and the upcoming Armageddon. It also recently backed Homefront: Voice of Freedom, the novelization of its already-platinum shooter Homefront.
Now THQ is taking another step forward in its transmedia efforts. Today, the company announced that it has inked a deal with book publishing giant Random House Publishing Group to develop all-new intellectual properties. The agreement will see a creative team assembled from representatives of both companies that will create “a rich IP universe” that will manifest itself in “a collection of games and books.”
One aspect of the collaboration will be the creation of “world bibles” for THQ game series through the Random House Publishing Group’s IP creation and development group, Random House Worlds. No further details were given other than THQ would continue to try and bring its current IP library to “all existing book formats” with Random House’s assistance. Whether or not that means a WWE: Smackdown vs. Raw novel is in the works remains to be seen.
Beenox and Activision show off Spider-Man’s latest time-hopping adventure.
Following the success of last year’s Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions, Activision crowned Canadian developer Beenox as the primary developer on future titles featuring the Marvel Comics icon. The first game to be primed for release following the developer’s “lead spider developer” status is the recently announced Spider-Man: Edge of Time. While the game isn’t a direct sequel to Shattered Dimensions, it shares its predecessors multi-Spidey vibe, albeit with a new twist.
Whereas Shattered Dimensions offered an action adventure ensemble, Edge of Time changes the formula by putting a buddy-cop-movie twist on the action and throwing in some time travel for good measure. We recently had the chance to get a proper run through the game by Beenox and Activision reps, which showed off what the game is going to offer.
As we noted earlier, Edge of Time is not a direct sequel to Shattered Dimensions. The game features an original story that revolves around Spider-Man 2099 and Amazing Spider-Man teaming up to stop a chronal catastrophe that threatens their worlds and just about everything in between. The time shenanigans kick off in 2099 when an evil scientist travels back in time to change the timeline to something a little more conducive to the evil scientist lifestyle. Unfortunately, this requires some murder, namely the death of Amazing Spider-Man.
While Spider-Man 2099 tries to stop the scientist before he starts, the futuristic wallcrawler just misses him and winds up getting caught in a time bubble that protects him from the timeline changes that happen around him. The good news is that he retains his memories of how things should be and is able to contact Amazing Spider-Man before his death.
The bad news is that the two don’t get along, which gets the cross-time team off to a rough start. Will the pair find a way to get along and save the day? Probably, but from the look of things, it’s not going to be easy.
