The next season of Kevin Tancharoen’s excellent Mortal Kombat webseries is on its way soon and has a fancy new trailer. I know I’m not alone in being excited for this given how great the first season was, and this trailer only serves to make the new season more exciting.
Category Archives: News Snippets
Bungie’s Destiny Revealed
Bungie has finally stepped out from the shadows to reveal their first post-Halo console project. Set in a future where Earth has been all but destroyed, Destiny places players in the boots of a soldier–a guardian of the city built beneath “The Traveler”–tasked with saving the city. What little is shown in this video looks incredibly promising, it’s great to see Jason Jones again, and Bungie will, no doubt, deliver an amazing gaming experience over the next decade. Destiny Awaits:
Two Star Wars Spinoff Films Planned
With Disney’s purchase of Lucasfilm, a new trilogy of Star Wars films was pretty quickly announced with Episode VII scheduled for a 2015 release with J.J. Abrams directing. Though that is not all fans of the franchise can expect in the coming years with two spinoff films officially announced. These films will not be “Episodes” and each film will focus on a separate character and the films will be able to stand on their own. The intention of these films is to expand the universe beyond the current six films for movie goers.
Lawrence Kasdan (writer of The Empire Strikes Back and Raiders of the Lost Ark) will write one of the films with Sherlock Holmes screenwriter Simon Kinberg writing the other. These films will be released some time after Episode VII.
Source: StarWars.com
The Witcher 3 Announced for Next Gen Consoles and PC
CD Projekt RED has announced the third installment of its The Witcher franchise. The developer claims that the game will be the largest modern RPG and will be 30x larger than The Witcher 2. This next installment will use CD Projekt’s new engine REDengine 3 and will be the first game to utilize said engine. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt will be an open world game said to be 20% larger than the world in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim–the map will take over 30 minutes to cross on horseback!
Wild Hunt will be the final installment of the series developed by CD Projekt RED and will be released in 2014 for PC and “all high-end platforms available.”
In related Witcher news, the first two games are currently on sale on Steam for $5 and $10 and the second game has received a permanent price drop on Xbox 360 (officially down to $30).
Current & Upcoming Sales on XBLM
From now until February 4th, Xbox gamers will be able to pick from a large selection of EA games and add-ons from XBLM. The games included are Shank 1 & 2, Death Spank and Thongs of Virtue, Dragon Age: Origins and its sequel, and several other games. The DLC available for discounted prices include several add-ons for DA:O, DA 2, Mass Effect 3, Battlefield 3, and more. Details on the sale can be found on Xbox Live Marketplace.
Coming up this next week for Xbox Live Gold members will be discounts on XBLA games Alan Wake’s American Nightmare, Hydrophobia, Orcs Must Die, and more from 50 – 67% off. Hydrophobia will be going for $2 (160 MSP), Orcs Must Die and the Alan Wake spin-off episode will be reduced to 600 MSP ($7.50), and the remaining titles will be available for 400 MSP ($5). The sale begins February 5th and runs through the 11th.
Source: Major Nelson
PS4 to be Unveiled this Month–Xbox this Spring
We all have known this was coming for a while now–the current generation of consoles is over 7 years old (the Xbox 360 originally launched in November of 2005) and many believe a new console generation is long overdue. According to Polygon, the next PlayStation game console will be officially unveiled this month. Microsoft, however, plans to unveil their next console in the spring. Both platforms are expected to launch this holiday season.
A PlayStation meeting is scheduled for February 20 and will highlight the future of Sony’s PlayStation brand.
Source: Polygon
Duncan Jones to Direct “Warcraft”
Duncan Jones, director of science fiction films Moon and Source Code, will be taking over as director of the film adaptation of Warcraft. Sam Raimi, director of the Spider-Man trilogy and the upcoming Oz the Great and Powerful, was originally signed as the director, but he detached himself from the project in favor of Oz.
Blood Diamond screenwriter Charles Leavitt will pen the script for Warcraft with production planned to begin this fall. Warcraft is expected to release in 2015.
Source: Hollywood Reporter
XSEED Releasing Several Titles Stateside in 2013
Confirming the rumors that XSEED would localize Killer is Dead for North American audiences is a press release from Kadokawa Games. The press release states, “KADOKAWA GAMES today announced a partnership with XSEED Games to bring ‘KILLER IS DEAD’ to North America… ‘KILLER IS DEAD’ is expected to launch worldwide in Summer 2013 for PlayStation®3 and Xbox 360.” Killer is Dead will be released in European territories by Deep Silver.
In addition to Killer is Dead, XSEED will be releasing Pandora’s Tower (the last of the three “Operation Rainfall” games) for Wii, Rune Factory 4 for Nintendo’s 3DS, Ys: Memories of Celceta and Valhalla Knights 3 for PlayStation Vita, and remakes of the first two Ys games for PC this year.
Source: Joystiq
GTA V and Fuse Delayed
Rockstar’s highly anticipated fifth (numbered) installment in the Grand Theft Auto franchise has been delayed from its initial planned release of spring 2013 to September 17. The press release states, “The September release date moves the launch back from its original projected release window of spring 2013 in order to allow additional development time.”
Insomniac’s first multi-platform game Fuse has also been delayed to the second quarter of 2013.
South Park New Season Format
Comedy Central’s popular animated series South Park will be presented in shorter seasons going forward. Since season 8 of the series, each year consisted of 14 episodes divided into two runs of seven episodes. Future seasons of South Park will consist of 10 episodes that will air weekly without a break. South Park has been renewed until 2016.
Matt Stone and Trey Parker, the creators of South Park, have stated that their reasons for this change in season formatting is due to the variety of ways in which viewers access new episodes (e.g. watching on Hulu or South Park Studios’ website) and manageability with Trey Parker stating the new format is “more manageable and ensures that it will be something we are proud of.” Reducing the number of episodes in a season and completing its run in a single shot may also give the series’ c0-creators more time to work on other projects such as the upcoming videogame South Park: The Stick of Truth.
Season 17 of the show will premiere September 25, 2013.
Source: IGN
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