American McGee Considering Alice 3?

American McGee, creator of the twisted Alice games inspired by the works of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland tales, may be looking into developing a third game in the franchise.  Posting on his Facebook a picture featuring a caption that asks fans if they would be interested in said game if he could get the rights from EA and if they would help fund the game on Kickstarter.  As a fan of American McGee’s Alice Madness Returns, finding it to be one of the best games of 2011, I’m hoping that this is something that is followed up on and made a reality.

 

Source:  Facebook

Square Enix Sale on Xbox Live

Square Enix is currently holding a large publisher sale on Xbox Live.  The list includes nearly 50 items including games and downloadable expansions at 50% off.  Live users can get Tomb Raider: Underworld, Tomb Raider: Anniversary, Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Sleeping Dogs,  and Dungeon Siege III among others for a discounted price.  The sale runs until March 18.  You can see all the available items on xbox.com.

Sony’s PlayStation 4 Revealed

On Wednesday, February 20, 2013, Sony finally revealed their next videogame console:  the PlayStation 4.  While there had been a lot of speculation leading up to the event, it’s nice to finally have some details confirmed and, after seven years, we can look forward to a new console gaming generation this fall.

Here’s a brief rundown of the system:  The PS4’s new controller will feature a touch pad, a light bar which can indicate character health as well as act as work in tandem with PlayStation Eye (similar to PS Motion), has redesigned analogue sticks with concave grips, and a new “social” button which opens up a social menu.  The PlayStation Eye has also been vastly improved and now features two cameras with 1200 x 800 resolution–the two cameras allow depth recognition.

The system itself is equipped with a “powerful custom chip that contains eight x86-64 cores and a state of the art graphics processor.”  The PS4 also has 8 gigs of GDDR5 memory allowing 176GB per second bandwidth and higher graphic fidelity.

Games announced for the PlayStation 4 include a new title in the inFamous series titled Second Son, Killzone: Shadow Fall, Bungie’s Destiny with exclusive content, The Witcher 3, Ubisoft’s Watch_Dogs (which was announced at E3 2012), Diablo III (which will also make an appearance on the PS3 for the eager, console-bound dungeon adventurers), among others.  The upcoming content seems to be a strong lineup, but there’s little new content to entice potential buyers at this early stage–E3 is likely to bring more exciting news on the next PlayStation.

It’s also worth noting that the PS4 will play used games, contradicting past rumors that the system would block the use of pre-owned titles.  The PS4 will not, however, be backwards compatible and past PSN purchases on previous platforms will not be accessible on the new system.  While Sony plans to circumvent the backwards compatibility issue with a streaming service, the lack of any native support for older titles is discouraging.

Nevertheless, the PlayStation 4 looks to be a powerful gaming machine and it’s certainly exciting to move on to a new generation of console gaming hardware this holiday season.

Mortal Kombat: Legacy II Koming Soon

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.

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:

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).

 

Sources:  Joystiq, Kotaku

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