Take-Two Software announced in a press release through Business Wire today that Rockstar Games’ upcoming release, Max Payne 3, will be moved back to a release date in May.
This delay in release adds Max Payne to the list of titles scheduled to be released in the fiscal year, which ends March 31st, 2013.
In a direct quote from Strauss Zelnick, Chairman and CEO of Take-Two, Zelnick reassures that the company wants Max Payne 3 to be at its best quality for release.
“We do not take changes to our release schedule lightly, and this short delay will ensure that Max Payne 3 delivers the highest quality, groundbreaking entertainment experience that is expected from our Company,” said Strauss Zelnick, Chairman and CEO of Take-Two. “Max Payne 3 promises to be one of our most exciting releases to date, and we are confident that consumers will once again be amazed by Rockstar’s ability to take interactive entertainment to another level.”
“With Max Payne 3 now slated for May, our robust lineup of upcoming releases for fiscal 2013 is even stronger, including BioShock® Infinite, Borderlands 2, Spec Ops: The Line, XCOM, XCOM: Enemy Unknown, and other titles yet to be announced for release that year. Fiscal 2013 is poised to be one of our best years ever, with anticipated substantial revenue growth and Non-GAAP Net Income of over $2.00 per share. We are well positioned to deliver growth and profitability over the long term.”
According to the press release, Take-Two Software expects to reduce its fiscal year 2012 net revenue by $210 – 230 million and Non-GAAP net income per share by $0.60 – $0.70, including $0.03 – $0.04 per share related to a lower share count of 83 million shares used for purposes of calculating Non-GAAP net income (loss) per share.
Take-Two will update its fiscal 2012 financial outlook to reflect this change and other factors when it announces its third quarter financial results on February 2, 2012.
This last week has certainly been a tough week for Team ICO, Sony, and “The Last Guardian”.
Rumors of Team ICO’s creator Fumito Ueda leaving Sony to finish The Last Guardian surfaced last month, according to eurogamer.net. It was rumored that Ueda was leaving Sony to finish the project freelance, but these rumors have since been faced, and it seems that The Last Guardian will see the light of day, but Ueda will not be sticking around with Sony after the game is shipped out in 2012.
Ueda released a tweet in Japanese, that was released on Game Informer on December 5th, which reads:
“Recently, I have been getting a lot of questions…don’t worry, as usual, I’m still working hard on The Last Guardian.”
The tweet doesn’t exactly dis-spell the rumor, but Eurogamer reports saying that Ueda’s departure from the team has accentuated the ever-growing delay of the project’s launch. It appears Ueda is still working diligently on The Last Guardian, but plans to work on personal projects after the game is finished.
According to Game Informer, a Sony spokesperson spoke out about the Ueda rumor, saying, “the company does not comment on rumor or speculation.”
In recent news, EuroGamer confirms that The Last Guardian’s executive producer and ex-vice president of Sony Computer Entertainment, Yoshifusa Hayama, has left the project to pursue work on social media games, joining Monstermind creator Bossa studios as its creative director. Hayama will work with Bossa Studios to release its first 3D game, set for launch this year.
The Last Guardian’s release date was pushed back from Holiday 2011 to sometime in 2012.
With files from Game Informer, Eurogamer, and Gamasutra
The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim has taken the world by storm after its release three weeks ago, and a new patch arriving in January will give players a chance to create and construct mods in the world of Skyrim.
The 1.2 version patch will be available for download after the New Year in January, and includes a Creation Kit, allowing users the same development tools as Bethesda software used to create Skyrim, according to overclockersclub.com.
The Creation Kit will allow Skyrim players the same development tools as Bethesda, the developers behind the popular game.
The 1.2 patch also cleared out a lot of programs gamers were facing, and introduced new problems. According to the same site, “some gamers no longer have magic resistance calculated properly on their character or any NPC in the game, plus a few are even seeing dragons fly backwards.”
Bethesda plans to release an update to fix these problems, but as for the Creation Kit, PC gamers can expect to receive this treat sooner that PlayStation and Xbox users. The reason being because “of the relative ease of releasing patches through Steam.”
“Beginning in January, PC players will be able to download the same development tools we used at Bethesda Game Studios to create Skyrim,” reads the post on the Bethesda Blog, as found through the Escapist site. “In tandem with the Creation Kit’s release, we will roll out a new Wiki and videos to help you get started.”
With files from overclockersclub.com and The Escapist
Capcom-Unity has just released the latest trailer to the upcoming 3DS game, Resident Evil Revelations.
As the days go by, we’re starting to see more and more information being released, as well as a ton of new characters coming together with a completely new storyline never seen in the series.
From what I’ve seen from the recent screenshots is the last few days, there seems to be an extreme lack of zombies, but rather a ton of new grotesque-looking enemies that you’d think would be from a Silent Hill game. The enemies are considered to be new bio-organic weapons, or B.O.W.S., mutated in the Umbrella labs.
According to the Resident Evil Wiki, here are plot details:
“Set in 2005, Revelations depicts the events shortly after the establishment of the Bioterrorism Security Assessment Alliance (BSAA), a counter-terrorism group which Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine have co-founded. The trailer that was released showed the two of them talking to an unidentified prisoner on a luxury cruise ship. The principle setting of the game will be Europe, environments in addition to the ship include a port town and a snowy mountain. Jill and her new partner, Parker Luciani are searching for Chris and his new partner, Jessica Sherawat, who have reportedly gone missing during a mission. A mysterious masked man who operates a terrorist organization known as Il Veltro, who are responsible for the bio-terrorist attack in Terragrigia, leaked a new virus called the t-Abyss virus and infecting the Queen Zenobia’s tripulation. Both Chris and Jill are being led into the same trap, and each chapter will alternate between them.”
Most of the photos I found were posted by GregaMan on the Capcom-Unity forums, which yesterday revealed three new characters to be featured in Revelations: O’Brien, Raymond and Morgan. Today, he’s posted two new characters Quint and Keith. And now take a look at some of the enemies. I’ll show three pictures, but seriously, does this not make you think of Silent Hill?
Here are some of the photos:
Quint Ketchum, a new character in Resident Evil Revelations.
Keith Lumley, a new character in Resident Evil Revelations
From left to right: Clive O’Brien, Morgan Lansdale, and Raymond Vester
With files from Capcom-Unity and user GregaMan, and Resident Evil Wiki
According to IndustryGamers.com, GamePro magazine as well as its sister website, GamePro.com, are throwing in the towel after 22 years of service.
The November issue of GamePro magazine is their final publication.
The November issue of GamePro magazine recently launched and will be their final magazine publication.
The move to calling it quits comes after GamePro’s shift to a quarterly magazine plan didn’t work out so well.
GamePro magazine started as a monthly publication in May 1989, and opened its online news portion in May of 1996.
An IDG representative told IndustryGamers that ad revenue wasn’t sufficient enough to survive on a quarterly basis, and layoffs are being made. It is unclear how many have/or have been laid off at this time.
Visitors of GamePro.com will be redirected to the PCWorld GamePro channel on pcworld.com, said GamePro in a quote to IndustryGamers.
According to Mike Kisseberth, who head’s up IDG’s Consumer and Small Business media group, GamePro Media is “refocusing its US business exclusively on its growing custom publishing and solutions business”. GamePro Custom Solutions will be led by Marci Yamaguchi Hughes, the GamePro president, according to IndustryGamers.
“The U.S. editorial and business staff worked hard to earn a passionate, loyal following for GamePro and I am grateful for their dedication and hard work over the years,” said Kisseberth. “GamePro, like all businesses, must keep up with industry changes and economic realities. Marci and her colleagues have tremendous expertise in the games arena, and now they will be putting that knowledge to work for the brands that gamers love. Look for GamePro Custom Solutions to be blazing new trails in online branding for the game industry, providing gamers with deeper, richer interactions with the companies and titles they most want to know about.”
With the November issue of GamePro already published, the GamePro site has until December 5th to be closed down.
As a fan of GamePro.com, and a constant reader of most video game sites, I am deeply saddened by the news of GamePro’s end. I wish all staff good luck in their future endeavors, as GamePro was always one of my favorite gaming news sites. I was able to acquire my own copy of GamePro magazine, and I will cherish it well.
According to an article on Kotaku.com, a Canadian EB games worker said that the line between what’s new and used is fading, and that used games may not even be given their own place on the shelf, though don’t buy in to the rumor just yet.
The plan is to move all games (new and used) into one big section, rather than to separate them by colored price tags.
The original rumor-er also said that they, along with other employees, were to hide the new games behind the used ones.
Kotaku has since been updating their story, and their second tip-off from another reader who claimed to be a Canadian EB Games employee stated:
“I can confirm this 100% we were given instructions last week to start this. We were told that we were to merge all used games with the new games and have them sectioned off by one of four specific genres they gave us. They told us that the new copy must be on the very bottom of the pile and the used ones stacked on top and that we were to change all price stickers to the white ones. They also instructed us to discard all materials advertising used games. Now the stickers do have the words NEW or USED on them but no one looks at that.
HUGE problems with this will of course be with the online code games. Generic_Customer_01 will grab the top copy of NHL 12, go home, and not be able to play online. There are also MANY games where the new copy is as cheap as $19.99 but the used copies stacked on top of it are $34.99. It is also a nightmare to find anything anymore and the
opinion of what games fall in what categories was different even across staff members in the same store.”
An update was later added, suggesting that the whole rumor was false. Until then, Kotaku continues to follow the story as it develops.
Looking for a game that will really scare the pants off you?, well I did.
I was tired of the same old scary games. Resident Evil and Silent Hill do offer an enriching experience in which you can delve into a virtual survival horror experience, with the added bonus of zombies and grotesque monsters in an already twisted reality…but when I saw Fatal Frame 2, I knew I just had to try it.
Originally renting it on the Playstation 2 several years ago (way before I was even legally allowed to be playing horror games of this caliber), I was really impressed with the stunning visuals, and the never-ending feeling of claustrophobia I felt while journeying through this dark tale.
And then I purchased the Director’s Cut about a year ago, maybe only three years after playing the PS2 version and getting stuck halfway through…I really, really wanted to get back into this game.
Mio (left) and Mayu (right) Amakura
The story surrounds twin sisters Mio and Mayu Amakura as they stumble upon a lost village within a forest they are travelling through after following a crimson butterfly. Upon venturing into this village, the twins uncover many of its dark secrets, some that should have been left undiscovered. The twins suddenly become entangled in a web of horror, as the younger twin sister Mayu soon falls under the village’s spell, and Mio must connect the dots of a once failed ceremony/ritual that occurred within the lost village (the sacrifices of which being twin shrine maidens dressed in white kimonos and red lace).
As Mio continues to track down her sister, she ventures deeper into the village, slowly learning more and more about the Crimson Sacrifice Ritual, and the failure of the ritual known as the “Repentance” which has caused the village to slip into darkness. Mio and Mayu soon learn that they are spiritually next in line after previous twins Yae and Sae Kurosawa to perform the ritual, and Mio must snap her sister out of the village’s spell in order to escape this hellish nightmare which unravels before their very eyes.
The most common enemy you face throughout this game are the ghosts. These ghosts are the spirits of the villagers, and victims of the “Repentance”. Of course, most of the ghosts prove harm to the twins Mio and Mayu, so at the beginning of the game, you find the Camera Obscura, which can damage ghosts upon taking a still frame picture of them. As you progress, you can acquire power-ups, as well as special abilities that can be further powered up by the use of spirit orbs, which Mio can collect throughout the village.
One of many ghosts in the game.
Battling ghosts is the highlight of this game, and as I mentioned before it comes with a pinch of claustrophobia. Maybe its just me, but I felt claustrophobic especially fighting ghosts in small rooms, or thin hallways where you have to wait for them to come as close as possible to your camera before taking the shot. If the circle reticule on your camera turns red, that’s your cue to take the picture, because that will deal more damage than a regular picture would.
Along with enemies, you get a variety of puzzles that range in difficulty depending on how well you pay attention and how patient you are. Puzzles include rearranging dolls to match a picture, to matching the right color on crest symbols, to listing the correct order of books on a shelf. Its key to pay attention to many hints throughout the game. The one friendly ghost in the game, a young boy trapped in a small bungalow style home, gives you hints on where in the village to search next, as well as Mayu who murmurs hints under her spell. Hints can help you progress faster throughout the game (and it helps because Mio herself can’t run past 2 kilometres an hour even on her best day).
Broken Neck Ghost
Overall, I give this game an 8.5 out of 10. Not many horror games have really left me scared a second time around, but Fatal Frame 2 has definitely left a lasting impression on me. Taking the simple concept of spirits, as well as Japanese failed rituals, combine that with innocent young twins and a lost village in the middle of the forest where no one can here you scream for help, you’ve got yourself an excellent setting for a Japanese horror game. I would definitely play this game a second time, and maybe on a higher difficulty to see if I can handle the added pressure of exorcising ghosts under claustrophobic encounters.
So yeah, about a month ago I finished Quantum Theory, one of six games I had purchased before I left for my cottage. I bought more games just to expand my library and to try new types of games I hadn’t experienced in a while. Earlier this summer, I had beaten Grand Theft Auto IV FINALLY (also the first GTA I’ve ever beaten), so I thought instead of wasting away my summer on Rock Band, why not just get more games…?? DUH
So here’s my overview of Quantum Theory. You wanna know what I think? Well hell, I really didn’t think it was all that bad of a game. According to Metacritic, it got negative reviews, and I guess I could see where most of the negative views stemmed from. This game is a replica of Gears of War, only without the chainsaw gun.
Now of course there’s more to it than that. So let me just belt out the overall story of the game. You’re in control of a lone-wolf protagonist (I consider him an anti-hero) character, simply named Syd. No middle or last name, just Syd. Syd is one of the few survivors of a recent world war that left the world in a catastrophic state. Life is beyond fixable at this point. Set in a living, breathing science-fiction world, Syd sets out to destroy “towers”, that threaten the very fabric of the remaining world…or so that’s what you get out of the story from start to finish.
You begin the game with a girl named Nyx, and are escaping a tower in a training exercise fashion, as the AI-controlled enemies come out, and you get acquainted with the tricky controls. You may feel like the rest of the game is going to be tricky from here on in, but the better you get at the controls…well then…at least you’ll have the controls down, because the difficulty meter sure picks up once you enter the next tower.
Accompanied by a group of renegade soldiers set on getting in and also bringing down that tower, you assist them, and eventually break through what appears to be one of the most impenetrable towers ever built. I might as well point out at this point that the enemies in this game are known as the Diabolsis, which are like zombies with brains, so basically living, breathing creatures who can fire weapons and use cover, but look grotesque in appearence.
As you progress through the tower, you occasionally work with an attractive tower maiden named Filena, who can surely hold her own in battle, but is a hell of a lot stronger when Syd throws her at enemies a bunch, dealing greater damage to larger foes. You get a wide array of weapons throughout the campaign, but only four slots to hold them, so picking the best weapons and conserving ammo is key. Certain weapons bring down certain enemies faster, so pick cautiously. Though you may not need to worry, the lack of enemies doesn’t make for very many options and variety.
Filena (left) and Syd (right)
The voice acting in this game is terrible. Syd and Filena, as well as other smaller characters continue to recycle old quotes throughout the game. Whether its picking up guns or ammunition, don’t be surprised if Syd says “All mine”, or “Mmmmm, ammo”. once, twice, maybe multiple times every few minutes.
I have yet to try the multiplayer, but to be honest, I really don’t think I want to. If this game is indeed a spiritual replica of GoW, then there’s no need to really delve in to the experience. And to be frank, who’s really going to be playing Quantum Theory anyways? I doubt I could even find five people who have either played or even heard of the game. If this game brings forth a sequel, I’ll be very surprised. There’s not much else going for this game other than controlling a burly, gun-totting protagonist through towers, destroying the Diabolsis, before it can infect the world. A sequel would just be a repeat of what’s already on the table, and I’m really not hungry for seconds.
Sadly, I can’t see myself playing this game again for a really, really long time. So in the end, I would give this game a 6.5 out of 10. I have to praise the difficulty factor, and that it really upped the intensity near the end. But besides that, controls were very sloppy, the AI was atrocious, and Syd is nothing special in my books. Also Filena…yeah she can go fall in a ditch and die. She spent half the game at my throat anyways, why should I show any sympathy for the bitch?
Riddle Me This, Batman. What happens when you lose something that means so much to you, and you could never get it back? Terrible riddle indeed, and an easy one to solve.
Xbox 360 players have been reporting missing save files on their Batman: Arkham City games.
Sorry Batman, try again.
According to several posts on Arkham City’s official forum, players are reporting a bug in the system that’s deleting their saved files without warning. Reports suggest players who’ve lost data range from six hours of gameplay to 80% completed.
A rumor suggests that the bug may stem from the Catwoman DLC, which did have its share of problems upon launch date, including game freezing.
After months of speculation and rumors, the first official trailer for GTA V was released across the gaming news waves.
The first logo revealed for GTAV
The first thing everyone notices about the trailer is the stunning graphics. The colours, the lighting, the detail, everything is eye-catching. As you continue watching, you start to wonder what the setting is…that’s the real question. When the “Vinewood” sign appears near the end of the trailer, it confirms the rumor that GTAV will take place in San Andreas. The protagonist sounds like a caucasian male, and similar to GTAIV’s Niko Bellic, is just trying to settle down and start a life for himself, primarily become a dad and raise a family.
I don’t want to keep spoiling things for you, so watch the trailer for yourself and voice your opinions.
