IDN News – Post 100, Arkham Knight, Gamescom 2015, and Deals With Gold

So E3 is over, and Gamescom is now the next stop on the video game hype train. Gamescom takes place in Cologne, Germany in August 2015. I’ll be keeping my eye on the event and posting the news and conference details. I’ll add another heading by the E3 heading. Once PAX and Extra Life roll around, I might just turn that link into an Event’s drop down, to conserve space.

There hasn’t really been a ton of news, I guess because everyone has just been playing Batman Arkham Knight. My copy has arrived, so I hope to get the chance to play it, and then share my thoughts, next week.

Tomorrow is game night, so there should be some Twitch streams to checkout.

Beyond that, I’m still playing The Crew, and wrapping up BADLAND. Evolve has been a fun getaway into multiplayer mayhem, and Illestrader got himself a copy, so we’ll have some Let’s Plays of that.

Gamescom news and Gold Deals of the week conclude today, and I’ve still got some more to post over the next few days, to wrap up the week.


Microsoft Gamescom 2015
Following Microsoft’s E3 2013 press conference, they’ve announced that their upcoming Gamescom press conference in Cologne, Germany will focus on Scalebound, Quantum Break and Crackdown, with new game reveals for Xbox One and Windows 10.


Deals With Gold

Xbox One
Plants vs Zombies Garden Warfare
Peggle 2
Tower of Guns
Thomas Was Alone

Xbox 360
Burnout Paradise
Crysis 2
Mirror’s Edge
Plants vs Zombies Garden Warfare
Skate 3
Peggle 2
Fuse
Syndicate
MX vs ATV Alive & Reflex

Peggle 2 and Plants Vs Zombies are free for those who have EA Access. Fuse was a lot of fun as a co-op game and Syndicate was an interesting game, with unique mechanics.


-iRogan

IDL GAMES – New Game Tuesday and some News

Well, we all know the big game this week, so lets jump right in.

Following the break, we have the new games and deals, and we’ll talk a little about the news and what we have coming later this week on the site.


Batman: Arkham Knight (Xbox One, PS4, PC) – The game is finally here, after only a few delays. Probably worth it. I posted the launch trailer yesterday, and I’ve been excited about this game for a while. It’s on order and will be arriving into my hands shortly, so I’ll be leaving my impressions soon. I don’t anticipate waiting on this game, letting it grow stale on my shelf like some undeserving others. 😥

Tales From the Borderlands: Episode 3 – Catch a Ride (PC, X360, PS3, PS4, Xbox One) – I really enjoyed Episode 1, and now that 3 is out, I should get started on Ep 2.

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Dishonored 2’s Path Chosen To Go
Dishonored 2 is another game high on my anticipation list, and will be added to the E3 page for ongoing opinions. Recently out of E3 was the announcement of a secondary female character. After about 20-30 minutes into the story playing as the new female, Emily, we’re given a choice of continuing as her, or doing the remainder of the game as Corvo. This change is permanent for the remainder of the story but doesn’t change the missions, just the perspective and commentary.

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Deals with Gold and Spotlight Sale
Xbox One
The Crew and Season Pass each 50% off
Evolve and Deluxe Edition each 50% off
Wolfenstein Bundle 35-45% off

I’m currently playing through The Crew, and I’m really liking it. It’s everything I wanted for a social racer. The season pass, which includes 4 monthly car packs plus 2 exclusive cars, might now be worth it.

Evolve, unfortunately, I have not had a chance to try, save for PAX 2014 where I played the monster. Might be time to give it a shot now that it’s on sale. Maybe it’s too late though? This sale comes in time for The Hunting Season Pass 2.

Xbox 360
Ghost Recon: Future Soldier 75% off
Splinter Cell Double Agent 75% off
Grand Theft Auto V 58% off
Grand Theft Auto IV 80% off
Grand Theft Auto San Andreas 75% off
Skyrim 60-66% off
Fallout New Vegas 60-66% off
Dishonored 60-66%
The Evil Within  60-66% off


I’m currently working on adding new material to the E3 page as info continues to surface. I’ll also be working on a PAX Prime 2015 page for the convention in September, and a Extra Life page for the 24 hour video game marathon in November.

I’m continuing to play The Crew and Badland, and streaming those games on Twitch occasionally. I should have a Badland review up this week as the game is a hell of a lot of fun.

I also recently dropped back into Destiny, so I’ll be posting a little summary of the House of Wolves DLC and more info about Year 2 and The Taken King expansion.

-iRogan

E3 2015 – Sony Press Conference – Live

SONY E3 2015 Press Conference

*Live blog. Please refresh*


-Just a few minutes till the show. Some quick hopefuls: Uncharted 4, LOL THE LAST GUARDIAN? 


-6pm – Press conference is live. Showing a sizzle reel for all the upcoming Sony games.

-Please welcome Shawn Layden. New reality of gaming is boundless. More than traditional gaming with the social connectivity. First game of the night, highly anticipated by the Sony community. Heroism and companionship, poetic story telling. Alluding to Uncharted? Nope, The Last Guardian. WTF!!?!?


The Last Guardian

-Trailer shows gameplay. The child and his beast. His giant, winged griffon thing. The child mimics jumping and the beast jumps across the valley, and waits. The player traverses down the ladder and makes the jump himself, but won’t make it, so his beast catches him on the other side. We command the beast via the child we play. Very much like ICO and Shadow of the Colossus. More like ICO with map platforming puzzles. Incredible level physics destruction. We need to make the run as the platform starts to come apart. The griffon misses the catch but uses its tail. Incredible emotional puzzles involving both the player and out beast, as we climb on its back and assist its climbing the ruins. The beast act and whines like a dog, has horns and feathers and little wings.

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– Sony has reintroduced The Last Guardian. 8 years after the first announcement. 2016. Acknowledge the visionary director behind the title.


Horizon: Zero Dawn

Guerrilla Games Herman Hulst is up next. Makers of Kill Zone. Latest franchise. Captured on the PlayStation 4. Trailer starts in a cave covered in cave painting and hieroglyphics. Showcases Native Americans. Alludes to a time after the fall of man, of the big cities. Of the re-birth of a new planet as the cities faded away. New life. New tribe.

“The first to hunt, the first to raise our bows.”

The animals are now robots. A new take on the battle between man and machine.

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-Game looks gorgeous. Huge techno dinosaur-like creatures. Smaller techno deer-like creatures. Traditional bow and arrow, but with arrow mods. Awesome destruction elements. Game play shows the huntress taking on a large robotic dinosaur with the bow and arrow, one on one. One bow mod is a grappling tether that can attach to the ground. Then highlighting the weak point, takes it down. Horizon: Zero Dawn.

“A storm is coming”

From the creators of Kill Zone, this game looks absolutely incredible.


Hitman

Square Enix. Pre-rendered trailer showing an impressive future, celebrities, important people, and then cut with an agent running, cut to a sniper. New Hitman. The agent running in the woods was Hitman. Beautiful trailer.

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-World premiere of the new Hitman. Exotic locations. High profile targets. Agent 47 returns. Most ambitious title to-date. Starting with a digital release.

-PS4 exclusive beta to PS4 first.


Street Fighter 5

-Starts with a gameplay trailer. Showcases some of the iconic fighters. Very cool gameplay with the same art style as the previous game. PS4 beta starts July 23rd.


No Man’s Sky

Hello Games, Sean Murray. No Man’s Sky. Gameplay starts in the ship, and leaves the space station to space. Shows that we’re on the boundary of two warring factions where we can join in and take sides.

-Zooms out and shows our current location in the current solar system. Pulls back and shows more stars, that can be reached. Pulls back more! Forever more. Every point is a sun, and each sun has a solar system with planets and life. The map zooms out forever. Sean says most of these places have never been visited and may never be.

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-We’re gonna pick a place at random, and travel to a place we haven’t been to. Procedurally generated galaxy, undiscovered. Scans of the solar system shows points of interest. Beacons are found, and this is where you can upload discoveries, as we land on the planet. Not the prettiest planet he jokes. “I’ve seen better”. Every planet is fully destructible. The planet’s sentinels show up and we walk away under water, and fish are shown. The beacon is found to upload our discovery. Every planet is new and unique.

-Will announce a release date soon. Trading, fighting, exploring, survival. It’s a huge game.


Dreams

Media Molecule, makers of Little Big Planet. New game challenges our ability to create. Think of a dream like world. Share the dream space of others and share you creation to others. Game is like a moving painting. Using the controller at the paint brush. Quick, intuitive, and fun. Piece together a painting and then act it out, using controller performance capture as puppeteering. Quick trailer shows some of the dreams made with the tool: piano player, polar bear, space battles, teddy bear vs ground monsters, back to the piano player who  is now a polar bear. Game doesn’t have typical polygons or animations. Art is fluffy looking.


Firewatch

-Intense mystery in the Wyoming wilderness. Firewatch. Blocky models and very colourful. Trailer is narrated by a woman’s voice and we talk to her throughout the adventure. First person forest adventure game. Dark and mysterious adventure.

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Destiny

-Next great adventure in Destiny. Trailer announces Orix, the Take King. Follows the Crota Raid. Orix is out for revenge, as we killed his son, and is bringing a dark army to hunt us. Shows the new subclasses for each guardian. New enemies, new planets?

“Orix is coming. You’ve got his attention, now go get his head”

Destiny: The Taken King coming September 15th, 2015. Exclusive content on PlayStation.


Assassin’s Creed Syndicate

-Trailer starts with Jocob Frye’s voice, but the main focus is Evie Frye, his twin sister. Shows the new weapons for Evie, the cane-sword, and throwing knives. Exclusive missions called the Dreadful Crimes, for the PS4.


World of Final Fantasy

-Cute little trailer with cartoony characters.Welcome to Grimwoir. Show’s tiny monsters. Adorable enemies and heroes. Small in stature with a grand fate. Small and cute. PS4 and PS Vita. World of Final Fantasy.

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-Very special treat from Square Enix. Trailer shows a revolutionary city, with ominous music. Jaws-like. Final Fantasy 7 Remake. First to Playstation 4. People are flipping out!


-4 new games from Devolver Digital:

  • Ronin – assassin-like 2-d sidescroller.
  • EITR – pixel hack and slash.
  • Mother Russia Bleeds, pixel gore brawler.
  • And Crossing Souls, cartoony adventure game.

Shenmue 3? “Time to unfold the story.” Announced via Kickstarter. Yu Suzuki comes to the stage to discuss the project. Countdown to the kick off of the kickstarter. 5,4,3,2,1.

-Start funding. 2 million dollar goal.


Batman Arkham Knight

-Steam works type trailer, with old music. Joker. Batman Arkham Knight. :).  Joker is in a furnace getting torched. Flames turn into the bat symbol.

-First person perspective of Officer Owens in a diner. Gets attacked by scarecrow and starts to seen crazy enemies. Scarecrow Missions exclusive for PS4.

-This game looks especially dark. and comes out next week. WOo!


Project Morpheus and Playstation Media

-VR landscape look awesome, providing such innovative game options for developers. Morpheus will allow co-op game play with other people. Multiplayer game Rigs is shown, 3 vs. 3 multiplayer arena game. Morpheus is a choice, add value to the console.

-Partnered Playstation Music with Spotify. Expanded Playstation View, live TV streaming service. Allow users to subscribe to individual channels, not ties to bundles. PS Plus members get discounted rates.

-Playstation is partnering with Activision to bring Call of Duty. Playstation gets COD first now.


Call of Duty Black ops III

-Deepest and most engaging COD ever, campaign, multiplayer, and zombies. Gritty campaign, redesigned from the ground up. Load-out available before the mission starts, and supports 4 player co-op.

call-of-duty-black-ops-3

-Game looks good, and smooth. Starts in a ship, and we find the pilot with reenforcing bar stabbed through the chest. The ship falls and we need to leave. Very futurist looking. New powers available with the suit. Advanced battleground with lots of spider tanks and walkers. Ability to control friendly walkers. Level destruction looks amazing. Lots of digital HUD elements. Story sizzle reel trailer wraps up.

-David Vonderhaar – Treyarch. Introduce Black Ops III multiplayer. Game play trailer shows new powers and mobility, and female fighters. Underwater parts to the maps. Multiplayer looks fast and epic.

-New era with Call of Duty and Playstation. New home of Call of Duty, getting all dlc map packs first.


-Sizzle reel of upcoming titles. Hitman, Batman, Dues Ex, Mad Max, Uncharted, Horizon, Destiny, Metal Gear Solid, MLB, Street Fighter, LEGO, The Last Guardian, and Until Dawn. Ratchet and Clank too.

-PS Vita sizzle reel up next: Tearaway, Dreamers, Tony Hawk, among others.


Star Wars

-Star Wars music blasts into the arena. Shawn Layden is back to discuss Disney Infinity, Twilight of the Republic. Epic light-saber combat. Rise Against the Empire playset. Disney Infinity 3.0. Wold premiere trailer – Rise Against the Empire. Ends with Boba Fett.

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Star Wars Battlefront. Patrick Bach – DICE, comes to the stage. Here to discuss the co-op and solo game modes. Battle game mode, hero encounters, trials, and survival are the solo and co-op options for the game. Trailer debut for Survival – wave based gameplay. Shows storm troopers and shock troopers. Gameplay looks amazing with authentic sounds and blasts. Lots of sparks, like the movies. Split screen support. Tag line – Live out Your Fantasies.


Uncharted: A Thief’s End

-Small title up next, which requires no introduction. Only on PlayStation. Long delay here….

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-Starts with a statue of Black Beard. Naughty Dog. Nate and Sully enter the shot, and open a large wooden door into a market. Gameplay shows lots of people milling about the market. Looks like the demo is having controller malfunction though. Nate’s not moving.

-Demo restarts with the Pirate statue. LOL. Woops. Visuals look amazing at least. Lots of interactions with the civilians.  Gun fire in our direction, and the real demo begins. Amazing physics, and level destruction. Great animations as expected. Gun play looks a little more consistent and refined. Still Triangle to pick up ammo. Witty dialogue still apparent between Sully and Nate. Great dialogue.

uncharted-4-nathan-drake

-Amazing level platforming and the ability to drive vehicles. Different paths can be taken to avoid enemy gunfire. Great level destruction while driving. Seems we can drive anywhere. Come across a construction site, and have to go off-road. Enemy truck drives through the wall. Camera zooms in on Nate and Sully to show highlighted points of interest.

-Driving sequence is amazingly detailed. Following a convoy now, off-road. Nate jumps up front and tell Sully to grab the wheel. We grapple on the truck and swing under the bridge and the truck attached to the convoy. Demo ends when we are about to crash into a wall.

*breath*


-Press conference over.

-Phew. Typical with Sony’s Conferences, there’s no room for breathing, just game after game. They’ll probably break the internet with FF7 and The Last Guardian, and Uncharted 4.


-E3 Day Zero is over. Tomorrow I’ll talk about Square Enix’s conference. Hopefully more info about Hitman and Dues Ex.

-I’ll prob discuss a little more about my thoughts and opinions on each announcement, and what has me most excited.

-iRogan

NEWS – Happy Anniversary, Also Other Stuff :)

So today will mark my 1 year anniversary of the website. Kind of exciting, I wont lie. I definitely had a slow start to this blogging thing, and really only started to pick it up regularly a few months ago. So we’ll see how we’re doing one year from THAT date. But I am enjoying it, as it provides a platform to get all this video game knowledge, opinions, reviews, and news out of my system, and that’s all that matters.

I hope you are enjoying it as much as me.

With that, onto the news. Today we discuss May’s Xbox Games With Gold, Dead Island 2 delays, Watch Dogs 2, and Batman: Arkham Knight news.


May’s Game with Gold
First up for the Xbox One, we have CastleStorm: Definitive Edition. I’ll be trying it out, and will be discussing my feelings next week on What I’m Playing. Up next on the 360 we have F1 2013 and Mafia II. I’ve tries the F1 games and didn’t enjoy the experience.I felt the games we’re too confusing. Maybe too simulation. Required too much effort on my part. Mafia II, however, is a great game, and worth picking up. Might try another play through.

Dead Island 2 Delays
Deep Silver has announced that Dead Island 2 has been delayed till next year sometime. Nice and specific ;).

Batter Up!

Batter Up!

Xbox 360 Now Supports Larger Harddrives
With the latest update for the Xbox 360, the console now supports hard-drives up to 2TB of space.

Watch Dogs 2 Confirmed?
The announcement of Watch Dogs 2 looks like it might have been accidentally revealed be an employee’s LinkedIn profile. No comment yet from Ubisoft.

I really enjoyed Watch Dogs 1. It had a lot of good ideas and was the first open world game on the next-gen. Obviously there were things wrong with it, but a sequel is exciting all the same.

Batman: Arkham Knight Season Pass and Batgirl
WB Games has responded to the uproar their $40 6-month Season Pass announcement created, with some new details:

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  • New prequel story set in a new location will feature Batgirl as a playable character.
  • All new story missions featuring legendary super-villains invading Gotham City (new story arcs, missions and gameplay features)
  • Play as Batman’s key allies in narrative missions extending their storylines from before and after the events of Arkham Knight
  • Drive iconic Batmobiles from the 75 year history of the franchise on custom-built race tracks.
  • Additional challenge maps and character skins

Tomorrow we’ll discuss the news and new games. I think I’ll move What I’m Playing to Thursday, even though the alliteration doesn’t work, and the Review to Friday. This gives me a mid-week break to provide more, thorough, content, and wrap the week with a Review which I think is more appropriate.

As I’m always reminding myself: this is all a work-in-progress.

Nothing is True. Everything is Permitted.

-iRogan