NEWS – New Games Get Released, and Konami Taketh Away

So, to get the big news out of the way, Konami has confirmed that Hideo Kojima and Guillermo Del Toro’s Silent Hills featuring The Walking Dead’s Norman Reedus has officially been cancelled.

Say it ain't so....

Say it ain’t so….

Originally revealed during a Playable Teaser released on the PS4, Silent Hills had a lot of buzz surrounding it, namely because of the people attached to the project. The project, however, has had an air of confusion surrounding it ever since the announcement of Kojima Productions and Konami splitting after the release of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. Since then it’s been a downward spiral of negative revelations.

Following the announcement of the split, the PS4 playable teaser was announced to be removed from the PS Store. Then Guillermo Det Toro announced that he was no longer attached to the project with Norman Reedus and Hideo Kojima. Then Konami delisted itself from the NY Stock Exchange as they felt it wasn’t economically viable. And then the final nail in the coffin was Konami’s announcement of the official cancellation.

They didn’t rule out future Silent Hill games, just that this particular project was over.

Womp womp.


After the break we got some, hopefully, lighter news, about Dirt, Arkham Knight, and Just Cause 3, and Tuesday’s new games.


Dirt Rally

PC only version of the upcoming Dirt game has been released on Steam Early Access. It seems to be a truncated version of a potential full release, or not. Maybe this will be the only new Dirt game for now? I dunno.

dirtrally

Dirt Rally features 17 cars and 36 stages across 3 large areas. It is meant to be a true rally game, without the additional modes like previous Dirt games had, like races, or Gymkhana. Sad to see this is PC only. I’m curious what the next-gen future holds for this brand.

Arkham Knight Reveal – All Who Follow You

YES!

New Trailer. Yes! June 23rd release day cannot come soon enough. Yes.

New info came out that the game will now be rated M – Mature Audiences. No Complaints. And the new trailer debuted the new gameplay mechanic called Dual Play, which allows the player to switch, Like Grand Theft Auto 5, between Batman and his allies to engage in seamless tag-team style combat.

The game also will have a season pass, including 6 months of content including new story missions, additional super-villians, challenge maps, skins, race tracks, etc. All the stuffs. Comes at a hefty price though – $39.99 – or available in a Premium Edition of the game priced at $99.

Why? Just Cause! Three.

Yup. Mayhem.


Last up we have today’s notable video game releases. The best day of the week that’s not Friday. Behold:

Tropico 5 (PS4) – This construction and management simulation game previously released everywhere else, has now been released on the Ps4. No news yet if there’s a Xbox One version in the future. It was previously released on the Xbox 360 last November.

The Golf Club (PC, Xbox One, Ps4) – Simulation Golf Game developed on the Unity engine by HB Studios. The game boasts a powerful procedurally generated coarse creator which can be shared and played online.

State_of_decay_logoState of Decay: Year One Survival Edition (Xbox One, PC) – Third-person persistent open world zombie survival game. The game focuses on survival tactics like stealth and evasion, resource management and base building. Player choice effects how the gameplay evolves. The game also features dynamic progression; the game wold continues acting whether or not the game is being played.

I think I will be picking this game up as it sounds intriguing.


That’s all. Tomorrow (Wednesday) I’ll have further Far Cry 4 impressions and screenshots, and I hope to jump into Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: China tonight. Thursday I’ll throw up a review for Call of Duty: Ghosts.

Adios!

-iRogan

Everything is Teetering on the Edge of Everything

Where have you been all my life?

This weekend, you may have noticed a short story, written from the perspective of the main character in Sniper Elite III (me) and my Co-op buddy in life, Illestrader. It was fun to write, but factually disproved as apparently snipers don’t hold their breath between shots. Who knew. I’m over it though. This example of a short story is something that I’ve wanted to do, and will continue to do, as it was a lot of fun to write. I’ve played plenty of games, single player and co-op, that can lend themselves to this hybrid personal-reflection/still-in-a-game format, so keep an eye out for more. Weekly or monthly, who knows.

Last week I mentioned an idea about some achievement hunting segments. Still working on the logistics, but I think it it’ll focus around a weekly segment towards a solitary achievement challenge, and my progress towards it. Maybe aiming for a specific achievement that week, or a gamerscore amount. New challenges every week. We’ll see.

Last week, in review: I spoke more about Cities: Skylines, the new games of the week, current games I’m playing, a Review for Never Alone, and a short story. I also discussed the purchase of an external HDD for my Xbox One to allow more games to be installed (this I will talk about today). And of course, the daily news. This week I expect more of the same.

As mentioned, I purchased an external HDD for my Xbox One. a Western Digital 3TB USB3 drive. Setup was extremely simple as it’s fully supported, and I transferred all the games off of the internal drive over to the external, hopefully relieving some of the stress to improve overall console performance. Including the Telltale Games Collection, I now have 44 games installed, with 2.3TB remaining, so this drive will keep me going for a while. The games load just fine, and I have yet to experience any problems playing a game off the hard-drive. As a result, I’ve also had the opportunity to try out some of the games I’ve been sitting on, due to space shortages. I’ve started playing Grand Theft Auto V and Far Cry 4. I’ll discuss those more in detail on Wednesday for the What I’m Playing segment.

I’m also continuing to optimize the site as I get used to WordPress. One section is the page functionality. A page I’ll be adding soon, is my screenshots page. I already have quite the collection of Forza Horizons 1 and 2 photos. Coming soon is Far Cry 4, and shortly after, Shadow of Mordor photos. Xbox One has a screen shot functionality, but currently no way of exporting them. But soon, I’ll be able to flesh out this idea further.

Tomorrow we’ll talk about the new games, Wednesday we’ll discuss what I’m playing in more detail (Tales from the Borderlands ❤ *wink*), Thursday I’ll have a review for #IDARB, and then we’ll talk about the week in review, and the joyful weekend.

Executive Vice Janitor

Executive Vice Janitor

But, I have some news to catch up on, so on-wards.


Oldies first:

Star Wars: Battlefront News and Views

EA has confirmed that the highly anticipated Star Wars: Battlefront will be shown off next month, between April 16th and 19th.

Remastered Wake?

Microsoft may be looking to release a remastered version of Alan Wake on the Xbox One. I really enjoyed the 360 version, but neglected to play any of the DLC, so if this pack includes it (which I’m sure it will) might be worth playing through again. We’ll have to see what the offer includes.

Hideo Kojima Leaving Konami 😥

Late last week, news starting breaking that Hideo Kojima was planning to leave Konami after Metal Gear Solid V was completed. Unfortunately not a lot of information was released besides the fact that Kojima confirmed that MGS V will be complete come September, and that this will be the last MGS game in the Snake story ark. Konami indicated that there will be more Metal Gear games in the future without Kojima’s involvement, and Metal gear Reveangence 2 was hinted. This is upsetting to me. I’ve always been a fan of Kojima and his MGS games. They are not, and will not be the same without him.

Kojima offered a few words, saying, “I am 100% involved and will continue working on Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain; I’m determined to make it the greatest game I’ve directed to date.” – Somewhat reassuring.

Konami has begun hiring developer to start work on a brand new Metal Gear series. No news on the Silent Hill game. Less reassuring.

Physical Wolfenstein

Back on March 4th, it was announced that a digital stand-alone sequel to Wolfenstein: The New Order was being released this May, titled The Old Blood. It has since been reiterated that a physical edition will be available on PS4 and PC, but will remain “digital only” on the Xbox One.

God of War 3 Remastered

One of the best looking games to be released on the PS3 is being re-released on the PS4 with the HD treatment and other improvements. Its a shame that it’s not a remastered trilogy. Maybe they couldn’t do it for technical reasons. Who knows. God of War III already looked beyond good when originally released, it’ll be interesting to see a comparison.

Batman and Arkham Knight News

Two playable DLC packs have been announced for Batman: Arkham Knight, Rocksteady’s epic conclusion to the Arkham trilogy. Red Hood has been announced as a playable character, likely for the challenge mode, and now Harley Quinn has been announced as the second DLC pack, which includes stand-alone story.

“With this exclusive Story Pack experience events in the lead-up to Arkham Knight as you infiltrate Blüdhaven to rescue your partner in crime: Poison Ivy. Delve deep into Harley’s demented nature and utilize her devastating baseball bat to smash, crash and bash your way to a friend very much in need.”

Also announced was that Arkham Knight has received a slight delay. The game is now scheduled for release on June 23rd.

How Dare You Make The Bat Wait

How Dare You Make The Bat Wait

In other remastered news (enough already), Batman Arkham Asylum and Arkham City are reportedly being remastered for the Xbox One and PS4.

Raven Software Tweet/Teases More Singularity

Singularity came out in 2010 and dealt with time travel, as one of the abilities of the player was to rewind the effect of time on objects. Neat concept and a really cool game to play. Raven Software has hinted that maybe they’re making a sequel, or is this another remastered edition?

The tweet reads “We’re going back,” followed by the hashtag #Katorga12 — a reference to the Russian island that served as the setting of Singularity.


Phew, lots of news to get caught up on.

See you tomorrow.

-iRogan