Tag Archives: Konami

IDL NEWS – Hideo Kojima :'(, Duke Nukem, and Xbox Streaming

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Hooray for Mondays, hooray for inconsistency.

Today in the news we’ll talk about Hideo Kojima’s downward spiral of sadness, Dead Island 2 woes, Duke Nukem, and Xbox Streaming.

Tomorrow we’ll talk about the new games of the week and Tuesday’s deals, and then the remainder of the week is dedicated to What i’m Playing, an iReview, and achievement stuffs. Next week I’ll be starting a 2 week offline break, but I will have a Xbox 360 daily feature planned to be posted while I’m away, and a short story that takes place in Titanfall.

Newandexcitingthings. Yay!

So, onward and upwards!

Kojima, Kojima, Kojima! Konami, Too. 😥

So, the web of intrigue that is Konami vs Kojima continues to unravel. Godzilla and the Kaiju couldn’t make this more interesting.

The latest news in the deteriorating relationship has the publisher, Konami, removing Hideo Kojima’s name, creator of Metal Gear Solid, from the Phantom Pain’s box art. The Kojima Productions logo has also been removed.

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The story also got a unique twist when an internet light was shone on a specific mission in The Ground Zeroes, that might have alluded to Kojima knowing he was on his way out, earlier last year.

A mission in Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes set players the task of deleting the logos of Metal Gear games directed by Hideo Kojima.

As spotted by GamesRadar, the Déjà Vu mission requires you to use a UV light to erase the logos of all games crafted under Kojima. If you’re successful, the following message appears:

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There’s also a personal voice message, seemingly from Kojima, thanking the player for “all [their] support”.

Kojima is the man!

Yager Gone from Dead Island 2 – Mutual Parting

Spec Ops: The Line developer Yager has officially been removed from Dead Island 2 project. This troubled game has seen problems with delays, and now developers parting ways. Publisher, Deep Silver, stated that they will be sharing more information at a later date, but reports show that this was a mutual parting, a difference in opinions towards the game’s progress.

dead-island-2-logo_0

Dead Island 1 developer Techland released their other open-world zombie game Dying Light earlier this year, making me wonder, is a Dead Island sequel even necessary at this point?

Gearbox’s Duke Nukem Plan

Randy Pitchford, of Gearbox, has stated that concept development has been started for Duke Nukem, but it might not be Gearbox working on it as they’re busy. They’re are looking into bringing in the correct developer and working alongside them.

“I did not acquire the franchise merely so we could all experience Duke Nukem Forever. That was the toll to pay to give Duke a chance. That said, I liked that game,” he said.

Xbox One Game Streaming

Microsoft is moving the Xbox One game streaming feature out of the Preview Phase into full release. With an Xbox One and and a Windows 10 machine, we will now be able to stream our console through to the machine using the Xbox App. I’ll post more info and hands-on when Windows 10 is released later this month. I’m excited for this feature, and all it really requires is a wired Xbox One/360 controller, Xbox One, and a PC.

So there’s the important stuff out of the way.

New Games and Deals tomorrow, and we’ll discuss So Many Me, and this week’s Xbox sales. Then more on Titanfall, Arkham Knight, maybe an iReview and then Achievement stuff to wrap up the week.

As I mentioned at the start, I’ll be offline for two weeks starting Friday, but I hope to be posting a daily article about the top 5 Xbox 360 games, and a new short story, with the Titanfall setting. I’ll just be missing the news. Sad face.

-iRogan

NEWS – New Games Get Released, and Konami Taketh Away

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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

WHAT I’M PLAYING / NEWS – Far Cry and The Handsome Collection and News

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Far Cry 4

As I had mentioned in the past couple posts, I’ve been playing Far Cry 4 a lot. The game is a lot of fun and so random at times. It also caters to the creative types who want to have fun. Lately I’ve been playing in Co-op, but upon switching roles, I’ve noticed there are some limitations.

Co-Op Glory

Co-Op Glory

For starters, it runs off the hosts’s game, therefore the host will retain any of the map progress that the pair unlock: Bell Towers, Forts, Outposts. The joining partner only retains the XP, loot, and and unlocked perks. Loading up their own game will see the Map progress returned to their previous single-player campaign progress. This is kind of unfortunate. It still fun though as there are a lot of activities the two can take part in.

The game also prevents the two of you from getting too far apart from one another. At a certain point, the other player will be forced to spawn closer.

Keep an eye out for Screenshots once the Xbox Upload app gets updated, and a proper review around the corner.

Forza Horizons 2 Presents Fast and Furious

I recently wrote a quite review of this game, and wrapped it up today. Easy 1000G achievements, and maybe 2hrs of gameplay. It really is just a glorified demo as it only has 11 driveable cars, and 1/4 of the Forza Horizons 2 map. At the end it encourages you to buy the real game. Which you should. Forza Horizons 2 review here.

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The Handsome Collection

I picked this up today, and I’m excited to start in the Pre-Sequel. When the Pre-Sequel was announced and released for the Xbox 360 last year, I really hoped that a current-gen version would be released. I didn’t even need it to be re-mastered. Luckily I got more than I wanted. Borderlands 2 (including DLC) and the Pre-Sequel (including DLC), all remastered and combined into one package.

The only issue I’ve seen so far is the games are separated. Nothing transfers over, and they actually install as two different games. So if you want to switch, you need to quit one and launch the other. Just lazy complaints.

So Handsome

So Handsome

Keep an eye out for Tales From the Borderlands Episode 1 – Sum Zero review tomorrow. All borderlands all the time it seems.

Sunset Overdrive Price Drop

Insomniac’s Sunset Overdrive has received a price drop, down to $40. This isn’t a deal, but a permanent drop. i’ll pick this up when it goes on sale, though. I tried it during the 24hr free period, and it was fun. But it’s a playground game, where I typically prefer more of a narrative to drive me. 😉

Kojima’s Role in Silent Hills

Kojima’s role in Silent Hills is, at this point, still a mystery. His name, and Kojima Productions is continuing to be removed from all Konami products and websites as Konami focuses their company into a concise direction. Unknown, is if Kojima will still have a role in Silent Hills, or if it will be made by Kojima Productions. I guess we’ll have to continue to wait and see. 😦

Assassin Creed Chronicles

Ubisoft has announced the 2.5D trilogy in Assassin’s Creed Chronicle.

I watched a bit of footage from the first iteration in China and it looks pretty cool, with an interesting art style. Gameplay very much like Rayman Legends, Deadlight or early Prince of Persia games. Its a linear 2.5D platformer where you spend a lot of time running from left to right, up ladders and down buildings, slicing and dicing the whole way. Seems neat but I’m not sure where the story ties into.

We’ll see as more info gets released.

Excited for a games filled Easter Long Weekend. Stick around, but don’t forget to go outside.

-iRogan

Everything is Teetering on the Edge of Everything

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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