Tag Archives: Nintendo

TGS 2015, Nintendo’s New President, Halo 5, and Need For Speed – IDL NEWS

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Monday, Monday, Monday.

The day the new week starts and new news starts coming in. E3 is over, Gamescom is over, PAX Prime is over. Tokyo Game show is coming up this weekend, and then the year’s shows should be done. Luckily I’m almost caught up on the news as those shows take up a lot of time. I’m not sure yet if Tokyo Game Show actually has press briefings or not, or if it’s just a game showroom. Will continue to investigate. <- *Update at the bottom*

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Onward though, to news:

Turok: Dinosaur Hunter and Turok 2: Seeds of Evil

Night Dive Studios has announced that it will be restoring and publishing modernized versions of Turok 1 and Turok 2. Both Turok: Dinosaur Hunter and Turok 2: Seeds of Evil will be getting graphical upgrades and other improvements. Unsure yet if this is only PC, or console release.

Mad Max 1080p and the Map Isn’t Finite

Avalanche Studios has revealed that Mad Max is 1080p which is nice to see, as a lot of the games to date on the Xbox One have not been true 1080p. And the map is also not finite.

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided Release Date

Square Enix and Eido Montreal have announced the release date for Deus Ex: Mankind Divided. The sequel to Human Revolution will be released on Feb 23rd, 2016 and is set 2 years after the events of HR, in the year 2029 with augmented people separated from normal residents. I’m super excited for this sequel, and should probably replay the first at some point. Hopefully it’s backwards compatible before February.

Borderlands Backwards Compatibility

Speaking of backwards compatibility, the original Borderlands is among the games that will be backwards compatible day one in the upcoming update in November.

GTA V Online Freemode

GTA V Online is getting a new feature update that will have structured events pop up in the open world for the players to join and play, with entering a lobby first.

Released tomorrow, the goal is to blend the freeform gameplay with structured events that offer rewards. Every 12 minutes in the open world, a new Freemode Event will start, with a countdown alerting players. If you miss the start or opt not to join, you can still spectate. Over 200 variants will be available at launch including cooperative battles, stunt challenges, king of the hill modes, and damage and speed limit tasks. Two new adversarial modes will be made available as well.

Nintendo’s New President

Nintendo has announced that Tatsumi Kimishima, 65, will assume the role of President and Representative Director for the company. The election will be for a 1 year term.

Kimishima’s appointment as the new head of Nintendo comes two months after the sudden death of former president Satoru Iwata from a cancerous bile duct growth. Iwata was 55.

Halo 5’s 60 FPS

SIMG_5039tudio head at 343 Industries has confirmed that Halo 5 will consistently run at 60 frames per second. The goal from the outset was to deliver 60 fps across all game modes. This meant re-engineering the gameplay systems at the core and uses a “progressive resolution system” that scales the games resolution based on what’s on the screen at that time.

“This enables us to deploy resources where they have most impact across a diverse series of experiences throughout the game while delivering the most visually stunning Halo game ever.”

PC Need For Speed Stalls

Ghost Games has announced that the latest PC installment of Need for Speed, titled Need For Speed, has been delayed. Expected to be released alongside its console counterparts in November, the PC version wont be seeing its released until “Spring 2016”.

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Well, that enough news for today I think. Tomorrow we’ll talk about some more news, and new games and deals, and awesome things. Wednesday will be a Metal Gear Solid V wrap up: part 2. More game previews around the corner and then Tokyo Game Show 2015 stuff around the weekend.

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Tokyo Game Show takes place from September 17th-20th, and is getting kicked off with Sony’s keynote tonight at midnight, so I should have a wrap-up later in the week. Sony, Square Enix, and Capcom are some of the main companies in attendance, so there should be some exciting news coming soon.

Stick around!

-iRogan

IDL NEWS – Nintendo In Mourning, Kojima Productions Shuttering?

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Back on form. Back to the news. Another Monday creeps around again.

Today we had some sad news reported, so we’ll touch on that first.

Nintendo President Satoru Iwata Has Passed Away
At the age of 55, the President and CEO of Nintendo has passed away, due to a bile duct growth that he had been battling for the last couple years. He passed away July 11th, 2015.

Iwata began his long tenure with Nintendo as a programmer in the 1980s, and can be credited to the success of Kirby.

Batman: Arkham Knight PC Woes and DLC
Warner Bros. Interactive have apologized to fans for the notorious PC problems and suspension of sales. They’ve issued full refunds to all those they’ve disappointed. They’ve also announced that the upcoming Batgirl DLC will be delayed on PC until further notice. The DLC will not be available until the main game is fixed.

Kojima Productions Has Disbanded
More sad news. The Japanese voice actor for Solid Snake, Akio Otsuka has confirmed the closure of Kojima Productions.

“Kojima Productions was forced to disband, but it appears that the work that the team has been putting their utmost effort into is nearly complete,”

“I’m not exaggerating when I say that I expect it will become their greatest masterpiece. I couldn’t help it. I just wanted to say ‘Kept you waiting, huh?’ (Laughs.) But even if this is the end, Metal Gear Solid is immortal!”

Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain is set to release on September 1st, 2015.

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I’m very much excited to play this, potentially last, game. And the closure of the studio has pretty much confirmed my next tattoo.

Over the next coming week I hope to play Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes some more to get reacquainted.

Very sad news about Iwata as well, today.

I’ve been playing, and wrapping up The Crew, as evidence by the review from earlier today. I also tried Massive Chalice and will be posting more about that on Wednesday. Titanfall has been a blast to step into again, and I’ve been plugging away at Batman: Arkham Knight. Further impressions on what I’ve been playing later this week.

Tomorrow is the new games and deals day.

-iRogan

Games Needing to be Played, and News Needing to be Read

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…But not really. News is not important. It’ll be there tomorrow too. And the next day.

Some times I go through weird phases where I’m just absolutely addicted to playing games and everything else suffers. Currently I’m playing the following:

  • Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag –  To fill my 3rd person, open world, platformer void. To play an Ubisoft open world game, requires somewhat of a balancing act in priorities. Their games are typically filled with activities to complete, sights to see, side missions to pursue and stories to experience. The struggle is trying to balance these equally. Focus on one, and you start to get the feeling you’re missing out on the world around you, or your perks and upgrades are falling behind. Or, the dread of missing something entirely, which can’t be recovered. It’s stressful.
  • Battlefield: Hardline – To fill my FPS void. This is currently the freshest game on the market, and I don’t typically play games fresh. Normally to avoid bugs or server issues, or just my back-log of games. In this case I’m playing it for the single player campaign. And enjoying it! Stealth Battlefield, who knew! Continue to check back for my impressions, and Review.
  • Cities: Skylines – These type of games are great, but they’re a time sink. So going forward, to ensure I don’t lose focus on my other endeavors, I’ll probably just have to set a timer. Play the game, improve my city. Take a break until tomorrow. Continue to check back for my ongoing impressions and Review.
  • Sniper Elite 3 – Currently playing this in co-op with a friend. We’re about half way through, and we are not the stealthiest bunch.
  • Forza Horizons 2 – Still playing through this, wrapping up the Storm Island DLC, some achievements, and will check out the Fast and the Furious DLC  next week.

    I usually don’t like to overlap games of the same genre (or more than one Ubisoft game), so Shadow of Mordor and Far Cry 3 are currently on hold, and currently waiting on a fourth, to try out the GTA V Heists, but luckily nothing else new or notable is on the immediate horizon.

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Tomorrow I’ll be posting a new Review, of Never Alone, and I’m thinking about a new weekly feature centered around Achievements. Just gotta think of the concept and logistics – pretty much everything actually. Achievements are a pretty big deal to me.

And now, this:

OneDrive Supports Music

Microsoft announced today that the free cloud storage, OneDrive, included with Microsoft products, and Xbox, will support music uploads, which can be streamed through the Xbox Music app. The only issue I still have is that the app needs to be snapped to the side. Once minimized, the music stops. This is disappointing, as the 360 has the background music functionality. Hopefully this potential update comes soon, if they’re even working on it?

Nintendo Mobile Clarification

Further clarification came out today about the enlightening news regarding Nintendo’s mobile plans. As reported yesterday, Nintendo has partnered with DeNA to develop a mobile platform and service. Nintendo confirmed that they will be the ones developing the mobile games, with hopefully their first releases later this year, and DeNA will be developing the services to run on multiple types of devices.

Star Craft is Ending?

The Star Craft story is coming to an end. Revealed today, Blizzard has stated that the next expansion to Star Craft II, Legacy of the Void will be the conclusion to the Star Craft story, started way way back in Star Craft 1. They stated that the franchise will continue on, but the characters for now, fates sealed, will see a satisfying conclusion to their story.

Halo: Nightfall Blu-Ray

I haven’t actually had the chance to watch this series yet. I did enjoy Forward Unto Dawn, for the most part, but this new series has received mixed reviews, even with a notable producer in ridley Scott, and a larger budget.

The Master Chief Collection, however, is finally more stable, and I’ve been able to plug through more of the Halo 1-4 campaign missions in weekly late night co-op. 343 Guilty Spark in Halo: CE is still the buggiest level, nearly game breaking at points, but we made it through, thankfully, and we’re now able to complete the campaign.

Forward Unto Games!

-iRogan

New Games, New Cities, New News

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“Cities has a weird way of making me forget to blink, or watch the clock…” I say absently, clicking away, creating trees along a gravel path between houses.

“Don’t you have to work tomorrow? It’s 2AM.” She replies.

“Just need to add a bus depot and map the routes…” I mumble. “This traffic is brutal.”

I wish my city creation was this pretty.

I wish my city creation was this pretty.

Continuing with my review-in-progress of Cities: Skylines, my 2nd play through last night was definitely more successful as I slowly learned the hidden intricacies of the game. The game will tell you how to build a road, but skips on the minutia of creating a successful highway off-ramp. Go figure it out, I guess? It’ll tell you how to paint districts, and glaze over the district specializations, but how about letting me know how to find the resources on the map for specializations?

*4 hours later* Oh there’s an Info Pane for that. Wait WHAT, there’s an info pane that shows me all this? You didn’t think to maybe mention this first, Game?

My city did survive the night this time. Didn’t need to skip town as Mayor like last time, while the power was out. Check mark in the positive column.

Stay tuned for further impressions throughout the week.

Out today, new and notable, for March 17th, 2015:

  • Battlefield Hardline (Xbox One, PS4, PS3, XBOX 360, PC) – Started playing this last Thursday during the EA Access trial on the Xbox One. I’m excited that it’s now out fully and I can play through the campaign. You can read my first impressions: Here
  • Tales from the Borderlands: Episode 2 (Xbox One, PS4, PS3, XBOX 360, PC) – Titled Atlas Mugged. The  Telltale Bundle is still sitting on my “ready to be installed” list, waiting to be played. Thursday I’m picking up an external HDD so I can install my full library. Man, that’ll feel good. Much bandwidth. I do think the first series I play will be Wolf Among Us. Starting to get worried about my ever-growing list of unplayed games. Might need to hire an intern to play my games for me.

There is absolutely nothing of interest to me, out there, on Earth, at all. Save these tidbits of news today:

Nintendo’s New Partnership and New Hardware?

Nintendo announced today a new partnership with DeNA to develop a mobile platform, to bring their library to mobile devices. They were also quick to point out that they’re not out of the console market, stating that they are developing a next-gen dedicated gaming system, code named “NX”. No further details on the console till next year.

The Last Guardian Trademark Filed Again

Announced back in 2009, Sony’s The Last Guardian is vapourware at this point. Sony has filed for the trademark for a 3rd time, and stated that the game is still in development. Whether that means it’ll be the same envisioned game, still on the PS3, now on the PS4, who knows. It’s gone the ways of Prey 2 for all I’m concerned.

Weekly Deals With Gold

Grand Theft Auto takes the front line this week for Xbox’s game sales.

On the Xbox One you can purchase the in-game credit card, which included $500,000 in-game currency for $10 off the retail price. $59.49 USD. Gross. OlliOlli is on sale as well.

On the Xbox 360, GTA V, GTA IV, San Andreas, and GTA IV expansions are on sale.

All for naught, you should probably go outside…

-iRogan