By now, you’ve probably seen the Call of Duty: Black Ops II ‘Surprise’ trailer about a half dozen times on television. This excellent composite ad spot had quite a few moving parts – check them out with this behind the scenes video!
By many accounts, the capabilities of the Wii U are roughly on par with that of the PS3 and Xbox 360. However, Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime got defensive when a CNN journalist suggested the hardware between the three systems were roughly equivalent.
“I’m going to have to correct you because the specs are quite different to the competitive systems,” said Fils-Aime. “[The Wii U is] much more graphically intensive. If you did a side-by-side comparison you would actually see that third-party games, like Call of Duty, look dramatically better on our system.”
Fils-Aime also suggested that Nintendo content was the reason to purchase the system if a customer already has an iPad. “Additionally, this tablet is seamlessly connected to the system, meaning there is no lag, there’s no delay – that allows us to add a lot of features that you can’t get on any other competitors’ devices,” he asserted.
Whatever the assertions by Fils-Aime, many third-party titles on the Wii U have been criticized for not meeting the standards of their counterparts on PS3 and Xbox 360. “Without question, it has a few issues,” said Jeremy Parish of 1UP on Mass Effect 3. “This version of ME3 seems a lot less visually stable than, say, the Xbox 360 version – the frame rate is choppier, the animation seems rougher.”
IGN’s Ryan McCaffrey struck out against Wii U’s Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor’s Edge. “Visually, this is hardly going to make your PS3 and Xbox-owning friends envious,” he said. “In fact, Razor’s Edge is arguably uglier than its cousins, with bland textures and a bad case of the ‘jaggies’ combining to create a muddy look that would’ve been called out seven years ago during the Xbox 360’s launch.”
Other sites like GameTrailers have posted side-by-side views of Batman Arkham Asylum: Armored Edition next to the PS3 and Xbox 360 releases, visibly demonstrating the problems with texture loading on the Wii U.
Source: CVG
Sega confirmed that GameStop will receive exclusive DLC for Anarchy Reigns in the U.S. Those that pre-order the game at GameStop will receive the game modes Mad Survival and Dogfight and an extra playable character in Bayonetta.
“In Mad Survival mode, a team of 3 players duke it out against waves of enemies, much as in the normal survival mode. However, these enemies now take the form of the other playable characters in Anarchy Reigns, leading to a far tougher series of battles that require serious tactical thinking to outsmart your foes. In traditional PlatinumGames style, Dogfight mode sees players hanging from helicopters -pelting each other with bullets until their opponents fall out of the sky. As well as being a surreal new spin on this multiplayer brawler, this aerial-based game mode is an entertaining change of pace from land-based combat, offering gamers a new way to explore the locations found in-game,” describes Sega. “The iconic star of her own self-titled adventure, Bayonetta is a formidable force on the battlefield. Players who unlock Bayonetta will be able to wield her four guns, collectively known as Scarborough Fair, and use her patented ‘Wicked Weave’ attacks to deal even more damage to any poor soul that falls in her sights.”
Anarchy Reigns will be available on January 8, 2013 on PS3 and Xbox 360 for $29.99.
Game consoles have always had red tape to deal with when it comes to games getting official certification. Ed Fries, consulting on the open-source Android powered Ouya and one of the creators of the original Xbox, says that Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo will have to streamline their licensing process.
“It’s getting harder and harder for the traditional consoles to ignore the Apple kind of experience,” said Fries. “Anybody can develop for the platform, certification is a relatively cheap and painless thing, and in the old days of consoles there are all sorts of myths and legends that say that’s a bad thing to do. That’s why the game business melted down in ’84, there was too much junk on the market, but now you’ve got guys who make games like Fez who can’t do an update to their game because it costs too much, if that game was on iOS that wouldn’t be a problem, but because it’s on XBLA it’s a problem.”
“Those kinds of ideas have to go away in the next generation,” he added. “They’ll go away in Ouya, they’ll go away if Apple brings some kind of product into this space, the console makers like Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft, they have to respond to that, it’s just the future. Likewise they have to respond to the free-to-play game model, the world is changing, people want this free-to-play experience, game developers want to build free-to-play experiences and the console ecosystem has to adapt to that. It can’t just be $50 product in a box all the time.”
Source: GameInformer
A group called the Super Zeroes got together to put Mortal Kombat and Gangnam Style together on YouTube. The result is a million views and a mention on the official Mortal Kombat page!
Matthew Wiggins has announced that he is leaving his position of general manager at Zynga Mobile U.K. He joined the company when Wonderland Software, which he was CEO and co-founder of, was acquired by Zynga in April 2011.
“For me, the Wonderland Software/Zynga U.K. adventure has come to an end. Earlier this month I awoke to the exciting realization that, after almost three and a half years, I had left that chapter behind and could look ahead to the future,” said Wiggins. “It’s been quite a ride. I wish all the best for the good and talented people who I leave behind.”
“I’m still tremendously excited by the revolution in computing that is happening right now,” he added. “The opportunities for innovation and entrepreneur-ism are even better now than they were then. And having learned so much from the journey I’ve just been on, I can’t wait to use that knowledge to do new things in the future – and of course learn a whole load more.”
OfficeMax has released the seventh version of its ElfYourself holiday app. This year, they are bringing the ability to turn yourself into a holiday elf to YouNow.com. In mid-December, ElfYourself will come to iOS, letting people create ElfYourself eGreetings on-the-go. View the original website, where over 470 million customized videos have been created, at ElfYourself.com.
Nintendo has revealed that the Wii U has sold roughly 400,000 hardware units during its first week of availability. The original Wii saw 300,000 systems sold and the DS outsold the 3DS 275,000 to 250,000; the 3DS has seen 6 million units sold in its first 21 months on sale.
“Wii U is essentially sold out of retail and we are doing our best to continually replenish stock,” said Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime. “Retailers are also doing their best to get the product to store shelves. But as soon as product hits retail, they’re selling out immediately.”
Despite Fils-Aime’s assertions, the Wii U is still available at a smattering of retail locations around the U.S. and can still be readily purchased online.
Source: CNET
Follow Dan Hay for a new briefing – learn how to deactivate radio towers and take control of outposts to free the island from your foes’ domination! To do so, you will have access to many vehicles and a wide range of different weapons available, all customizable to your fighting style.
Aled Lewis was commissioned to create three pieces for the launch of PlayStation All-Stars: Battle Royale. These 16-bit images are composites of classic images from films and some characters from the game, like Fat Princess taking on the 72 steps in Rocky, Jak and Ratchet squaring off Reservoir Dogs style and Kratos and Sackboy go one-on-one in the final All Valley Karate Tournament in The Karate Kid.
The work for Vice Magazine U.K. appeared on a 20 meter long, 10 meter high billboard on Great Eastern Street in Shoreditch.
Source: Facebook.com
