Ubisoft Sees An End To ‘Assassin’s Creed’

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There are some gamers who believe a series wears out its welcome with too many sequels, add-ons and spin-offs that fail to distinguish why it exists in the first place. However, that’s not something Ubisoft is looking to do with its highly popular Assassin’s Creed franchise.

Talking with Eurogamer, Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag game director Ashraf Ismail explained that there’s already talk going around in terms of how the folks at Ubisoft want the series to finish.

“We have multiple development teams, then we have the brand team that sits on top and is filled with writers and designers concerned with the series’ overall arc,” Ismail said. “So there is an overall arc, and each iteration has its place inside this.

“We have an idea of where the end is, what the end is. But of course Yves [Guillemot, Ubisoft’s overall boss] announced we are a yearly title, we ship one game a year. So depending on the setting, depending on what fans want, we’ve given ourselves room to fit more in this arc. But there is an end.”

A fifth chapter in the series, being headed up by the team at Ubisoft Toronto headed by one of its co-creators, Jade Raymond, is already in development. There’s no word on whether this will be the end, or if we’ll see more beyond that.

Just enjoy it while it lasts, right

Assassin’s Creed IV releases on October 29 for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC and Wii U, and later in the year for Xbox One and PlayStation 4.

Source: Eurogamer

 

Bright Spot For Nintendo Sales

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Nintendo’s been facing a mixed 2013 in terms of sales, with its Nintendo 3DS thriving but its Wii U struggling to find an audience. However, the company recently ran across some good news when it came to the four new games just introduced to its StreetPass service.

President Satoru Iwata spoke with Tokyo Keizal Online, stating that the company’s four pack of Mii-supported games – Mii Force, Flower Town, Warrior’s Way and Monster Manor – have really cleaned up in sales.

Since their introduction last month, the quartet has racked up $4 million in sales, making them a bonafide success. More than 200,000 users have picked up on the games, either buying them individually for $4.99, or as a four-pack for $14.99. New hats and outfits have been a huge factor for the pack, as users can unlock them and dress their virtual characters up in them.

No word yet if more StreetPass games are on the way, but we wouldn’t be surprised.

Source: Siliconera

OUYA Addresses Delays

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When it comes to making a dent in the video game market, the team at OUYA means serious business. Initial units of the $99 console shipped earlier this summer to various retailers in the hopes of attracting an audience with its competitive price and array of free games. Some Kickstarter backers who funded the Android-based system found themselves receiving their units after it shipped to retailers, but OUYA is making up the mistake to their most passionate supporters with a new program.

OUYA has provided these early Kickstarter backers with not only an apology, but also a credit that allows them to purchase whatever games and apps they wish on the service. A credit of $13.37 is available through code activation on the company’s Discovery Store.

“It wasn’t OK that some of you-our most loyal supporters-didn’t get your Ouya until after it was on store shelves,” said OUYA CEO Julie Uhrman.

Early reports indicate that OUYA is having trouble when it comes to game sales, with only 27 percent of system owners making an actual purchase through the Discovery Store, but this gesture may improve those statistics.

Source: GamesIndustry International

‘The Last Of Us’ Toned Down For Europe

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Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us is easily one of the best games of the year, mainly because of its riveting single-player campaign tells a whopper of a story. It also has a stellar multiplayer mode where you fight for survival while making tough decisions for your crew. Players worldwide can experience this for themselves, but Sony is making some changes to the European version that is currently releasing throughout the territory.

In other versions of the game, you can easily blast people’s limbs – or heads – off using a shotgun or similarly-powered weapon.  In Europe, though, the most you’ll get from using these weapons is a minor blood spurt, as the game has been edited for graphic content.

A member of the Naughty Dog team, going under the name “EvangM” explained the reasoning behind the censorship. “The gore and violence ratings are subject to local regulatory boards in various countries, so the game must be slightly changed in order to accommodate those choices,” they stated.

The game is a must-play for PlayStation 3 owners worldwide with the kind of dramatic heft that can’t be ignored, no matter the aforementioned change. The Last of Us is available now for PlayStation 3.

Source: Eurogamer

 

Apple Rejects Phone-Tossing Game

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It’s kind of interesting what games are being introduced to the mobile market these days. Carrot Pop just introduced a strange new endeavor called Send Me To Heaven which gauges just how high you can throw your phone in the air by throwing it. We’re not sure what the point is at being the best of the game – especially if you fail to catch it – but, hey, to each their own.

Unfortunately, Apple isn’t too keen on the game. It rejected the listing for the app on its App Store, stating that it was “encouraging behavior that could result in damage to the user’s device.” Meanwhile, Android had no problem with the app being listed over at Google Play {link no longer active}.

The game does feature a competitive angle where you can compare your best distances to the leaderboard. The high score is 5.69 meters…no word on how well the winning phone survived.

However, to compete for the leaderboard it requires you to launch your phone in the air and catch it successfully.  Creative brilliance or nihilistic stupidity Judge for yourself, just make sure you cover the floor with some pillows just in case!

Source: Kotaku

 

Facebook Preps In-Feed Video Ads

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Facebook has already resorted to a few mediums to get more advertising dollars out of its social website, but now it’s ready to tackle yet another medium – video.

Video ads are about to be introduced to the service, broadcasting up to three times a day for 15 seconds at a time through users’ news feeds. A report from Bloomberg indicates that companies will be charged up to $2.5 million per day that their ads are used on the network – which is a higher cost than TV ads used during the Super Bowl when it comes to per-second broadcasting.

Currently, the site does allow advertisers to insert video ads in specific posts, but only those who subscribe to the feed need to view the ads. That could very well change once this business practice is put in place.

Once it does launch, it could mean big profits for Facebook, as a prior ad program featuring text and picture ads in the feed produced new ad revenue and gave the company a 53 percent increase in quarterly sales.

Source: Yahoo! Finance

 

Failed ‘Halo’ Film A Blessing For Blomkamp

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Neill Blomkamp has said that he owes his career to “the ruins that were Halo,” referring to his and Peter Jackson’s failed attempt to turn the video game franchise into a big budget film. The sci-fi film director was speaking to L.A. Times on the eve of release for his first star-studded effort Elysium, a futuristic thriller starring Matt Damon and Jodie Foster.

Blomkamp gained notoriety as a young director chosen by Jackson and his filmmaking partner Fran Walsh to help green light Halo for the big screen.  At the time, Blomkamp was best known for his work directing TV commercials for big brands. He caught Jackson’s eye for his ability to blend live action with impressive CG effects on a budget.

Blomkamp created “Landfall,” a three-part live-action video series acting as a proof of concept for a Halo film by setting the stage for its milieu.  The videos caught fire with fans, and they took home a 2008 Cannes Lion after Microsoft worked them into its campaign to promote Halo 3. But the Halo film didn’t take off.  Jackson then helped Blomkamp with his next project, the modestly budgeted sci-fi film District 9, which went to become both a critical and commercial success.

“The luck is the fact that Peter and Fran let me make [District 9] out of the ruins that were ‘Halo,” Blomkamp said. ‘What happened out of that was learning to trust my ideas. If ‘Halo’ had come out and succeeded or failed, I wouldn’t have learned that.”

Blomkamp with Matt Damon

Besides teaching him a lesson as an artist, Blomkamp says District 9 helped him break into feature films on his own terms.  After the film succeeded, the director says he turned down big budget film offers from Hollywood studios because Halo was still fresh in his memory.

“Our impression was that [Blomkamp] was a brilliantly talented young visual filmmaker who had a real voice,” Columbia Pictures president Doug Belgrad told L.A. Times. “He seemed to stay away from the fishbowl of Los Angeles and to be interested in making original, unique films.”

Blomkamp said that the inspiration for the dystopian society in Elysium came from growing up in South Africa, comparing the class-delineated world in the film with wealthy neighborhoods in his native Johannesburg as well as posh Los Angeles communities Bel-Air and Beverly Hills.

“What I do is spend too much time thinking. Most of the time I just walk around annoyed. Would I describe myself as relatively happy, I suppose, but society gets to me. And the people that have mastered life seem to not care and then they die and then the grenade goes off,”said Blomkamp.

Source: LA Times

Pokemon Reimagined As NHL Teams

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Artist benjamagnus has reimagined a number of NHL team logos as Pokemon, and the results are quite believable. We look forward to seeing the team mascots! You can see the full gallery of images on Imgur.

Anaheim Mighty Psyducks

Colorado Avalanche

New Jersey Devil Dogs

St. Louis Seadra

Source: Polygon

Digital Foundry Rates Next-Gen Consoles

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With Sony’s PlayStation 4 and Microsoft’s Xbox One consoles set to arrive on the market later this year, several gamers want a good idea which way they should go. Both consoles certainly offer their fair share of power – but is one better than the other Digital Foundry’s Richard Leadbetter likes to think so.

While the PlayStation 4 does have a slight advantage with a faster RAM and more powerful GPU, Leadbetter decided to go technical when it came to seeing how the two perform side-by-side by building equivalent PC-based test systems. For the Xbox One, he used a Radeon HD 7850 to represent its power, while the “PS4 surrogate,” as he calls it, utilized a 7870 XT. The test results indicated that the PS4 target system outperformed the Xbox One with more computational power and better frame rate.

These tests were comprised of various PC titles running at full 1080p visual settings, in which the PS4 set-up fared better overall. However, Leadbetter did state, “more computer cores doesn’t result in a linear scaling of performance.” The tests showed from 20 percent up to a 29 percent difference in frame rate on different titles, favoring the PS4 surrogate.

He was also concerned with memory, as the PS4’s uses “established technology,” while Xbox One’s ESRAM system is a “big unknown.” Though the test gave the PS4 “the benefit of the doubt” in terms of power, Leadbetter explained, “clearly this is no way guaranteed.” Final drivers and system optimizations will certainly affect the real-world results. We’ll see how the systems fare when they arrive this holiday season.

Source: Digital Foundry

 

Xbox One GPU Picks Up Speed

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Microsoft is ready to prove that it has a real powerhouse on its hands with its forthcoming next-generation video game console, the Xbox One. In fact, in the process of finalizing the hardware for public release, it may have sped it up to impressive new speeds.

While talking on Larry “Major Nelson” Hyrb’s podcast this week, Xbox One chief product officer Marc Whitten stated that the company has gotten the Xbox One’s GPU clock speed increased by 6.6 percent – an impressive number considering game performance.

“This is the time where we’ve gone from the theory of how the hardware works – what do we think the yield is going to look like, what is the thermal envelope, how do things come together – to really having them in our hands,” stated Whitten. “That’s the time where you start tweaking the knobs. Because either your theory was right dead on, or you were a little too conservative, or you were a little too aggressive. It’s actually been really good news for us, and an example of that is we’ve tweaked up the clock speed on our GPU from 800 mhz to 850 mhz.”

Developers currently have final systems in hand, enabling them to create various games for the system. They’ve also gotten hold of an updated Direct X graphics driver, which has been “100 percent optimized” for Xbox One. The system will arrive this holiday season.

Source: GamesIndustry International