E3 2013 - The Playstation 4 design revealed

And here you have it

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News - Murdered: Soul Suspect, New IP out of Square Enix

MURDERED: SOUL SUSPECT takes players into a whole new realm of mystery where the case is personal and the clues just out of reach. A new take on the action/adventure genre, MURDERED: SOUL SUSPECT challenges players to solve possibly the hardest case of all… their own murder.

MURDERED: SOUL SUSPECT sees players take the role of Ronan O’Connor, a detective with a checkered past, whose life is brought to an untimely end by a brutal and relentless killer. Unable to move on and stuck in the limbo world of Dusk, he won’t find peace until he can bring his killer to justice from the afterlife. 

Using his new-found supernatural abilities, Ronan is free to explore the town of Salem, Massachusetts, from his shadowy afterlife. Unable to communicate with the detectives on his case, Ronan must read the minds of the living, influencing their thoughts and actions. As part of his investigation, he must interrogate the ghosts of Salem’s past citizens to piece together the puzzle, while battling demonic spirits to save his soul and uncover the shocking truth about who is responsible for his death.

News - Metro last Light sales numbers

Sales numbers for Metro: Last Light has come in, and according to Deep Silver the title is enjoying a hugely successful first week of sales, outselling predecessor Metro 2033's first week of sales and enjoying great reviews from most gaming related sites, including our own. 

On PC the game has sold triple the numbers of Metro 2033 worldwide sales in the first week. In the US, Metro Last Light has sold more physical copies in its first week than the entire lifetime of Metro 2033 to date, Worldwide, across all formats Metro: Last Light sold more in a week than Metro 2033 did in three months.

Unsurprisingly Metro: Last light has shot straight to number one on several weekly charts in European territories including Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France and the fourth week in a row in the UK. So If ever there was a time to buy the Season pack, this is it 

“Metro: Last Light is Deep Silver's most critically acclaimed game to date,” said Menno van der Bil, International Commercial Director at Deep Silver. “We are delighted with the deserved critical and commercial success the game has achieved, and hope that this success represents a statement of intent for future quality titles from Deep Silver. We would like to thank 4A Games for their talent, passion and commitment in helping us reach this milestone."

“4A Games are honoured by the reception our latest project has received,” said Andrew Prokhorov, Creative Director at 4A Games. “We are a small but dedicated team who are lucky to have been given the creative freedom and support to make the kind of experience we dream, as gamers, of playing. Our work on Metro: Last Light continues with new single player DLC, and we look forward to revealing future projects from the team. We want to thank all the Metro fans for support we have received.”

News: Grid 2 mono edition

So apparently, the edition of choice for the next Grid game is the Grid 2 Mono Edition, making it the highest price game in history at a whopping $190,000.

The Edition contains a copy of Grid 2 for the playstation 3, a BAC mono supercar with Grid 2 livery, a day at the BAC factory with a tour and spending time with technicians to customize the BAC mono for size and specifications, a Grid 2 Mono Edition branded Bell racing helmet, race suit, gloves, boots made to fit you with BAC mono and Grid 2 branding. And to finish it all of, you get one brand spanking new Playstation 3.

The BAC Mono is a British manufactured, road-legal, ultra-high performance supercar which stars in the game. Created from high-strength carbon fibre, the BAC Mono is an unrivalled example of light-weight performance engineering and its 2.3 litre, 280 bhp four cylinder power plant will propel its driver from 0-60 m.p.h. in just 2.8 seconds. 

So all you car superfans out there, you can preorder this sweet package right now from

 http://www.game.co.uk/en/grid-2-bac-mono-edition-228776

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News: GTA V collector's edition and special edition content

In picture form!

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News: Thief confirmed for Xbox ONE

One game many of us are looking forward to is the new Thief game, coming out of Eidos Montreal and Square Enix. After yesterday's reveal of the Xbox ONE, Square Enix has sent out a press release confirming Thief to be out on Xbox ONE, Playstation 4 and PC some time in 2014.

Stephane D'Astous, general manager at Eidos Montreal said this in their press release: “The team at Eidos-Montreal is thrilled to confirm that THIEF is coming to Xbox One. The next generation of home consoles allow us to create the best and the most immersive THIEF game ever. The feedback we have received so far is simply amazing and we can’t wait to show more of THIEF at E3 this year”

News: weekend news round-up

So, after a long weekend off, we're back to bring you selected news and comments, and of course our love of screenshots that we may have missed. 

First off we'd like to mention "Atomic ninja", a newly announced Playstation Vita action platform game coming out of the Czech, privately owned developer and publisher, Grip games. 

Neocore games has released a new trailers for their upcoming title "The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing" called Hunter's Lair the trailer shows a "Orc's Must Die" type of trap-em-up, as well as your basic home base hub.

Tecmo Koei has shown some new characters for Dynasty Warriors 8: the Jin dynasty. There are so many screenshots that it would be way too much to post, as  it would literally fill the page. 

A new Infinite Crisis profile video has surfaced showing "Gaslight Joker" who fills a tank/dps role on a team. He scales off hp and hp regen so going pure tank will probably be the norm.

Other videos out this past 3 days also include a Diablo 3 video on working with Sony for the Playstation 3 release, and Resident Evil: Revelations developer diary "Mystery".

News: The Last of Us completed and ready for shipping

Christophe Balestra, co-president of Naughty Dog posted this picture on his Instagram today declaring that the final code has been written and The Last of Us is ready for production and shipping. The Last of Us is set for a world wide release right after E3 on June 14th in just under a month. Look forward to our review.

News: Capcom confirms Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Dual Destinies release

Press release reads as follows:

HOLD IT! CAPCOM CONFIRMS DETAILS OF PHOENIX WRIGHT™: ACE ATTORNEY™ -DUAL DESTINIES RELEASE IN THE WEST

Courtroom Hero Phoenix Wright Returns this Autumn

London, UK. — May 13, 2013 — Capcom, a leading worldwide developer and publisher of video games, today confirmed that Phoenix Wright™: Ace Attorney™ - Dual Destinies will be available to purchase digitally on Nintendo 3DS™ across Europe and North America in Autumn 2013.

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Dual Destinies, previously announced for the West as Ace Attorney™ 5, sees the return of courtroom hero Phoenix Wright. Set eight years since his last appearance in the courts, the first case in Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Dual Destinies sees the action start in a destroyed court room. It’s down to Phoenix Wright and his team at the Wright Anything Agency to discover the cause of the destruction. Players will have to battle it out in court against Gaspen Payne, the younger brother of Winston Payne from previous Ace Attorney titles, as they defend the accused.

The much loved gameplay and features from previous titles in the Ace Attorney™ series return but for the first time in stunning 3D graphics, bringing the courtroom and characters to life and putting players directly in the heart of the action. Players will need to investigate each crime scene with the dynamic 3D visuals now making it possible to change views and zoom in on areas to uncover any hidden evidence or clues. In the court room the drama continues as players present their evidence, challenge witnesses and begin to unravel the truth behind each of the cases in Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney -Dual Destinies.

Joining Phoenix is the young Attorney Apollo Justice and new Associate Attorney Athena Cykes. Athena’s unique ability to psychoanalyse witnesses introduces a brand new element to proceedings. Using Athena’s ‘Mood Matrix’ players can detect the emotional state of a witness and tell whether they’re surprised, angry, happy or sad. Players can compare these feelings with the statement given by the witness, point out any contradictions between the two and challenge the witness testimony.

News: EA Update video, Sims 4, FUSE and more

News: Manhunt coming to PSN next week

After a highly controversial release on Playstation 2 back in 2003, Manhunt will be released on Playstation Network store 14th of May.

Manhunt is a Stealth based psychological horror where you survive each 'scene', 20 in total, by gruesomely dispatching enemies. The game is still banned in Australia, Germany and New Zealand.

News: Kingdom Hearts 1.5 HD reMIX opens pre orders in europe

Square Enix declared today that it is now possible to pre-order Kingdom Hearts 1.5 HD reMIX in europe and other PAL areas, customers will have two options when pre-ordering, the first is the standard edition, but some few selected venues will hold a 'Special Limited run art book edition' with a bunch of beautiful artworks from all the Kingdom Heart titles. Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 reMIX (quite the mouthful) will be released in Europe and PAL areas on september the 13th 2013.

News: NES, SNES, GENESIS, GBA all rolled into one console

Innex, Inc. has announced the upcoming launch of their retro machines, able to play original cartridges for several systems in one or two machines.

Retro-bit® has created the Super Retro Consoles and will be debuting them at this year's E3 in Los Angeles June 11th - June 13th. 

“Old-school is new-school when it comes to playing nostalgia games,” states Innex President, Titi Ngoy. “Our exclusive line of Retro-bit® game consoles are awesome for any gamer, no matter what their age. There is a huge appetite for original 8-bit and 16-bit action and we anticipate an enthusiastic demand for this exciting line up.”

*Super Retro Trio

This version will allow players to play classic NES, SNES and genesis games using their original cartridges. The console has a more modern design that allows for less wires and mess when hooked up. It comes with three cartridge slots, six controller ports compatible with original or third party controllers, two 16 bit game controllers, an S-video connection, an AC adapter and an AV cable. $69.99

*Super Retro Adapter

Will let you play Gameboy Advanced games directly on the SNES or any third party 16-bit console. The Super Retro Adapter comes equipped with a GBA link cable port (link cable sold separately) for connecting up to three Gameboy systems wich allows you to play four-way gaming. $39.99

*Super Retro Bundle - Combines both the Super Retro Trio with the Super Retro Adapter into one for $89.99

As we mentioned earlier, these consoles will be shown for the first time at this year's E3.

News: The Sims 4 Reveal

Maxis and Electronic arts announced that Sims 4 is currently in development at The Sims studio for a pc and mac release in 2014. The Sims has been around for some time and it will be very exciting to see what new innovations this title will bring, no doubt it would sell millions if they only added a big head mode, but every new iteration of the game usually brings about new innovations and gameplay. 

"The Sims 4 celebrates the heart and soul of the Sims themselves, giving players a deeper connection with the most expressive, surprising and charming Sims ever in this single player offline experience. The Sims 4 encourages the players to personalize their world with new and intuitive tools while offering them the ability to effortlessly share their creativity with friends and fans. The Sims franchise is fueled by the passion and creativity of its millions of fans around the world. Their continued devotion to the franchise ignites the fire of creativity and innovate on one of the world's most popular simulation games that has sold over 150 million copies worldwide."

A select small group of fans from around the world who shares and discusses stories about the Sims were invited to a special VIP briefing and were among the first to be told about the new game before the official announcement. This group will be privy to alot of insider information and will recieve special access to the development team as they work on the game.

News: Dungeons & Dragons: Neverwinter 24 hour live stream event press release

"Neverwinter 24 Hour Live Streaming Open Beta Launch and Charity Event - Hosted by MMODen.com April 24th 2013 at Noon PDT.

April 24th 2013 - Free to Play gaming News and Review Blog MMODen is proud to announce a 24 hour Live Streaming Marathon of Perfect World Entertainment's free MMORPG "Neverwinter!" This event shall take place starting April 25th at 12 Noon PDT and run until 12 Noon PDT April 26th 2013. This event will showcase the Open Beta Phase of Neverwinter. Limpy, MMODen.com's founder will Live Stream Neverwinter for 24 hours straight to showcase the game, and celebrate one of the most anticipated titles move to OBT.

During this event MMODen will be giving away prizes to those in attendance at different intervals of the streaming session. Fans who wish to tune into this event can do so by going to MMODen's Twitch.tv channel at (http://www.twitch.tv/mmoden/) those who follow and participate in the stream chat will be eligible for the giveaways.

Players who wish to join Limpy in game can do so by picking up one of the games Heroes of the North founders packs. (http://nw.perfectworld.com/founderspack). All founders packs have recently been given additional items to increase the in game value of each pack.

Additionally, MMODen's 24 Hour Live Stream Event will have a good cause attached to it. The event will support AIDS Lifecycle, a 7 day, 545 mile charity bicycle ride from San Francisco to Los Angeles. Riders put themselves through this grueling event to raise money and awareness in the fight to end AIDS/HIV. This event will support a rider who is taking on the journey for the first time, and can be supported directly before, during and after the event at: (http://www.tofighthiv.org/site/TR?px=2832206&fr_id=1550&pg=personal)"

News: Soul Sacrifice Demo Thoughts

So the demo for this game has been out a little while, but because of time constraints we were not able to really dig into this demo. And boy, were we missing out.

Soul Sacrifice is the highly anticipated Playstation Vita game coming out at the end of the month. It revolves around a prisoner to the sorcerer Magusar, and as his neighbor prisoner gets executed, our hero discovers a demonic book that introduces the game's uniqe way of storytelling. 

Instead of a traditional approach, Soul Sacrifice tells its story through passages in the demon book with well acted eerie voices and a gothic, atmospheric background music. Several times we found ourselves forgetting what we were doing and just listening and absorbing the ambiance. 

In between the story segments there is an arena style of combat sequence, reliving the author of the book's life, combat is solid and fun, yet challenging and rewarding. You use 'spells' to fight, like an ice spell that flows along the ground to your target, or summon melee weapons for some hack and slash action, there are also support spells, like shields and healing spells. 

All spells has an easy upgrade system, but can be lost if over-used in a combat. There are, however, places in each arena where you can refill magic. Taking down your enemies presents you with a choice; Save and fill a portion of your 'life' level bar, increasing defence and your hp, or 'Sacrifice' increasing your magic power. 

This also applies to bosses, and when finishing off the first main story boss we wanted to 'Save', it simply brought it back to life, so ideally there would be a branching story for whatever you chose between save/sacrifice. But the story hadus so enthralled it left a feeling like we were torturing our opponent by postponing its eventual demise with the dialogue in the fight and quickly ended it with a sacrifice. 

The level of costumization is overwhelming, yet not too complex. It took about three minutes to make a badass looking female sorcerer named 'Toazter'. 

This is an incredibly atmospheric game with a lot of love put into it and without noticing, we had played a fully charged Vita until the batteries died right when jumping into multiplayer, so we'll leave that for the review coming soon.

News: Metal Gear Solid 25th Anniversary

Konami announced today that North- and South-America will be getting a legacy collection of the Metal Gear Solid games. The collection will include Metal Gear Solid, Metal Gear Solid 2: HD, Metal Gear Solid 3: HD that nicludes Metal Gear and Metal Gear 2, Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker HD edition, Metal Gear Solid: VR Missions and Metal Gear Solid 4: Trophy edition. 

Quite a pack! iIt will also contain two Ashley Wood digital graphic novels. President of Konami Digital Entertainment inc Tomouki Tsuboi had this to say: "We wanted to give Metal Gear Solid fans the opportunity to experience the series from beginning to end, all on one conslole. With the collections multiple titles, players can truly see how Metal Gear Solid evolved into the critically acclaimed and beloved franchise it is today". 

News: Zelda game announced

A new Zelda has been announced with a simple working title: The Legend of Zelda. The game will be coming to the 3DS with no release window announced.

News: Metro: Last Light pc requirements revealed

"Publisher Deep Silver and Developer 4A Games today announced the official minimum, recommended and optimum PC specs for the upcoming First Person Shooter Metro: Last Light. The highly anticipated sequel to Metro 2033 will be available from May 14, 2013 in North America and May 17, 2013 across Europe for PlayStation®3, the Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft, and Windows PC.

Metro: Last Light is powered by 4A’s proprietary technology, the 4A Engine. Designed to take full advantage of the latest, most powerful PC hardware and DirectX 11 graphics cards, the 4A Engine also supports a host of bespoke NVIDIA® features including NVIDIA PhysX® and  NVIDIA 3D Vision®.

PC gamers wishing to test the suitability of their hardware can run the NVIDIA ‘GPU Analyzer.’ Is your PC ready to run Metro: Last Light? Find out here:

www.geforce.com/games-applications/pc-games/metro-last-light/gpu-analyzer
Official Metro: Last Light PC specifications:

Minimum

Windows:         XP (32-Bit), Vista, 7 or 8
CPU:                 2.2 GHz Dual Core e.g. Intel Core 2 Duo
RAM:                 2GB
Direct X:         9.0c
Graphics Card:
DirectX 9, Shader Model 3 compliant e.g. NVIDIA GTS 250 (or AMD equivalent e.g. HD Radeon 4000 series) or higher

For 3D Vision Support:
·        NVIDIA GTX 275 or higher
·        120Hz Monitor
·        NVIDIA 3D Vision kit for Windows Vista, 7 or 8

Recommended

Windows:        Vista, 7 or 8
CPU:                2.6 GHz Quad Core e.g. Intel Core i5
RAM:                4GB
Direct X:        11
Graphics Card:
NVIDIA GTX 580/660 Ti (or AMD equivalent e.g. 7870) or higher

For 3D Vision Support:
·        NVIDIA GTX 580/660Ti or higher
·        120Hz Monitor
·        NVIDIA 3D Vision kit for Windows Vista, 7 or 8

Optimum

Windows:        Vista, 7 or 8
CPU:                3.4 GHz Multi-Core e.g. Intel Core i7
RAM:                8GB
Direct X:        11
Graphics Card:
NVIDIA GTX 690 / NVIDIA Titan

For 3D Vision Support:

·        NVIDIA GTX 690
·        120Hz Monitor
·        NVIDIA 3D Vision kit for Windows Vista, 7 or 8

Metro: Last Light is a first person shooter and the highly anticipated sequel to the extraordinary Metro 2033. In the year 2034, a nuclear war has turned the world into a post-apocalyptic wasteland. In Moscow, the tunnels of the Metro have become a new home for the former inhabitants of the city. Within the catacombs, they fight for their survival, fending off hordes of hideous mutants born from the toxic atmosphere, as well as other factions desperate to take control of what little hospitable land remains. As they fight, they also search for a doomsday device that could be the key to their victory. A civil war is inevitable. During these dark hours, the players will embody Artyom, and become the last light for all of mankind.

The plot of Metro: Last Light was written by Dmitry Glukhovsky, acclaimed author of the novel Metro 2033 which inspired the creation of both video games. Also, Glukhovsky is responsible for all dialogues in Metro: Last Light. Glukhovskys novels Metro 2033 and Metro 2034 have sold more than 2.000.000 copies worldwide. In 2013, his latest book Metro 2035 will be also available outside of Russia. The film rights for Metro 2033 were bought by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), the movie is currently in development."

News: Defiance show premiere!

Normally TV-news would not be featured on this site. However, this is not just any TV-series, it is a companion series to the MMOTPS (massively multiplayer online third person shooter) game Defiance. 

It will include crossovers and allow players to experience key moments from the TV-series from a different perspective. So with the launch of the series begins the Defiance in-game narrative.

New episodic content will be released whenever a new episode airs on TV every week, or at least that is the ambition of this project. If it is achievable remains to be seen. 

One of the worries one can think of is what will happen to the game when the TV-series goes off season for six months. We can only speculate, but we suspect Trion Worlds have things under control.

Defiance - the game - has been released to a pretty luke warm reception, but like other games in the genre knows, a succsessful MMO always starts out mediocre. It's like a blank sheet of paper - ever evolving.

GameViews decided early on that it would not review Defiance, because we believe that this game is only 5-10% complete because of its grandiose undertaking of building on the game every week.

Many reviews say Defiance has 'potential' or that the story could be better. Well, MMO's always have potential because they continuously grow. The 'story could be better' because Defiance has not even released half of it's story.

The positive things in reviews are mostly that the gameplay is fun and addictive, so in other words: What you can review now is fun and addictive, bu you really can't review now because you've only got a teaser so far that has 'potential'.

Maybe GameViews will review Defiance one day, but it will not be before the first season of the TV-show ends. Doing so now would be like watching an olympic running event and reviewing Canada's performance before they even gain momentum.