LOCKHEED AND LOADED: INFINITY WARD SHOW OFF MULTIPLAYER GUNSHIPS IN MODERN WARFARE 2
It’s the game that’s got other publishers pushing all of their late-year release dates out of its way into 2010, and it’s more guns and ammo than I normally might cotton to, but as I’ve said before, the persistence and leveling achievements that constituted Call of Duty 4‘s multiplayer made it easily one of the best faux-MMOs of 2007/2008, and developer Infinity Ward has just published a look at its online successor.
The biggest change you’ll see here: the ability for players to take control of the AC130 gunship in the midst of your skirmish and pick people off from a distance, precisely in the same way as you could in one of the most quietly disturbing and sobering sequences of CoD4‘s single-player mode.
As you will have seen, will see above, and will probably see many times across all media in the coming months: the game is due for release on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC on November 10th.
Previously:
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DYSTOPIAN DREAM GAME: COMIC-CON’S VIEW OF THE BORDERLANDS
The premise: Half-Life: Opposing Force/Blue Shift and Brothers in Arms creators Gearbox do first-person Mad Max online co-op post-apocolyptia with procedurally generated weapon creation and customization (for a claimed in-game arsenal of some ’round about 87 bazillion, apparently). The latest trailer: speaks for itself a bit, doesn’t it.
Borderlands [Gearbox/2K]
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COMIC-CON MEGATON: UBISOFT DEVELOPING SCOTT PILGRIM, THE GAME
The best news I’ve heard out of Comic-Con so far: Scott Pilgrim creator Bryan Lee O’Malley has let slip at his session Thursday afternoon that Ubisoft Montreal is currently developing a PlayStation Network/Xbox Live Arcade downloadable game based on his comic series.
IGN and /Film report that the game will be a side-scrolling brawler that will retain the look of the comic, and is due to be released alongside the series’ film adaptation, currently in development by Shaun of the Dead/Spaced director Edgar Wright, with Michael Cera starring as Pilgrim and with original music by Beck, Broken Social Scene, and Metric.
The comic, for those that haven’t discovered it yet, draws heavily from videogame lore, as the otherwise pedestrian titular Pilgrim finds himself suddenly required to use super-natural fighting skill and power-ups to battle — one by one, El Topo/No More Heroes-style — a series of his crush’s ex-lovers in order to win and maintain her heart.
Ubisoft is said to be releasing more concrete details next week, but from the sound of the Comic-Con reporting, O’Malley appears to be at least in part working with the studio in retaining some creative control.
Until then, find out more about — and do not hesitate to purchase — the comic here, and watch progress unfold on the film via Wright’s frequently updated video and photo blogs here.
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COMIC-CON’S SWAMP FEVER: NEW SCREENSHOTS, VIDEO OF THE LEFT 4 DEAD 2 BAYOU
What’s more wicked than the fact that new Left 4 Dead 2 star Rochelle showed up wearing a pink Depeche Mode T-shirt? Not much, but the rest of the screenshots and video (courtesy 1up) below and behind the jump come quite close.
Valve is showing off the Swamp Fever episode on the floor of Comic-Con, including a newly unveiled boss monster, The Spitter (seen over there to the right, and I mean, ok, yeah, I guess — I think the fact that she’s still stuck in dirty pink heels somehow gives me the willies more than her gaping bloody maw), who, they say, “has an area attack that can split up Survivors or flush them out of their hiding spots.”
Other things to be gleaned from the new footage? Infected hiding below the surface of the swamp-water are going to be a newly terrifying challenge, and the fact that that flamethrower — if the 1up crew’s performance is any guideline — is going to have to be wielded very, very sparingly and carefully.
Two more videos and five hi-res screenshots await after the jump.
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EVEN MORE BEHEMOTH: NEW VIDEOS OF THE BEHEMOTH’S CHAOTIC CUTIE GAME 3
One more early drip-feed of Comic-Con information, again from The Behemoth, as GameSpot also gets new videos of the studio’s next game, currently slated for Xbox Live Arcade (but now, presumably, likely headed to PlayStation 3 as well) — still currently simply known as Game 3.
GameSpot has as hard a time as any at succinctly describing the multiplayer game, but comes up with the following description of its play modes:
One of them has you collecting points by picking up bits of gold from a magical, floating golden whale and depositing them in a similarly magical, floating safe; another has players running around the level tagging each block they touch with their team color; and the third tasks players with jumping on their enemies’ heads in order to pop their soul out of their bodies, then holding onto that enemy’s soul for as long as they can in order to rack up the points.
Hit the jump for five (!) more videos of the game in action, and to hear even more of its fantastically space age bachelor pad music (which, as Foobiebletch astutely notes in the comments, includes cuts off Combustible Edison’s I, Swinger album).
Previously:
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METALOCALYPSE NOW: FROZEN CODEBASE PREPPING PSN, XBLA DOWNLOADABLE
And then, the second metal game coming this fall: Frozen Codebase — the developer behind Xbox Live Arcade games Screwjumper and Zombie Wranglers — have announced that Konami will publish their latest game for PSN and Xbox Live Arcade: a Cartoon Network tie-in based on the animated series Metalocalypse.
Few details have yet emerged on the game, other than saying that “as a Klokateer, one of the band’s loyal roadies, players will be unleashed on a heinous rampage against rabid mutant fans in brutal combat,” where they will “fight mutants, explore the rooms and dungeons of Mordhaus and protect the METAL faithful.”
They add that the game will feature “three all-new songs from Williams Street Records’ Dethklok 2” album, and a number of additional mini-games.
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TRIPLE FAB: THE LATEST LOOK AT BEATLES: ROCK BAND
Harmonix updates with the latest look at the songs and symbolic eras coming to Beatles: Rock Band, and sends on the latest names and locations of newly unveiled featured tracks:
Twist And Shout / Cavern Club
Do You Want To Know A Secret / Cavern Club
Can’t Buy Me Love / Ed Sullivan Theater
I Wanna Be Your Man / Ed Sullivan Theater
Eight Days A Week / Shea Stadium
Paperback Writer / Budokan
And Your Bird Can Sing / Budokan
Yellow Submarine / Abbey Road Dreamscape
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band* / Abbey Road Dreamscape
With a Little Help from My Friends* / Abbey Road Dreamscape
Within You Without You / Tomorrow Never Knows / Abbey Road Dreamscape
Revolution / Abbey Road Dreamscape
Birthday / Abbey Road Dreamscape
Dig A Pony / Rooftop Concert
I’ve Got A Feeling / Rooftop Concert
The only problem: my chest is getting even tighter with nervous anticipation as the release date approaches and She Said She Said still hasn’t reared its sad/dead-knowing head, and I’ve already got that tremendously jarring opening riff’s fret-button-pattern memorized in my head, and if I don’t get the chance to act it out for points I don’t know what I’m going to do with myself.
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I’M WITH THE BAND: HARMONIX OPENS ROCK BAND TRACK CREATION, SALES TO XBOX 360 HOME USERS [UPDATED]
Minorly earth-shattering music/game news this morning from the Rock Band camp as they officially unveil The Rock Band Network, a new program for any musician or band to create their own Rock Band tracks and sell them through the game’s online store a new Rock Band Network store.
The Network will work alongside the Xbox 360’s XNA Creators Club, and will let home-users output MIDI song information to accompany their master mix with plugins created especially for digital workstation Reaper, package them together as a Rock Band-compatible track with Harmonix’s own Magma tool, and preview your track in-game with a new ‘Audition mode’ being added in an upcoming patch.
From there you can publish your song to the Creators site (essentially, to the Creators Club community), where it will be peer-reviewed — as XNA games themselves are before they’re released to the Xbox 360’s Community Games section. If the track is approved, it will appear in the Rock Band store at a price point selected by you (between 50 cents to $3), with a 30/70% revenue split (at a to-be-determined percentage) between you and Harmonix/MTV.
For now, the initiative remains exclusive to the Xbox 360, though a caveat says “select songs” may appear on PS3 — presumably, those popular enough with the community to get an officially-pushed release from Harmonix.
See Harmonix’s newly opened site for more information, and to sign up for the early closed-beta trial, which is expected to launch by the end of the month, with an open beta “after August”, and an official launch by the end of the year.
[UPDATE: More information is available in this Billboard writeup, which adds a number of interesting details (corrected above), including the ability for “developers to customize the avatars, camera angles and lighting for the background video rather than using the automatically generated default setting” in Reaper, and HMX training sessions to certify track-makers, which will be officially listed for interested artists and labels.]
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TEAM FORTRESS TEES: THE SNIPER AND THE SPY
And the latest volleys in Team Fortress 2‘s Spy vs. Sniper battle rage on on your torso, with this new pair of T-shirts Valve’s just made available on their store (Spy, Sniper).
Somewhat relatedly, the Soldier has recently taken over the official TF2 blog with predictably hilarious results, including an off kilter portrait for a new set of Steam Community avatar photos, because when the photographer “asked me to act naturally,” says Soldier, “I yelled at him to stop disgracing his family and get a real job.”
Previously:
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MACHINARIUM, CLOSURE, FIELDRUNNERS CHOSEN FOR PENNY ARCADE’S PAX10 INDIE SHOWCASE
Penny Arcade Expo organizers have announced the final ten indie games chosen from over 150 submissions to be exhibited at the upcoming PAX festival, being held at Seattle’s Washington State Convention and Trade Center September 4th through the 6th, including a number of names familiar to Offworld readers.
The ten finalists include: GAMBIT’s Xbox 360 Community Games featured CarneyVale: Showtime, Tyler Glaiel and Jon Schubbe’s light/dark indie game Closure, Subatomic’s iPhone (and now PSP) tower defense game Fieldrunnners, and Amanita’s Machinarium.
Also included are Studio Walljump’s upcoming WiiWare game Liight, Hemisphere’s Osmos, Tag Team’s Tag: The Power of Paint, Trinoteam’s Trino, Team Shotgun’s Puzzle Bloom (above), and Story Fort’s children’s storybook game What is Bothering Carl?
Visit the official PAX site for more information on attending other events taking place during the three day expo.
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