In an interview with UK gaming magazine Edge, Splatoon's co-director Yusuke Amano said that his game doesn't have voice chat now, and never will. That's thanks, in part, to the somewhat notorious reputation online players tend to have.
"This is coming from personal experience," Amano said. "When I played online games, I didn't like the negativity I got and people telling me, 'You're crap. Go away.' So we wanted to focus on the positive aspects of online gaming."
Having the ability to chat with other players in shooters, particularly to plan routes of attack, or coordinate movement is one of the genre's oldest features. And Amano admitted that he thought this might be seen as limiting to some. To him and the rest of the people on the team, having a safe, clean environment in which to play is worth it.
[UPDATE] Following the publication of this story, a Google representative provided GameSpot the following statement regarding Postal's Google Play rejection:
"While we don't comment on specific apps, we can confirm that our policies are designed to provide a great experience for users and developers. That's why we remove apps from Google Play that violate those policies."
The original story is below.
A port of 1997's ultra-violent game Postal has been rejected by Google for publishing on Google Play due to its "gratuitous violence."
That's according to the game's developer, Running With Scissors, which explained the matter in its forums. The forums are currently unavailable, but Eurogamer was able to capture the following message.
"It seems we have hit a bit of a snag," the developer said. "Unfortunately, it appears Postal has been rejected from Google Play due to it containing 'gratuitous violence.'"
The developer said blocking Postal but not other violent games such as Grand Theft Auto represents something of a double standard.
Although it appears Postal won't come to Google Play, the biggest Android app store, Running With Scissors said it plans to release the game through other means, including Amazon and the Humble Store.
According to Google's own publishing rules, while apps that feature "graphic violence" are permissible, apps that include "gratuitous real violence" are not. We've followed up with Google, asking for additional insight into why Postal was rejected. We'll update this post with anything we might hear back.
"We immediately filed an appeal and that was rejected," Running With Scissors told Eurogamer about the initial decision. "Trying now to speak to an actual human being with a f***ing brain."
In other Postal news, Running With Scissors plans to launch a new expansion for Postal 2--Paradise Lost--on April 17.
The EA Access free game vault continues to grow today, as professional hockey game NHL 15 has been added to the lineup. Electronic Arts launched the game today for the Xbox One subscription service just in time for the start of the 2015 NHL Playoffs, which begin next week.
Indie game Ori and the Blind Forest, which received widespread praise upon its release last month for Xbox One and PC, turned a profit after just one week. Developer Thomas Mahler shared the news in a post on NeoGAF, also teasing that this success might mean more Ori in the future.
"Business-wise, Ori was already profitable a week after release and Microsoft is super happy, so we'll see about Ori's future," Mahler said.
We spoke with Moon Studios co-founder Gennadiy Korol today, who confirmed the game was profitable for Microsoft after one week of sales.
However, it took "a couple of weeks" of sales for Ori to become a profitable project for Moon Studios itself, he said. Korol didn't say, however, how many copies of the game have been sold to date.
Ori sales are likely to increase further still, as an Xbox 360 version of the game is due out later this spring.
Activision on Thursday released a teaser trailer for this year's Call of Duty game, which is in development at Black Ops creator Treyarch Studios. The video is titled "Back in Black" and strongly suggests that--as suspected--this year's game will be Call of Duty: Black Ops III.
The cryptic video, which includes a number of voices and references to Alex Mason from Black Ops II, ends by teasing that Activision will reveal the game in full on Sunday, April 26. This is slightly ahead of schedule for Activision, as the publisher historically has waited until May to reveal new Call of Duty games.
While the new Call of Duty teaser trailer released today basically confirms that the project is indeed Black Ops III, the 60-second video may be hiding more secrets. We've captured a number of stills from the trailer, which include all manner of seemingly random numbers and letters, as well as coordinates and symbols.
Check out the image gallery below to see all the stills. What do you make of them? Let us know in the comments below!
Activision will formally reveal the new Call of Duty game on Sunday, April 26.
Activision's Skylanders series will face new competition this year in the form of LEGO Dimensions, an ambitious-sounding toy-based game announced today and due out for consoles in September. Given that LEGO Dimensions will feature content from a range of juggernaut franchises such as Batman, The Lord of the Rings, Back to the Future, and The Wizard of Oz, you might think Activision would be concerned that its long-held dominance in the "toys-to-life" market--which it created--could be in jeopardy. After all, those franchises, in theory at least, would seem to appeal to a larger audience than Skylanders.
But Activision isn't worried about its kingdom coming crashing down anytime soon. Activision Publishing senior vice president Josh Taub pointed out that the company has faced formidable competition before (Disney Infinity and Amiibo are two examples), but these new players haven't materially impacted the popularity of Skylanders.
"Thanks to our fans, Skylanders is the No. 1 kids' video game franchise in the world and outsells all top action figure toy lines," he said in a statement to GameSpot. "The secret to our success has always been our commitment to bringing new magic and innovation to each and every Skylanders game, and we can't wait to unveil what's coming up next. The popularity of the Skylanders franchise has been unmatched even with new entrants."
Taub also shared some Skylanders franchise statistics that speak to just how massive the series is.
Launched only four years ago, Skylanders has already generated more than $3 billion in sales. This includes more than 240 million toys sold, which outnumbers the "top action figure lines" worldwide, Activision said, citing NPD and Activision internal estimates.
By comparison, Nintendo had sold 5.7 million Amiibo toys by the company's latest count. Disney, meanwhile, hasn't said how many Disney Infinity toys it's sold to date.
Despite the arrival of Disney Infinity and Amiibo, the Skylanders franchise outperformed its nearest competitor (Activision didn't say which it was) by 30 percent globally in 2014, according to NPD and Gfk Chart-Track data, along with Activision's own internal projections.
LEGO Dimensions launches in September for Xbox 360, Xbox One, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, and Wii U. Meanwhile, as Taub said, Activision is working on a new Skylanders title, presumably for release later this year across the same platforms. The most recent game in the series for consoles was 2014's Skylanders Trap Team.
Turtle Rock Studios has announced the latest weekend challenge event for monster-hunting game Evolve, tasking players with performing a special Monster move to win a free character skin.
The event begins at 12:01 AM EDT on Friday, April 10, and runs through 12:01 AM EDT on Monday, April 13. If players can successfully land 1 million rock throws using the Goliath monster, every person who plays between those days will receive the "Goliath Voodo" skin (pictured above) for free.
The Goliath Voodo skin will be delivered to players by Thursday, April 16 if the challenge criteria is met.
This is not the first weekend challenge for Evolve--as Turtle Rock held a St. Patrick's Day-themed Evolve event just last month--and it won't be the last. Turtle Rock said Thursday that it plans to issue more challenges and hold other special community events in the future.
[UPDATE] Warner Bros. has now officially announced LEGO Dimensions. You can watch a trailer above. The first details about the game follow below.
Launching in September for Xbox 360, Xbox One, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, and Wii U.
Developed by series steward Traveller's Tales.
Will fuse together characters from many franchises, including DC Comics, The Lord of the Rings, The LEGO Movie, The Wizard of Oz, LEGO Ninjago, Back to the Future, and more to be announced later.
The $100 Starter Pack includes Batman, Gandalf, and Wyldstyle toys, but more minifgures are on the way, including Gollum and Gimli from The Lord of the Rings, Wonder Woman, Marty McFly from Back to the Future, and The Wicked Witch of the West from The Wizard of Oz, among others.
In-game expansion packs will also be released alongside the new toys in 2015 and 2016.
TT Games founder and creative director Jon Burton says LEGO Dimensions will deliver "endless" creative play, as gamers will be able to mix franchises like they never could before.
"When kids play with LEGO bricks, they build beyond the singular brands, intermixing all of their favorite characters and universes, and we have come up with a way for players to experience that in games," Burton said. "Now for the first time in a video game, LEGO fans can play in the virtual world and in the real world--combining everything without restrictions. Imagine putting LEGO Gollum from The Lord of the Rings behind the wheel of the LEGO Delorean in New Ninjago City--the creative play is endless."
The original story is below.
Piling on to previous rumors, the first details about Warner Bros.' rumored Skylanders-style LEGO game emerged today on Reddit. According to this post, the name of the game is LEGO Dimensions.
A Starter Pack will reportedly include the game, a Toy Pad (what sounds like a Portal of Power from Skylanders), three LEGO minifigures (Batman, Gandalf, and Wyldstyle), and a LEGO Batmobile car.
The game's reported official description is just the best:
"When a mysterious and powerful vortex suddenly appears in various LEGO worlds, different characters from DC Comics, Lord of the Rings, and the LEGO Movie are swept away. To save their friends, Batman, Gandalf, and Wyldstyle bravely jump into the vortex to rescue their friends and fight to save all of LEGO humanity."
Players will journey through "unexpected worlds" and partner with "unlikely allies" in their effort to defeat the nefarious Lord Vortech. The game won't be limited to Batman, Gandalf, and Wyldstyle, as its description also references Back to the Future characters, along with Wonder Woman and Ninjago.
"Get ready to break the rules, because the only rule with LEGO Dimensions is that there are no rules," reads a line from the description. This matches up with the teaser campaign that Warner Bros. has been running this week. See below.
Bear in mind that Warner Bros. has not yet officially announced LEGO Dimensions. The company has teased that some kind of announcement is coming today, April 9, so we may be getting official details soon.
Other popular "toys-to-life" games include Disney Infinity and Nintendo's Amiibo.
With less than a week to go before Grand Theft Auto V's long-awaited release for PC, developer Rockstar Games has now revealed the open-world title's extensive graphics options.
As you can see in the images embedded in this post, GTA V for PC has two settings for visuals: Graphics and Advanced Graphics. Players can toggle all manner of settings, including the overall resolution, aspect ratio, population density (and variety), distance scaling, and lots more.
You can even determine how nice-looking you want water and grass to be in the game. GTA V for PC also allows players to tweak keyboard/mouse settings and set key bindings, among other things.
"It comes down to bandwidth," Rockstar Toronto lead gameplay designer John Macpherson said about why GTA V is coming to PC so much later than the other editions. "We want each version of the game to be the best it can possibly be, and that means having the core members of the original GTA V team working closely with the best PC developers from across all Rockstar studios--the same crew that did great work on the PC versions of Max Payne 3, L.A. Noire, and GTA IV."
"Essentially, a large portion of the team that worked on GTA V for PS3 and Xbox 360 also worked on the PS4 and Xbox One versions and all of the GTA Online content, including Heists. Since the new generation console versions and the PC version share similar architecture, the team also continued to work on the PC version," he added. "With each version adding features and requiring the focus of the same key people, that takes time. However, the result is a PC version that draws from a huge pool of knowledge inside the team to deliver a game of the highest possible quality in every way. We're really excited for people to play GTA V on PC; it is the ultimate version of an amazing game."
Another reason the PC edition of GTA V has taken so much time to arrive comes down to Rockstar working hard to ensure the open-world game not only runs well on high-end machines, but also lower-spec rigs.
"Our focus was to make the game run well on a wide range of hardware so that as many people could experience the game as possible," Rockstar North said. "In order to do that we spent a lot of time working on making various different aspects of the game scalable and accessible to the player. There are over 25 parameters you can tweak that can optimize graphics and performance. The game will automatically optimize the settings for your hardware when you first start it up, but you have a great deal of freedom."
In addition, Rockstar North said that GTA V's Rockstar Editor, a PC-only toolset that will allow players to create gameplay clips and share them with the world, was a "huge addition" that required extra time.
Rockstar North's Alex Hadjadj, GTA V's technical director for graphics, says players who have held out this long for the PC edition of the game are in for a treat. The PC version will be the best-looking version of the open-world game (provided your PC can handle it), running at 60fps and featuring population density sliders and better depth of field than the console editions.
"The most striking aspect is the ability to run the game at 60 frames per second, and to view the game in 4k resolution," he said. "Other improvements are more subtle--the addition of the population density slider means players can alter the traffic population of the city. Also, when pushing settings at the high end, a lot of the effects in the game, like reflections, skins, or depth of field are more subtle and realistic than on console versions."
Finally, Macpherson addressed the topic of modding for GTA V on PC. He wouldn't say much, but did suggest that any mods that find their way into GTA Online, the game's multiplayer mode, will be removed if they negatively affect the experience.
"Since GTA Online has such a massive and vibrant community, our primary focus is making sure that nothing detracts from that experience or has a negative impact on the overall community of players," he said.
GameSpot's full interview with Rockstar touches on even more subjects, including the developer's thoughts about virtual reality, what keeps the team enthusiastic about working on a project for 5+ years, and lots more. Check out the full interview here.
Final Fantasy publisher Square Enix just announced a new game this week--Deus Ex: Mankind Divided--but the Japanese company is gearing up to reveal another project very soon.
As DualShockers discovered, clicking the Facebook or Twitter sharing buttons on the page reveal that Square Enix is planning to announce the project on Monday, April 13. A message that reads, "Square Enix New Project. NEXT 2015.04.13," pops up when you click those sharing options.
Another mystery is a message printed on the website itself, containing the letters "S A R" and the numbers "0 1 0 1." As DualShockers points out, these numbers and letters could be part of the title or a message that Square Enix plans to fill out in the lead-up to the official announcement next week.
No other details about Square Enix's "secret" project are available, including its genre, platforms, or release date, among other things. Check back with GameSpot on Monday to see what it turns out to be.
Missouri-based "pancake artist" Daniel Drake has shed new light on his epic Pokemon-shaped pancakes. "Dan the Pancake Man," as he's known, originally revealed his epic Pokemon creations last year, but he talks about the the origins and the process this week in an interview with GamesRadar.
First, he reveals just where the idea for "Dancakes" originally came from.
"I started doing pancake art because I was a short order fry cook with a real need to make better tips, as server wages in the States are draconian," he says. "It started simple; just smiley faces. But the first one I served earned me a $15 tip, and I said, 'Hey! May as well make every pancake crazy, right?"
Drake kept making more and more creative pancakes, based on movie and TV characters originally. The Internet took notice, and he even went on NBC's The Today Show to talk about his work. Then he was hired at Corvid's Cafe in St. Louis--it was there that he created his first Pokemon-themed pancake, before going on to release the video below that thrust him into the spotlight.
Drake also reveals that he uses special pancake batter to make his Pokemon pancakes, and says that the most challenging monster to create was Arcanine.
"The hardest one was definitely Arcanine!," Drake explained. "My gosh, that critter has so much fuzz!!"
GamesRadar's full story about Drake's Pokemon pancakes is well worth a read. Check it out here.
Oscar-nominated producer Megan Ellison (Zero Dark Thirty, American Hustle, Her) recently visited Naughty Dog's offices to play the upcoming PlayStation 4 game.
She was quite pleased, and says that--like the rest of us--she's eager to play the game early next year.
Just left @Naughty_Dog where I got to play a little UNCHARTED 4. Gorgeous gameplay. Epic worlds. I cannot wait for full immersion next year.
Originally scheduled to launch this year, Naughty Dog recently delayed A Thief's End to spring 2016. The few extra months of development time will help the studio realize the game's full potential, Druckmann and his directing partner Bruce Straley said last month.
In addition to A Thief's End the game, an Uncharted movie is in the works. Most recently, we learned that Jurassic World's Chris Pratt passed on playing Nathan Drake in the movie, while The Hurt Locker writer Mark Boal has come aboard to work on the screenplay.
Publisher Warner Bros has lined up a day-one patch for its upcoming fighting game, Mortal Kombat X, which enhances online stability and multiplayer invite options.
Information on the update, which will be mandatory for those who want to connect the game online, has arrived due to one player receiving their copy ahead of release date.
A Reddit user, going by the name "Abudiix", said the day-one patch apparently makes many of the game's challenges more difficult. The user added that in-game currency awards have been reduced significantly, explaining: "My friend used to get 2,500 coins on a boss fight now he gets 200 on the same boss fight after the update."
Meanwhile, the update is also said to expand the size of The Krypt, which is a warehouse-sized area filled with coffins that can be opened for in-game currency. Each coffin, once opened, provides the player with items such as concept art, videos, and even hidden special moves.
Nintendo has published a trio of Mario Kart 8 videos showcasing how much faster the Wii U game plays in its new 200cc mode.
The first video, below, offers a side-by-side comparison of the Piranha Plant Pipeway course in 150cc (previously the fastest speed) and 200cc. As the footage demonstrates, the maximum distance from ramp jumps is notably longer, while the high-speed momentum also allows racers to cut corners on rougher surfaces. Previously inaccessible feats are now achievable too, such as jumping above the entire arch placed within the final third of the track.
New ways to approach courses appear to be a key design theme with the new speed, as shown with the next video, Grumble Volcano. Mario is shown cutting past the final stretch of the course by leaping across a vast pool of lava. The footage also illustrates how advanced players will need to be more accustomed with the break button.
The final video, of the Dolphin Shoals track, shows how racers can fly across long stretches of the course by combining ramp-jumps with each kart's attached glider.
Mario Kart 8's 200cc mode is expected to go live on April 23. The update will be free.
Meanwhile, the second of the game's two premium DLC packs will release on the same day. For $8, the DLC pack offers three new racers (Isabelle, Villager, and Dry Bowser), four vehicles, and eight courses, including the Animal Crossing course that changes seasons periodically.
By Emanuel Maiberg on Apr 09, 2015 04:46 am Image credit: Gage Skidmore
Daniel Radcliffe, the actor known around the world for his leading role in the Harry Potter series of films, is in talks for the lead role in an upcoming BBC production about the making of Grand Theft Auto.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Radcliffe is in talks to play Sam Houser, the co-founder and president of Grand Theft Auto developer Rockstar Games.
The BBC GTA show is being produced as part of a wider initiative called "Make it Digital," which is described as a "major UK-wide initiative to inspire a new generation to get creative with coding, programming, and digital technology."
YouTube will introduce a monthly subscription service that will let you to watch as many videos as you want without ever encountering an ad, the Google subsidiary said in an email sent to YouTube partners today.
Google did not say how much the ads-free YouTube subscription will cost or when it will be released, but sources tell Bloomberg that we'll see it this year.
According to the letter, the decision to introduce the premium service is based on the success of the YouTube Music Key Beta, which allows users to pay $10 a month for access to Google Play's library and ad-free music videos on YouTube.
Google said that it's seen "tremendous engagement," with over 2 million installations in less than a month.
"We're excited to build on this momentum by taking another big step in favor of choice: offering fans an ads-free version of YouTube for a monthly fee," Google said. "By creating a new paid offering, we'll generate a new source of revenue that will supplement your fast growing advertising revenue."
According to the letter sent to YouTube partners, YouTube will pay partners 55 percent of the total net revenues YouTube determines is attributable to the monthly views or watchtime of their content.
A new show based on Nintendo's the Legend of Zelda may not be happening any time soon, but this fan-made intro in the style of HBO's Game of Thrones will make you wish it was.
In the video, which you can watch above, the camera flies over Hyrule as it appeared in The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, with buildings popping out of the terrain as they do in the opening sequence to the Game of Thrones television show.
"Netflix should hire us to do the intro for their 'canceled' Hyrule romp," the makers of the video said in its description. "I hope you guys like it, and remember: in the Game of Hyrule you win... or you look up the answer to that puzzle online."
Zynga CEO Don Mattrick, a former Xbox executive, is leaving the social gaming company. San Francisco-based Zynga, creator of franchises as FarmVille and Words With Friends, announced the news Wednesday.
Mattrick's departure from the company is effective immediately--and he's also no longer on the board of directors. He originally joined Zynga as its CEO in July 2013, leaving his senior management post at Microsoft to join the firm just a few months before the launch of the Xbox One.
Company chairman and founder Mark Pincus will step into the role of CEO, earning the same $1/year salary he made when he was the top executive of the company years ago.
"Don joined us in a very important time in our evolution. I sincerely thank him for his leadership in better serving our players in a mobile-first world and for delivering world class quality and value to our consumers," Pincus said in a statement.
"I am inspired by our upcoming products," he said. "It is the most exciting slate of mobile games in Zynga's history with titles like Empires & Allies, Dawn of Titans, and FarmVille: Harvest Swap. These games are coming on the heels of one of the most successful mobile launches in our history with Wizard of Oz Slots, which was launched this past November by our Spooky Cool team in Chicago."
Addressing his own return to the role of Zynga CEO, Pincus said: "I am returning to the company that I love in order to accelerate innovation in the most popular categories like Action Strategy and strengthen our focus on our core areas like Invest and Express. I look forward to partnering with our leaders to intensify our focus on social experiences for the millions of consumers who play our games."
Microsoft's Kinect visionary Kudo Tsunoda has nothing against traditional virtual reality devices like Oculus Rift or PlayStation's Project Morpheus, but he says in a new interview that augmented reality technology like HoloLens has the potential to do more.
"The thing that HoloLens does is allow you to blend your digital world with your real world," Tsunoda said in the latest issue of Game Informer. "Bringing of those two things together unlocks all kinds of different experiences."
The various demonstrations Microsoft showed at the HoloLens announcement event in January illustrate the power of augmented reality relative to virtual reality.
"None of that stuff is things you could do with VR," Tsunoda explained. "It's nothing against VR; I think VR is great tech. But it's the 'blending of the worlds' part about HoloLens that makes it unique. From a gameplay perspective, it's being able to make your real world environment an integral part of the experience. That's really different than what you would get from a VR experience."
Tsunoda went on to say that he sees HoloLens as having the potential to be a game-changer when it comes to teaching and collaboration. Being able to draw holograms into the world of someone wearing a HoloLens headset is a "compelling thing for being able to teach people skills, and allowing them to collaborate in ways they couldn't do before," he said.
You can read the full interview with Tsunoda in the May issue of Game Informer, which is available now.
Episode 1 of Conker's Bad Fur Day DLC for Project Spark that was announced last month will cost $5, and will take you about an hour to complete, developer Team Dakota has announced.
Conker's Big Reunion episode 1, as Team Dakota is calling it, was made with the same Project Spark tools that are available to players, and is meant to play like what you'd expect from a Conker game, an action-platformer with a dirty sense of humor. If you want to make your own Conker content, you can purchase the Conker Mega Pack, which includes the Conker Creation Pack (containing more than 350 Conker assets), Conker's Big Reunion, and Champions Quest Episode 1 for $10.
The Conker content will hit Project Spark on April 23.
"I don't know what is in store for Conker beyond Project Spark (and Conker's inclusion here is not limiting other plans for this irreverent squirrel), but I'm hoping that Conker's Big Reunion is going to set the bar for how to build a great Conker game," Team Dakota Design Director Brad Rebh said.
Team Dakota didn't say if or when it plans to release new episodes, but invited players to create more Conker games using the Conker Creation Pack.
Microsoft stressed the point that Conker's inclusion in Project Spark doesn't limit the company from any other plans it might have for the character. Last month, Xbox boss Phil Spencer said that there isn't a new Conker game in development at Rare or another studio the moment, but that Microsoft hasn't ruled out the possibility either.
Project Spark, which lets players create their own game content, is free to download on Xbox One and Windows 8.1
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