Kingdoms of Amalur : Reckoning 2 was in Pre-Production - Report

The Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning sequel that 38 Studios founder Curt Schilling confirmed was in the works in February was in pre-production, and was aimed at "improving everything," Joystiq reports. Unnamed sources told the site the team at Big Huge Games wanted to make a sequel with better graphics, no loading screens between zones, expanded combat animations, fewer branching quests, and the ability for players to affect the game world at a deeper level.


38 Studios went belly up last week, with all employees across it and its subsidiary Big Huge Games laid off. The site reports that even if Big Huge Games were to continue to exist under a different banner, the team would likely not be able to work on Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning 2. Though 38 Studios presently owns the Amalur intellectual property (believed to be valued at around $20 million), the company is likely to be forced to hand it over to the state of Rhode Island as part of a collateral arrangement originally agreed upon as part of the 2010 $75 million loan that brought 38 Studios to the Ocean State.

The site also reports that Electronic Arts--which published Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning--passed on working on the sequel due to "executive politics." 38 Studios then sought other publishing partners for the game, though no companies were named.

[UPDATE] Rhode Island newspaper The Providence Journal reports today that an unnamed publisher pulled out of a $35 million publishing deal for Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning 2 after word came that 38 Studios may be in trouble.

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning shipped in February to a warm critical reception and sales of 1.2 million units over 90 days. Despite this, Rhode Island governor Lincoln Chafee said the game was a "failure," and needed to sell 3 million copies to break even.

Troubles at 38 Studios first came to light earlier this month, when reports from the Rhode Island government indicated that the company had failed to make a $1.125 million loan payment to the state's Economic Development Corporation. The studio eventually made the payment, but it also enacted a round of unspecified layoffs, before shutting down completely.

Copied from: Gamespot.com

Grand Theft Auto V expected to sell 14 million at launch

Grand Theft Auto V will sell more at launch than Grand Theft Auto IV managed in its first year on shelves, according to one analyst. Sterne Agee's Arvind Bhatia today released a note to investors, saying he expects the game to debut in the first three months of 2013, posting sales of 14 million copies.


Bhatia said the GTAV launch should bring in about $700 million in revenue for Take-Two, which said it expected just over $1 billion for Rockstar products this fiscal year. With Max Payne 3 the only announced Rockstar title to launch this year, Bhatia believes it "is all but a given" that the publisher is planning to launch GTAV before the March 31, 2013, end of its fiscal year.

For perspective on just how big the game is for the publisher, Take-Two's previous fiscal year saw total revenues of $825.8 million. The publisher has projected this year's sales to hit $1.75 billion to $1.85 billion. That uptick has led to widespread agreement from analysts that GTAV will launch in Take-Two's current fiscal year.

GTAIV debuted in April of 2008 and shipped 13 million before the end of March 2009. The game enjoyed sales over a prolonged stretch of time, as two years later, Take-Two said shipments had reached nearly 20 million.





 Copied from Gamespot.com

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater HD soundtrach revealed.

The soundtrack for Tony Hawk's Pro Skater HD has been revealed. In an interview with Sound and Vision, developer Robomodo confirmed the game's 14 songs, including "Superman" by Goldfinger, a track the studio said was "mandated" by fans.


The Tony Hawk's Pro Skater HD soundtrack (listed in full below) is almost an even mix of songs from the original Tony Hawk titles and songs new to the franchise. Project manager Ken Overbey discussed the licensing and decision process, saying it was no easy task for a number of reasons.

"It was a little difficult. We definitely wanted to bring back some of the songs from the original soundtrack, but wanted new songs as well," he said. "The most difficulty we had was our budget, which was very small, and the scope and time frame; it was a lot of work to get it all lined up and get the songs in. You have to put out a risk analysis report and you have to point out to the publisher what the biggest risks are in the development. Anyone who knows the game knows the music is just as important as the gameplay."

In development at Robomodo (Tony Hawk Ride, Tony Hawk Shred), Tony Hawk's Pro Skater HD is due out in June and will be the first Tony Hawk title distributed exclusively through digital channels. It will contain levels from the first two Tony Hawk titles, retouched and running on a new game engine.

Confirmed characters for Tony Hawk's Pro Skater HD thus far include familiar favorites like Hawk, Rodney Mullen, Andrew Reynolds, and Eric Koston, as well as newcomers like Chris Cole, Nyjah Huston, and Hawk's son, Riley Hawk. A firm price for Tony Hawk's Pro Skater HD has not been announced, but it is expected to sell for "around $15".

The full Tony Hawk's Pro Skater HD soundtrack is below.

Songs taken from Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 and 2:
"Bring the Noise" - Anthrax featuring Chuck D (Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2)
"Superman" - Goldfinger (Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1)
"When Worlds Collide" - Powerman 5000 (Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2)
"Heavy Metal Winner" - Consumed (Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2)
"May 16" - Lagwagon (Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2)
"No Cigar" - Millencolin (Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2)
"You" - Bad Religion (Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2)
Songs new to the Tony Hawk franchise:
"The Bomb" - Pigeon John
"We the People" - Lateef the Truthspeaker
"Marathon Mansion!"- Pegasuses-XL
"Teenage Blood - Apex Manor
"Please Ask for Help" - Telekinesis
"Flyentology (Cassettes Won't Listen Remix)" - El-P featuring Trent Reznor
"USA" - Middle Class Rut (new to the franchise)





Copied From: Gamespot.com

Xbox 360 should be banned in USA,says judge

The ongoing legal dispute between Motorola Mobility and Microsoft could see some versions of the Xbox 360 banned in the United States. International Trade Commission judge David Shaw has recommended that the trade group ban the import of 4GB and 250GB Xbox 360 S consoles, reports Courthouse News. These consoles are manufactured in China.


Sales of consoles already in the United States should be banned by a cease-and-desist order, Shaw says. On top of this, the judge recommends Microsoft pay Motorola 7 percent of the value of any unsold consoles in the U.S.

Microsoft argues that Shaw's order to ban the import of Xbox 360 consoles would hurt consumers, as it would leave interested buyers with only two options: the PlayStation 3 or the Nintendo Wii. Shaw rejected this assertion, noting the public interest in enforcing intellectual property rights trumps any "economical impact" on console buyers.

Should ITC commissioners agree with Shaw's recommendation, President Barack Obama and advisors will have 60 days to review the decision, the site reports. After this time, whatever is decided can be appealed.

Last month, Shaw ruled that the Xbox 360 violated a string of patents Motorola holds for video decoding, Wi-Fi connection, and console-to-accessory connections. And earlier this month, a German court decision banned the sale of Xbox 360 consoles in that country, though it had no immediate effect, because Microsoft was granted a preliminary injunction.

The ITC is expected to conclude its investigation by August 23.

Max Payne beats Diablo to UK No.1

Max Payne 3 outdid its predecessor by a factor of 10:1 in its first week on sale, pipping Diablo III to the UK All-Formats number one. It was the second-biggest launch of the year so far--just behind Mass Effect 3, and Take 2's first number one since LA Noire hit the top spot in 2011.


The official sales charts only include physical sales, however, as digital downloads are not tracked as part of the main chart. In stores and from traditional online retailers, 11 percent of Diablo III's sales were of the limited collector's edition, compared to two percent for Max Payne 3.

FIFA Street kept up its strong performance, slotting in at three, refusing to budge from the top five despite a 17 percent drop in sales. Last week's number one, Sniper Elite V2, saw a 68 percent drop in sales as it found itself in fourth place.

FIFA 12 rounded out the top five following an eight percent drop in sales, while Prototype 2 dropped to six after a 15 percent decline in sales. Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 bucked the trend to post a 21 percent rise in sales and re-enter the top 10 at seven, sneaking ahead of Battlefield 3, which saw sales slip two percent.

The top 10 was rounded off by Assassin's Creed: Revelations and Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympics.

Epic games pushing for "quantum leap"in next gen hardware power

Epic Games is calling on Microsoft and Sony to offer bleeding-edge visuals with the next wave of consoles, and it believes the Unreal Engine 4 can spur such an advancement in fidelity. In an interview published today at Wired, Epic Games design director Cliff Bleszinski said the company's proprietary Unreal Engine 4 needs to be at the forefront of next-generation technology.


"There is a huge responsibility on the shoulders of our engine team and our studio to drag this industry into the next generation," Bleszinski said. "It is up to Epic, and [CEO] Tim Sweeney in particular, to motivate Sony and Microsoft not to phone in what these next consoles are going to be. It needs to be a quantum leap. They need to damn near render Avatar in real time, because I want it and gamers want it--even if they don't know they want it."

Why should Microsoft and Sony listen to Epic? Sweeney says his company has a more intimate relationship with manufacturers than others do.

"We're much more in sync with the console makers than any other developer is," he said. "That means we can give detailed recommendations with a complete understanding of what is going to be commercially possible."

A preview of the Unreal Engine 4 was offered to select licensees, partners, and prospective clients during the 2012 Game Developers Conference in March, with those parties required to sign a nondisclosure agreement.

As for advancements of the Unreal Engine 4 over its predecessors, Sweeney said the new framework includes tools that allow for shortened production cycles and lower development costs. In terms of technical specifics, the new engine includes a new dynamic lighting system, which operates based on calculations of objects' inherent properties, as opposed to being dictated by preprogrammed effects. This technology will supposedly allow for more realistic lighting, where "colors mix, translucent materials glow, and objects viewed through water refract."

For more on the Unreal Engine 4, and to see images rendered by the technology, check out the full Wired interview.

Unsealed testimony alleges Activision tried to spy on ex-infinity Ward heads

A number of unsealed documents from the upcoming trial between Activision and a group of ex-Infinity Ward developers have revealed a testimony that alleges the publisher launched an internal investigation against lead plaintiffs Jason West and Vince Zampella.

 The documents--made public this week by Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Elihu Berle--contain the testimony of Activision's former senior director of information technology, Thomas Fenady. As reported by Giant Bomb and The Los Angeles Times, Fenady's testimony alleges that Activision's in-house lawyer, George Rose, asked him to spy on West and Zampella by accessing their work emails, voice mails, and computer files.


According to Fenady, who left Activision in 2009, Rose told him the decision to investigate West and Zampella came from Activision CEO Bobby Kotick. The testimony also alleges the objective--known as "Project Icebreaker"--was begun with the aim of building evidence against West and Zampella, but that efforts to monitor the personal correspondence of the developers, which included using outside parties, were unsuccessful.

Other documents unsealed by Judge Elihu Berle in the case include a plan documenting bonuses from West and Zampella's initial agreement in 2003, as well as a memorandum of understanding from 2008, explaining the extension of the developers' initial contract.

According to the LA Times report, the documents form part of the contract that Activision had with West and Zampella and the 40 other game developers involved in the lawsuit, laying out the money that Activision owes the developers in royalties and bonuses.

Activision claims that it fired West and Zampella because they were secretly planning to start their new studio with the help of Electronic Arts, while still employed by the Call of Duty publisher. West and Zampella claim that the real reason they were fired was so Activision wouldn't have to pay them millions of dollars in royalties associated with Modern Warfare 2. Beyond the performance-based payout and any other court-awarded monetary damages, West and Zampella are seeking to gain co-ownership of the Modern Warfare brand. If successful in court, West and Zampella would have the right to create and release both old and new instalments in the Modern Warfare franchise.

According to a recent report from Bloomberg, Activision has dropped the $400 million claim against EA, which originally made up part of its lawsuit against West and Zampella.

Although the terms of the settlement were not disclosed, Bloomberg reported that EA will now be removed from the upcoming trial, set to take place on May 29.

Capcom Revising on - disc DLC stance

Capcom has heard the customer complaints over the "downloadable" content for Street Fighter X Tekken being locked away on the retail disc, and the publisher is changing in response. Senior VP Christian Svensson posted a statement about the change in direction on Capcom's official forums yesterday.

"We would like to assure you that we have been listening to your comments and as such have begun the process of re-evaluating how such additional game content is delivered in the future," Svensson said. "As this process has only just commenced in the past month or so, there will be some titles, where development began some time ago and that are scheduled for release in the coming months, for which we are unable to make changes to the way some of their post-release content is delivered."

For example, Svensson said next week's release of Dragon's Dogma will arrive with some DLC already on the disc. While he didn't specify which content was on-disc, Svensson said the game would receive an array of new weapons, quests, and customization options after launch.

On the eve of Street Fighter X Tekken's March debut, Capcom admitted that the 12 "downloadable" characters announced as PlayStation Vita exclusives were actually on the discs of the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions of the game. These fighters will be sold for $20 (1,600 MS points) sometime after the PS Vita version launches this fall.

Modern Warfare 3 getting Face Off mode

Latest Call of Duty title adding one vs. one and two vs. two mode for Xbox Live on May 16; first two maps to be free.

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Call of Duty fans yearning to put their skills to the test in close-quarters maps are in luck. Developers Infinity Ward, Raven Software, and Sledgehammer Games today announced a new Face Off game mode for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3.

he new Face Off mode will be played on specially designed maps with matches consisting of either one vs. one or two vs. two. Two free Face Off maps--Erosion and Aground--will be made available to all Xbox Live users on May 16.

An additional two maps--Lookout and Getaway--will be available to purchase inside the Content Collection 2 downloadable content pack, which arrives on Xbox Live on May 22. This add-on also contains the multiplayer map Oasis and two new Special Ops missions. Future releases for additional platforms were not mentioned.

For more on Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, check out GameSpot's review.

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Released a new trailer for Hitman: Absolution

Recently, when Square Enix released a new trailer for the fifth part of the Hitman franchise, which consists only of excerpts from the game.

The publisher says that the purpose of this trailer show, especially "richness, depth, diversity and potential of the world" in which parents Agent terrible 47 As already seen from the trailer, the game had a very nice graphics, but also the game drew driver Glacier 2, said the creator IO Interactive.

In the video you can see a lot of different ways that you can target your tired, as in previous works but you will be more mysterious or more aggressive approach to the performance of their duties.

Players in FIFA 2013 will look more realistic

The latest EA game, FIFA 13, will - in the words of artists - actors look much more realistic than in previous parts of the franchise. Will they hold the promise?


In previous parts of FIFA has been only a handful of players in the game a bit like the real players, but many have been in appearance almost unrecognizable (particularly those from slightly inferior clubs), but this will be the new part of the world-famous football franchise has changed.

Mike Harrison, Capture Manager of  EA says: "Only existent some three years ago, we slowly begin to realize how very important it is that faces are as realistic as possible. This year we are strongly focused on that. Through computers and through the studio Dimensional Imaging, slowly and carefully create a realistic and recognizable faces of large numbers of players. "


Director of Dimensional Imaging, Colin Urguhart, said this: "The graphics are improved from year to year, so it is even more necessary that through improved graphics, creating people who are almost to the last detail like real people in real life, but this process is very demanding, but also takes a long time - even creating a video game. "

Electronic Arts has been one of the first studios that were in operation on a more realistic image of a man in computer games. Dimensional Imaging, assisted by EA since 2009, when the game was released with FIFA 10 and believe that they will successfully fulfill their mission.

The official announcement and trailer of Call of Duty: Black Ops 2

New concepts, new ideas, innovation, these are guidelines, which are selected by Treyarch studio in the development of new upcoming Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 games. Black Ops 2 is definitely not what you might have in mind or thought. The outcome of the trailers are broken all the allegations that have appeared in these days, and surprise them all.

The outcome of this new game will be placed In the future, and by more in 2025. New modern weapons, new concepts of gameplay in multiplayer, but they should be Black Ops 2 only lit up with its full power.

The game will be released in 13th November 2012, will be available for PC, Xbox and Playstation platforms.

Read More here: LINK

Gameplay Interview

Modern Warfare 3 DLC after a long, long time, finally released for PC

PC version of the new DLC for the game's Modern Warfare 3 is released only now, even if the PC is the "home of FPS games," which is still one of the many evidence that a publisher Activison (and probably the Infinity Ward) and only just about money.

You can download it on PC on 8.May, after about 5 days, the DLC will contain the contents of the Xbox Elite Premium DLC's until now. It will contain four new multiplayer folders - Liberation, Piazza, Overwatch and Black Box, and will also include two new Spec Ops mission - Black Ice and Negotiator.

DLC pack costs $ 14.99 or more than 12 euros, even if you are interested ...

PS3 hack opens up console library on PS Vita

When the PlayStation Vita hits store shelves in the West next month, gamers may have an even bigger selection of games to play than Sony intended. Today, videos have surfaced online showing a way in which PS Vita owners can use their PlayStation 3's Remote Play functionality to stream ostensibly any game onto their portable device.

As reported by Eurogamer, the feat is performed by way of a hack to the PlayStation 3's firmware. Users must jailbreak their PS3s and then install firmware v3.55. In this version of the PS3's operating system, the PS Vita is regarded as a mobile phone. A full explanation of the workaround can be found in the Spanish-language video, below.


The PS Vita's compatibility update with the PS3, better known as firmware 4.0, arrived during the first week of December. In addition to Remote Play functionality, the update allowed PS3 owners to copy content such as games and music to their PS Vitas.

Sony had not responded to a request for comment on the matter as of press time.

Explanation Remote Play on PS Vita (Explicación) only CFW