It’s official: those psychotic bats and jokers are clinically insane. Gotham City Impostors will soon be receiving a new map based in Arkham Asylum, free of charge. The new map brings the battle behind the fences of the iconic asylum for the criminally insane, appearing a lot brighter and noticeably different from the version seen in Batman’s recent retail games. The map is planned to launch May 16, 2012, super criminals not included.
Source: Joystiq
With all of the new media apps available on Xbox Live nowadays, it seems the only thing missing is a web browser. According to a new rumor that may change. An unnamed source claims a modified version of Internet Explorer 9 is being tested on Xbox 360 consoles and will allow access to all parts of the Internet. The existing Bing Search will be expanded from media searches to actual web pages. As a bonus, the browser will work with both controller and Kinect, although it is reportedly better-fitted for Kinect with gestures and voice commands. There’s no word of any launch date, but if this rumor proves true we’d expect to see it at E3 next month. Xbox 360 is currently the only current-gen console without a web browser, so it will be an extremely welcome addition.
Source: The Verge
Major Nelson announced on his blog that Microsoft’s E3 press briefing, titled Xbox: Entertainment Evolved, can be seen live on Xbox Live for the first time ever. It will air Monday, June 4 at 12:30p ET/9:30a PT, both on Xbox Live and Spike TV. We don’t know what to expect this year, besides a new music service and the lack of a new console, but Microsoft will likely cram a lot into their 90-minute slot. Our hopes our high that this year’s conference gives some attention to XBLA, which was sadly missing from last year’s showing. Be sure to catch the conference live, and check back here during E3 for all the breaking XBLA news straight from the show floor.
Team17 will deliver plenty of new features to the Worms franchise in Worms Revolution, such as the new engine and environments, but today we see new additions to gameplay. The latest installment of the wacky turn-based series will be the first Worms game to feature a class system.
Their are four brand new classes: soldier, scientist, scout, and heavy. Each class will have 4 different variants, for a total of 16 unlockable worms. The soldier class will be most familiar to fans of the franchise; it is not specialized, but can fight and get around well enough. The scientist is the support class; he is weak and slow, but can build the strongest items and heals the team on his turn. The scout is also weak, but extremely light and agile. He’ll fly farther if hit, but will also take less fall damage than the heavier classes. Then there’s the heavy, the biggest and most powerful worm available. He may not be very agile, even with a jetpack or ninja rope, but is almost immovable when hit by an enemy attack.
Players can mix and match classes on their team, so they can have a diverse team, or a team comprised of only one class. Click the link below to see screenshots of the classes, and start thinking about your team strategies. Worms Revolutions will release third quarter 2012.
Microsoft will soon be replacing Zune as their music service. Their new service, codenamed Woodstock, will be showcased at E3 2012. This new service will allow play across multiple platforms, including Xbox Live, Windows 8, iOS, and Android. The service will not require any extra browser plug-ins, but will have deep Facebook integration. Another feature being tested allows users to “scan and match” their existing music library, allowing it all to be accessed anywhere through the service. Woodstock is not expected to launch until later this year, alongside the launch of Windows 8. Expect to hear much more information once E3 rolls around. Let’s just hope the music selection isn’t limited to 60′s rock ‘n’ roll.
Source: The Verge
Telltale Game’s episodic series The Walking Dead, based on the graphic novel by Robert Kirkman, will soon launch on XBLA. The newest trailer puts story at the forefront, showing players what to expect in the first episode, A New Day. Lee Everett has been convicted for murder, but is given a shot at freedom in a world of the undead. He will meet a cast of survivors, both familiar and new, while being faced with intense situations where the outcome will change the course of the story. There’s no release date yet, but expect to play The Walking Dead very soon for 400MSP per episode.
Good news, children of Gotham! Monolith will be delivering yet another free update to Gotham City Impostors. The new update will feature a brand new map, The East End, as well as the first new game type since the game’s release. Bounty Hunter is a team deathmatch where killed enemies drop bounty, and collecting said bounty gives your team points and you a damage boost. Also included is a new customization feature which lets you pick the language your impostor will speak, including English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish. No more new customization options were discussed, but the voice list mysteriously shows a “Pirate” option which isn’t currently available. There is no date for the update yet, but we’d expect it to be sooner rather than later.
After five years in development, Fez released last Friday to much critical acclaim (almost all around here love it). In its first 24 hours on XBLA it was played by around 20,000 people. Unfortunately, not everyone played it without a problem. Developer Polytron is acknowledging the game-breaking issues players have been experiencing, such as problems running the game on older consoles or unstable save files.
If you’ve experienced a problem while playing Fez, contact support@fezgame.com and they’ll help you out. Polytron is working with Microsoft to fix the problems, but there is no ETA on a patch just yet. Don’t let this news scare you, just check out our review to find out how great Fez can be.
Monolith Productions, masters behind Gotham City Impostors, will be making an amazing announcement April 18. Beyond the fact that the announcement will involve the amazing multiplayer shooter, it’s hard to tell what it will involve. The only hints we get is an extremely rude parrot and the “Don’t get a parrot, shoot one” poster. Does the abundance of parrot hint at a pirate theme, a bird theme, or is it just a red herring? Whatever Monolith is planning, we’ll be anxiously awaiting the reveal.
While previous videos gave a glimpse of the gameplay in The Walking Dead, we can now see a whole chunk of the game in action. The video shows off the beginning of the first episode, entitled A New Day. The scene starts off slow by easing you into the character Lee Everett as he sits in the back of a police car. He’s in awkward conversation with the cop driving, talking about his past and his crime. No guns, no gory zombie murders, but the final dialogue option perfectly sums up the feeling of a zombie apocalypse. Now that we know how it will begin, we can’t wait to continue the adventure of a survivor in the world of The Walking Dead when the series begins sometime in April.
