Developed exclusively for the Playstation 4 by Evolution Studios, Driveclub is all about you and your friends. It’s about teamwork; it’s about everyone fighting for one another and earning rewards together – and most importantly it’s about sharing in the sheer thrill of every race. Enjoy the excitement of high-speed solo racing, or join a racing club to discover what Driveclub is all about. Created specifically with the next-generation gamer in mind, Driveclub leverages the networking power and social capabilities of the PS4 system to seamlessly connect you and your friends, always allowing you to share your experiences, send and receive challenges, and keep up to speed with your team’s performance.

Driveclub brings to life the heart and soul of car culture. An incredible, authentic and immersive driving experience, Driveclub makes you feel the exhilaration of driving the most powerful and beautifully designed cars in the world; all rendered in staggering detail, inside and out as you race them in richly detailed real-world locations alongside your Club.

Release Date: October 8, 2014
MSRP: 59.99 USD
RP for Rating Pending: No Descriptors, Includes online features that may expose players to unrated user-generated content
Genre: Racing
Developer: Evolution Studios

From Turtle Rock Studios, creators of Left 4 Dead, comes Evolve -- the next generation of multiplayer shooters. Four Hunters face off against a single, player-controlled Monster in adrenaline-pumping 4v1 matches. Play as the Monster to use savage abilities and an animalistic sense to kill your human enemies, or choose one of four Hunter classes (Assault, Trapper, Medic and Support) and team up to take down the beast on the planet Shear, where flora and fauna act as an adversary to man and monster alike. Level up to unlock new Hunter or Monster characters as well as upgrades, skins, and perks. Earn your infamy on the leaderboards and become the apex predator.

Release Date: October 21, 2014
RP for Rating Pending:
Genre: First-Person Shooter
Publisher: 2K Games
Developer: Turtle Rock Studios

Lords of the Fallen is a challenging Action RPG set in a medieval fantasy world ruled by a Fallen God. Fight against the formidable Lords and Generals that command a demonic army, Lords of the Fallen rewards skill and persistence among dedicated Action RPG fans.

The combat system consists of many complex skills that join both weapon mastery and supernatural abilities combined with large number of weapons, armors and upgrades. Large variety of items and gear can be found throughout re-exploration and investigating game’s deep and intriguing secret areas.

Release Date: October 31, 2014
RP for Rating Pending:
Genre: RPG
Publisher: CI Games
Developers: Deck 13, CI Games

Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare envisions the powerful battlegrounds of the future, where both technology and tactic have evolved to usher in a new era of combat for the franchise. Delivering a stunning performance, Academy Award winning actor Kevin Spacey stars as Jonathan Irons -- one of the most powerful men in the world -- shaping this chilling vision of the future of war. The game takes place in a plausible future in which technological progress and today's military practices have converged with powerful consequences. • In this carefully researched and crafted vision of the future, Private Military Corporations (PMCs) have become the dominant armed forces for countless nations outsourcing their military needs, redrawing borders and rewriting the rules of war. And Jonathan Irons, the founder and president of the world's largest PMC, Atlas Corporation, is at the center of it all.

Suit up for combat in exoskeletons that evolve every aspect of a soldier's battle readiness, enabling combatants to deploy with an advanced lethality and eliminating the need for specialization. Players experience enhanced player movement and verticality through boost jumps and grappling, covert cloaking abilities, and biomechanics that provide unparalleled strength, awareness, endurance, and speed. With the advent of the exoskeleton and newly advanced armor and weaponry, every soldier commands tactical freedom in any terrain unlike ever before, fundamentally changing the way gamers play Call of Duty across all modes.

Release Date: November 4, 2014
18 for Ages 18 and up:
Genre: First-Person Shooter
Publisher: Activision
Developer: Sledgehammer Games

FOR WEEKLY RENTALS, PLAYSTATION NOW'S PRICING IS REASONABLE
Four hours, 30 days, or 90 days, on the other hand? Well…


PlayStation Now -- Sony's long-discussed streaming solution -- has officially entered open beta on PlayStation 4 starting today, and I was surprised, as I scrolled through the 122 games currently available, how reasonably priced many of these games are, specifically in the weekly rental category. (If you want to find PlayStation Now on your PS4, go to the PlayStation Store and scroll down to "PlayStation Now," the third option down from the bottom in the list on the left.)
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All 122 PlayStation Now Games, With Pricing

Now, let's be totally clear: the other rental options on Now -- four hours, 30 days, and 90 days -- seem to make very little sense, especially (but not limited to) the former. Why you'd rent a game for four hours is beyond me, especially at $2.99 a pop and up, which seems to be the territory where most of these games sit. Likewise, renting many of these games for a month or, more heinously, a full three months brings you into the pricing territory you'd be in if you just bought the game outright, whether new, used, or digitally. (It's weird, in this light, that Sony said EA Access isn't a good value, but somehow this is. But I digress.)

In other words, don't bother renting for four hours -- because paying for what is, in essence, a glorified demo makes no sense -- and if you're inclined to rent a game on PlayStation Now for longer than a week, you might as well just go ahead and look into buying it outright (though you'll have to have a PlayStation 3 to do so, as all of these games are from PS3's library).
...of the 122 games in the PlayStation Now library on PS4, 95 of them can be rented for seven days at a time, and the average cost of renting each of these games individually is $5.65, or about $0.81 a day.
By my count, out of the 122 games in the PlayStation Now library on PS4, 95 of them can be rented for seven days at a time, and the average cost of renting each of these games individually is $5.65, or about $0.81 a day. I won't get into whether the games available are terrible, bad, good, or great -- I think you'll find that they run the gamut -- but I will say that, at under a dollar a day, renting these games isn't going to break the bank. Indeed, it seems in line with pricing of rental games from back in the day, and when you take into account all important inflation, that means that renting from Now for a week is actually cheaper than it was at your local video store (this also doesn't take into account the quality of the Now streams, and whether or not they satisfactorily work).
This is in stark contrast to the four hour rentals -- what I will call "demo rentals" -- which seem to start at around $2.99, and are disingenuously displayed on PlayStation Now's interface with a "from $2.99" moniker. Don't rent a game at that price for that amount of time. It's ridiculous. Likewise, 27 games on PlayStation Now currently don't give you the option to rent for a week, typically only being available for a full 90 day rental, so you'll probably want to stay away from those. (I want to give a quick shoutout to Saints Row: The Third's absurd pricing of $4.99 for four hours or $29.99 for 90 days, with no in between.)

Rent Saints Row 3 for four hours or 90 days, or nothing in between. Because that makes sense.
Avoid four hour rentals like the plague, and go ahead and plug your PS3 back in if you're not down with weekly rentals...
It is worth noting that the aforementioned $5.65 average for a seven day rental has some caveats. That price is actually significantly spiked by some more expensive week-long rentals. In fact, 30 of the 122 games on PlayStation Now can be rented for a week for $3.99; 27 more can be rented for $5.99, and 16 more for $6.99. But there are five games available at $7.99 a week, a game at $8.99 a week, two at $9.99 a week, one at $11.99 a week, and two more at $14.99 a week. These higher prices cover games ranging from F1 2013 and Dirt 3 to Zone of the Enders HD Collection and Farming Simulator, so you're probably safe staying away from those rentals.
So, there's PlayStation Now's pricing in a nutshell. Avoid four hour rentals like the plague, and go ahead and plug your PS3 back in if you're not down with weekly rentals, as the prices when you go above that may just recommend buying those games outright.
But seven day rentals? I'm not seeing anything worth worrying about there.

THIS IS WHAT WWE 2K15 LOOKS LIKE ON PS4 AND XBOX ONE
We CAN see him!

It's been an eventful morning for wrestling fans. First, details about some of the modes and features coming to WWE 2K15 were revealed. Then we got wind of this crazy HULKAMANIA edition of the game, which will be exclusive to current-gen consoles. Now, WWE Superstar John Cena has tweeted out the very first current-gen, in-game screen shot of himself looking ready to run straight through what appears to be Randy Orton. That grimace says it all.


I can see him just fine...
Hopefully we get an even larger image to dissect soon, but the detail here is already pretty impressive, especially in the face. Can't wait to see if he'll look as convincing in motion.
What do you think of the look? As impressive as you'd hoped? More so, less so? Sound off in the comments, and stay tuned to IGN for more as it comes.

RESIDENT EVIL 1 GETTING REMASTERED FOR PS4, XBOX ONE, PS3, XBOX 360 AND PC

Prepare for scares.

The original Resident Evil is being remastered for PS4, Xbox One, PS3, Xbox 360 and PC, Capcom has confirmed.

Due out in 2015, the title will be available via digital download only and is based on the 2002 GameCube remake. 1080p visuals will be standard for PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, while older consoles will get 720p. All versions will have 5.1 surround sound support.
You can either choose to play the game in its old 4:3 ratio, or bump it up to 16:9 widescreen. Other changes include various control options, though the original scheme will be present, and a scrolling camera that appears to move away from the original's fixed angles in preference of a more dynamic approach.




Resident Evil was first released in 1996 on PlayStation, before being remade on GameCube in 2002. This was then ported to Wii later down the line, which makes it somewhat frustrating that no Wii U version is in the works.

Dubbed the GayStation,

there's no suggestion the console will be made more widely available. All is not lost for those bored of the standard black model, however, as Sony is set to launch its own white console in September alongside Destiny, though a standalone version is expected at some stage in the future.

This morning we also heard rumours Microsoft is set to follow suit by bundling its white console in with Sunset Overdrive.
For more on the issue of LGBT representation in gaming, check out our feature exploring why we need more gay characters in games.

CALIFORNIA MAN SUES SONY OVER KILLZONE: SHADOW FALL
1080p, or not 1080p? That is the question.


Word comes by way of Polygon, which cites the lawsuit being filed in Northern California by a man named Douglas Ladore. Ladore’s claim is simple: Sony advertised the PlayStation 4 launch title Killzone: Shadow Fall as running in 1080p resolution, but instead “used a shortcut that was supposed to provide ‘subjectively similar’ results," particularly in multiplayer.

As you may recall, the hullaballoo surrounding Killzone: Shadow Fall’s resolution occurred well after launch. Shadow Fall came to market in November of 2013, but it wasn’t until March of 2014 that claims began circulating that Shadow Fall’s multiplayer, in particular, didn’t run at 1080p or 60 frames-per-second, as claimed. Eurogamer’s Digital Foundry reported that while the single-player campaign runs at 1080p, multiplayer ran at 960x1080 at around 50 frames, as opposed to 1920x1080 at 60.

At the time, Digital Foundry wrote the following:
Shadow Fall uses a horizontal interlace, with every other column of pixels generated using a temporal upscale - in effect, information from previously rendered frames is used to plug the gaps. The fact that few have actually noticed that any upscale at all is in place speaks to its quality, and we can almost certainly assume that this effect is not cheap from a computational perspective. However, at the same time it also confirms that a massive reduction in fill-rate isn't a guaranteed dead cert for hitting 60fps.
Sony retorted, claiming Shadow Fall uses some tricks to reach 1080p quality parity. The game’s producer, Poria Torkan, said this:
In both SP and MP, Killzone Shadow Fall outputs a full, unscaled 1080p image at up to 60fps. Native is often used to indicate images that are not scaled; it is native by that definition.
In multiplayer mode, however, we use a technique called 'temporal reprojection', which combines pixels and motion vectors from multiple lower-resolution frames to reconstruct a full 1080p image. If native means that every part of the pipeline is 1080p then this technique is not native.
Games often employ different resolutions in different parts of their rendering pipeline. Most games render particles and ambient occlusion at a lower resolution, while some games even do all lighting at a lower resolution. This is generally still called native 1080p. The technique used in Killzone Shadow Fall goes further and reconstructs half of the pixels from past frames.
We recognise the community's degree of investment on this matter, and that the conventional terminology used before may be too vague to effectively convey what's going on under the hood. As such we will do our best to be more precise with our language in the future.
Such an explanation was not enough for Ladore, who is purportedly suing Sony Computer Entertainment for more than $5 million for false advertisement, amongst other charges.

CALL OF DUTY: A FUTURIST ON THE FUTURE OF WARFARE
Talking the present and future of invisibility cloaks, smart guns, exoskeletons and private military companies.

We’ve already taken a comedic dig at the possibilities for Call of Duty beyond the futuristic setting of Advanced Warfare, but while some of those tongue-in-cheek predictions may turn out to be on the money, what is clear is that Advanced Warfare takes the future of warfare seriously. As is claimed in the initial marketing for Advanced Warfare, Sledgehammer Games has spent some quality time with futurists: experts whose job it is to accurately hypothesise about the kind of technological realities that will exist beyond the horizon.
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To further push the point, Activision put us in touch with Australian futurist Morris Miselowski to provide some context for the technology and ideas being showcased in Advanced Warfare, and what we can expect beyond.
IGN: How exactly does someone become a futurist?
Morris: There are two parts to this one. There is an academic part to it, and that goes right through to postgraduate and doctorate. You receive a qualification in what’s called foresight - that’s the legal academia word for it - then go on to do whatever you want to do. I come from a business-strategy viewpoint, and that’s where my qualification and experience are, and I’ve done it for 33 years. I also lectured through postgrad in that area, and my speciality was always foresight, and the business-futurist angle was part of that. Believe it or not, there’s actually structure and science to this.
IGN: Don’t futurists just watch a whole lot of sci-fi films and use that to predict what’s coming next?
Morris: No, that’s [sci-fi films] actually what made me want to do it. I’m a baby boomer, so when I grew up and was watching things like Star Trek, I didn’t know I wanted to be a futurist, but I was always besotted by what was going to happen in the future. With business strategy, my clients always wanted to understand what tomorrow looked like so that we could build accordingly, and I found that I was less interested in the theory of what business strategy was, and it was more a conversation about what was likely to occur over the horizon so we could position ourselves appropriately...
As a futurist, I work for a tonne of clients across the globe trying to understand for them what the world of tomorrow might look like so they can make best decisions, best resourcing and best thinking around how they want to meet those demands and, for me, most of my skill set - apart from knowing that stuff - is really allowing people to imagine that space, because you have to buy into the dream if you’re going to move your company or your thinking in that direction. I use a lot of storytelling, a lot of imagination, a lot of evidentiary experience, because I’ve really got to move you beyond what’s known, because if it’s known, it’s not futurism.
Most of the warfare, most of the craft, most of the thinking, in CoD [Advanced Warfare] is actually embedded in pure futurism, and these are things that I know to be true... as in prototype, as in thinking, as in practice, as in methodology. So to actually see it virtually, and to be able to experience it before it happens in real life, for me, it’s just life on toast: it’s wonderful. I know these things are going to be a part of our world and I don’t have to wait until they actually are.

IGN: Is there an element where you and other futurists are inspiring these technologies because, if it doesn’t exist, and you’re saying that you have to get your clients to buy into the idea that it will exist, does that mean futurists help push people towards technology that might not otherwise happen?
Morris: If I had that much influence on the world, we’d all be a bad place. The answer is that I do tell my clients... that the future doesn’t exist: there’s nothing about it that is written with certainty. It’s up to people to decide what elements of it they want and to champion those, and then to move towards creating them. So I would use the word ‘provoke’. I’d like to think that I provoke people to think about whether these things are a part of their future, and if they are, then to commit towards building or assembling or whatever’s appropriate for that piece of that activity towards making it real.
IGN: Advanced Warfare has exoskeletons, invisibility cloaks and more miniaturised drone technology than what we’re used to seeing; what kind of tangible touchstones do you have as a futurist to be able to predict that these things are going to be part of future warfare?
Morris: They exist already. I must say, exoskeletons and drones are the two things that drew me to the game because I talk about those a lot. Exoskeletons actually exist and have existed for about five, maybe 10 years, but not in the way they’re used in the game, yet.
Exoskeletons actually exist and have existed for about five, maybe 10 years, but not in the way they’re used in the game, yet.
Most of the work around exoskeletons is in Japan, and it’s being used around aged care. My first understanding of exoskeletons was actually around working around the future of health and wellness, and it was finding exoskeletons for my aged-care clients. What they’re used for in Japan is for carers who wear them to be able to lift patients around. Traditionally, it takes at least two carers to move a non-ambulatory patient - someone who can’t move themselves - into a shower, out of the bed, into a wheelchair, or wherever. And Japan has a difficult issue and that is they have a huge number of aged people and very few carers. They’re an ageing society.
The other thing Japan does really well is to embrace technology for solutions... Exoskeletons are still being used very much in aged care, I then saw... a prototype of it being used by military for the purpose of, again, adding strength to an individual who was in a war situation, and add agility to them, as well, so they were able to carry more, do more, move more, and basically just extend their physical body beyond its normal means. Exoskeletons are here already. You can buy the suit. They’re talking about exoskeletons being used by quadriplegics and paraplegics in the future. Now this does not mean that everybody with that disability will be able to use them, because it will depend on the individual circumstance, but there’s definite work being done for some to take advantage of [these] things.

IGN: What about things like the invisibility cloaks? Is that something that we’re seeing today?
Morris: Absolutely. What an invisibility cloak is, it’s not like science-fiction where it actually disappears, what they’re doing is creating a light field around the objects that then bends the light and causes the eye to not see that object. This has been around for a little while. The cloaking has been trialled on tanks and other things and, again, I saw that about five years ago.

Again, what CoD’s done with most of the things I’ve seen in this game is they’ve gone to a bunch of futurists, they’ve gone to a bunch of people that know about war craft and warfare in the future, they’ve gone to some technology providers and innovators, and they’ve rummaged around their closets and said, ‘What are you doing today that most people don’t know about that is likely to come about?’ And invisibility is absolutely on the horizon, I mean, chapter and verse kind of stuff is being done on it.
One of the ones I love in the game is they have something called the magnetic slingshot. You will have seen at some stage some superhero, and she or he will put their hands up in the air and... it’s like a gush of wind... and the people in front of them fell away. That’s actually something that we have now, and that’s using magnetics. It’s called a magnetic slingshot. What we’re able to do, again, is to project the magnetic field ahead of us, and the magnetic field does the same thing that you’ve seen in sci-fi: pushes people in that direction. It seems like science fiction, it seems like something I would say, or my workmates would say, but we really are in a space where we’re not far away from making that a reality, because in prototype it works.

IGN: Are you talking about throwing people off their feet with the Force, or is it just pushing you back in the sense that someone’s moving you backwards?
Morris: Both. It depends on the power that you use for that. We’re talking about not physically contacting somebody, but with this force, pushing them back or pushing them over. What we would be able to do in a war situation, which is what you can do in this game... you can push them back away from you without having to make physical contact. So that’s something that seems science fictiony but, in the game, it’s been researched and put in, because there’s lots of evidence that we will do that because we can do that.
IGN: It sounds like warfare is almost moving to more of an automated thing. Do you think that humans will have a place as soldiers in the future of warfare?

Morris: Oh, yeah... a lot of the things that we’re describing here are what I’d call routine. In other words, they are things that we can do repeatedly, it’s well known what needs to be done and they’re in a sequence. Most of that is going over to technology. So, like drones, like our invisibility cloak, like the ability to fire, all of those things about precision, they can be handed over to a robot or some kind of mechanised activity quite easily. Where soldiers will play a part, and this is really the first shooter experience that you and I had in a CoD game, is that we get to control it. We get what I call the wisdom. So, really, as a player in this game, you have the wisdom to control all of these technologies in the level that you think would make it appropriate for this battle, and that’s the role that people have in war and also in life, moving forward, is to use all of these technologies and to figure out how to use them best, and when’s appropriate, and which ones.
These things, to me, are tools the same way a hammer or a screwdriver is: they’re very sophisticated, and they alleviate a lot of the hard grunt work, but they’re always used in the hands of people. Even when we’re talking about remote which, again, you can see in the game, operates at huge distances. We can fire something and it hits 1,000 kilometres away. It’s still people making that decision that that’s what we should do and then using technology to do it, which is that firsthand experience that we have as the shooter or as the player.

IGN: What type of things are we going to see beyond the technology of Advanced Warfare? Are we going to be seeing lightsabers, laser rifles and space battles in the next iteration of warfare, or is that still way, way off?
Morris: I don’t know about laser battles. We probably will, but there’s lots of stuff on the horizon that we don’t yet know about. We’ve got what are called smart guns. Now, smart guns are guns that know who the shooter is, so it will only work in your hands. You can attach smart bullets, and that will make sure that the bullet doesn’t actually come back to shoot the shooter. So, in other words, if you dropped the gun, nobody else could pick it up and use it... So we’ve got those kinds of technologies. We’ve also got underpinning it, the notion of the PMC, the private military company, and that’s kind of like what the game is built on, this notion that warfare has not been handed over, but is now a private corporation, and that’s something that we’re going to see in warfare. We’re already doing it. I think we’re going to see more and more of it as we move through the decades. What was once a government activity is now also possibly a private activity.
IGN: PMCs seem like such a Hollywood concept.
Morris: Yeah, but they’ve been around for, honestly, 30 or 40 years. They just haven’t been well known, and they’re becoming more and more prominent, as are most things where the government has decided it doesn’t play a part, or shouldn’t play a part anymore. So a government will still engage in war if they think it’s relevant, they’ll still take the battle on, but they will often bring outsourced expertise in, and that’s what you get to play in this game.

A government will still engage in war if they think it’s relevant, they’ll still take the battle on, but they will often bring outsourced expertise in, and that’s what you get to play in this game.

What you have, I mean, you’re part of this PMC, and what you have is best thinking, best people, best technology, because the argument is the government, with the best of intentions, can’t upgrade their technology very often. They can’t really train their people easily and quickly, they can’t deploy them easily and quickly, whereas a private company, by the nature of it, it makes a profit by making sure that people are well trained, up to date, have the latest technology, are very clear and precise about what their targets are and about what they need to do, and can move quite quickly. That’s why governments like PMCs because they can achieve all those things, where a government is slow and cumbersome.
So in the game, you actually get to be part of the experience of a PMC: somebody who is agile, somebody who has the latest technology. All these things which are part of modern warfare and will be into the future are really just there for us to play with.

IGN: How far ahead into the future can a futurist safely predict things with a decent sense of accuracy?

Morris: The answer is I can’t predict what’s going to happen in the next two minutes. I’m careful about that because all I talk about is hypothesising. I can’t force everyone to have my will, but I can hypothesise the things that are more likely. Now, the furthest that I’m working at the moment is 2060, so some of my projects are really thinking into 2060, around whatever that particular issue is. I’ve done this for 33 years, you can track me back for about 15 years online through my blog and other things, and I’m fairly accurate: I’m up around 90 percent plus. I’m really careful and deliberate about the things that I speak about; I do not make wild accusations or comments. I’m careful and deliberate, but I’m also very much provocative. I don’t just take safe steps. If you talk to most of my clients I talk about outlandish things that they think are incredible, but with the space of time, they can turn out to be quite ordinary. But it’s all about hypothesising, for me, and I know I’m being semantic about the word, but I’m always careful that people understand that I’m not forcing my will on them, I’m just forcing my opinion on them.

They can then use that and, again, that’s what this game has done. It’s used a whole lot of futurists, a whole lot of other people and, together, collectively, looked at what’s ahead. Part of what I think is going to come from this game, which is my science fiction, is everyone that plays it will decide if they like various elements and, without knowing it, they’ll go into the future and create the things they like, because that’s what happened with science fiction. We liked things in the movies we saw and the books we read, in the cartoons we saw, and then, as individuals, we took elements out of it and said, ‘It doesn’t exist. Why doesn’t it? How do I make it exist?’ And we went ahead and created it. It’s just phenomenal. I did a piece about a year ago about the 10 technologies that came out of Star Trek, and they were things that we never thought would happen but have all become real because baby boomers like me saw it and said, ‘You know what? I’m going to make it happen.’ That’s what you get to do with this game, you get to play first-hand, see it, if you love it and think it should be a part of our world, then some of the people that play it will actually be the innovators and inventors of it.

PARTS OF THE LAST OF US MOVIE TO BE 'QUITE DIFFERENT' TO THE GAME
"What are the most important beats that we can't lose? Start with those, and cut everything else out."

The Last of Us creative director Neil Druckmann has revealed that the movie adaptation will strip the game's narrative down to its essentials.

Speaking with MCVUK, Druckmann explained that there was, predictably, a lot of rewriting involved in morphing a 15-hour narrative experience into a two-hour one.
“I'm in the middle of it now, and it's been super difficult because there's so much that happens in The Last of Us – even just in the cinematics – that can't fit in a film," said Druckmann, "let alone all the gameplay in-between and dialogue.”
Druckmann explained that a lot of detail in the game has had to be chopped in order to maintain focus on its central duo, Joel and Ellie.
“It almost has this novel quality as far as how much content there is. And a film works really well when it's laser-focused, so the first part of it was like: well, what is this story really about? It's clearly about Joel and Ellie. What are the most important beats that we can't lose? Start with those, and cut everything else out.
“It's been really difficult to cut certain things out, but what I'm starting to get this is really focused narrative that's about these two characters. Some parts will be similar to the game and some parts will be quite different, but it's kind of interesting in helping me understand this other medium and its strengths compared to video games.”

The Last of Us will be brought to the big screen by Screen Gems, the studio behind the Resident Evil film franchise. The film counts Spider-Man and Evil Dead filmmaker Sam Raimi among its producers, but a director has yet to be officially brought on board. At the Screen Gems panel at this year's Comic-Con, Druckmann and Raimi revealed they've been in talks with Game of Thrones' Maisie Williams to star as Ellie.

Preorders and Special Editions
WWE 2K15 HULKAMANIA! COLLECTOR'S EDITION






WWE 2K15 will be available in a special Hulkamania edition which includes Hulk Hogan's signature. 25.000 of these special edition cards are being produced. Cost of Collector's Edition $99.99.


Contents of the limited edition pack include:

A copy of WWE 2K15
Collectible art card hand-signed by Hulk Hogan
Exclusive Funko “Hollywood” Hulk Hogan vinyl figure
An actual piece of the ring canvas from Hogan’s Monday Night *Raw appearance on March 10th, 2014
Two playable pre-order launch exclusive Hulk Hogan characters
Two playable pre-order launch exclusive Sting characters
PRE-ORDER LINKS

GAMESCOM 2014: GET YOUR FIRST LOOK AT DEAD ISLAND 2 GAMEPLAY IN THIS TRAILER
I hope you like red.



Deep Silver has revealed the first gameplay trailer for Dead Island 2.
Dead Island 2 features California as its backdrop, with landmarks such as the Golden Gate Bridge and Hollywood Hills. The trailer, which you can see above, shows off pre-alpha in-game footage of the next-gen only title, and we reckon it's safe to say it's looking absolutely gorgeous.

Assuming you like blood, of course.
We'll be going hands-on with Dead Island 2 at Gamescom this week, so be sure to check back if you want to see what we thought of it. In the meantime, check out IGN's in-depth E3 preview as the new characters fought their way through a Golden State suburb using everything at their disposal, including the new fury power attacks.
Luke Karmali is IGN's UK News Editor. You too can revel in mediocrity by following him on Twitter.

Not gamed in a few years now really, but think ill get one of these PS4's when they come down abit in price.

Probably around Christmas as they tend to lower them a fair bit. Looks like lots of good games too.

These new gen consoles are defo worth the 400$ price tag,

Great graphics, bluray,DVD combo, webcaming live they did a job at putting these consoles together

IGN LIVE PRESENTS: SONY PRESS CONFERENCE - GAMESCOM 2014

SONY TO UNVEIL NEW PS4 GAMES AT TGS 2014, SAYS BOSS

Titles were going to be announced at Gamescom.


Sony plans to announce new titles during its PlayStation press conference at the Tokyo Game Show 2014, according to a Japanese-language Famitsu interview with Sony Worldwide Studios president Shuhei Yoshida.


“But to be honest, in selecting the games we wanted to introduce, we realized it wasn’t possible to fit everything into the frame of the conference, so unfortunately there were some games we couldn’t introduce this time,” Yoshida said, translated by Gematsu, referring to Sony’s Gamescom 2014 press conference (below).
Yoshida added that game announcements cut from the Gamescom press conference, due to the amount of content Sony had to showcase, will be shown during its TGS keynote. PlayStation 4-related game announcements will be a focus for Sony at TGS this year, but Sony is still determining whether or not to exhibit its virtual reality headset Project Morpheus at the show.
More content created by Japanese developers is needed for the console to gain ground in the Japanese marketplace, said Yoshida, adding that Sony is working with publishers to increase the PlayStation 4 user base.
TGS 2014 runs from September 18-21 at the Makuhari Messe Convention Centre, Chiba, Japan. We will be in attendance to bring you all the news and videos.

Jenna Pitcher is a freelance journalist writing for IGN. You can follow her often inappropriate outbursts on Twitter.

GAMESCOM 2014: METAL GEAR SOLID 5'S TOWER DEFENCE-STYLE MULTIPLAYER
New demo shows more multiplayer and... horse poo.


I don’t think I’ve ever sat through a game demo where horse dung was one of the main features, but Kojima never fails to surprise. Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain’s Gamescom showing was muted in comparison to what was shown at E3 – it’s the same mission set in Afghanistan but played a different way, but it demonstrates the complete freedom the player has (if you’ve played Ground Zeroes you’ll know exactly what to expect).

Snake infiltrates the base under the cover of darkness this time round, because security is tighter and there are more guards patrolling the streets. The narrator explains this is because it’s the equivalent of a second playthrough, and the enemy AI has adapted from the player’s patterns and evolved. If you favour headshots then enemy troops will start wearing helmets; aim for the chest and more will be equipped with body armour next time.

The playthrough also showcased the improvements made to Snake’s cardboard box, including the dubious swimsuit model poster upgrade that stops enemies in their tracks (they’re smart enough to wear armour and helmets but are duped a picture in a women in a bikini?).
Upgrades are made by sending resources and high-level troops back to Mother Base using the Fulton – which, we’re shown, can also double as a weapon if used correctly. A chopper is called in for support and is guarding Snake’s route out of the compound. He doesn’t have the weapons to take it out and if he makes a run for it he’ll be spotted and gunned down. But the helicopter is circling above a jeep, so Snake plants C4 on the vehicle, hooks up a Fulton and steps back… The jeep flies into the air, collides with the chopper and boom, his escape route is clear.
And then there’s the horse poop. Snake’s horse can squeeze one out on demand, so when a vehicle patrol draws near a dirty trap is placed before Snake darts off for cover. Moments later, the jeep hits the turd and skids out, the crash stunning the guards long enough for Snake to run in, attach a Fulton and send it back to Mother Base.

It’s here, back at Mother Base, where we’re shown a little more of how Phantom Pain’s multiplayer will work. Every weapon, troop and piece of equipment you retrieve contributes to make your base bigger and better. Recruiting soldiers provides much-needed support in battle, while scientists unlock better equipment, which can be used both out on the field and also back at HQ.
This is key because other players can raid your Mother Base, to steal your resources, your troops… everything you’ve worked hard to build up. It’s therefore essential that you invest in defences for your base, from laser tripwires to gun turrets and UAVs - everything you find in the single-player game can be used back at base. It feels like a tower defence game played out in real-time in the Metal Gear world, with skilled players able to sneak in, steal what they need and get out without being detected. But get too greedy and you could alert the defending player, enabling them to join the fight to protect their precious base.
Although it was little more than a brief glimpse, Metal Gear Solid 5’s multiplayer already looks like one of the most interesting parts of the game. With Mother Base and resource management playing such a huge part of Phantom Pain, both in single- and multiplayer, stealing gear from other players could provide a fast-track way of getting essential equipment – but obviously it’s not without its risks.
Every time I see Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain I’m left wanting more – I loved the freedom Ground Zeroes gave the player, and to have this on a much grander scale is hugely exciting. The question is, when will actually get to play it for ourselves? Not soon enough, that’s for sure.

DON'T MISS ANY OF IGN'S GAMESCOM 2014 COVERAGE

ALL THE GAMESCOM PLAYSTATION NEW.

Diablo III: Ultimate Evil Edition
RELEASE DATE:AUGUST 19, 2014
REVIEWED FOR: PS4, XBOX ONE
THE SHINIEST HELLBY:
AUGUST 14, 2014


It's been a long road for Diablo 3 fans, following every twist and turn from pre-release to now, hoping that the Diablo game they truly wanted was right around the next corner. Don't get me wrong, Diablo 3 nailed the moment-to-moment combat experience from the get-go, but the reward loop was way off-kilter. With the release of the Reaper of Souls expansion on PC, the somewhat erratic rhythm of its reward and progression cycle steadied into constant thrum. Now, with the Ultimate Evil Edition on PS4 and Xbox One, Diablo 3 takes on its highest form, melding the successes of two years of patching with the positive side-effects of porting to current-gen consoles.



Ultimate Evil Edition teems with content. You're getting everything from Diablo 3 and its expansion, Reaper of Souls, including the incredible endless Adventure mode. The raised level cap, reworked skills, and of course that handy fourth passive slot are all here as well, and importing your character from a last-gen console is a breeze, so you won't have to replay a bunch of content you've likely already replayed over and over to experience it. If you're returning from the original console release, you won't miss a beat.

If you're a new player, and you don't already know what's in store, just ignore the cheesy story. Diablo 3 is about killing things, all the things, whether alive, undead or inanimate, and seeing what sweet new piece of gear drops so you can kill more, bigger things. Ultimate Evil's excellent analog stick controls, deep bestiary, and varied character classes make that hunt enjoyable both in the short term, and the long haul.
A regular stream of upgrades and legendary items means that even over the course of a short, 1-hour play-session, you'll often see your avatar make tangible progress, and by your 200th hour in the endless, infectiously rewarding adventure mode, you'll still be finding ways to eke out ever more power from your character. I can still remember leveling my first character In vanilla Diablo 3 to 60 without crafting a single thing, or even making very many decisions. Starting a new character from scratch really highlighted how much

Blizzard has changed for the better.
That well-tuned cycle of violence, profit, and growth is easier on the eyes than ever here too. Last-gen consoles had to make visual sacrifices to run Diablo 3's more heated battles at a respectable frame rate, but on PS4 and Xbox One, no concessions are necessary. At 1080p, and an almost constant 60 fps, the action looks sharp, plays smooth, and is mostly on par with Reaper of Souls on a nice gaming PC. There are very occasional hiccups in framerate during huge battles, and the effects, while greatly improved, aren't quite at max PC levels, it's still a huge step forward from the last console iteration.
Finally, Ultimate Evil serves up a few social-minded twists like an in-game mail system to gift loot to friends, and a new nemesis system which allows a monster that slays someone on your friend's list to grow in power and come into your game to give you a chance to avenge your fallen comrade. It's a cute trick, but not a game-changer in any way. The real star is still the ability to play on the couch with up to three friends, tearing through the angry hordes that await you in adventure mode, where the wildly randomized dungeons form the backbone of Diablo 3's endgame.


THE VERDICT
This is the third time I've reviewed some version of Diablo 3, and each time I've been met by a better, more refined experience. Ultimate Evil Edition collects the entirety of that experience in a slick new wrapper, giving console owners a complete, and uncompromised version of Diablo 3.

ASSASSIN'S CREED UNITY WILL HAVE MICROTRANSACTIONS
Nothing is true, money is permitted.


Ubisoft revealed that Assassin's Creed Unity will utilize microtransactions to help speed up gameplay.

It's unclear at this time exactly how the system will work, but early reports claim that gear can be unlocked in exchange for money, allowing players to obtain items faster than they would through regular play.

Senior Producer Vincent Pontibrand discussed the decision to include microtransactions while speaking with OXM at Gamescom, explaining that the team was careful about implementation. "If we think it fits the gameplay, or the brand itself, the core values, we're willing to take those risks. If not, then not. We're not going to make any compromises."
Pontibrand also mentioned that this was "pretty much" the extent of the in-game purchase options, reassuring players that they won't be in the game if they don't suit the overall experience.
Ubisoft has confirmed with IGN that there will be more information about the microtransactions system at a later date.
Assassin's Creed Unity is a third-person action game featuring four-player cooperative play, taking place during the French Revolution. It will release on the Xbox One, PC, and PlayStation 4 on October 28.

SONY COMMENTS ON PLAYSTATION 4'S SUCCESS
SCEE Boss Jim Ryan is hopeful about the future.


In a recent interview with GamesIndustry.biz, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe President Jim Ryan discussed the success of the PlayStation 4, and what he meant when he said the company would not be "complacent."

"In some ways, all that feeding frenzy last year [over new console releases] was interesting - probably great for [the press] - but I think, and I hope, that it has run its course now," he explained. "We're just getting on with doing our thing. We haven't really changed course at all. We've got plans, and we're confident about them. Some of that was laid out last night, other stuff will follow in due course. We'll just get on with it."

After announcing that 10 million PlayStation 4 consoles have been sold since its November 2013 launch, Ryan admits that the rocky start of the PlayStation 3 was a big motivator to get things right in the new generation. "Yeah, we made so many mistakes last time round that I won't list them now. But we did list them, and we vowed to rectify them. By and large, I think we've done that."

The Sony executive also cited the wide variety of games available on the console as a great way to reach a bigger and more diverse audience. "...what you saw a bit of last night [during the Gamescom conference] was the first signs of us starting to think about different audiences. Some of the games last night were 2015, possibly even beyond, where we're going to be looking at something a little bit broader, a little more mass. Those two things meant you had a range of types of developer activity, but also looking at slightly different audience profiles.

You've got Bloodborne at one end of it, Tearaway at the other."
"I kind of get...frustrated is perhaps too strong a word, but you hear, 'Where are the games for PlayStation 4?' and there are more than there have ever been at this stage on any new console platform," he said of the number of games available on Sony's new platform. "But I think 2015 is going to be great from that perspective. Starting with Destiny, it'll really begin to take off."

Gameplay footage of the new silent hill game

GAMESCOM 2014: DAY Z COMING TO PLAYSTATION 4
Soon.

During the 2014 Sony Gamescom conference, Bohemia Interactive head Dean "Rocket" Hall took to the stage to announce that DayZ will be coming to the PlayStation 4.


“Creating the PS4 version has given us cause to expand the overall project,” Hall said. The apocalyptic multiplayer action game passed 2 million copies sold on PC in May and has continued to be one of the most popular multiplayer games on the platform.
Not much more is known about the eventual release or details about the PS4 version at this time. Keep it locked to IGN for all of the details as they roll out.

GAMESCOM 2014: THE VANISHING OF ETHAN CARTER: A WONDERFULY HORRIFIC ADVENTURE GAME

Somewhere in-between H.P. Lovecraft and Gone Home, Ethan Carter's opening 30 minutes is simply fantastic.


The opening 30 minutes of The Vanishing of Ethan Carter unfolds with an expert sense of pace, storytelling, and horror mystery. The first game from The Astronauts, a Polish team comprised of many former-People Can Fly folks who worked on Bulletstorm and Gears of War: Judgment, Ethan Carter is a visually-stunning first-person adventure game. With its stripped down, but effective mechanics, impeccable atmosphere, and great writing, its opening sets the stage for what could be video games’ next great murder mystery.


Ethan Carter places you in the shoes of Paul Prospero, and private investigator with an ability to manipulate reality and see into the past. After receiving a letter from the titular boy who then promptly goes missing, Prospero travels to rural Wisconsin for what he somehow knows will be his last case. The writing here is in strong form, with bits of Prospero’s internal monologue containing the same sort of wizened nihilism found in True Detective. His thoughts about nature, innocence, and an impending doom that seems to be surrounding him are a joy to read, as well as listen to thanks to a lead voice action with an understanding of the subtleties of noir.

Set in the fictional area of Wisconsin called Red Creek Valley, the woods, hills, and lakes are undeniably gorgeous – The Astronauts employed a technique of building the world by stitching together hundreds of photographs of various elements of nature. The game is right up there with Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture as some of the most realistic visuals I’ve seen in a first-person game. But at the same time, wandering around the world left me with a lingering feeling of tantalizing unease. Things aren’t quite right here. There's a sense of pain and anguish hidden beneath the flora, sometimes quite literally when you stumble upon the remains of a human.
I love the subtlety of the environmental storytelling at play here.
I love the subtlety of the environmental storytelling at play here. It never bashed me over the head with exposition, instead trusting me enough to explore the world and piece together bits of information as I went along.

I never had a full grasp on just what was going on, but I loved remaining in that tantalizing period of limbo. I chose to wander off the beaten path, which led me to a series of dangerous traps littered throughout the woods. After examining all five of them, Prospero was able to use whatever his ability might be to open up a rift to somewhere (The Past? The Future? Michigan?), and shed a bit of light on the backstory and circumstances that led to me being there.
Eventually I stumbled upon the scene of a gruesome murder – a pair of severed legs sat near a set of train tracks, a trail of blood led down a dusty path, and eventually stopped at the body of a man with his head bashed in. When you get near objects of importance, Prospero’s thoughts will manifest in the form of a few words which linger near the artifact. It's a bit like Murdered: Soul Suspect, but less intrusive, and it does a good job at delivering insight into the character while simultaneously providing some genuinely interesting gameplay.

From here, it was up to me to explore the surroundings, find clues in the environment, and eventually piece together the events in chronological order. It was a smart, intuitive, and unobtrusive puzzle that didn’t feel shoehorned in for the sake of added gameplay, but rather a mechanic that helped flesh out the world and my own personal backstory. Think of Gone Home with some light puzzle solving, and you'll get an idea for what you'll be doing in The Vanishing of Ethan Carter.
The demo ended with a hint that Prospero’s abilities aren’t the only form of magic in this world.

Mentions of some form of a dark entity brought to bind the Old Gods of Lovecraft, though I can’t say for sure how far down the gothic rabbit hole Ethan Carter will eventually go when it's released on PC later this year, and PS4 at some point in 2015.
I walked away from my time with Ethan Carter in a strange haze, and I mean that in the best possible way. The world I’d just visited was gorgeous and serene, while simultaneously drenched in melancholy, violence, and hints of some sort of supernatural menace in the air. I don’t fully know what The Vanishing of Ethan Carter is about, or where the adventure will eventually take me, but I'm more than happy to keep following it deeper and deeper.

RESIDENT EVIL REVELATIONS 2 LEAKED
No word on planned platforms.


Update: A Capcom spokesperson told IGN that the company "has made no announcements." The original story is below.

Resident Evil Revelations 2 is reportedly on the way, with a leaked box art image and screenshot revealing the sequel.


French website Gamer in a Box noticed that Xbox.com hosted two media images for Resident Evil Revelations 2, pulling back the curtain on the survival horror game. IGN has reached out to Capcom about the leak, inquiring about what platforms the sequel is planned for.



Resident Evil Revelations debuted on 3DS before coming to PC, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Wii U. IGN enjoyed Resident Evil Revelations on consoles and PC, though we thought the original handheld version was ultimately superior.



Capcom seemed happy with sales of Resident Evil Revelations as well, possibly pushing the company to double down on a sequel. In addition, the original Resident Evil is getting remastered for PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, Xbox One, and Xbox 360 next year.

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In a recent interview with Digital Foundry, 4A Games' Chief Technical Officer Oles Shishkovstov discussed combining Metro 2033 and Metro: Last Light into the recently-released and improved Metro: Redux collection, while also addressing his take on whether or not developers should be porting old games to new consoles.

"Since Metro: Last Light hit the shelves we've collected numerous improvement suggestions from our players in order to include them in Metro: Redux," he said of the improvements made to both survival horror first-person shooters. "The power of the new consoles also allowed us to improve the games in the field most critical to gameplay, especially gunplay and general feel - for example combat and cut-scenes became smoother, and controls became much more responsive."

Metro Redux Review Commentary
12:54
Shishkovstov went on to mention that Metro 2033 itself has had a bevy of new upgrades added to it, including the weapons, improved stealth, AI, and visuals pulled directly from the more recent Metro: Last Light.

When asked about whether or not developers should move older games up to new consoles or focus their energy on two products, Shishkovstov said they were doing both, bringing the Metro games to PlayStation 4 and Xbox One while also working on a new game project.

"We have been working on a new game as well as Redux," Shiskovstov said, later mentioning that working on Redux has "definitely" given them a better understanding of the hardware. Because of this, he feels that the new game will benefit greatly.

Metro: Redux - Uncovered Trailer
05:56
He wasn't able to go into much detail, but spoke of a "sandbox-style experience" for their next project. "For the game we are working on now, our designers have shifted to a more sand-box-style experience - less linear but still hugely story-driven."

Metro: Redux is a compilation of both Metro 2033 and Metro: Last Light, two horror-based first-person shooters set in a post-apocalyptic Russia. IGN's review of the current-gen pairing found Metro: Redux to be a great remastering of both games.

Sony has revealed the content set to arrive as part of September's PS Plus subscriber rewards, with two of the titles once again set to be free the day they're released.

As always, PS4 owners will be getting two games. This month, these take the shape of the arcade shoot 'em up Velocity 2X, the first title available on launch day, along with the multiplayer-centric Sportsfriends. PS3 owners meanwhile, get a chance to pick up the often-underlooked brawler PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale along with action/strategy title Hoard.

PSN's Most Promising Upcoming Game: Velocity 2X
02:40
Finally, PS Vita owners patience is finally (partially) restored with the news that Joe Danger will be available for PS Plus subscribers on the day it launches for the handheld, replete with 60 fps and a revamped control scheme. Finally, Llamasoft's psychadelic tube shooter TxK will also be available to Vita owners.

All these games arrive on September 3, which means it's also when August's offerings vanish. So if you're wanting to snap up Road Not Taken, FEZ, Crysis 3, Proteus, Metrico or LEGO Harry Potter Years 5-7 before they're gone, better get on it now!

Grand Theft Auto V developer Rockstar has hit back at actress Lindsay Lohan, claiming her lawsuit against the studio is simply for "publicity purposes".

According to AP, Rockstar believes the case to be frivolous and was solely "filed for publicity purposes." The studio wants it to be dismissed immediately, while Lohan picks up the check for the legal costs.

Lindsay Lohan Sues Rockstar Over GTA V
00:50
In case you missed it previously, Lohan believes the GTA V character of Lacey Jonas is an "unequivocal" reference to her, and wants the developer to pay damages for using her image without permission. Rockstar, for its part, maintains the similarities start and end at Jonas and Lohan both being young blonde women.

Lohan rose to prominence following her starring role in the 1998 remake of the classic film The Parent Trap, and created a slew of hit movies -- Freaky Friday, Mean Girls, and others -- before running into multiple legal issues over the past few years.

Grand Theft Auto V launched in early September last year, and we loved it. It made $800 million in a single day, and has since gone on to sell 33 million copies. At E3, it was announced for next-gen consoles and PC.

At E3 2013, “fully immersive” was the go-to marketing catchphrase used to characterize the dawn of the new console generation.

Consistent with the perfunctory facade of flashing lights and booming speakers which decorates the Los Angeles Convention Center year after year, publishers gleefully showcased their interpretations of what this elusive ‘immersive’ experience should consist of, as far as they saw it.

Be it enhanced visuals, or new engines; state of the art virtual reality support, or transforming living rooms into all-in-one entertainment playgrounds: this was next-gen as we’d come to expect. And if you didn’t know it beforehand, you surely did thereafter.

Assassin's Creed Unity E3 Co-Op Gameplay
05:24
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The implementation of online co-op seems to have thrust its way to the foreground of what now defines next-gen.

Fast forward a year, and the parameters which delineate the next-gen landscape appear to have slightly shifted. Gone are the days where flashier visuals, higher polygon counts, and equally greater frame rates solely epitomized new console cycles; these are now criterion we’ve grown to expect from each passing generation. Now, several months into the new generation, the implementation of online co-op and, most importantly, how it is integrated within the single-player sphere seems to have thrust its way to the foreground of what now defines next-gen. The concept - for better or worse - is something the games industry wants us to get excited about.

Leading the cooperative charge is Ubisoft. The majority of its latest and forthcoming titles lean heavily on the appeal of hybrid, seamlessly interchangeable single-to-multiplayer adventures. When it released earlier this year, Watch Dogs boasted competitive drop-in multiplayer bouts, accessible anytime via the protagonist’s cell phone, which allowed a welcomed layer of depth in addition to the game’s single player missions. What largely felt like a distraction in this instance, however, is something upcoming games Far Cry 4, The Crew, The Division, and Assassin’s Creed Unity are set to capitalize on, adopting more focused degrees of multiplayer/cooperative interplay. Ubisoft is of course not alone in this designated push, as games such as Bungie and Activision’s Destiny look to further the same modular diversity.

Play Far Cry 4 Co-op Even If You Don't Own the Game - E3 2014
01:03
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Do we really need, or even want, such online co-op intrusion?

But all of this begs the question: do we really need, or even want, such online co-op intrusion? It’s all very well being told we need something, but another accepting its worth - one needs only look as far as Microsoft and its Xbox One U-turns over past year or so to appreciate how publishers can in fact get it wrong, on occasion. Is this boosted level of integration invading our single-player franchises?

“Co-op is a massive part of the new game,” said Alex Hutchinson, the creative director on Far Cry 4, during the game’s co-op gameplay trailer at this year’s E3. “It’s one of our big ways of opening up the open world and letting you play any way you want.” The demo showcased how players can join forces in tackling some of Far Cry’s best known features: outposts, fortresses, and towers, for example, without affecting the single player campaign. Like Watch Dogs, the cooperative inclusiveness on show here looked appealing, however it could be argued that playing “any way” we want should fall first and foremost under the canopy of single-player.

Likewise, since Assassin’s Creed Unity was first teased in March, Ubisoft has spoken rather candidly about its aim to incorporate online co-op features, while blurring the lines between the game’s single and multiplayer settings. “Playing with friends means that combat is cooperative, deeper, and more challenging,” said Lesley Phord-Toy, the game's producer, during Unity's E3 co-op gameplay trailer, perhaps suggesting the game will be less involving in single player mode. Unity’s single player E3 demo also concluded with the player being flanked by three other multiplayer allies, again suggesting single-player playthroughs will, or at least could, be seamlessly interrupted at any given time.

Destiny Raids, Nightfall Missions Detailed
05:52
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When playing online, dropping in and out of games or playing in short bursts becomes increasingly difficult as you are suddenly partly responsible for other players’ experiences.

Granted, long gone are the days of huddling round the once coveted multi-tap at a mates’ house - hell, even local split screen co-ops are a dying breed, limited almost entirely to the indie spectrum - but why is it that we’re faced now with such enthusiasm for shared narrative? Perhaps the ‘always on’ rhetoric touted at E3 2013 has finally infiltrated popular opinion, or perhaps pushing social inclusiveness - Sony dropping the Start/Select makeup of its DualShock 4 in favor of its ‘Share’ button, for instance - is part and parcel of progress, much similar to how online multiplayer planted its flag amongst the FPS console ranks last gen. Whereas monetization is likely an influencing factor as far as plugging multiplayer settings are concerned, there is really no obvious fiscal motivation within the context of online co-op.

As a consequence, casual players will likely be those hit hardest by such insistent online cooperation. When playing online, dropping in and out of games or playing in short bursts becomes increasingly difficult as you are suddenly partly responsible for other players’ experiences, not just your own. Video games are the only medium where this interconnectivity has any level of profound impact, as watching Netflix independently from, but at the same time, as a friend has no real bearing on shared experience.

PS4: Live Dashboard Demo / Twitch Broadcast
09:22
That said, it’s unlikely that this concerted drive towards online co-op will be the death of the single-player mode as there are still plenty of games flying the solitary flag for single-player ventures. Games like Skyrim and Grand Theft Auto V show there is still a distinguished demand for solo campaigns in the open world array, whilst the indie sphere continues to create classic boutique adventures in the likes of The Stanley Parable and Gone Home.

Co-existence will ultimately be key, but games like The Division - Ubisoft’s highly anticipated upcoming MMO with a distinctive co-op focus - could determine whether this is easier said than done, as publishers continue to target the next ‘in-thing’ and the eighth generation marches forward.

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Here's a pointless fact I never get to tell anyone: I didn't see Jurassic Park in English until my mid-teens.

I was six when the film came out, living in Germany, in the days when subtitles and language tracks were up there with warp drives and teleporters on the list of things that would have sounded like comic book futurism to little me. Perhaps Buck Rogers could one day enjoy a German VHS of Jurassic Park in English, but I had to make do with what limited language I'd picked up from Die Schluempfe.

Jurassic Park 3D - Life Finds a Way
00:58
Turns out, there's not a lot of language crossover between Jurassic Park and the Smurfs. But in spite of that, Jurassic Park (which, disappointingly, is just called 'Jurassic Park' in German) was my favourite film. I watched it over and over. I could quote bits of it (still can) in German before I understood what they even meant (still don't). To this day, it still sounds weird to me when I hear any of the characters speaking English. John Hammond was Scottish? That was like finding out Bagpuss was Jamaican, or that Mickey Mouse was a breathy Welshman with a lisp who spoke in couplets.

But I never felt like I was missing anything, and I still don't. And I think, perhaps a bit snootily, that that's because there's a divide – a kind of perceptual chasm – between what people think they remember Jurassic Park being about, and what it was, you know, actually about. And I also think that this is the reason that every Jurassic Park game I've ever played has been a disaster.


It's Not About Guns

Jp-trespasser-cover
The first Jurassic Park games I remember playing – dimly in the first case and vividly in the second – were Trespasser and the old Jurassic Park arcade cabinet.

The former was horrible: a pink pipe cleaner puppet (with feet-obscuring breasts you could look down and ogle at, for some reason) running around an island shooting what might have been dinosaurs. Strewn about were machine pistols, revolvers and assault rifles, and naturally, raptors were the main adversaries. Not smart or particularly dangerous adversaries, but there they were: vaguely raptor-shaped poly-golems wobbling about in broad daylight while the jaggedly-busted heroine bravely gunned them down. Take that nature.

trespasser020-95955

Trespasser – You told us to shoot her.

The second game took scenes like the Jeep chase with the T-Rex and added lightguns. The undisputed king of the dinosaurs thundered along, snapping its jaws, and your job was to shoot highlighted weakspots on its body to slow it down while you made good your escape. Actually, your job was to miss so the machine ate all your twenty pence pieces and bankrupted your parents. But nominally that was what it was about.

Guns in videogames are great: a neat way for a person playing on a 2D screen to reach into the world and experience the illusion of three dimensions by making something that looks far away explode, bleed or fall over. But in a Jurassic Park game they're worse than a mistake: their inclusion is out-and-out series blasphemy.

TLW-VGArcadePromo

The First Ever Model 3 3D Shooter, No Less!

Guns appear in the first film twice: once in the hands of the doomed Muldoon, who thinks he's stalking a raptor in the jungle before one pops out of a bush and growls in his ear, and a second time when the raptors have the main characters cornered in the control room. Alan Grant is on the phone with Hammond when a raptor appears at one of the windows. You don't even see Grant fire: you hear three shots over the phone, see the three sets of spider cracks that the shells have ineffectively punched into the glass, then the shotgun lying abandoned.


That's the point that the developers of both early games missed so heroically: Jurassic Park includes guns for a false sense of security. When Muldoon or Grant have a beefy SPAS-12 shotgun in their hands, they look confident and in control. But of course, they aren't. In both cases (and to its credit, the third film in the trilogy plays the same card with its team of heavily armed dino-hunters that all end up eaten), the point is that this force of nature that InGen has unleashed is far too powerful to control. They're the physical embodiment of Hammond's arrogance. Even in the very last dinosaur encounter - the raptors finally cornering Grant, Saddler and the kids in the visitor's centre – it's not the humans' intelligence, preparedness or weapons that save them – only a bigger, hungrier dinosaur.


It's Not About Characters
Not that anyone would, really, have minded too much if the characters had been eaten. Before I sat down to rewatch the first film, there were humans involved in the scenes I remembered most clearly – but they aren't the stars. Like silent protagonists in videogames, the tension doesn't stem from the deep feelings of attachment you have towards the cast, but from putting yourself in their shoes and realising how hopelessly doomed you would be.

It's also – and I mean this with the greatest respect possible – not a very well written film, in terms of character and dialogue. The bits you remember might be the tagline about life finding a way, or Muldoon's chilling (and, OK, awesome) monologue about the raptors' intelligence ("when she looks at you, you can see she's working things out"). But here are the bits you forget: Lex's made-up hacker prattle, Tim's snotty needling of his sister, Dr. Malcolm's impossibly awkward attempt to seduce Dr. Sattler with some red hot chaos theory demonstrations. Or what about this line, shouted by Dr. Grant himself when they're taking the seated laboratory tour?

Jurassic Park - Video Review
03:25
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The game's dinosaurs aren't living creatures: they're enemies to be dodged, fled or whacked off rollercoasters with metal pipes (genuinely)."

"Wait a minute!" He yells, waving his arm at the screen. "How do you stop the cellular mitosis?!" Because he's a scientist, see? And when you don't explain how you stop cellular mitosis to scientists, they storm off your tour cart and break into your laboratory to find out.

It's hokum – precisely why I didn't miss anything at all of value when I watched the film in German as a cowering six-year-old. And that's where Telltale's approach to its Jurassic Park game went so wrong: it focused almost entirely on characters in a series for which, historically, characters aren't important. The game's dinosaurs aren't living creatures: they're enemies to be dodged, fled or whacked off rollercoasters with metal pipes (genuinely). If not, they're puzzles to be herded about with clicks and button presses. It's a complete reversal of what the films are about: humans aren't the creatures that are important in Jurassic Park: the dinosaurs are. That every single character in Telltale's game was as likable as being scalped also didn't help.


It's Not About Dinosaurs
But the emphasis on characters wasn't the first warning flag in Telltale's interpretation of Jurassic Park. That actually came before I'd even started the game, when the very first menu conjured up a T-Rex that lumbered right into the centre of the screen to do its trademark roar. Talk about blowing your load early. I hadn't even clicked New Game, and already here was the game's biggest (figuratively and literally) star, well lit, performing for me while I considered an options menu. Ironically, it felt a bit like an attraction at an animal park.

Compare that to the opening shot of the film. Everyone remembers the first scene: the raptor being transported in the cage, the cage slipping, the poor site worker being clawed in by the raptor, the tasers going off while Muldoon yells "shoot her!" (another example of guns pointedly not saving a life in the Jurassic Park universe). But the first shot is actually of trees rustling in the night. That's all you're shown, just trees – and its totally deliberate. What's making the trees move? Is it a dinosaur? The wind? A massive squirrel? You don't know, because the film isn't telling you. It wants to make you use some imagination, not wheel out a dinosaur before you've found your seat and poke it 'til it goes ‘raargh'.

Jurassic Park 3D - T-Rex Attack
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In fact, the dinosaurs are barely on-screen in the film at all. Instead, their terrible power is shown almost entirely by reference. When the two tour Jeeps first pull up outside the T-Rex enclosure, it's in a wide shot pulled way back to show the fence for scale. The cars are tiny. That massive fence, with lights on top that show it's electrified, towers five times the cars' height. And the characters stare up into the trees and complain that there's nothing to see. Not for them, it's true, but as the audience – as people who know we're watching a disaster – it shows us everything. Whatever's in those trees isn't like any animal we've ever seen: whatever's in those trees is a monster.

The raptor feeding scene does the same trick to show a whole other kind of danger. Their enclosure is small, but its fences are different to those on the T-Rex enclosure: they go up and then fold part way over the top, like a barbed wire security fence. We can't see what these creatures look like – but we know immediately they can jump a regular fence, or maybe even climb one.

New Dinosaurs and New Characters in Jurassic Park The Game
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When the cow is lowered in, the sound and rustling fauna comes from different directions. We know raptors are small, fast, hunt in packs and tear prey to shreds before Muldoon even begins his speech. One of the reasons it's so chilling is because he's confirming the terrible picture of these creatures we've already put together in our heads.

Back to the game again. There's little clever camera work – just the occasional stolen shot of something running past the lens lifted straight from the film. Telltale's dinosaurs are well lit (and when they aren't, they have great big glowing eyes, for some evolutionarily improbable reason), and get whole camera shots to themselves to inform the player they're about to do some quick-time-event-ing. Their appearances couldn't be more clearly telegraphed if they were flown into each scene by helicopter and announced by a bugler.

Jurassic Park - Action Montage
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By comparison, the dinosaurs in the first Jurassic Park film are on screen for less than a total of fifteen minutes. The T-Rex doesn't appear until – to the minute – halfway through the film. And the raptors? The first full body shot of a raptor – in the kitchen scene – doesn't happen until 20 minutes before the end of the film. It's your head doing the grunt work of the scares, not CGI or animatronics.


Except When It Is About Dinosaurs
But the most critical omission in any Jurassic Park game is wonder. The majesty of the creatures. In the gun games, dinosaurs are moving targets dressed up in costumes – obstacles of different sizes and speeds for you to shoot at, no different really from Space Invaders. In Telltale's game they're a little better, but still obstacles of a different kind: ones that only exist in their relation to humans. It's true that not every encounter in Telltale's game is a violent one (although the herding puzzles were head-on-desk-thumpingly dull – just drive over the stupid Triceratops if it loves that leaf so much) – but the Triceratops that's escaped its pen and the Parasaurolophus group that need chasing out of their paddock are still not much more than button-and-switch puzzles that grunt.

"I wanted to show them something that wasn't an illusion. Something that was real, something that they could see and touch. An aim not devoid of merit."

"I wanted to show them something that wasn't an illusion. Something that was real, something that they could see and touch. An aim not devoid of merit."

Jurassic Park is a nature documentary in every way that matters, and to differentiate a Jurassic Park game from one that's just about dinosaurs, you need the shots of the baby penguin at play as much as the ones of it being eaten by a polar bear. Tenderness along with cruelty, awe along with terror.

Jurassic Park: First Brachiosaurus Reveal
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You need that first scene with the Brachiosaurus, in which Drs. Grant and Sattler see a real live dinosaur for the first time, rearing up on its hind legs to tear leaves from an impossibly tall tree and then coming back down with force enough to shake the ground. You need the sick Triceratops, with lungs so big that when Grant lies against its side and it lifts him up he starts smiling like a child in a zoo. You need the scene with Grant and the kids in the treetop, when another curious Brachiosaurus pokes its nose into their hiding place and sneezes over Lex.

Of course you need raptors and T-Rexs, too. There's surely a great open-world game to be made of Isla Nublar – part The Forest, part Zoo Tycoon. There's just as surely a great Alien: Isolation-a-like to be made as you creep around a park building trying not to alert a nearby Velociraptor. But without the moments that made everyone, characters and audience members alike, gawp like toddlers it won't be Jurassic Park – just another game about monsters.