Commander Fury

It’s a fair guess that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 will follow in the footsteps of last year’s Call of Duty: Black Ops, shattering sales records and bringing even more people to video games. But it’s typically not the single player campaign, detailed here, that draws in those record-breaking numbers. While many, including myself, enjoy the Call of Duty campaigns, it’s the multiplayer that has managed to shift the Call of Duty franchise from a video game to something more akin to a sport. People play pick-up games of Black Ops, Modern Warfare 2, even Modern Warfare, like they play games of baseball, soccer or shoot some hoops. Like it or not, consider it innovative or rehashed gameplay, the Call of Duty franchise has in many ways transcended what it is to be a video game. So here’s your first, unofficial look at what we can expect from the bread and butter, the heart of Modern Warfare 3 when it hits this fall. Do keep in mind that while the details of the game’s single player campaign, first reported by Kotaku via inside sources and later seemingly verified with the official release of a trailer and matching levels, are likely mostly locked in stone. What is delivered with multiplayer could easily shift. Multiplayer is often tweaked after the game hits. It also receives a number of downloadable content packs post launch. With the advent of Elite, that’s even more likely. That being said, here’s what our inside sources are telling us we can expect from multiplayer. The game’s multiplayer will be divided into cooperative Special Ops maps and traditional multiplayer maps. There will be no zombie modes in this game, not a surprise since zombies were introduced to the Call of Duty franchise by Treyarch and have, so far, popped up only in the Treyarch-developed games. Special Ops will include both a survival, horde-like mode and a mission mode, with a total of a dozen maps and missions to choose from between the two. As we’ve previously reported, there are 20 maps being worked on for Modern Warfare 3‘s multiplayer. It is unclear how many multiplayer and Spec Ops maps and missions will come with the game and how many will be sold at a later date as add-on downloadable content. Key to the multiplayer experience is the ability for players to level up their characters and unlock perks to modify the effectiveness of their equipment, character and enemy equipment. The multiplayer matches also include killstreaks, which are special one-time rewards that are unlocked after a player kills other players a set number of times without dying. As could be expected, developers Infinity Ward and Sledgehammer Games have been working to tweak both killstreaks and perks for Modern Warfare 3. The biggest new addition to the game that we’ve heard of so far is the creation of Team Perks. These are perks that a team can work toward to earn. It is unclear whether this will be tied to clans or some other team system, but their inclusion could help push the game into a more team-driven title, something the premium Elite service is likely to tie into. While we don’t know the total number of team perks coming to Modern Warfare 3, we have been told four of them: Stopping Power: Increased bullet damage. Blast Shield: Unclear Health Regen: Regenerate health over time. Stun Protection: Prevent stunning from flash grenades. New perks coming to Modern Warfare 3 include: Blind Eye: This makes you immune to computer-controlled and player-controlled killstreaks. The pro version makes your launchers lock on faster and gives you extra bullet damage to vehicles. Assassin: This makes you immune to UAV, thermal, and heartbeat sensors. The pro version also makes you immune to CUAV, EMP and no longer shows your name in red or the crosshair in red when you’re targeted. Point Guard: Every two assists count as a kill towards your killstreak. Dead Silence: You make no noise. Recon: Gives you a special kind of radar to spot enemies, most likely. We’re not sure on this one. We’re not clear on how many or which previous perks will be coming to the game, but it sounds like the ones that do return will do so from Modern Warfare 2, not Black Ops. There will also be a bevy of new killstreaks to play with in multiplayer. Here’s the rundown on the latest thinking: EMP Grenade: Temporarily takes out all area electronics. Littlebird: A tiny remote-controlled helicopter. Precision Airstrike: Calls in an airstrike on a targeted area. Stealth bomber: Calls in a B2 Spirit to carpet bomb along a line designated by the player. Remote Turret: A remote controlled turret. Directional UAV: A UAV that can be directed into areas to scan for enemies. Remote Mortar: Direct a mortar team using a zoomable camera view of the map to call in strikes. Airdrop Trap: A booby-trapped airdrop. Ammo Resupply: An ammo reloading airdrop. Escort Airdrop: A protected airdrop. Specialist Strike Package: This one remains a mystery to us. While it’s likely that some of the killstreaks will drop out or be added in, we’ve been told that the team has decided to remove the controversial Tactical Nuke killstreak from the game. Other tweaks being looked at by the team include making sure things like exploding barrels not counting toward a player’s killstreak tally. We’ve also learned, unfortunately, that this latest Call of Duty still won’t support dedicated servers, instead relying on the hosted servers found in previous iterations of the game. Dedicated servers were removed from the Modern Warfare games starting with Modern Warfare 2. (Modern Warfare 3 appears to be using DemonWare for player authentication, just like with Call of Duty: Black Ops.) Score: 0 (0 votes cast) More...

Sony has sent over a lovely mail letting us know that it will host a livestream of its E3 press conference in a special screening room within PlayStation Home on June 6. The press conference, which will be the first ever live streaming press event in PlayStation Home, will show SCEA president and CEO Jack Tretton on stage as he “unveils exclusive, never-before-seen footage of new titles across Sony Computer Entertainment’s suite of platforms and reveals all of the major announcements the company will make at the E3 expo.†Additionally, PSN will once again offer gamers an inside look into E3 directly via its virtual E3 booth featured in PlayStation Home. In 2010, five times more people visited PlayStation Home’s E3 virtual booth than the entirety of the show at the LA Convention Center. Here’s more: “At the start of the show on Tuesday, June 7 at 12.00pm PST, when users login to PlayStation Home, they will be invited to visit the virtual booth. Once inside, users will be able to tour a detailed replica of PlayStation’s E3 booth earning exclusive virtual items at each area as they check out the content showcased on the show floor, including a 3D render of NGP. “Once their tour is complete and all virtual items have been unlocked, users will be awarded access to the upstairs VIP area that will showcase specific PlayStation Home content, including the first level of the never-before-seen upcoming Scribble Shooter game as well as a virtual item package that features companions, furniture and ornaments.†The firm will also be livestreaming its presser through the US PS Blog. Sony’s actual press conference kicks off at 5.00pm PST. Score: 0 (0 votes cast) More...

The long-in-the-making first-person shooter Aliens: Colonial Marines is still alive and coming out in the spring of 2012, according to a chest-beatingbursting announcement from the movie studio behind Aliens, the publisher of Sonic the Hedgehog and the creators of the award-winning game Borderlands. The unlikely trio of 20th Century Fox, Sega and development studio Gearbox Software will be making what they’re calling a “true sequel to James Camerson’s classic Aliens.” Either that’s a shot at David Fincher’s controversial Alien 3 or it’s simply a verification of what the game’s new teaser trailer shows the game to be: a direct storyline-sequel to Cameron’s Aliens movie. In the game’s new trailer, which you can see here, unseen men, presumably colonial marines, are discussing the U.S.S. Sulaco, the military ship that transported Sigourney Weaver’s Aliens heroine, Ellen Ripley, and a group of Marines to LV-426, the planet on which most of Cameron’s movie takes place. On that planet, Ripley and a rapidly-dwindling team of human fighters fought the Aliens before struggling back to the Sulaco. In the trailer, the male voices refer to Ripley as having checked herself back into cry-sleep. They also refer to Paul Reiser’s Carter Burke deceased character and the ripped-in-two artificial person Bishop. The men decide to go to the Sulaco, but there’s no indication if Ripley, Bishop, or any of the other few survivors of Cameron’s movie make it into the game. The Aliens Colonial Marines game is set to be a first-person shooter that supports up to four players proceeding through its storyline together. The new press release for the game says players will be able to drop “in and out as necessary through self-contained missions within an over-arching narrative.” Players will be able to upgrade and customize their characters, gaining new weapons and perks. The game’s levels will be set across “authentic environments inspired by the film series including Hadley’s Hope, the Sulaco and LV-426.” Here’s the official plot summary: Aliens: Colonial Marines begins with an ostensibly abandoned ship, the U.S.S. Sulaco, recovered in orbit around LV-426. Players lead a group of highly trained United States Colonial Marines as they board the deserted craft to uncover the fate of the crew. They will have to fight to survive unspeakable horrors and their own anxieties as they chase down the truth behind a galaxy-spanning deception that places humanity at the mercy of the most murderous and deadly species in the universe. Look for Colonial Marines on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC in the spring of 2012. Score: 0 (0 votes cast) More...

The people who make Call of Duty keep promising that they won’t charge you extra to play their hit game against other people. They shoot down any fears that they’re going to turn CoD multiplayer into a pay-per-month subscription service, a la World of Warcraft or HBO. But starting this fall, series publisher Activision will offer a service you can pay for each month: the premium grade version of something called Call of Duty: Elite (don’t panic… there’s a free version coming too). Starting as a beta this summer and then launching on November 8, 2011—the same day as the next Call of Duty, Modern Warfare 3—Call of Duty: Elite will be a PC and mobile service that lets players track their stats, compete for real and virtual prizes, and form both social and gaming groups with players from across multiple CoD games. Elite will be available in two tiers of service, one for paying and one for non-paying Call of Duty multiplayer fanatics. While all of the perks of membership are yet to be announced, that paying group may never have to pay for a Call of Duty map pack separately again. At a glance, Elite resembles Bungie.net, the richly-detailed stat tracking service for that other mighty first-person-shooter series, Halo. But the top people behind the Elite project, including the heads of Beachhead Studios, an outfit dedicated exclusively to building and supporting Elite, promise that their service will prove to be the best of its kind, transcending expectations of websites for multiplayer video games. The Elite service is, at its most basic, a very fancy website. It will primarily be accessed through users’ web browsers, though Activision is planning to offer some sort of Elite app for iOS and Android devices. Elite will include stat-tracking, lots of social-networking options and a bevy of competitions, some of which will be organized like the season of a professional sport. The service’s Career stat-tracking and social grouping features will be free for everyone, according to top people who briefed Kotaku on the service at a recent demonstration in New York City. It’s not clear which other Elite elements will be exclusive to the paid version, let alone what a premium membership will cost. The paid version is at least confirmed to include more than just access to Elite. During an unveiling of the service, Jamie Berger, vice president of digital business at Activision, told reporters that a premium Elite membership will give subscribers a constant flow of Call of Duty content, including map packs, which have previously been available a la carte. Berger stressed that anyone who strictly buys a CoD game and doesn’t pay for Elite can expect campaign, co-op and multiplayer “for no extra charge.” He didn’t elaborate on why someone would opt for the premium Elite offering of CoD map packs and other downloadable content, though one could imagine that those premium Elite members might get access to such added content early or at a bulk discount. Two of us at Kotaku were recently given an advance demonstration of Elite, using a version of the beta build that will launch this summer and tie into Call of Duty: Black Ops. The screenshots that follow, all supplied by Activision, show off the features of Elite that were presented in our demo. (Click each to enlarge.) The Elite officials wouldn’t tell us which of the features we saw would be offered only to paying customers—just that “many” of those we saw would be free—so as you check out the following screenshots and our accompanying descriptions, you’re welcome to guess what you’ll have to pay for and what will be available for all. The Career mode will give players access to an intense amount of statistics for the matches they’ve played. The shot here shows the player’s performance in a Domination game on Black Ops‘ Berlin Wall map. The map shows green and red dots where the player killed another player or was killed. The timeline below it shows when those kills occurred and can be scrubbed through in a manner that crudely but effectively recreates the flow of life-and-death action in that session. These kinds of stats can be expected to be available on Elite just a minute or two after a match concludes in the games themselves. The Career tab includes a Leaderboard Tracker, which will allow an Elite user to compare their standing in a variety of Call of Duty modes to those of other players they’ve befriended or are tracking through the service. Speaking of befriending people… The Connect part of Elite makes CoD just a little bit more like Facebook or even Twitter. Players can befriend each other and see how they stack up on leaderboards (see previous screenshot). They can send messages to people they befriend and track the performance of players they’re not friends with. Elite users can also join up to 64 groups, each defined by a hashtag. A user can start a group or join one and then strive to be the best CoD player in that group, be it #MW3, #Kotaku or even #StephenTotiloIsMyFavoritePersonNamedStephen. Players will also be able to interact with each other through the Theater, which will allow users to host videos of their favorite CoD moments and comment on them. One of Elite‘s more clever features is its ability to read the meta-data of the Call of Duty videos uploaded to it and automatically tag each video with the names of the players in the captured match. Every player will easily know which videos they were in, intentionally or otherwise. Thanks to that bit of Elite tech, an unsuspecting Call of Duty player might discover that they were the victim—or the accidental star—in some popular Black Ops killstreak video. The most promising and potentially impactful part of Elite is the Compete section. It has the potential to turn a fervent fan’s weekly (or daily) after-work, after-school Call of Duty multiplayer sessions into what will essentially be participation in a season of CoD played as game show or sport. A Program Guide in the Events page will list upcoming challenges. Some challenges will involve uploading videos or screenshots that meet certain contest criteria. So-called Lone Wolf Operations will challenge players to perform certain one-off feats in multiplayer—say, a set number of kills in a game mode that day—and could, the Activision people who showed us Elite said, win a player anything from an in-game badge to a real Jeep. The grander Events will pit players against each other in weeks-long tournaments that are set up for CoD gamers at different levels of skill. It’s not clear yet whether the tournaments will only involve comparisons of players’ stats against one another during the tournament or if players will ever be expected to actually play specific CoD matches against one another. (A Beachhead developer did say that the Elite team will be able to sniff out attempts to cheat in the tournaments by those who might attempt to pad their stats by playing against of friends who pose at shooting targets for them.) Winning tournaments and other contests will earn players Trophies, new status symbols that will surely motivate players the way Xbox Achievements and in-game badges already do. The least-flashy part of Elite is the Improve section which is designed to serve as an instruction manual for Call of Duty multiplayer. It is a prettier version of an FAQ, providing data about how weapons and attachments work… …how maps are laid out… …and other details to study so that you can improve your Kill-To-Death ratio in Modern Warfare 3 and beyond. Based on what we’ve been shown of Elite so far, the service looks like it will give CoD addicts a trove of data and networking options that they will surely enjoy. It doesn’t offer anything to the single-player-only CoD gamer. It also doesn’t yet have any meta-game in its own right, no way, for example, to “play” Ellite on your iPhone in a manner that would let you beat other Elite gamers or affect your standing in a proper Call of Duty game. The top developers on the service told us that game-like extensions and other unseen features may well be a part of future evolutions of Elite. For the beta, though, players should expect the features listed here, retro-fitted to suit Black Ops. An expanded suite of features will be offered when Elite launches alongside Modern Warfare 3. [Update: Elite will continue to also connect to Black Ops after the service launches in November, according to a spokesperson for the service.] Elite will go into beta this summer. Those interested in joining should check out CallofDuty.com/Elite. The Call of Duty series has been a blockbuster for Activision, one that has, on the strength of its online multiplayer, kept gamers busy for months after each release. The series has earned the publisher of the game piles of money. For a while it has seemed that some sort of premium service was inevitable. If people pay $15 a month to play World of Warcraft, why wouldn’t they pay to play CoD? Yet Activision appears to have decided that it can’t suddenly start charging for CoD multiplayer, so Elite results as the company’s best option to find an alternate way to make money on multiplayer. It remains to be seen how enticing it will be to pay for Elite. But there’s a second benefit that Activision might gain for Elite. For the last few years, competing first-person shooter creators have been trying to knock CoD off its pedestal as, by far, the biggest multi-million-cop seller in its class. They have found it hard to do so for many reasons, including the fact that there is simply a lot of social pressure for gamers to buy each new Call of Duty. The shooter gamer wants to play with their friends. The more passionately one person in a group of friends feels about playing Call of Duty, the more likely that all of the friends in that group will get the next game in the series. If Elite bonds those groups more tightly together—through communal stat-tracking, through social-networking, through competitions—then those groups of friends will find it even more enticing to keep the Call of Duty playing going, and those games that want to compete, will have a harder time than ever butting in. Score: 0 (0 votes cast) More...

All you probably need to know about the Uncharted 3 beta is that it’s more Uncharted — and therefore you want it right the hell now. Thinking about it that way, the article full of details posted by IGN is extraneous. But on the other hand, new info! The beta includes two multiplayer maps: Chateau and the Airstrip (described here), both with “dynamic events” occurring during play, like planes flying in. Players can choose from nine modes including Team Deathmatch, 3-Team Deathmatch, Team Objective, Free For All, Plunder, High Stakes, and three unrevealed co-op modes that IGN mercilessly teased for a later reveal. Players will choose either a Drake/Sully/”treasure hunter” Hero team or a bad-guy team made up of customizable pirates. Four of the new “Power Play” events will also feature in the beta. These one-minute events change the rules (like “marking” one person on the winning team to be worth three points) to turn the game around at critical moments. Check IGN for the full rundown of beta components. The beta launches officially on July 4, but will be accessible early, on June 28, for Infamous 2 owners and PlayStation Plus members. Which, thanks to one of Sony’s acts of contrition, will be everybody! As long as the store is back up by then, that is. The beta is set to end July 13. Score: 0 (0 votes cast) More...

After announcing earlier this month that a free content pack would arrive for Ark dwellers at some point in June, Bethesda has detailed the “Agents of Change” DLC that’s coming to Brink in the near future. Two new maps, five new abilities, and a handful of weapon attachments and character outfits comprise the pack, which has yet to be given a solid release date. If that weren’t enough to get you parkour-shooting once again, the game’s statistics site will go live tomorrow for Xbox 360 and PS3 players, while the PC version will arrive “very soon.” And hey, a title update went live late last week that supposedly helps with the crippling lag people have encountered when taking the game online, so there’s that! Head past the break for the entire list of free stuff coming in the “Agents of Change” DLC. The “Agents of Change” DLC, as detailed by Bethesda: “New Maps Founders’ Tower – The revolution finally reaches the island’s iconic spire and takes the battle for the Ark to dizzying heights. Labs – Venture into the depths of the Ark’s original research and development laboratories, a submerged high-tech facility so far untouched by the civil war. New Player Abilities UAV – This stealthy and lethal device allows Operatives to automatically mark nearby enemies on their radar. For more explosive fun, they can even take direct control of the UAV and detonate it near unsuspecting foes. Napalm Grenade – Soldiers can use this new grenade to cover an area in a sea of deadly flames. Pyro Mine – Engineers can plant these mines and leave enemies in the epicenter of a massive napalm explosion. Field Regen Unit – Medics can deploy these units to increase the health regeneration of any nearby teammates. Tactical Scanner – This universal ability allows players to reveal the active buffs of their opponents, allowing them to pick off enemies more strategically. New Weapon Attachments Bayonets – Gain the edge in melee combat and cause extra damage with these deadly blades. Weapon Shields – Take cover from enemy fire and prevent headshot bonus damage behind riot-style shields. New Character Outfits The Sad Punk – Add a touch of Steampunk to your Resistance character. The Limey – Bring order to the Ark with this outfit inspired by traditional European police. Score: 0 (0 votes cast) More...

Consumers are used to paying $60 each for videogames that run on consoles like the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. Now the publisher behind the industry’s biggest videogame franchise— “Call of Duty”—is about to find out whether it can get them to pay a monthly bill, too. Activision Blizzard Inc. plans to launch an online service called Call of Duty Elite this fall that will work with the next major edition of the game, “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3,” and future installments of the hyper-realistic combat-simulation game. In a move industry executives describe as a first, Activision plans to charge a monthly subscription fee for the service, which will provide extra content that isn’t offered on game discs sold in stores, including downloadable map packs that give players new “Call of Duty” levels to play. Activision executives said they haven’t yet figured out how much to charge for the service, but they expect the cost to be less than fees for comparable online-entertainment services, such as a $7.99-a-month Netflix Inc. movie subscription. Portions of the service will be free, including features inspired by Facebook Inc. that will let “Call of Duty” players meet for online gun battles with others who share various affiliations and interests. Another feature of the service will give “Call of Duty” players tools, modeled on those from stock-trading websites, to analyze their performance within the game, gauging factors such as which weapons have been most successful for them in killing enemies. The plan—which comes a week ahead of the videogame industry’s big E3 trade show in Los Angeles—is a potentially risky bet by Activision that it can further milk profits from consumers, who could feel the $60 they spend on “Call of Duty” in stores is enough. Charging a monthly subscription fee is more common for multiplayer games that run on personal computers. The most successful of those is “World of Warcraft,” a fantasy game from Activision’s Blizzard division that has over 11 million subscribers, who typically pay $15 a month for the service. For players with a Microsoft Corp. Xbox 360 console, a Call of Duty Elite subscription will come on top of the $9.99 monthly fee they typically pay for Xbox Live, the online game service that provides players of all Xbox games to meet and compete against others online. Sony Corp.’s PlayStation 3 console owners don’t pay a monthly fee to play against others online. The PlayStation Network that provides those multiplayer capabilities recently suffered an outage of more than three weeks after a hacker intrusion on the service. Players of PC versions of “Call of Duty” don’t pay to play others online. In an interview, Activision Chief Executive Bobby Kotick said he isn’t worried about pushback from gamers about the Call of Duty Elite fee because players will still be able to compete against each other online without subscribing to the service. While he is coy about many of the offerings that will be included in the service, Mr. Kotick said Call of Duty Elite, and the customer-service operation that will be needed to support it, wouldn’t be possible if the service was free. “This is an enormous investment,” he said. “Call of Duty” is in a unique position to seek a monthly fee from customers. The game’s previous installment, set during the Cold War and called “Call of Duty: Black Ops,” was the best-selling game last year, with global retail sales of more than $1 billion during its first six weeks on shelves. Since Activision first began publishing the series almost eight years ago, it has accounted for more than $3 billion in retail sales, according to the company. Unlike hit movies, new versions of “Call of Duty” come out every year, with “Modern Warfare 3″ due to arrive in stores Nov. 8. “It’s probably the biggest entertainment franchise in the world,” said Dennis Durkin, corporate vice president in Microsoft’s interactive-entertainment business. Just as important is the degree to which “Call of Duty” has become the biggest online-game hit on consoles. While many gamers still play the old-fashioned way—by themselves against enemies operated by the game itself—”Call of Duty” has been the most successful console game at getting players to battle other human-operated opponents over the Internet. Jamie Berger, Activision’s vice president of digital for “Call of Duty,” said the company has about seven million daily players of the game who spend, on average, about seven full days a year playing the game against others online. Players often use headsets to communicate verbally with other online gamers. Like other publishers, Activision has earned money selling “Call of Duty” map packs and other digital content for one-time charges, but subscriptions to its new service could give it a continuing way to capitalize on the online popularity of the game. Rob Dyer, senior vice president of publisher relations at Sony’s U.S. games division, said only a few games have the audience loyalty and size to support a subscription service like Call of Duty Elite. Mr. Dyer said he is “very confident” other publishers will follow Activision’s lead. “There’s money to be made there,” he said. Score: 0 (0 votes cast) More...

Sony has revealed that “all PlayStation Network services†around the globe (excluding certain Asian territories) will be returning very soon. It doesn’t sound like everything will be up before the end of May, which ends tomorrow of course, but functionality will return before the end of the week. One of Sony’s latest hopes was to get PSN back online before the month ends, though they did say anything later would be just a few days after the “deadlineâ€. The full PR from Sony can be read below. Tokyo, May 31, 2011 – Sony Corporation and Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE) announced today that Sony Network Entertainment International (SNEI, the company) will fully restore all PlayStation®Network services in the Americas, Europe/PAL territories and Asia, excluding Japan, Hong Kong, and South Korea by the end of this week. The company will also resume Music Unlimited powered by Qriocityâ„¢ for PlayStation®3 (PS3®), PSP® (PlayStation®Portable), VAIO and other PCs. Details for Japan, Hong Kong, and South Korea as well as the remaining services on Qriocity will be announced as they become available. The company implemented considerable security enhancements to the network infrastructure, as well as conducted testing of the payment process and commerce functions. The first phase of PlayStation Network and Qriocity restoration began on May 15 in the Americas and Europe/PAL territories, followed by Japan and Asian countries and regions on May 28, when the company brought partial services back online. With this partial restoration users were able to access to some of the services such as online game play, account management, friend lists and chat functionality were restored. The full restoration of PlayStation Network as well as part of services to become available on Qriocity will include: Full functionality on PlayStation®Store In-game commerce Ability to redeem vouchers and codes Full functionality on Music Unlimited powered by Qriocity for PS3, PSP, VAIO and other PCs Full functionality on Media Go Customers can now purchase and download games and video content from the PlayStation®Store on PS3 or PSP. In addition, consumers will have full access to Music Unlimited powered by Qriocity through PS3, PSP, VAIO and other PC’s. Service restoration of Video on Demand powered by Qriocityâ„¢ and Music Unlimited powered by Qriocity for a variety of network-enabled Sony devices will be announced later. “We have been conducting additional testing and further security verification of our commerce functions in order to bring the PlayStation Network completely back online so that our fans can again enjoy the first class entertainment experience they have come to love,†said Kazuo Hirai, Executive Deputy President, Sony Corporation. “We appreciate the patience and support shown during this time.†The company will be offering customers a “Welcome Back†package of services and premium content to all registered PlayStation Network* and Qriocity account services. The details of this program will continue to be detailed regionally. * Only available for those countries with access to PlayStation®Store. Score: 0 (0 votes cast) More...

Associate producer Jason Frederick has said F.E.A.R. 3 doesn’t contain traditional multiplayer modes in order to craft a unique experience. “We have four different multiplayer modes, and we deliberately and consciously tossed out deathmatch, team deathmatch, capture the flag,†Frederick told Gamespot. “We got rid of those game modes. “You can pick up any shooter these days and you can play deathmatch. There are some people who are a little bit upset about this, but ultimately, it’s better for our particular game because we’ve created multiplayer modes now that you can only get from F.E.A.R. 3. “So you decide to play one of these multiplayer modes, you can only pick up F.E.A.R. 3. You can’t pick up any other game and get these.†F.E.A.R. 3 More...

Sony’s recently announced that every PSN user who has had an active account created before the 19th of April, the day when the company took PSN offline after being hacked, would be receiving two free games which they would be able to choose from a list of five titles. The titles are as follows: Dead Nation inFAMOUS LittleBigPlanet Super Stardust HD Wipeout HD + Fury Every country in Europe and the US having a PS Store would be entitled to avail this offer. *Although it’s a great initiative from Sony’s end but one point still remains mostly unclear. How big is the download size of these games? We know it won’t be an issue for owners of the newer models of *PS3 which come with a big hard disk, but users who’re still relying on their trusty old FAT models which come with 20 GB, 40 GB and 60 GB HDDs might have issues if they don’t know about their download sizes, so that they can plan accordingly. Therefore, we’ve collected the estimated download size for each of these games and also will be revealing a method by which you would be able to redeem these games and keep them as a “purchase†and download them at a later date. First off, let’s take a look at how big the download sizes of these games are: InFamous – 6.88 GB LittleBigPlanet – 2216 MB (Thanks Hawkboi) Wipeout HD/Fury – 738 MB Dead Nation – 1.39 GB Super Stardust – 290MB If you’re worried that your PS3 More...

Looks like the surprisingly exciting multiplayer component from War for Cybertron is back for another round of automotive mech-slaughter. Check out the latest trailer for Transformers: Dark of the Moon below to see the game’s competitive combat unfold by land, by air and … by robot. Score: 0 (0 votes cast) More...

Airing moments ago in Europe and Mexico following the UEFA Champions’ League Final, here is the full Gears of War 3 E3 trailer, with special musical guest Black Sabbath performing “War Pigs.” Score: 0 (0 votes cast) More...

Evga.com is offering gamers a special Duke Nukem themed graphics card package to celebrate the game’s release. The package contains: Limited Edition EVGA GeForce GTX 560 Duke Nukem Graphics Card Full Version of Duke Nukem Forever The History, Legacy and Legend of Duke Nukem Forever Art Book Limited Edition Duke Nukem Forever Mousepad Custom Duke Nukem “Radioactive†Belt Buckle The package comes in at a pricey $244.99, but if you’re in the market for a new graphics card and your hobbies include kicking ass while chewing bubblegum, this could be the package for you. All I really want is the belt buckle, but shelling out 244.99 just for a belt buckle seems a tad extreme innit? To buy the package, and see the full specs of the graphics card, click here. Duke Nukem Forever has gone gold and will be releasing on June 10 for PS3, Xbox 360 and PC. Score: 0 (0 votes cast) More...

Warner has released a new video which shows the Character Skin DLC you can get for Mortal Kombat. The seven skins were originally available as a pre-order bonus and contains “klassics†like Sub-Zero, Scorpion, Reptile, Ermac, Mileena, Jade and Kitana and “klassic†fatalities for Reptile, Scorpion and Sub-Zero. The pack will be available starting June 7 for PSN and XBL for $4.99/400 MSP. Score: 0 (0 votes cast) More...

PWNED has released a behind-the-scenes look Battlefield 3, specifically the Frostbite 2 engine and the Back to Karkland map pack. Posted below, the video also revisits Battlefield 2 More...

Survival Mode in Modern Warfare 3 has been detailed, and it comes as part of the Spec Ops mode in the game which unlike MW2, will be playable outside of single-player mode this time out. According to a post over on USA Today, the Spec Ops mode contains a progressive ranking system, matchmaking, leaderboards, and the above referenced survival mode on the multiplayer maps. “All that stuff really fleshes out Spec Ops and adds in a lot that we know our fans are going to love, some of the most addictive aspects of Multiplayer,†said Infinity Ward’s Robert Bowling. One map is called Dome, which has waves of enemies coming at you in a “desert radar command bunker,†which looks straight out of the Cold War era. With in-game currency you can purchase a turret to help you out with said waves and attack dogs, some of which are also suicide bombers that explode after you shoot them. Same goes for kamikaze soldiers. “You definitely have to change up your strategy as the enemy changes up,†Bowling said. “Obviously how you fight the kamakazi dudes is different from how you fight the normal dudes and how you fight a dog is different from a dude and how you fight juggernauts, they are not only big and armored, so they will just brute force come at you. But they each have their own way of being taken out effectively.†“We have all been challenged. There’s such hard-core players out there in the online community and you hear all the stories about the 8-year-olds, 12 year-olds and 13-year-olds swearing and ruining the experience,†added Sledgehammer’s Michael Condrey. “With Spec Ops, you can really get in there and hone your skills in a more confined environment. I think it’s a little more of an easy entry. I don’t have as much time as I did when I was 20 to be honing my twitch skills, but this certainly gives me a venue to experiment.†Modern Warfare 3 will deploy on November 8 for PC, PS3, and Xbox 360. Expect to see and hear more of it out of E3. Score: 0 (0 votes cast) More...

THQ and Kaos Studios have today announced that an Xbox 360 update is now available which should improve the recently released Homefront’s overall game stability and network connectivity.*In addition, the developers have revealed the “Ability Pack†with this update which will be immediately available after download. The first Homefront downloadable content (DLC) will be available on June 7th – the “Fire Sale†Map Pack will carry you further into the heart of a war torn and twisted America.* “Fire Sale†will launch first on Xbox LIVE, with the PlayStation Network and PC releases to be confirmed later, and features two all-new multiplayer maps. Also on that same day, the 870 Express Shotgun will be available for download and as a way of saying ‘thank you’ to the continued support of the Homefront community. Kaos Studios are offering a free Premium Homefront Theme that will be provided on the Xbox 360 Marketplace. Ability Pack -********* Ice Cold: Invisible on thermal views and airstrike sensors -********* Situational Awareness: Enemy gamertag appears when shot -********* EMP Tactician: Deal more damage vs EMP’d vehicles -********* Short Fuse: Reduced cook time on frag grenades -********* Bomb Suit: Take less damage from explosives Improvements to: -********* Assist points for vehicle kills -********* Rank Resets -********* Game returns to MP menu instead of Main Menu after leaving a match -********* Max ping limits for server connections (prevent connections to distant servers) -********* Game freeze & hitching -********* Joining Friends feature -********* Beacon errors -********* Party Connectivity; and -********* Various other fixes Additional DLC and Title Updates have also been promised for Homefront on all formats Score: 0 (0 votes cast) More...

EARN BIG, STARTING TODAY! Starting this Thursday, 26th May at 9am (PST) and running up until Monday, 30th at 12am (PST), Crysis 2 will be dishing out double-XP across all three platforms! There’s no restrictions on game modes or maps, so grab your friends and earn some new gadgets and guns… and lots of XP, of course! We’ll be monitoring the stats over the weekend and will be offering prizes to the best XP earners on each platform. It doesn’t matter how much XP you’ve got now, it’s all about how much you can earn during the double-XP weekend, so anyone can join in and show ‘em who’s boss! Prizes include: Crysis 2 Figurine Crysis 2 Nanosuit T-Shirt Crysis Legion Novel Crysis Lanyard Crysis DogTag MyCrysis Sticker/Badges Have a fun weekend! - MyCrysis Team Score: 0 (0 votes cast) More...

A brand new, action packed trailer of Bleach: Soul Resurreccion (or Bleach: Soul Ignition) has recently been released! It features Ulquiorra, Soifon, Byakuya, Grimmjow, Yammy, Hitsuguya, Starrk, Halibel, Rukia, Ishida, Aizen, of course our hero, Ichigo! The trailer even shows the character selection screen (not with all of the playable characters, only some) at around 1:35. Bleach: Soul Resurreccion is an action/adventure game under development by Sony for the PlayStation 3. It will feature 21 playable characters from the Bleach anime/manga series, free-roaming action, various game modes, and the ability to customize and level up characters. NIS America will publish the game in North America this August, while Sony will release it in Japan on June 23rd. Score: 0 (0 votes cast) More...

Microsoft has confirmed to us it’s currently working on resolving issues revolving around an outage on Xbox Live Marketplace. Following reports around the ‘net, we’ve checked Marketplace to find that there’s no content from the Game Marketplace section. When going into a sub-section, such as Games on Demand, you’re greeted with a box and the message “No Content Available.†Selecting a box with 360 More...

Sony has announced a limited edition PS3 Call of Duty: Black Ops Bundle. The bundle will run you $299.99, and includes a 160 GB system, Black Ops on Blu-ray plus the First Strike Content Pack, which includes four additional post-launch multiplayer maps, and the zombie mode Ascension. It will be available for a limited time starting on May 31. Score: 0 (0 votes cast) More...

NetherRealm Studios head and Mortal Kombat co-creator ko-kreator Ed Boon has revealed via his Twitter feed that all of the retailer-specific pre-order DLC released for the series’ ninth installment will soon be made available as one downloadable, for-pay kollection. “The 7 Klassic outfits & 3 Klassic fatalities that were retailer exclusives will be bundled into one DLC package,” Boon writes. “Trailer coming on Friday.” For those who haven’t been keeping tabs on said content, it includes “classic” variants of Ermac, Jade, Kitana, Mileena, Reptile, Scorpion and Sub-Zero, along with additional fatalities for Reptile, Scorpion and Sub-Zero. Hopefully Friday’s trailer will be accompanied by a date and price, so we can note it on our kalendars and put aside some kash. Score: 0 (0 votes cast) More...

You remember Bloodrayne, right? Red hair, a vampire before vampires became Hot Topic sales clerks, existent in the third dimension? Well, the first trailer of Bloodrayne: Betrayal is here to tell you that everything you know is a lie. Now the franchise has re-emerged from its coffin and, well, it looks a lot like Castlevania. But that’s not a bad thing! WayForward’s once again cut some kind of deal with the 2D devil, resulting in some of the most gorgeous sprite-based animation we’ve seen in quite a while. Oh, and blood. If you’re squeamish, let us first remind you that – oh god – that stuff’s inside of you, oozing and pulsating everywhere. Terrifying, huh? Now then, where were we? Oh yes, the trailer. Score: 0 (0 votes cast) More...

Welcome back, soldier! In an effort to help bring everyone up to speed we're doubling any and all XP earned during competitive multiplayer games for the near future. You don't have to do anything other than complete a game to reap the benefits of our limited-time "Double XP" bonus, so what are you waiting for? We'll see you online! More...