’Batman: Arkham Knight’s’ Batgirl DLC trailer looks better than the main game
Who would have thought that the best way to improve Rocksteady’s series of blockbuster Batman games would be to get rid of the caped crusader himself? Anybody who’s watched the trailer for Batman: Arkham Knight’s first DLC pack, that’s who. The teaser for Batgirl: A Matter of Family pits Barbara Gordon (Batgirl herself) against Gotham’s greatest villain in a high-stakes, action packed thriller. The Joker is holding her father captive, and if Batman shows up, he dies.
The prequel storyline mission (set before 2009’s Arkham Asylum) looks fun in its own right, but the trailer absolutely shines as a showcase for some of Gotham’s best written characters. In addition to Batgirl, we get glimpses of giddy, delightful Joker, a classically dress Harley Quinn and enough action to make me wish this was a trailer for a stand-alone Batgirl game. It look like everything I could possibly want from a Batman game, minus Batman. I’m surprisingly okay with that.
Batgirl: A Matter of Family will be available to Xbox One and PlayStation 4 players on July 14th for $7. Prefer to play on PC? You’ll have to wait: Rocksteady is still patching the PC version of the game up after major glitches forced it to pull the game from Steam last month. Batman: Arkham Knight (and hopefully, the new Batgirl DLC) should return to digital platforms again sometime this Fall.
Source: Youtube
Special ‘Destiny’ PS4 is another expensive bundle option
If you’re a hardcore Destiny fan, it’s been a rough couple weeks. First, Bungie announced the game’s next big expansion, then it revealed some of its content would be exclusive to a pricey $80 collector’s edition — even if you already owned the base game. There was anger, rebellion, Red Bull product tie-ins (no, really) and, eventually, a mea culpa that made the exclusive content available to everyone as separate DLC. Huzzah! Now Destiny players can get everything without buying content twice. Well, unless they want the limited edition Destiny PlayStation 4 — then they’re screwed again.
Okay, technically the Destiny: The Taken King PS4 bundle is already the complete package — buyers get a copy of Destiny, both of its initial expansions (The Dark Below and House of Wolves) and The Taken King, plus a digital upgrade to the collector’s edition and its formerly-exclusive content. As far as the game is concerned, that’s everything — but completionist collectors are still missing out on the physical aspects of The Taken King Collector’s Edition, including the set’s steel-book case, replica Strange Coin, modified Treasure Island Book and physical relics and artifacts.
A nitpick? Absolutely. An outrage? Not at all. A problem for Destiny super-fans who want all the collectibles and a 500GB custom white and silver PS4 emblazoned with a golden guardian’s crest? Oh yeah. Still, if you have to have everything (or just want a special PS4) this bundle will be available on September 15th.
Source: PlayStation Blog
Future ‘Dragon Age Inquisition’ add-ons are only for newer systems
You know that you need the latest game consoles (or a good PC) to get better graphics and special features, but it now looks like you’ll need them if you want to see a game’s extended storyline, too. BioWare has quietly posted word that “all future” downloadable content Dragon Age Inquisition will only be available for the PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. There’s a save importer arriving this month that will transfer your progress if you buy both a new system and a fresh copy of Inquisition, but you’re otherwise stuck if you’ve poured all your energy into the role-playing title on a PS3 or Xbox 360.
The reduced support isn’t entirely surprising. BioWare has already said that it was troublesome to build the latest Dragon Age for five platforms (two of which are nearly a decade old), and add-ons certainly don’t help. Also, there’s a question of whether or not it’s worth the effort. It’s no secret that last-gen systems are far from top sellers, and numerous major publishers (including BioWare’s parent EA) are devoting virtually all their energy to games for modern hardware. While there’s no doubt that consistently offering DLC for old platforms would be ideal, it may be tough to justify the investment in a shrinking group of players who are both holding on to aging consoles and willing to buy expansions.
Filed under: Gaming
Source: Dragon Age
‘Journey’ comes to PS4 on July 21st
With stunning visuals and gameplay to match, Journey quickly became a platform favorite on the PlayStation 3. Now, Sony is bringing that adventurous experience over to the PlayStation 4, as was announced last year. Better yet, if you already own a digital copy of the title, designed by thatgamecompany, you’ll be able to download and play the new version for free. Journey’s scheduled to hit the PS4 a couple weeks from today, on July 21st, so you may want to start clearing some space on that hard drive of yours.
Filed under: Gaming, Home Entertainment, HD, Sony
Source: PlayStation
PlayStation Now’s streaming app wants to be Netflix for games
PlayStation Now’s all-you-can-play game subscription service launched back in January on PlayStation 4, but the method for actually playing those games has been kind of a nightmare. Today’s news of a dedicated subscription app might change that. Before this, every time you wanted to stream a new game, you had to go through the PlayStation Store, sift through a handful of menus, pick something (much like you would to purchase a game) and then hope that it even launched the first try. A streaming app that minimizes menu fatigue and works along the lines of a Netflix or Hulu actually makes a lot of sense here.
“The current experience is a little bit transactional, it feels like, ‘Okay, I’ve gotta pop in and [then] back out [to play],’” Robert Stevenson of Gaikai, the outfit Sony bought for its streaming infrastructure, says. “You might join the subscription for a marquee title — God of War or something that you’ve never played and you want to go back and play it. Then there’s probably a dozen or two other games that you might like,” Stevenson says. “But actually finding and locating that content is a little tricky.”
The new application hopes to streamline the process. And perhaps what’s doing the brunt of the heavy lifting then is the simultaneously familiar and new interface. Codenamed Apollo, it takes cues from other streaming services in an effort to make it easier to find what you want to play among the current 125 or so games available for streaming. It’s dominated by rows of big, splashy images for each game and a minimal amount of clutter surrounding them. Take a look at the Batman: Arkham City screenshot below for an example.
“We built a new categorization for the games; the actual navigational paradigms are different, the product detail scene is different,” Stevenson says. Pick what you want to play and the bare essentials appear: a large image, user ratings and reviews. It looks a lot like Netflix. Stevenson says this reduced information density comes from some extensive user tests to learn what customers care about when they’re browsing digital catalogs and trying to figure out what they want to play next.
As the number of games on the subscription service grows, that kind of design and organization becomes much more important. Not only to help allay paralysis of choice, but for Sony to keep customers on the hook for between $15 and $20 per month. There’s a free 7-day trial for new subscribers if you want to check out the shiny UI first hand, and the app should be live by the time you’ve finished reading this post.
Sony’s 1TB PS4 priced at £350 in the UK
Sony will soon launch its 1TB PS4 in Europe and now, we’ve got a price-tag for the UK: £349.99. That’s the same price as Microsoft’s 1TB Xbox One, which should make an interesting head-to-head this autumn. To sweeten the deal, Sony will be bundling its PlayStation TV microconsole with the new, larger capacity PS4 for a limited time, meaning you can easily stream your games to another room. It’s unclear, however, if this “Ultimate Player” will also include the revisions made to the 500GB PS4 in Japan. An internal redesign made that console 10 lighter and 8 percent more power efficient, which I’m sure PlayStation fans in Europe would appreciate too. Regardless, this is a hefty storage upgrade that should give you space for those free PS Plus games every month.
Batgirl joins ‘Batman: Arkham Knight’ on July 14th
Gotham, get ready. The first bit of DLC for Batman: Arkham Knight stars Batgirl, and it’s due to hit PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on July 14th for $7 in North America (£5.80 in the UK). This is a story-based expansion called Batgirl: A Matter of Family, Gamespot reports, and it puts players in Batgirl’s badass boots with new missions, side quests, a fresh hacking feature and Dual Play with Robin. A Matter of Family is the first installment in Arkham Knight‘s bulk-DLC season pass program, so anyone who purchased that will get the add-on at no additional charge.
There’s no word on a PC launch for the Batgirl DLC pack, which isn’t surprising considering the serious issues Warner Bros has encountered with that version of the game. Soon after release, the studio pulled Arkham Knight from digital PC shelves because of critical problems on the platform and it remains shut down today. The PC version should return in the fall.
Source: Gamespot
‘Shenmue 3’ Kickstarter will offer PS4 copies on disc
It’s safe to say people are excited about Shenmue 3: Just 48 hours after legendary developer Yu Suzuki launched a crowdfunding campaign, the game smashed its $2 million fundraising goal, pulling in more than $4 million, and setting a couple Kickstarter records in the process. So it’s clear fans of the series are already happy. But just in case you needed another reason to commit, Suzuki’s studio YS Net just posted an update on Kickstarter saying that backers will now have the option of choosing a physical PS4 copy of the game. Previously, the options were: digital copies for PS4 or Windows for $29, or a physical Windows copy for $60. So, PlayStation fans will now also have the option of playing off a disc; there, too, the price will be sixty bucks. If that’s the only reason you were previously holding off on backing, you can still do so: The campaign is open through the evening of July 17th, with the game set to arrive in December 2017.Source: Kickstarter
‘Shenmue 3’ creator Yu Suzuki is taking questions live on Twitch
Whether you’ve already eagerly thrown money at the Shenmue 3 Kickstarter or are skeptically viewing the explanations, you can hear more directly from the man in charge tonight. Shenmue creator Yu Suzuki will hop on Twitch live at 10PM ET to talk about the upcoming PC and PS4 game in a Q&A. While you wait, the project recently revealed its list of stretch goals, which to this point are already filled to the tune of $3.6 million. Suzuki and Sony’s plan is either a fantastic way to breathe life into a long-dormant franchise, or everything that’s wrong with big companies using crowdfunding for publicity, but if you’re a fan of the series, we’ll see you back here in about half an hour.
http://www.twitch.tv/swflibs/TwitchPlayer.swf
Watch live video from Shenmue3Official on Twitch
Talking Shenmue 3 on Twitch at 7:00PM PDT (2:00AM GMT). http://t.co/AJcKdaxUAS #SaveShenmue #Shenmue3
– Shenmue 3 (@Shenmue_3) June 26, 2015
Source: Twitch, Kickstarter
‘Shenmue 3’ creator Yu Suzuki is taking questions live on Twitch
Whether you’ve already eagerly thrown money at the Shenmue 3 Kickstarter or are skeptically viewing the explanations, you can hear more directly from the man in charge tonight. Shenmue creator Yu Suzuki will hop on Twitch live at 10PM ET to talk about the upcoming PC and PS4 game in a Q&A. While you wait, the project recently revealed its list of stretch goals, which to this point are already filled to the tune of $3.6 million. Suzuki and Sony’s plan is either a fantastic way to breathe life into a long-dormant franchise, or everything that’s wrong with big companies using crowdfunding for publicity, but if you’re a fan of the series, we’ll see you back here in about half an hour.
http://www.twitch.tv/shenmue3official/embedhttp://www.twitch.tv/shenmue3official/chat?popout=
Talking Shenmue 3 on Twitch at 7:00PM PDT (2:00AM GMT). http://t.co/AJcKdaxUAS #SaveShenmue #Shenmue3
– Shenmue 3 (@Shenmue_3) June 26, 2015
Source: Twitch, Kickstarter
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