New Xbox One Backwards Compatibility Details
Microsoft has revealed several new details about how the upcoming Xbox One backwards compatibility feature will work.
During a demonstration today, the company confirmed Xbox One owners will be able to play older titles online with gamers who own an Xbox 360, and also explained a bit more about what functionality the games will have.
The Xbox button on the controller will take you to the soon-to-be-revamped Xbox One home screen, but pressing the View and Menu buttons simultaneously will bring up the old Xbox 360 guide replete with all its features. Screenshots and DVR support are also present.
Aaron Paul Signs Onto New Hulu Series, The Way
Breaking Bad actor Aaron Paul has been cast as the male lead in The Way, a new Hulu original series.
Paul will play Eddie Cleary, "a convert to a controversial movement with a wayward past. He's a husband (to Sarah Cleary played by Michelle Monaghan) and father who suffers a crisis of faith when all that he's come to accept as truth in his life is fundamentally challenged."
Paul in Need for Speed.
The Way tells the story of a family at the center of a controversial movement "struggling with relationships, marriage and power." Each episode of the Hulu series will provide "an in-depth look at what it means to choose between the life we live and the life we want."
Zelda: Tri Force Heroes Has a PVP Mode
Nintendo Director Hiromasa Shikata told IGN some details about The Legend of Zelda: Tri Force Heroes competitive PVP mode, called The Coliseum.
Zelda: Tri Force Heroes's battle mode can be played locally or online. You can fight another player 1-on-1 or in a free-for-all against two other opponents. "In the Coliseum, you're fighting in a limited space," Shikata explained. "It's an enclosed environment and items are placed around that you can pick up to increase your chances of winning. In some of the stages, the terrain will transform." You goal is to inflict the most damage on your opponent as possible and, once the time is up, the player that has received the least amount of damage will win that battle.
Mirror’s Edge: Catalyst’s Campaign Has Multiplayer Features
Mirror's Edge: Catalyst has elements of multiplayer within its campaign, but no live competitive modes. DICE's Patrick Bach said that live multiplayer was "something we discussed quite a bit," but ultimately the team "decided to separate you physically. But there's always a connection to other players."
Bach explained, "We have asynchronous play in the multiplayer component...an asynchronous connection where your actions will affect my world." One of Faith's numerous objective types tasks her with hacking a billboard to eliminate the corporate advertising presence from the city of Glass. In doing so, your hacked billboards can also appear in your friends' games, giving players the opportunity to put their persistent stamp on more than more than one world. When setting up for a Dash race, you'll see your friends leaderboard scores imprinted on the objective in your game.
Why Gun Combat Doesn’t Exist in Mirror’s Edge: Catalyst
Mirror's Edge: Catalyst does not allow the player to hold or use a gun, ever -- there is no gun combat, so when Faith disarms an enemy soldier, his gun goes on the ground and stays there. When asked why Mirror's Edge is ditching ballistic encounters, DICE General Manager Patrick Bach said, "I think it's a statement."
He explained, "We have a game that is about a character that doesn't use guns, period. I guess it's part of sticking to the creative vision, because it's so easy to fall back on adding a gun, because we know that works in a way that takes us to a place where we don't want to be."
DICE's Sara Jannson talks Faith, combat, and more with IGN.
Calvino Noir Announced
Film noir-style "heist game" Calvino Noir has been announced for PS4, with its website suggesting release on PC and iOS as well.
According to a post on the PlayStation blog, Calvino Noir draws its moody aesthetic from the history of noir films such as Blade Runner and games such as Deus Ex, with 1930s-inspired architecture providing the backdrop.
EA Dashes Hopes of Mass Effect Trilogy Remaster
Electronic Arts doesn't have any plans to release a remastered version of the Mass Effect Trilogy for Xbox One or PlayStation 4.
"I won't lie and say we haven't looked at it. But for us, it's about weighing where we spend our resources," EA's Patrick Söderlund told Game Informer. "Is it better for them to be working on a completely new IP, which you know BioWare is, or should they be remastering a Mass Effect?
"I don't know about you, but sometimes when I go back and play a game, you want the memory of what they were at that point in time when you played them," he continued. "If I go back and play the old games, I think, 'Really?!' Was this what it was? Because in my mind it was amazing."
Yooka-Laylee Kickstarter Concludes With £2.1 Million
The crowdfunding campaign for Yooka-Laylee has concluded with £2,090,104 (nearly $3.3 million USD) raised.
It's £1.9 million over its modest original goal of £175,000, which was funded in under an hour. The final stretch goal was at the £2 million mark, and it'll see backers receive free DLC after the game's launch.
Some selected tiers are still available via PayPal for a limited time at the Playtonic Games website.
Just Cause 3 Encourages Creativity Amidst Chaos
In Just Cause 3, the third instalment of Avalanche Studios’ open-world action series, you’re no longer controlling Rico Rodriguez the latino super spy and explosion enthusiast. You’re controlling Rico Rodriguez the god.
Or at least that’s how it seems, given that from the outset of the game you’re handed a bottomless backpack of C4, a permanently equipped wingsuit and enough grappling hook tethers to reduce a fleet of enemy helicopters into a swirling mechanical tumbleweed of destruction.
The game’s Mediterranean island setting is so picturesque it would seem criminal to damage even an inch of it, yet that’s precisely what you’re encouraged to do and indeed you’re given an intoxicating amount of ways in which to do it. You want to topple that giant statue of a local dictator in a village town square in order to inspire the rebellion? Well, you could just drive a truck into it. Or you could wallpaper it with C4 and detonate it from a distance. Or you could tether its outstretched hand to its smug, stoney face with multiple cords from your grapple gun, then use the new manual grappling controls to force it to slap itself until its head crumbles into pieces, as though you were some sort of demented puppeteer (or a boorish big brother).
10 Things We Learned About No Man’s Sky
This week at E3 Hello Games revealed more about their upcoming galactic simulator, No Man's Sky. Here are ten things we learned about the game.
- No Man’s Sky does not have a traditional story with cutscenes and a predefined hero. Like Minecraft and Terraria, the player creates and defines their own experience.
- Planets are planet sized. You can spend days exploring just one world, experiencing its day and night cycles while walking its surface or flying through the sky in your spaceship (or jet pack)
- Once you discover a planet, you can change its randomly generated name to whatever you want. The same goes for any creatures you find on its surface.