Thank you to everyone that has ever been a fan of Pixelpine or any of our amazing writers over the years. After starting this in 2013 as an experiment of my own in both webdesign and journalism it is now the official end of Pixelpine.com
I’d like to thank all of our writers:
Chris Ryan, Logan MacGillivray, Samuel Sharpe, Michael Tatar, and Ben Volpe.
And also a thank you to all other contributors including:
Joseph Coluccio, Quint Austin, Chris Har, Imran Haji, Matthew Kiel, and Antonio Guillien.
This website wouldn’t have been so amazing without all of you. Thanks for sharing in this journey with me. I love you all.
BioShock is back. After a three-year hiatus since the release of BioShock Infinite on the Xbox 360 and PS3, the dark mysteries of Rapture and Columbia return in a single package.
BioShock grew to immense popularity quickly with an incredible narrative and story telling. BioShock Infinite set the bar even higher in 2013 with what one of the best endings to a trilogy in gaming history.
This three-game collection offers all DLC, add-on content, and also includes bonus Director’s commentary to take gamers through the eyes of the development team as they created the worlds.
Many gamers were teased on the idea of the collection before and even during E3, and though 2k Games waited just a bit longer than most expected the game is finally confirmed.
Check out the trailer below for the official announcement:
The BioShock Collection is slated to release September 13 in North America and September 15 world-wide.
E3 2016 is coming at a time where it seems like calling the Xbox One and the PS4 the “new generation” sounds crazy at this point. Now developers are fully in the swing of this iteration of hardware and though the excitement of the first few years of the new generation is dying down, a new excitement for high quality games is building.
Here’s a quick breakdown of what the gaming giants are coming out with in the next week when E3 starts on June 12.
Microsoft
Most gamers are familiar already with the idea that Microsoft is poised to announce a new “slim” Xbox along with perhaps an Xbox One “Scorpio” — an upgraded version of Xbox with potentially 4x the power of the 2013 Xbox One. These news stories are the biggest bombshells for Microsoft at E3, but beyond this the games that they’ve got in their arsenal are just as exciting.
Gamers have long deserved a quality Pirate game and very few have even attempted to create an original game in this style for over a decade. Rare is back in action looking for redemption and this comeback tour starting with Sea of Thieves is an incredible starting point. An open-world, multiplayer-focused adventure game set on the rugged seas is well deserving of some new information that gamers will certainly be privy to during Microsoft’s conference on June 13.
ReCore is another lesser known title just starting to come to the forefront since being announced at last year’s E3. This action-adventure game comes from some incredible minds — Keiji Inafune, the designer of the first 3 Mega Man games is teaming up with Armature Studio another developer who has plenty of high quality games behind them like Metroid Prime 3 and Batman: Arkham Origins.
ReCore deserves to be brought to the spotlight with such prestigious developers working on it and an incredibly unique concept powering it.
Sony
Just like Microsoft’s next version of the Xbox One, the PlayStation 4.5 is expected to be the highlight of the show with the more powerful version of the console being prepped for more extensive use with the PlayStation VR. VR is certainly the future of gaming at least in some facet. The immmersion created is incomparable to previous gaming experiences and if Sony can capitalize and market their PS4.5 as a way to bring those VR experiences closer to life they’ll find success despite the not-totally-favorable idea of releasing an upgraded console midway in it’s life cycle.
The Last Guardian looks like it will finally come out with a definitive release date as well.
No Man’s Sky is a bit of a concern with some having expected the game would be here by now, Sony and Hello Games will have to be careful if they intend to show any footage of the game — so as to avoid any bad publicity or resentment fans may have for its late release.
Nintendo
Is Nintendo even a real giant anymore? It’s certainly incredibly successful and has the greatest characters and history in gaming behind it, but with so little excitement being centered around it today it’s tough to imagine them having an overtly “successful” E3.
Pokemon has taken center stage for the last year and The Legend of Zelda WiiU continues to be the biggest talking point for them. But is that enough to keep fans excited? Or will they actually release a more comprehensive breakdown of what the Nintendo NX is? Most signs point to no, but Nintendo always seems to have a knack for surprising people.
Check out The Platinum Achievement Podcast for a greater breakdown of E3 predictions along with a lot of other nonsense.
Almost every game has some fun little side quests, items, stories, characters, or other little seemingly unnoticeable tidbits that have some heightened purpose outside of the core of the game. These easter eggs are fantastic for gamers to explore and find, but it seems one engineer at DICE LA, Julian Manolov, has taken it to the next level.
DICE has recently released the long awaited map Dragon Valley for Battlefield 4, and with it is perhaps the most intricate easter egg process ever constructed. Players are tasked with solving a logic puzzle encompassing the entire map forcing players to travel to every corner of it to flick switches in an attempt to solve a logic puzzle regarding the central building’s lights.
But this is not where things end. It gets even more complex when the player is eventually able to solve the puzzle and unlock a subsequent clue leading to a morse code message communicated through the lights.
After switching maps to Zavod: Graveyard shift and searching for the next clue players find an obscure, distorted audio clip referencing “Little birdie legs” — a piece from the fan-made YouTube series Battlefield Friends.
Continuing to follow the instructions and with some creative thinking a code can be deciphered by multiplying the numerical values of the letters in Little Birdy.
Inputting the result into a keypad at the original central building gives players a unique code for access to an extremely exclusive DICE LA camo.
Check out Jackfrag’s complete breakdown below
Is this the best easter egg ever? Are there crazier easter eggs you know about? Leave a comment below!
The latest Final Fantasy VII trailer has shown a surprising change in the classic RPG — the removal of the turn-based combat system that many fans were expecting to have. Pixelpine’s affiliate podcast, The Platinum Achievement Podcast, initially questioned whether new fans would be supportive of the old gameplay. It seems Square Enix thinks the risk would be too great and have opted for a more contemporary approach.
Fans have had mixed reactions, but the concerns that some have had were addressed by Square Enix in a recent blog post by the game’s original director suggested fans look at FFVII in a new way as the devs are given the opportunity “to go beyond” what they’ve done in the past.
“With FINAL FANTASY VII REMAKE, we have the opportunity to go beyond the story, world and experience of FINAL FANTASY VII in ways we’ve always dreamed of – from the depths of Midgar to the skies above the Planet. The multi-part format enables us to expand the original story and turn it into an epic experience for fans and new gamers alike.” – Yoshiniri Kotasi, Square Enix Blog
The latest gameplay video shows a more adventure-game feel to the past one — perhaps that’s just a side-effect of being converted to a newer style. The small glimpse of action looks visually stunning.
The new gameplay isn’t the only thing proven to be disconcerting for some fans. FFVII will be released in an episodic format rather than a full single release. Square Enix went on to respond to this in a way that many could expect — claiming it would have been impossible to include all the content they would have liked to include in a single release. “…we would have to cut various parts and create a condensed version…”
Still, the criticisms from the diehard fans looking for a rejuvenated nostalgic feeling of playing Final Fantasy VII again will have to be considered throughout the development process for Square Enix. It’s clear the developer wants to appeal to a larger audience, but maintaining the core fanbase will be crucial to ensure this high-profile title will be a success.
Square Enix has yet to reveal a release date for Final Fantasy VII.
Sega was at one point a juggernaut in gaming competing with Nintendo, Sony, and perhaps for a very short time, the original Xbox. Today they are entwined in deep financial troubles, and have largely avoided the home console gaming market — instead focusing on mobile gaming.
But at the time of this writing 17,000 Sega fans have signed a petition on Change.org to bring back the last of the Sega home console systems in an updated HD form.
“The new console should have a new but similar design, wifi, wireless controllers (4 maximum) 720p or 1080p HD upscaling and HDMI output, internal 500g Hard Drive and a GD-Rom drive.” – Change.org petition
A Sega Dreamcast 2 concept design created in 2013 is being shown as the desired style on the petition page.
The idea is not particularly difficult to make a reality, but Sega Sammy’s first question will be whether it would be economically viable for an HD-capable remake of the 1998 console. The petition creator suggests an online store from which gamers can download the games, but concerns regarding DRM, server capacity, and understanding how to value the current showing of consumer interest will be the deciding factors for Sega.
Whether the struggling company is willing to make any real move on this petition is still a question mark with no response from them as of yet. For now Sega fans will have to hope that they’re able to draw enough attention to their cause to gain an official response.
Right now the original Dreamcast is available for as little as $34 on Amazon — albeit without any game discs. How that plays into how a system like this could be valued will be another factor for Sega to consider. How much is the average consumer willing to spend on a console that would release almost purely for the nostalgia factor?
In what is being seen as a shock to much of the Super Smash Bros. Brawl competitive gamers, Project M — a fan-made mod looking to incorporate aspects of previous games into the Nintendo Wii Brawl release — has ceased development with no further work on the project. Those part of the voluntary development team will be disbanding.
“Again, it’s been an excruciating call to make, but it’s been made a bit easier by our satisfaction with the previous and final release, v3.6. We’ve spent six years polishing Project M, and rather than let it drag on through another several years of dwindling development and change-fatigue in the competitive circle, we’re going to consider our work complete.” – Project M last post
The devs are hoping to on to other projects and will soon reveal what the next steps for them will exactly entail, but the news of Project M’s end is disappointing for its fans who had seen no sign that a shutdown would be incoming.
Nintendo has always been stingy with protecting their trademarks and aggressively pursuing those who infringe on their content, but had allowed Project M to continue being used at a multitude of Super Smash Bros. tournaments.
Game attorney and business consultant Ryan Morrison has confirmed that the news of the shutdown is not related to any action by Nintendo.
To clarify: We weren't contacted, issued a C&D, threatened or had legal action taken against us in any way, but we want it to stay that way.
This is one of the most saturated holiday seasons ever in gaming with major titles such as Fallout 4, Halo 5, Rise of the Tomb Raider, Call of Duty: Black Ops III, and many many more. Star Wars Battlefront was expected to be among the top sellers, but after its first week it’s clear that EA and other parties have to reel back their projections.
In the latest Earning Conference Call, Gamestop called out Battlefront along with Halo and Tomb Raider for underwhelming sales numbers in the build-up to this holiday season, but Gamestop’s CFO has not lost hope in a great turn-around.
“…we anticipate that this game is going to be a very strong game, when the movie launches in mid-December. Not to mention the fact that we have it prominently displayed in our Black Friday, and in fact we’re the only retailer that has it with significant discount, which is also going to guide sales.” – Tony Bartel, Gamestop CFO
Gamestop is relying on the success of every single title due to release during this Q4 with themselves and other brick-and-mortar stores continuing to combat the growing sales of digital gaming, but the exact sales numbers that Black Friday is helping make up isn’t quite available yet — it’ll be at least a few days before we get any idea. Though, it’s reasonable to predict that digital gaming will continue to widen it’s lead on physical game sales.
Still, gamers and investors should expect better of Star Wars Battlefront. EA has launched a massive advertising campaign for the game, but so far it seems their emphasis on the PS4 has in-fact hurt their sales — the PS4’s userbase of Battlefront gamers is larger than that of the Xbox One and PC installbase combined.
While Battlefront took the brunt of Gamestop’s criticism, Bartel didn’t single out the Star Wars title — Halo 5 was another game that didn’t live up to expectations. Microsoft claimed it was the best launch in Halo history, but Bartel seemed to disagree telling reporters to direct questions regarding the exact digital sales-numbers of Halo 5 to Microsoft.
Microsoft made waves announcing Xbox 360 backwards compatibility for the Xbox One at E3 2015, and Sony is showing they have their own, similar plan up their sleeves.
A Playstation 2emulator has been confirmed by Sony.
The emulator is currently in the works but no exact details are yet available regarding what games — or how many games are going to be included.
While the Xbox One took advantage of the tremendous success of the Xbox 360 with backwards compatibility, the PlayStation 4 is arguably in a better place skipping back two generations. The new generation console will be taking on part of the library of the best-selling console of all time. While many of the titles are outdated, this is certainly a welcoming feature — especially for older gamers who want to experience the nostalgia.
Digital Foundry suggests that the PS2 emulation software is already being utilized by the PS4 console. The latest PS4 Star Wars bundle includes copies of Star Wars: Jedi Starfighter, Star Wars: Racer Revenge, and Star Wars: Bounty Hunter along with the new Star Wars Battlefront release. Digital Foundry claims that these games all run on the same PS2 emulator that Sony is expected to soon roll out in a larger scale.
More info to come soon. Follow Pixelpine on twitter for updates.
Halo has long been a major icon in competitive online gaming from its early days surrounding Halo 2 to Halo 5 today with massive audiences through MLG, ESL, and other eSports organizations. Microsoft is prepared to make the 2016 Halo World Championship the biggest ever in the history of the Halo franchise by partnering with those organizations.
Though 343i and Microsoft initially intended a $1 million prize pool, the micro-transaction initiative by 343i will be yielding a 70% increase in the stakes — $1.7 million.
The REQ system has been one of the more controversial aspects of Halo 5, but the developers at 343 assured fans that this system is being put in place with only the best intentions at heart. The devs have already promised free DLC maps for the life of the game because of these cosmetic content packs.
The tournament begins with the first Online Ladders December 6, 2015 and moves all the way through to the finals ending on March 20, 2016.
This will be one of the first major tastes of competitive Halo action since the release of Halo 5. The events are expected to rely heavily on streaming through twitch.tv. Gamers across the globe who want to see how they fair in the “ultimate test” can sign up at Halo.gg.
— albeit without any game discs. How that plays into how a system like this could be valued will be another factor for Sega to consider. How much is the average consumer willing to spend on a console that would release almost purely for the nostalgia factor?
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includes copies of Star Wars: Jedi Starfighter, Star Wars: Racer Revenge, and Star Wars: Bounty Hunter along with the new Star Wars Battlefront release. Digital Foundry claims that these games all run on the same PS2 emulator that Sony is expected to soon roll out in a larger scale.