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.
Virtual Reality and augmented reality are the biggest trend in gaming right now, and the Oculus Rift is perhaps the most well known VR headset slated to operate with both the Xbox One and PC.
The technology is exciting to gamers and even for some non-gamers, but the biggest concern for the hardware was a simple one for many. Price. And Oculus seems to have heavily under estimated what the price was going to be when they suggested anywhere between $250 and $400 back in 2014.
Oculus Rift has been confirmed to retail at $599 — a full $200 above the highest estimations. The package will come with the VR headset, sensor, Oculus Remote, cables, Xbox One Controller, EVE: Valkyrie, and Lucky’s Tale. Perhaps they value the package like this but still value the Oculus itself at $400, but it certainly won’t make it any less frustrating for gamers.
And that $600 price tag is just for United States customers. Canadians will have to pay over $900 to get the headset on its March 2016 release date.
In an interview with eurogamer in 2014, an Oculus rep stated “We want to stay in that $200-$400 price range.” But he did warn, “That could slide in either direction depending on scale, pre-orders, the components we end up using, business negotiations…”
It seems “business negotiations” went poorly for the Oculus Rift.
Preorders have just gone live for the Oculus Rift’s March 2016 release.
Halo: Reach is one of the highest regarded games of the Halo franchise; taking players through a story of multiple spartans before the start of the 2001 title, Halo: Combat Evolved. When Microsoft announced backwards compatibility Reach was seen at the forefront of their advertising for it with the game case prominently displayed as one of the first titles to be available.
While Reach wasn’t one of the first titles, Xbox One owners and Halo fans were certainly excited that the game was still to come in the subsequent set of titles released through backwards compatibility.
Unfortunately for those fans, Halo: Reach has been an abject disappointment with borderline unplayable framerate issues and buggy physics all wrapped up in a package that only matches the graphical capability of the splitscreen mode of the original Halo: Reach.
The complaints of gamers have reached Microsoft and they “are aware some users are experiencing issues.” Microsoft claims the Xbox team is working on a fix, but no timeline has been given.
Black Friday is long over but Microsoft isn’t done with the deals now offering more price cuts on popular games on Xbox One. Their “17 days of deals” is supposedly Microsoft’s biggest sale ever with major titles like Halo 5 getting 20% off and Rise of The Tomb Raider 35% off. Exact prices will vary by region.
The majority of the deals are arcade games that won’t exactly blow you away, but that doesn’t mean there’s plenty of good titles scattered in the nearly 100 deals that MajorNelson listed on his blog.
The Witcher 3: Wildhunt may be the best deal right now at half price. This massive open-world RPG by CD Projekt Red has restored many gamers’ faith that developers can make an incredible high quality experience without adding micro transactions or only partially working games. It’s well deserving of the Game of the Year awards it’s winning from multiple outlets.
Ori and the Blind Forest (50% off) has been a name in the mix for best art from multiple outlets — including this one.
Borderlands The Handsome Collection is on the high end of discounts with a 60% price cut. Borderlands 2 is one of the best multiplayer games even today and the Pre-Sequel looks better than ever on a new generation console.
Destiny: The Taken King (25% off) the major expansion pack to Destiny adds a huge chunk of content to the base game, expanding the story, and adding more gear and weapons.
Forza Horizons 2 Storm Island content pack is now 75% off and a must have for any current player that hasn’t made the jump for the extra off-road content as of yet.
Just Cause 3 has been out for less than month and is already 20% off. One of the most chaotic sandboxes you can play in with an absurd amount of destruction.
Dragon Age Inquisition (40% off) from Bioware is another testament to the developers strength with making great RPGs. This continuation of the Dragon Age series was in contention for Game of the Year Last year.
Other notable games:
Grand Theft Auto V (40% off)
Final Fantasy Type-0 HD (50% off)
Call of Duty Black Ops III (17% off)
Mad Max (33% off)
Need for Speed Deluxe Edition (60% off)
Check out the deals right now both on the Microsoft store and on the console’s own online store.
The deals will continue from December 22 to January 7 with offers changing weekly. Daily deals will also be available.
Winner of the The Game Awards’ Indie Game of the Year trophy, Rocket League is now slated to come to the Xbox One in February — roughly six months after it officially released on PS4 and PC.
The developers at Psyonix announced the news Thursday at The Game Awards and revealed a few small add-ons for the Xbox One version including some Halo and Gears of War themed vehicles.
Rocket League is one of the fastest growing games on PS4 with gameplay unlike any other game currently out. The third-person “racing” game isn’t actually a racing game despite the sole use of cars, trucks, and other more exotic vehicles. Players are faced against each other in either 1v1, 2v2, 3v3, or “Chaos” 4v4 matches with rocket propulsion outfitting the hunks of metal flying at each other at 100 mph with one objective — score. Players are needed to push a giant soccer ball into a goal to score. In this sense, it functions much more like an sports game rather than a racing game.
Xbox One gamers have been missing out on this game’s frenetic action and competitive excitement for far too long and the reveal should certainly be exciting for those gamers, but there is one catch that makes the Xbox version stand out among the PS4 and PC iterations.
There will be no cross-platform play available. PS4 and PC players have been (and will continue to be) able to play with each other, but because of restrictions from Microsoft cross-platform play is not currently permitted on Xbox One.
@rlpte The Xbox platform doesn’t allow for crossplay matchmaking between other systems as a general practice across all titles.
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.
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.
Just days after Activision and Treyarch revealed a massive opening three days of Call of Duty: Black Ops III — taking in over $500 million, Bethesda tries to one up them showing off an even larger figure. 12 million Fallout 4 games have been shipped to retailers across the globe leading to a $750 million profit for Bethesda.
It’s important to note the difference between the two numbers though. Fallout 4 has been shipped to retailers and the 12 million number includes copies that haven’t technically been sold to a consumer yet. The $500 million Activision made came from actual sales.
SuperData research shows that Fallout 4 has sold 1.87 million units on consoles and 1.2 million units on PC within its first three days of release. That amounts to a more subdued amount of revenue from actual sales — $100 million.
Regardless, the Fallout 4 launch has been a tremendous success. Call of Duty has higher expectations because of its place in the industry as a staple of video games. The fact that Fallout 4 has had so much success even with it’s lower place in the proverbial gaming totem poll is a great credit to what an amazing game it is.
Fallout 4 builds on the engine that Skyrim put in place in 2011 and does nothing but improve from both the Elder Scrolls game and the last two Fallout releases (Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas). While some of suggested the game isn’t quite as graphically stunning as they had hoped for, the general consensus remains that Fallout 4 is one of the best games of this generation.
The collector’s edition of the game that included the physical Pip-Boy to use with select smartphones, sold out almost immediately after being announced. Bethesda also set a milestone becoming the most concurrently played game on Steam with 470,000+ players exploring the Commonwealth at one time.
President of Bethesda Softworks, Vlatko Andonov spoke on the great work the studio has done.
“We’re extremely proud of Todd Howard, Game Director at Bethesda Game Studios, and his experienced team of developers for their talent and dedication in creating this extraordinary game. Fallout 4 is a masterpiece in game development and storytelling, providing fans hundreds of hours of fun as they explore and are challenged by this fascinating, beautifully crafted world.”
Backwards compatbility may very well have been the feature that won Microsoft E3 2015, and after a long five months the promises that they made are finally coming to fruition.
Xbox Live’s Major Nelson and Head of Xbox Phil Spencer revealed exactly which Xbox 360 will be available on the Xbox One November 12.
“At Xbox, we believe that gaming is universal and should be enjoyed by everyone, everywhere. Our philosophy since launching Xbox One two years ago has been to put gamers at the center of everything we do and create the best, most seamless gaming experience possible.” – Mike Ybarra and Larry Hryb
104 games — mostly first party games — will be part of the initial launch. The majority of the games are not particularly major titles or among the top titles that gamers were clamoring for in the Xbox Live uservoice community reach-out initiative by Microsoft.
Instead the biggest name titles include Just Cause 2, Fable II, Fallout 3, Mirror’s Edge, Super Meat Boy, and all of the Gears of War games. There is an extensive collection of Xbox Live arcade games as well.
While the selection isn’t particularly bad, there are still many gamers that are reasonably disappointed that even Halo: Reach will still be a ways away. Reach, Halo Wars, Call of Duty: Black Ops, Bioshock, Bioshock 2, Bioshock Infinite and Skate 3 are among the big name games that are “on the way.”
Call of Duty Black Ops 2, Red Dead Redemption, and Skyrim were the top three requested titles and nothing was mentioned regarding future compatibility with these titles. It’s certainly possible that Microsoft simply has been given the go-ahead from Bethesda or Rockstar to release their games again through backwards compatibility.
Still, backwards compatibility is here, and it’s a major bonus for the console struggling to compete with the PS4 in European and Asian markets. Microsoft is continuing to re-invent it’s image and inticing previous-gen gamers with a few more games with the added media features of the Xbox One (game streaming, screenshots, game DVR) can’t hurt.
Trackmania is a frantic racing game with extremely intricate tracks that play more similarly to a roller coaster, and Ubisoft wants to add VR compatibility to that chaotic gameplay.
Trackmania Turbo — the latest installment in the series — is slated to release in early 2016, but will offer some twists on the last formula. This title offers a greater variety of environments and a new “double driver” mode that gives two players control of one car for intense communication.
Ubisoft is hoping that these features blend well with the VR interface when it releases on PS4, PC, and Xbox One. PS4’s VR headset will get immediate support along with the Oculus Rift.
If you’re familiar with the history of the courses in Trackmania, you’ll know that playing the game in VR probably won’t be best for those with a weak stomach. The speed of the game is tremendous and experiencing any of that in even a somewhat immersive state will be a wild ride.