Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Deadpool, shatterer of skulls, gonads and fourth walls, will be the wisecracking star of a game from Transformers developer High Moon. The absurd violence and self-referential nature of Deadpool has made him a “fan favourite”, which often means “popular but not particularly commercially viable”. It’s pleasing to see him enjoying life beyond the page, although I reckon there’s a danger that the game, like the trailer, will be a series of murders, boobs and jokes about murders and boobs that uses irony as a flimsy veil. There’s also no guarantee that it’ll come to PC, with no platforms announced yet.

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As a smaller creature that vaguely resembled a Real Human, I definitely had an embarrassing wannabe skater phase. I dreamed of ramping small wheeled planks off larger, non-wheeled planks while wearing giant, ill-fitting clown shoes. But then my expectations – and, you know, my body – came crashing back down to earth, resulting in lots of blood. So I decided to keep my face far, far away from concrete, and – in the process – bought Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater. And then I never went outside again. So I liked it a lot, is what I’m saying. And now Activision’s remaking it – or rather, THPS1 and 2, in a single package – and releasing it on the most skater-friendly platform of all: PC.

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Trent Reznor, who it’s still weird to see referred to as an Academy Award Winning Composer, will be providing the theme tune for Call of Duty Black Ops 2. Both he and the FPS have come a long way from Quake, although I’ll leave it to you to decide in which direction each has been travelling. The news comes along with a trailer for the game that shows the villain for the first time. He has escaped from a place but doesn’t have any weapons but that doesn’t matter because he HAS TAKEN ALL OF THE BLOPS’ WEAPONS. That’s the plot. Oh, and it’s the future, so jetpack dives from space and baby AT-ATs.

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So, those comic-based Walking Dead games from Telltale are pretty great, huh? Well, if you’re worried about some “There ain’t enough room in this town for the two of uuuuuuh [jaw falls off]” showdown, don’t be. Activision’s take on the one zombie franchise to rule them all is an entirely different animal – by which I mean it’s the same animal as a lot of other animals: a first-person shooter. Also, it’s based on AMC’s Walking Dead television show instead of the comics. Terminal Reality, they of the recent Ghost Busters game and, er, Kinect Star Wars, is on development duty, promising an emphasis on scarce supplies and survival over all-out action.

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The latest trailer for Transformers: Fall Of Cybertron is the one most likely to set giddy hearts racing, for it shows both dinobots and the enormous Metroplex in action, fighting and punching. There’s an inspirational voice-over from Optimus Prime, too, which is something everyone needs to listen to when they’re eating their wheaty breakfast. No illusions about this game being a big dumb firework display, but sometimes exploding robots of updated nostalgia is enough.

The game arrives in August.
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Amazingly, ‘Call of Duty Online’ didn’t actually exist before now. They’re surely the most inevitable word-sequence in the world, after all. Even so, “free to play micro transaction first person action game” CODO isn’t for us. It’s one of those bally China-only games that exist to cater towards a community that is even more steeped in internetiness than Western gamers are, and more to the point is also steeped in rampant piracy. A multiplayer shooter that only exists online is, then, a logical step towards capturing the sprinting money-goliath that is China’s immense population. I guess it’s not impossible it’ll walk this way eventually, though for now I believe CoD: Elite is the spearhead of Activision’s Western fortune-hunting interests.
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“RIP Radical Entertainment 1991-2012,” tweeted audio designer Rob Bridgett earlier today. Moments later, the Internet was abuzz with reports that Activision had used its maniacal death tendrils to choke the life right out of Prototype 2 developer Radical Entertainment. That, however, isn’t entirely true. But, while not a full-on closure, Activision explained in an official statement that “some employees will remain working for Radical Entertainment supporting other existing Activision Publishing projects, but the studio will cease development of its own games going forward.” Which is, of course, horrendously depressing. There is one infinitesimally small bright spot to all this, though: Prototype 2′s PC version is escaping unscathed.

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As surely as it’s going to rain all summer long here in Blighty, so there’s surely going to be a new super-hero movie with game tie-ins. This time it’s The Amazing Spider-Man, who will be slinging webs as only a tidy young actor – not a nightmarish twitchy arachnid half-breed – can. It’s a fancy-looking open-world type thing, and it really does look moderately entertaining. The men at Strategy Informer have used their release date-confirming powers to ascertain that the PC version will arrive on August 10th, a healthy month-and-a-bit later than its console cousins. So that’s great news. Just great.

Amiable developer-narrated trailer below, if you’re into that sort of thing. (You so are.)
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No, for real! See? Amazing, right? Activision’s indie competition, I think, follows a similar pattern – except with slightly fewer kittens and tremendously less publicity. I mean, I hear about the winners (and their $175,000 prizes) and think “Wow, good on Activision for setting such a cool thing into motion.” Then I remember that, no, this isn’t new. And finally, I remember why I didn’t remember: because Activision does a horrific job of giving these things any promotion. I suppose, though, that some is better than none, and so let’s have a look at the winner’s podium, shall we?

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Has it been a great 24 hours for revolutionary new tech developments or what? First Minecraft revealed “LAN” – named, of course, after LAN parties, which paradoxically didn’t exist until just a few moments ago – and now Activision’s pointing its scope at longer-range latency with a new addition to Black Ops 2′s scary future war arsenal: dedicated servers. Unlike Modern Warfare 3′s, however, these are ranked and everything. ”Confirmed: Ranked Dedicated Servers for ‪#BlackOps2,” tweeted director of technology Cesar Stastny. See?

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