There have been rumors circling the internet for a while now that Peter Jackson’s latest foray into Middle Earth was suddenly becoming a trilogy rather than a two parter. Given that even two films was something of a surprise way back when the films were announced, this speculative third film was initially viewed with some doubt.
In a rare case of internet based smoke where there is fire, it turns out that there will actually be a third movie, as revealed by Peter Jackson himself via Facebook.
Here’s just a snippet of what the director had to say:
It is only at the end of a shoot that you finally get the chance to sit down and have a look at the film you have made. Recently Fran, Phil and I did just this when we watched for the first time an early cut of the first movie – and a large chunk of the second. We were really pleased with the way the story was coming together, in particular, the strength of the characters and the cast who have brought them to life. All of which gave rise to a simple question: do we take this chance to tell more of the tale? And the answer from our perspective as the filmmakers, and as fans, was an unreserved ‘yes.’
An unexpected journey indeed. No word as yet on the title of the third film (A Hobbit’s Journey and There and Back Again comprise the first two), but now that the cat is out of the bag expect a lot more news surrounding the production.
Jackson and his team have certainly proved themselves as appropriate guardians for Middle Earth before, and given the fact that the motivation behind this third episode is the desire to tell a complete and epic tale, things should turn out well once again. Of course there is no doubt the money crunching executives are more than happy to have a sixth Jackson directed Tolkien adaptation kicking around, given the colossal success of The Lord of the Rings trilogy.
The first part of the trilogy will be released in cinemas on December 14 this year.
It seems like only yesterday when Aksys dropped Blazblue and it took the fighting game genre by storm, but it has actually been a whole three years now. With that comes a reason to celebrate, and Aksys have plenty of contests for the fans that helped build one little game into a full fledged franchise.
Here are the details of what to expect:
As a thank you to our fans, Aksys Games will be hosting three contests from August through October to celebrate the 3rd Anniversary of BlazBlue’s U.S. debut. Fans will get a chance to win exclusive content including a “Jin Dakimakura,” signed illustrations by the Arc System Works’ BlazBlue team and an exclusive 3rd Anniversary BlazBlue banner to hang proudly on their wall! Check www.aksysgames.com/blazblue/ for contest announcements and details in the near future!
Make sure you check out that link to get in on the potential swag coming in the near future, and here’s to three more years of Blazblue dominating all over again. Congrats Aksys!
Deadlight Studio: Tequila Works Publisher:Microsoft Platform:XBLA Release Date:August 1, 2012 Price:1200 MSP – Available Here
Overview: Games with a zombie apocalypse of some sort have become quite popular over the past few years, where seeing a zombie-based game released every other month isn’t surprising. As such, many people have slowly begun growing tired of the zombie genre as a whole. However what happens when you take a zombie apocalypse and combine it with a different gameplay style to create something fresh?
That is what Tequila Works has promised with their XBLA release Deadlight. Being a side-scrolling puzzle-platformer based off a zombie apocalypse, does it offer a fresh experience worth trying out or one that may be better off forgotten?
Story: Our zombie apocalypse, or shall we say “Shadow” apocalypse as the undead are called in this game, has occurred a few months in the past by the time players jump into the role of Randall Wayne. Now Randall’s daughter and wife had been staying in Seattle at the time of the zombie outbreak while he himself was in Canada. As such he has slowly made his way across the Shadow filled land to try and find them.
Randall has met up with a group of survivors who have told him about a supposed safe zone somewhere in the city of Seattle. With hope in his heart Randall begins his journey through Seattle, however this may be easier said than done as a large force of armed men seem more than willing to stop Randall, all while the Shadows attempt to eat him alive.
Now Deadlight’s storyline is more than a little unoriginal with focus around a man trying to find his family in an undead apocalypse. However it is told in a decent enough fashion throughout the earlier parts of the game with plenty of suspense tied in with dark and mysterious clues about the events occurring in Seattle. However these events slowly dwindle further and further into cliché territory, making the ending of the title not only completely expected, but ultimately irredeemable.
Interestingly enough, Randall does write a diary and a few tidbits about the events before the player steps into the shoes of Randall are hidden away here. It is worth noting though that a large bulk of these diary pages are collectibles that need to be found to be read, though once the player does find them all they are certainly worth a look through. However this does very little when you consider that, at the very best, Deadlight is a title that can be completed 100% within three hours.
Visuals & Audio: Although Deadlight may be a short game, it is also an absolutely beautiful title with an exquisite amount of detail put into the game’s world. Although the title plays on a 2D plane only, the world is designed with a 3D background that often has a number of events occurring in the background, such as Shadows moving around or destruction.
To make things even creepier, the majority of the game features some extremely dark shadows with the player character often obscured by these shadows. This makes for some rather spooky moments as you navigate dark desolate areas and suddenly see the eyes of a Shadow appear in the background.
Deadlight also does a great job creating a suspenseful atmosphere with Shadows moaning in the background and the environment. Unfortunately the same cannot be said for the title’s limited voice acting, as Darrell Wayne’s voice actor does a rather emotionless job playing a character that has undergone many hardships and is struggling to find his family.
Gameplay: As mentioned earlier, Deadlight does something different with the zombie apocalypse by creating a side-scrolling platformer with a few zombies mixed in. The game itself features three different Acts with the transitions between levels usually occurring rather flawlessly, only occasionally interrupted with a brief cutscene or loading screen.
While the genre for this zombie survival game is a breath of fresh air in what has quickly become an FPS-fest, there are a number of issues with the game itself. Interestingly enough, Randall is unable to swim in the slightest is unbelievable, especially given the simple reason given. This is made worse by the fact he can literally drown in water that he could poke his head out of if he stood up.
To survive the zombie apocalypse there are a number of weapons and tools you can acquire as the game progresses, though there are a number of times these weapons are either taken away, and even given back, with literally no explanation or reason, like Randall simply forgot he had a revolver in his trenchcoat. While Randall’s rather lackluster wielding of a fireman’s axe is believable, he is capable of readying a fire-arm with the speed of someone with arthritis.
Rather than creating a game full of suspense, this actually creates a slew of meaningless deaths that help pad out the game’s length, especially when there are multiple areas where “Shadows” will continually respawn out of nowhere. Later on in the game there are even a few enemies with firearms that are capable of putting Randall down with one shot, which makes his slow-drawing all the more tedious and memory based.
Thankfully, Deadlight’s platforming and running sections are slightly redeemable. There are a number of moments players will have to either run from and through a massive group of zombies, with a guaranteed death awaiting you if you happened to be caught. These moments are usually highly suspenseful and well done. Along those same lines, players will also have to jump from area to area under pressure as well which make for some of the most exciting segments of the game. Unfortunately this excitement slowly drains away after the first act of the game, replaced with dread and repetitive memory based trial and error jumping that prevents the title from becoming truly enjoyable.
It is also worth noting that the title is rife with bugs and a number of other glitches. One of the most alarming is the fact that the title will often give the player a “profile update error” stating that your save progress cannot be saved for a given reason. There is no real reason for concern as the game is still saving but it is an issue nonetheless. There are also a number of times that Randall will literally become stuck in the environment, either becoming completely immobile or able to move only a few steps in any direction before becoming re-stuck.
In fact, there was one small jumping puzzle which simply had me stumped for quite some time, however I was able to cause a glitch to occur, creating a movable crate that floated in the air, allowing me to easily make a jump that seemed absolutely impossible before, though likely it hinged upon the aforementioned pixel-perfect jumping.
Overall: At the very start, Deadlight seemed like it had plenty going for it. Unfortunately, the further into the game the player gets the more issues will arise. In fact, nearly all the aforementioned bugs and issues started occurring past the midway point in the short title. With an artificial difficulty being the only thing padding out the title’s length and a simplistic storyline with only a few shining moments, Deadlight had moments of greatness which were far outweighed by the game’s lack of polish and price tag.
With just over three weeks left until the release of the latest Transformers outing, Activision have released a smash heavy trailer to show off the multiplayer modes of Fall of Cybertron. The title will launch on August 22 in Australia on PC, PS3 and Xbox 360, and is the third Transformers title to be released by developers High Moon Studios.
The multiplayer mode will include 10 battle maps and feature 5 different game modes, with Escalation mode being a particular highlight in the trailer. A co-op style of gameplay, Escalation is essentially another Horde mode, with 4 players fighting off waves of enemies in ever intensifying combat.
Other news included with the release of the trailer is the ability to create a custom Transformers character to take into the multiplayer battle grounds. Although classic models will be available, it looks like there should be a good amount of room for creativity, with the usual set up of having different parts available for purchase. The keen eyed will spot that as well as being able to buy armor and parts there is a ‘personality’ tab snuck in there, as well as one for ‘loadouts’.
When the next FIFA game, in this case, FIFA 13, comes to stores, it brings an updated roster of players for each team. In the US, while New York Red Bull was officially revealing Australian attacking midfielder Tim Cahill as part of their roster, EA has released a screenshot of Cahill sporting the jersey of his new team. The photo of the digital rendition of Tim Cahill in his new jersey can be seen below. Also expect him to be part of the starting XI for the Socceroos, the nickname of the Australian football team.
FIFA 13 will hit shelves in late September for numerous platforms, including the Playstation 3, Playstation Vita, Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii, Nintendo 3DS and PC to name a few. New additions include the Player Impact Engine, Tactical Free Kicks and Attacking Intelligence. Changes are coming to Career Mode as well, with the ability to manage international teams through the FIFA World Cup, FIFA Confederations Cup and UEFA European Championship. Who knows, you may manage Cahill and his Australian teammates to World Cup glory.
Halo fans will enjoy the latest addition to the Halo Waypoint service, which comes in the form of the video for the wrap-up of Halo 4. This is the wrap-up from the games coverage in the San Diego Comic-Con convention which was held last month.
The video includes many people that have worked on the game, including Cortana herself. The following is a quote from the press release on who is in the video –
The video includes commentary from 343 Industries’ David Ellis, Josh Holmes and Kevin Grace, as well as Jen Taylor (voice of Cortana) and the cast from “Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn.”
Be sure to head on over to the Halo Waypoint and check out the video.
Very recently EA have released a new trailer for their upcoming big release, Crysis 3. What makes this trailer special though is that it allows viewers to make choices within the clip to alter the outcome of the video. Whilst these kinds of choose your own adventure videos aren’t new to Youtube, to my knowledge this is one of the first to have been released for a commercial game.
The video plays along until every so often players will be required to make decisions based on what’s going on around them. For instance, at around 1:18 we see the first one of these decisions playing out. Players are tasked with going through either stealthily or with combat.
What decisions will you make? Check out the trailer below for more info.
BBC has announced that its darling, Doctor Who, will be soon receiving a new trailer for its upcoming Series 7. Series 7, as previously peeked at, will mark the departure of Amy and Rory Williams-Pond (Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill respectively) , and herald a new companion for the 11th Doctor, Matt Smith.
The Doctor Who Team on the BBC blogs announced on Monday that there will be a 90 second preview of “blockbuster excitement” that will air on BBC One on Thursday, August 2 in the evening.
While Whovians have been sating themselves on previews, convention panels, and behind the scenes photos, this is another thing to watch out in anticipation for!
Bulkypix has announced a major sale on their smartphone and tablet games from August 1st to 19th. Not all the titles in the sale have been announced yet. Each day brings a new Bulkypix game on sale!
August 1st – Pix N Love rush DX is at $0.99! No more waiting, take it now. August 2nd – Are you out of touch with the real world? Not a chance; just take advantage of Another Worldat$0.99 August 4th –My Brute: Discount on packs of potion and tools! August 5th – RPM Gymkhana Racing is at $0.99. Not need to think! It’s gonna drive you crazy! August 6th – Fruity Jelly is now free. Fruit Time!
Beyond Home Entertainment have just confirmed through their latest press release that they will indeed be releasing a special combo pack of the highly successful Pokemon: Black and White Movies exclusive to Blu-Ray.
Both Pokemon the Movie: Black and Pokemon the Movie: White will be compiled into a two disc collection, which is slated for release on the 5th of September. The Blu-Ray combo pack will retail at a price of $29.95. You can check out our review of both films here.
What do you think of this news? Will you be picking up this combo pack release of Pokemon the Movie: Black and Pokemon the Movie: White? Let us know in the comments section below.
