It’s time to play catch-up on a few key games that are releasing this year and next, and share a few details you may have missed. Mega Man still can’t get a fair shake from Capcom, Halo 4 will probably get microtransactions, The Rock steals the spotlight in the next WWE game, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive gets the coolest mod yet and Rayman Legends is becoming a much bigger game.
Read on for the details and a few more stories.
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Mega Man almost made a major return, but as a first-person shooter. Capcom enlisted the developers behind Metroid Prime to make a contemporary adaptation of the classic hero. It was codenamed “Maverick Hunter” but when Keiji Inafune announced his departure from Capcom in October 2010, the project came to a halt after only six months of development.
Maverick Hunter would follow the mythology setup in the darker Mega Man X and would embrace a character redesign from the artist who created the film version of the Iron Man armor and check out the footage up top.
Read the full story at Polygon.
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Much to the dismay of current active wrestlers, movie star Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson will be the cover athlete for WWE 2K14. The part-time wrestler gets the spotlight purely for the recognition and fame factor, and the timing of the announcement was made for Wrestlemania 29 – where The Rock lost the title in a rematch with John Cena.
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Respawn Entertainment, the developer founded by ex-Infinity Ward employees, is still working away on their mysterious shooter, expected to be unveiled at E3 2013 at the Electronic Arts press conference. For now, they’ve filed trademarks for “Titan,” the same name of Blizzards in-development MMO.
Source: AGB
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Fez, one of the game development stories featured in Indie Game: The Movie came out a year ago, Saturday, after many stressful years of development. Fortunately, it released to much critical acclaim and we loved it at Game Rant. In a post by creator Phil Fish on the Polytron site, he reflected on the one-year anniversary:
“Since it came out last year, FEZ has now sold 200,000 units on XBLA alone. Which is completely fucking crazy when you think about it.
Thank you for that!”
Source: Polytron
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What’s better than paying for a game, paying to play it online, paying for more maps? Paying for the little things in between! If you dug the customization options in Halo 4 and were hoping for something even more comprehensive in Halo 5, you’re in luck… but it may be behind a pay wall. And it may even come to Halo 4. 343 Industries’ Executive producer Dan Ayoub:
“I think Halo certainly has the potential for those kinds of things. We don’t have too much to talk about in terms of our plans down that line, but it’s certainly something… we’ve seen the fans of Gears are enjoying, and if it’s something we think our community is going to enjoy, it’s something we’ll seriously talk about.”
Fans didn’t love the outrageous weapon skins prices in Gears of War 3, especially when those comes built in as unlockable in other shooters. Fans also didn’t dig the microtransactions in Dead Space 3. And no matter what, if Halo 4 nickels and dimes players in a similar fashion, there will be players vocal about it as well, even if it’s just for optional cosmetic features. Welcome to the next-gen.
Source: Digital Spy
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Namco Bandai is taking their racing franchise free-to-play with Ridge Racer Driftopia which will release later this year for PC and PS3. Carlson Choi, Vice President of Marketing and Digital Sales at Namco Bandai Games America Inc.:
“The free-to-play and digital gaming space presents an incredible opportunity for NAMCO BANDAI Games to offer its illustrious roster of titles to a new and ever expanding audience. We’re excited to have RIDGE RACERDriftopia take NAMCO BANDAI into this constantly growing sector.”
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Fans were rather unhappy when Ubisoft delayed Rayman Legends from its original February date to a September date. The game can now be a part of Ubisoft’s E3 2013 presence and for fans, the delay will result in 30 added levels. Ubisoft’s Michel Ancel:
“Trust me, the things we are adding aren’t minor. We’re not talking about adding some polish here and there, but 30 new levels and several new bosses.”
Source: ONM
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The footage below speaks for itself.
Yes, that’s a playable Super Nintendo console inside of Couter-Strike: Global Offensive. It’s called a Sourcemod Entertainment System (SMES) and the first game the modders have working is called Super Mareo. Read about it in the video description here.
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Follow me on Twitter @rob_keyes for more video game news!