Saints Row 5?

After THQ imploded luckily several titles and studio was auctioned off. Saints Row developer Volition was luckily bought with the Saint's Row IP by Deep Silver (publishers of Dead Island) and everyone wonder what was next? Well the developers are teasing something for PAX.

The above image was released with the tagline "something wicked this way comes" now obviously that's a "Fler De Saint" the symbol of the Saints Row series. However there is clearly 666 in the Fler De Saint and the image appears to be a Ouija board. Could be be approaching a supernatural psudohorror Saints Row game? The developers did say they wanted to take the series in a different direction.

The thought occurs to me that the Saints Icon is in between the Yes and No, with this being an teaser image is possible that Saints Row ISN'T the game they'll be announcing.

The last Saints Row game to be released suffered from THQ wanting to maximise money. SR4 was 3 different Saints row projects fused together. Rise of the Domimatrix was going to be a stand alone DLC where the Saints was trapped in a computer simulation. Saints Row: The fourth was going to be about the saints becoming heroes after saving the city twice and becoming a spec ops team and finally Saints Row 5 would of been about becoming President.

Abe's Take
Saints Row has been a favourite of ours ever since SR1 thanks to its sense of fun. When GTA 4 appeared in all it's angsty, somber brown-ness Saints Row was doing Co-op stunt jumps on Mini Moto fighting motorbike samurai. I look forward to the games return

Dragon Age Multiplayer Trailer Lands

Yesterday we reported that Dragon Age Inquisition would be getting an multiplayer mode based on the Mass Effect 3's survival styled mode but turned into randomly generated mini campaigns. Today we have a game-play trailer!



first thing would like to post a correction, it appears the multiplayer in fact has 12 characters; 4 for each class, and not 9 as mentioned yesterday

Back to the video. As you can see there is a lot of interplay between the different class's abilities, we also get a look at the games rather nice crafting and customisation features. The Missions will be given to us by the main games' advisers which provides a nice link

Abe's Take
The multiplayer is shaping up to be really interesting and I am might impress by the crafting syetem

Blocker Who?

Minecraft for 360 and ps3 has received lots of DLC skin packs and mash up packs that tie into upcoming films and even other gaming franchises for mash up packs but coming in September is a big one.

The Doctor is in... Minecraft. in September the FIRST pack will hit featuring  5 doctors (including attack eyebrows), their companions and a selection of playable monsters which yes includes an Dalek. The pack will cost £1.99
They will be several DLCs that will launch along side new episodes of the show and will reflect those episodes. Here's hoping that's more monsters and less Clara outfits.
Oh go on here is a picture of the Dalek in Minecraft that I know you're dying to see

Abe's Take

It's always been a shame that I wasn't able to use my PC Minecraft skin I made on the console version. However the Skin packs have been good and certainly are cheap enough. I just hope this skin pack transfers to the X1/PS4 versions as we know some of the skin packs are "trapped in licencing" agreements. We still dont have an expected release date for Minecraft new-gen as it's failed cert testing on PS4 and nearly ready for cert tests on X1. "all goes well" we're looking at mid september

Miyamoto Wants To Leave "Passive Gamers" behind

The Wii did well, I mean really really well, A 100,000,000 sales. It probably really kickstarted the "casual game" trend and something Nintendo has tried to cash in on during the Wii U's life but Legendary games designer and father of Mario, Zelda and Metroid, Shigeru Miyamoto wants to change that.

During an interview with EDGE magazine Miyamoto was discussing his plans moving forward and his desire to move away from gamers who what he refers to as having a "passive attitude". The designer lamented their attitude of "Okay, I am a customer. You're supposed to entertain me" he even goes as far to say "it's pathetic they don't know how interesting it is if you move one step and challenge yourself".

The gaming legend believes it time to move one "Because of the spread of smart devices, people take games for granted now" and the shift away from the "passive" gamer is a good one for Nintendo going forward, they no longer need to worry about the game fitting in with the daily lives of the general public.

Abe's Take
I dont see this as an attack on the casual gamer as the casual gamer doesn't care what "behind the scenes people" think, as evidenced by the whole " Candy Saga" early this year. But I think this is also aimed at the Call of Duty "hardcore" gamers, those who dismiss Nintendo based on style of graphics alone. As such I don't see this as the end of Mario or Nintendo's style.

I also don't think his words (pathetic) wasn't meant as an attack seeing as his is probably the only man in the increasingly corporate world of video games that is there for fun and refuses to take himself seriously.

Dragon Age Gets Co-op

We're big fans of Co-op here in the GK-UK (not) Tower and when ever we see a game where you have more than one chum with you through out the game we always ask "is it co-op?" usually it is not. Bioware has been trying co-op out, Mass Effect 3 had a progression based horde mode that turned out to be a lot of fun and they are back to take another crack at it with Dragon Age Inquisition 

Unlike their previous attempt Dragon Age's co-op has a lot more depth. At launch you'll be able to play through 3 light narrative campaigns that will play out in randomly generated levels, Though the campaigns are themed so you unlikley to be discovering an human castle in the middle of the Elven ruins campaign.

Who will you be playing as you ask? Not your Inquisitor (Spin on it!), not your companions or an random custom character. You'll be playing as what is basically the Inquisitor's (that's you) Spec-ops team. They're being described as Sub-Followers. They wont be fleshed out as much as the main characters but they will have distinct personalties and will apparently "banter" with each other. At launch there will be 9 playable characters, three for each class and each will have their own skill trees. You'll be able to collect and use the same loot as in single player for your co-op character.

Like Mass Effect 3's mode there will be the option of using real money to buy loot chests, which can yeild new characters, skins and weapons but they can also be bought with in game money and nothing is "locked behind a pay wall" so there will no paying to win (which frankly in a co-op game isn't as much of an issue). They plan to surport the co-op the same way as Mass Effect 3's there will be regular FREE DLCs that will add loot, levels, missions and characters. Loot found in missions can be shared between your player characters as-well as broken down to craft new items.

Team work will be vital in co-op as the single players tactical camera wont appear in Multi player teams will have to coordinate attacks, buffs and heals to take on these missions. If a player is killed outright (assuming there is a timed revive mechanic) then the enemies become stronger.

But why not full co-op you may ask, apparently like Bethesda co-op is something they always put on the board when making a new game but for various reasons it never sticks. Bioware say that this time it was they wanted to deliver 5 things Open World, Story, Characters, Visuals, and Inquisition. That combined with the strain of working on an brand new engine it wasn't "the right time" though they did point to Star Wars: Old Republic to show they are working on bring "true co-op" to Dragon Age (and possibly Mass Effect)

Abe's Take
This sounds very promising. Mass Effect 3's co-op turned out to be amazing by adding RPG levelling to an horde mode they fixed the obvious lack of progression. People are all ready bringing up Diablo and Borderlands comparisons thanks to its plan on abusing you're LOOT lust. Overall this seems like a decent upgrade to Mass Effect 3 and the amount of depth seems rather fantastic.

Dragon Age Inquisition can be preordered HERE which also comes with the nifty flame weapons

Mario Kart gets expanded!

For years people have wanted Nintendo to scrap Mario Kart and replace it with Smash Kart. Basically the same thing but with other Nintendo characters but looks like Mario Kart DLC might just grant that wish!


Update - Some promo art work for the DLC has appeared on the Mario Kart 8 site and appears to show (in rather tiny images) tracks based on F- Zero, Animal Crossing and Excitebike. As well as classic tracks such as Wario Gold Mine return

Yes Link and others are coming to Mario Kart 8 as part of two upcoming DLC's.

So far Nintendo has announced 2 packs at £7 each. The first is set to hit in November and will feature Tanooki Mario, Cat Peach and (Skyward) Link, 4 vehicles including Blue Falcon (Captain Falcon's Ride) and a Cat-Mobile, and 8 new tracks.

 The second DLC will hit in May and will feature Animal Crossing's Villager and Isabel, Dry Bowser, 4 new vehicles and yet another 8 tracks.  

Purchasing both packs (bundle or separate) will also score you 8 coloured Shy guys AND Yoshi

Abe's Take
It is worth noting that November is suspected release date for Smash Bros (acording to Amazon's Preorder page for the Smash Bros "fight pad") which comes with Amiibo, which was confirmed to work with Mario Kart 8 and seeing as Link and Villiager have Amiibos (Sadly Dry Bowser dose not!) its not hard to see a connection, Though I doubt you'll need the figure to unlock them unless you can unlock Link with out the DLC by using the Amiibo

Pokken Annouced

It was rumoured, hinted at and even trade marked but no one thought it would of actually happened but it has Pokken Tournament has been officially announced



For those who don't know you (but can probably guess from the name) Pokken is a combination of Pokemon and Tekken (see what they did there?). The game is developed by the core Tekken team and will hit Japanese arcades next year. we can assume that it will reach over here on Wii U because the Japanese trailer is full of lovely Germanic letters and English words, in fact not one piece of Kanji is spotted in the trailer.

Abe's Take
This like Hyrule Warriors at first seems like a bizarre cross over yet makes perfect sense and I cant wait to hear more about it, I sure hope it dose land over here on Wii U as it is desperate for more fighting games