This game is alot like Borderlands 1: a very good game and it's a little bit repetitive, but if you get some friends to play, you won't even care!
The microtransactions are a chore, though you can still buy things for merely playing it and using credits.
I would give the game a 7 for singleplayer (try playing it while listening to your favorite podcast, it's quite enjoyable), and an 8 for multiplayer.
[UPDATE] Official Facebook page announces "world's first look" at new game today; project appears to be April Fool's prank.
[UPDATE] Following the publication of this story, a website for Deus Ex: Human Defiance went live. It calls on users to "Like" the Deus Ex Facebook page if they wish to see an 8-bit Deus Ex game, though it appears to be an April Fool's prank.
The original story follows below
Deus Ex fans don't have long to wait for news about the next installment in the series.
The official official Deus Ex Facebook page has teased a "world's first look" at Deus Ex: Human Defiance today, a new game in the series. No exact time for the announcement was divulged.
Square Enix last month trademarked Deus Ex: Human Defiance. Domain names registered by CBS Films suggest this is the title of the upcoming Deus Ex film.
However, it is disclosed in the Facebook page comments that Human Defiance is a new game and not a movie.
CBS Films is a division of CBS, which is GameSpot's parent company
Eddie Makuch (Mack-ooh) is a News Editor at GameSpot. He works out of the company's Boston office in Somerville, Mass., and loves extra chunky peanut butter.
Electronic Arts will pay executive chairman Larry Probst an annual salary of $1.03 million while the Battlefield and FIFA publisher seeks a replacement for John Riccitiello, who resigned as CEO last month.
Federal documents also show that the EA Board of Directors may award Probst a one-time discretionary bonus at the end of his term, with the amount to be determined by the Board.
In addition to his new role at EA of executive chairman, Probst is a member of the Board. He abstained from the Compensation Committee's salary decision and will not receive any further cash retainer fees for his position on the Board while he is also executive chairman.
Probst has been in a leadership position at EA since 1991 and was CEO from 1991 to 2007. He is also the current executive chairman of the United States Olympic Committee and serves on the International Olympic Committee's International Relations Commission. Past positions include national sales manager at Activision and national accounts manager at Clorox.
Six-year EA CEO Riccitiello resigned from the company on March 18, citing a failure to meet financial milestones as his reason to move on. His separation agreement with EA includes 24 months of continued salary and other options worth an estimated $4.7 million.
Looking ahead, the EA Board will consider internal and external candidates to replace Riccitiello with the help of a "leading executive search firm."
According to one analyst, leading internal candidates for the position include current chief operating officer Peter Moore and EA Labels president Frank Gibeau. EA has set no timetable for when it plans to name a new top executive.
The world of Torment: Tides of Numenera is coming to life. inXile Entertainment today released the first screenshot for its upcoming isometric role-playing game. The image was created using a 2D pre-rendered background technique, the company said in a statement.
The image (at right) is set within the Bloom, described as a "vast, semi-sentient predator" and a "monstrous, organic creation." The Bloom features numerous pathways that harbor good and evil beings, inXile said.
In addition, inXile announced today that fantasy author Pat Rothfuss (The Kingkiller Chronicle trilogy) will join the development team, while Obsidian Entertainment creative director Chris Avellone will come aboard if Kickstarter funding hits $3.5 million.
Currently, the campaign has raised $3.26 million from nearly 60,000 backers with four days remaining.
Torment: Tides of Numenera--due out December 2014--is set in Monte Cook's tabletop role-playing world of Numenera, which itself was successfully funded through Kickstarter. It will have an isometric perspective and runs on the Unity game engine.
InXile was clear that Tides of Numenera is not a sequel to Planescape: Torment, but rather a "completely new game" that has been designed to provide the same experience and feeling as the original. The game asks players: What does one life matter?
PlayStation maker files mystery application that covers game software.
Sony has filed an application with the United States Patent & Trademark Office for "Destiny of Spirits." The March 26 application covers "computer game software; electronic game software for handheld electronic devices; video game software."
No further information is available and a Sony representative was not immediately available to comment.
Numerous high-profile game companies have filed trademark applications with the USPTO of late. Bungie recently filed bids for Glimmer, Hive, Fallen, Cabal, and Vex. Meanwhile, Microsoft wants to trademark Marlow Briggs and a Bethesda trademark suggests a Fallout TV show may be in the works.
Eddie Makuch (Mack-ooh) is a News Editor at GameSpot. He works out of the company's Boston office in Somerville, Mass., and loves extra chunky peanut butter.
$10 expansion introduces Krieg character class; level cap increase to 61 coming April 2.
Borderlands 2 will add a sixth playable character class in May, 2K Games announced today. The Psycho Pack ($10) introduces Krieg, the latest addition to the shoot-and-loot game's roster.
Krieg wields a buzz ax and is described as a "badass melee mauler" with "psychotic multiple personalities." Players will be able to stack combat bonuses with the character's Bloodlust, Mania, and Hellborn skill trees.
2K Games also announced today that the Borderlands 2 level cap will rise to 61 on April 2 through the Ultimate Vault Hunter Upgrade Pack. This is included with the game's $30 downloadable content Season Pass and also unlocks a new Ultimate Vault Hunter Mode.
No standalone price for the Upgrade Pack was announced. For more on Borderlands 2, check out GameSpot's review.
Eddie Makuch (Mack-ooh) is a News Editor at GameSpot. He works out of the company's Boston office in Somerville, Mass., and loves extra chunky peanut butter.
We had a lengthy chat with series composer Garry Schyman on his past work with the first two BioShock titles as well as the upcoming BioShock Infinite.
A composer for film, TV and games, Garry Schyman is renowned for the music and audio work for shows such as Magnum P.I, The A-Team, and Revenge of the Nerds III and IV. But Schyman is also an accomplished video game composer, most notably on the BioShock series, including the upcoming BioShock Infinite. GameSpot recently talked with the composer, and asked him how he managed to encapsulate the spirit of the underwater dystopia Rapture and the flying fortress of Columbia through the power of music.
How did you get wrapped up doing video game music?
There are two answers to that question. The first time I scored a video game was in the early mid-'90s and it was for Philips Interactive. They had their own unique hardware system called CD-I and a very good friend of mine who I'd scored some film and television work with, started to work as a producer at CD-I and asked me to score some games.
So I scored four games for Philips. The first one I scored for them, Voyeur, was orchestral; the very first of its kind recorded for a video game. It was possible because the CD-I technology was about putting everything on a CD so it permitted the use of recorded music as opposed to midi triggering simple synths engines. But once the CD-I went away, my friend was no longer working there, and I really didn't pursue video games. It wasn't at that period in its history all that interesting.
I got back to it around 2004. By serendipity, an agent I was working with at that time sent my resume over to THQ. They had a game that they were doing called Destroy All Humans! They listened to my demo and heard something they really liked and then they asked me if I had any more music like the music of the famous film composer Bernard Herrmann. One of the reasons they brought him up as a source was that the game was a 1950s sci-fi game and Bernard Herrmann was famous for his score The Day The Earth Stood Still with theremin and orchestra.
As it turned out I had scored something in the style of Bernard Herrmann. It had been requested of me previously and I sent them an orchestral score that just totally nailed that style. It took a while but eventually I ended up scoring Destroy All Humans! That was a commercial and creative success for me. I was nominated for some awards. I also worked with Emily Ridgway who was the audio director for that project. She went on to work at Irrational Games which gave me the opportunity to score BioShock. So in a nutshell that's my double start in gaming.
How different is it to compose video game music compared to scoring music for TV shows?
They're similar in the sense that both are supporting and underscoring the emotions that the player or viewer should be feeling while watching or playing. Composers compose music to underscore emotions and feelings, there's a magic, and no one really understands why but I won't go into the philosophy of it because no one really knows why music and images work so amazingly together, but they do.
What composers are doing in games is the same thing that composers are doing in films. We're deepening the emotional connection that the player (or viewer of a film or television show) has with the visual images that they're seeing or the story that's unfolding. In that sense we're storytelling, we're creating music that advances the story, or that sets a mood, or that helps the player or viewer to have a deeper, more satisfying emotional experience as they play or watch.
Technically, there are also differences. The way that music works with film and television music works with those projects literally hasn't changed in 80 years since the talkies in the 1930s. Since that period music music is written and composed for specific scenes, it's then recorded with picture and sound effects and dialog, and it never changes.
However, game music is often interactive and so from that standpoint it is and can be quite different. There are challenges and it's constantly changing technologies that permit for more interactivity. It also really depends on who you're working for. Some developers want the music to be very interactive and therefore there are techniques you use to achieve that, writing music in layers, looping music, etc. Other developers want the music to be more cinematic so it is more like film music. So yes they're similar in their most basic respect but they're also quite different in some technical aspects. And it affects the way you write the music.
Let's talk about the first two BioShock games. So how did the fusion of aleatoric music, 20th century classical compositions and musique concrete come to be? Was that the direction creative designer Ken Levine wanted for the first game?
No, that was me experimenting and finding a direction that felt right for the game. Levine was very involved in the music, in the creative direction for his games but he never studied music formally. His reaction to music is intuitive and he has a very strong and very valuable intuitive sense of what works musically. He would never call out a specific style or a specific chord or note. He's going to react to what you write.
So with the original BioShock, it was me experimenting and sending those experiments to Ridgway and her going, "Yeah, that works and that doesn't." She also has a great musical intuition plus she studied music. She really knew when I found the style. I remember literally one day playing with aleatoric textures and then putting some solo violin against it and sending it to her and her going, "That's it, that's the sound of BioShock". It actually took quite a while, quite a few experiments to find that, and once I found it the music really composed itself. I had to write it but it became much easier to write, I wrote it very quickly. But defining the style, that original approach was quite challenging.
How long did it take you to compose the theme, 'The Ocean On His Shoulders'?
I think I composed that in a day or two. I was channeling a very strong emotional response; it was a very emotional piece of music. I actually didn't write it to any specific direction that Ridgway had given me but I was having an emotional reaction to the game and I started to play around with some simple chords and I said, 'This is really beautiful, this is something they will find useful.'
I had found the style for the game but I hadn't found the theme so it was literally me going, 'I'm going to write this piece of music and send to Ridgway and see what she thinks.' Their first reaction to it was that 'This is very beautiful but it's almost too beautiful'. That's when I started adding aleatory elements to its beginning and end. If you notice it begins with this really dissonant kind of eerie atmosphere, then it goes into this really sad, beautiful piece of music and then it ends also with the dark. That made sense to me, but those were actually added later. I didn't compose it that way. They wanted it darker and so that was my way of making it scarier, but it all came together.
Give us some behind-the-scenes commentary and insights on the following BioShock tracks you composed:
'Welcome to Rapture'
The original direction for that piece of music was 'you're going down in a bathysphere and you're going to the scariest place in the world'. That was the direction. So I wrote some very scary music and sent it to them and Levine listened to it and said that's too scary, that's giving it away, like telling people 'Hey, it's going to be scary here!'and he said we don't want to do that. I actually said, 'I totally agree with you.'
That piece of music actually got used elsewhere in the game. So Ridgway said it should be more like the Neptune movement in The Planets by Gustav Holst, a famous piece of music. I don't think the music that I wrote sounds like it at all but it triggered in me an idea that it can be mysterious, that's what it should be. Plus I wanted the sense of water so I started out with this solo violin and this fast moving passage. So that's how that piece of music came about.
'Cohen's Masterpiece'
For that piece of music the direction was, 'there is an evil genius on this one level called Cohen and he writes a piece of music that's going to be used in the game.' I actually did not understand the original idea that a pianist was going to be playing it -Fitzpatrick I think- and that he was going to be blown up for not performing it to Cohen's standards. So I had no idea that that was how it was going to be introduced. They wanted something that was really what you would call in film or television, source music, that there was some source for that music, it was coming from the reality of that world, and it was written by this evil genius.
I started to write a piece in the style of the late Romantic era, I was thinking of Sergei Rachmaninoff who wrote these romantic concertos and piano pieces well into the mid-twentieth century. He was considered as writing music that was out-of-date, although he was very popular. So I thought 'Ok, this guy Cohen is going to be kind of reactionary in that sense too – he's composing in the '50s/'60s but he's not going to be writing the most 'hip', contemporary classical music. He's going to be writing something from thirty or forty years earlier.' So that was the motivation and I just started writing the piece and sent it to Emily and she goes, 'Yeah, this is very cool, keep writing that piece.' It took me a couple of days to write but it turned out to be a very satisfying piece of music to write because it was like composing classical music.
'Dancers On A String'
The direction there was you're entering a part of the city where the people live – I think that was the direction for something early on that never actually was fully fleshed out in the game but it was supposed to be the deck level where the people lived. They wanted a sense of tragedy about it because you would see families that had been murdered, died together or committed suicide. It was going to be something deeply troubling so that was my response to the direction they gave me; something sad and beautiful against these dark and frightening textures.
Looking back, what as the toughest track to write and compose, just for the sake of getting the dystopian feel of the universe?
It was the track for the first playable area, which is not necessarily an important track. It was difficult nailing the overall style from that one piece; I'm not even sure if that music got used often, to be honest. It wasn't a particularly important piece of music but finding that was the thing that triggered all my imagination and thoughts and really gave me the direction.
How did you personally feel when you had your BioShock and BioShock 2 music available for free in 2010?
Initially, I was put off by it, but as it turned out it was serendipitous because so many people heard my music very quickly. I'm lucky that it turned out that way because a lot of people listened to and heard my score, who may not otherwise have purchased the soundtrack. At that time when it came out, YouTube was not all that popular so it wasn't so easy to find scores. I considered it a lucky break.
Now let's head on to the upcoming BioShock Infinite. What was the direction for the soundtrack this time around? How many cellos and violins will be used?
It varied. I had a lot of separate sessions. We decided early on that an orchestral approach was wrong and we found that using small groups of string players, as few as 1, 2 and 3, and as many as 10, was really the right sound. In game/film/tv music what you do is mock-up the cue using samples and synths etc. but what I was finding was that Levine really got it when he heard the actual performance versus the samples. Solo string samples don't sound all that good, they're actually awful sounding. So I said, 'Let's have some sessions, they're relatively inexpensive.'
They're not like an orchestra, you're only having a few players and you can go into a small studio and record them, and see if that works. And we found that that's what really sold Levine on different cues. So I had literally 10 or 12 sessions. One session I had was with two players, and then I had a session with three players, and then we had a group of sessions with 10 players which I found was a great ensemble; three violins, three violas, three cellos and a double bass. That was a great sound for a lot of the music.
What century music styles did you have to get inspired from for this game?
I didn't use music of that period but certainly the simplicity of that period and the simpler times of small town American cities; that was an inspiration for me. Even the music of Stephen Foster, the famous songwriter from the 1800s, who wrote so many famous songs, 'Camptown Races' and 'Jeanie With The Light Brown Hair', dozens and dozens of huge hits, some of which are still performed today, along with some very aggressive music for the combat as well.
It was a mix, it was what worked. It wasn't so much the century, it was the characters. We have these two really strong characters which are central to the game. They were what inspired me. And later on you're introduced to more characters. I would say that much of the score is character-driven.
What parts of BioShock and BioShock 2 did you borrow and put into BioShock Infinite? Or is BioShock Infinite's music completely created from the ground up, given its new setting and time period(s)?
Levine was very explicit from the beginning that that this was a new world and that the music should not sound like the original BioShock music. It was a total fresh start and that was very important to him. It was something that I totally agreed with and he was absolutely correct on that. There is almost no overlap, stylistically speaking.
Without spoiling anything, which compositions in the game did you have a tough time nailing down?
I think it was the musical direction, it was finding that first cue that I felt excited about and felt really represented the game and also that Levine responded to. That was Elizabeth's theme and representing her relationship with Booker. That's a critical part of the game. Finding that was really important and I remember literally going in and having a very strong intuitive sense that I'd found it, and not even saying anything to the team, I went in on my own dime and recorded the music.
When I played it for Levine he responded, "Yes, that's it!" He was very excited about this piece of music and when I found Elizabeth's theme, it was like 'OK, now I really know the direction here, this is how it's going to unfold.' That and finding the style for the combat was also critical.
As the game is now gold, were there any changes you would have wanted music-wise, or is everything perfect?
Oh it's never perfect, but I'm very satisfied with the score and the way it turned out. At first I wasn't sure that a non-orchestral approach was right but I totally came away feeling that I'd found a really great sound for this game with the small groups of players. I think that really worked extremely well.
Hypothetically speaking, if you had a choice to work on any established video game IP's music, which would be your first pick? What new things would you bring to the table music-wise to that IP?
I think I would like to score the next Portal. Mostly because I love to play that game so much. I'm just such a huge fan of that game, to me it's just a really fun and extraordinary game. I'm assuming they'll make a Portal 3, I don't know. But if you're listening out there Valve, I would love to score that game. It doesn't strike me as the kind of game that really calls out for such a strong score although who knows what they'll do with the third iteration. But I just think it would be such a blast to work on something that I personally love so much.
@vunacar Two things... how did you get Shadow of the Colossus on pc,
And how did the ending negitely impact your enjoyment of the game? It kind of did for me too thats why I asked.
Shadow of the Colossus I also feel is one those games that is not necessarily ment tobe quote "all about fun" but be moving. SotC is my favorite game, but it is epic hearing peoples interpretation of the game
Developer Double Fine has announced Broken Age as the title of its Kickstarter success story Double Fine Adventure.
Broken Age is a point-and-click adventure that revolves around the stories of a young boy and girl who lead parallel lives. The boy lives in isolation under the protection of a motherly computer and longs for adventure, whereas the girl has been chosen to be sacrificed to a monster but decides to fight back.
The player will switch between both characters during the course of the game.
Double Fine has also opened pre-orders for the game on its website, offering a DRM-free version of Broken Age on PC, Mac, and Linux for $15.
$30 gets players Backer Access, which gives access to exclusive backer-only forums, a digital soundtrack, access to development materials, and all the episodes of 2 Player Productions' documentary series charting the development of the title.
Both the regular and Backer edition provide access to the Broken Age beta, but the site has no mention of a release date.
Broken Age, when it was known as Double Fine Adventure, raised over $3.3 million on crowdfunding site Kickstarter from over 87,000 backers in March last year.
Gears of War: Judgment has emerged top of the UK charts in its first week on sale, pushing Tomb Raider down to second place.
While Gears of War: Judgment topped the chart, Gears of War 3 sold more than four times as many copies back in its opening week in September 2011.
Activision's The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct, an FPS based on the AMC TV show that's just about to conclude its third season, debuts in third place.
Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate, which released last week on 3DS and Wii U, lands in seventh place, behind FIFA 13, Sniper: Ghost Warrior 2, and God of War: Ascension.
55 per cent of Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate's sales were on 3DS, with 45 per cent going to the Wii U.
Rounding out the top 10 is SimCity in eighth, Far Cry 3 is ninth, and Call of Duty: Black Ops II is tenth.
Other chart movement sees StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm drop twenty places to 23rd, and Aliens: Colonial Marines creep up from 21st to 16th. Nintendo Land also enters the UK chart for the first time in 2013 at 39th.
The Top 20 UK chart for the week ending March 23:
1. Gears of War: Judgment
2. Tomb Raider
3. The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct
4. FIFA 13
5. Sniper: Ghost Warrior 2
6. God of War: Ascension
7. Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate
8. SimCity
9. Far Cry 3
10. Call of Duty: Black Ops II
11. Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance
12. Crysis 3
13. Assassin's Creed III
14. Skylanders Giants
15. Need for Speed: Most Wanted
16. Aliens: Colonial Marines
17. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
18. Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed
19. Hitman Absolution
20. LEGO Batman 2: DC Super Heroes
