More Dishonored On The Way

 

Bethesda recently announced via the official bethesda development blog that more content for the much lauded Dishonored is on the way. Arkane are planning on releasing three DLC packs, 2 of which are story based and will feature the player taking control of a different character in the Dishonored universe.

The first pack, which will release in December, has been dubbed the “Dunwall City Trials.” According to the blog it will feature 10 challenge maps that will “test and track your combat, stealth and mobility skills.” There will also be an arena battle mode that sound similar to the ‘horde’ mode that various other games employ which will most likely feature rounds of respawning enemies for the player to take down in any way they please.

This pack will run at $4.99 or 400 Microsoft Points, release simultaneously for the Xbox 360 and PS3, and contain additional achievements and trophies.

The second and third expansions will not release until 2013 with the earliest listed as spring. In the second expansion you will play as the leader of the supernatural assassins known as “The Whalers.” Duad will come with his own unique weapons and powers with his own choices that will effect the story in one way or another.

So how about it, are you ready for some more Dishonored?

More Dishonored Content On The Way (Bethblog)

Beware of X-Box Live: You May Be Playing With Terrorists!

According to British news magazine “The Sun” players of the military shooter Call of Duty are plotting terrorist attacks behind our backs. If that’s true then America is in for one hell of a takeover because as far as I know everyone and their mom’s mom is into the series. Seriously, where do these ideas come from?

According to the article Islamic terrorists are no longer using email or telephones as a means to communicate because they are constantly monitored. Xbox live and the Playstation Network are safe because these alleged terrorists can communicate in secret by creating “Lobby’s” so that they can “Chat” and create “Clans.”

Notice that throughout the report that no actual evidence is ever submitted. It’s just a flagrant attempt to drive people into a frenzy for absolutely no reason. The saddest part is that there will be those few people that actually believe this go on thinking that one of these days Call of Duty players are going to rise up against them.

"There has even been evidence would-be jihadists treat war games as training tools, a bit like a pilot might use a flight simulator."

I didn't realize that after a person killed so many people in real life that they suddenly gained the ability to drop a nuke. So I guess I'm living in a different sort of reality and the next time I walk out my door I'll walk into an irradiated waste land because of all the nukes that have been dropped in our country's recent escapades.  

I wonder if the flight simulator they are referring to is Ace Combat?

"They are logging into group games over the internet and discussing terror plots. Security people know about it" says the paper.

If that's true than how would they know to begin with? Has the CIA or FBI actually started monitoring X-Box Live chats without our consent or are they simply just making it up? I'm going to go with the latter. If the government was spending hard earned money to listen to teenagers bitch at each other over a lost killstreak than we would have bigger problems than terrorists. 

Mass Effect 3: Is Changing The Ending Right?

             I recently finished Mass Effect 3 and can finally comment on the outrageous behavior that has surrounded it since the day that the game was released. For anyone that doesn’t know; petitions and polls have garnered a couple thousand people that are ready to wage war with Bioware over and ending that they, quite frankly, don’t feel like they had any part in. The question that I am asking however is if this type of behavior is good or bad for the gaming industry. 

            If we could go back and change the way things played out in our favorite movies or books would we? That question has already been answered by Arthur Conan Doyle when he was forced by his fans to bring Sherlock Holmes back to life. Was it right though? The man was sick and tired of writing about the character and possibly wanted to just put the character out of its misery before he started hating him. Was Sherlock Holmes nearly as good after the series was forced to continue? 

            One of the biggest questions that is being asked by big time media outlets is “Is it okay to change art?” The question is entirely legitimate because of the growing acceptance of video games as a form of art. PBS actually commented on the subject the other day and said that Mario is actually a form of surrealism. If it is art how can we condone the questions that follow such as “should people be allowed to alter paintings and films just because they don’t understand the artists’ intent or think that they could do better?”   

   

            Fallout 3’s ending was changed when fans hated how sudden, abrupt, and unsatisfying it was. Most Bethesda fans probably expected to continue exploring the wasteland but when your hit with what basically comes down to a Game Over screen it’s understandable why they would feel a little betrayed. When the ending was changed we also got some amazing downloadable content to go along with it. This is a case where changing the ending turned out to be a good thing after all. 

            The ending to Mass Effect 3 was intended to be polarizing according to Bioware director Casey Hudsen. He didn't want it to be forgetting and hoped that it would get people talking. In a way it worked because that's all that people have been doing since they saw it. Most fans would take this as the lazy way out. Sort of like saying, the sink was meant to be broken or that we “intended for those glitches to exist.” What if that’s not the case however and the writers of the story poured their hearts into trying to make something that they thought and believed would satisfyingly conclude the series? 

As a growing writer I am used to being criticized, it comes with the work and the fact that before I get better I'm going to have to fail a few times. I can’t imagine working out something as big as this however and being told that I was wrong by over 20 thousand people. I imagine that they are feeling backed into a corner at this moment as they try to figure out what to make of one of the biggest decisions that modern gaming is going to have to answer. Is it right that art to change art? If the ending is changed what exactly will it mean for the industry as a whole? 

I am not going to criticize those complaining about the endings, it is their right to do so. After spending over 300 hours in the series including the books and comics, it was a little jarring to me to see that it all came down to three choices. I can perfectly understand where they are coming from. The difference is that I loved what came after the decisions. It was heart wrenching watching a universe that we have come to love become so damaged, knowing that some of your best friends were never going home again and would possibly perish in the process. 

I thought that in a way it was the end of one adventure and the beginning of another as the races of the universe are forced to start over again. The reapers were destroyed, but at what cost? What was also interesting however was that it makes you wonder if fighting the reapers was even the right choice? Maybe the universe would have been better off being destroyed by the reapers and built up again.

My own explanation for this having to happen is that sometimes you can prepare for the worst, put on your seat belt, and still die in the crash. It happens and there is nothing that we can do about it. The reason we didn’t know about this god child is simply how could we? No one knew much of anything about the reapers. Something like this was always going to be behind the curtains or under the stage.

           

Ubisoft Planning For The Future

It seems that we will have no shortage of Assassins Creed in the future with Ubisoft already making plans for what the sequel to the much loved Brotherhood via a survey posted just the other day. We can only hope that this series, which has evolved and improved by leaps and bounds since the original, doesn't fall into the trap of coming out with sequel after sequel just to rake in the dough with little to no improvements.

The survey was discovered and posted by members of the Neogaf forum and from the looks of it seems to indicate that the folks at Ubisoft Montreal are thinking about a few interesting changes and upgrades to the next game in the series. Here is the full list of questions below so that you may take some time and contemplate them for yourself.

Would you like to see ____ in the sequel to the ASSASSIN"S CREED: BROTHERHOOD?

1) An upgrade to the assassin's blade that increases the fluidity and speed of free-running

2) An enhanced Eagle Vision: see the patrol paths of guards, spot clues to complex navigation puzzles, detect when characters are lying during interrogations, etc.

3) An intuitive crafting tool that lets you create custom bombs from dozens of ingredients found throughout the game world

4) Tactical use of a variety of bombs suited to unique contexts and situations (smoke, poison, flash, explosive, etc.)

5) An additional objective where you and your Assassins guild fight against the Templars to gain control of a city, district by district

6) Playing as a new Assassin, in a different historical time period

7) A continuation of Ezio's story as the leader of the Assassins, set outside of Italy

8) Deeper connectivity between all the Assassin's Creed projects (eg. an action you make on the Facebook game will impact your game experience on the console; events that you read about in the comics will be related to the storyline of the videogames, etc.)

9) Online Cooperative Mode

10) Offline Cooperative Mode

11) The availability of new maps for the Multiplayer

12) A choice of additional Multiplayer characters with new skill-sets

13) Playing new Multiplayer modes

14) A deeper team-based Multiplayer experience (guilds / squads that have common objectives, new tools for clan management, etc.)

15) A customization of the Multiplayer experience (logos, avatars, objects, team names, etc.)

Of all of the changes that are being talked about the ones that I am most interested in are numbers 1 2 3 6 9 and 10. Pretty much all of them if you want to get nick-picky about it. I can only imagine how they would go about making the Blades more fluid. Will we be able to run and stab non-stop while running past guards?

The Enhanced eagle vision sounds more like Batman's visor view in Archam Asylum than something that an Assassin from Ezio or Altair's era would be able to use. I understood being able to pick out targets with it, since it's not unlike just focusing in on your target, but what Assassin is going to instantly know where the patrol routes are? I'm not saying that I am not going to like it, I'm just speculating on how or if they are even going to try to make any sense of it.

Crafting is something that has yet to be explored in the series and it honestly sounds like something that could add a little more tacticality to the game. Going out and making specific bombs for specific missions or enemies could give players something else to think about rather than just getting close enough to press the kill switch.
The biggest change to the series would finally be a change in the time period. The character of Ezio is a good character that a lot of people have grown to really enjoy, but it's about time to move on to something that could be better. Could they move the time period up to Desmond's era? Maybe somehow get into the civil war? There is a lot of untapped time between Ezio's and Desmonds time periods to be explored. (So potentially a lot more games until we see the end.)

Co-Op is something that was only slightly explored in Brotherhood through the Alliance multiplayer mode, one of the funnest modes in the multiplayer if you have a friend to play with. If they added in a co-op story or simply let you jump in as another assassin to help during the single player it would add a whole lot of strategy to the game by letting you and your partner work together to take down targets.

So what do you find most exciting out of all of these and why? Leave me a comment below and tell me. My passion is gaming, my love is for the pixel. Until next time.


*Original Survey Posted Via Neogaf forum at this link.

You Open Your Eyes To Witness The World

This is my first attempt at making a blog that is video game related. I am planning on becoming a Video Game Journalist at some point in the future so I am hoping that the practice posting news and reviews for games every day will give me some practice for the real world. At the moment I don't have much to post so anyone who reads (please someone read) will need to hold tight as I gather information to post.

A few things I have in the pot:

1. Assassins Creed: Brotherhood & Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit Review

2. Preview for the new game being published by sega called Binary Domain.

3. Indie game recommendations every week.

4. Achievement of the week (Favorite Achievement & How To Get It)

5. Games To Look Forward To

These are just a few things that I have thought of doing recently. Eventually I hope to have my own website or to be recruited by another Video Game website to write for them. My passion is gaming, my love is for the pixel. Look forward to seeing the readers in the future.