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Ghostbusters Remastered is coming to PC, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One this year
Dan Aykroyd spent decades trying to produce a third movie in the Ghostbusters franchise, but that dream ended in 2014 with the tragic death of Harold Ramis, Aykroyd’s writing partner on Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters II. The comedian also anchored the original foursome on-screen with his brilliantly deadpan portrayal of Dr. Egon Spengler.
Aside from the cartoon series (which actually treated the films as fictional recreations of the “Real” story) and the 2016 reboot, Aykroyd came closest with 2009’s Ghostbusters: The Video Game, a collaboration with Atari that allowed him to bring back most of the characters from the film franchise for a new story set two years after Ghostbusters II. He even rounded up Ramis, Bill Murray, Ernie Hudson, William Atherton, and Annie Potts to provide their voices for the game.
Fast forward to today, and Saber Interactive has announced they will re-release Ghostbusters: The Video Game in celebration of the film franchise’s 35th anniversary as Ghostbusters Remastered for the PC, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One:
As the new rookie on the Ghostbusters crew, you’ll team up with your favorite characters from the films, reunited by the voices of Aykroyd, Ramis, Bill Murray, and Ernie Hudson as Stantz, Spengler, Venkman, and Zeddemore, alongside Annie Potts, Brian Doyle-Murray, William Atherton and Max Von Sydow. Manhattan is overrun once more by ghosts, demons and other paranormal creatures unleashed by a mysterious force, and only the Ghostbusters can drive this evil back to whatever dimension it crawled from and save the Big Apple.
Hunt, fight and trap a variety of new and familiar ghouls and phantasms, all remastered in HD resolution. Ghostbusters: The Video Game Remastered equips you with cool gadgets and upgradeable weapons to play with in huge boss fights and destructible environments. Scan and analyze targets with the P.K.E. Meter and Paragoggles, then strap on your Proton Pack to wear ghosts down with the blast stream before wrangling them with the capture stream.
Ghostbusters Remastered will be released sometime this year, and the first trailer has been embedded above.
Square Enix’s Avengers Project will make its public debut at E3 2019
It’s been more than two years since Marvel and Square Enix first announced their ambitious Avengers Project. Unlike the rapidly expanding Marvel Cinematic Universe (eight films have opened since the announcement, including the saga’s temporary finale, Avengers: Endgame), we haven’t learned much of anything about the game as neither the comics giant nor its developers (which include Crystal Dynamics and Eidos Montreal) have felt the need to publicly discuss it in all that time.
Today, Marvel finally broke the silence and confirmed (via Twitter) that The Avengers Project will make its public debut ahead of this year’s E3 Expo. Representatives from Square Enix will reveal the game for the first time during their Square Enix Live presentation on June 10th.
Interestingly, the tweet also referred to the game’s title as Marvel’s Avengers:
Tune into Square Enix Live E3 2019 for the worldwide reveal of "Marvel’s Avengers"! ?️ The event begins June 10th at 6pm PT: https://t.co/SCYMbJYt8j #SquareEnixE3 #Reassemble #PlayAvengers pic.twitter.com/2fWM6ekUue
— The Avengers (@Avengers) May 29, 2019
The Avengers Project (or Marvel’s Avengers, if you prefer) is believed to be in development for the PC, PS4, and Xbox One. The game doesn’t currently have a launch date, but Square Enix has said they plan to release multiple games before the end of the year.
Konami unveils full game lineup for Contra Anniversary Collection
We still aren’t sure when Konami plans to release the Contra Anniversary Collection, but we now know which games made the cut. As revealed on IGN, the compilation will include the first seven games in the series, as well as three regional variants.
Contra on the NES was a completely different game from its earlier arcade incarnation, but the version released in Japan for the Famicom was just as unique, adding between-level cutscenes and updated visuals. Konami will include all three versions as part of the Contra Anniversary Collection.
In Europe, Konami swapped out the Contra name and launched the franchise under the Probotector banner, replacing Bill and Lance with robotic doppelgangers known as RD008 and RC011. Contra III: The Alien Wars is probably the high watermark for the franchise, and it made its European debut as Super Probotector: Alien Rebels. Two years later, Contra: Hard Corps was released across the pond in a much easier version known simply as Probotector. All four games will be included in the Contra Anniversary Collection.
Rounding out the compilation is the arcade-only Super Contra (and it’s NES adaptation, Super C), as well as the portable Operation C:
Games Included in Contra Anniversary Collection
- Contra (Arcade – North America)
- Contra (NES – North America)
- Contra (Famicom – Japan)
- Super Contra (Arcade – North America)
- Super C (NES – North America)
- Contra III: The Alien Wars (Super NES – North America)
- Super Probotector: Alien Rebels (Super NES – Europe)
- Contra: Hard Corps (Sega Genesis – North America)
- Probotector (Sega Mega Drive – Europe)
- Operation C (Game Boy – North America)
Like the Castlevania Anniversary Collection, Konami will add six Japanese variants to their Contra compilation through a free update. These variants include Contra (Arcade), Super Contra (Arcade), Super C (Famicom), Contra III: The Alien Wars (Super NES), Contra: Hard Corps (Sega Mega Drive), and Operation C (Game Boy).
The Contra Anniversary Collection will be released for the PC, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One sometime this Summer.
Doom: Sigil “MegaWAD” from John Romero is now available to download
John Romero recently delayed the release of Sigil, his new “MegaWAD” for 1993’s Doom, a few weeks ago. But the famed developer returned late last night to confirm that the new levels for the groundbreaking first person shooter are now available to download from his official website.
Doom fanatics interested in playing Sigil before anyone else will have to spring for the Soundtrack Pack, which includes the expansion and a digital download of the soundtrack from Buckethead, for €6.66 (a little over $7.00 in US currency). Everyone else will need to wait for Sigil’s free download, which will be available on May 31.
As a “MegaWAD” for Doom, Sigil will add nine new levels to the game that Romero helped co-create with John Carmack, Tom Hall, and Adrian Carmack in the early 90s.
Romero left id Software after the completion of Quake in 1996, but he’s been slowly working his way back into the shooter genre in recent years. In 2016, he released a pair of standalone maps for Doom (“Tech Gone Bad” and “Phobos Mission Control”) and he’s also working on an original shooter (with Adrian Carmack) known as Blackroom.
Posted in News, PC
Tagged Doom (1993)
Rumor: Disney is FINALLY making a movie based on Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
If you’re looking for one story that best captures what made the old “Star Wars Expanded Universe” special, it’s hard to go wrong with Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic.
The Xbox game (which was later also released for the PC) was developed by BioWare and it took the Star Wars in sometimes startling new directions… and one those jumps was directly into the past. Knights of the Old Republic took place nearly 4,000 years before the original Star Wars, though players could still expect to find massive starships, snarky droids, Jedi Knights, and Sith Lords. Just after the release of Attack of the Clones, many fans latched onto Knights of the Old Republic as a Star Wars prequel done right.
Now, it looks like beloved characters as Revan, HK-47, Ordo, and others will finally be making their way to the big screen.
Buzzfeed is reporting that “three sources close to the project” at Lucasfilm have confirmed that a movie based on Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic is currently in the works. The film is currently being written by Laeta Kalogridis (who also has credits on (Avatar, Shutter Island, and Alita: Battle Angel), and if it’s successful, it could spawn an entire KOTOR trilogy.
Disney, the current owner of the Star Wars franchise, refused to comment, but they’ve definitely got a desire to create more Star Wars stories. Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, a new game from Respawn, will launch this Fall. Around the same time, Jon Favreau’s The Mandolorian television series will debut on the Disney+ streaming service. And after that, Rey, Poe, Finn, and Kylo Ren will put an end to the Skywalker saga in this December’s Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.
Further down the line, the first movie in a new trilogy from Games of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss will premiere in 2022. Rian Johnson, the director of The Last Jedi, is also working on his own trilogy, but it doesn’t yet have a release date.
Where a Knights of the Old Republic film would even fit into this schedule remains to be seen.
Mortal Kombat 11 was the best-selling game on all platforms in April 2019
The NPD Group’s Mat Piscatella has given us a look (via Twitter) at the best-selling games from April 2019.
Unsurprisingly, Mortal Kombat 11 KOed the competition as the top game during the period. And according to Piscatella, NetherRealm’s fighter also became the first game to sit atop the charts as the best-selling individual game on the PC, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One in the same the month.
Not far behind was Sony’s Days Gone. The post-apocalyptic action game was developed by Sony Bend, and while it might have been overshadowed by some of the other titles in the consolemaker’s catalog, it landed in the #2 spot for April.
The remainder of April’s best-selling games chart is made up of a lot of titles we’ve seen before, including recent releases MLB 19: The Show (#3), Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 (#4), Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice (#7), and perennial mainstays Grand Theft Auto V (#6) and Minecraft (#14).
You can find a full list of best-selling games from April 2019 after the break. (more…)
New Retail Releases: Team Sonic Racing, More
Sonic the Hedgehog is stepping out of his famous red sneakers this week and strapping on a racing helmet in Team Sonic Racing, which will be available for the PS4, Switch, and Xbox One (and as a digital download for the PC).
The Blue Blur’s latest automotive aspirations will be joined on store shelves this week by a slew of pair of less-speedy new releases. Sony and Clap Hanz will tee it up in virtual reality in Everybody’s Golf VR for the PS4. And Koei Tecmo will begin writing the next chapter in the Atelier series with the launch of Atelier Lulua: The Scion of Arland for the PS4 and Switch.
Elsewhere on store shelves, publishers and developers continue to fill out the Switch’s library with seemingly every game ever released. During the next seven days, Ubisoft will bring Assassin’s Creed III Remastered (which contains the original game and the Liberation spinoff) to the Switch, while Capcom will package together a Resident Evil Origins Collection (Resident Evil and Resident Evil 0) for the platform, and 11 Bit Studios will do the same for This War of Mine: Complete Edition.
And speaking of expansions, Bethesda will release The Elder Scrolls Online: Elsweyr for the PC, PS4, and Xbox One (UPDATE: The release of the Elsweyr expansion was delayed to June 4).
Finally this week, Oculus will expand their product line with a pair of standalone VR headsets (the Oculus Quest 64GB and the Oculus Quest 128GB), as well as the PC-powered Oculus Rift S.
You can find even more new releases after the break. (more…)
Posted in News, PC, PS4, Switch, Xbox One
Tagged Assassin's Creed III, Assassin's Creed III: Liberation, Resident Evil, Resident Evil 0, Team Sonic Racing
Rumor: Cold War-centered Call of Duty 2020 scrapped in favor of Black Op 5
Activision has been promoting their “Three-Year Cycle” for new entries in the Call of Duty franchise for close to a decade now, but it looks like that roadmap has hit a bit of a snag heading into 2020.
With Call of Duty 2019 currently in development at Infinity Ward, it was assumed that Sledgehammer Games would take the reins on next year’s title. But if a new report on Kotaku is to be believed, Activision has decided to transfer 2020’s entry to Treyarch, who will take the skeleton of its standalone story (which would have been set during the Cold War) and rejigger it into Call of Duty: Black Ops 5.
According to the site’s Jason Schreier, the trouble began when “Call of Duty 2020” was designated as a co-production between Sledgehammer and Raven Studios. The two studios were unable to work together, and development stalled. But rather than take 2020 off, the publisher is pushing Treyarch up in the rotation to produce Black Ops 5:
For 2020, Activision had originally switched things up, assigning the Wisconsin-based support studio Raven to take a leadership role alongside Sledgehammer to make a Call of Duty game set during the Cold War (likely involving Vietnam). As of very recently, that’s changed. Now Treyarch, based in Santa Monica, California, is in charge of leading Call of Duty: Black Ops 5 for 2020.
According to those briefed on the overhaul, Treyarch will take creative leadership on this new Black Ops while Raven and Sledgehammer will serve as support studios for the game, transforming the work they’ve done on their own single-player story mode into a campaign for Black Ops 5, which will also be set during the Cold War.
Activision declined to comment on the report, as they’re busy preparing to unveil Infinity Ward’s Call of Duty 2019 (widely expected to be Modern Warfare 4) sometime in the next few weeks.
Posted in News, PC, PS4, Xbox One
Tagged Call of Duty 2020