Most Recent: Xbox 360

Sleeping Dogs lives on with a film adaptation starring Donnie Yen

Remember Sleeping Dogs?  Sure you do… it’s that game that spent years in development hell. You know, the one that initially started off as the third installment in the short-lived True Crime franchise. It was that game that eventually got picked up by Square Enix and turned out to be one of the most amazing games of 2012. Well, apparently I’m not the only one who loved Sleeping Dogs, because Neil Mortiz of Fast and the Furious fame has opted to produce a movie based on the game.

In case you’ve been living under a rock, or have simply, for whatever reason, chosen to avoid playing Sleeping Dogs, here’s the rundown. Sleeping Dogs was a game released in August 2012 for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Windows PC. And it was later ported to the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One as one of the first Definitive Editions for the current generation of consoles.

The game centers around protagonist Wei Shen (played by Will Yun Lee), a Chinese-American cop who goes undercover for the Hong Kong Police Department to take down the local Triad organization. Shen finds his loyalties tested as he’s reunited with old friends and finds himself deeper drawn into the Triad underworld.

A free-to-play spinoff known as Triad Wars was scheduled to be release in 2015, however, it was canceled by developer United Front Games, which has since closed down. Square Enix retains the rights to Sleeping Dogs, but as far as the future of the franchise is concerned, the publisher has kept silent since the release of the Definitive Edition.

According to Deadline, the Sleeping Dogs movie will star Donnie Yen, a rather famous actor and martial artist in his native China. If you’re not familiar with Yen’s name, you certainly know some of his recent roles. The actor began to break into Hollywood features this year, and had memorable appearances in both Rogue One: Star Wars Story and XXX: The Return of Xander Cage.

Yen is an excellent choice for the lead, especially given the heavy use of hand-to-hand and martial arts combat featured throughout the game. And here’s hoping that an international interest in the upcoming Sleeping Dogs movie will generate a renewed enthusiasm for the game, perhaps compelling Square Enix to start working on a much-desired sequel.

Posted in Etcetera, News, PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One | Tagged

Video Game History Foundation wants to create a digital record of the industry’s past

Frank Cifaldi is a developer who has worked on Mega Man Legacy Collection and IDARB, but he is also the founder of the Video Game History Foundation, a new non-profit that seeks to preserve and digitize the history of video games.

The Video Game History Foundation launched their first “Digital Collection” yesterday, focusing on The NES Launch in 1985. Cifaldi is also seeking donations to expand the scope of the Foundation, as detailed on their “What We’re Doing” page:

The heart of the Foundation is its digital library, an online repository of artifacts related to the history of video games and video game culture. The ultimate goal is to create a searchable, organized, always-online archive of verified, high-quality material that is accessible to researchers and historians as a public education resource.

All donations to the Video Game History Foundation are tax deductible, and I can’t wait to see what collections they come up with next.

Posted in 3DS, DS, Etcetera, Mobile, News, PC, PS2, PS3, PS4, PSP, Retro, Switch, Vita, Wii, Wii U, Xbox 360, Xbox One |

Microsoft will launch Xbox Game Pass subscription service this Spring

It looks like Microsoft will challenge Sony’s PlayStation Now subscription service in a big way with the Spring, because the consolemaker announced their own Xbox Game Pass this morning.

Unlike Sony’s service, the Xbox Game Pass does not stream games to your console. Instead, subscribers will gain access to full-game downloads of more than 100 titles for the Xbox One and Xbox 360. But like Netflix, new games will be cycled into the service every month, while older titles will be cycled out.

However, subscribers interested in purchasing any game offered through the Xbox Game Pass will be able to do so at a hefty discount.

Naturally, Microsoft themselves will supply many of the games available to download through the Xbox Game Pass. But the consolemaker has also recruited a huge number of third-party publishers to participate including 2K Games, 505 Games, Bandai Namco, Capcom, Codemasters, Deep Silver, Focus Home Interactive, Sega, SNK, THQ Nordic, and WB Games. And the first wave of available titles will include Halo 5: Guardians, Payday 2, NBA 2K16, and Soul Calibur II.

The Xbox Game Pass will be available later this Spring and Xbox One owners will be able to subscribe to the service for $9.99 a month.

Posted in News, Xbox 360, Xbox One | Tagged , , ,

The Video Game Canon: Halo: Combat Evolved

Dig deeper into the Video Game Canon with a look at Microsoft’s first attempt to enter the console market and the birth of Halo: Combat Evolved. Here’s a teaser…

Microsoft is usually portrayed as the stodgy suit in contrast to Apple’s hip turtleneck, but would you believe that the first Xbox prototype was built on a whim by a quartet of guys from the company’s engineering department?

Kevin Bachus, Otto Berkes, Seamus Blackley, and Ted Hase first took their “DirectX Box” to Ed Fries, the head of Microsoft’s video game division, in 1998. Even though everyone in the world had played a dozen hands (or more) of Windows Solitaire, Microsoft wasn’t a big player in the game development arena at the time. Similar to today’s line of console-like PCs, the original “DirectX Box” was an off-the-shelf Windows PC with a video card and a hard drive that hid the Windows-ness of the system from the player.

Before the “DirectX Box” could move forward, Fries and his team had to fight off a challenge from a separate team within Microsoft that had worked with Sega to produce some of the system software for the Dreamcast. They were pushing for the company to create a more traditional console (no Windows, no hard drive), and Bill Gates himself ultimately stepped in to give his blessing to Fries and his “DirectX Box.”

[…]

[Eventually,] Microsoft toted their Xbox prototype, which was a massive X-shaped silver box with a glowing green core, to the 2000 Game Developers Conference, and officially announced their intention to take over the living room (with an assist from Bill Gates and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson). A few months after that, the company purchased Bungie Studios and their upcoming game, Halo: Combat Evolved.

Visit VideoGameCanon.com to continue reading this article and to explore the complete Top 1000.

Posted in Features, PC, Retro, Top Story, Video Game Canon, Xbox 360, Xbox One | Tagged

Resident Evil 7: Biohazard shambles to the top of January 2017’s best-selling games report

It looks like there’s still some life left in the Resident Evil franchise. The latest game in the series, Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, topped the NPD Group’s report on the best-selling games in January 2017. The only other new release to crack the top ten was Square Enix’s Kingdom Hearts HD 2.8: Final Chapter Prologue, which camein at #6.

“With only five days in the market, Resident Evil 7: Biohazard was the best-selling game in January. The last time Capcom had the best-selling game of the month (in dollar sales) was in March 2009 with Resident Evil 5,” NPD Analyst Sam Naji told GamesIndustry.biz.

Overall spending on game titles was up 14% last month over January 2016, thanks mostly to continued demand for 2016’s biggest releases including Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare (#2), Battlfield 1 (#4), and NBA 2K17 (#5). And Grand Theft Auto V (#3) continues to burn up the charts more than four years after it was first released.

The complete list of best-selling games from January 2017 can be found after the break. (more…)

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Indie Megabooth will host 12 games in their GDC 2017 Showcase

The Indie Megabooth will once again offer a small chunk of real estate at the Game Developers Conference to up-and-coming developers this year. Their GDC 2017 Showcase will feature 12 games that are sometimes goofy (Keyboard Sports), sometimes terrifying (Perception), and sometimes without explanation.

The full lineup includes:

Indie Megabooth’s GDC 2017 Showcase

  • _Transfer
  • A Duel Hand Disaster: Trackher
  • Cosmic Express
  • I, Hope
  • Keyboard Sports
  • Lightfield
  • Monster Prom
  • Perception
  • Post Human WAR
  • Rogue Process
  • Snake Pass
  • Super Slime Arena

The Indie Megabooth will set up shop in San Francisco’s Moscone Convention Center on the third floor of West Hall, and more information about every game featured in the Showcase can be found on their official website.

The 2017 Game Developers Conference will begin on February 27.

Posted in News, PC, PS4, Switch, Vita, Xbox 360 | Tagged

No new Skylanders game in 2017, but multiple “Adventure Packs” coming

As part of their quarterly financial report yesterday, Activision executives confirmed that a new game in the Skylanders franchise won’t be released in 2017. However, fans should still expect plenty of new content to appear this year.

First and foremost, Skylanders Imaginators will make its Nintendo Switch debut on March 3. The “toys-to-life” franchise has been one of the few third party bright spots on the Wii U, so it’s good to see Activision continuing the tradition on the Switch. And with Imaginators in the spotlight for another year, COO Thomas Tippl confirmed that Activision plans to launch “multiple Adventure Packs, new characters, and new in-game content” for it throughout the year.

Tippl revealed that Netflix’s Skylanders Academy has also been well-received by fans. A second season will premiere on the streaming service sometime this year, and a third is already in the works.

Finally, Activision is working on a new mobile game set in the Skylanders universe, but that’s all we know at this point.

Posted in Etcetera, Mobile, News, PS3, PS4, Switch, Wii U, Xbox 360, Xbox One | Tagged

Rockstar has shipped more than 75 million copies of GTA5 (and sold most of them)

Even though its been available for more than three years, Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto V is still selling like… [insert your own joke about prostitutes here].

Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick delivered the good news during the company’s quarterly financial report yesterday, where he shared that the publisher has shipped more than 75 million copies of the game. It’s unknown exactly how many copies have been sold through to consumers, but it seems likely that fans have scooped up most of them, especially since The NPD Group certified that Grand Theft Auto V was the sixth-best-selling game of 2016.

In other Grand Theft Auto V news, Zelnick confirmed that Rockstar will continue to support the game’s “Grand Theft Auto Online” mode with additional content in 2017.

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