It’s the weekend, which means two things: 1) it’s time for PAX East and 2) another Top 5 Stories of the Week is coming your way. Below, you’ll find brief summaries of our top 5 stories from this week, as well as a few stories that were interesting, but weren’t quite that big to make the cut. As always, if you want to read the full story, simply click on the link hidden in the titles. If you have suggestions for future entries, feel free to email me at jeremy.tyler@bagogames.com. Here we go.
Number 5
Bruce Lee Will Be A Playable Charater in EA Sports UFC
EA has today announced that legendary martial artist Bruce Lee will star as one of the fighters of EA Sports UFC which launches in June for PS4 and Xbox One. This will be the first UFC title to come out since EA acquired the rights to the franchise from THQ. The Enter the Dragon Star can be played in four classes; Flyweight, Bantamweight, Featherweight and Lightweight. You can unlock him by completing the game’s career mode on Pro difficulty or by simply pre-ordering (which really is kinda cheating).
Brian Hayes, Creative Director at EA, was very pleased to be able to make the announcement. “It has always been part of our vision to have Bruce Lee, the most iconic martial artist of all time, in the first ever EA SPORTS UFC. The team is very excited and tremendously honoured to have the privilege of bringing Bruce Lee to life in our game. We’ve been working closely with the Bruce Lee team to ensure we represent the legend with as much visual and gameplay fidelity as possible.”
“There’s no debate, Bruce Lee is the father of mixed martial arts,” said the UFC President, Dana White. “He believed not one style of fighting was the best and that you had to have a little piece of everything to be a complete fighter. He was proven right when the first UFC event took place in 1993.”
Number 4
SOE Announces New Zombie MMO H1Z1
The current popularity of zombie shooters in gaming doesn’t seem to be going away any time soon as Sony Online Entertainment jumps into the fray with their own post-apocalyptic free to play MMO, H1Z1. In a post on reddit, SOE President John Smedley went into great detail in describing this newly announced game.
“I wanted to tell you about an exciting new free-to-play game we’ve had under wraps here at SOE for some time. It’s called H1Z1. It’s a massively multiplayer game in which players fight for survival in a world where death is the only sure thing. The H1Z1 virus devastated mankind and left nothing but death and destruction in its wake and a world nearly empty of human life where the remnants of humanity are in a fight against extinction against those infected with the virus. It’s been 15 years since H1Z1 was first encountered and what’s left of the world before is overrun with the Infected. Humanity has been reduced to hiding in the shadows, searching desperately for food and water and anything that can help to survive even for another day. But the Infected aren’t the only dangers in the world. Everyday life in the Apocalypse means dealing with all kinds of wild animals and the brutality of other survivors, as well as finding your next meal and a safe place to sleep. It also means scavenging or crafting anything that can help you live just one more day. In H1Z1 every minute of every day is borrowed time and fearing for your life… unless you are the Danger (talking to you Walter), but life can and will go on… even in circumstances as dire as this. Humanity has not given in to the Infected. There are still pockets of humanity and the fight goes on! Our vision for this game is very simple but ambitious. We are starting with what I would call “Middle America” – an “anywhere and everywhere” town. The world is massive as you’ve come to expect from our games. Over time we will grow the world until we have our own version of the U.S. after the death and destruction brought on during the H1Z1 epidemic. It will be our own version of America. We’ll have urban cities and desolate wide open places. All connected seamlessly. Our focus is building a sandbox style of gameplay where players can build shelters out of resources in the world. They can even work together to make amazing fortresses complete with weaponry to help defend against both the Infected and other players. Players also have access to a very deep crafting system that can let players make a huge variety of awesome stuff, including weapons (I made a 1911 the other day) and things like Molotov cocktails, explosives… and other fun surprises.”
Number 3
Watch Dogs Is Getting A Season Pass With New Character And Missions
A listing by USA retailer Gamespot has revealed that the upcoming open world game Watch Dogs will have a season pass, which allows you to access all available DLC for $19.99.
Included in this season pass is a brand new single player campaign with a different set of missions and a unique playable character. On top of this you’ll also get access to other DLC exclusive content such as new weapons.
Gamespot states that buying the season pass nets you a 30% discount, which means that the DLC will cost around $30 if you buy it all separately. So far Ubisoft has made no comment about this listing but expect an official announcement very soon.
Number 2
The Last of Us Remastered confirmed by Sony
A few weeks ago, we reported that a higher up at Sony mentioned to a Turkish website that Naughty Dog and Sony will be bringing The Last of Us to the PlayStation 4.
Today more news has surfaced on this topic. First, a NeoGAF user spotted a listing for the game on the Sony’s PlayStation Store, which when clicked on went to an invalid page. At the same time, an Amazon listing has been posted for pre-orders, which contains a placeholder date of December 31, 2014.
According to the Amazon listing, the PS4 version will include “the Abandoned Territories Map Pack, Reclaimed Territories Map Pack, and the critically acclaimed The Last of Us: Left Behind Single Player campaign”. Also, the listing confirms that the TLOU will be getting a bit of a facelift as some of the features will include ”full 1080p, higher resolution character models, improved shadows and lighting, in addition to several other gameplay improvements.”
Number 1
inFamous: Second Son Fastest Selling Game in Franchise
Sony Computer Entertainment Australia has revealed that inFamous: Second Son has sold over 1 million copies within 9 days of its release.
With these current sales totals, this makes inFamous: Second Son the fastest selling title in the Sucker Punch Productions’ franchise.
As we reported a few weeks ago, inFamous: Second Son has boosted sales of the PS4 in UK by 106%. Look for Sucker Punch to release an update for Second Son shortly with features requested by their community.
Honorable Mentions:
If you missed out on the big news items this week, you can check out our weekly podcast and get an audio update of this week’s madness from our podcasting team. Listen to us as we talk about some things seriously and a few other things not so much. We guarantee this episode will make you shake your fist at times and nod your head at others.
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