Category: Gamespot

Former PlayStation executive Adam Boyes sounds as if he is happy for the “console wars” period of his life to be over. Boyes, who was vice president for third-party relations at PlayStation from 2012-2016, told USgamer that he loved what he did, who he worked with, and what he achieved during his run at Sony. But there was also a lot of stress.

“Sometimes I feel like I have an opinion, but it doesn’t matter because I did that,” Boyes said about the forthcoming launch of the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X later this year, and all the pressure that comes with being an executive at a company launching a new system. “I put in my all. I loved it. Built an incredible team, had an incredible experience. […] So you think that I would have a FOMO that I’m not part of it, but it really isn’t. There was so much stress and I think the whole console battle concept, it takes you over. It’s like, that’s all you think about.”

Boyes was an executive at PlayStation for the launch of the PlayStation 4 in 2013. The “console battle concept,” as he calls it, is surely in reference to how PlayStation and Xbox are historically known to push very hard against each other as they try to position their own console as the one to buy. Boyes has a history in that kind of upfront strategy.

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The Fallout 76 team has had a lot to do in the last year, working to flesh out a world once populated only by players and monsters. It may come as no surprise to find out that some of the game’s upgrades came in over budget.

In an interview published by USgamer, Bethesda Vice President Pete Hines went into some detail about the process of developing Wastelanders, discussing both the project’s goals and what went into achieving them.

With a world of new NPCs to be integrated into the game, Hines reveals that the designers went a little ham with adding dialogue that would then have to be delivered by voice actors. “They went much beyond what they were budgeted to do because designers can’t help themselves. So they blew past their word count budgets,” he said.

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The 1.20 update of Dead or Alive 6 will allow PS4 players to change characters’ hair color for the first time, though each change will use a Premium Ticket at a cost of $1 each.

As picked up by Kotaku, the update was initially welcomed by the community, until players realized that previously purchased colors would not remain unlocked once paid for.

This update works more like a real-life hair salon, charging a fee every time you change your hair–even if it’s a color you had before. Dead Or Alive community forum Free Step Dodge reached out to Team Ninja to confirm the system was working as planned and the repeated payments were not a bug, which the team then confirmed.

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As the release date for massive Fallout 76 update Wastelanders draws nearer, Pete Hines has shared some of the thinking that went into the original game design in an interview with USGamer.

One of the elements Hines says was misjudged by the team in particular was PVP, and how it was not as much of a priority for players as they had initially thought.

“We were a little surprised how few people wanted to take part in PvP and how many more they were interested in PvE together,” Hines said. “As opposed to, ‘I want to test my mettle against you and let’s get into a duel.'”

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Halo: The Master Chief Collection continues to expand and improve with new updates, including a substantial upgrade to the audio design of one game in the collection. Currently, Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary supports only the updated audio for multiplayer, not the classic sounds. This has bugged some players, and 343 Industries has now confirmed it will add the classic Halo: CE sounds to multiplayer soon.

The option to hear the original Halo: CE sounds is available in the campaign on PC (which is currently in testing) and on Xbox, but only the updated audio for multiplayer is available.

“We are happy to announce that we are now putting the final polish on bringing the classic Halo: CE multiplayer sounds to the Halo: CE PC launch,” 343 said in a blog post. “Initial playtest feedback is that players are happy to have the original audio in place, which brings the overall Halo: CE multiplayer another step closer to the way we all remember it on the original Xbox.”

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The Wonderful 101 Remastered, an updated release of the previously Wii U-exclusive game, is nearing the end of its Kickstarter campaign. The game, which has earned over ¥200 million after asking for ¥5.425 million, has been the biggest gaming Kickstarter success story on the platform in some time.

However, as it turns out, the game was already a done deal before a single cent was earned through crowdfunding, and for Platinum this campaign was not about raising necessary funds so much as uniting a community of players.

Talking to Gematsu, producer Atsushi Inaba has revealed that the reason for the campaign was not because they needed the money. “The actual reason we decided to do a Kickstarter campaign was not for funding at all,” he says. “It was more about gauging interest in The Wonderful 101. This is a game we’ve always wanted to revisit at some point in time, so we thought it would be a good opportunity to bring the fans together—to unite them—and gauge interest.”

Asked to clarify what the money would be used on, Inaba says that it would largely go towards fulfilling Kickstarter rewards and stretch goals. “I don’t know if you’ve seen all the tiers and their rewards, but those cost money to produce,” he says. “The rest of the money is going towards the additional content that will be added to the game.”

“I want to clarify that we didn’t do the campaign to ‘get money’ or anything like that—that wasn’t the point of it, he continues. “The main goal was to bring the fans together, gauge interest, and find a good way to revisit and release the game.”

The Wonderful 101 Remastered is also coming to PC and PS4, although in the interview it’s clarified that it will not come to Xbox One due to the difficulty of porting to that platform.

The game still has two potential stretch goals to meet. If it earns the equivalent of US$2 million, the game will feature an additional 2D adventure section, and if it hits $2.25 million, two of the game’s music tracks will be re-recorded with a full orchestra.

Platinum Games has been busy lately. The studio is also working on Bayonetta 3, and the recently announced Project G.G., a new hero-focused action game.

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Ela, an Operator added in Rainbow Six Siege‘s second year, is getting powered down a bit. Ubisoft has outlined the patch notes for the latest update done on the game’s Public Test Server, which will test out a slightly modified version of Ela’s Scorpion EVo3 gun.

Here are the four changes made to Ela in this patch.

• Reduced recoil now only applies to the first 11 bullets.
• Increased resettle time after burst firing
• Faster uptime to increase vertical recoil
• Slightly increased recoil + spread

As the post says, since Ela was buffed in a recent Year 4 Season 4.3 patch, there’s been a huge spike in her being picked, and her win ratio has gone up a little too much. These changes will make her slightly less deadly, and give players a better sense of balance.

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Video game composer Martin O’Donnell has shared another behind-the-scenes video from his time at Bungie working on the Halo series. This latest one focused on the music and audio from 2007’s Halo 3, and it follows an earlier video that showed Steve Vai’s incredible recording of the rockin’ Halo 2 theme music.

In this unearthed video, we see and learn a lot of things, including the fact that a number of Halo 3’s sounds came from dropping, scraping, and smashing an original Xbox with a hammer. There are a lot of other interesting insights and fun facts in the video. For instance, one of the sound designers recorded audio for soldiers walking through the beach by capturing his own footsteps on a beach in Mexico when he was on vacation.

Check out the full video below; it’s well worth a watch for Halo fans. The Xbox-smashing bit starts at around 1:05.

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Samurai Shodown releases for Nintendo Switch releases on February 25, 2020, bringing the well-received fighting game reboot to Switch. Samurai Shodown has been praised as a high-quality entry in the long-running series, and now that it’s done, director Nobuyuki Kuroki might be able to set his sights on another SNK series.

Talking to Nintendo Life about the impending Switch release, Kuroki revealed that the game he’d most like to bring back. “Personally, I wish that we can revive Garou: Mark of the Wolves,” he told the site.

Garou, which launched in 1999 for the Dreamcast, is also technically the most recent entry in the Fatal Fury series, is a beloved game. The PC, PS4, and Vita versions recently received a substantial netcode update, which made them easier to play online without issue.

There’s absolutely no confirmation that the game will actually return, though, and it’s clear from the interview that this is Kuroki’s desire rather than something that is in active development. SNK Corporation is currently working on another fighting game in a long-running series, with King of Fighters XV due to release in 2020 for PS4.

The second season of Samurai Shodown’s DLC will start on February 26 with new fighter Mina Majikina.

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Here are two reliable gaming facts–if there’s a major game that’s not on Nintendo Switch, owners of the Nintendo console will want a port, and if a port is in the works, it’ll likely be accidentally unveiled by a ratings board. This has once again come to pass, with GameXplain discovering that Catherine: Full Body and XCOM 2 Collection have both been rated for the Switch in Korea.

Neither game has officially been confirmed for release yet, but these age ratings are often a strong indication that the game is coming. These are not the only ports to recently receive ratings, either–in January, the BioShock: The Collection was rated in Taiwan.

Catherine: Full Body is an expanded version of 2011’s Catherine, which added a third love interest and plenty of new content to the game. XCOM 2 Collection contains all previously released content for XCOM 2, making it a sizeable package.

Both games reviewed well, with Catherine: Full Body receiving an 8/10 in our review, and XCOM 2 receiving a 9/10.

The Nintendo Switch is gearing up for a big 2020, with Animal Crossing: New Horizons releasing in March, and plenty of other games due this year.

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