Gamer's Outpost Press (archived)

by Jonathan Leack

The first gameplay ever seen of Halo 5: Guardians has found its way online. Although it isn’t high quality, thanks to being being off-screen footage, it has shown enough to make fans lose their cool.

The video in question (now removed) shows six seconds of Halo 5: Guardians multiplayer gameplay, featuring what appears to be a battle rifle and even an energy blade. What really stands out is the movement and gunplay. The footage clearly shows the player using aim down sight (ADS) to look through a red dot style of sight before taking out an enemy. The player then sprints and jumps down to a lower level.

It’s worth noting that the battle rifle has always had a zoom, although previously it would show a full screen perspective rather than this aim down sight style. It is unconfirmed if other weapons, such as the assault rifle, will have a similar system in place.

What has fans worried is how much it resembles Call of Duty’s formula. Truth is, Halo 4 is by far the most poorly received game by Halo fans. Many felt it lacked the soul of Halo, and took far too many cues from Call of Duty, although it would score very well critically earning an 87 Metascore rating. You wouldn’t expect to see that score if you asked those who spent time playing multiplayer what they though of it, though.

Halo 4 was developer 343 Industries’ first crack at Halo, and would make fans of the franchise lose some of their confidence in its future. While the studio would acknowledge the mixed reception from fans, this brief clip shows that it may not have learned too much (assuming aim down sight is in for all firearms). Halo fans have made it clear that they don’t want sprint or aim down sight.

A teaser trailer for Halo 5: Guardians showed that the game will have powers akin to Mass Effect. An ability where the player smashes hard into the ground causing area of effect damage around him was shown in the trailer, and there are sure to be more usable abilities. Since nothing else has been seen of this, we’ll have to see if it similarly causes uneasiness from fans after this week’s full reveal.

It’s tough to feel out exactly what all this means. I’ve seen a lot of hyperbole from gamers lately, acting like it’s the end of the world when a game is good or great instead of being one of the best titles of all-time. Nonetheless, the Halo franchise is in decline, and nobody wants to see it become irrelevant. Halo 5: Guardians will decide its fate, and that’s the truth. In the meantime, it’s only fair to let 343 do what it feels it needs to do to usher the Halo franchise to the next era. There were five Halo games with no aim down sight, and those served their purpose. It’s not easy to keep an IP moving along into the modern era, so maybe these FPS standards are necessary to keep it alive.

The full gameplay of Halo 5: Guardians will debut this week. A multiplayer beta will become available in December. All Halo: The Master Chief Collection owners will be granted access to the beta.

by Jeff Bakalar

We’re coming up on an entire year since Sony and Microsoft both released their latest video game consoles, the PlayStation 4 and the Xbox One. That’s a perfect time to reevaluate where each console stands and — more importantly — how their respective game lineups shake out.

When they were first released, we gave the edge to the PS4 over the Xbox One. And at this point in time, the PS4 is still looking good. It continues to improve thanks to regular system firmware updates and a consistent stream of console-exclusive independent games. Exclusive AAA-titles are more infrequent, but the PS4 has some promising titles coming down the pike, including Bloodborne and The Order 1886, both scheduled to arrive in February.

A year ago we recommended holding off on the new-generation gaming systems. The PS3 and the Xbox 360 still present compelling values, but as 2015 progresses, you’ll start to see major titles (such as those listed above) only available on the newest consoles. With that in mind, we now think PS4 and Xbox One are finally ready for your living room.

To be clear: the PS4 and the Xbox One are very closely matched. Both offer a growing library of third-party games — mainstays like the Call of Duty, Assassin’s Creed and Madden series, as well as newer titles like Destiny. And both double as full-service entertainment systems, with built-in Blu-ray players and streaming services like Netflix, YouTube and Hulu Plus.

But even with Microsoft’s tempting holiday-only price cut on the Xbox One, we’re still partial to the PlayStation 4. Our reasoning is below — along with a few caveats where we’d like to see the PS4 improve.

Editors’ note (November 7, 2014): We’ve reformatted and updated our review of the PS4 so that we can make updates more often and keep up with the constant evolution of the console. As of this update, we’ve also raised the rating of the PS4 from 3.5 to 4 stars. This review includes firmware version 2.01.

by Rashid Sayed

For those of you who are unaware, PlayReady is a content protection solution from Microsoft. The technology enables encryption and Digital Rights Management. The technology was first launched by Microsoft in 2007 and is currently being used in several other services provided by the Redmond based company.

According to a job listing, Sony might be using the technology in all its platforms including the PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita. Sony are currently looking for a Principal Engineer that has specialization in PlayReady and implement it in multimedia applications across its three consoles.

It seems that this technology will be limited to multimedia such as music and video and most likely won’t make its way across digital games. Having said that, it’s no surprise that Sony may be borrowing technology from its competitor. Microsoft is best at software applications and Xbox is only a small part of their business.

What are your thoughts on this build up? Let us know in the comments section below.

by Bill Bradley

The “Warcraft” movie just leveled up.

Saturday at the BlizzCon gaming convention, the characters for the upcoming movie based on the “World of Warcraft” games were finally announced. Though details were previously being kept under wraps, it was confirmed that the specific characters would be divided between rival armies Alliance and Horde.

The parts announced for Alliance are Anduin Lothar (Travis Fimmel), King Llane Wrynn (Dominic Cooper), Medivh (Ben Foster), Khadgar (Ben Schnetzer), Lady Taria (Ruth Negga) and Garona (Paula Patton), while the Horde will be made up of Durotan (Toby Kebbel), Orgrim (Rob Kazinsky), Blackhand (Clancy Brown) and Gul’Dan (Daniel Wu).

Duncan Jones (“Moon”) is set to direct the film, and below released posters indicate it will hit theaters March 2016.

by Ron Duwell

In an interview with Re/code, Fils-Aime says that Nintendo’s refusal to play by the rules puts them in a position that Microsoft and Sony should be envious of. Why? Because those two have nothing to set each other apart from one another other than their brand names.

“If you look at the other two competitive platforms, fundamentally, what’s the difference. They have a lot of shared content. Look at it from the standpoint of, what don’t they have? They don’t have our games. They don’t have Mario and Zelda. I’d much rather be where Nintendo is, with a differentiated platform, differentiated set-up experiences that we can provide uniquely to the consumer.”

While he wishes more third-party companies would take advantage of the Wii U, he says that sharing too many titles would cause Nintendo to lose its important distinction from its competition.

That’s one way to look at it, and I agree. What is the difference between the PlayStation 4 and the Xbox One? Two or three exclusives a year? So far, all the rivalry has really produced is a lot of arguments over resolutions and frame rates. Neither really has a gaping advantage in terms of exclusive games yet, and the Kinect wasn’t as successful as Microsoft had hoped.

If you want to play Nintendo games, you have to buy Nintendo products. Plain and simple. This philosophy has allowed it to make a wonderful social network which connects all of its first-party games together, and it gives it the ability to give benefits to third-party companies who happen to jump aboard. Nintendo also has the ability to lure in new generations of gamers with accessible games and cement a lasting sense of nostalgia that older Nintendo fans like myself now have.

The idea that Nintendo is down and out or should fall in line with the mobile market is silly, and it stems from the naive idea that “if you are not in first place, why even bother?” Not everyone is on top 100 percent of the time, and Nintendo has enough money to weather the storm until it can find a new way to move forward without sacrificing its values.

Good on them, I say.

by Brian Crecente

Earlier this week the Windows PC versions of Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed Unity, The Crew and Far Cry 4 were no longer being sold through Valve’s Steam distribution service. But this morning they appear to have returned on the U.S. store. However, it’s unclear if the games have returned yet in other regions.

On Wednesday, Ubisoft told PCGames that it was “in discussions with Valve about Assassin’s Creed Unity” on Steam’s store, but offered no clear explanation for why the title nor the other two had been pulled. Today, you can hop onto the site and pre-purchase the new Assassin’s Creed for it’s Nov. 11 release. The Crew and Far Cry 4 are also both available for pre-order. Neither Ubisoft nor Valve responded to us for comment.

This isn’t the first time Ubisoft-published titles have been missing from Steam. In 2012, the PC versions of Assassin’s Creed 3 and Far Cry 3 were slow in coming to Steam in the U.K., despite being available in other regions. Valve and Electronic Arts clashed over how in-game downloadable content was sold the year prior, which led to Crysis 2 being removed from Steam for a while.

by Sam Mattera

Kinect has been scrapped. Its price has been cut. Games have been given away for free. Despite many aggressive initiatives, Microsoft cannot seem to boost sales of its ailing Xbox One video game console.

Microsoft’s latest promotion involves all three: The Windows-maker is now offering the Kinect-less Xbox One to American consumers for just $350 with a game — a nearly 40% discount from the suggested retail price last November. Although it seems like a great deal, Microsoft has dug itself a deep hole — Sony’s lead appears insurmountable.

Pachter’s prediction
Some may be inclined to dismiss my claims as outlandish — after all, it’s only been one year. If their predecessors serve as any indication, Microsoft’s Xbox One and Sony’s PlayStation 4 could be competing at retail for the next decade. Much can change in the years ahead.

While it’s certainly possible for Microsoft to turn it around, it’s hard to see what it could do — save giving the Xbox One away — to close the gap.

No one can say Microsoft hasn’t tried. Bundles were the first attempt — in March, Microsoft gave Xbox One buyers a free copy of Titanfall, at the time, the Xbox One’s most desirable game. Nevertheless, Sony’s PlayStation 4 won out, outselling the Xbox One in March and April.

In May, Microsoft cut the Xbox One’s price by 20%, announcing a $399 Kinect-less version. But again, it made no difference, and Sony’s console continued to widen its lead over the summer. Then, in September, Microsoft upped the ante even further, announcing that it would give Xbox One buyers a free game of their choice. That meant that, for $400, buyers could get an Xbox One and two games assuming they took advantage of the available Madden and Forza bundles.

Reacting to the promotion, analyst Michael Pachter predicted that the Xbox One would finally outsell the PlayStation 4 in September — surely, gamers couldn’t pass up such a great deal. But they did — despite Microsoft’s aggression, Sony’s PlayStation 4 once again outsold the Xbox One in September.

All told, Sony has now sold 13.5 million PlayStation 4s worldwide — likely more than double what Microsoft has sold. I say “likely” because Microsoft has not been forthcoming with Xbox One sales figures — last quarter, it said it sold 2.4 million Xbox consoles, but it declined to break out the number of Xbox Ones from sales of the older Xbox 360. Prior to that, in April, it announced that it had shipped 5 million Xbox Ones, but did not say how many consumers had actually purchased.

Insurmountable network effects
In contrast to Microsoft, Sony has done virtually nothing — the PlayStation 4 still retails for the $399 it debuted at last year, effectively highlighting the futility of Microsoft’s struggle: If the Xbox One can’t catch the PlayStation 4 now, just wait until Sony cuts the price or runs a promotion of its own.

Several factors explain Sony’s lead (a more powerful console, better marketing, a more friendly stance toward used games), but are mostly irrelevant at this point. Going forward, the single factor most likely to determine sales success is outside both companies’ control.

Sony now has 7.9 million PlayStation Plus subscribers, the overwhelming majority of which are likely to be PlayStation 4 owners (the rising popularity of PlayStation Plus has coincided with strong PlayStation 4 sales). PlayStation Plus membership confers a number of benefits, but it primarily serves as a way to access online multiplayer — a central component of the most popular games. Destiny, for example, is online-only: Gamers must play on servers, primarily with (and against) their friends. With 9.5 million registered users, many are.

Microsoft’s former Xbox head, Don Mattrick, once observed that the “first company to reach 10 million in console sales” often wins the console war. With online play such a central component of most games, network effects run deep — gamers can play with their friends only if they both own the same console. Success begets success, as gamers whose friends own PlayStation 4s are highly incentivized to purchase PlayStation 4s of their own.

Microsoft may go down swinging, but the damage appears done. Barring a miracle, Sony has this one in the bag.

by Chris Reed

Video games are a big business, so it’s no surprise that Hollywood is working to turn a number of game franchises into films. After all, who doesn’t want a surefire hit? Below, we look at some of the most exciting video games that are getting the full Hollywood treatment in the coming years.

Assassin’s Creed

Planned Release Date: 2015

Ubisoft has been pumping out Assassin’s Creed games in a steady stream ever since the original’s 2007 debut. The story is all kinds of convoluted, but basically a man in modern times straps on a high-tech helmet and his consciousness is transported through time into the body of a historical assassin. The film is currently in preproduction, but it’s set to star the debonair Michael Fassbender and should come out sometime in 2015.

Hitman: Agent 47

Planned Release Date: 2015

The first movie based on the Hitman game franchise was a self-titled snoozefest starring Timothy Olyphant as the bald, barcoded hero. This upcoming reboot puts Zachary Quinto in the complicated hero’s shoes as he is sent on a mission to kill a young woman. Things don’t go as planned, and the heroes have to switch gears and formulate a new course of action together. The movie is set to open on February 27, 2015.

Splinter Cell

Planned Release Date: 2015

This Tom Clancy game franchise stars a gray-haired black ops agent named Sam Fisher who can usually be found sneaking his way through enemy territory. The film version will skew younger, with 36-year-old Tom Hardy playing the lead role. And while the movie is still in development, it’s set to be directed by Doug Liman (Edge of Tomorrow, Bourne Identity), who wants to see it filmed and released by the end of 2015.

Ratchet & Clank

Planned Release Date: 2015

These two unlikely heroes (a pointy-eared lombax and a tiny robot) star in a popular series of PlayStation games released over the past twelve years. The games are cartoonish and fun, with sci-fi stories that are infused with humor. The movie is reportedly based on the story of the original game, and follows the two heroes as they meet each other and go on to save the galaxy from an evil businessman named Chairman Drek.

Sly Cooper

Planned Release Date: 2016

Another series of PlayStation action platformers is Sly Cooper. These games center on a small group of lovable thieves who only steal from other criminals. The games are cel-shaded and look like playable cartoons, but the movie seems to be going a more realistic CG route. We’ll see if that choice pays off in 2016 when the film hits theaters. In the meantime, you can watch the trailer here.

Angry Birds

Planned Release Date: 2016

You don’t own a game property this popular with kids and not make an animated movie out of it. Developer Rovio Entertainment is doing the only sensible thing and flinging the blockbuster game franchise Angry Birds onto the big screen. The movie will be a 3D animated feature that’s set to debut on July 1, 2016. If you don’t want to wait that long, you can pass the time by watching a series of animated shorts starring the colorful birds right here.

Warcraft

Planned Release Date: 2016

A movie based on the most popular MMO in the world is set to debut in 2016. Filming has already wrapped on Warcraft, but not a lot of information is available about the movie aside from its basic plot: humans and orcs duking it out in the fantasy world of Azeroth. It’s being directed by Duncan Jones, who directed the unique indie sci-fi flick Moon, which bodes well for this fantasy adventure.

Resident Evil: The Final Chapter

Planned Release Date: 2016

Another Resident Evil sequel will come as no surprise to movie fans, as the series already contains five zombie-filled entries. The upcoming film is slated for a 2016 release, and will wrap up the ongoing story lines so the actors and director can move on to other projects. Of course, the franchise could always rise from the dead for a reboot sometime down the line.

Shadow of the Colossus

Planned Release Date: TBA

This PlayStation 2 cult classic is a triumph of atmosphere. You play as a young man who must traverse a desolate landscape and slay sixteen enormous beasts to bring his love back to life. Although the movie version has been on the back burner since 2009, Sony Pictures has just hired a new director to lead the project, Andrés Muschietti, whose horror film Mama scared audiences stiff in 2013. If anyone can bring the hopeless grandeur of the game to the big screen, it’s him.

Dead Island

Planned Release Date: TBA

Dead Island is a game set in what would be an ideal vacation spot if only it weren’t for those pesky hordes of undead maniacs. The movie has been something of an on-and-off affair since it was announced, with Lionsgate buying the rights to the game but abandoning the project before getting it off the ground. The rights have recently been scooped up by Occupant Entertainment and publisher Deep Silver. These companies have said they’re hoping to get the project moving by early next year.