Crysis 3 not in Development for Wii U

Crysis 3 is currently not being developed for the Wii U, according to Crytek general manager Nick Button-Brown.

Just to answer the speculation, we are not currently working on a wiiU version of #Crysis3.

The announcement was made on Button-Brown's official Twitter, where he said, "Just to answer the speculation, we are not currently working on a wiiU version of #Crysis3."

Rumours about the potential for the game to come to Nintendo's console started when Crytek CEO Cevat Yerli said Wii U is "minimum on par with the current generation." He also shared the news that the CryEngine 3 ran "beautifully" on the platform, and that while the main Crytek team wasn't working on a project, there is "a game in development from a respected developer that [the company] will be announcing."

We still don't know what that title is, but just because the main Crytek team isn't working on anything doesn't mean a smaller division like Crytek UK couldn't be developing a game.
Crysis 3 is due out on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC and is currently targeted for a February 2013 release.

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Is this the New Prince of Persia Game?

A screenshot purporting to be from the Prince of Persia reboot appeared on an official Ubisoft forum over the weekend.

The image shows a heavy-set Prince in what looks like an Egyptian setting. The screenshot is obviously taken from a work in progress: the crowd are hovering and various bits of technical data can be seen.

The screenshot is branded 'Pop Zero 2', which probably refers to POP Zero, a reboot of the popular wall-running franchise that was apparently set in the modern day that never saw the light of day.

So is it authentic? We don't know. We've reached out to Ubisoft for comment. But the image of the new black prince is consistent with images that leaked on NeoGaf (rumoured to be from a new Prince of Persia game) in the run up to this year's E3.





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Putting the RPG Back into MMORPG

In a genre that thrives on cutting and pasting the best aspects of other games, The Secret World has done something more than a little different. It has taken the MMO and given it a distinctly single-player sheen, concentrating more on the narrative content and open character development than on the more traditional limited role, loot grind model. There are still elements of traditional MMO mechanics in place – the holy trinity of tank, healer and DPS still rules the roost when it comes to instances and the end game still devolves into running and re-running the same dungeons until geared – but for the most part, The Secret World asks players to approach the game in a manner different to pretty much any other by putting the RPG back into the MMO.

You're all but forced to watch the cutscenes and absorb the information contained within. You need to pay attention to the quest dialogue and the frequent books and notes you're tasked to read. Sometimes you even need to think entirely for yourself, deciphering Morse code, translating runes, working out passwords and locations from cryptic clues and generally immersing yourself in a world of conspiracy, ancient magic and intrigue. You're given the ability to adapt your character for any situation you might come across and not locked into the same archetype you originally chose to play. It's a fascinating approach, one that is all but new in the MMO space and hugely enjoyable to boot, but it can be argued that the conventional MMO structure has been successful for a reason. The Secret World tells a great story but how do you keep people interested in a story once the story is over? Let’s take a look.

Brian just wanted to hang out, but he often scared off the other children.

Funcom recently dropped its first content update: a range of new quests dotted throughout the different zones and two new nightmare mode dungeons. As far as free content updates go, it's expansive and most welcome, but it sets a benchmark that is going to be a challenge to meet on a monthly basis - eight new quests and two end game dungeons. As the first free content update it's excellent, offering content to players across the entire game, from the first zone to the last, but aside from the two new nightmare mode dungeons there is little in the update that has lasting value to players and even then the value is questionable.

Up until the end game (or the closing stages of Transylvania, the final zone) the emphasis is placed heavily on story but once that story is finished the game reverts to a much more traditional structure of repeated dungeon runs and loot grinding. Whilst this may appeal to some, it runs kind of counter to everything that came before. This is the problem of a narrative and content-driven game that works on a monthly subscription basis – at some point it has to deliver repeatable content to fill the space until the next narrative content update. The promised monthly content updates will go some way to alleviating this divide, but unless Funcom can create meaningful repeatable content then the monthly content drop will only add a few hours of single use questing, or less for advanced characters, as gear and abilities can make can make lower level combat missions trivial.

Extensions of the story in the form of new zones seem inevitable thanks to the semi-open ending of the main story quests, but the frequency and pricing of these have not been set. A new zone can potentially add a wealth of new content for end game stage players but these will more likely appear as paid expansions rather than regular content updates thanks to the huge amount of work required from artists, writers, programmers, animators, voice actors and the like.

You know what they say about the night of the full moon: 'stay the hell inside, idiot'.

The Secret World gives players the ability to learn all the skills and abilities available with a single character, giving players access to the entire range of experiences from the get-go. It's a hugely malleable system that allows for interesting play-style exploration but it does away with a key player retention mechanic – alts (that's alternate characters for those of you not down with the vernacular). Being able to do everything with one character somewhat negates the need or drive to roll an alternative character to explore different paths or careers. Rift, another MMO that essentially gave players the ability to fill all the roles in the “holy trinity” (tank, healer and DPS) got around this by having two factions with wildly different story lines, ensuring that whilst the experience might be similar, the questing and story was different.

Is The Secret World's system too free-form?

As it stands the factions in The Secret World are purely cosmetic. The narrative tells players that the various factions are waging a covert war against each other for power, but aside from some outfits and voice actors they are almost identical, sharing that same style of faction progression and the same story line quests. The only place in which this factional divide is actually played out is the PVP battlegrounds but, in a general view, the PVP is meaningless. The different factions get stat bonuses for territories held, but the actual battling is segregated from the rest of the game. Players are told that the Templars, Illuminati and Dragon are enemies vying for power, but it never comes up in general play. In fact, the enmity is downplayed thanks to missions that see players from different factions travelling to the home cities of their enemies unmolested and the acts of banking and shopping require two of the three factions to enter the realm of their so-called enemy.

And oh how they danced, the little children of Stonehenge...

A new weapon, something that's “slower, with bigger explosions” has been promised in a future update, with more varied ordnance to come at a later date. Unlike other MMOs in which the addition of new weapons isn't particularly interesting, the addition of a new weapon to The Secret World is tantamount to the addition of a new class. Whilst the weapons will almost invariably fall into the categories that already exist in game (support, DPS, tanking and healing) they will offer a new approach to that role and new synergies for players to experiment with. New weapons will also allow the developers to create new faction decks and outfits for players to strive towards.

While its unconventional approach to MMO design may have limited some of Funcom's options for extending the playability of The Secret World, that same unconventional style is what gives the team the ability to add new weapons, essentially the TSW version of a character class, to the mix. It seems rather bizarre for a game in which the narrative is the driving concern, but at the moment it looks as though it could be a mechanic, such as a new weapon, that will be the easiest approach for retaining players between sizable narrative content updates.

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Breaking Bad: "Fifty-One" Review

Note: Full spoilers for the episode follow.
Rian Johnson, who directed this episode, is awesome. Brick is fantastic; see it if you haven’t. His next movie, Looper, looks good. Johnson’s ideas waffle between incredulous and bizarrely mundane, but the focus on the bare bones of a scene or story (e.g.: the dialogue; the acting) and getting into the heads of his characters can make even the most absurd story realistic.

You can see it in the way characters talk to one another; the close-ups on their faces; the subtle droning tones. It’s not manipulative, but it draws you in. When Walt, Hank, Marie and Skyler are all outside, having dinner together, the entire scene is about Skyler about to break; and when it comes to a head—when Walt describes how Skyler was there for him, taking care of him during the cancer, one year ago—the camera doesn’t shift to the table at all. It is entirely on Skyler, her face unmoved with a twinge of regret, cut-to her point of view of the pool, cut-to her face. Cut to her walking into the pool.

Got dang. Even if “distressed person jumping into the pool” is a cliché, it worked wonderfully here.
“Fifty One” is a beautiful episode. Compared to Johnson’s last directed episode of Breaking Bad, “Fly,” it fits a lot more seamlessly into Breaking Bad’s catalog and especially into this season.

There was a lot to love in this one.

First, Skyler melted down. While I think there’s been a lot of misguidance on her character throughout the series—a good deal of it because fan reaction to her was so oddly visceral—“Fifty One” took a second to explore the depths of her fear and articulated it perfectly in one of the best scenes in this show’s history.
Just before that scene between Walt and Skyler, Marie and Hank talked to Walt about Skyler and brought up taking care of the kids while they work out their differences and of course this is Walt’s soft spot. Though Skyler’s clearly been out of sorts in the last few episodes, Walt’s ignored it. Now that the kids were being taken away—and how about those early scenes where Walt and Walt Jr. were connecting?—Walt needed some answers. She’s breaking up the family.

And this is the scene that gets BB another few Emmys in hand. The entire scene is so natural and familiar, it’s less like we’re watching a show and more like we’re seeing into some family’s life. The line between Cranston and Walt was severely blurred in this one. Nothing is brought out into the open unnaturally.

The whole scene was almost cut from a brilliant play, which, for a series that’s so excellent on so many levels, is something we haven’t seen before. The conversation ebbs and flows, from an early “OK, we need to talk” sentiment to a pretty harsh tone of implied domestic abuse one-upmanship and backhanded, subversive threats. When Walt knew she had the upper hand, he attacked her ability to plan and she broke down: “I don’t know!! This is the best I can come up with! I’ll count every minute the kids are away from you as a victory.”

Anna Gunn was fantastic in this scene. She was fantastic in the whole episode. This was her finest work yet on the series.

Lydia returned in this one and she attempted to game the system. I like Lydia. It’s not because she’s smart or clever or mean or anything, but she’s so type A and stressful and the fingernail biting and the wrong shoe wearing and etc. etc. I love it. She’s not a good person, but hey, who is in this series?

Yo soy Heisenberg!

When she convinced Jesse (who, ya know, can get fooled like we can) that the can was lo-jacked by the DEA and Mike saw through it, you knew she was done for. What was kind of weird was when Jesse stopped him and Mike called him sexist for thinking she didn’t deserve to die, just like he was when Mike let her live. I haven’t seen many instances of character confusion in this series, but this was one—Mike let her live because his soft spot is for people who have one last wish to speak with family before they die.
Either way, I’m looking forward to where Lydia takes us.

Maybe most important was the Heisenberg hat is back to full throttle. I love that hat. It’s kinda dorky, but it makes Walt feel so empowered, you kind of want him to have it.

“Fifty One” packed a punch. It didn’t have any explosions, but it was cathartic and demonstrated just what Breaking Bad can do best: hard-hitting dialogue, powerful acting and cool directing and editing, with a few laughs and some fun here and there.

What’s most impressive this season is how everything has been building toward a crescendo. Yeah, Season 1 through 4 were all pointing to this season, but even the episodes within this season itself are pointing to something greater; some great cataclysmic ending. I don’t know if there’s anything that can match this kind of build-up, but the series has taken a turn for the epic and I think we all know it.

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The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes - "Assault on 42" Review

Warning: full episode spoilers follow.
We've been seeing Earth's Mightiest Heroes transition towards a slightly more standalone format lately, rather than the episodic approach of the first half of Season 2. But if "Assault on 42" proved anything, it's that this done-in-one storytelling can yield impressive results. "Assault on 42" saw Cap lead a truncated band of Avengers into the Negative Zone to visit Prison 42. S.H.IE.L.D. is convinced that the Negative Zone is an empty realm devoid of any life, but naturally, that isn't the case at all. The showdown between the prison's residents and the savage, almost mindless bugs of the Negative Zone was inevitable.

Last week I noted how "Behold... the Vision!" seemed to be paying homage to Predator during the jungle hunt sequence. The EMH writers must have '80s sci-fi classics on the brains, because this episode gave off a clear Aliens vibe throughout. Early on, our heroes were hounded in dark corridors by an unseen enemy. Later, as the battle intensified, the creeping sense of horror exploded into all-out war between man and bug. For what is largely an all-ages show, this episode did a nice job of maintaining a grim, foreboding tone. The fact that the Avengers and their temporary allies were battling mindless bugs also allowed the episode to be more straightforward in its depiction of violence.

Speaking of temporary allies, the decision to include a number of past Avengers rogues in the battle lent a but of fun to the otherwise dark series of events. Some of these villains, like Leader and Abomination, haven't really been seen since the early episodes. Cap's decision to exclude Baron Zemo from the festivities was a nice touch. We saw Skurge the Executioner take a major step from simple villain to heroic warrior as he silently acknowledged Thor as a comrade and embraced his new mission. I was beginning to think the writers were going to borrow from the classic comic The Mighty Thor #362 and depict Skurge's iconic moment of sacrifice in slightly different surroundings. However, Thor's reference to Enchantress' current plight may suggest that big moment is coming down the pipeline.

On the other side of the battle, Annihilus had a memorable debut as this episode's central villain. The series is 2 for 2 so far when it comes to borrowing major Fantastic Four foes. The writers offered a cool take on Annihilus by rendering him entirely mute and only conveying his rage and motivations through the Leader's psychic probing. It helped emphasize Annihilus' inhuman, otherworldly qualities. I do wish there had been a bit more variety in Annihilus' drones. If anything, the bugs looked more like the Brood aliens from the X-Men franchise than the usual Negative Zone creatures on display in the comics. But given how much the Brood resemble the Xenomorphs from the Alien movies in form and function, that may have been an intentional design choice.

"Assault on 42" was necessarily that important in terms of advancing the currently open conflicts of the series. It was, however, a very well executed chapter that managed to go a little darker and more violent than the series usually strives for. Hopefully this level of quality is a sign of what we can expect as the series moves through the second half of Season 2.

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