A starter guide to the world Dishonored: Navigating the mean streets of Dunwall

A guide to help you get the hang of how to navigate Dunwall's sandbox in Arkane Studios' Dishonored.

Dishonored is a sandbox. Don’t let the level-driven narrative focus fool you. Once Corvo Attano is handed a mission and unleashed in the dirty, plague-ridden streets of Dunwall, the methods you use to complete that task are entirely your own to decide. This level of freedom can be daunting though. That’s why I want to take some time today to run through some of the less clearly defined game systems and offer some tips for making the most of your time in Dunwall. 

Save Early, Save Often

The old PC game adage “save early, save often” should be your mantra while playing Dishonored, especially if you are attempting a non-lethal and/or ghost run through a mission. Get into the mindset of manually saving your game whenever you overcome a particularly challenging obstacle. There are checkpoint locations that autosave for you, but they are relatively few and far between. Dishonored is the rare game that allows you to save anywhere, at virtually any time, and there’s a reason for that. ‘Take advantage.

Don’t Fear the Reaper

Most video games are built around the idea of having you learn as you proceed. Come to a nasty boss fight and you might die a few times, but each new attempt brings added knowledge of patterns to watch for and weaknesses to exploit. Dishonored doesn’t feature any boss fights, but it rewards trial-and-error play. Don’t be afraid to run out into the open — after saving, of course — and seeing what sort of trouble you stir up. You might be intentionally dooming yourself, but you also might catch sight of an access point that you hadn’t noticed before.

Also be sure to take advantage of the no-strings-attached tutorial mission that amounts to Corvo’s escape from prison. Achievement/Trophy hunters take special note here: most of the game-spanning goals do not apply during this mission. Take advantage of that to experiment. Learn how Dishonored’s stealth system works. Get the hang of blocking and countering in open combat situations. You can do this anywhere in the game, of course, but the first mission is there specifically to train you… so take advantage.

The Path of Which Resistance

Once you’ve got a handle on how Dishonored works mechanically, it’s worth spending some time figuring out how you want to play it. Will you ghost your way through the game, quietly avenging the Empress’s murder from the shadows? Would you prefer a more merciful path, never once allowing your blade to taste the enemy’s blood? Or will you stalk the streets of the city openly and brazenly, meting out justice as an unstoppable angel of death that strikes fear into the hearts of one and all?

Whether you sneak quietly or go loud, your choices have repercussions as the game unfolds. The attention that you draw to yourself and the death — or lack thereof — that you leave in your wake contributes to the city’s overall Chaos level. This determines what sort of resistance that you’ll be facing with each new task handed to you. At the end of each mission, you will be given your chaos ranking, but it is about more than just killing, there are certain objectives you can do if you want to raise it that may not be clear. For example, in one mission you are given a non-lethal way to take down a key figure.  You could always just kill the target, but for the best chaos boost, complete the non-lethal method, then as others are coming for him, kill him as others look on. Watch the shocked guards then proceed to freak out.  

In broad terms, the city becomes increasingly hostile as your Chaos level rises. Conversations with your allies and those overheard will reflect that, and the story is slightly modified to match. Leave too many bodies and alerted guards behind you, and you can expect to encounter a heavier enemy presence during future assignments. Not just town guards either. Your handiwork also quickens the spread of the plague, since there’s more rotting meat for the rats to feast on and less guards to enforce the quarantines. This means that you can expect to deal with additional rat swarms and Weepers as well when you have a high Chaos rating.

Of course, maybe that’s the challenge you’re looking for. There’s nothing inherently bad about having a high Chaos rating, especially if you’re going lethal and loud all the way. The endgame reflects this, and the final mission will play out much differently. The story’s conclusion won’t be quite as happy if you choose to bloody your blade too frequently, but the only real “penalty” for a high Chaos rating is stiffer resistance.

Blink Or You’ll Miss It

If you are into achievements/trophies and have seen a list of all the available rewards, you may have noticed that there is one for completing the game without unlocking any of Corvo’s supernatural abilities. Thankfully, Blink is excluded from that, and for good reason. You’re forced to unlock it, sure, but the game is also virtually unplayable without it. Blink allows you to move a short distance (its range can be upgraded) in any direction without anyone noticing, and it’s hard to overvalue Blink’s usefulness.

You can use it to slip past guards in an open space where they might otherwise catch you. Or locate hard-to-reach access points. Or zip around the battlefield to flank behind an enemy before he realizes what’s going on. If you are falling to your death, you can even use it to teleport closer to the ground and drop without taking damage, and if you Blink to within a step of an enemy, you can instantly take out that guard from behind. It is, by far the most flexible ability in Corvo’s toolbox. Use it, abuse it, learn it, love it.

Vengeance Can Wait

Take your time in each mission. Dishonored might be a level-based game, but you’re not ever following a linear set of corridors from point A to point B. There’s a lot of ground to cover in Dunwall, with an assortment of nooks and crannies hiding all of the best gear. Take the time to find them.

The first thing that you should do whenever a new chunk of map loads is pull out your Heart. You receive this item early on in the game, and it points out the location of each Rune (used for upgrading you skills) and Bone Charm (offers passive bonuses) on any given map. Use it when you arrive in a new location to get a sense of what’s out there. It is also worth equipping it and using it like an ability now and then. If you do it while pointing at a guard, it will tell you things about them. Doing so when facing a key target will give you a more complete picture of life in Dunwall, and the role they play. If you use the heart without a target in sight, it will tell you a bit about the area you are currently in.  

Make finding the Runes a priority before proceeding with your mission. Not only will you gather useful items, you’ll also inevitably find other goodies hidden away as well — things like gear, upgrade blueprints, valuable collectibles, and cash-money. Quest-givers too. Keep an eye out for secondary tasks during each mission. Often you’ll find that helping someone else unlocks additional access points or offers non-lethal options for neutralizing your primary targets. There are even instances where helping a character at one point will open up other missions later on, while ignoring them, or even killing them will close that thread for good.  

Blink is essential for exploration. In planning out your skill upgrades, it’s best to prioritize Blink and then at least level one of Agility — which more than doubles your jump height — to aid in your Dunwall wanderings. The first level of Possession helps too, since ratholes sometimes provide access to areas that you wouldn’t otherwise be able to reach. If you intend to remain non-lethal, the Dark Vision and Bend Time abilities are handy as well; if you choose to take the bloody path, offensive abilities like Devouring Swarm and Blood Thirsty should be your focus.  

Victory Through Experimentation

The city of Dunwall is extremely well designed with regards to offering multiple approaches to most situations, but it’s Corvo’s toolbox of skills and gear that really allow you to embrace Dishonored‘s sandbox. Be sure to read the “tips” section for each skill, but it’s equally important to simply mess around and see what works. There’s not an in-game reward for engineering creative kills, but there’s a personal sense of triumph that comes from exploiting the tools laid before you in unexpected ways.

Did you know, for example, that you can rig a rat with a springrazor trap? Try doing that, then using Possession on the rat and walking it right into the middle of a group of enemies. Use Bend Time at the right moment and you can snatch projectiles and grenades right out of the air, adding them to your stock or directing them right back to their sender. Want to get really cute? Use Bend Time to stop a bullet in midair then possess the person that fired it and walk him in front of his own shot.

The possibilities are endless, especially since you can use thrown objects or fired crossbow bolts to direct an enemy’s attention in one direction or another. Why distract someone when you can instead draw them over to a location where you’ve set a trap or used a rewire tool to turn a piece of machinery into your own agent of death? You’ve got that save anywhere feature, so take advantage of it and experiment to see what sort of inventive tactics you can engineer.

For more on Dishonored, check out our roundup that includes interviews, videos, and our full review here.

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com

Microsoft demands the return of Xbox dev kits from the 38 Studios liquidation sale

Debtors of Curt Schilling's 38 Studios hope a liquidation auction will help them retrieve their money. Microsoft however, wants its hardware back.

If you’ve been following the gaming industry over the past year, you’ll likely recognize the name “38 Studios.” The games developer, formerly known as “Green Monster Games,” was initially notable for being founded by former Major League Baseball star Curt Schilling (seen in the image above at right), but stumbled on more recent fame due to its spectacular public collapse. While we still await the results of official investigations launched into the firm by the state of Rhode Island and the FBI (the Rhode Island attorney general’s office recently announced that it would not pursue criminal charges against 38 Studios or its founders), the company’s assets are being sent to the auction block in an effort to raise money to pay off the $75 million loan the company received from the good people of Rhode Island.

According to this listing on the website of industrial liquidation specialist SJ Corio Company, the vast majority of hardware used in 38 Studios’ day to day operations, as well as its games development plans, will be available for purchase. This will be carried out over the course of two sales (one on October 16 in Timonium, MD, and one on October 23 in Providence, RI), and prospective buyers will be given access to huge lots of office equipment, computer accessories and, most crucially for this story, an unspecified number of “Xbox 360 XDK consoles.”

Though little information is publicly available on these items, intelligent speculation holds that these were the same Xbox 360 development kits used by 38 Studios in the creation of 2012′s Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, and possibly any unannounced projects that 38 Studios may have had in the development pipeline. If you’re an average gamer, you might never have seen one of these development kits, as Microsoft tends to closely guard this technology. After all, owning one of these things means that a person is able to run unsigned code on the machine, thus opening up all kinds of opportunities for piracy or the creation of Xbox 360 software that makes the console behave in ways that Microsoft would really rather it didn’t. Thus, when news broke that these kits would be going on sale to what is effectively the general public, Microsoft jumped into action to retrieve the machines.

“Xbox 360 Development Kits (XDK) are the property of Microsoft and are only licensed to authorized studios and may not be assigned or sold to any third party without the written consent of Microsoft,” reads Microsoft’s official statement on the situation. ”We will be contacting the appropriate parties involved in the auction of 38 Studios’ assets to remove the XDK units from the auction listing and to secure the return of the consoles to Microsoft.”

Whether or not Microsoft has legal recourse to retrieve the kits is currently up in the air, but it seems quite likely that due to the trade secrecy of the information inherently contained within an Xbox 360 development kit, that the company could claim, in court, that the sale of such a machine to an unknown third party could theoretically impugn the company’s ability to continue doing business as it has been since the console’s launch. Of course, that’s for the lawyers to hash out, and regardless of the outcome, those of you living in Maryland or Rhode Island suddenly have a chance to score some cut-rate office equipment that was once used by a famous pitcher. Good luck.

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com

Luggage lawsuit blocks Avengers box set release

A luxury luggage company is suing Marvel Studios over its upcoming Avengers Blu-ray collection that comes packaged inside a knock-off briefcase.

We’ve known for quite a while that Marvel Studios, had planned to release The Avengers on Blu-ray later this month. Specifically, September 25, for those of you saving every penny in anticipation of finally being able to fire up the blockbuster film on whatever conglomeration of technologies you refer to as your “home theater.”

Alongside the relatively standard two- and four-disc Blu-ray releases, the company had also planned to release a special, limited edition 10-disc collection (see above) that includes The Avengers, all of the extra content found in the aforementioned two- and four-disc releases, as well as all of the Marvel superhero movies released prior to The Avengers that help set up that film’s background story. This means that prospective buyers would own Captain America, both Iron Man films, Thor and 2008′s The Incredible Hulk (which is not to be confused with Ang Lee’s 2003 cinematic exploration of Marvel’s giant green rage monster). That’s quite an impressive set, even at its proposed $220 price point, but thanks to a new lawsuit it seems that Marvel Studios may have to go back to the drawing board on this collection.

Rimowa GmbH, a German luggage firm, claims that Marvel’s use of a faux briefcase in the 10-disc collection directly damages one of the firm’s key trademarks. The Marvel briefcase, Rimowa believes, is based wholly on the design of its “Topas Attache” briefcase, a sharp-looking aluminum number that suggests both excellent, subtle taste and the idea that its holder is someone of great importance. It also features a $750 price tag, so as long as you’re among the set that prizes conspicuous consumption above all things the case also suggests that you’ve got tons of cash — a crucial feature when one is shopping for the adult world’s answer to the Trapper Keeper.

Those of you who clicked through that last link may recognize the Topas as the briefcase used by Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury character throughout the past decade of Marvel Studios films. Rimowa has no problem with the Topas being used in the films, and even provided each movie with a set of cases to use. The problem, according to the German firm, is that Marvel Studios never received permission to recreate the suitcase for its big 10-disc collection. The idea was that the whole bundle would come packed inside a case that looks identical to the one Fury uses in the collection’s films, though obviously Marvel didn’t see the wisdom in massively jacking up the price of its collection purely so it could include a genuine Topas therein. Rimowa, in turn, believes that by creating an aesthetic replica of the Topas, Marvel Studios has directly violated the company’s trademark on the design.

Rimowa’s lawsuit alleges “trademark infringement, trademark dilution and unfair competition,” and, according to The Hollywood Reporter, seeks “all profits from allegedly unlawful conduct and an award of three times plaintiff’s actual damages to be proved.” Given how massively successful Marvel’s superhero films have been, particularly The Avengers, the actual figure Rimowa is hoping to be granted could be quite large.

As much as we usually despise the overly litigious nature of modern America, one can’t help but notice that the Topas Attache does look very, very similar to the knock-off case in Marvel’s collection. Anyone with eyes can see that. However, the design is exceedingly simple, and we could certainly see a judge going along with the idea that Rimowa can’t really have a trademark on what is effectively a matte aluminum hexahedron. On the other hand, we could just as easily imagine a judge slapping down Marvel’s design and forcing the company to pay whatever figure Rimowa eventually comes up with. We’ll keep you updated as new information is available.

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com

Choose your own bloody adventure: Hands-on with Dishonored

Arkane Studios and Bethesda Softworks have a winner on their hands with first-person assassin’s tale, Dishonored.

If there has ever been a good argument for developers to continue supporting E3, it is Behtesda and Arkane Studios’ Dishonored. Before the convention earlier this year, Dishonored was a curiosity. It was the second most interesting sounding title of what many considered a relatively weak Bethesda offering compared to previous years. Prey 2 was AWOL, Skyrim and Rage had both released, there was no Fallout news, and the highest profile title was The Elder Scrolls Online which is still a long way from release. 

It isn’t a franchise title, Arkane Studios is not a well-known developer, and the game itself had only been seen a handful of times. But then came E3 and everything changed. The previously unknown game was suddenly a game of the year contender and it won several Best of Show honors (including ours). The most often comparison was BioShock, which seems obvious since Arkane helped out with BioShock 2 and both games use a similar ability and weapon offensive combination. But it was more than just a similarity in the gameplay, it was a feeling that you were seeing something special. Both games featured a rich and original world and both offered a mysterious and compelling story, but beyond that they both offered choice.

How you approach the world is entirely up to you. If you want to go stealth, you have several tools at your disposal. If you want to take on the world, you can do that too. If you want to be a prick to the citizens of the fictional town of Dunwall, you can get incredibly creative and then ruin their evenings. The choice is yours.

In the demo that Bethesda is currently showing off, you are tasked with entering an exclusive party and assassinating an aristocratic matriarch named Lady Boyle — there’s a catch though. The target and her daughters are all wearing similar outfits that include masks. The game randomizes which of the three ladies is the actual target, which means you have to approach the mission creatively and put in the legwork. You could always try to kill everyone, but that be somewhat like ordering a steak from a fine restaurant and then covering it in A1.

Almost immediately I noticed that my game was progressing differently from that of the people playing around me. My game took me through the courtyard of the estate where the party was held, and an optional sidequest offered me the chance to fight a duel with pistols. Throughout the game there will be optional events within main missions, which shouldn’t come as a surprise for this type of game.

Even entering the house can be completed in multiple ways. Assuming you take the main door, you then have options. If you wander around and explore there are other side-missions to partake in, or you can focus on optional objectives that will help with the main quest.

I chose to complete the secondary objectives to help with the main quest. This sent me to the second floor to explore while dodging guards. It would be easy enough to take out the guards one at a time, but there is always the risk that the bodies could be discovered. So I decided to get creative.

The gameplay uses both weapons and powers, and you can bring these up on a selection wheel. From there you can map the weapon or ability to one of the d-pad directions. Using the ability to see through walls, I stopped time as a guard approached, then teleported behind him and went on to find a note that said who the target was. There were several areas to explore after that, and some were accessible through unusual means like possession of a rat that could then navigate the heating ducts to get to the basement. But that was for another quest, and I had an appointment to keep.

Due to my limited time, subtlety took a backseat to speed. I found the target and eliminated her with prejudice, then had to run for it. Once outside it took a moment for the confusion to settle and the guards to mobilize. As bullets ripped by, I froze time to escape the grounds. I sprinted to the sewers and slid into a covered escape route, but came out and was facing tallboys, guards walking on mechanized stilts. These guards can quickly ruin your day, so I laid a trap on a nearby bridge, summoned rats to attack another guard, and threw a sticky grenade into a crowd to even the odds. The tallboy then came at me via the bridge and walked right into my trap. As guards closed in, I possessed a fish and swam to my escape route, a waiting boat.

I immediately wanted to replay the section since I thought of at least five different ways to complete the mission that I wanted to try. When I eventually have the chance, I will be sure to do just that. And then I will probably do it another way, and then try another and another. And that alone justifies making Dishonored not just a game to watch, but possibly the game to watch this year.

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com

Black Isle studios is back, but not in a good way

The resurrected Black Isle seems more likely to be a publisher than a game maker.

We’ve tried hard not to get too excited about the resurrection of Black Isle Studios. And it’s looking like our lack of excitement was justified, as The Verge has reported that the re-opened Black Isle shows every indication of being nothing more than a logo that Interplay can smack on top of other people’s games.

Anyone who’s been playing games since the 90′s still gets a thrill up their leg at the sight of the Black Isle logo, which once preceded masterpieces like dense fantasy universe Baldur’s Gate, isometric despair generator Fallout 2,  and Planescape: Torment, which many still consider the best-written RPG of all time. Interplay cruelly stoked our long-dead flames of excitement with a Facebook page identifying the new Black Isle as “ is a division of Interplay formed to develop and publish high quality role-playing games.” Even the most cynical of industry watchers began to dream of a new MDK or even—dare we hope?—a modernized Planescape.

But it’s looking like those hopes are as doomed as an under-equipped explorer of the Wasteland. The Verge searched through LinkedIn, and discovered that thus far, no developers are listing themselves as employed at Black Isle. Even grimmer, Black Isle’s careers page offers no jobs at all, and none of the original Black Isle crew has been approached to work at the new company. Based on the available evidence, there’s little reason to believe it’s staffing up to create the next big thing; it doesn’t seem to have the personnel to develop so much as an iPhone game.

Worse still, The Verge notes that most of the great Black Isle games were based on properties whose rights have reverted back to their original owners. Any attempt to resurrect that Planescape series, for example, would require re-purchasing the rights from Wizards of the Coast; and unlike fifteen years ago, WotC has a vigorous video game division of its own. There’s little reason for it to rent out a beloved property, no matter how much gamers kick and scream and hold their breath until their collective face turns blue.

A clue to Interplay’s true intentions is in the original press release announcing Black Isle’s return. Though the press release talks about “getting the band back together”, it opens by announcing that “Black Isle Studios returns to game publishing.”  That’s publishing, not developing.  

The distinction between developer and publisher is one that a lot of civilians are unclear on, but for those inside the industry, it’s the difference between a filmmaker and a studio executive, with inherent hostile relations. A developer makes games: writes the story, creates the art, programs the engine, and does all the things to make it wonderful. A publisher is a pure business entity; it fronts money, handles disc and box manufacture, and markets the game. At its most creative, a publisher makes occasional demands of the developer, which often does more harm than good; many a developer has been sunk by publishers who swoop in with absurd multiplayer requirements, unrealistic schedules, and harsh budget cuts.

These days, many are questioning whether the industry needs publishers at all. With digital distribution eliminating the need for manufacturing, social media becoming a major marketing tool, and community forums acting as a better guide to what players want than some executive’s demands, the role of the publisher is steadily eroding. The only thing a publisher can offer a self-reliant developer is the prestige of its name, and that’s where Black Isle still has something to offer. A lot of gamers will see the Black Isle logo and buy whatever’s being sold, in the hopes of a return to the studio’s glory days. So it may be that the label resurrection still has some value to Interplay. But it will only take one lousy game to destroy gamers’ loyalty and trust — and at this point, that’s the only asset Black Isle has.

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com

38 Studios’ IP Kingdoms of Amalur up for auction. Will EA or Epic buy?

The state of Rhode Island now owns Kingdoms of Amalur and Project Copernicus and it plans to sell. Who might be interested in buying?

The disintegration of Curt Schilling’s 38 Studios, the company behind this year’s Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning and the cancelled MMO set in the same universe Project Copernicus, is coming to a close. Shut down in May with all employees shown the door, there are survivors emerging from the wreckage. Just today, Epic Games officially announced the opening of Impossible Games, a new studio made up of former staffers from Big Huge Games, the 38 Studios’ subsidiary responsible for Kingdoms of Amalur. With many of those imperiled talented people now in new positions, it’s time to wonder where the intellectual property developed over years by Schillings studio will go.

The current owner of the Kingdoms of Amalur, Project Copernicus, and other intellectual property created by 38 is the state of Rhode Island. The state was one of 38 Studios’ primary creditors and it was the inability to repay taxpayer-funded loans that forced the studio’s closure earlier this year. Bloomberg reported on Wednesday that the Bank of New York Mellon Trust Co. (BNY) and the Rhode Island Economic Development Corp. (RIEDC) were awarded all assets held by 38 Studios by U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Mary Walrath.

Intellectual property is the only asset of worth left at 38 Studios, and this is why BNY lobbied to gain control of it. Where 38 just dismantled, said court papers followed by both BNY and the RIEDC, “all or substantially all of the intellectual property could be irretrievably lost.” Meaning that the art, game prototypes, everything developed in association with Amalur and Copernicus could be destroyed before being preserved on RIEDC/BNY controlled servers.

The IP will now be sold off to the highest bidder to recoup the $75 million lost in loans given to Schilling’s studio.

Who’s buying? Big Huge Games was said to be working on Kingdoms of Amalur 2 pre-production when 38 Studios was shut down in May. Epic’s Mike Capps said on Thursday that Impossible Games will be working on Epic-owned intellectual property when it finishes its first project, Infinity Blade: Dungeons, later this year. Epic is slowly branching out its stable of IPs with Fortnite being the latest. Provided it could get the IP for cheap, it might pick up Kingdoms of Amalur and allow Impossible Games to finish what it started.

Amalur publishing partner Electronic Arts is also a candidate. EA Labels president Frank Gibeau said in July that his company would love to see a sequel to that game. “I think it’s unfortunate how everything worked out [for 38 Studios],” said Gibeau, “At the end of the day we saw a lot of creativity and vision in the team that Curt put together. We thought the game was terrific. It reviewed well. We built a good business there and hope there’s a sequel someday. We’d love to be a partner for that.”

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com

Epic’s latest studio Impossible Games polishing up Infinity Blade: Dungeons

Former 38 Studios subsidiary Big Huge Games is now the Epic-owned Impossible Studios. Its first project: Infinity Blade: Dungeons.

Epic Games is expanding. The Unreal Engine studio behind Bulletstorm, Gears of War, and the upcoming Fortnite is, for the first time, seeking outside investment from companies like Tencent as it builds its video game making business into a survivor. It opened yet another branch studio this week. On its homepage, Epic announced the opening of Impossible Games. The Maryland-based studio will be working on Epic’s mobile projects, including Infinity Blade: Dungeons.

Impossible Studios is a new territory in the Epic empire, but the truth it it’s a lifeboat. The studio was first opened at the beginning of June after Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning creator 38 Studios laid off all staff, including the Baltimore-based Big Huge Games. A number of employees at Big Huge were snatched up by Epic and put up in a development house that was dubbed Epic Baltimore by fans on the Internet. Impossible Games is the official name for the studio rising from Big Huge’s ashes.

“We were so glad we could help keep this great team together, and we’re lucky to have them,” said Epic President Mike Capps in the announcement, “At the time, I said that finding a full team of superstars was ‘impossible’ and apparently the name stuck! Pairing the imagination and experience of Impossible with Epic’s technology, IP and resources makes for a business greater than the sum of its parts.”

Former Big Huge general manager Sean Dunn, whose credits include bonafide classics like Company of Heroes as well as Amalur, has been named studio director at Impossible. Its first project, Infinity Blade: Dungeons, is actually a collaboration between Shadow Complex studio ChAIR and Epic Cary, with the bulk of work happening at Impossible’s home base.

Infinity Blade: Dungeons will no doubt benefit from Impossible’s expertise in action RPGs. Early demos of the iPad game have been found wanting by the press. The look of the Diablo-style dungeon crawler has been praised but the touch-only interface has been finicky, lacking the simple precision of the Infinity Blade one-on-one fighters released to date. Since most of the game is already finished, it sounds as Impossible will simply be polishing the game’s quality.

Which begs the question: What will Impossible Games’ first project be? Capps’ comments indicate that Impossible will work with established Epic intellectual properties to start with which is understandable. Epic is likely still gun-shy about letting its satellite studios develop new IP after the disappointing 2011 performance of People Can Fly’s Bulletstorm. Maybe a Gears of War RPG? A new Infinity Blade for PCs and consoles? Nothing’s impossible!

And here I thought I could get through this without a single pun.

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com

Fox is not trading its film rights back to Marvel Studios

Twentieth Century Fox and Marvel Studios are currently negotiating a deal that could drastically alter the future of comic book movies.

When Marvel Comics opened a film wing (appropriately dubbed “Marvel Studios”) in an effort to grab a slice of the huge profits being made in the then-nascent comic book movie genre it was faced with a few issues. Sure the company has a massive catalogue of characters and stories to draw from to make its films, but the film rights to a number of its most popular heroes had already been sold to other production companies, long before superheroes proved to be box office gold. Twentieth Century Fox in particular had bought up a number of Marvel properties, including the X-Men, Daredevil, the Fantastic Four and a large number of secondary characters important to each franchise.

Now that Marvel Studios has established itself as a major Hollywood player, ready and willing to create huge blockbusters — need we again mention that The Avengers has pulled down almost $1.5 billion at the box office? — it wants those film rights back, if only to have the freedom to use the characters created by Marvel Comics as it sees fit.

This morning word broke that Fox had agreed to give Marvel the rights to Fantastic Four villain Galactus — you’ll remember him as the inexplicable giant purple cloud in Fantastic Four: Rise Of The Silver Surfer, or as an apocalyptic villain who eats planets in every other incarnation — as well as the Silver Surfer (pictured above), as part of a deal that would grant Fox the film rights to the Daredevil character for the foreseeable future. Fox has seemingly been planning to reboot its Daredevil film franchise in the wake of the disappointing (yet excellent in its “Director’s Cut” incarnation) 2003 Ben Affleck-starring Daredevil, but those plans have been put on the back burner ever since director David Slade stepped away from the hypothetical project. Joe Carnahan has since expressed interest in creating a Daredevil reboot at Fox, but Deadline believes that Fox’s confidence in Daredevil isn’t as high as it used to be, and that though the studio might agree to co-finance a Daredevil movie with Marvel Studios, it’s unlikely that Fox would mount the production by itself.

More crucially though, Deadline claims that its sources have strongly denied that Marvel and Fox are even having this discussion. Yes Fox is staring down a short timeline in which it must push a Daredevil film into production or forfeit the rights to the character back to Marvel, but as of yet, Deadline states, the two firms have yet to seriously discuss the possibility of swapping any of their respective film rights.

Unfortunately, the real losers in this situation are the fans. One of the cornerstones of Marvel’s popularity has always been that its characters live in a single, unified reality and that any one of them might bump into any other at any given moment. The Avengers was a great flick, but imagine how cool it would have been to see Spider-Man throwing punches alongside Captain America during the climactic fight. While we can’t really fault Marvel for selling off the film rights to its characters — these deals were all made back in the 1990s when Marvel was in very dire financial straits — it’s sad that the newly-minted Marvel Studios is unable to create a movie universe to truly rival its comic book universe simply because the publishing wing of the company needed cash during the Clinton administration.

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com