During their “World of Capcom” presentation at PAX East, Capcom announced that WayForward Technologies is currently at work on the development of DuckTales Remastered.

DuckTales Remastered will launch this summer at the price of $15, or 1200 Microsoft points. The game will be available on all major console digital services, including the Wii U’s eShop.

A trailer was shown during the panel which included the DuckTales theme song and a presentation of the game’s hand-drawn sprites and 3D world. DuckTales Remastered will include several of the original 8-bit songs, remastered of course, and several new gameplay features.

This is an excerpt from the full story which was originally featured on gamrReview, read the full version here – DuckTales Remastered Coming to XBLA, Wii U, and PSN – News

Read more here: gamrReview

World of Warcraft maker officially announces free-to-play collectible card game for PC, Mac, and iPad; beta begins this summer, with full product out by end of 2013.

BOSTON–Today during a presentation titled Blizzard Presents at PAX East, World of Warcraft developer Blizzard Entertainment announced HearthStone: Heroes of Warcraft, a free-to-play collectible card game for PC, Mac, and iPad.

Gamers can sign up to beta test the title today. The beta will launch this summer, while the full game is due out sometime in 2013.

Explaining the game, a Blizzard representative said, “We wanted to do something a little different.” The game, described as “really small,” was built by a team of 15 developers at the Irvine, California developer.

HearthStone is focused on 1v1 matches and uses Battle.net for matchmaking. Players can duel online to boost their medal ranking.

Three hundred total cards, based on the World of Warcraft classes, will be available at launch. Extra packs will be available for purchase, for around $1, Blizzard said.

It appears HearthStone: Heroes of Warcraft is far along in development, as Blizzard showed a complete game demo for the game during the presentation today.

This is a breaking news story. Check back later for more information as it becomes available.

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Online multiplayer + Wallace Wells content available on PSN

At this point I’ve almost lost count of how many false starts we’ve had for the Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: The Game DLC, which adds online multiplayer and a playable Wallace Wells. This could be the end, though, because apparently it’s available today on PSN! Read on for more.

Read more here: Crunchy Roll

Industry veteran Richard Garriott announces his “ultimate RPG” coming to PC; Kickstarter campaign asking for $1 million underway.

Ultima creator and role-playing game founding father Richard Garriott today announced Shroud of the Avatar: Forsaken Virtues, the industry veteran’s “ultimate RPG.” Garriott’s Portalarium studio is heading up development on the project, with a Kickstarter campaign for the PC game going live today asking for $1 million.

Describing Shroud of the Avatar, Garriott told GameSpot that the game is both emblematic of what he’s created in the past and also a vision into what the future of role-playing games could look like.

“I not only believe it will hearken back to my work of the past, but I believe it also makes some important strides forward in what a multiplayer role-playing game can be,” Garriott said.

Shroud of the Avatar (which has nothing to do with the World of Warcraft item of the same name) is not a single-player game, nor is it a massively multiplayer game. Instead, it’s somewhere in between, Garriott explained.

“It’s a game you can play completely solo and offline, but it’s also a game that ad-hoc will feel more like an MMO when you are online, in the sense that you’ll see both friends and strangers in the world alongside you,” he said.

Regarding structure, Shroud of the Avatar will be made up of two distinct elements: an outdoor travel map and then third-person encounter scenarios. Garriott described the overworld map as similar to that of Civilization V.

“We are not doing a social game; we’re not doing a game where it’s free-to-play then it endlessly pesters you for money. That is also not what we are doing.”

“And as you travel around the map it will feel like an Ultima 3-6 feeling. You’ll see both static locations that you can go find, whether they’re towns or dungeons or other points of interests, as well as you’ll see mobile points of interests like bands of gypsies travelling around or dragons flying around mountains,” Garriott said.

“And when you then find that encounter, it will take you down into what we call the scenario-level activity, which is a third-person, over-the-shoulder exploration of a scene,” he added. “And the scenes are story-based scenarios that you can complete in five-to-30 minutes and it can be completed or played solo or multiplayer.”

In terms of pricing, Garriott said the game does not easily fall into a simple category. It’s easier to explain what the game is not, he said.

“It is neither what I’ll call a standard retail …read more
Source: Game Spot News

Update 8.4 to introduce more vehicles and graphically-enhanced maps; out for North America and Southeast Asia on March 7.

Wargaming.net has announced that it will launch a new update to World of Tanks this week.

Update 8.4 will bring in 10 new tank destroyers from Great Britain such as the FV215b prototype that comes with a 183mm high-damage gun. Players can also check out three new light German tanks: the Pz.I, the Pz.I Ausf., and the Pz.II Ausf.G.

The four battle arenas in the game–Ensk, Live Oaks, Steppes and Fisherman’s Bay–have also been updated with new graphics. The tutorial mode for the game has also been revamped.

The update will be out for North America and Southeast Asia on March 7. Korea will receive the update on March 20. For more information on World of Tanks, check out GameSpot’s previous coverage.

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Source: Game Spot News

Evil Dead and Spider-Man director Sam Raimi may be enjoying critical success for his upcoming film Oz: The Great and Powerful, but many may recall that prior to Oz, Raimi was attached to direct a Warcraft movie until the project fell through. Today, while promoting his upcoming film, Raimi shared a little insight onto why the Warcraft film never happened.

“First, they asked me if I wanted to make it, and I said, ‘Yes, I love World of Warcraft, and I think it would make a great picture,’” said Raimi in an interview with Vulture. “So I read a screenplay they had that was written by the guys at [Warcraft developer] Blizzard, and it didn’t quite work for me. I told them I wanted to make my own original story with Robert, so we pitched it to Legendary and they accepted it, and then we pitched it to Blizzard, and they had reservations, but they accepted it.”

“Then Robert [Rodat] wrote the screenplay, and only once he was done did we realize that Blizzard had veto power, and we didn’t know that. And they had never quite approved the original story we pitched them. Those reservations were their way of saying, ‘We don’t approve this story, and we want to go a different way,’ so after we had spent nine months working on this thing, we basically had to start over. And Robert did start over, but it was taking too long for the people at Blizzard, and their patience ran out. Honestly, I think it was mismanagement on their behalf, not to explain to us that the first story was vetoed long ago. Why did they let us keep working on it? Were they afraid to tell me?”

This is an excerpt from the full story which was originally featured on gamrReview, read the full version here – Sam Raimi Says Blizzard Vetoed his Warcraft Movie – News

Related Games:
- World of Warcraft (PC) – review – sales – walkthrough – cheats

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Source: gamrReview

Leaderboards for Guild Wars 2 to be rolled out after February patch; will start with PvP but will eventually include all players and span multiple game modes.

MMO Guild Wars 2 will be getting global in-game leaderboards in an upcoming update, developer ArenaNet has said.

The move comes alongside the launch of February’s Flame & Frost content patch this week, which adds more competitive Player versus Player (PvP) options to the game. Leaderboards will not arrive with the February content patch, however, but will be rolled out in stages as part of their own update.

“From the PvP side of the game, one of the things we’re really trying to do right now is provide all the core support to build the base that you need for a really compelling PvP experience,” said Guild Wars 2 director Colin Johanson in an interview with GameSpot. “This month we’ve got our two team-rated games going in, so teams can play against each other in competitive play and they earn a rating for it.”

Johanson says in-game leaderboards is a “big thing that our PvP community has been asking for, and this will basically allow people to see who are the best PvP players in the world and have that updated on a constant basis.”

Getting PvP into the new leaderboards is the first goal for ArenaNet, says Johanson, though not all players will be able to get recorded on the leaderboards to begin with. “We’re going to be rolling out in stages, so we’ll roll them out with a small number of people first–maybe the top 100 players will be on the leaderboard when we first roll it out–and we’re going to make sure that it’s really stable and functional, and then we’re going to keep adding to that and expanding on them going forward,” adds Johanson.

Guild Wars 2 has no subscription rates, but offers services such as paid PvP tournaments as a way for the company to generate its revenue.

In the future, ArenaNet plans to have its in-game leaderboards cover multiple game modes, such as World versus World. “The current World versus World rankings happen on our forums, and we’d like to move that into the leaderboards,” says Johanson, adding that “we’ll be looking at PvE stuff for the leaderboards as well.”

ArenaNet isn’t prepared to date the inclusion of the leaderboards into the game, but says players should be able to expect it “soon.”

Guild Wars 2 has sold 3 million copies and was the winner of GameSpot’s PC Game of the Year 2012 award.

<div class="video_embed" …read more
Source: Game Spot News

Wargaming, the developer behind the free-to-play World of Tanks, has acquired Gas Powered Games. Gas Powered CEO Chris Taylor has been trying everything to keep the studio independent, but a $1.1 million Kickstarter came up short.

“Gas Powered Games’ heritage and development pedigree shows us just how valuable an addition Chris and his company will make to the Wargaming family,” said Victor Kislyi, CEO of Wargaming. “Gas Powered Games has a long track record of providing incredibly engaging AAA gaming experiences and we can’t wait to start working with them.”

“Wargaming growth in recent years has been tremendous, and we’re looking forward to joining one of the fastest growing gaming companies in the world,” added Chris Taylor, CEO of Gas Powered Games. “I’m sure our experience and expertise will help us contribute even more to Wargaming’s global success.”

Gas Powered Games was formed in 1998 and developed such hits as Dungeon Siege and Dungeon Siege II, selling more than 1.7 million units. They would later develop the RTS Supreme Commander.

Source: VG Charts

Video company partners with Red 5 Studios to bring real-time streaming to free-to-play PC MMO shooter.

Twitch today announced a partnership with Red 5 Studios that will bring real-time streaming support to free-to-play massively multiplayer online PC shooter Firefall. According to Twitch, Firefall will be the first game to feature integrated Twitch chat functionality.

Twitch vice president of marketing Matthew DiPietro said in a statement that it won’t be long before video streaming services like Twitch become commonplace. “Video broadcasting will soon be a standard, expected piece of the gaming experience with innovative companies like Red 5 making it possible by pioneering the way it“s built into games.“

Firefall is a team-based, science-fiction MMO shooter set in a future Earth setting. The game was created by World of Warcraft and Tribes developers and is currently in beta. No firm release date has yet been announced.

Red 5 Studios is the latest publisher to partner with Twitch, following Sony Online Entertainment (PlanetSide 2), Electronic Arts (Origin), and Activision (Call of Duty: Black Ops II).

Earlier this month, Twitch announced a $9/month premium subscription membership called Twitch Turbo. Subscribers get ad-free broadcasts, an exclusive Turbo badge, a custom emoticon set, expanded chat colors, and priority customer support.

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Source: Game Spot News

Activision Blizzard has released its quarterly report for the fourth quarter 2012, which ended December 31. The posted a record breaking amount of revenue. Revenue for the quarter reached $1.77 billion, up from $1.41 billion during the same quarter a year ago. Revenue for the full fiscal year ended up at $4.86 billion, up from $4.76 billion a year ago.

Digital sales set a new record for the company with revenue of $1.54 billion. This is up from the $1.4 billion that was originally forecasted. These figures also account for 32 percent of the total revenue.

“We are very pleased to report that Activision Blizzard delivered the best performance in its history,” said Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick. “With better-than expected net revenues, record operating margins and record earnings, and over $1.3 billion in operating cash flow, we continue to set the industry success bar.”

Over the course of many years Kotick believes that the company can continue to grow its current franchises, as well as introducing new AAA franchises. However he did say that while he expects profits in 2013, they will be below the record setting 2012.

“In the short-term, we expect to continue delivering strong profitability, but below our record setting 2012 performance, due to a challenged global economy, the ongoing console transition and a difficult year-over-year comparison because of Blizzard’s record-shattering Diablo III success in 2012,” said Kotick.

Activision was the number one publisher in both North America and Europe in 2012 and had the biggest franchise, Call of Duty. Call of Duty: Black Ops II was the biggest title in terms of dollars and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 was the ninth biggest in terms of dollars. Call of Duty: Black Ops II also set a record passing $1 billion in 15 days, which is two days faster than the movie Avatar.

Diablo III was the bestselling PC game at retail in both North America and Europe. The game has managed to sell 12 million units worldwide as of December 31, 2012. Also World of Warcraft has 9.6 million subscribers.

Source: VG Charts