Games

With “The Last of Us,” the survival horror title developed by Naughty Dog exclusively for the PS3, Neil Druckmann and Bruce Straley want players to forge real emotional connections with smuggler Joel and Ellie, the 14-year-old he is hired to protect, as they fend off infected humans while traversing a largely deserted East Coast setting. In recent pre-release testing of the third-person adventure, Druckmann and Straley said, they got the reaction they were hoping for when they first hit on the concept for the game a few years back: Players cried. “We’ve had people come out and say, ‘I’ve never felt this attached to a character before,’” Druckmann told Hero Complex on Thursday night at a pre-Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) event hosted by Sony. “We know it works in a small group. I guess let’s see if it works out in the masses.” […]

This post has been corrected, as indicated below. “Sonic Lost World,” the latest adventure to feature Sonic the Hedgehog, will be released exclusively to the Wii U and hand-held 3DS consoles, part of a multigame agreement destined to boost Sonic’s presence on Nintendo’s next-generation system, Sega and Nintendo have confirmed. Although a release date has not been set for “Sonic Lost World,” the title is said to be a new action platform game. More information about the game is expected prior to the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in Los Angeles during the week of June 11. Sonic will also topline another new title announced Friday, “Mario & Sonic at the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games,” coming soon to the Wii U. Once intended to give Sega and its Genesis platform an iconic character to rival Nintendo and its famed Super […]

Video gamers will soon have the opportunity to create their own superheroes for the DC Comics universe. Or turn Batman into a zombie. Or suggest Superman wear a pink cape and ride a unicorn. But don’t try to give Batman a gun. Some things will never change. This fall 5th Cell and Warner Bros. Interactive will release “Scribblenauts Unmasked: A DC Comics Adventure” for the Wii U, 3DS and PC. The latest in the Scribblenauts franchise looks to be an expansive, puzzle-based adventure that makes use of the heroes, villains and locations made famous by the worlds featured in the 75-plus years of DC Comics. And some of the not so famous, too. “For the first time in any game we have all the DC Comics characters,” said Caleb Arseneaux, a 5th Cell producer. “The entire roster — characters who appeared in […]

The new game “Injustice: Gods Among Us” begins with Superman killing the Joker after one of the madman’s plots results in the death of Lois Lane, who was pregnant with the Kryptonian’s child. And things grow more intense from there. Released last month, the game stages grand battles between an impressive number of familiar faces from the DC universe — a number that’s growing with the release of new downloadable characters. First was the interstellar bounty hunter Lobo. Next up, Commissioner Jim Gordon’s daughter Barbara, otherwise known as Batgirl, will join the fray. Batgirl will be available on Xbox LIVE Marketplace for 400 Microsoft Points and PlayStation®Network for $4.99. Wii U players will have to wait until summer. NetherRealm Studios and DC spent two years developing “Injustice: Gods Among Us,” which was accompanied by a comic book prequel written by […]

Nintendo this week again turned to its ever trusty Italian plumber for its latest puzzle game, “Mario and Donkey Kong: Minis on the Move.” A download-only title, “Minis on the Move” is a deceptively undemanding game that makes use of the company’s environment-shifting “minis” brand. For those who missed previous installments, the minis are diminutive, wind-up figurines that represent well-known Nintendo characters. They walk forward, they don’t stop and it’s up to the player to control and tinker with the paths in front of them. That about covers the basics, but not the details. What follows are five reasons to give Nintendo’s latest a shot. There’s more variety than expected. “Minis on the Move” consists of a primary puzzle game and a host of mini-games that players can unlock as they advance through the game. The main concept is extremely simple. Players […]

There’s a tiny orange box moving around the screen of the PlayStation Vita. Its name is Chris. It is an ordinary square — perhaps even less than ordinary. This square doesn’t jump very high, can’t float and it has largely committed to going through its digital life as a grump. That is, until Chris meets Laura. Laura is afraid of her powers. Laura is also a box — a long, rectangular pink-ish box. Five months into 2013 and gamers have already been introduced to a bounty of impressive characters and worlds. Not all have been a success, such as the recent digital interpretations of Kirk and Spock in “Star Trek” or the thick-skulled gunners of the most recent “Dead Space.” Others, such as Elizabeth in “Bioshock Infinite,” brought an emotional center to  the usually mechanical first-person shooter genre. Yet few […]

The release Friday of “Way of the Dogg” on Xbox Live Arcade is only surprising because something similar hasn’t happened sooner. It seems as if it were only a matter of time before Snoop Dogg became the animated star of his own branded product. Snoop, after all, has been something of a cartoon for a while now. The one-time gangsta rap star has had his own reality show, hosted a video-game award show, rewrote “Drop It Like It’s Hot” for a microwavable food item and will appear pretty much anywhere he’s asked, whether it’s Coachella, a porno, Wrestlemania or something that was called “Mac & Devin Go to High School.” He’s also now Rastafarian and has changed his name to Snoop Lion, and as players of “Way of the Dogg” are told, “Snoop will always be Snoop Lion.” What, exactly, is […]

The first voice you hear in “Star Trek: The Video Game” is Capt. James T. Kirk screaming “ambush!” Moments later, Spock — Kirk’s familiar second in command and traditionally a more logic-oriented presence — hollers “grenade!” It doesn’t have the poetic heft of “space, the final frontier,” which opened almost every episode of the original series and its follow-up, “The Next Generation.” But that sort of thing is not part of the mission for this game, which begins with quick-cut glimpses of guns blazing, giant lizards and explosions. The goal here is not all that different from the J.J. Abrams-helmed film “Star Trek,” which rebooted the franchise in 2009. Co-publishers Paramount Pictures and NAMCO Bandai hope to reenergize the franchise by turning to one of the most successful gaming genres of the past decade: the third-person duck-and-cover shooter. “Star Trek: […]

The industry-only Electronics Entertainment Expo will carry on this June without the presence of publisher 2K Games. The company announced on its site that it will not be bringing a booth to E3, the three-day media-focused showcase for video game products set to begin June 11 at the Los Angeles Convention Center. “At 2K, we’re excited for the new opportunities coming with the next generation of hardware, and are hard at work preparing our announced titles for release,” the company posted on its site one week ago. “While 2K will not have a booth on the show floor at this year’s E3 conference, we will have a lot of great news coming your way this spring.” For press attending E3 that means no massive presentation for upcoming third-person shooter “The Bureau: XCOM Declassified” or any major sneaks at downloadable content […]

Microsoft will unveil the successor to the Xbox 360 at a press event at its Redmond, Wash., campus on May 21, pulling back the curtain on its home console plans just weeks before the June Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles. Media invites went out this morning, and Microsoft exec Larry Hryb posted a blog to hype the event, which will be live-streamed. “On that day,” Xbox programming director Hryb wrote, “we’ll share our vision for Xbox, and give you a real taste of the future. Then, 19 days later at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in Los Angeles, we’ll continue the conversation and showcase our full lineup of blockbuster games.” Microsoft is the last of the major home console makers to disclose its next generation system. Nintendo’s Wii U was released in late 2012 and Sony threw a lavish […]