So you just beat the game, hurray! But now you're slowly starting to realize there were a TON of unanswered questions. Here are some classic examples...
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[UPDATE] A 2K Games representative told GameSpot today that the XCOM: Enemy Unknown Complete Edition will include the following:
The main game
XCOM: Enemy Within
Elite Soldier Pack
Slingshot DLC
All Second Wave options
The Complete Edition will only be offered on PC because everything featured in the bundle is already included with the XCOM: Enemy Unknown Commander Edition for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.
The original story is below.
2K Games has announced a new version of XCOM: Enemy Unknown called The Complete Edition. The bundle launches on March 4 for PC, but no mention was made of what content the game will include or if it will come to consoles like the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.
We've reached out to 2K Games for comment.
The XCOM: Enemy Unknown Complete Edition will presumably feature previously released downloadable content like the Enemy Within expansion and the Slingshot and Elite Soldier packs, though this is not confirmed.
2K Games has also announced another new bundle: the Civilization V Complete Edition. Available today for PC, the bundle packs in the main game, expansion packs Gods & Kings and Brave New World, and all add-on content release for the strategy game to date.
There's a beast lurking inside all of us, but the creature sheriff Bigby harbors is difficult to keep silent. In The Wolf Among Us: Episode 2 - Smoke and Mirrors, you determine just how sharp Bigby's claws can dig, whether you're dealing with a mouthy murder suspect, a cowering child, or a jealous husband who sniffs wrongdoing in the smoky air.
In Fabletown, Bigby's former identity as the Big Bad Wolf is an open secret, but it's hardly the only one. The fables that live there--Ichabod Crane, Mr. Toad, and Little Jack Horner, to name a few--need to keep their identities a secret from the mundane masses, and thus reach out to each other when they hit hard times. Episode 1's harrowing finale plunged this episodic adventure game's story into the kind of darkness that encourages even the strongest of us to seek comfort--but it's also in the darkness that it's easiest for evil to hide. Smoke and Mirrors is an apt title for a story in which you can't always believe what you see, and don't always find refuge where you look.
Bigby is no one's buddy.
If you played Episode 1, you likely have a good idea of who Bigby is. At least, I know who my Bigby is: a steel-fisted, impatient bastard who shows little restraint when cornered, but is fiercely protective of Fabletown's most vulnerable residents. As the episode led me through its story beats, I often had the chance to express both sympathy and savagery, and I admit I took some inner delight when pummeling a sickening suspect until he cried for mercy, all while an approving Bluebeard looked on with perverse pleasure. When I got to my knees to speak to a diminutive witness later on, my heart filled with compassion, and I pledged to myself to find the jackass responsible for the tumult.
It was when jealousy intruded on my ongoing investigation that I realized how attached to Bigby I'd become. I was angry at the assumptions my accuser was making, annoyed that my time was being wasted, and concerned for the innocent witness watching a volatile confrontation unfold. I let out my inner wolf, and found the same catharsis in it that Bigby did. Perhaps my own demons linger more closely to the surface than I imagined.
Smoke and Mirrors is an apt title for a story in which you can't always believe what you see, and don't always find refuge where you look.
I'm sorry that I can't be more specific; explaining the details would dull the story's bite. Besides, as you navigate your way through Smoke and Mirrors' multiple crime scenes, events may play out differently. I appreciated how the game acknowledged my previous choices in its details, however. A smashed wall and a missing limb were sober visual reminders of past (mis)deeds that made me more mindful of the barbarian I could be, and some fables' looks of apprehension demonstrated lingering fears over a previous outburst. The characters in The Wolf Among Us aren't highly detailed, but their faces express grief and anger with just the right amount of melodrama to fit the game's noir tone. The atmosphere is possibly the series' greatest triumph. Had the game not taken itself so seriously, its depictions of potty-mouthed amphibians and sadistic warlords might have been more groan-worthy than glorious. Yet the heaving soundtrack, the spot-on voice acting, and the violet skies keep the fantasy grounded. These characters are no longer living a fairy tale.
Time to open a can of whoop-ass.
Nonetheless, Smoke and Mirrors occasionally feels like it's spinning its wheels. There are few of the quick-time button events that gave the first episode such tension, and the stakes aren't as high. As a result, the game simmers but never quite boils over, and I was left wishing for more chances to sic myself on a foe as threatening as the Woodsman. As it is, dealing with Smoke and Mirrors' relatively harmless lowlifes doesn't have the same appeal as chasing the smoother criminals, even when they deserve a smack in the mouth now and again. Much of the time, you're left investigating crime scenes and interrogating fables, which can lead to some minor but noticeable idiosyncrasies. I was struck several times by how Bigby's tone of voice changed from one line to the next, betraying how several branches of questioning might still lead to the same line of recorded dialogue. I was also so distracted by a plot point mentioned out of the blue that I had to go back and watch that portion again to make sure I wasn't out of my mind, and indeed, a character delivered a line that appeared to match a different dialogue branch than the one I'd chosen.
Ultimately, Smoke and Mirrors feels like a necessary bridge spanning the impactful first episode and the events portrayed in the episode three preview that concludes this episode. It smolders more than it burns, though in some sense, that's an appropriate trajectory for Bigby's ongoing investigation. There's a moment when Bigby lights a cigar and contemplates his next step. That's exactly where The Wolf Among Us stands now: percolating and pondering before the next punch to the gut.
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Borderlands 2 is 2K Games' best-selling game of all time, the publisher's parent company Take-Two Interactive has revealed.
The loot-filled open-world shooter, developed by Gearbox Software, has shipped more than 8.5 million copies since its launch in late 2012. The latest sales number comes as part of Take-Two's latest financial report.
Borderlands 2 is expected to reach PlayStation Vita later this year, although this version of the game has not been since since it was announced in summer 2012. So far Borderlands 2 has been released on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC, and was re-released in 2013 as a Game of the Year bundle, with a sizeable chunk of the game's downloadable content already added.
For a typical hero like Superman, saving dozens of people from a burning building may be all in a day's work. But Octodad is a different kind of hero, one whose struggles remind us that the trials and tribulations of everyday life can be tough for us all. You see, Octodad has carved out an ordinary life for himself as a husband and father, but secretly, he's an octopus, which makes living this ordinary life especially difficult. Ordinary tasks like making coffee and mowing the lawn are acts that require determination and heroism when you've got flailing octopus tentacles instead of human hands. Initially, the juxtaposition of common domestic situations with the gleefully absurd concept makes Octodad: Dadliest Catch a delightful comic romp. However, as the game progresses, it gets away from its spirit of leisurely whimsy, with stealth sequences and boss battles that don't play to the strengths of Octodad's goofy controls.
Simply walking around takes more focus in Octodad than it does in your typical game, because you must hold the left and right bumpers to raise your left or right "legs" and then maneuver those legs around with thumbsticks. It's almost impossible to walk around as Octodad without knocking over objects left and right, and that's a big part of the fun. Here you are, an octopus in a tuxedo on your wedding day, walking down the aisle, making a complete mess of things, and yet nobody suspects a thing. Like walking around, interacting with objects is also a lot more complicated for Octodad than it is for your typical video game hero. The fact that you use one thumbstick to move your "arm" horizontally and another to move it vertically fills tasks like grilling burgers and shopping for groceries with the potential for hilarious physical comedy.
The early stages aren't challenging in the least, and this works in the game's favor. You can just relax and laugh at yourself as your attempts to do ordinary things are rendered anything but ordinary by the fact that you are an octopus. But before long, Dadliest Catch loses its way. Despite Octodad's burbled objections, the family takes a trip to the local aquarium. Octodad is terrified of the aquarium because the marine biologists there, with their exhaustive knowledge of sea creatures and their remarkable powers of deductive reasoning, can see through his carefully constructed disguise and determine that he is, in fact, no ordinary father, but a cephalo-pop. You must sneak around these marine biologists, and once the game starts actually demanding some degree of physical prowess from you, the looseness and complexity that previously made the controls fun to grapple with suddenly make them frustrating.
Yeah, this could be a little tricky.
It's hard to see the humor in a situation when you find yourself failing it repeatedly and applying trial and error to find a path that might successfully take you through a treacherous environment. Additionally, the activities you have to complete at the aquarium lack the domestic quality that makes the first few stages so amusing. The game is at its funniest when it puts the absurd Octodad in ordinary situations. It's a lot less funny when the situations he's placed in are as absurd as he is.
There also just aren't enough situations in Octodad in general. You can easily complete the game in about two hours, and it ends up feeling like an incomplete experience that doesn't come close to fulfilling its potential. Although the flimsy narrative couldn't be more cliche in its communication of a message about loving ourselves and each other for who we really are, Octodad is an endearing hero whose struggle to live an ordinary life under extraordinary circumstances is bizarrely inspiring. Unfortunately, Dadliest Catch is just an inconsistent, intermittently hilarious trifle, and not the game this terrific character deserves.
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The PC version of Dark Souls 2 has appeared on Amazon with a May 31, 2014 release date.
The PC version on sale for $60 is an online game code that requires a Steam client to download and activate.
The Amazon page correctly lists a March 11 release date for the Xbox 360 version of Dark Souls 2, but no release date for the PlayStation 3 version, which is set to release on the same day.
It's entirely possible that the May 31 release date is inaccurate. Big publishers don't usually release high profile games on a weekends (May 31 falls on a Saturday), except for Nintendo, which has a habit of publishing games on Sundays. That the release date falls on the last day of the month is also suspicious. It's a date retailers sometimes choose when they have an idea around what time a game will be released, but not an exact date.
Previously, developer From Software said that the PC version will release shortly after the game launches on consoles.
Last year, From Software also admitted that the PC version of Dark Souls was "half-assed," and promised the studio won't make the same mistakes twice with the PC version of the upcoming sequel.
If you're anything like me, you make a point of checking multiple retailers anytime you're ready to preorder a game, looking for the best deal and/or preorder bonus. There's one retailer that I typically default to if prices and such are the same across the board, but preorder bonuses can vary pretty wildly, and on occasion, I've been convinced to create a profile with and order from a retailer other than my go-to in order to get better in-game or physical items as a bonus. Searching all of those retailers' sites can be pretty time-consuming, though, so I figured I'd save you the trouble where my most recently preordered game is concerned: Titanfall.
I'm not here to share which of these preorder deals I ended up opting for, but I can tell you that I always want my game on day one when I preorder, and I don't like to pay for shipping.
What are your most important considerations when preordering games? Are there any retailers I missed that you'd like to see included in the future? Let us know in the comments below.
