Sledgehammer's Glen Schofield "settled in on" concept during Modern Warfare 3 press tour.
Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare continues to be lambasted, rather unfairly, as a Titanfall rip-off - the game's exosuit is felt in some quarters to be a Titan in all but name. And, er, size.
But letting people drop in seamlessly from PvE will be worth it.
If I were a suspicious man, I'd say that there's something a little cheeky about Ubisoft Massive's choice of moniker for The Division's PvP multiplayer. This takes place in the "Dark Zone", an area of plague-ridden New York that's more than usually plague-ridden.
More coverage due in the spring, EA totes "fantastic relationship" with Disney.
EA and DICE's Star Wars Battlefront will launch in holiday (aka Christmas) 2015, the publisher has announced, with the next round of proper announcements due in the spring. What's that Yoda quote again? "Always in motion is the future"? Sorry, I couldn't think of anything more apt.
"That's a theme that's been well-mined in videogames.".
I rather like Alex Hutchinson, the outspoken creative director of Far Cry 4, but in one regard, he and I are and shall forever remain mortal foes. Hutchinson, you see, observed to OXM in 2012 that an Assassin's Creed set in feudal Japan would be "boring" - a remark that roused me to a fearful, office-emptying splutter when I wrote it up for the website.
Plus plenty of exclusive missions, activities and other goodies.
What's the best way to thank somebody for their continued patronage? With flowers and chocolates? Or with a piece of prototype military hardware that's capable (in real life, at least) of propelling an exploding slug clean through a house? If you picked option B, you may wish to trade out that Xbox 360 copy of GTA 5 for the Xbox One version.
Well, give or take a few cents.
If you've been agonising over whether to pick up any or all of Titanfall's three DLC packs - IMC Rising, Expedition and Frontier's Edge - this may swing the vote.
Industry analysts say Advanced Warfare proves the series has "peaked".
There's been a strange trend in recent years - in the run-up to a Call of Duty launch, people spring from the ether to say that the series is tired and terrible, before each new game goes on to make enough money to pay off cumulative world debt. It's been a series with perennial popularity - at least until now, if analysts Cowen and Company have anything to say about it.
Feel slightly disappointed in yourself for using the word "legendary".
Microsoft are launching a competition to promote the release of Halo: The Master Chief Collection. All you have to do is upload your best Halo memory and you could win some fancy gaming prizes or even an invite to the exclusive launch party. Ooooh, get you!
I remember when all of this used to be beige with sharp corners.
Everybody has a Halo map that's their Halo map, the one they identify with, body and soul. For new OXM editor Matt Castle, it's surely either Daybreak, Perdition or Outcast, because they're the maps that come with Halo 4's "Castle" DLC. Yes, Castle is a simple man, with straightforward expectations.
"CHU ARE CAUGHT IN A SCHTUTTER.".
Whether Remedy's Quantum Lake turns out to be a slick third-person shooter with some optional live-action cutscenes, or The Next Big Thing In Cross-Media Entertainment, I'm sure we can all agree that creative director Sam Lake should be the voice of everything. Seriously, I want a Titan voiced by Sam Lake. His consonants sound like somebody hacking up a glacier.
"We should not be in a business that sells itself on the flavour of like, gadgetry and technology.".
1080p or not 1080p isn't an "interesting question", according to Far Cry 4 creative director Alex Hutchinson, who spoke to OXM at length about the commercial efficacy of rad graphics at a preview event earlier this month.
All versions of the console are $50 off from 2nd November.
Like a wood-cutter tearfully taking his axe to a grandmotherly werewolf, Microsoft will chop Xbox One's price to $349 ($50 off) from 2nd November 2014 till 3rd January 2015 at participating retailers, in celebration of the holiday season. Announced for the US alone at present, the offer applies to all editions of the console - including those ultra-tempting Assassin's Creed: Unity, Sunset Overdrive and Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare bundles.
Sixth gen GTA scrubs up for its 10 year anniversary.
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas has been re-released on Xbox 360 with new Achievements and snazzy 720p visuals. We were going to write about this last week, but that was before I fell victim to a rare, inherited condition known as "complete indifference". Still, there are screenshots to pick over now, and if there's one thing I can't resist, it's sharper edges on character models. Check them out below.
Black Tusk Studios snaps up old Epic talent as Phil Spencer comments on "dark" direction.
Remember that bit in Gears of War 2 when you see the Locust Riftworm for the very first time? That's kind of how I picture the arrival of first teaser and/or video footage for Gears of War on Xbox One - buildings sputtering to shards, well-muscled men fleeing in terror, that sort of thing.
No, we don't know why Nicolas Cage is in it.
No, you can't play P.T, Hideo Kojima and Guillermo del Toro's literally haunting demo/art installation/physiological weapon on Xbox One. You can, however, play R.T, a parody of the self-same thing made inside deceptively cutesy game-builder, Project Spark. They even made a parody of the teaser for the teaser. With Nicolas Cage for some reason.
"We declare our support for the women affected.".
Over 800 Swedish developers, including representatives of DICE, Ubisoft Massive, Mojang AB, Avalanche, EA and Yager, have signed a new open letter calling for greater "diversity and equality" in the games industry.
Codemasters in belated realisation that cars need hood-mounted mallets shocker.
Micro Machines! Why, I haven't heard those words spoken aloud since... earlier this morning, when I plaintively asked Joe why nobody had released a new Micro Machines game yet. Codemasters was listening in, evidently: the F1 and DiRT developer has just announced spiritual sequel Toybox Turbos - a sweet spoonful of retro idiocy in which four players pilot dinky cars around kitchen sinks, piles of books and snooker tables.
Our pick of user-made artworks for your console UI.
As you may have read, the next Xbox One update will introduce support for custom dashboard backgrounds. Finally, an opportunity to dispel all that unholy, next gen blackness - it's like kindling a torch in the wilderness, or defacing a Borg cube.
It's mind-blowing. Their words.
Pity the poor publishers. They want to keep their big projects under wraps, but need to hire new blood to get them going. So they sneak up little morsels onto LinkedIn job listings - at which point we strike, like news-hungry wolves. Let us show you our latest prey. 2K Games has quietly spent the last month putting up adverts for new dev positions at the studio - many of which point directly to at least one new project being organised in-house on behalf of an "unannounced development studio" in the San Francisco Bay Area.
For the love of all things holy, don't try any of this at home.
Insomniac's commitment to suicidally eccentric weaponry has reached a crucial threshold: the studio and Microsoft have now contracted a bunch of DIY lunatics - sorry, I meant "hardware entrepreneurs" - to create versions of those guns in reality. Reality being that place where you and all your loved ones live. Last one to the nuclear fallout bunker's a rotten egg, people.
