Month: May 2018

The Dragon Ball FighterZ roster continues to grow, as two more DLC characters have arrived for the Dragon Ball fighting game. Fused Zamasu and Super Saiyan Blue Vegito are both now available on PS4, Xbox One, and PC, and they can be purchased either individually or as part of the Dragon Ball FighterZ season pass.

Both Fused Zamasu and Super Saiyan Blue Vegito are fused warriors who appear in Dragon Ball Super. Fused Zamasu is one of the series’ major antagonists and is the resulting fusion of Goku Black and the evil Supreme Kai Zamasu. In contrast to other characters on the roster, some of his special attacks give him the ability to fly freely through the air.

Vegito, meanwhile, is the fused form of Goku and Vegeta. His special, the Final Kamehameha, is a combination of Vegeta’s Final Flash and Goku’s signature Kamehamha. He’s also a very brash and confident fighter, which is reflected in his moveset; in his reveal trailer, he can be seen casually throwing kicks with his arms crossed. You can see both characters in action in the trailer below.

Like the first pair of DLC characters for Dragon Ball FighterZ, Broly and Bardock, Fused Zamasu and Vegito can be downloaded individually for $5 / £4 / $7.55 AU apiece. Those who’ve purchased the game’s season pass, meanwhile, will receive both fighters at no additional charge. As before, each character also comes with his own Lobby avatar and Z Stamp.

The Dragon Ball FighterZ season pass runs for $35 US / £22 / $40.95 AU. It gives players access to eight DLC characters upon their release. Thus far, four additional characters have been revealed, leaving another four unannounced fighters still on the way for the game, although publisher Bandai Namco hasn’t hinted when they’ll arrive.

We’re in the run up to E3 2018, and many companies have already outlined their plans for this year’s show. The expo formally begins on Tuesday, June 12, but a number of major publishers will host their own press conferences in the days leading up to the event. Microsoft’s briefing is scheduled to take place on Sunday, June 10, although this year’s showing will be much different than in past years.

Instead of having a presence inside the Los Angeles Convention Center, where E3 is traditionally held, Microsoft has announced it will move to the nearby Microsoft Theater in LA Live. According to the publisher, this move allows it to have its “biggest E3 showing ever,” as it will be able to host the bulk of its efforts in a single venue. It won’t be entirely absent from the convention center however, as there will still be a traditional booth for its streaming service, Mixer, on the show floor.

Moving to the Microsoft Theater also allows the publisher to host more fans at its Xbox FanFest events than it could have in the past. “Not only does the Microsoft Theater allow us to centralize our Xbox presence at E3, but its size enables us to include even more fans and partners in the Xbox E3 2018 Briefing than ever before,” said Microsoft’s corporate VP Mike Nichols.

“These changes–expanding our presence, multiple venues, taking over the Microsoft Theater–give us the opportunity to bring together a variety of Xbox experiences into one primary location and, most importantly, let fans in on what we’re up to in 2018 and beyond in a fresh new way.”

Microsoft’s press conference kicks off at 1 PM PT / 4 PM ET / 9 PM BST (6 AM AET on June 11). Xbox boss Phil Spencer has promised there will be “positive changes” for the company at this year’s E3, although just what those could be remains to be seen. Likewise, we won’t know what games the publisher plans to show off until its press conference rolls around, as Microsoft has remained tight-lipped about its E3 lineup. Despite this, a number of Xbox One games have been confirmed for the expo.

You’ll have a variety of options for watching Microsoft’s E3 2018 briefing. The broadcast will air online on the company’s Twitch, YouTube, and Mixer channels. GameSpot will also host a stream of the conference, so you can tune in right here to see all of Microsoft’s announcements. Additionally, Xbox One owners can watch the briefing on their console using the Mixer app.

June is upon us, which can only mean one thing: It’s time for E3. We’ll soon be inundated with countless game announcements, trailers, and demos, including what’s sure to be some nice surprises–assuming they don’t all get leaked first. But what does E3 itself stand for?

E3 is a ubiquitous term for the industry’s biggest gaming event, but it’s merely a shorthand for its full name: the Electronic Entertainment Expo. E3 has been around for more than two decades now, dating back to 1995. It’s evolved significantly over the years, and in the mid-2000s actually changed its name and format pretty dramatically. The E3 Media and Business Summit was held in 2007 and 2008 as a more stripped-down show that limited the number of attendees.

More recently, E3 has expanded to even open its doors partially to the public. It’s still primarily an industry- and media-focused event, but game publishers are increasingly interested in using the money and effort it pumps into its E3 showings to go directly to fans. Recent years have also seen the event unofficially extended; while E3 itself lasts only three days, it’s closer to a week-long affair thanks to the press conferences that come before it and EA Play, which takes place on the Saturday before E3.

You can check out the video above for a more in-depth look at the history of E3. If you’re more interested in what’s going on this year, we’ve rounded up all of the key information about E3 2018. That includes a press conference schedule, rumors, and games confirmed at the show. There’s still sure to be a lot we don’t know about, so stay tuned to GameSpot for complete coverage.

Like much of the DC movie universe, the future of Batman on the big screen remains uncertain. War for the Planet of the Apes director Matt Reeves is attached to a new Batman movie, currently known as The Batman, but with no confirmed release date or lead actor to potentially replace Ben Affleck, it isn’t clear when we might see it. However, some news has now emerged about the movie’s potential villain.

This comes via Variety writer Justin Kroll, who stated on Twitter that the Penguin was being lined up to appear in Reeves’ film. Kroll also revealed that Reeves is still working on the script and even if the Penguin doesn’t ultimately appear, the character could instead be used in the Birds of Prey film which is also in development. Check the tweets out below:

As Kroll notes, the DC universe is in a state of flux, so things could easily change. The studio only has three movies officially scheduled for release–Aquaman, which releases in November, and Shazam and Wonder Woman 2, both of which are due next year. Beyond that, there are multiple projects in development, including Birds of Prey, a Joker origins movie, and Suicide Squad 2.

Reeves was hired to work on The Batman in February last year. At that stage he was replacing Ben Affleck as writer and director, with Affleck choosing only to star in the movie. Since then there have been multiple rumors that Affleck will step down as Batman following the failure of Justice League at the box office. However, the role has not yet been officially recast.

Last year, Reeves hinted at the direction he was looking to take his vision of Batman in. “I want to do a very point-of-view-driven [film],” he said. “In all the films what I try to do, in almost a Hitchcockian sense, is use the camera and use the storytelling so that you become the character and you empathise with that point of view. And I think there is a chance to do an almost noir-driven detective version of Batman that is point of view driven in a very, very powerful way. And hopefully it is going to connect you to what’s going on inside of his head and inside of his heart.”

Marvel is entering the digital CCG market with its own take on the popular mobile genre. Marvel Battle Lines promises hundreds of collectible heroes and villains from across the Marvel universe, with an extensive single-player campaign and competitive battles. The free-to-play game is being developed by Nexon and will be coming this year for iPhone and Android devices.

The single-player campaign will be written by Marvel writer Alex Irvine, and separate single-player activities will revisit famous Marvel storylines. The game will also pay homage to its comic roots by letting you flip over cards to read detailed histories of the characters.

The announcement didn’t share much about the PvP options, but did give a detailed look at the character art created for the card game. It covers the gamut of heroes from classics like Spider-Man and Hulk to more recent favorites like Spider-Gwen and Jessica Jones.

This will be Marvel’s second attempt, following 2007’s Marvel Trading Card Game for PC, Nintendo DS, and PlayStation Portable. That was before the current trend of digital CCGs on mobile devices. The current market may be tough to crack, given the existing competition with games like Hearthstone and Elder Scrolls Online, among many others. Still, Marvel’s stable of beloved characters give it an edge, and it has already produced a steady stream of successful mobile titles, so it could be a real contender.

The Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection is another example of Digital Eclipse going above and beyond to properly port and pay tribute to a bounty of classic Capcom games. This anthology includes 12 Street Fighter arcade ports in all, and four of the best have been updated for online play. You can also find plenty of insightful history to unpack outside of combat. From soundtracks to sprite animation breakdowns, to high-res design documents for classic and cancelled games alike, there’s a wealth of high-quality reference material to round out the robust selection of games.

All told, the 30th Anniversary Collection includes the original Street Fighter, five versions of Street Fighter II, three iterations of Street Fighter III, and the Street Fighter Alpha, Alpha 2, and Alpha 3. It’s great to have all of these seemingly arcade-perfect ports in one place today, and with any luck, for many generations to come. Eagle-eyed aficionados will note the absence of Alpha 2 Gold and Alpha 3 Upper, both of which were available in 2006’s Street Fighter Alpha Anthology on PS2, but their omission is far from a deal-breaker.

Likewise, while it may be momentarily disappointing that your favorite console ports are missing (understandable given the lofty scope of emulating multiple consoles) what is here plays wonderfully. If you already love these games, no matter how you played them in the past, the 30th Anniversary Collection will deliver a great experience. In some cases, you may just be looking for a quick trip down memory lane, because let’s be honest, the original Street Fighter isn’t great by modern standards; it is nonetheless awesome to see it preserved so well and be so easily accessible.

The enduring qualities of the collection’s more notable games remain as strong as ever. Capcom’s prowess for making exciting and attractive 2D fighting games was almost unparalleled during the ’90s, and thus a game like Street Fighter III feels only marginally retro 19 years after the fact. In a similar fashion, Street Fighter Alpha 3’s roster variety and variable fighting mechanics make it a fan-favorite to this day for reasons all its own. Does every version of Street Fighter II feel worth playing? Maybe not in isolation, but the evolution of that game in particular meant a lot to the community that grew up around it, and its prominent share of the games list helps tell the complete story of an important chapter in video game history.

Street Fighter’s popularity rose out of tense face-to-face arcade bouts, and every game in this collection was released before the popularization of online battles. Over the years, however, Street Fighter II: Hyper Fighting, Super Street Fighter II Turbo, Street Fighter Alpha 3, and Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike would wind up on various connected platforms. Those same games makeup the selection of online-enabled games here, and they exist under a single roof (one lobby can support fight requests for all of the available games at once.) Digital Eclipse has implemented a customizable framework that allows you to dial-in settings tied to input latency, giving you a small but meaningful advantage in the battle against poor network connections.

Just as the 30th Anniversary Collection breathes new life into classic games, its supplemental material helps you appreciate them in all new ways. There’s an interactive timeline that chronicles 30 years of milestone and obscure events alike, often with breakout galleries accompanying the release dates of the biggest games. Each of the collection’s 48 relevant characters has a dedicated profile with an interactive sprite gallery that lets you manually scrub through their most iconic attacks from each game, frame by frame. Perhaps most valuable of all, it’s awesome to have complete soundtracks for each included game. There’s a notable lack of video content given what was included in the 25th Anniversary Collection, but Capcom has otherwise given Digital Eclipse a ton of great and never-before-seen content to work with.

That’s more or less the story of the 30th Anniversary Collection. It won’t satisfy every specific demand, but it’s still a big collection of awesome games and behind-the-scenes content that no Street Fighter fan should miss. Street Fighter is a series worth celebrating and Digital Eclipse has managed to do so in a manner that feels respectful to the series and to the people who keep the spirit of arcade battles alive.