From the Source: Nintendo... eShop action!


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March 17, 2016 13:00 UTC

Nintendo News: Nintendo Download Highlights New Digital Content for Nintendo Systems

REDMOND, Wash.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- This week’s Nintendo Download includes the following featured content:
Perform vivid Pokémon moves using an intuitive fighting system and unleash devastating attacks upon  ...
Perform vivid Pokémon moves using an intuitive fighting system and unleash devastating attacks upon your opponent to become the Pokkén Tournament champion! Pokkén Tournament will be available on March 18. (Photo: Business Wire)
  • Nintendo eShop on Wii U
    • Pokkén Tournament – Battle Pokémon like never before in new action-packed arena fights. Perform vivid Pokémon moves using an intuitive fighting system and unleash devastating attacks upon your opponent to become the Pokkén Tournamentchampion! Pokkén Tournament will be available on March 18.
  • Nintendo eShop on Nintendo 3DS
    • Mario & Sonic at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games – Mario, Sonic and their friends head to the ultimate training grounds for the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, the streets of Rio de Janeiro! Train with Mario or Sonic in their own stories, then test your skills in 14 events. Soar high in BMX, blaze over 110m Hurdles, perfect your swing in Golf and field a team in Brazil’s favorite sport: Football (soccer)! Mario & Sonic at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games will be available on March 18.
  • Nintendo eShop on Wii U and Nintendo 3DS
    • Mutant Mudds Super Challenge – Renegade Kid’s beloved dimension-defying platformer is back with a new game – Mutant Mudds Super Challenge – featuring a host of exciting, fresh platforming challenges and boss fights. The game supports cross-buy for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U, and offers a 15 percent Loyalty Discount for the first 30 days if you purchased the original Mutant Mudds game or downloaded the Nindies@Home Preview demo of Mutant Mudds Super Challenge.
  • Virtual Console on Wii U
    • DIG DUG II – Dig Dug has decided to take a vacation on a remote island, but the Pooka and Fygar won’t give him the chance to rest! In each round, clear out enemies by inflating them until they burst or digging up traps for them to fall into. But be careful that you don’t get too close to their attacks or fall into your own traps.
    • City Connection – City Connection is an NES action game in which you control a getaway car after stealing cans of paint. Drive on highways, avoid obstacles and ram into police cars to make a clean escape.
Nintendo eShop sales:
  • Nintendo eShop on Wii U and Nintendo 3DS
    • OlliOlli (Wii U and Nintendo 3DS), Stealth Inc 2: A Game of Clones (Wii U) and more games from Curve Digital are on sale until8:59 a.m. PT on March 31.
    • 3D Game Collection (Nintendo 3DS), Island Flight Simulator (Wii U) and more games from Joindots are on sale until 8:59 a.m. PT on March 31.
  • Nintendo eShop on Wii U
    • Never Alone (Kisima Ingitchuna) is 65 percent off (reduced from $14.99 to $4.99) until 8:59 a.m. PT on March 24.
    • Hold Your Fire: A Game About Responsibility is more than 50 percent off (reduced from $1.99 to $.99) until 8:59 a.m. PT onApril 7.
    • Blocky Bot and Paper Monsters Recut from Mobot Studios are on sale until 8:59 a.m. PT on April 7.
  • Nintendo eShop on Nintendo 3DS
    • Parking Star 3DQuell Reflect and more games from Circle Entertainment are on sale until 8:59 a.m. PT on March 31.
    • Real Heroes: Firefighter 3D is 50 percent off (reduced from $9.99 to $4.99) until 8:59 a.m. PT on March 24.
    • Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor 2: Record Breaker is 25 percent off (reduced from $39.99 to $29.99) until 8:59 a.m. PT onMarch 28.
    • SmileBASIC is 50 percent off (reduced from $9.99 to $4.99) until 8:59 a.m. PT on March 21.
    • Rytmik Ultimate is more than 40 percent off (reduced from $17.99 to $9.99) until 8:59 a.m. PT on March 31.
    • Runny EggNinja Battle Heroes and more games from Tom Create are on sale until 8:59 a.m. PT on March 31.
    • Johnny’s Payday Panic is 50 percent off (reduced from $3.99 to $1.99) until 8:59 a.m. PT on March 31.
New DLC:
  • Fire Emblem Fates – New DLC Map – Royal Royale, a new map in the Fire Emblem Fates games, is now available to download in the game for only $2.49.
  • Fire Emblem Fates – Map Pack 1 – As a reminder, anyone who owns either Fire Emblem Fates: Birthright or Fire Emblem Fates: Conquestcan purchase Map Pack 1 for $17.99 to get access to 11 DLC maps plus bonus content as it is released weekly through April 21. Map Pack 1 content is priced at more than $24 when purchased individually.
Theme Shop on Nintendo 3DS:
Also new this week:
  • Bird Mania Party (Nintendo eShop on Wii U)
  • U Host (Nintendo eShop on Wii U)

From the Source: TellTale - The Walking Dead: Michonne... action!

Ready for another episode of Michonne action? Gear up!

Conflict Heats Up in 'The Walking Dead: Michonne'
Episode 2 - 'Give No Shelter' on March 29th

Fellow Survivors,

Today we can share the release date for 'Give No Shelter,' the second of three episodes in The Walking Dead: Michonne - A Telltale Miniseries.

Episode 2: 'Give No Shelter' will be available starting Tuesday, March 29th on PC/Mac via the Telltale Online Store, Steam, and other digital distribution services, the PlayStation®Network for PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 3, the Xbox Games Store for Xbox One® and Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft, for compatible iOS devices via the App Store, and for Android-based devices via Google Play and the Amazon Appstore. The miniseries will conclude with the third episode, 'What We Deserve,' in April.
 


The Walking Dead: Michonne - A Telltale Miniseries confronts players with tough choices. Today we can also share this new video above, which highlights some of the difficult decisions players were faced with in the premiere episode. 

The miniseries stars the iconic, blade-wielding character from Robert Kirkman's best-selling comic books, portrayed in-game by award-winning actress Samira Wiley (Orange is the New Black). Haunted by her past and coping with unimaginable loss and regret, the story explores Michonne across a three episode miniseries event. Players will dive into the mind of Michonne to discover what took her away from Rick, Carl, and the rest of her trusted group... and what brought her back.

In Episode 2, 'Give No Shelter,' a daring escape from the floating colony of Monroe sees Michonne, Pete, and Sam running for their lives. An all too brief reprieve is soon shattered; the leaders of Monroe don't forgive and don't forget. With memories of her daughters bleeding ever further into Michonne's blurred reality, her world is becoming increasingly fractured... just at the point when she'll need all of her skills to survive.

From the Source: Square-Enix - Heavensward FFXIV... New Developer Diary Entry!

Another diary entry for the Final Fantasy XIV fans!

Square Enix
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VISUAL DESIGN TEAM TAKES FINAL FANTASY XIV TO NEW HEIGHTS IN NEW DEVELOPER DIARY
LOS ANGELES (Mar. 15, 2016) – In the final entry of the FINAL FANTASY® XIV developer diary series, the visual design team details their approach in the creation and implementation of new landscapes and environments, as well as the introduction of flying mounts for the acclaimed expansion pack.

Key members of the visual design team include lead designer Takeo Suzuki, lead background artist Junichi Murata, character artist Yuji Mitsuishi, and lead animator Shinya Ichida. In this video, they explain their goals in creating an amazing player experience, the creative process from conception to implementation, and the challenges they faced in order to expand the world of FINAL FANTASY XIV.


FINAL FANTASY XIV Dev Diary Chapter Three: Visual Design can be viewed here:


From the Source: Square-Enix... Sky Fortress action!

This DLC expansion action will... be added to our upcoming review of Just Cause 3. The game is awesome, but this expansion really adds a few scoops of ice cream next to that slice of cake.

Square Enix
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JUST CAUSE 3: SKY FORTRESS CONTENT NOW ON GENERAL SALE
INCLUDES NEW WINGSUIT, NEW MISSIONS, CHALLENGES & MORE
JUST CAUSE 3: SKY FORTRESS, the first content pack from the Air, Land and Sea Expansion Pass which was previously only available to pass holders - is now on general sale for all players.

SKY FORTRESS contains a brand new set of missions that introduce a new threat – the eDEN Corporation and their huge and terrifying Sky Fortress, with its army of deadly robotic drones. To tackle his deadly new adversary, Rico Rodriguez will use a new upgradeable, rocket-powered, weaponised ‘Bavarium Wingsuit’ fitted with shoulder mounted machine guns and auto targeting missiles - alongside his new ‘Eviction’ personal defence drone and ‘Bavarium Splitter’ assault rifle.

“The new content will fundamentally alter how our players approach the game - we’re really looking forward to seeing how fans adapt to the new Wingsuit,” said Tobias Andersson, Senior Producer at Avalanche Studios. “The new story missions, challenges and gadgets that can be taken into the main game really mix things up, and we can’t wait for players to revisit Medici and start getting even more creative”.

The SKY FORTRESS pack is priced at $11.99 / €11.99 / £9.49 whilst the AIR, LAND & SEA Expansion Pass is available for $24.99 / €24.99 / £19.99. All three content packs will be available before the end of summer 2016 and released one week early to Expansion Pass holders.





From the Source: Square-Enix action!




Square Enix
[PRESS RELEASE]
Critically Acclaimed Rise of the Tomb Raider Leads DirectX 12 Integration


REDWOOD CITY, CA (March 11, 2016) - Square Enix®, Crystal Dynamics® and Nixxes Software announced that starting today, Rise of the Tomb Raider® PC will support DirectX 12 on Steam® and the feature will be coming soon to The Windows 10 Store.

By adding DirectX 12 support to Rise of the Tomb Raider, processors will be able to spread CPU rendering work over all CPU cores, without introducing additional overhead. This will enable users with high-end graphics cards but low-end CPU to run the game at higher frame-rates, graphical settings and other technical enhancements like never before.

The update is already integrated with NVIDIA’s GEFORCE Game Ready Driver: http://www.nvidia.com/download/driverResults.aspx/99512/en-us

Please visit the official Rise of the Tomb Raider blog for a detailed post from Nixxes Studio Head Jurjen Katsman that dives deep into this new technology.


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NEW SQUARE ENIX STUDIO TO REVIVE
CLASSIC JRPG HALLMARKS
‘I AM SETSUNA’ First Title for Tokyo RPG Factory

SAN FRANCISCO (Mar. 14, 2016) – At this year’s Game Developers Conference, the newest studio within the Square Enix Holdings Co., Ltd. (“Square Enix®”) group of companies, Tokyo RPG Factory, was on hand to reveal its debut title — I AM SETSUNA™.  The title is slated for digital release for the west this summer on the PlayStation®4 computer entertainment system and Steam®.



Led by director Atsushi Hashimoto, Tokyo RPG Factory aims to capture the narrative depth, impactful storytelling and masterful character development inspired by the golden era of Japanese role-playing games and bring them to current hardware and technology. With a battle system inspired by the classic hit CHRONO TRIGGER®I AM SETSUNA brings back authentic RPG gameplay, beautiful art design and a sorrowful story to the new generation.

From the Source: Square-Enix... GDC 2016 Action!

Enjoy the GDC 2016 action... and if you get to go, take advantage and have a great time!

              Square Enix
[PRESS RELEASE]
Square Enix Announces Panels and Talks for GDC 2016 

Sessions with Top Developers on HITMAN, Tomb Raider and More

LOS ANGELES, CA (March 9, 2016) - Square Enix® today announced its panel lineup for GDC (Games Developers Conference) 2016, taking place in San Francisco, March 14-18, 2016. This year, featured talks from the company’s world class list of developers will provide in-depth discussions on game development from critically acclaimed titles, such as HitmanLife is Strange™, Just Cause® 3, Rise of the Tomb Raider® and more.

Continuing the company’s award-winning trends, multiple Square Enix titles represented in GDC talks have also been nominated for 2016 Game Developers Choice Awards, including Lara Croft® GO for Best Handheld/Mobile Game and Just Cause 3 for Best Technology.

The full list of Square Enix GDC 2016 panels and talks, in chronological order, includes:

Advanced Graphics Techniques Tutorial Day: Rendering Hitman with DirectX 12
Jonas Meyer – Lead Render Programmer, IO Interactive
Monday, March 14th11:20-11:50 a.m.
http://schedule.gdconf.com/session/advanced-graphics-techniques-tutorial-day-rendering-hitman-with-directx-12

This talk will give a brief overview of how the Hitman Renderer works, followed by a deep dive into how we manage everything with DirectX 12, including Pipeline State Objects, Root Signatures, Resources, Command Queues and Multithreading.


A "Life is Strange" Case Study: Using Interactive Storytelling and Game Design to Tackle Real-Michel Koch - Co-Game Director / Art Director, DONTNOD Entertainment
Raoul Barbet - Co-Game Director, DONTNOD Entertainment
Monday, March 14th5:30-6:00 p.m.
http://schedule.gdconf.com/session/life-is-strange-case-study-using-interactive-storytelling-and-game-design-to-tackle-real-world-problems


Yeah... I think its a good idea to RUUUNNNN! -SdgtEnt
Join the co-directors of the episodic game "Life Is Strange" as they reveal how they approached the inclusion of emotional, often sensitive, and sometimes taboo real-world issues into the core narrative of the game. Examples from the game will illustrate how the interactive nature of video games can be used to tackle difficult subject matters, driving players to reflect upon intense questions and emotional challenges; and how the coordinated development of story, characters and design can be used to achieve these goals.

Raid on Rise: Narrative Creation on "Rise of The Tomb Raider"
Rhianna Pratchett - Writer, Independent
John Stafford - Lead Narrative Designer, Crystal Dynamics
Cameron Suey - Narrative Designer, Crystal Dynamics
Tore Blystad - Performance Director, Crystal Dynamics
Jeff Adams - Senior Story Artist, Crystal Dynamics
Noah Hughes - Creative Director, Crystal Dynamics
Tuesday, March 15th10 – 11 a.m.
Room 3016, West Hall
http://schedule.gdconf.com/session/raid-on-rise-narrative-creation-on-rise-of-the-tomb-raider

The narrative team behind Rise of the Tomb Raider share how they worked together to build the next successful stage of Lara Croft's adventures, and demonstrate how a strong story and characterization are fundamental for AAA success.

Custom Tools that Power Eidos-Montreal's Narrative-Driven Experiences (presented by Autodesk)
Jean-Normand Bucci - Director of Labs, R&D department, Eidos-Montréal
Hubert Corriveau - Environment Director, Eidos-Montréal
Wednesday, March 16th, 12:30 – 1:30 p.m.
Room2014, West Hall
http://schedule.gdconf.com/session/custom-tools-that-power-eidos-montreals-narrative-driven-experiences-presented-by-autodesk

In this session, the team from Eidos-Montréal (Jean Normand Bucci, Director of Labs, R&D Department and Hubert Corriveau, Environment Director) will share their knowledge and expertise on the way they use and customize 3ds Max to create more immersive environments for the narrative driven titles from the studio: taking the existing tools and customizing them to facilitate and optimize the production flow.

Real-time Procedural Percussion Scoring in Tomb Raider's Stealth Combat
Philip Lamperski - Audio Designer, Crystal Dynamics | Bobby Tahouri - Composer, Independent
Wednesday, March 16th12 – 12:30 p.m.
Room 3002, West Hall
http://schedule.gdconf.com/session/real-time-procedural-percussion-scoring-in-tomb-raiders-stealth-combat



In Rise of the Tomb Raider, Crystal Dynamics ® used, for the first time, procedurally generated music: the percussion music during combat scenes is composed and played by a software system in real time. It never loops, adapts dynamically to game action, and is different with every gameplay. Furthermore, the music is based on the game composer's original music: his original MIDI scores and sample data are analyzed in order to compose new music in his style during the game. In this talk, one of the game's audio designers discusses in detail the benefits of procedurally generated music, as well as the issues and limitations faced when working with it. Videos from the game will be used as illustration.

More Explosions, More Chaos, and Definitely More Blowing Stuff Up: Optimizations and New DirectX Features in Just Cause 3 (presented by Intel)
Emil Persson, Head of Research, Avalanche Studios
Antoine Cohade, Graphics Application Engineer, Intel
Wednesday, March 16th3:30-4:30 p.m.
http://schedule.gdconf.com/session/more-explosions-more-chaos-and-definitely-more-blowing-stuff-up-optimizations-and-new-directx-features-in-just-cause-3-presented-by-intel



Gasoline undies... are NOT recommended! -SdgtEnt
Just Cause 3 is Avalanche Studios' latest addition to the mind-blowing and stuff-blowing open world action-adventure series: Just Cause. Published by Square Enix, the game released on December 1, 2015 for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. During the development of the game, Intel and Avalanche Studios have been working closely together to optimize the game on Iris graphics, but also to make use of DX12 level features to further improve the user experience.

This session will cover the changes Avalanche Studios made to their engine to make the game run faster, better and stronger on PC, as well as how Intel's tools helped us accomplish this goal. PC exclusive features, such as Ordered Independent Transparency and G-buffer blending using Raster Ordered Views, and light assignment for clustered shading using Conservative Rasterization, will also be presented.

GPUOpen - Unlocking Game Development with Open Source (presented by AMD)
Nicolas Thibieroz - Senior Manager, Gaming Engineering, AMD
Jason Stewart - Developer Technology Engineer, AMD
Jean-Normand Bucci - Director of Labs, R&D department, Eidos-Montréal
Wednesday, March 16th, 3:30–4:30 p.m.
Room 2024, West Hall
http://schedule.gdconf.com/session/gpuopen-unlocking-game-development-with-open-source-presented-by-amd

GPUOpen is a new philosophy spearheaded by AMD that aims to bridge the gap between console and PC game development by allowing optimal access to the GPU for developers. GPUOpen is a portal to effects, SDKs, libraries and tools that provide various levels of GPU access and functionalities for real-time graphics and content creation. In addition GPUOpen components are provided with an open source license to give developers full control and usage of the code they choose to use. GPUOpen marks the beginning of a new era where developers are able to achieve their artistic and technical vision via open and unrestricted access to the GPU.

Distilling  Franchise: A Lara Croft GO Postmortem
Antoine Routon - Technical Direction, Square Enix Montréal
Thursday, March 17th10 – 11 a.m.
Room 134, North Hall
http://schedule.gdconf.com/session/distilling-a-franchise-a-lara-croft-go-postmortem

Lara Croft GO is the next instalment in the award-winning series created by Square Enix Montréal with Hitman GO. Hitman GO boiled down the world of Agent 47® to a minimalistic puzzle inspired by chess and dioramas, Lara Croft GO captures the essence of adventure, acrobatics and exploration. This multidisciplinary talk is a postmortem of Lara Croft GO, discussing how to bridge the gap between two very different franchises, how to distill the action-packed adventures of Lara in a puzzle format, and all the lessons that were learned in the middle.

Improving geometry culling for Deus Ex: Mankind Divided ® (presented by Umbra)
Nicolas Trudel – Graphics Programmer, Eidoss – Montréal
Thursday, March 17th4-5 p.m.
Room 3007, West Hall
http://schedule.gdconf.com/session/improving-geometry-culling-for-deus-ex-mankind-divided-presented-by-umbra

Adam looks like he could play the role of a werewolf. -SdgtEnt
This talk will explain how we used Umbra in Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, a game powered by the Dawn engine. In order to support the very rich environments our artists envision, we needed a very efficient geometry culling solution without the associated manual labour. We will give a general overview of the Dawn Engine™ and show how Umbra was integrated from the edition and offline building to the low level-rendering engine to achieve this goal. We will go into the details of how Umbra was used for the main camera, but also the generation of the shadow maps. Since many of our lights are static, we cached the static geometry visibility to speedup the umbra query. We will also discuss how we used umbra to speed up our offline GI computation.


From the Source: Square-Enix - HITMAN Begins Today!


Are you ready... Agent? We are, it was pre-loaded yesterday as we prepare to review! Check out the info provided by Square-Enix... below! Look at the initial segment of this game as an affordable option to get a dose of the action, but you also have the option of just going in for the full game too.


Square Enix
LOGO
[PRESS RELEASE]
HITMAN Begins Today 

Industry’s First Digital AAA Episodic Launch
COPENHAGEN, March 11, 2016 - Io-Interactive is delighted to announce that HITMAN™, the first digital AAA episodic game launches today.

“We are doing something bold and new which has the potential to shape how we experience AAA games in the future, ,” said Hannes Seifert, Studio Head at Io-Interactive. “Hitman is back and it’s clearly the game many fans have been waiting for, so that feels pretty special. And this is just the start, now our live content begins and then in April we head to Sapienza. We have a game that will evolve, grow and improve over time and deliver the best ever Hitman experience.”

HITMAN starts with the Prologue and a Paris location on March 11, followed by the next location, set in Italy releasing in April and then Morocco releasing in May. From there HITMAN will deliver regular monthly content updates, including three additional locations; Thailand, the United States and the season conclusion in Japan later in 2016.

In addition live content begins today.

The first Escalation Contract is in the game today, with the next one scheduled for Tuesday 16 March. These are in-game contracts created by Io-Interactive which gradually increase in difficulty the more you play them.

And the first Elusive Target will appear in the game at some point in the next ten days. These are targets who appear for a limited time only, the first one will be live for 48 hours in the game. And players get only one chance to take them out, there are no second chances. This is a new character with bespoke dialogue and behavior in the game. Players will only receive their Elusive Target briefing once the new character has entered their location.

The Intro Pack is available today priced at $15 (or local equivalent). Each subsequent location will be priced at $10 as an add-on item to the Intro Pack*. Alternatively, players can buy the Full Experience up front for $60, also available today. This includes all of this year’s content as it’s released, and guarantees not to miss any live or bonus content.

The disc version of HITMAN will ship in January 2017.

HITMAN is available on the PlayStation®4 computer entertainment system, Xbox One, the all-in-one games and entertainment system from Microsoft, and Windows PC.

* If players buy the Intro Pack but then want to get into everything the Full Experience offers, they can also choose to buy the Upgrade Pack for $50.