Comic-Con is over and you’ve barely digested Friday’s news yet. we’ve rounded up the biggest and best video game news out of San Diego. Let’s get the ball rolling with some short and sweet headlines. Tekken x Street Fighter is still in development, apparently. It was announced years ago and its companion piece, Street Fighter x Tekken, made it to market, but Namco Bandai seemed to be sitting on its hands. Good to know that’s not the case. The Last of Us is becoming a movie, and Maisie Wiliams – aka Arya Stark – is in talks to play Ellie. Creator Robert Kirkman and TellTale games confirmed The Walking Dead will return for a third season. BioWare didn’t say anything about its new, recently-teased property, but did present quite a panel on the next Mass Effect. The information is subject to change but it’s worth checking out anyway. Turns out Battlefield: Hardline has a plot, so if you’re the single-player type you’ll enjoy the story of a cop framed when a meth deal goes wrong, apparently.
Have you ever wondered what Batman would look like as a Final Fantasy character? Well, Tetsuya Nomura is designing a line of Batman figures, so there you go. Also in the beautiful expensive things category are these custom Xbox One consoles, which Microsoft in fact gave away; there’s no way to buy them. Finally, Nintendo announced a physical release for NES Remix. Now, go away and read all that, then come back for the real business: the trailers. As promised, we got to see Rob Zombie’s Assassin’s Creed: Unity animated short. As you’d expect, it’s pretty bloody. Here’s a new lore trailer for Middle-earth: Shadows of Mordor; read Steph’s summary for the details, as she knows more about Tolkien than many of us will ever learn. The game’s release date has been brought up a week, too. Steph’s headline this weekend was “strap a physics-based kangaroo head to your crotch in Sunset Overdrive” and that really sells it all. Firefly Online’s first real gameplay trailer looks super shiny.
Some of the stars of the much-mourned Joss Whedon series reunited at Comic-Con to announce all nine main Firefly characters will appear in-game. Halo 2: Anniversary Edition was highlighted in the cinematic trailer below. We got some news, too – Zanzibar is the third of six remastered multiplayer maps. If you’re a fan it’s worth watching the whole Halo Comic Con panel. You should also check out the new Halo: Nightfall key art. An extended version of the Tekken 7 trailer was released, exploring the tension and drama among the Mishima clan. We got a new trailer for Lords of the Fallen, Tomasz Gop’s promising new RPG. We also got some details of the day-one pre-order bonus edition, too. The new trailer for Lego Batman 3: Beyond Gotham pretty much seems up Comic-Con. I t’s a fan dream come true with its colourful cast of favourite faces. That’s all for the big ones, but expect plenty of juicy news to trickle out as interviews and panels yield their tasty details.
What’s your favourite bit of news out of Comic Con? There was plenty of great non-gaming stuff, right?We have detected a history of abnormal traffic from your network so we ask that you please complete the following form to confirm that you are not a robot and are indeed a real person. Most of this time this happens if there has been a lot of malicious bot activity from your current internet provider's network or you are using a VPN. It likely has nothing to do with you. We're really sorry for the hassle.Release Date: November 14 (Europe), November 11 (North America)Platforms available on: PS4, Xbox One, Wii U, PS3, Xbox 360, PCDeveloper: TT GamesPublisher: Warner Bros InteractiveGenre: Action platformerThere's a phenomenal amount of stuff in LEGO Batman 3: Beyond Gotham. So many studs, so many secret collectables, so many Adam Wests to rescue.If you're of the obsessive completionist mentality and Bats gets his (bat-)claws into you, this could eat up months.But that would be months of collecting everything you could in a by-the-numbers LEGO game.
After a point it wouldn't be fun. And that fact unfortunately stretches beyond just those looking to pick up All Of The Things - because LEGO Batman 3 just highlights how much of a refresh the LEGO series of games needs.If you played LEGO Marvel Super Heroes last year, you've pretty much played LEGO Batman 3. It's a similar setup, it also features over 150 characters and it feels very much the same - just with a DC Comics lineup.That means you're - once again - making your way through a bunch of levels, figuring out how to progress (it's hard to call them 'puzzles' per se), battling countless identikit minions or bosses who need simple tactics and, of course, smashing everything in every room.It would make Hulk proud, but it's not Marvel so we'll go with Killer Croc instead, seeing as he's basically a palette swap of Dr Banner but with a Cajun accent.In fact, while the mind wanders in that direction, the 150 characters thing isn't that impressive when you realise so many of the playable LEGO tykes share exactly the same abilities.
There are standout individuals, sure, and taking off as Superman - with his trademark music kicking in - is never not great, but after a dozen or so characters it just feels like window dressing.As for the action itself, there are a couple of elements that stick out as oddly unpolished; strange when the formula is almost exactly as it has been for years now.For one, controls are loose - you often end up shooting wildly or hitting nothing when you want to be activating a switch or the like.As for the character switching... well, when there's a party of four and this imprecise system has to be used in order to choose a particular hero / villain whose powers you need to use, it gets very annoying. At this point, the world has witnessed countless films and TV shows dedicated to chronicling the lives and crusades of super-powered beings. Of course, what makes superheroes and villains special is that there aren’t that many of them, even in the exaggerated realms they inhabit. To that end, one wonders what exactly the rest of humanity occupies their time with when not dodging the chaos caused by the latest prizefight between extraordinary entities like Superman and Doomsday.
Aiming to answer that very question is Powerless, a new workplace sitcom set within the DC Comics universe. Officially ordered to pilot last month by NBC, Powerless centers on one of the most unsuccessful insurance companies in America, and shines a spotlight on the daily trials and tribulations of its employees. The inaugural addition to the series’ regular cast was Vanessa Hudgens (Sucker Punch), who is set to portray altruistic claims adjuster Emily Locke. While Hudgens isn’t exactly a big name among the comic community, her casting suggests an attempt by NBC to court an audience beyond those who would normally be inclined to check out a TV series based on a DC property. Thankfully, three more names have now joined the Powerless cast, and two of them arguably possess more in the way of geek cred. First up is Danny Pudi, best known for the role of pop-culture savant Abed Nadir on the cult comedy Community. Pudi will play Teddy, Emily’s best friend and the resident office prankster.
Teddy sees it as his duty to make his terminally serious workplace just a little bit more fun. Next on the casting docket is Alan Tudyk, perhaps still most remembered for his work on the short-lived Joss Whedon dramas Firefly and Dollhouse. Tudyk will play Del, a spoiled rich brat who has used his connections to cheat his way up the corporate ladder. Del has just been named Emily and Teddy’s new boss, and to say he is unpopular with those beneath him would be putting it mildly. Interestingly enough, Tudyk has some experience with DC already, having done voice work for several of their animated outings. Lastly, actress Christina Kirk (A to Z, Manhattan) will play Jackie, an in-universe fan of superheroes who finds herself cracking under the pressure of being Del’s assistant. Powerless is something of a risky bet for DC, in that the idea of setting a TV series in a fantastical comic book world while focusing on average everyday characters is not exactly one that has been heavily tested.