Bungie Patents Mobile Device under the Name ‘Crimson’
This week saw Halo developer Bungie start a whole new venture, bringing their corporate family up to three if you include 343 Industries, the custodians of future Halo titles.
Bungie Aerospace Corporation, the newly formed venture by the company, is headed by current Bungie President Harold Ryan, and has already stirred up industry-wide critics by filing a trademark for ‘Crimson’; a product related to both mobile and networked games.
The patent filing states that Crimson is “Computer game software downloadable from a global computer network; Computer game software for use on mobile and cellular phones; Downloadable computer game software via a global computer network and wireless devices.”
The company at the moment is also looking out for mobile device programmers and engineers, as posted on the jobs section of their site. At GDC Online 2010, Joseph Staten, a writer and design wizard working for the company, mused vaguely “Wouldn’t it be great if we could make a world that was always there for you, with lots of stories to tell, like a big, infinite storytelling horizon? Man, that would be great.”
While Bungie is not set to attend E3 2011, the company may potentially release some details in the next few business quarters, so patience, for Bungie fans at least, is a virtue worth having.
Could Battlefield 3 be any better? Well, according to the title’s generous pre-order bonus, then oh hell yes.
The game is so good that they even announce the first expansion map pack, Back to Karkand, before the game is even released, then give it to you for free as a pre-order bonus… what’s more, the bonus isn’t limited to just one or two retailers, a lot of people are on board.
Back to Karkand sees the return of some of the most epic warzones from the entire Battlefield series, remastered and re-awesomed for BF3’s new Frostbite 2 engine. The pack includes Wake Island,” “Sharqi Peninsula”, “Strike at Karkand”, and “Gulf Of Oman”, but don’t expect to use all your sneaky tricks from BF2 on these maps… they won’t work due to the new game engine, the way forward would be to think of some new ones. New tactics and new maps are fun, but what would nostalgia be without… old weapons?
That’s right, environment destructibility will ruin the best laid plans from days of yore, but the guns remain the same as it were, with all the classic weapons from Battlefield 2 appearing as part of the expansion pack. Although there’s no release date or pricing info for the expansion, let alone BF3 itself, it seems like a great deal for a pre-order bonus, fully capable of making expensive Call of Duty map packs look very, very silly by comparison.
Good day to be a Fallout fan, no? The next three big events in the series come in the form of three new DLC packs for Fallout: New Vegas, with one being released per month this month, June and July.
The first installment, Honest Hearts was leaked a few months ago, but now a trailer has surfaced, along with confirmation of the other two packs, along with a teaser blurb for each. The DLC is out on 360 and PC on May 17 and PS3 on the 18th… if you can download it on the PS3 that is.
“Honest Hearts, Old World Blues and Lonesome Road will further expand upon Fallout: New Vegas. Fallout: New Vegas takes all the action, humour and post-apocalyptic grime and grit of this legendary series and raises the stakes,” says the press release.
Bethesda dropped some revealing blurbs for each of the DLC packs, and apparently along with Dead Money, they all contribute to a larger story in the Fallout universe…
“Honest Hearts takes you on an expedition to the unspoiled wilderness of Utah’s Zion National Park. Things go horribly wrong when your caravan is ambushed by a tribal raiding band. As you try to find a way back to the Mojave you become embroiled in a war between tribes and a conflict between a New Canaanite missionary and the mysterious Burned Man. The decisions you make will determine the fate of Zion.
In Old World Blues, releasing in June, you will discover how some of the Mojave’s mutated monsters came to be when you unwittingly become a lab rat in a science experiment gone awry. You’ll need to scour the Pre-War research centres of the Big Empty in search of technology to turn the tables on your kidnappers or join forces with them against an even greater threat.
Lonesome Road, available in July, brings the courier’s story full circle when you are contacted by the original Courier Six, a man by the name of Ulysses who refused to deliver the Platinum Chip at the start of New Vegas. In his transmission, Ulysses promises the answer as to why, but only if you take one last job -a job that leads you into the depths of the hurricane-swept canyons of the Divide, a landscape torn apart by earthquakes and violent storms. The road to the Divide is a long and treacherous one, and of the few to ever walk the road, none have ever returned.”
Fatality?
According to analysts, who shall be praised for their scrivening, Mortal K did pretty well in the last month of April, selling almost 900,000 copies throughout the month, knocking Portal 2 off the top spot… but hey it is awesome, so I’m not really complaining.
Portal 2, Lego Star Wars III: The Clone Wars, Call of Duty: Black Ops and Tiger Woods PGA Tour 12: The Masters in that exact order were subordinate to Mortal K’s superior chart position.
Analyst for the good ‘ol NPD Anita Frazier said: “Games that would appear in the top ten ranking on a SKU basis for April include Pokemon Black and SOCOM 4: US Navy Seals. If sales of the SOCOM Move accessory bundle were combined with software sales, this game would have ranked in the top ten titles as well.
“The Xbox 360 platform generated the greatest unit sales of new physical content at over 3.5 million units for the month, followed by the Nintendo DS platform. The Nintendo DS, PS3, Wii and Xbox 360 platforms all generated greater unit sales of content versus April 2010.”
- Mortal Kombat (PS3, 360 – Warner)
- Portal 2 (PS3, 360, PC – EA)
- Lego Star Wars III: The Clone Wars (PS3, 360, PC, Wii, DS – LucasArts)
- Call of Duty: Black Ops (PS3, 360, PC – Activision)
- Tiger Woods PGA Tour 12: The Masters (PS3, 360, Wii – EA)
- Crysis 2 (PS3, 360, PC – EA)
- Just Dance 2 (Wii – Ubisoft)
- Michael Jackson: The Experience (PS3, 360, Wii, DS, PSP – Ubisoft)
- Pokemon White Version (DS – Nintendo)
- NBA 2K11 (PS3, 360, PC, Wii, PSP, PS3 – Take-Two)
Xbox 360 sold the most stateside in April, moving about 300,000 units.
And Finally…
Next up on the stage of destiny: