Welcome again to the New Gamer Nation Weekly News Update, where we cover the biggest video game news stories of the week and bring them to you. This week, Redbox is going to let you rent video games for free, Killzone 3 is doing something unique with PSN, three big video game companies are teaming up, announcements, announcements, and more announcements!!! Let’s start the news!!!
Redbox Offers Free Rentals On Video Games
First up, we’re going to kick things off with some great news for gamers. Redbox is renting out their games for free. I know what you’re thinking, “What’s the catch?” Well it’s simple, you must reserve the game from the Redbox site, and it’s only free for a day. Every day after that you’ll be charged $2. Still one free day isn’t too bad. Also the list of games on the list is nothing to sneeze at. UFC Undisputed 3, Twisted Metal, Darkness 2, Final Fantasy 13-2, Soul Calibur V, and other major (and minor) titles over the course of the year are on that list.
Source: Redbox
Killzone 3 in the Playstation Store…Slightly
Sony is trying something a little different with Killzone 3, they’re putting the multiplayer portion of the game available for download, and giving part of the multiplayer portion of the game away for free. The download includes all maps, but the free version includes an unspecified level cap. For full access to the multiplayer, you’ll have to pay $14.95. Considering the full game with the single player campaign is about $25-$30, it’s not a bad deal. Killzone’s 3 multiplayer will be available for download on the Playstation Store Tuesday, February 28.
Source: Playstation Blog
Three Big Companies Working On One Game
During Nintendo’s Direct Broadcast an announcement was made that three major publishing would be collaborating to release a game for the Nintendo 3DS. Details, unfortunately, have not been announced as to what exactly the project is, however a mysterious teaser site has been launched. The ability to read Japanese would come in handy for that site. Still here’s hoping this mysterious project is something really cool.
Source:IGN
Announcements
The first announcement goes to the NBA fans, as a bit of a surprise. Electronic Arts’ Sports division is reviving the NBA Live series. Via Twitter, Cavaliers’ point guard, Kyrie Irving tweeted a picture of himself playing the next installment of the NBA Live series, which is presumably a demo. The NBA live series hasn’t been seen since NBA Live 10. EA was set to launch a new series with NBA Elite ’11, around the 2010 holiday season, however cancelled the game, and announced NBA Elite ’11 would be due out on an unspecified date in 2011. However, that never came to pass. Now, it looks like NBA Live 13 will be out sometime this year to give the NBA 2K series some competition.
Source:Twitter
The next announcement comes in for those Battlefield fans. The sequel to the 2010 hit, Medal Of Honor will be released this October, and is entitled Medal of Honor: Warfighter. Danger Close Studios will develop the game, and the game will use the Frostbite 2.0 engine. Keep an eye out in the coming conferences, expos, and shows for more information on gameplay.
Source: Official X-Box Magazine
Speaking of shooters, Borderlands 2 has an official release date!!! The sequel to Gearbox Software’s Borderlands will be released on the X-Box 360, Playstation 3, and PC September 18, 2012. To get you hyped up, watch the trailer here.
This announcement goes to the racing fans. More specifically the Motorstorm racing fans. Motorstorm RC has a release date of March 6, for the Playstation 3 and Playstation Vita via the Playstation Store. This is one of the titles that, not only allows you to play on the the Vita and the big screen at home. I know what you’re thinking here too, “But we probably have pay for the same game twice, don’t we?” Well if you think that, you’d be wrong. If you buy Motorstorm RC for the PS3, you get to download it to the Vita free of charge, and vice-versa. Pretty good deal here, if you ask me, and I can only hope more companies allow this to happen in the future.
The final announcement goes to the 3DS. The Sega Dreamcast classic Seaman is making a return to the 3DS. No official word as to if the new Seaman game will be a sequel or a reboot, but one thing’s fur sure, that fish with the human face is going to replace the whale in my nightmares.
Source: Nikkei
Sony Files New Patents
As far back as October it looked like Sony is considering, or once had considered, it’s own version of a 3D depth sensing camera. The patent filed by Dr. Richard Marks, the inventor of the PS Eye and PlayStation Move, would provide “a real-time three-dimensional interactive environment using a depth sensing device” for gamers.
Another patent revealed a hardware device to allow for better backward compatibility for older games. This piece of hardware would be most likely plug into an already existing piece of hardware to play already existing games.
Finally, a patent from as far back as 2010 has surfaces of what appears to be technology resembling that of the Wii-U. The sketches filed show a system hooked up to a television with what appears to be a tablet like controller.
All things considered, I, personally would guess that this would all somehow come together in Sony’s next console, whenever that might be…IF Sony does decide to go through with these patents.
Sources: NeoGAF & Joystiq
That’s the news for this week, tell us what you think in the comment section below, and until next week gamers, game on.