It’s difficult to put into words just how great this trailer is. However, as we get paid by the word around here, we should at least give it a try.

Well, to be sure, it’s amazing. So many great bits and so much pop culture and old-school sci-fi/action b-movie nostalgia all rolled into a slick package. And hey, the game, a stand-along expansion to Far Cry 3 itself, looks pretty fun too. It even stars famous sci-fi actor Michael Biehn, which is pretty cool.

If you haven’t seen this trailer for Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon, you should. In fact, click through immedietly and watch it. You won’t be sorry. Once you watch it, be sure to buy the game too. We need to support things like this.

Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon is available now for PS 3 via the Playstation Network and XBox 360 via XBox Live Arcade.

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Last week we reported about the leaked image attached to the title Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag. This new Assassin’s Creed game rumor lined up with previous statements about a new lead character and a new locale as well. Yesterday, Ubisoft revealed these rumors to be true with an official trailer revealing the game as well as a character trailer showing off the new protagonist Edward Kenway.

The first trailer starts off with Blackbeard (coincidentally, Blackbeard was who I researched to give the possible time frame that the events of the game will take place when looking at famous pirates in history). This means that the game has to take place before the events of Assassin’s Creed III since Blackbeard was dead by 1718. This could be an indicator that Desmond Miles may in fact not be the modern day protagonist for the game as well as Desmond’s memories took place chronologically.

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Earlier this month, Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot revealed that there would indeed be a new Assassin’s Creed title released in fiscal 2014 (April 1, 2013 to March 31, 2014) from the publishing giant. He also noted that it would be taking place in a new location with a new lead character as well.

After the ending of Assassin’s Creed III, many were speculating if this only meant Connor being replaced or if the modern day Desmond would be on the chopping block as well. Well, speculate no longer it seems.

Yesterday gaming news site Kotaku reported a leaked marketing image and the name Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag. The image shows a hooded assassin character holding a sword in one hand and pistol in another while surrounded by pirates. This would fit right in with Yves’s statement about a new hero and location.

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The other day when looking back at the proud leaders of this great nation, I opted to shy away from the fantastic portrayal of General turned King George Washington in the alternate history DLC of Assassin’s Creed. But after showing proper respect two whole days ago and the DLC releasing, it doesn’t seem right to not share the launch trailer for “Tyranny of King Washington: The Infamy” DLC which hit the digital marketplace yesterday.

In this trailer, the question is posed about what would have actually happened to General Washington had he not stepped down as President at the end of the Revolutionary War. In this alternate timeline, Washington is corrupted by his power and declares himself king and it looks like it is up to Connor to stop him.

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Earlier in the week, I praised Far Cry 3 for the living world it presented to players. Now, only a few days later they have ticked me off in a way I only recently suspected from Capcom. The other day on XBox.com, I saw Far Cry 3 had new DLC and thought to myself, “Great. More Far Cry 3 to play and it’s only ten bucks.”

Six more missions, more rare animals to hunt, multiplayer unlocks and the previously unreleased retail bonuses from The Monkey Business Pack, The Lost Expeditions, The Warrior Pack, and The Predator Pack. But then I look over and see the file size. 108 kb. While I know there are some coding tricks out there to compress file sizes, but a 108 kb isn’t enough to load new missions and rare animal character models. But it is just big enough to unlock content currently on the game disc…

This has been a personal pet peeve of mine since DLC began supporting on disc unlocks. If it’s on a disc, that means it was completed before the game was sent to print. In my mind, the price I paid for the game disc should include all of that content on said disc. There aren’t extra man hours being created to produce new content after the game was completed which is why most people pay for additional DLC like map packs in Halo or Call of Duty. It is literally players just being given a key to unlock what is on the physical media they already have in their possession.

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Assassin’s Creed became a major player once Ubisoft put a huge marketing and development budget behind it to help create one of their AAA titles. It was no surprise that they would attempt to bring it to the big screen like they did with Prince of Persia and plan to with Splinter Cell. But while Prince of Persia and Splinter Cell have had and will have seasoned writers feature film writers at the helm, a virtual unknown to Hollywood is being given the reigns of Assassin’s Creed.

According to Heat Vision, Michael Lesslie will be taking on writing duties for the Assassin’s Creed film. British, there isn’t much else known about Lesslie aside from a few short films. While some may see it as a risky endeavor for Ubisoft to give a multimillion dollar franchise to a virtual unknown, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time proved that even with a more veteran writer the success of a movie based on a gaming franchise wasn’t a guarantee.

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Most people who consider themselves “Real” gamers and are over the age of 20 have probably played Super Mario Bros. more times than they can count and can most likely play through the first level blindfolded and know where every Goomba and Koopa Troopa is. But those Goombas and those Koopas are going to be there every time and noting is going to change, in this game or any other. Or is it?

In fact, the rules of gaming changed and a random element was introduced. While there were still some static NPCs and scripted events that were required for the progress of a game’s story, an open world based on behavioral patterns and the sandbox was born.

One of the greatest early sandbox games was Grand Theft Auto which put players in a city that reacted to their actions. But when it made the shift to a 3D environment the world and the interactions changed along with it. But it still didn’t feel like the world was truly alive.

For the most part, passersby would go without noticing the player or each other with the exception of pathing themselves out of the way of each other or reacting to the actions of the player. There was no fully random aspect to their interactions with each other or the world itself. But then things changed again.

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Don’t worry. We aren’t giving any more awards to Angry Birds. At least not today. But we do have four more games for the best of 2012. If you haven’t seen the previous two days awards, click here for Monday’s and here for Tuesday’s awards. Make sure to check back tomorrow for our final specialty awards and then again on Friday for the ultimate award from The Flickcast and Bitcast teams, the Game of the Year.

New IP With the Most Potential – Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning

With writing from R. A. Salvatore and art design by Todd McFarlane, many would have thought that Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning would have the makings of a surefire hit. With over 300,000 units sold by March of 2012, Reckoning gave a good showing for a brand new IP and had many people talking about it. Unfortunately due to financial problems with a loan from the state of Rhodes Island, 38 Studios was forced to close and with it went the possible future of the Kingdoms of Amalur series.

Despite coming from a brand new studio, Reckoning had all the makings of a hit game. Beautiful design, interesting and complex story with tons of back matter and, the most important, incredibly fun combat and gameplay. It was a huge world with tons to do that players could get lost in. Whether or not they even cared about the narrative, there were unending areas to explore and enemies to vanquish. Now, one can only hope that someone else picks up this IP and gives it a second chance to continue giving more people the chance to explore its epic world.

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Since we started covering games, we have always had an eye on THQ and its franchises. From the WWE and UFC fighting games to fantasy adventures like Darksiders and sci-fi worlds of Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine to even the modern day gone wrong Saints Row, THQ has been a huge part of gaming for the better part of the past twenty years. Unfortunately, this past week THQ was forced to declare bankruptcy in hopes of somehow finding a way to save the jobs of as many employees as possible and keep their games in progress still alive.

There are a few options to what could happen to THQ. First, it could be bought out by another company and have its portfolio absorbed into the new company including licenses. Another option would be the company dissolves and its assets including studios are auctioned off. If either were to happen, it is possible that we would see some of the THQ franchises picked up by other studios and studios picked up by other publishers. But the question then begins, what would the good combinations be for publishers and studios as well as studios and franchises.

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On Friday, The Flickcast announced a Twitter giveaway for a complete set of the Assassin’s Creed graphic novel trilogy. You still have time to enter before Friday the 21st. But we wanted to make sure to give a review on this trilogy before we gave them away of course.

Released as a trilogy, the three Assassin’s Creed graphic novels have come out simultaneously from Titan Books, most recently having worked on comics properties such as the Tank Girl collections as well as the WWE Heroes series. Partnered with Ubisoft, the team at Titan put together a three part story focusing on three characters in the Assassin’s Creed lore: Desmond, Aquilus and Accipiter.

Over the course of the trilogy, there are two distinct storylines happening. The first focuses on Desmond’s early time entering into the assassin’s. Pieces of what happened behind the scenes at Abstergo including many interactions with Lucy and the heads of the Templars that players of the game may not have been aware of are explored. Also in the modern day, Subject 16, the previous experiment in the Animus at Abstergo is explored more. Players will recognize him from the role he played inside the Animus during Assassin’s Creed: Revelations. Finally, a new assassin is introduced, named Jonathan Hawk who is one of the ancestors of Accipiter.

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Next week we are going to be reviewing a brand new hardcover trilogy of graphic novels set in the Assassin’s Creed universe. But luckily, we aren’t only getting a set for ourselves, we got a second set to give to loyal readers of The Flickcast fandom. It’s going to be another one of our easy to enter and win Twitter contents, but before you check out the rules, check out the description of each of the three graphic novels direct from Titan Books

Assassin’s Creed – Desmond

This first volume of the French comic trilogy from Ubisoft, tells the story of Desmond Miles’ abduction by Abstergo and their plans to rip the blood-steeped memories of Desmond’s ancestors from his genetic code. Add to the mix the mysterious and violently terrified Subject 16 and a desperate flight from Abstergo, and this makes for a fast-paced and thrilling addition to the game’s universe.

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It’s always interesting to see how people react to art books. Some people can’t wait to get their hands on them as they anxiously await a game’s release while others like to look at them after the fact so the vistas and characters aren’t spoiled for them. I received The Art of Assassin’s Creed III almost on the same day that the review copy of the game came to me and I opted for the latter and saved the artwork until after I had experienced Assassin’s Creed III’s gameplay. After going through almost 30 hours in this lush world, it made me appreciate the concept work that went into making it come to life even more.

The Art of Assassin’s Creed III starts off with what one wouldn’t expect, the modern world. Since the interludes of Assassin’s Creed III take place in the modern era with Desmond at the helm, there is a quick exploration of the temple of the First Civilization that Desmond and his team make their base as well as the areas they must venture to recover the keys to power the temple. After that, everything heads back to the American Revolution.

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After three straight games following Ezio through the Renaissance, the Assassin’s Creed series moves on to a new and still somewhat unexpected timeframe of the American Revolution. Since the initial announcement of Assassin’s Creed III, the hype machine has turned out video preview after video preview to help bring back loyal assassins as well as recruit new ones to the franchise’s ranks. The result is one of the most anticipated titles of 2012 (coming out right before Halo 4 and Call of Duty: Black Ops II) which will most likely outsell its previous versions. But as we have seen in the past, just because a game has a triple A development budget and tons of marketing behind it, that doesn’t necessarily ensure it is going to live up to its potential.

The Long…

When I first stepped into Assassin’s Creed III, the first thing I noticed was how alive the world in front of me was. Being in a theater with hundreds of other guests made it feel like a real event going on around my character. It didn’t feel like just some instance created with a few background characters to fill up the space nor did it feel like the background of a sports game with a generic crowd with repetitive motions wallpapered in either. Instead it felt like my character was a part of a real and tactile world.

This feeling continues to hold true in many other areas of the game, especially the cities of Boston and New York. Constantly, you are surrounded by people all doing very different things. Some might be selling wares, others begging for coins and others just going about their daily business. What helps make this different though is the variety of animations and poses characters on screen go through as they go about their daily life. With a few exceptions (like the subway arrival in one of the game’s later present day scenes), you don’t often see two people on screen doing the same thing at the same time.

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Of the Big 3 press conferences, Sony had the strongest conference for gamers. This partially comes from one of the most impressive pieces of footage from a game already announced as well as an exciting new trailer as well that no one was expecting. While they did diverge slightly away from core games and put some emphasis on the move and a new peripheral, Sony definitely delivered the “gamer’s conference” when compared to Nintendo and Microsoft.

After a standard clip montage and Jack Tretton giving the same introductory speech that has been heard time and again, things started off strong with the reveal of Beyond: Two Souls by the same studio that brought us Heavy Rain. With the lead character played by Ellen Page, Beyond promises to bring together storytelling in gaming unlike anything seen before. With the footage below, it may be the truth.

What was one of the other hotly anticipated games that followed ended up being somewhat of a letdown for those watching. The crowd was strangely silent during the demo of PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale which looked generic as a Smash Brothers clone with a very boring level layout. Also announced as playable characters were Nathan Drake from Uncharted and the Big Daddy from Bioshock.

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Enjoy a game where your objective is to eliminate as many people as possible but do it in stealthy and mysterious ways? We do too.

Of course, the king of games that fits that mold is the Assassin’s Creed line from Ubisoft. Assassin’s Creed III is on its way and to help get you ready, Ubisoft has released a trailer for the game that gives us, among other things, a look at the gamplay.

In case you’re not familiar with the game, it takes place during the American Revolution and features a new protagonist named Connor Kenway. It will also, according to Ubisoft, be bigger than any of its previous installments.

The game is set to come out for PS 3, Xbox 360, Wii U, Mac OS X and Windows. Look for it to arrive on October 30th.

In the meantime, check the trailer after the break.

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