As everyone expected, the mod community is having a heck of time with The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim the same way they did with the past open worlds of the Elder Scrolls series. With the official launch of the Skyrim Creation Kit through the Steam Workshop, players are able to build and distribute mods through the support of Bethesda and Steam which allows the community to come together and let each other know what the best and most promising mods are.

Instead of just being a free for all, this community allows players a piece of mind that they are downloading actual content and not a hack or virus that could harm their system. The first of these mods which every player should snag is the High Resolution Texture Pack which will greatly improve the visuals for most players.

The next piece of content any player with a sense of humor that also isn’t too hung up on silly things like continuity is Fall of the Space Core, Vol. 1. Created with the help of Valve, Fall of the Space Core, Vol. 1 brings Portal 2′s third favorite A.I. core to the medieval world of Skyrim.

To celebrate the opening of the Steam Workshop for Skyrim, Valve and Bethesda have teamed up to bring you the Portal 2 Space Core mod, which will let the aggressively space-centric little robot tag along on your adventures in Tamriel.

Also, since Skyrim was the only major release of 2011 without Nolan North in it, you should consider this mod a patch to fix that problem. You can now feel free to include Skyrim in the “Nolan North” section of your video game library, which is to say, your video game library.

Check out a video preview of the Space Core in action and stick to the Flickcast for more Skyrim and Portal news and all things gaming.

Continue Reading →

Head to any Toys R Us and take a look at their video game section and look for the large space where the Skylanders figures should be and you will see a trail of utter decimation. In talking to a Toys R Us employee, we were told that the only day the Skylanders’ rack isn’t empty is the day deliveries come in. And by end of that day, it is already down to half of its stock. So, it’s no surprise that Activision will be officially unveiling the follow-up to Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure at Toy Fair in New York City next week with Skylanders Giants.

With promises of eight brand new regular Skylanders and eight completely new Giant Skylanders that also light up when close to the Portal of Power, it looks like the creators are going to have a ton of fun expanding on the Skylanders universe.

Skylanders Giants builds upon the breakthrough fundamentals of the first game-merging the physical and virtual realms with an innovative line of cross-platform toy figures that have “brains,” which players everywhere can magically bring to life in the world of Skylands. This next installment of the franchise features a variety of new characters, new challenges, a thrilling new story-driven adventure, and advanced integration across console, handheld, mobile and online:

Going Big: Skylanders Giants introduces eight new highly collectible figures that are more than twice the size of the main skylanders cast in both physical and virtual form. Their in-game powers and abilities reflect their colossal scale.

Continue Reading →

Members of Call of Duty Elite for both the XBox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 have already started reaping the benefits of their yearly membership with the first content drop in January. As promised, Activision is intent on keeping up with their Content Drop schedule for Elite Subscribers to prove the value of the service.

This month, subscribers will be getting their hands on the new map Overwatch. Somewhat similar in aestetics to the rooftop multiplayer map of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, this one is much more dangerous as its central passage is one that provides little cover or protection from falling for the players crossing it. It does give some nice variety to the other maps that have already been released and it will be interesting to see how it plays out when more game modes are added as well.

Call of Duty Elite Drop 3: Overwatch drops you into a construction site atop a New York City skyscraper. The battle takes place along two levels in a near symmetrical layout, with the central bridge and side routes open to attack from multiple angles. Watch your every step, as a lack of safety barriers surrounding the perimeter leaves nothing between you and a 70 story fall to the ground below.

Overwatch is the third Content Drop in Modern Warfare 3′s Content Season, which will include more than 20 pieces of brand new content over the 9 month season. Elite Drops 4-6 will be available in March for Premium Members on Xbox Live and will include the multiplayer map Black Box and two brand new Special Ops Missions, Black Ice and Negotiator. The full calendar of content is outlined here.

Check out the screens after the jump and stayed tuned for more Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 news as it becomes available.

Continue Reading →

Just when you thought Activision had filled your shelves with enough little plastic figures for Skylanders Spyro’s Adventure, they release a third wave of these collectible interactive toys. Now available are the Cynder and Double Trouble individual blister packs as well as the Empire of Ice Adventure Pack which features a new playable level to the game, the character Slam Bam and two new in game items (including a very familiar looking shield).

Check out the screens and videos for all three new characters below.

Cynder

Volts And Lightning!

Element: Undead

Primary Attack: Spectral Lightning

Secondary Attack: Shadow Dash

Upgrades include:

• Cynder Flight
• Black Lightning
• Shadow Reach

Bio: While just an egg, Cynder was stolen by the henchmen of an evil dragon named Malefor and raised to do his bidding. For years, she spread fear throughout the land until she was defeated by Spyro the dragon and freed from the grip of Malefor. But dark powers still flow through her, and despite her desire to make amends for her past, most Skylanders try to keep a safe distance… just in case.

Continue Reading →

Playing Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 and not sure if Elite membership is right for you? Check out the latest two trailers from Activision and Call of Duty Elite featuring Rob Riggle, the cop from the Hangover who had way too much fun with the taser in the classroom, as he explains the benefits of Elite as well as walks you through the first two maps from Call of Duty Elite’s nine month content drop.

As the Elite trailer goes to explain, the biggest benefit for Elite membership isn’t just getting maps first. They are actually cheaper if paid for up front. Instead of getting four packs at $15 a pop, players can pay for them all with the Elite membership for only $50 (or already have it free if they purchased the Hardened Edition of the game) and as mentioned, they get them much earlier than waiting for content packs.

As promised, Elite delivered its first two maps yesterday. In addition to new gameplay modes which will be coming soon, new multiplayer maps have been the biggest and most important DLC on XBox Live since Halo 2′s map packs.

This pack features Content Drop 1: Liberation which resembles a Central Park setting, complete with mounted miniguns (just like real life), long lines of sight for snipers and tons of tree cover and close quartered underground locales as well. Content Drop 2: Piazza takes players to an Italian seaside village filled with tight winding roads leaving lots of chances for close combat encounters.

Check out the January Content Drop trailer below as well as screens of both Liberation and Piazza. Stay tuned to The Flickcast for more on Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 and Call of Duty Elite.

Continue Reading →

As we have discussed, we can’t wait for March 6th to hit. In addition to the plethora of other games coming that date, quite possibly the biggest fighting game franchise ever will be hitting that day as well with Street Fighter X Tekken. Ever since getting hands on with it, the Flickcast has been excited to get our hands on the final build for review. And now, Capcom has only wet our appetite even further.

Capcom has added Balrog, Juri and Vega to the Street Fighter side and Paul, Law and Xiaoyu to the Tekken team of playable characters. Along with that, they have released a bunch of screens, character art and gameplay footage which can all be seen below of these six awesome fighters. Part of the excitement for these additions is that these Street Fighter characters haven’t graced a new game since Street Fighter IV as all three didn’t make it into Marvel vs. Capcom 3 and this has been the first Tekken release since 2009.

In addition, check out the fifth story trailer, also below, that gives some insight in to exactly what is happening to bring these two worlds together. Much like the previous Marvel vs. Capcom 3 trailers, they don’t really make much sense and are an excuse for action, but damn if they don’t look pretty while confusing the hell out of the viewer.

Check out the new screens and trailers after the jump. Stay tuned to the Flickcast for more on Street Fighter X Tekken as it quickly approaches its March 6th release date for the PlayStation 3 and XBox 360.

Continue Reading →

In 2009, a trailer leaked online just before E3 which was supposedly the next work from the team behind Ico and Shadow of the Colossus. It featured a strange, cat dragon creature that captured the attention of the internet. Days later, the trailer would officially be released as The Last Guardian… and then little else was heard about the game.

It wasn’t until the Tokyo Game Show in 2010 that more would be shown and the game was expected for a 2011 release date alongside the announcement of a 3D capable and high res collection of Team Ico’s previous two titles.

Now, it has come out that changes in the production cycle of the game have caused the delays as well as the upcoming departure of director Fumito Ueda, the man acknowledged as the heart and head of Team Ico. Though Ueda has promised to see the game through to completion, be it by his own choice or contractual agreements with Sony, the delays have people worried over the title’s future.

In The Last Guardian, players will control a small boy who must work with and care for the large creature, referred to as Trico, and guide the creature what to do based on its animal instincts in order to complete puzzles. Examples given include throwing a barrel to attract Trico’s attention or coercing the creature to sit instead of barreling past the player. Players must also feed Trico and remove arrows from the creature’s body.

Continue Reading →

2011 was a huge year for gaming. One of the biggest both in terms of sales but in terms of the number of AAA titles and new up and comers that made their way to the big stage. We are hoping the same holds true for 2012. Over the next few weeks we will periodically bring you info, screens and trailers on some of the games to have on your radar over the next 12 months.

All the way back in 2010, Remedy released an XBox exclusive simply titled Alan Wake. After being shrouded in mystery for the early part of its development, players would eventually be introduced to Alan Wake, a writer, who ends up living through one of his own creations. The horror action game would go on to earn an 83 on Metacritic as well as win Time magazine’s Game of the Year for 2010.

In Q1 2012, Remedy will be releasing their followup to Alan Wake with Alan Wake’s American Nightmare. The game will take players out of the original Bright Falls lakeside township to the middle of Arizona where he encounters his alter-ego Mr. Scratch which was revealed in the final chapter of the original game.

Combat looks the same with the player using a light to weaken shadowy enemies before blowing them away with guns but the mechanics of the game look like they have changed. In the trailer below, you can notice a scoring system including a multiplier. It looks like combat will now award players points, most likely to introduce a leaderboard system for XBLA.

Continue Reading →

Marvel vs Capcom 3 was a fantastic game, one of the best fighters of the current console generation. Now that the updated and expanded Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 has hit we have even more alternate color schemes and fantasy team match ups to play around with.

However, Capcom is not content with just letting you use different repaints to fulfill your dreams of seeing alternate versions of these characters duke it out. This week the fine folk at Capcom released images and release dates for a series of DLC costume packs that go beyond some simple color changes.

These costumes are full re-skins, giving you a chance to see fully rendered alternate versions of these characters. Instead of a simple blue and yellow Phoenix costume, for instance, we get a near exact replica of the classic Jim Lee Era Jean Grey to play with. We also can see versions of characters like the Weapon X Wolverine that is drastically different than his costumed counterpart.

Some of these packs have already been announced as pre-order bonuses from various game retailers, but many of them are being showcased here for the first time. Capcom is also very smartly making a value pack available for all 11 new costume packs as well as the 48 previous alternate costumes from the original Marvel vs Capcom 3 game.

Check out all 48 new costumes and more details on price and release dates after the jump.

Continue Reading →

NYCC this year saw the debut of one of the most nostalgia filled MMO gameplay trailers since Star Wars: The Old Republic. Though we can’t show you the trailer we can tell you about what we saw and what information we were able to get about the game. Transformers Universe is being developed by Jagex, the makers of the free to play fantasy MMO Runescape. Jagex promises an experience meant to appeal both to the masses as well as the Transformers hardcore fan.

Transformers Universe will be a browser based MMO for both the PC and Mac which means no downloads are necessary. It will take place using real world looking cars on a diverse landscape and will be a planet-based experience. So what does that mean? Don’t expect boats or planes just yet for this game. PR people were very careful to only mention driving and not piloting. It may be possible that they may exist in the future but the character creator screen we saw only gave options for cars, trucks and motorcycles thus far.

We have also been promised that Transformers Universe will be a constantly evolving world with huge character customization options. This means that when players pick their side as either Autobot or Decepticon, they will have a massive level of creative control over their character and that the world around them won’t be static. Areas, characters and missions will change and allow for new gameplay experiences instead of repetitive gameplay. Additionally, players will be granted the ability to play alongside iconic characters like Optimus Prime. Similar to the vein of DC Universe Online, players will fight with or against some of the recognizable faces from the Transformers Universe, helping make that individual’s story feel bigger and more important.

Continue Reading →

At New York Comic Con, we got a special media only peek at live gameplay of Max Payne 3. For those who may be too young, the original Max Payne came out in July of 2001 for the PC with XBox and PlayStation 2 releases to follow in what Rockstar claims as “the birth of the cinematic action shooter”. Max Payne introduced the concept of bullet time into games, which has been copied innumerable times since, especially in titles like John Woo’s Stranglehold, where players were able to slow down time and carefully aim and place each bullet they fired as opposed to the mad run and gun fury in most first or third person shooters. Precision was key.

Max Payne also took a Noir approach to its storytelling which helped set it apart from the games at the time which focused more on being more like big summer blockbusters than gritty crime dramas. Max Payne would eventually spawn both a sequel and a motion picture release starring Mark Walberg.

When we got to see Max Payne 3 in action, the first noticeable improvement is the full facial animations of the characters. Max no longer has the eternal look of pain frozen into his face. Instead, he has a fully animated set of emotions ranging from angst to utter despair. Just because it’s a new game, don’t expect a new demeanor for Max.

Also changed is the graphic novel style storytelling. In the first two games, cut scenes played out like reading panels from a comic book with static images with caption boxes over them while Max’s voice over told the story. Now, everything plays out in engine in full animated glory for the players as they traverse through levels. There will be Hollywood style camera cuts as well as on screen captions of what Max is saying but the game plays much more like a high quality motion comic during these cut scenes rather than flipping through a book.

Continue Reading →

Warner Interactive and DC Comics announced today that as of November 1st, gamers will be able to download Nightwing as a playable character in Batman: Arkham City. The downloadable content pack will run for 560 Microsoft Points ($6.99 in the PSN Store), and include two new challenge maps – Wayne Manor and the ‘Main Hall’. Nightwing, much like the downloadable Robin character, will come with his own unique weapons and gadgets to put to use against the thugs in Arkham City.

In keeping with the ‘bonus skins’ available, the Nightwing DLC will also contain an alternate Animated Series character model. It was also announced recently that the pre-order Robin bonus (granted to those who reserve the game at Best Buy) will be available to the masses on November 22nd for the same price.

Aside from a robust amount of downloadable goodies, it has also come to light in the past few weeks that the cast of Arkham City will be much larger than some may have expected. While villains like The Penguin, Two-Face, Mr. Freeze and The Riddler have all received their own trailers, many of Batman’s foes within the game have yet to step fully into the spotlight.  It has been confirmed that, in addition to all of the above, the following members of the Rogues Gallery will appear in-game: Calendar Man, Poison Ivy, Solomon Grundy, Bane, the Mad Hatter, DeadShot, Talia Al’Ghul, Black Mask, and of course, Prof. Hugo Strange.

Check out the gallery after the jump for the images and videos released so far for the new heroes and villains of Batman: Arkham City – available October 18th, 2011.

Continue Reading →