Sam & Isaac Hit The Road

Ubisoft have sent over a new trailer for Splinter Cell Blacklist's co-op campaign that sees Sam Fisher team up with CIA agent Isaac Briggs. Apparently 14 maps and four modes will be available, both online and splitscreen, with players able to coordinate stealth takedowns or boost each other to high places.

It looks rather fun, actually, and with luck the levels will be wide and tall enough to provide plenty of strategic opportunities. Blaclist releases on August 22nd; check out our Splinter Cell Blacklist preview for more intel.

Platforms: PS3 | Xbox 360 (reviewed) | PC

Developer: Techland

Publisher: Ubisoft

Ah, the old west. It’s good to be back. Techland’s last Juarez title (The Cartel) opted for a modern setting and suffered from a large dose of ‘bloody awful’ leaking from every festering orifice. So, um yeah, we weren’t fans.

However, I was a huge fan of the game before that, Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood, which featured a fantastically realised Wild West setting during and after the Civil War. After the mega success of Rockstar’s Red Dead Redemption, you would have thought that Ubisoft would have insisted Techland cranked out a Wild West follow up to Bound in Blood. Well, several years later (now that the Wild West bandwagon has long gone) we have one in the form of Gunslinger, a low-priced download-only game.

Reason for concern? Lack of ambition? Low budget productions values? You won’t find any of those here. Much like Blood Dragon, Ubisoft are really pushing the envelope on the limits of what we expect from a downloadable title. Gunslinger, although certainly not without its faults, puts many full priced FPS games to shame.

You are Silas Grieves, a grizzled old gunslinger retelling his tall tales in exchange for a few drinks in a small, sleepy town saloon. Silas claims to have fought alongside the likes of Billy the Kid and duelled against legendary outlaws including Jesse James, John Hardin, Butch Cassidy and more.

Today's trailer might have been entirely CGI, but Warner Bros have also sent over some action-packed screenshots of Batman: Arkham Origins in action. The pre-Christmas Gotham setting makes for some atmospheric fights in the swirling snow (let us throw snowballs, please!), which will once again offer some brutal counters designed to simultaneously punish large groups of henchmen.

Batman: Arkham Origins releases in October, starring a younger and more reckless Caped Crusader. It's in development at Warner Bros. Montreal.

We've got three GRID 2 trailers awaiting your inspection after the break, one of which shows an 'Eliminator' race taking place in Dubai, while the other two focus on the Abu Dhabi Yas Marina circuit and touring cars in some glamorous globetrotting locations.

The rather pretty racer is out next week for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360.

Hard Reset Devs Working On "Total Reimagining"

1997 3D Realms shooter Shadow Warrior is getting the next-gen reboot treatment, courtesy of the team who brought us the outrageous Hard Reset. So far, only a teaser trailer and some oriental-themed concept art has hit the net, but we can expect some entertaining old-school blasting if the studio and series stick to their roots. Along with shuriken and the return of the original sticky bomb, perhaps.

We've got the screens and trailer below. An official website has launched, though there isn't much to see.

UPDATE: We've received some firm details courtesy of publisher Devolver Digital. Check out the premise, protagonist and release window after the break.

Hitman Absolution Professional Edition | Zavvi | £12.99
Price Comparison | Hitman Absolution Review

Thanks to Syzable at HotUkDeals.

Street Fighter X Tekken: Special Edition | Game Collection
£16.95 | Price Comparison

Thanks to Syzable at HotUkDeals.

A new trailer for Dontnod Entertainment's Remember Me acts as a perfect way to mug up on the premise and setting, introducing us to Neo-Paris and its evil corporations that turn memories into commodities. It's out on June 7th for PS3 and Xbox 360, though Carl feels that the mechanics could use some fine tuning in our Remember Me hands-on preview.

Epic Games have outed the next Gears Of War: Judgment DLC pack, entitled 'Lost Relics.' Expect three new maps, a retooled classic and a new game mode.

Duke Nukem Forever | The Game Collection | £2.95 (Save  Over £2)
Xbox 360 price comparison | Duke Nukem Forever Review

Thanks to goonertillidie @ HUKD!

Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary | The Game Collection | £11.95 (Save £3)
Xbox 360 price comparison | Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary Review

Not the cheapest we’ve seen this, but it’s worth a look if you want to relive the Chief’s first adventure. Thanks to NuBlue @ HUKD!

Though nowhere near as epic as our recent Dealspwn playthrough (honest), Fuse's official launch trailer makes a decent fist of showing off the alien tech-powered weaponry and cooperative combat that Insomniac's upcoming shooter promises to bring to the table.

Fuse releases on May 31st in Europe. If you enjoyed the trailer, a short Fuse demo is available on PSN and Xbox Live.

Prepare To Scrum-ble From June 13^th

Just a quick post to let you know that Rugby Challenge 2: The Lions Tour Edition has been given a release date of June 13^th for Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and PC. Although its predecessor failed to find its footing its peers in the genre, Tru Blu Games and Home Entertainment promise “myriad new features, improvements and fresh content.” We’ve got the list of changes for your consideration after the jump.

Platforms: PS3 | Xbox 360 | PC (version tested)

Developer: Gearbox Software

Publisher: 2K Games

Of all the enemies we've faced in Pandora's dangerous wastes, the Psycho is easily the most famous. Gracing both games' box art and constantly burbling all manner of vaguely threatening nonsense, these depraved lunatics charge into combat with no self-preservation whatsoever, gleefully bringing sharpened sticks to a gunfight and setting themselves on fire at the slightest provocation. They've certainly got a bit of a reputation for brainlessness, but you can't argue with the results.

However, after getting hands-on with Borderlands 2's latest vault hunter, it appears that we've grossly underestimated their intelligence. Krieg The Psycho may look every inch the tactless goon, brandishing an enormous chain axe and continually bellowing all manner of insane epithets at the top of his lungs, but he's an advanced character designed for Borderlands veterans looking for a nuanced and surprisingly tactical gameplay experience.

In essence, Krieg boils down to one simple rule. To defeat your enemies, you'll need to hurt them as much as possible... and go out of your way to hurt yourself in imaginative and masochistic ways. Before tactically - and voluntarily - setting yourself on fire.

NBA 2K13 | Zavvi PS3 / 360 | £19.98 (save £4.50)
PS3 / 360 Price Comparison | NBA 2K13 Review

On the fence? Check out Matt's feature on why NBA 2K13 will become your new favourite sports game.

Bioshock Infinite | Amazon PS3 / 360 | £29.99 (save £3 |
PS3 / 360 Price Comparison | Bioshock Infinite Review

*Simply Games are also selling the PS3 version for £29.99.

Binary Domain | Game Collection | £5.95 | Price Comparison | Binary Domain Review

Thanks to Syzable at HotUkDeals.

Science and art collide when making videogames, and Watch_Dogs will need to lock both down in order to fulfil its ambitious remit. Creating a living, breathing, simulated city full of believable people is no mean feat, especially when it's home to versatile mechanics and sophisticated AI designed to react realistically to everyday situations. Not to mention a vengeful hacker who can cause massive devastation with a single tap of a touchscreen.

So after interviewing Lead Game Designer Danny Belanger, I naturally jumped at the chance to talk to cinematic animation lead Lars Bonde about the artistic challenges Watch_Dogs poses, motion capture, his influences and what the next generation promises beyond shinier graphics.

That said, we're not above talking about Drive, guns and car chases either...

Jonathan Lester (Dealspwn): Thanks for talking to us, Lars. Watch_Dogs must pose a massive challenge compared to other games. To my knowledge, no-one's ever had to animate someone getting splashed by a taxi before, discovering that their bank account has been hacked and his wife's leaving with the kids. That must be fun for you as cinematic animation lead!

Lars Bonde (Ubisoft): The challenge has been fun! Partially because, a lot of times in games, there are so many restrictions in terms of technology and how far you can go. But Ubisoft have been really great in saying, “you know what? Go as far as you can and then whatever you can do, we can always scale things down.” Everything has been built in layers. The AI programmer Eric [Baillargeon] has really provided a lot of those opportunities for us.

We've done a lot of motion capture, shot a lot of data, have a lot of actors and we work really closely with them on what we can do. When the car runs by [in the rain], someone has to be splashed. Yes, we're not putting water in the motion capture studio and spraying it up on them, but we have all kinds of other artefacts we can use like foam or whatever. We make sure that we have a little projector or a cannon that can blow it up on them and they can react to it. We can have something race by them so they can react to it as if it's a car.

After taking E3 2012 by storm and then disappearing off the grid, Watch_Dogs has taunted us for months with its promise of totally open-ended action gameplay on an open world scale. Hacking. Shooting. Sneaking. Driving. All of it, all at once, the way you want to play it.

Thankfully Ubisoft are starting to talk specifics. Having taken a long look at their latest production build, I was able to sit down with lead game designer Danny Belanger for a long discussion about Watch_Dogs' numerous gameplay systems, sophisticated AI, unique mechanics and next-generation potential. Look out for our second interview with Cinematic Lead Lars Bonde tomorrow.

Please note: Some of these questions have been submitted by our own community and members of watchdogforums.net. These questions have been clearly credited , and many thanks to everyone who got involved!

Jonathan Lester (Dealspwn): It's difficult to imagine a new IP getting a warmer reception. How exciting is it to be working on an entirely new property, and have such a strong following already?

Danny Belanger (Ubisoft): It's really exciting. When we revealed [Watch_Dogs] last year at E3, the team were super-excited by the reception. We honestly did not expect that much.

Dealspwn: You crushed E3 2012, basically.

Danny Belanger: For us, it was just...it's fun, we like the project, but you never know how it's going to be received. It's fantastic and the team is hyped!

Watch_Dogs' mysterious multiplayer functionality is getting slightly clearer. A structured competitive mode has been briefly hinted at, but more excitingly, singleplayer sessions can start to bleed together while other players synchronously enter your version of Chicago via a companion app from anywhere in the world.

"Ambitious" might be a bit of an understatement, but don't worry, you can play offline.