Assassin’s Creed III DLC: George Washington is King

Ubisoft has announced new downloadable content for Assassin’s Creed III. Set in an alternate version of history, The Tyranny of King Washington is a single-player campaign that will be told through multiple downloadable content packs and features George Washington becoming king of America.

“As the revolution comes to a close, a new and most unexpected enemy emerges,” Ubisoft explains. “Driven by the desire to secure the fate of the colonies, the greatest hero of the revolution, George Washington, succumbs to the temptation of infinite power. The new King is born and his reign leaves no one untouched. To return freedom to the land our new hero must dethrone a tyrant he once called friend.”

The story will be told through three episodic content packs, all of which will be available by purchasing the Assassin’s Creed III Season Pass, which will be available on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC for $29.99 (2400 Microsoft Points). The Pass will offer access to five content packs in all, including single-player content as well as maps and characters for multiplayer. According to Ubisoft, purchasing the Season Pass will account for a 25% savings versus buying packs individually, and Season Pass owners will have access to content one week ahead of other players.

“History is our playground – and AC teams have always loved playing with historical facts and their consequences as a way to better understand a time period,” said Ubisoft executive producer Sebastien Puel said of the Washington content. “While Assassin’s Creed III concentrates on history as it happens, we wanted to take some liberties with this DLC and tell you how things ‘could have happened.’”

Assassin’s Creed III is less than 30 days away, hitting Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 on October 30th, followed by a Wii U version on November 18th and a PC version on November 23rd. The downloadable content will “also be available for the Wii U,” Ubisoft said, but no specific timeframe was revealed.

For more on Assassin’s Creed III, read our hands-on impressions in the frontier and find even more details in our Assassin’s Creed III wiki guide.

Andrew Goldfarb is IGN’s associate news editor. Keep up with pictures of the latest food he’s been eating by following him on Twitter or IGN.

Source : ign[dot]com

We Came. We Saw. We ShootMania'd at PAX.

The IGN ProLeague was at PAX in Seattle, Washington all last weekend showing off Nadeo and Ubisoft's newest competitive first person shooter title: ShootMania. The weekend was packed with a ton of FPS eSports action. We had North America's best ShootMania team, ESP, along with SK.Rapha, EG.nOthing, and Chance in attendance to compete against each other all weekend. Check out our recap below!

Friday

Everything got started early on Friday morning with fans signing up to play with a Joes and Pros Elite mode tournament. After a couple of fun showmatches in SpeedBall and Siege, the Round of 8 in this tournament began. Chance, a former Quake professional player, seemed to pick up the game extremely quickly, knocking out SK.Rapha's team in the Round of 8. In a team kill situaion, we had ESP.Xp3's team advance past ESP.Godson's team in quick fashion. Also advancing to the next round were Area51.PineKone and ESP.Gillz.

Saturday

Saturday contained a lot of demos of different game modes, but the main event was a Best of 7 showdown between ESP, our qualified team, vs Area 51 Gaming. ESP again showed their complete dominance as they won the $750 top prize with an easy 4-0 map score. Area 51 didn't have a lot of time as a team going in to the event, and while they picked up a decent aim with the Laser as the match went along, their coordination was a little too weak to compete with ESP.

Sunday

The true draw of the event happened on Sunday, though, as the event came to a close. After a series of show matches in the Heroes game mode, the Round of 4 and Finals of the Joes and Pros Elite mode tournament were played out. The first match was played out between ESP.Xp3's team and Chance's team, and, despite being a 2-0 in map score for Xp3's team, proved to be incredibly exciting as maps were very close in score. The second match was had ESP.Gillz' team handily defeated Area51.PineKone's team when PineKone was unable to make the match and had to be substituted in for eLe.DarkRabbi. The final score was 2-0 in maps. The finals, though, were outstanding. It was a great setup as teammates Gillz and Xp3 from ESP matched their teams against each other. It went down to the final map, but ESP.Xp3's team was crowned the champion.

Source : ign[dot]com

FX Orders New Cold War-Era Spy Drama

FX announced today that they've ordered up 13 episodes of The Americans - a period drama about the complex marriage of two KGB spies posing as Americans in suburban Washington DC shortly after Ronald Reagan is elected President.

The Americans was created by Joe Weisberg and stars Keri Russell (Felicity), Matthew Rhys (Brothers & Sisters) and Noah Emmerich (Super 8). The series will revolve around the arranged marriage of Phillip (Rhys) and Elizabeth Jennings (Russell), who have two children who know nothing about their parents true identity. As the marriage grows more passionate and genuine by the day, it is still constantly tested by the escalation of the Cold War and the intimate, dangerous and darkly funny relationships they must maintain with a network of spies and informants under their control. Complicating their relationship further is Phillip’s growing sense of affinity for America’s values and way of life. Tensions also heighten upon the arrival of a new neighbor, Stan (Emmerich), an FBI agent working in counter intelligence.

Keri Russell in FOX's Running Wilde.

“We’re proud to welcome The Americans, a taught series that crackles with incredible performances rooted in character perspectives never explored on a U.S. television series, to FX’s line up of quality dramas,” said John Landgraf, President and General Manager, FX Networks. “We’re equally excited to welcome Graham Yost’s talented young Padawan Joe Weisberg as Creator/Showrunner. He joins a long line of gifted writer/producers who have taken their first shot at greatness on FX.”

Weisberg is Executive Producer/Showrunner, alongside Executive Producer Graham Yost (Justified). The series begins production in October and is scheduled to premiere in early 2013.

Source : ign[dot]com

Microsoft Job Listing Outs "Next Generation Surface"

In more than a dozen job listings on the Microsoft Career site spotted today by TechRadar, the Redmond, Washington technology giant let slip a hint that its Surface tablet releasing on October 26 this year won't be the last of its kind. A post on the Official Microsoft Blog echoes the sentiment, calling Surface "our new family of PCs".

While this could be a case of some bad or antiquated terminology (possibly referring to the already-announced Surface as the next generation of PixelSense, for example), the listings were posted after the reveal of the tablet on June 19.

The listings themselves also imply that these new positions will involve working on a different set of devices, as one listing mentions "understanding of touch display architecture and experience in mechanical integration of large touch displays into electronics products". "Large" is a relative term in the world of displays, but it could refer to a desktop monitor or integration with TV monitors.

If these listings do represent a new breed of Surface devices, then they may well feature some unique components mentioned in to the job requirements. "Alternative power sources" seems to imply that the next generation will be even greener than the first, though another listing does include AC/DC power expertise, which means battery-powered machines.

As much as Microsoft has lauded the already-announced Surface tablets for their unique cooling architecture, new developments in "passive and active cooling thermal designs" could further innovate on those models and allow for more powerful processors.

Whatever the next Surface looks like, it's no surprise that Microsoft is getting an early start on preparing it for consumers. Given past software cycles, its likely that these newer Surface devices would still run Windows 8, and that third-party hardware manufacturers will still get shafted as Microsoft dives headlong into the hardware space.

Source: TechRadar 

Dan Crabtree is an I.T. guy and freelance writer with words on IGN, and a league of other gaming news outlets. His dog is considered handsome and well-read. You can find him (the human) on Twitter and IGN.

Source : ign[dot]com

Denzel Washington's The Equalizer Films Next Year

Oscar winner Denzel Washington is now committed to play the title role in Sony's big screen version of the 1980s TV series The Equalizer, with the hunt on for a director to make the film's spring 2013 start date.

Richard Wenk (The Expendables 2) scripted. Escape Artists will produce. Filming is expected to begin filming April 8th, most likely in Boston.

Deadline claims Sony is mulling the following filmmakers for the director's seat: Pierre Morel (Taken), Nicolas Winding Refn (Drive), Gavin O’Connor (Warrior) and Gareth Evans (The Raid: Redemption).

Washington will play the enigmatic Robert McCall, portrayed on the 1985-89 CBS television series by the late Edward Woodward. McCall's past was shrouded in mystery, but it was known that he'd once been a secret agent for an unnamed intelligence organization and had an estranged adult son. In an attempt to redeem himself for his dark past, he offered his services for free to those in need of help in the form of a newspaper classified ad that read: "Got A Problem? Odds Against You? Call The Equalizer." He also drove a sweet black Jaguar XJ6 Series III.

Source : ign[dot]com