Earlier this month, Ubisoft teamed up with VICE to supply a 3 episode series that explored the true pirate legends that inspired the arena of Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag. Remember that, the series was as entertaining because it have been educational. Now the ultimate episode is finally here.

In the overall episode of Rum, Guns and Gallows, VICE traveled to Port Royal, Jamaica to be told more about Calico Jack. Although not as ruthless as Charles Vane or as infamous as Blackbeard, Calico Jack left a large mark on history. His most renowned exploit involved the capture of The Kingston – a huge merchant vessel that he commanded for under three months.

Calico Jack can be credited with the popularization of the Jolly Roger, or the skull and cross bones. His design replaced the cross bones with swords and have become instantly recognizable as his calling card. It was partially because of Calico Jack that the Jolly Roger has survived as a piratical symbol for so long as it has.

Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag launches on October 29 for the PS3, Xbox 360 and Wii U. The computer, Xbox One and PS4 versions all launch later in November.

[Image: AssassinsCreed/YouTube]

Earlier today, Microsoft announced that it’s going to be giving early Xbox One adopters access to a tribulation version of Kinect Sports Rivals within the months leading as much as the title’s launch. Now, Nintendo has announced the same plane for its upcoming Wii Fit U title.

Wii Fit U is scheduled to launch on November 1 in North America and in Europe. On that day, Wii U owners might be capable of download an ordeal version of the sport free of charge. The trial version is truly the whole Wii Fit U game, though it does require a Wii Balance Board to play. The trial would be available from November 1 until January 31, 2014 and lasts for 31 days starting with the day it’s first played.

In addition to the trial, Nintendo is offering to unlock the trial for those that buy a Wii Fit U “Fit Meter.” People who buy a Fit Meter and sync it to the trial may have the total game unlocked, forever. The Fit Meter will retail for $20 – only one-third the cost of the entire Wii Fit U game. This makes that trial version/Fit Meter offering quite a deal for Wii U owners who actually have a Balance Board.

The Fit Meter is a small activity meter this is meant to be carried in the course of the day. The device counts steps and changes in elevation, adjusting an estimate of calories burnt accordingly.

Wii Fit U, which expands upon the preferred Wii Fit workout game for Wii and updates it for Nintendo’s new Wii U console, was previewed last month in its own Nintendo Direct:

One of one of the best parts in regards to the Amazon Appstore is its Free App of the Day program. Day by day of the year, Amazon takes a preferred app that often costs anywhere from $.99 to $5 and gives it at no cost to anybody with a Kindle Fire or Android device. Now Amazon is upping the ante for a unique promotion today.

As portion of its Free App of the Day program, Amazon has decided to make six apps completely free. These apps, called “Kindle Hits,” presumably represent what Amazon sees because the best performing Kindle apps of the past year.

Here are the free games included as element of the promotion:

All of the above apps are free for the rest of today. If that’s not an excellent enough deal, Amazon would be sweetening it with the addition of 20 free Amazon Coins for every of the above apps which you download. These coins can be utilized instead of money on in-app purchases within any Amazon Appstore game.

Oh, and besides the above free apps, the Amazon Appstore also is offering Autodesk Sketchbook Mobile as portion of its regular Free App of the Day promotion. Unlike the above apps, this isn’t a game, but rather an app identical to Adobe Illustrator. You need to use your Android device to attract whatever you prefer or even import it on your PC through a convenient email feature.

[Image: Amazon Appstore]

For months now, Sony have been teasing an abundance of recent features for its upcoming PlayStation 4 console. Features akin to remote gameplay on PS Vitas, suspend features for games, and the functionality of the proportion button at the new DualShock controller had been touted since E3 or before. Sony today announced, however, that lots of these features should be unavailable within the stock console at launch, and may require a wide day-one patch to activate.

The update shall be available on November 15 – an identical day that the PlayStation 4 launches within the U.S. The patch will update the PS4 software to version 1.5 and could require a 300 MB download.

The features included within the patch don’t seem to be trivial. Current-generation features corresponding to online multiplayer and watching Blu-ray or DVD movies would require the update. Other extra features corresponding to multiple simultaneous user log ins, party chat, background music through Music Unlimited, and voice and face recognition for the PlayStation Camera will all require the update in addition.

As for next-gen features, remote play with a PlayStation Vita is not going to work until the patch is downloaded, and neither will the console’s ability to have interaction with mobile devices in the course of the PlayStation App. The record, screenshot, and upload capabilities enabled by that share button at the controller also will need the patch, in addition to the potential to stream gameplay through Ustream or Twitch.

At least one touted feature of the PS4 has not even made it into the patch. The suspend mode that permits the console to sleep in a low-power state and resume quickly may not be a feature at launch time.

Earlier this week, Nintendo announced a brand new Wii U bundle for the vacations that included New Super Mario Bros. U and New Super Luigi U for $300. That’s a solid value, but some prospective shoppers is also bummed out that it doesn’t include Nintendo Land. Well, Nintendo has you covered with another Wii U bundle that incorporates Nintendo Land and what’s arguably the most important kids franchise today in gaming.

Nintendo announced today that it has partnered with Activision to give a Wii U Skylanders Swap Force bundle for the vacations. The $299 bundle launches November 15 and contains a white 8GB Wii U Basic system, the Skylanders Swap Force starter pack and a duplicate of Nintendo Land.

“There are such a lot of great elements to this Skylanders Swap Force Wii U bundle that we almost couldn’t cram all of them into the box,” said Scott Moffitt, Nintendo of America’s executive vice chairman of Sales & Marketing. “This amazing deal provides an immense amount of entertainment for youngsters and their families to play together.”

So, what does the Skylanders Swap Force starter pack include? With it, you’ll get the sport disc, a portal of power that’s used to scan figurines into the sport, three figurines – Ninja Stealth Elf, Blast-Zone and Washbuckler – and a few other collectible goods.

Nintendo is clearly targeting families with youngsters with this latest bundle as Skylanders has become the largest kids franchise in gaming ever since its inception many years ago. Kids adore the important toy collection aspect of the franchise, and fogeys tolerate spending hundreds of bucks on rare, collectable figures.

Skylanders Swap Force is already available on PS3, Xbox 360, Wii U, Wii and Nintendo 3DS. Will probably be available on November 15 for the PS4 and November 22 for the Xbox One.

[Image: Nintendo/Business Wire]

Though fans of the sport are still complaining about game-ruining glitches, developer Rockstar seems to have got Grand Theft Auto Online into playable shape. This after weeks of upset gamers who experienced missing characters, in-game money, and vehicles (or were simply unable to play) shortly after the launch of Grand Theft Auto V‘s multiplayer mode.

With among the game’s troubles now up to now, Rockstar has finally turned to addressing the way forward for GTA Online. In an update today, the developer revealed that the 1st add-on pack for GTA Online should be coming sometime in “early November.” The content, titled “the Beach Bum Pack,” will include new weapons, vehicles, and customization options for player characters. The recent items may also be available for players to exploit within the game’s single-player mode. Similarly, the DLC will include “lots” of recent job for players to get into, including new gang attacks, parachutes, deathmatches, and races.

Apart from the add-on Rockstar also announced that the “first part” of the promised GTA Online content creator tools could be coming sometime q4. The tools will allow players to create their very own deathmatch or race jobs for others to play, and Rockstar can be putting a “Rockstar Verified” seal of approval on some of the better ones.

Those “Rockstar Verified” maps can be utilized in the developer’s social club events for GTA Online, that allows you to begin sometime in November.

Rockstar also mentioned within the update that the promised “stimulus package” of $500,000 in-game cash per player should begin sometime next week, after another update to the sport is released. The update is intended to repair lingering glitches causing some players to lose their in-game progress.

One of probably the most surprising things about Sony’s big PlayStation 4 reveal was just how much Sony appeared to embrace indie game developers. The physical manifestation of this commitment was Jonathan Blow, the developer behind Braid, up on stage on the presentation announcing that his next game, The Witness, may be coming to PlayStation 4.

Since that point no much have been revealed in regards to the Witness, though Blow did promote the PS4 with a developer conversation video back in May. Today, Sony teased some information about what to anticipate with the sport.

The Witness might be an open-world puzzle game, though players can be shepherded from easier puzzles toward increasingly complex and mind-numbing puzzles. Players will walk or run across the lonely game world until they approach a puzzle and enter a “draw mode.”

Once in draw mode, players will solve what looks like an easy 2-d maze puzzle, drawing a line from the start of the maze to the tip. Though the puzzles will start off relatively straightforward, they are going to quickly advance, adding new rules and becoming harder. Anyone who has played Braid will know just how far Blow can take seemingly simple game mechanics.

The process may be seen within the gameplay video released earlier this year, though even seeing puzzles being solved doesn’t necessarily spoil how they’re solved:

In the U.S. it’s odd to peer a non-Nintendo game released on any day aside from than a Tuesday. Warner Bros., however, has decided to buck the fad and release Batman: Arkham Origins today, a Friday, for consoles and PC. The move may have something to do with the approaching release of Battlefield 4 and Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag on Tuesday, October 29

The game is the third inside the critically acclaimed series that began with Batman: Arkham Asylum and continued with Batman: Arkham City. Origins is a prequel to these games, featuring a tender Bruce Wayne masquerading as an inexperienced Batman. Villain Black Mask takes the role ob big bad, leading a team of classic Batman villains (including The Joker, Bane, Penguin, and Deadshot) in an try and assassinate Batman on Christmas Eve. The sport happens in an open-world Gotham City this is larger than the town section seen in in Arkham City.

As shown within the game’s launch trailer, Origins plays much because the previous games within the series have. Batman will use his bat-suit and an assortment of gadgets to resolve mysteries, take down villains, and bash within the heads of henchmen. The Batman: Arkham combat style, which has since been copied by many action games lately, have been further refined.

In addition to Origins, Warner Bros. today also released Batman: Arkham Origins Blackgate, a handheld companion game with regards to the console and PC game. Blackgate occurs after the events of Origins and adapts the series for play in a 2-d/3-d hybrid style. It’s far available today for both PlayStation Vita and Nintendo 3DS.

Back in July, PopCap and EA launched Plants vs. Zombies 2 on iOS devices. It soon launched on Android devices down under, however the remainder of the world’s Android devices needed to wait. Now that wait is over.

PopCap Games announced today that Plants vs. Zombies 2 is now available globally via Google Play. There’s no explanation behind the Android version being delayed well beyond any timed exclusivity period, however it can have something to do with PopCap integrating Google Play Game Services into the title. Actually, it’s the primary PopCap title to take action.

“With the coming of Plants vs. Zombies 2 on Android, we’re effectively reaching a giant new audience of mobile players who’ve been eagerly awaiting the sport,” said Tony Leamer, Franchise Business Director for Plants vs. Zombies. “We’re particularly pleased that the Android iteration of the sport has your entire great features and functionality present in other mobile editions.”

Unlike the 1st Plants vs. Zombies title, the sequel is entirely free-to-play with its main income coming from in-app transactions. PopCap notes that the full game could be accessed for free of charge, and that the in-app transactions are just there when you desire to augment or enhance their game somehow.

As was the case with the iOS release, Plants vs. Zombies 2 on Android will include three worlds at launch which encompasses greater than 60 levels. PopCap promises that there’ll be more worlds and more levels coming soon in addition.

If you should get your zombie busting action on, that you may grab Plants Vs. Zombies 2 from Google Play today.

[Image: GamesHQMedia/YouTube]

The Xbox One would be launching with not one, but two fighting games on November 22. The 1st is a reboot of Rare’s classic fighting game franchise Killer Instinct while the opposite is a motion controlled fighting game from Ubisoft. Guess which one just got a brand new trailer today.

If you were hoping for more Killer Instinct, you’ll be disappointed to profit that today is all about Ubisoft’s Fighter Within. The Xbox One launch title challenges players to govern a fighter within the most awkward way possible – with their bodies. Whereas most fighters depend on precise movement and button presses, Fighter Within often is the Wii Boxing of a brand new generation.

Check it out:

The bizarre thing about Fighter Within is that it features the entire crazy acrobatics and move sets of another fighter. How do you pull them off when you’re a lazy gamer that can’t even jump a foot off the bottom? I’m not likely sure because the above trailer is content with just showing us in-game footage, and never how goofy the players will look.

I think it’s safe to claim that Fighter Within aren’t the Dance Central of fighting games. In spite of the fact that players could do backflips and leg sweeps, you almost certainly wouldn’t desire to do such things on your front room. Even then, you continue to might prove accidentally punching your pals within the face.

Fighter Within launches day and date with the Xbox One on November 22.

[Image: ubisoft/YouTube]