Cheesy-awesome retro news today, as Ubisoft has announced the release of a Blood Dragon asset pack for the Far Cry 3 map editor. The "Mark IV Style" pack for the editor allows players to create levels with the same neon-drenched visuals as Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon (pictured).

The pack is available now for free on Xbox 360 and PS3. We haven't spotted it on either Steam or Uplay, but we're checking with Ubisoft regarding a PC release.

A boxed retail collection of PlayStation Network titles will hit store shelves on June 25, bringing four games and a $40 price tag with it. Best of PlayStation Network Vol. 1, the first in a series of "Best of" releases according to the announcement, includes When Vikings Attack, Sound Shapes, Tokyo Jungle and Fat Princess.

No word on when Vol. 2 will follow or what games will be included with it, but for the time being this seems like a pretty legit way to save "nearly $15." Folks interested in internetless PlayStation Networking might also want to check out Journey's Collector's Edition, which is also a collection of acclaimed PSN games on physical caveman media for cavemen.

In Madden 25's Connected Franchise career mode, players can take on the role of team owner and perform a number of new tasks, including relocating teams to new cities. Madden's Creative Director Mike Young told Joystiq today that the mode is designed to limit the franchise relocation option to 17 different markets. The 17 cities include Brooklyn, London, Dublin, Toronto, Mexico City, Los Angeles, Austin, Columbus, Orlando, Portland, Oklahoma City and Memphis.

Additionally, some locations with an already-established NFL presence can receive a second team, such as Chicago and Houston. Players will have the option to retain their team name, logo and uniforms when moving or select from three different preset options for each city, including the Brooklyn Beats. The mode also grants players the option to reboot now-defunct teams from the NFL's history, such as the Columbus Panhandles, London Monarchs or the Houston Oilers. Players can opt to turn off the team relocation feature, disabling the option entirely.

EA Sports provided us with a new trailer for the game in which Young discusses the move from Madden 13's Connected Careers mode to this year's Connected Franchise mode. Madden 25 will launch August 27 for PS3 and Xbox 360.

Metro: Last Light developer 4A Games is planning to release four different content packs throughout the summer, all bundled together today in a season pass available on Xbox Live, PSN and Steam for 1200 MS Points ($15).

The Faction and Chronicle packs are the first listed, each aimed at continuing the single-player story of Metro: Last Light. Faction is due first, in June. The Tower pack will be aimed at Metro veterans, offering "a unique solo challenge." Finally, the Developer pack aims to offer some additional tools aiding in exploration. All season pass purchases will also unlock an exclusive semi-automatic shotgun rifle, while each piece of DLC will be available for individual purchase.

Metro: Last Light launched on May 14, with our review placing it in the company of another story-driven shooter, Half-Life. The game was originally set to be published by THQ, but after the studio's fall Deep Silver came in and acquired the game.

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Joining Ninja Gaiden's Momiji as new characters in Dead or Alive 5 Ultimate are Ein and Jacky Bryant, the latter from the Virtua Fighter series. As revealed in the latest issue of Famitsu (via Siliconera and Game Jouhou), the spiky-haired racer gels with the other combatants when the PS3 and Xbox 360 game hits Japan on September 5.

The Ultimate version of DoA 5 is confirmed to arrive in the west this fall, both at retail and on digital platforms.

This week's PlayStation Store update brings the release of Techland's first-person shooter Call of Juarez: Gunslinger, along with an upgraded, HD version of Insomniac Games' PlayStation 2 platformer Ratchet: Deadlocked.

PS Vita owners can opt for the budget-priced janitor sim Men's Room Mayhem or the Cross-Buy enabled tower defense game Ratchet & Clank: Full Frontal Assault, which includes a free copy of the PlayStation 3 version with purchase. Reminder: Ratchet: Deadlocked is available as a free download for players who purchased the retail PlayStation 3 version of Full Frontal Assault.

Pinball Arcade and Germinator headline this week's PlayStation Plus update, and subscribers also have access to discounts for ten DLC-bundled Ultimate Edition titles.

The full list of this week's store additions is available on the PlayStation Blog.

Microsoft today announced the next generation of Xbox technology, called the Xbox One. Sony previously announced the PlayStation 4 back on February 20, so we now have a full look at just what both next-generation HD boxes will contain.

After the break, we've assembled a chart comparing the two consoles and their various components. The two machines are surprisingly similar, with both using an eight core CPU, the same amount of RAM, and both containing a combo Blu-Ray and DVD drive. But there are some major differences, too: Microsoft has created its own chip for the Xbox One, and the PlayStation 4 controller contains that share button and the clickable touchpad. Prices for both units haven't been announced yet, but both will be available later on this year.

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The next-generation engine debuted in Call of Duty: Ghosts will not only power the franchise's signature 60 frames-per-second gameplay, but a more coherent experience overall. According to Infinity Ward executive producer Mark Rubin, Ghosts will stick with the same protagonist and squad of soldiers throughout the game.

"If you look at Call of Duty in general, you're on the high-tech, super-powered forces. You're America, you're strong, you're Britain, Germany," Rubin told Joystiq at a recent press event in Los Angeles. "It just felt like, what if we could reverse those roles a bit, what if we had America as the underdog and not the superpower? What if we had some other countries as the big superpower and we're fighting against this more technologically superior force. And so that is really where we got: now we've got this technologically superior super force, they devastate the western world, the US, with a weapon of mass destruction of some kind - I'm not going to go into that, it will come later, and what we did is we had that event start the game, but the story picks up ten to fifteen years later and you as a soldier grew up in this new changed world."

That soldier will be a focal point for the game, Rubin said, and won't contribute to the fractured, multi-perspective narratives for which the series has drawn ire in the past. "It's not like before where you have these multiple sides and trot around. You're pretty much the same person throughout."

You'll also be accompanied by a Navy SEAL dog (not to be confused with a Moreau-style seal-dog), which can sniff out dangers and aid the team in several ways as a companion AI of sorts. As you might expect from a production of Ghosts' caliber, Infinity Ward did full motion capture on a retired SEAL dog.

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The latest Call of Duty, dubbed Ghosts, has drafted Syriana and Traffic writer Stephen Gaghan to provide its fiction.

Games don't get more Hollywood than Call of Duty, and Activision has shown little hesitance in acquiring composers and writers from the silver screen to aid in its ever bigger and brasher efforts. Gaghan's work on Traffic, a dour crime drama, and political thriller Syriana made him a standout candidate for Ghosts. The game follows the remainder of the US military in a world scarred by a weapon of mass destruction.

According to developer Infinity Ward, Gaghan didn't swoop in and drop off a script – he requested an office, and worked from one amidst the game's single-player team all throughout the game's production. That's a sterling gesture, but I asked Call of Duty: Ghosts executive producer Mark Rubin to explain why Gaghan was deemed suitable to write for players, not viewers.

"Basically, we looked at his work – he's a great writer, no doubt about it and that's fine, there are probably lots of great writers out there," Rubin said. "So what we did is we actually got the chance to talk to him a long time before we decided to go forward with it. And we realized he was getting it. We've had writers before, and they know how to write, but they don't understand the game aspect of it.

"And I feel like with Gaghan, he really understood what we were trying to do. He asked more questions than try to sell himself, and that was, I think, a really big selling point. He was asking how things work and how we do things, and was really interested in how we craft the story, not from a writing standpoint but from the visuals and gameplay. He was really asking more questions. Although he was a gamer – he knew it from that side – he didn't know it from the dev side. He really was asking a lot of questions about the dev side, he really wanted to know more. I think that interest in what we were doing is really what drove us to him."

The Barbara Gordon version of Batgirl is now available as a playable fighter in Injustice: Gods Among Us, provided you're willing to pony up the $4.99/400 MS Points required to download her; however, Season pass holder have already paid their dues. As we've seen previously, Batgirl's fighting style is a mixture of zoning capabilities and rushdown, rather than a carbon copy of Batman or Nightwing.

Two new costume packs are also available: The Red Son pack, which we've discussed at length, and the Killing Joke pack, which features new costumes from ol' Joker's finest hour. Both are available for $2.99/240 MS Points.

Starting tomorrow, PlayStation Plus members in North America can download FarSight's Cross-Buy pinball sim Pinball Arcade and Creat Studios' PS Vita puzzler Germinator free of charge.

Pinball Arcade, regularly priced at $10, features the classic tables Tales of the Arabian Nights, Ripley's Believe It or Not, Theatre of Magic, and Black Hole. PlayStation Plus members will have access to both the PlayStation 3 and Vita versions of the core four-table download, and 24 additional machines are available as paid DLC.

Vita owners also receive free access to Germinator, which originally premiered in March at $10. Similar in premise to Taito's bubble-bursting puzzler Puzzle Bobble, Germinator challenges players to match like-colored germs, causing them to grow and eventually explode in a gooey mess.

Member-exclusive discounted items for this week include Metro: Last Light's season pass, the newly released Vita janitor sim Men's Room Mayhem, and Capcom's Darkstalkers Resurrection and Super Puzzle Fighter 2, along with a collection of DLC-bundled Ultimate Editions.

A leaked pre-order image tipped us off yesterday and the press release past the break confirms it: Deathstroke is a playable character in Batman Arkham Origins. He'll be unlocked in the game's challenge mode, and all who plunk down cash early will enjoy some exclusive maps and character skins associated with him.

Deathstroke is seemingly a leading man in the video game world now, with Batman: Arkham Origins his second role of the year after Injustice: Gods Among Us in April. His real name is Slade Wilson, a mercenary and assassin created by teenage cartoonist Gary Wilson in 1980.

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The 3DS is no graphical slouch. Aside from the glasses-free 3D feature, the system can kick out some impressive scenery, and it did so with last year's Resident Evil Revelations, a well-made little horror shooter in a series that's been looking for a lifeboat lately. After launching Resident Evil 6 fewer than six months ago, Capcom seems to think HD platforms need even more Resident Evil love, and so this week Revelations hits Xbox 360, PS3, Windows PCs, and the Wii U.

Playing it in enhanced form on an HD console, however, feels just a little goofy. The textures do look excellent, but the game's models are clearly made for a more lightweight graphics engine, which means you get characters with hair frozen in place and enemies with just a few animations to use over and over again. Revelations was made for a handheld machine, and its designers cut corners that the other platforms would have let them curve around more gracefully.

But Revelations' saving grace is that it's a Resident Evil game, and it's a good Resident Evil game at that. For that reason, fans of the series who missed out the first time around will probably appreciate the chance to see it for themselves.

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EA Sports won't just show off next-gen FIFA tomorrow at Microsoft's Xbox reveal, but is also planning on punching out some details about its UFC game, which is not scheduled for release this year (as far as we know).

EA obtained the rights to UFC games thanks to THQ's financial pains at the time, eventually passing to the great octagon beyond. The Xbox event is scheduled for tomorrow, May 21, at 1 p.m. ET (10 a.m. PT, 6 p.m. UK). Prepare yourself for some next-gen sweat tech.

It may not be the timeliest response, but Denis Dyack is speaking out against allegations that the very poorly received X-Men: Destiny was the result of catastrophic mismanagement on the part of developer Silicon Knights. Dyack recently left his role as the head of Silicon Knights to join Precursor games, developer of the coming Eternal Darkness spiritual successor, Shadow of the Eternals. As Precursor is seeking crowdfunding for the project, and Dyack is serving as its chief creative officer, it seems the company believes he has some 'splaining to do.

The allegations sprung from a Kotaku article penned by freelance writer Andrew McMillen last October. In a 30-minute YouTube response, Dyack categorically denies statements made in the article, saying that "there isn't any hard evidence whatsoever besides non-credible anonymous sources." Dyack added that Silicon Knights refused to submit any comments for the article in question, as it would have appeared to lend credence to what he sees as untrue allegations.

Dyack then reads a letter he alleges was written by McMillen to an anonymous source. The letter states that McMillen's article was initially refused by Wired games editor Chris Kohler, who cited a lack of facts and documentation, apart from the comments from anonymous ex-employees. Dyack goes on to say that "not only did Silicon Knights not divert funds from X-Men: Destiny to our other projects, which I can't talk about, we actually put more money into X-Men: Destiny than what we were paid." Dyack says he and Silicon Knights worked with Activision and Marvel to make Destiny as good as it could be and, while he's sorry for how it turned out, he says, "We put nothing but our best efforts" into the game.

Dyack also admitted to saying some things he "shouldn't have said in the press" regarding X-Men Destiny, adding, "I've learned my lesson." The same mistakes won't be made again, he says. The video goes on to address other concerns, such as Silicon Knights' relationship with Nintendo, and Dyack has also posted a litany of related references on Precursor's forums.

North American retailers GameStop and Amazon are offering up their own pre-order incentives for Watch Dogs, Ubisoft announced today.

Those who commit early through GameStop will receive an additional single-player mission, with a perk that unlocks "exclusive investigation opportunities inside of the network" and bonus cash when hacking into bank accounts, plus an exclusive poster designed by Alex Ross. Amazon pre-orders also get an exclusive mission that, upon completion, unlocks a special biometric assault rifle and an outfit.

Watch Dogs launches on the Xbox 360, PS3, PC and Wii U on November 19. A port is also planned for next-generation consoles.

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EA Sports lifted the curtains today on one of its core additions to Madden 25 this year, Connected Franchise owners mode. In it, players take on the role of team owner, setting prices for tickets and concessions as well as having the option to relocate teams to both domestic and international cities. Owners also handle the hiring of team personnel, such as scouts, trainers and coaches, and they answer questions from the media. Players will manage stadium upgrades and market their superstar athletes so fans will buy their jerseys, increasing their teams' yearly profit.

The options to import draft classes from EA's NCAA Football series and take control of all 32 teams in the Connected Careers mode were woefully absent from last year's game, but will return to Madden 25. Additionally, the game's primary career mode will receive a face-lift thanks to an improved user interface that includes a transaction log to follow the movement of players from team to team. The mode's UI includes a new Trade Center, allowing users to see what other teams are offering for players and draft picks so they can top their opponents' bids.

Lastly, Madden 25 will feature more media personalities for the career mode's in-game Twitter feed, such as ESPN fantasy analyst Matthew Berry and Fox Sports NFL writer Peter Schrager. It will also receive new legendary players and coaches, including Mike Ditka and William "The Refrigerator" Perry.