New Games |
- Happening now: Watch us game for charity for 24 hrs live
- Kristen Schaal wants you to put her in a Minecraft coma
- Review: A Game of Thrones: Genesis
- On Being the Boss: Evil is Syndicate's true legacy
- Freddie Wong's heart-wrenching inverted aim PSA
- Payday: The Heist shields itself well
- This Thai gamer reeeeeeeally gets into Ghost Squad
- That's So MMO!: Shocktober Sensations
- Weekend PC download deals: Tomb Raider and
- NYCC: All about Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
- NYCC: Kevin Conroy says that being Batman isn't easy
- NYCC: Street Fighter X Tekken special edition detailed
- NYCC: Street Fighter X Tekken Gem system revealed
- NYCC: Trivia from last night's Final Fantasy XIII-2 party
- Naturally, Battlefield 3 has an online pass
- Army Corps of Hell to launch with Vita in North America
- New Cave Story 3D screenshots to whet the appetite
- Costume Quest + free DLC now on Steam
- Win over $10,000 in prizes during our Extra Life marathon
| Happening now: Watch us game for charity for 24 hrs live Posted: 15 Oct 2011 03:05 PM PDT Destructoid's Extra Life 24-hour gaming marathon is here! Streaming from Topware Interactive in the Bay Area, come watch as your favorite staff members on the West Coast play games for 24 hours straight while we ask for your donations to benefit Children's Miracle Network hospitals. By donating, not only are you helping children but you also have a chance to win prizes from our $10,000 pile of goodies. Check below for our stream, and click the link below to head to our Donate Page! Destructoid Extra Life Donation Page
Watch live video from Destructoid.com Live Shows! on www.twitch.tv We're giving away a ton of games for any donation amount. We also have some high tier donation levels that will net you some super rare games.
For a minimum of $50 donation, you'll be entered to win: Street Fighter IV Chun Li Statue (one of only 700 made), Tekken: The Movie, Marvel Vs Capcom 3 (360), Street Fight Alpha: The Movie, Street Fighter D-Pad, Marvel Vs Capcom 3 Shirt, Chun Li Shirt, Street Fighter IV iPhone 4 Case, Street Fighter IV Headband, Marvel Vs Capcom 3 Booklet, Dogtags, 2 Capcom Sticker Pages, and 5 Udon Street Fighter Comic Books and a Capcom cigar. For a minimum of $100 donation, you'll be entered to win: Final Fantasy (PSP), Final Fantasy II (PSP), Dissidia Final Fantasy (PSP), Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core (PSP), Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions (PSP), Final Fantasy IV: The Complete Collection (PSP), Final Fantasy Tactics (PS1), Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobos Dungeon (Wii), Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers (Wii), Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Echoes of Time (Wii), Final fantasy XIII (PS3), Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates (DS), Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes of Light (DS), Final Fantasy IV (DS), Final Fantasy Tactics A2: Grimoire of the Rift (DS), Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings (DS), Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo Tales (DS), Final Fantasy III (DS), Tactics Ogre tarot cards, and Dragon Quest Slime toy. For a minimum of $100 donation, you'll be entered to win: Black label versions of Final Fantasy Tactics, Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VIII, and Final Fantasy IX. You have all day to enter for these high tier prizes so get to donating!
Here's our upcoming schedule! Destructoid Presents: Extra Life 24-hour gaming schedule on October 15 (all times PST and subject to change) 7:00 PM -- BioShock 2: We take a trip down memory lane with one of the best game franchises in recent years. Join in as we play BioShock and harvest some ADAM! 12:00AM -- Scary games with Max Scoville: Tara Long gets her revenge on Max by making him play his favorite type of game, HORROR GAMES!
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| Kristen Schaal wants you to put her in a Minecraft coma Posted: 15 Oct 2011 11:15 AM PDT
As the above video explains, Kristen Schaal (spokeswoman for the Xperia Play) is looking for a Minecrafter to build her something awesome in the game. Besides the satisfaction of knowing you've made something great for someone as cool as Ms. Schaal, the winner of this contest also wins a trip to New York to meet her. If that isn't incentive I don't know what is. Interested parties can submit their video entries to the facebook app page until November 7th. I know you guys will come up with some incredibly epic creations, the Minecraft crowd is nothing if not creative and fun. So good luck to you, but keep in mind:if your creation really is so awesome that it puts Kristen in an epic coma, you're going to have to wait until she wakes up to meet her. |
| Review: A Game of Thrones: Genesis Posted: 15 Oct 2011 10:00 AM PDT Bearing no relation to the recent TV show, A Game of Thrones: Genesis delves into a world of politics and backstabbing, and puts less of an emphasis on the tired real-time strategy mechanics seen in so many licensed RTS titles. The world of A Song of Ice and Fire is not one filled with enough epic battles to make for a more traditional strategy game, after all. More or less eschewing every audience other than a hardcore PC strategy crowd that knows the entire Targaryen family tree by heart, starting with Aegon the Conqueror's landing on Westeros, Genesis attempts to deliver an overly ambitious and deep strategy game and succeeds at it about as well as the average character succeeds at surviving in ASOIAF. A Game of Thrones: Genesis (PC) The meat of Genesis is divided into two parts. A single-player mode filled with mini-campaigns lets you play through some of Westeros' historical events during the 1000 years before the first book, while a skirmish "House vs. House" and a multiplayer mode allow you access to many gameplay variables and options to use as you like. In the spirit of the books, Cyanide has tried to turn this game into a back and forth of political maneuvering, spying, backstabbing, and shifting allegiances. During peace time, envoys can be sent to start alliances with neighboring towns. Enemy envoys can try to ruin such an alliance, lest you solidify it by marrying a Noble lady to that town -- which you can buy for a handful of golden dragons. Alternatively, you can use spies to scout the roads and try to make secret agreements -- hidden alliances that yield you a town's income while the enemy thinks it remains loyal -- or to sniff out enemy secret agreements. Noble ladies can seduce (convert) enemy units, rogues can start uprisings in enemy-held towns, assassins can stealthily take out single units, and guards can protect single units from any such manipulation. Essentially this leads to a feeling that you are managing a large postal service rather than forging together a kingdom. In most cases, an army of envoys needs to be micromanaged to gain as many alliances as possible, while you simultaneously try to manage your spies to keep an eye on turncloaks and enemy actions across the map. Units become increasingly more expensive as you build more of them and gold can take a while to start flowing, so it becomes a measured but hectic race to gain the most alliances in least amount of time. As you do this during peace time, you can use gold to buy groups of mercenaries of the traditional cavalry, infantry, and archer variety. These serve as small protection and harassment units, or as a quick reaction force should your spies detect some enemy plots in the works. Carry out enough hostile actions, however, and war will eventually break out. Every house's alliances and secret agreements are laid bare, and towns can only be taken by force. During wartime, gold primarily becomes a resource to create peasants that can be set to work on available fields to harvest food. Food, in turn, is the resource required to buy armies -- the only units able to capture towns and castles. If you are feeling particularly malicious, you can don your Ser Gregor helmet and take some knights to kill and pillage the entire food economy of an enemy House. Alas, in most cases during the campaign missions, warfare becomes a matter of waiting to build up resources, buying a few armies, and moving them from town to town until you win. As a result, there are a lot of factors to manage just to keep your alliances strong, safe, and under your control, to the point of an overwhelming amount of micromanagement. You always feel like you are one small step behind as an assassin suddenly wipes out one of your envoys, and by the time you have enough money for a spy and a counter-force -- or by the time they are in position -- you've probably already lost the support of a few towns. This makes for a lot of chaotic and rushed clicking around in the skirmish modes, without ever feeling you are a House's Great Lord as the game intends you to be -- it feels more like struggling to keep up until you've suddenly won. The mini-campaigns that explore the events of certain time periods prior to the first book (and the TV show) are what could've been a fun way to engage players in the larger world and history of ASOIAF, but these missions are marred by the oddest of design decisions. Taking control of most of Westeros as Aegon I Targaryan might sound awesome, and it's fun enough to see him roast the hell out of Harrenhal mounted on his dragon Balerion, but the missions themselves are a bit drab. You'll mostly be making alliances with X required towns, securing at least Y alliances, or raising Z armies to win a mission. Strangely enough, while the world of Westeros itself is rather ugly and filled with scores of random and anonymous towns spread around the land, the key cities are designed to look their part but are simply called Feudal Homes instead of actually having names. It's up to you to recognize Harrenhal, Highgarden, Casterly Rock, Winterfell, etc. Since the books offer plenty of town and city names and locations to draw upon, it's mind boggling why you can't even find them on the map of a game without already knowing exactly what they are called or where they are located. Even worse, half the missions are on random maps dotted with towns that depict some place in Westeros, but only the mission description will tell you where exactly. The campaign's missions also suffer from some weird design structures. One mission, where it is your task to pacify newly-conquered Dorne, ends up simply requiring you to buy and send out a bunch of merchants, kill a few assassins and brigands, and wait for a set amount of gold to accumulate. Your reward? A mission victory screen that tells you that in the end Daeron I Targaryen lost 50,000 troops and had to give up Dorne anyway. Likewise, sometimes you can choose which of two Targaryen siblings has the right to the throne only to be told upon mission completion that your Targaryen of choice simply died a short while later, because that's how the story went. While the game's mini-campaigns leave a lot to be desired from even a moderate fan of the books, the gameplay in Genesis does at least try to be different with its many layers of gaining and keeping control. The real meat of the game lies in the House vs. House skirmish mode, even if it becomes too hectic and offers too many gameplay options for its own good, while multiplayer can offer the game a long life provided you can find likeminded people to play with. As such, despite not being particularly good, fun, and being about as pretty as the Maid of Tarth, A Game of Thrones: Genesis does offer some enjoyment provided you are willing to stick by it and have a couple of friends for multiplayer. You do need to be a pretty hardcore fan of the books to really get the most out of this game, though, and although it might sound cool to relive some of the more iconic wars, on the whole it never rises above mediocrity. By trying too hard to capture the spirit of A Song of Ice and Fire, A Game of Thrones: Genesis raises curtain walls between the player and an expected level of fun, offering as many different strategies as George R.R. Martin has written descriptions of doublets. Yet in the end a doublet is meant to become bloodstained, and so it is with Genesis; a title that feels like control over its direction was loosened too much during development at the cost of becoming unwieldy and uninviting. Still, it never becomes insultingly bad either. You'll just get bored of it well before you reach mastery of all the aspects the game has to offer. If you are that hardcore fan who just has to experience what Cyanide offers outside of the books, and if you have a friend or two who are willing to dive into it with you, there's a potential for fun to be found under a mountain of mechanics. At the current hefty pricepoint, however, it is impossible to recommend such an unfocused game to anyone. There's room for a good videogame based on A Song of Ice and Fire, but while A Game of Thrones: Genesis is the first of its name, it never becomes more than an incestuous child born from both media parents. |
| On Being the Boss: Evil is Syndicate's true legacy Posted: 15 Oct 2011 09:00 AM PDT You've read Conrad's preview, seen gameplay footage, and considered Maurice's analysis. You've looked at screenshots, heard arguments both for and against, and perhaps even pronounced your own. You've found out that it's coming next February, a rather short time for a game that existed as little more than a rumor for so long. Point is, EA is trying to bring back Bullfrog's old classic Syndicate in a big way, and it's making all the usual promises to "keep true" to the original game's legacy. It raises the question, though. Just what is Syndicate's legacy? Some would peg it at an isometric viewpoint. Others would peg it at squad-based mechanics. Still others would peg it on high-tech cyberpunk. And those truly in the know would peg it on the Persuadertron. Me? I assert that Syndicate's true legacy, its essence, the quality that raised it to its pedestal, the greatest challenge to any game that would "keep true", is evil. Above and beyond all other things, Syndicate is about being evil. (For convenience's sake, let's refer to the new reboot as New Syndicate.) Before you dismiss this little piece as yet another anti-New Syndicate rant from a grumpy PC gamer who can't accept change, allow me to say this: Syndicate kind of sucks. A clarification: it's not as if Syndicate was a bad game. In fact, it was pretty great. Notice that I'm using the past tense here. Syndicate sucks in that it isn't nearly as "timeless" as some would have you believe. Eighteen years haven't been as kind to Syndicate as to, say, the original X-COM. Syndicate simply hasn't aged well, and in its original form, it offers few lessons to the school of contemporary game design. There are lessons to be learned from it, of course. It's just that Syndicate's lessons, the most important ones, aren't rooted in camera angles, genre conventions, control schemes and platforms. Into details for a moment. Syndicate was a real-time, isometric-angle strategy game. You, as an executive at the mega-conglomerate Eurocorp, clicked on little cybernetic agents to make them go places and kill things. Occasionally you'd click on little gauges to regulate doses of various drugs, ones that corresponded to setting your agents' AI behavior. Dope them up on one drug and they'd get paranoid, killing anything in sight. Pump them full of another drug, and they'd walk a little bit faster. Between missions you'd spend money to upgrade your agents, making them more adept at killing things without being killed themselves. And that was pretty much it. There's little in Syndicate's mechanical repertoire that isn't already accounted for, iterated upon, or incorporated into the games of today. Modern games don't need to use such crude methods to manage AI behavior. Modern games use upgrade systems, often with more complex effects and allowing more tactical freedom than anything Syndicate offered eighteen years ago. If Syndicate represented the gold standard for classic gaming, the argument that today's titles are "dumbed down" would be weak indeed. Oh, and the cars were shaped like eggs. That was cool. Now that I've trashed the original game thoroughly, let's talk about what Syndicate does have, the lessons it can impart upon game designs of the present, and the aspects that New Syndicate must keep in mind if it is to stay true to that legacy. If Syndicate's legacy is not related to its mechanics, what is it related to? As I said up above, where Syndicate is timeless, classic, and perhaps even unequaled, is in its evil. Good and Evil, Black and White, Paragon and Renegade, Law and Chaos, Dark Side and Light Side, the various names for judging a player's behavior are an intoxicating feature for any game aspiring to hold meaning. However, one might argue that one of the true draw of incorporating moral choice isn't the choice itself but the fact that an evil option is present at all. So many games (as well as real life) demand that people behave nicely that the ability (or mandate) to be naughty is a tempting, memorable proposition. That would help explain the success of titles like Dungeon Keeper, Overlord, Evil Genius, and, of course, Syndicate. Those games make you play the villain, and they're fun because you usually can't be the villain. That said, the difference between the first three games and the fourth, though, is in their approach to making players act villainous. The likes of Dungeon Keeper and Overlord present the player with cartoonish parodies, the kind of mustache-twirling shenanigans that would make Dick Dastardly and Cobra Commander proud. In a word, the former games concentrate more on being "naughty" than being "evil". Syndicate, on the other hand, trades in a more subtle and nuanced variety of evil, one much closer to the sort people in the real world are all too used to seeing or hearing about on the news. It is the kind that, if handled poorly, can spark outrage or open disgust. At the same time, though, Syndicate's brand of evil, if handled effectively, can disturb, provoke, and entertain in a way that kicking puppies and being naughty cannot. To use an analogy, if Dungeon Keeper and Overlord club seals because they hate cute, fuzzy things, Syndicate clubs seals because their fur trades well on the open market. Syndicate would also go and kill the witnesses to avoid having to go through a class-action suit from the seal rights lobby. Being a game called Syndicate, we're dealing with corporate evil, the stuff of news exposes, conspiracy theories, and indictments of the military-industrial complex. This position puts it in that weird gray area of morality, the kind we encounter in everyday life, or see on the news, where evil is characterized not by malice and spite but by nihilism, greed, and callousness. Being unethical can be even scarier than being hateful, when represented correctly. While global corporate domination is hardly a new concept to fiction, Syndicate from other games in that the player is the instigator of the evil rather than the agent. As an executive of the evil corporation, you are the boss rather than the henchman. It's evil on an organizational level. Rather than being a simple cog in the machine, carrying out orders, Syndicate puts all that responsibility in your hands. The wanton violence and calculated brutality typical of a Syndicate mission is your job, and you know it. There's no hiding from responsibility when you're the one calling the shots. Hell, Syndicate's intro cinematic shows a man being run over by a car deliberately, as part of the process of being "recruited" into the ranks of the company's agents. The idea that you might have given the order can be, well, delicious in a way that simply killing do-gooders because they do good cannot. And that's where the biggest challenge lies for New Syndicate. Everything we've seen of the game to date shows you, the player, to be the cog in the machine, rather than the man in charge. After all, you play one of the cyborg, chipped-up agents that in the original would be seen from above, directed by mouse clicks rather than analog sticks. That reduction in scope runs in the face of classic Syndicate's be-the-boss branding. Being an agent rather than an executive absolves you of responsibility. "I had to do it or I would be fired," would be your excuse, and it's quite a valid one in a world where being fired means being reduced to your component parts and having your organs harvested for sale to the highest bidder. Probably. But as in any business, risk brings opportunity. Starbreeze still has a chance to infuse New Syndicate with old Syndicate's soul, without going isometric. The key, I believe would be to make players both acknowledge and relish their roles as cogs in the machine of corporate domination. Today's games, particularly modern shooters, are criticized for being little more than on-rails rollercoasters, simply shuttling players from scripted set-piece to scripted set-piece. It's gotten kind of ridiculous, in some instances. Players feel like they're being given no choice, no motivation, and no freedom of will. Well, in Syndicate, that's kind of the point. Agents don't get to have a mind of their own. They do the bidding of the suits. They're supposed to be regarded as little more than investments, more numbers on a spreadsheet than people. If there was ever a game which excused having a silent protagonist with no personality, it would be this one. If played right, Starbreeze can use that freedom from having to take responsibility can convey the same sense of disturbing callousness and nihilism, taking it out of the player's hands, but leaving that joy of catharsis and indulging one's inner sociopath, without the guilt-ridden aftertaste. Take, for example, Modern Warfare 2's infamous "No Russian" mission. In that game, it felt like an unnecessary, gross sequence placed in the game for little reason other than shock value, an excuse to add in that "edgy" disturbing-content warning. That sort of mission was, in classic Syndicate, a typical day at the office. Gathering crowds of innocents using the Persuadertron and then shooting through them as they served as human shields was a valid tactic. In Syndicate, there is no need to justify a "No Russian"-esque atrocity as some kind of stupid deep-cover operation "for the greater good." You're just doing your job. Business, right? Syndicate's legacy is one of uncaring disregard for the things society deems valuable. Turning violence into a force for profit rather than justice is par for the course in the world of executives and their pet agents. To stay true to that legacy, Starbreeze needs to muster the will to follow through on that vision, and allow players to appreciate just how ruthless that kind of world is. Better still, they should be able to enjoy their being part of that world. It's a hefty challenge, but one that was surmounted by a little strategy game from Bullfrog some eighteen years ago. Starbreeze need only step up and do it again. |
| Freddie Wong's heart-wrenching inverted aim PSA Posted: 15 Oct 2011 08:30 AM PDT We recently learned that inverted aim was removed from the Splinter Cell Trilogy. That's most likely for the best, as its inclusion may have led to some rather unfortunate scenarios. Freddie Wong is perfectly aware of the potential hazards, thus he made the above public service announcement to illustrate the dangers of mixing normal and inverted aim styles. Of course, something confuses me here. If Brandon was flying with inverted controls, that would mean that pulling back on the flight stick would have made the helicopter climb. Instead, Freddie tilted back and sent the copter into a nosedive. That means that it was Freddie who was playing inverted, not Brandon! Unless, that is, we act under the assumption that "normal" flight controls would operate identically to "inverted" FPS controls, in which case, normal would be inverted and inverted would be normal for the purpose of this video... ... My head hurts. Inverted [YouTube] |
| Payday: The Heist shields itself well Posted: 15 Oct 2011 07:30 AM PDT [This is the second in a series of five guest blogs from OVERKILL Software creative director Simon Vicklund about the forces that stand between you and incalculable wealth in Payday: The Heist, coming soon to PlayStation Network. Stay tuned to Destructoid as we continue this series up to the release of Payday on October 18th] Hi there! This is Simon Viklund of OVERKILL Software again. We have developed a robber co-op action FPS called Payday: The Heist and it's coming out later this month. Yesterday I wrote this piece about the "basic" enemies in the game - the "meat and potatoes" of the law enforcer army that stands between you and the money (and a safe getaway) - today we're going to start looking at the special units in the game! Special units are - as you may have guessed - tougher-than-normal enemies with unique attributes that make them trickier to defeat. In Payday, you have the guy on the radio (Bain) warn you if he's intercepted some message on the police radio indicating that a special unit is being deployed. In case you miss this you might hear a nearby law enforcer shout something like "make way for the Shield!" Each special unit also makes its own unique sound to indicate its presence. In Payday, all special units can be "tagged" by using the "shout-out" command. This outlines that unit so that you and all your teammates can see the enemy even through walls for a few seconds, and thereby more easily focus your tactics and firepower to take him out. This is the Shield, and it's not tricky to guess why he's called that. The riot shield he's carrying is extremely durable and cannot be penetrated by any weapon. We've seen people foolishly run up to the Shield trying to take him out - or possibly make him drop his sheild - with a melee attack, but that just doesn't work. He's quick to rotate too so circling around him all by yourself is also for the most part useless. One of the fundamental ideas behind Payday is to encourage teamwork and throw challenges at the players that require them to cooperate. The Shield follows this design principle in that the best way to take him out is to split up and attack the Shield from two different angles - effectively flanking him. The levels in Payday are designed to allow alternative routes from one point to another, allowing you to flank a Shield even if he has positioned himself in a narrow corridor. Trip mines is also very effective against Shields. While Shields are deployed randomly from the police's first assault wave and go in with the objective to simply track you down and make whatever situation youy're in a living hell, Shields can also get orders to guard specific key positions. More than once we've been running out of the vault in the First World Bank heist - thinking that since we shot our way through the ambush the SWATs had set up in the vault corridor, we're home free - only to be stopped dead in our tracks by a couple of shields waiting for us in the lobby! Even as developers, our own game constantly surprises us! Payday: The Heist is a downloadable co-op FPS game for PSN (PS3) and Steam (PC), and it comes out this month. Check out www.overkillsoftware.com, www.payday-theheist.com and our Twitter account "overkill_tm" for news! Return tomorrow to read about the special unit called the "Cloaker".
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| This Thai gamer reeeeeeeally gets into Ghost Squad Posted: 15 Oct 2011 06:30 AM PDT My favorite arcade games are light gun shooters. The feeling of physically taking up a weapon and lining your sights is a quality that can't be replicated with a mouse or a controller. You fashion yourself as somewhat of a badass as you mow down rows of zombies / terrorists / Terminators / Xenomorphs. However, this gamer from Thailand takes the roleplay a bit too far. His mastery over Ghost Squad results in a mesmerizing combination of marksmanship and performance art, and you've got to appreciate his commitment to the act. Still, he's a bit too engaged. I totally lost it at the 1:06 mark when he goes through the motions of kicking a fake door down! The Greatest Awesome Gamer in Thailand [YouTube] |
| That's So MMO!: Shocktober Sensations Posted: 15 Oct 2011 06:00 AM PDT Hail and well met, half-orcs and hobgoblins! Let’s open the door on last week’s MMO news and see how many skeletons fall out. “Golden Guardian” Blizzard is really gunning its World of Warcaft engines as it ramps up for BlizzCon (Oct. 21-22.) Mega-Patch 4.3 is being whipped into shape on Public Test Realms and when it’s ready for release, players will finally have the chance to destroy Cataclysmic villain Deathwing. Blizzard is also set to offer up an in-game Guardian Cub pet for sale that doesn’t bind-on-pick-up for purchasers and can be put up for sale in the WoW Auction House. Yes, Blizzard is allowing for the exchange of real world money for in-game gold in a roundabout way. The company will finally get a cut of the virtual gold exchange market for themselves. Smart move or the beginning of a real cataclysm? I can’t decide. Blizz says “We’re ok with it if some players choose to use the Guardian Cub as a safe and secure way to try to acquire a little extra in-game gold without turning to third-party gold-selling services.” Blizzard is also auctioning off old, retired HP WoW servers with 100% of the proceeds after auction expenses being donated to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Now, that’s a transaction I can firmly support without sweating the details. Lastly, Blizz says it won’t unveil the in-development “Titan” MMO at BlizzCon but the company may still reveal the next WoW expansion just in time to steal some thunder from the launch of SWTOR. We’ll know soon enough.
“Global Strike” EA is out in “Force” (yeah, yeah) at New York Comic-Con this weekend showing off Star Wars: The Old Republic. For the last North American convention of 2011, BioWare Austin announced a “Global” release date for all launch territories of December 20th (no more two-day delay for the EU.) Additionally, it was revealed that a total of 15 Flashpoints (major dungeons) will be in the game at launch and that making “severe” Darkside or Lightside choices will alter the appearance of player characters. If players are consistently evil enough perhaps they might end up looking as pale, hideous, and twisted as the Emperor. Yes, please!
“’Quest voted ‘Best’” Withered and ancient (12-year-old) MMO, EverQuest, has been inducted into the Game Developers Choice Online Awards Hall of Fame. SOE’s fantasy classic is the second inductee (joining Ultima Online) and has been recognized “for its contribution to the long-term advancement of online gaming, pioneering major shifts in the medium's development and video games as a whole.” EQ is also credited with “introducing the concepts of guilds and raiding within an online world.” Yep, you have them to love/blame.
“Free Fallen” The free-to-play conversion for post-apocalyptic MMO Fallen Earth is complete and live on servers as of last Wednesday. Players ready to rumble in the radioactive Grand Canyon wastes of 2156 can download the game from GamersFirst and get right to crafting 95% of the usable items in the game and capturing towns and territories. Rest assured, you can hit the game Marketplace and spend real world money on “Chupacabra Perfume” if you so desire.
“Laying down the L.A.W” Speaking of post-apocalyptic persistence, Nitrozen has unveiled their upcoming title, L.A.W. (Living After War). A peek at the teaser site says the game will let players “Command and take direct control over ground and airborne units to battle your enemies for rare resources.” The game’s launch is planned for Q1 2012 and Closed Beta applications are being accepted. I guess we’ll call this one a PARTS (Post-Apocalyptic Real-Time-Strategy) MMO.
“Prime time” Extremely successful UK dev house, Jagex, makers of Runscape, has begun showing off its upcoming Transformers Universe MMO. Details are still a bit thin but the game will be set in the Transformers Prime universe, be F2P, and run in a browser with only a small client download required. You can spy a teaser trailer at the official site and prime yourself for the planned 2012 release.
“II good to be true?” It looks like NCsoft’s eight-year-old MMO, Lineage II, is next in line to join the free-to-play crowd. A “hybrid” business model has been promised for the near future (much like NCsoft’s City of Heroes.). All this month LII is holding an “October Bonanza” with rewards available for “loyal” subscribers and Halloween events planned. The “largest ever” LII update, “Goddess of Destruction,” is also imminent and will bring an increased level cap of 99, new classes and 60 new raid bosses. Bloody good! OK, you angry dwarven drunkards, that’s going to wrap up another week in MMO news. Have a funshine day and keep it logged in. ---- David Moore co-runs torwars.com, a site focused on all things Star Wars: The Old Republic, and has run the site gamebunny.com for the past ten years. |
| Weekend PC download deals: Tomb Raider and Posted: 15 Oct 2011 05:00 AM PDT After the daily sales that THQ has been running and the irresistible discount on Duke Nukem Forever... yeah, anyway, it's almost a relief that the weekend has come again -- but then you look at Steam and realize your wallet still isn't safe. On Steam this weekend, there's big discounts on some of the more recent Tomb Raider games developed by Crystal Dynamics, celebrating the franchise's 15th anniversary. You've got Tomb Raider: Legend, Tomb Raider: Anniversary, and Tomb Raider: Underworld all reduced by 66%. I have to be honest, it's a long time since I've considered playing a Tomb Raider game but Crystal Dynamics' efforts have been fairly well praised so this offer could be tempting. THQ is rounding off its week-long sale with a big 50% discount on the Dawn of War franchise, including all DLC and expansions. To top things off, Dawn of War II is free this weekend so if you're on the fence about whether or not to buy the game, play it and make your mind up. If you're in the UK and you're wanting to save some cash on either downloads or physical copies of game, you need to keep an eye out on Simon Julian's blog where he keeps track of where you can save some hard earned cash on some great games. |
| NYCC: All about Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic Posted: 15 Oct 2011 04:30 AM PDT First, an announcement. Dark Horse announced several new Star Wars titles here at New York Comic-Con, and there's the next addition to Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic among them -- War! They say that Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic—War is the perfect entry point into the Star Wars galaxy. It was written by John Jackson Miller, and will go on sale in January 2012.
In related news, the Knights of the Old Republic game is easily the hottest thing here. The floor booth has the biggest line ever. At the KOTOR panel yesterday it was revealed that testers have already logged 4.8 million hours on this game. Wow. |
| NYCC: Kevin Conroy says that being Batman isn't easy Posted: 15 Oct 2011 04:10 AM PDT I had a chance to chat for a bit with the voice of Batman, Kevin Conroy, for a few minutes before he joined Rocksteady in hosting New York Comic-Con's Batman: Arkham City panel. From what he said it seems that being the voice of the Dark Knight isn't the easiest thing in the world, especially in videogames. "It is such a different experience in recording a game than recording a show," explained Conroy, the voice of the Dark Knight in Batman: The Animated Series and both Rocksteady Batman videogames. "You're alone in a booth for 4 hour blocks, and you have to be true to the character, without any of the other actors bouncing off you. It's so much harder." "You're working in a vacuum, so you have to be your own reality check, you own motivator. You're doing variations on a line, giving four or five emotional readings, and then you're doing 20 different lines depending on which way the game is being played. It's all disjointed -- you don't know how it's going to be put together." Conroy explained that for games, a particular line will have to be delivered multiple times, each with a different emotion or inflection attached to it. It was a thrill to hear him demonstrate by saying "Joker, get out of here" in different ways as Batman. Even better was when he expressed his frustration by saying "f*ck you" in Batman's voice. |
| NYCC: Street Fighter X Tekken special edition detailed Posted: 15 Oct 2011 04:00 AM PDT You know you want the Special Edition of Street Fighter X Tekken. No? Well, this fancy set was announced here at New York Comic-Con. It contains:
Gems, dude! You'll get this all on the game's new release date, March 6, 2012. Are you getting the Special Edition? |
| NYCC: Street Fighter X Tekken Gem system revealed Posted: 15 Oct 2011 03:52 AM PDT Yesterday at Capcom's New York Comic-Con panel for Street Fighter X Tekken, producer Yoshinori Ono unveiled the game's new Gem System. And I'll be straight with you: Some of the audience groaned. Some heckled. But the world of fighting games is like that, isn't it? The truly outrageous Gem system gives fighters power-ups that they can mix and match. You'll be able to choose from dozens of gems that modify abilities and stats. This lets you sort of cover your ass with perks -- it's like Materia (Final Fantasy VII) for your fighter! More groans? Those are my fault. With this system you'll start out with a combination of Attack, Defense, Speed, Cross Gauge, and Assist gems. As you'd guess, having the Defense gem on increases your fighter's defense stats. That's exactly what casual players like myself have been needing, and according to Ono, that is exactly the point of this new feature. He's working to bring this game to as many gamers as possible. Other news tidbits came out of the event. First, a release date: March 6, 2012. Also, a PC version of Street Fighter X Tekken is being worked on. Finally, Street Fighter's Rufus has been added to the line-up. Gems, huh? What do you think about this new system? |
| NYCC: Trivia from last night's Final Fantasy XIII-2 party Posted: 15 Oct 2011 03:10 AM PDT We had a great time last night at the New York Comic-Con Final Fantasy XIII-2 party, hosted by Square Enix in cooperation with Machinima and Destructoid. It was held at Tonic Bar in Times Square, where fans and show attendees packed it in for free drinks and a little post show relaxation. A lot of cool folks showed up to hang out, including Isamu Kamikokuryo, Final Fantasy XIII-2's art director. Champagne flowed, people laughed, we argued about which Final Fantasy was best [It's Final Fantasy VIII, by the way], and I met some great people -- a really nice night. There was Final Fantasy XIII trivia contest during the event. Fans were picked out of the crowd to answer some pretty tough questions, and the winners were presented with some good prizes. As a series fan, found that I was hanging in there with most of the first questions, but I was completely out of the running with some of the later ones. I've listed all the trivia questions we used last night here. See how well you would have done. Also be sure to check out our photos from the event.
Final Fantasy XIII-2 Trivia - Round 1
Final Fantasy XIII implemented the fast-paced ATB system. What does ATB stand for?
What is the name for the 3-ally Paradigm that features the roles Commando, Ravager, and Sentinel?
Bartholomew Estheim, father of protagonist Hope Estheim, resides where on Cocoon?
Defeating which Cie’th Stone mark will reward you with the Growth Egg?
TIE BREAKER: Which component is the most expensive to purchase from a store?
Final Fantasy XIII-2 Trivia - Round 2
What is the real name of protagonist Lightning?
The 34th Cie’th Stone hunt mission sends you to defeat a Zenobia, but in actuality you end up fighting which classic FF monster?
What is the name for the 2-ally Paradigm that features the roles Saboteur and Medic?
Snow assembled and leads a small paramilitary operation known as NORA, which is an acronym for what?
In Chapter 5 in the Gapra Whitewood, Lightning gives Hope what kind of weapon?
TIE BREAKER: Which character can unlock the exclusive Commando ability Highwind?
Final Fantasy XIII-2 Trivia - Round 3
At the conclusion of Chapter 2, Lightning and company must do battle with a fal’Cie named _____.
Each main protagonist defaults with 3 primary roles and 3 secondary roles. Which character’s primary roles include Ravager, Synergist, and Medic?
Every character has an ultimate weapon. Which one belongs to Snow?
The 64th and final Cie’th Stone hunt mission sends you to defeat which enemy mark?
Complete the quote by Sazh: “You think you die an' everything'll be...”
Final Fantasy XIII-2 Trivia - Round 4
Which of the following is one of Shiva’s Gestalt attacks?
Which of the following is NOT a Ravager ability?
Which status ailment disables the target’s spellcasting abilities?
In which region does the party first encounter a Cie’th Stone?
Which Paradigm role does Lightning develop LEAST efficiently?
TIE BREAKER: Passing all of the Titan’s Trials will earn you which trophy/achievement?
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| Naturally, Battlefield 3 has an online pass Posted: 15 Oct 2011 02:00 AM PDT DICE confirmed in a rather casual manner yesterday that Battlefield 3 would rock an online pass, having previously only hinted at it. Considering Mass Effect 3 has found a way to toss one in, it's hardly surprising EA's biggest online title of the year is jumping on the train. When asked by a fan if you had to buy Battlefield 3 brand new to play online, DICE's Alan Kertz confirmed, "You can also purchase an online pass for a used copy." He justified this with the false argument, "Because servers cost money, and used games don't make developers any money." Has anyone told DICE that when a gamer trades in a game, that gamer can no longer play? Alex seems to think a used copy adds two people to a server, which goes against the laws of physics, last time I checked. In any case, that's another game rocking an online pass. With each confirmation, it becomes a little more of a "Captain Obvious" moment, which is the insidious part. It's getting banal and normal, which is pretty much what the likes of Electronic Arts wants. @Demize99 [Twitter] |
| Army Corps of Hell to launch with Vita in North America Posted: 14 Oct 2011 10:00 PM PDT We may not know exactly when the PlayStation Vita is launching in North America, but Square Enix has confirmed that Army Corps of Hell will be launching alongside Sony's forthcoming handheld. The story centers around the King of Hell. Having recently been defeated in battle and stripped of his powers, the King enlists an army of goblins to regain his lost throne. Naturally, bloodshed ensues. If you think the gameplay bears resemblance to Pikmin, it isn't merely coincidental. The title is being developed by Entersphere, a company founded by former Nintendo employees, including one of the writers behind the Pikmin games, Motoi Okamoto. Having left the company after working on Wii Fit, it looks like Mr. Okamoto is giving fans of the GameCube RTS what they've been clamoring about for years now. Except in a much, much gorier package -- which is perfectly fine by me. |
| New Cave Story 3D screenshots to whet the appetite Posted: 14 Oct 2011 09:00 PM PDT Cave Story 3D is still on its way to the 3DS, and to keep fans excited for the upcoming release, new screenshots from the Labyrinth level have been released. This isn't the first batch of screens that NIS has released, so if you find yourself pining away, feel free to sigh over the others as well. November 8th isn't that far away, just be patient for a little bit longer. |
| Costume Quest + free DLC now on Steam Posted: 14 Oct 2011 08:00 PM PDT What a timely announcement! Beloved Halloween game and Double Fine gem, Costume Quest, is now available for download on Steam. Included for free is the "Grubbins on Ice" DLC which takes place in the winter after the events of the main game. If you haven't yet played Costume Quest and you're anything like me, you'll absolutely adore this game. You play a child on a mission to save a sibling, and along the way collect costumes to move past obstacles and overpower various creatures - all while trick-or-treating. Just think back to a time when candy was something more than a sweet, when card collections ruled our lives, and when goblins truly lived next door. There you'll find Costume Quest. |
| Win over $10,000 in prizes during our Extra Life marathon Posted: 14 Oct 2011 07:00 PM PDT Dtoid's Extra Life Charity Marathon is almost here! We are really excited to present to you guys a grand list of all the prizes that we have to give away as part of our EPIC 24 hour gaming marathon. Read below to see a list of these prizes, organized by gaming company. As for how you can win these prizes, just watch our Twitch.TV stream as we'll be announcing how to win prizes every hour starting at 10:00AM PST today! We will have Twitter giveaways, contests during the stream, and random drawings. Most importantly, you'll be eligible for all our contests during the marathon so long as you donate AND include your email address on the donation page! [Image by manasteel88] Ubisoft 3 Spider-Man: Edge of Time Sega |
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