New Games |
- New trailer highlights the enemies of Dark Souls
- PC requirements for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim outed
- Preview: The Lord of the Rings: War in the North
- New DSi XL bundles for the holiday: Blue and Rose colors
- Saints Row 'Initiation Station' closed beta goes live
- Call of Duty Elite aims to improve your multiplayer skill
- GunLord coming to Dreamcast and Neo Geo
- Deal North: The last chance to buy something for yourself
- BloodRayne writer recalls the sideshow that is Uwe Boll
- Shantae comes to iOS this week, have some wallpapers
- Review: Battlefield 3
- Lord of the Rings: War in the North soundtrack shall pass
- Help us design our upcoming Katamari Dtoid shirt!
- A quick chat with voice actor Raphael Sbarge
- Talking to Women about Videogames: Going mainstream
- Preview: Sword Girls Online
- Dungeon Siege III DLC 'Treasures of the Sun' out now
- Talk to the developers behind War of the Worlds tomorrow!
- Exterminatus is declared upon Space Marine today
| New trailer highlights the enemies of Dark Souls Posted: 25 Oct 2011 03:30 PM PDT
How has Dark Souls been treating everyone? Last I asked, I was just near the end and have since started up a new game+. Getting revenge on the initial few hours' worth of enemies is immensely satisfying and actually makes up for those evenings when no visible progress was made. This trailer shows off more of the later-game sections than pre-release media did, so those on the fence might want to give it a watch. Warning: when you play, things almost certainly won't go that smoothly. |
| PC requirements for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim outed Posted: 25 Oct 2011 02:30 PM PDT There are a few games this season that are high profile enough to warrant that PC upgrade you've been putting off. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is one such title. Bethesda has posted the official system requirements ahead of the game's rapidly approaching November 11 release. Recommended Specs
Minimum Specs
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| Preview: The Lord of the Rings: War in the North Posted: 25 Oct 2011 01:30 PM PDT There will be blood... and lots of it. The Lord of the Rings: War in the North sets to dismiss the stench of mediocrity that has befallen one of literature and cinema's finest franchises in the videogame realm. Past games have been hit or miss -- partially due to the usual movie tie-in fate that rushes development cycles, but also due to the fact that the The Lord of the Rings' book and movie rights, in past, were under license from different entities. The Lord of the Rings: War in the North (PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 [previewed], PC) My adventure began, fitting enough -- as I am a stout man sporting a beard -- with Farin the Dwarven Champion, a Gimli-esque warrior who is all about smiting and mitigating damage. Paired with Eradan the Human Ranger, and Andriel the Elven Loremaster (played by fellow members of the gaming press) we cooperatively made our way through the goblin-infested stronghold of Fornost. Outside of the camera though, not much has deviated from Snowblind's tried and true path of delivering addicting loot-collecting, hack-and-slash adventuring. There are five different levels of loot to pillage from and weapons and gear even contain sockets to add extra attributes to their standard statistics, such as elemental damage and bleeding effects. Loot dropped is unique to every player, so there is never a need to race for the rare item. You can trade items amongst players or even sell them at certain "shop" locations found per level. There is no weight encumbrance to worry about, but there is a predetermined number of slots for carrying gear -- providing ample storage. Each character skill tree provides three branching paths, and from what I was told, only one would be able to be fully completed by the time the campaign concludes. Fear not, those who must have the most complete and well-versed combatant, as War in the North contains a new game plus and even a new game plus plus with more challenging difficulties -- which I can attest should be a trial.
As we fought the vile undead that make refuge in the Barrows, we were tasked with working together to defeat both the level's mid-boss and final boss. While the end boss consisted more or less of making sure no one perished and focusing our offense in unison, the Barrow's mid-boss was a shining example of using all three character's proficiencies.
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| New DSi XL bundles for the holiday: Blue and Rose colors Posted: 25 Oct 2011 01:00 PM PDT I always think that Nintendo invites trouble each holiday with these bundles, especially with the ones that contain older hardware. The gamer kids I know would be pissed if they got a DSi XL for Christmas instead of a 3DS. Sure, you've got those kids that don't know any better, and this would make a good gift for mom or grandma, but most kids are going to ask if you kept the receipt. If you're out to piss your kid off this holiday, get them one of these new DSi XL bundles. They come in Metallic Rose and Midnight Blue, and they're each packaged with a copy of the Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Mini-Land Mayhem! They're priced at $169.99, which is just going to piss your kids off even more. |
| Saints Row 'Initiation Station' closed beta goes live Posted: 25 Oct 2011 12:30 PM PDT
Those who want to get a head start on crafting their character for Saints Row: The Third can do so now by way of the Initiation Station beta. Assuming they either pre-ordered Red Faction: Armageddon or bought the Saints Row: Double Pack, which is where the codes stem from. Looking over some of the pre-made creations has me desperately wanting in the beta. It's set to go public across PlayStation Network, Steam, and Xbox Live on November 1. The best part? Once The Third launches, you'll be able to download these monstrosities in-game. |
| Call of Duty Elite aims to improve your multiplayer skill Posted: 25 Oct 2011 12:15 PM PDT
In this trailer for Call of Duty Elite, the integral stats hub component for Modern Warfare 3, Beachhead Studios lays out the three main areas of the platform; connect, compete and improve. The focus of the trailer being the latter of the three. The goal of improve is exactly what you think it would be. To make you a better Call of Duty player, because those sort of things are important. To do this, Beachhead has created extremely detailed maps that will show you every nook and cranny along with the quickest routes for every objective gametype. Eventually Beachhead wants to use this area of Elite to have the best Call of Duty players help the not-so-great players. Do you guys like the direction the Elite platform is headed? |
| GunLord coming to Dreamcast and Neo Geo Posted: 25 Oct 2011 12:00 PM PDT
Despite the fact that the Dreamcast and Neo Geo are essentially dead, owners of the classic consoles can look forward to a brand new title -- GunLord. It's a Euro-style platformer reminiscent of classics like Turrican. It focuses on exploration and action as you traverse nine stages and annihilate 45 different types of foe. It looks wonderful and is heavy with nostalgia. Sadly I don't own the appropriate consoles and thus I'm left admiring the pretty pictures and videos. GunLord comes out on Neo Geo (MVS) in December and Dreamcast and Neo Geo (AES) early next year. |
| Deal North: The last chance to buy something for yourself Posted: 25 Oct 2011 11:45 AM PDT I love the holiday season, but I'll be damned if there isn't something every year that I want to buy myself, but can't because it could be a gift that someone already bought me. As it's already late October, we're getting near that cutoff date where you should probably stop buying things for yourself. In other words, get it now! Target has some good deals lined up for the newest games. Get Battlefield 3 and a 12-pack of Dr. Pepper (no, seriously), and you'll get a $10 gift card. Hater would rather have a Tab and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3? Reserve the game for $1 and get a $5 gift card. Nice. Another way to get a gift card at target is to buy any two Kinect games. Dance Central 2 is a fine candidate. Get a $25 gift card with a Nintendo 3DS purchase. Get that Flame Red one if you don't have one already. More of an online shopper? Amazon has some Halloween deals lined up. Dead Island is only $39.99, Dead Rising 2 is only $18.99 and the amazing Ghost Trick is $14.49. Mobile gamers: Gameloft is also having a Halloween sale. The following iOS titles are on sale for $0.99: Shrek Forever After, Iron Man 2, Skater Nation, Gameloft’s Action Pack, Driver, and Order & Chaos Online. Android gamers get discounts on Backstab and UNO via this link. |
| BloodRayne writer recalls the sideshow that is Uwe Boll Posted: 25 Oct 2011 11:30 AM PDT I'd wager that, nine times out of ten, directors don't set out to make a bad movie. Nobody in their right mind wants to fail. Unfortunately (or quite fortunately, depending on your perspective), Uwe Boll has never been in a right state of mind. A couple of years ago, a documentary entitled Tales from the Script was released. It gathered a number of high-profile and lesser-known screenwriters to share their industry experiences, and among the guests was Guinevere Turner, the writer of Uwe Boll's BloodRayne. She describes her time on the project and lavishes praise upon Boll for his pleasant professionalism and open development schedule... Hell no! She can't stand the f*cker! She sent a first draft -- a first draft -- of the script to Boll in the hopes of gathering feedback for the necessary revision, but he was all like, "Nope! This is the tits! We're going with what we have!" Then he cut 80% of the material and had the actors fill in the blank space like a big ol' Mad Libs. I'm surprised that Ms. Turner could sit trough the interview without frothing at the mouth. However, I'm wary of her final remark, as I doubt some people will appreciate the comparison. PROOF UWE BOLL IS INSANE! [YouTube] [Great find, Michael!] |
| Shantae comes to iOS this week, have some wallpapers Posted: 25 Oct 2011 11:00 AM PDT Genie lovers rejoice! Shantae: Risky's Revenge is making the move from the DSi to iOS later this week. Even if you are one of those terrible genie racists, you should still check this gem out. Gorgeous visuals and great music make the game a treat, and then there's the pirates, belly dancing and shape shifting. I hope this enhanced port lives up to the high standard of the DSi version. Shantae: Risky's Revenge will drop on iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch later this week. So get your belly dancing gear ready. In the mean time, enjoy these fine works of art for your iOS devices. |
| Posted: 25 Oct 2011 10:45 AM PDT For the past few years, Electronic Arts has desperately been attempting to gain a leading share of the first-person shooter market. Games like Medal of Honor and Crysis 2 have been selected as champions to take down Activision and its Call of Duty franchise, but they've never been considered serious threats. Battlefield 3 represents EA's first real chance at carving out a competing niche. With its huge marketing budget, gorgeous visuals, and an army of fans ready to argue in its honor, this is a game with some serious muscle behind it. Whether or not it's actually a good game, however, is something that couldn't be discussed until now. Battlefield 3 (PC [reviewed], PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 [reviewed]) If military shooters were ice cream, Battlefield 3 would be a neapolitan, since it seems to sum up every fundamental aspect of the genre. You've got your short campaign with a focus on multiplayer, you've got every standard-issue gun conceivable, and you've got plenty of explosions. Also, just like a neapolitan, Battlefield 3 boasts various flavors, and not all of them are palatable. The single-player campaign is not something I'd recommend starting with if first impressions are important to you. It's a lifeless collection of corridor stages that hold you by the hand and often treat you like more of a bystander than a participant. You're surrounded by invincible squad mates who do most of the work while you're stuck looking for the one bit of cover that actually is cover and doesn't exist as an aesthetic prop for the A.I. partners to use. There are a few atmospheric moments, but the game's vanilla story about terrorists doing stereotypically explosive things doesn't get interesting until the final mission -- a mission that is far too short and arrives too late to make a difference. It's a shame because those atmospheric sequences hint at what could have been an incredible experience, but instead are squandered on slow-paced ranged combat against dim-witted enemies who are almost impossible to see among the smoke effects, falling rubble and aggressive lens flare. I'd be hard pressed to say I enjoyed the single-player for more than a collective five minutes and would almost prefer it to not be there at all, since clearly nobody at DICE cared much about what is increasingly seen as an obligatory gesture more than a full-fledged game mode. Furthermore, with a completion time of around four hours, it really wouldn't have been missed. Those poor first impressions are negated however by the game's true focus -- multiplayer. Make no mistake, if you're a fan of single-player games, there is nothing for you here. It's all about the online combat, and I have to say that most shooter fans will get what they're looking for with this one. Battlefield 3 takes the groundwork laid in previous installments and expands it to something larger and more intense than before. With up to sixty-four players hashing it out across huge maps (on the PC version), this is the biggest and the most chaotic first-person multiplayer experience on the market, bar none. The speed and ferocity of the online component is like night against day when contrasted with the mundane single-player and I have to say that the scope of ambition on display is genuinely impressive. There are four classes to choose from -- the health-conscious Assault, machine-friendly Engineer, gun-toting Support and sneaky Recon. Each class fills its archetypal FPS role with a range of unique gadgets and weaponry, with Engineers able to repair vehicles, Assault soldiers able to revive fallen players and Recon units employing sniper rifles to take out foes from the distance. While they fill roles seen in almost every first-person shooter released this generation, DICE has done a good job of refining them. No one class is overpowered, since they have access to similar -- but still distinct -- weaponry. As well as the standard Deathmatches, there's a Conquest mode in which teams capture various flags on the map to help reduce each other's respawn tickets and the ever-popular Rush mode, in which one team attacks and has to destroy the defenders' M-COM stations in order to push their lines further back. Both Conquest and Rush work superbly in the huge stages, with the various objective points creating an ever-flowing game that takes players to varied environments that could have been maps in their own right. The feeling of fighting across an expansive battlefield in Rush, capturing points and marching forward, is a damn good feeling. If huge matches aren't your thing, you can also play these game modes with smaller teams, or even engage in squad-on-squad fights. Helping players along the way is an obligatory selection of vehicles, and as with previous Battlefield games, their influence over the game is felt in both good and bad ways. Good for those in them, bad for anybody left outside. In some of the bigger battles, the only way to guarantee much of a fighting chance is to get into a tank and so many games become races to see who can get to them first. Anybody not in one faces a rather boring experience since their main job will be to spawn, run for a very long time across a huge open space, then bump into a tank and die. The ability to join and spawn next to squads mitigates the wait time, and you might be lucky enough to spawn inside a tank, but it's still frustrating to constantly deal with huge vehicles on such a regular basis. It doesn't help that the vehicles just aren't all that enjoyable to use, either. Tanks are sluggish and alienate one from the atmosphere of the match, while airborne transport is a nightmare to use thanks to some rather dodgy controls. When inside any of the war machines, I feel significantly disconnected from the fight and I feel the focus on them undermines the genuine excitement that infantry combat provides. Maps with vast interior sections, free of vehicles, are a lot more fun as far as I'm concerned, though they suffer from rocket launcher domination at times. A huge amount of players wield explosive weapons which take little effort to aim and kill with thanks to their devastating splash damage. Still, infantry fights make for far more involving warfare and provide a level of immersion that you don't see in many shooters these days, online or otherwise. Rounding out the game modes is a co-op feature, in which two players team up to tackle a variety of missions. Based on the single-player maps and suffering from many of the same issues as the campaign, the biggest problem with co-op is its weird linear structure. There are six stages and the only way to unlock them is to beat the prior stages. Considering there's barely any plot, I don't know why this is the case. What's worse, the second co-op mission is strictly helicopter based, with one player as a gunner and the other as a pilot. I am yet to join a single game where the despicable helicopter controls haven't caused a crash. There's a reason why there's no forced helicopter stage in the narrative campaign -- they're terrible, and shouldn't be anything more than an option. The console and PC versions are quite different and I'm going to honestly tell you that the console variant is a pauper's choice. With less impressive visuals, horrendous texture pop-in (even after installation) and smaller battles, the Battlefield 3 console experience is a shadow of what is offered on computers and not something I'd recommend. I found the whole game distinctly less fun on the Xbox 360, feeling sterile and looking almost ugly. One would hope that the Frostbite engine could at least make a game that's visually impressive compared to other console titles, but this is not the case. With games like Crysis 2 able to create graphically stunning games on the Xbox 360 and PS3, Battlefield 3 should be capable of better and it truly is not. Naturally, the opposite can be said of the lead platform. Running at full spec, Battlefield 3 is a jaw-droppingly beautiful PC game and there's no denying that it's the new leader in terms of raw, unadulterated power. This has its drawbacks -- as stated, the graphics make spotting enemies incredibly difficult thanks to how much visual information is crammed into every environment. With the swirling dust, blinding lights and chunks of freshly-destroyed scenery filling one's immediate surroundings, actually getting a bead on something important can prove challenging. Don't get me wrong -- having such a visually stunning game is fantastic, but it can actually get in the way of gameplay, and that should never happen. The PC is the obvious choice for Battlefield 3 -- if you can run it -- but there's a catch. A very large, significant, infuriating catch that may prove a deal breaker for some people. The name of this catch is Battlelog, and it's by far one of the worst ideas in videogame history. For the few of you unaware of how Battlelog works, it's a browser-based system of menus and functions that act as a portal into the world of Battlefield 3. To get into a game, one must do it through a website which manages all server and matchmaking information. It is also the only means of setting up voice chat, friend invites and profile settings. Interestingly though, it doesn't handle the really important stuff, like video and control options, which can only be handled when a game session starts -- even if that session is an online one and players don't really have time to be messing around with their video settings. As well as proving an unnecessary barrier between player and game, Battlelog is simply poorly designed. Its unintuitive system makes a mystery of handling friend requests (you need to manually import your Origin friends, for example, by finding the correct web page) and obscures some very basic settings. It's also full of useless "explanation pages" that seem to exist only to tell you how great Battlelog is and need to be manually clicked through each time they're accidentally opened (which is easy to do, since the veritable army of links on every page can take you to all sorts of unforeseen places). Fortunately, there's a prominant banner for the Battlefield shop on the main page, so if you don't know how to send friend requests or set up voice chat, you can at least go buy yourself a T-shirt! The Battlelog is a crucial, unavoidable part of the Battlefield 3 experience and it does nothing but get in the way. It's a weird, proprietary attempt to turn a videogame into Facebook and it's so forcefully imposed on the player that it chokes everything else. Once in a game, everything's okay, but the overall experience is constantly hampered by this awkward, shoehorned "service" that nobody asked for. Battlelog is really a reflection of every problem Battlefield 3 has. It's a game that can be incredible fun, seemingly designed by people who were trying to make it not fun. At it's core, there's a great little game there but so many contradictions swim around in the finished product that the fun can be very easily obscured. You have a story campaign that is littered with examples of terrific atmosphere yet wasted on lethargic pacing and CPU-led corridor combat. You have an intense multiplayer game that has the intensity consistently stripped out with a focus on vehicles. You have a a co-op mode that is restricted and locked into a senselessly linear structure. Ultimately, you have Battlefield 3 -- a game that is equal parts stunning and exasperating, inspiring and infuriating. At heart, it's truly a good game, but one that requires the player to overlook a lot of problems that pollute the entire venture. Many players, of course, will be more than happy to gloss over the issues because there truly is something worth playing when you get in deep. Ignoring the mediocre campaign and wasted co-op, the multiplayer is an authentically engrossing affair, one that fans will love and one that single-handedly remains worth the price of entry. DICE's would-be triumph often fights with its users, struggling to not be enjoyable when it quite clearly is. When wrestled to the ground, Battlefield 3 can be a very enjoyable and absorbing experience, but it's not always a fight worth having. |
| Lord of the Rings: War in the North soundtrack shall pass Posted: 25 Oct 2011 10:30 AM PDT We've previewed it, Snowblind have talked about it, and we even got to see a dwarf from it. Now, Warner Brothers Interactive and WaterTower Music have announced that The Lord of the Rings: War in the North will be getting its own soundtrack. Scheduled to launch on the same day as the game, The Lord of the Rings: War in the North - Original Video Game Score will be available on the same day as the game -- November 1, November 2 and November 4 in North America, Australia and Europe respectively. The soundtrack will feature 19 songs, which are all listed below. I made a funny in the title guys. Guys?
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| Help us design our upcoming Katamari Dtoid shirt! Posted: 25 Oct 2011 09:45 AM PDT Our Destructoid store is slowly expanding with more and more gaming shirts. The next gaming inspired design to arrive at our store will be a Katamari Damacy themed one created by the wonderfully talented Linz Collins. The full design is in the gallery below and contains pretty much every gaming console or accessory past and present. Now here's where you come in. We want to get the design colored before it goes to print and we need you to help us figure out what the colors should be. We're not looking for every little image to be a different color as that would be crazy expensive. Basically, keep it simple! Use no more than four or five colors that would look good on the design and on the shirt itself. Once you've made something, leave your design in the comments below. Once we get a good number of submissions, we'll ask the Dtoid community to vote on their overall preferred design. Whatever ends up as the popular choice will be given a shirt and some goodies from our endless box of swag. Really looking forward to what you all come up with! |
| A quick chat with voice actor Raphael Sbarge Posted: 25 Oct 2011 09:30 AM PDT One of the many features that makes BioWare games so engaging is the consistently solid vocal talent. Raphael Sbarge has played Carth Onasi in Knights of the Old Republic and Kaidan Alenko from the Mass Effect series. I caught up with Sbarge and nabbed a few questions. I tried to dig up some info on Mass Effect 3, but those queries were not answered. Destructoid: How did you get started in voice acting? Raphael Sbarge: The first game I did was called Grim Fandango, I think. I think it was a Lucas game. And it was the beginning of me realizing how fun it was to work on videogames, where you could create a character and explore it vocally, with accents – I think the character I did was like, a New York union organizer-type of character. It was exciting to see what the possibilities were. And then I did the Star Wars games, etc. Obviously, as games have evolved, they’re looking for actors who can tell a story entirely with their voice, and do so without an animated cartoon sound. It’s useful to have actors who’ve worked a lot in the theater. How do you deal with being largely solitary during your recordings for the Bioware games? Usually they give you a whole series of drawings – images of what the guy looks like. Then, obviously, you’re cast based upon you having a vocal quality that resembles what they feel like resembles the character. At the end of the day, there’s a lot that you don’t know that you just sort of make up. And they don’t even know; they sometimes have mockups or general versions of the outline of what a set would look like, but they’re sometimes getting the vocal work done before the years of work that follow it. So, in this case when I’ve worked as an onscreen actor with green screen, or in “My Science Project,” back when I was fighting dinosaurs with M16s, we had M16s, but we were imagining the dinosaurs. So, at the end of the day, being an actor is an imaginative art; it happens full bloom in your imagination. Your ability to make it real for yourself through your imagination is the job at hand. Did you have any difficulty in finding the voice for Carth and later Kaidan? Through the combination of the writing and the situation through you, the actor, you find kind of a place where you’re speaking from. And that becomes the guy. Then if they hire you, they say, “We like that thing you did. We like that thing.” And then what happens is, oftentimes they play back for you what they like, and then you go and find it; you explore it and take it further. Having been involved in both Star Trek and Star Wars -- which universe do you like more? They’re both fun. The Star Trek stuff was so fun because I was such a huge fan of the William Shatner series as a kid, so I was so excited to be a part of it when that happened. I was amazed, having done six episodes of that – it got more attention than anything I had ever done up to that point. The Star Trek fans were so incredibly vocal and excited, and engaged with the show they loved. What can you tell us about your upcoming role in Once Upon a Time? I can tell you that being a part of the show is sort of an actor’s dream, because of the variety -- of going through time and being in a fantasy world and a reality world. It’s also a show that really changes the rules and is sort of being very daring in its storytelling. It is very much thrilling and surprising to just be a part of it. You never quite know what’s going to come down the pike, and that’s not necessarily like most of the rest of the television universe. What three things should fans know going into Once Upon a Time? 1. It may not be what you expect. |
| Talking to Women about Videogames: Going mainstream Posted: 25 Oct 2011 09:00 AM PDT [Talking to Women about Videogames is a series where Jonathan Holmes talks to different people who are women about the biggest videogame news of the week for some reason.] Steve Jobs spent countless hours working to advance the tech industry, but the thing that I've heard the most about him since he passed was how instrumental he was in bringing sophisticated technology to consumers outside of the enthusiast market. Before the Apple II, personal computers were seen as something that only borderline-mathematical savants could enjoy. After the Apple II, home computers (and the games that people play on them) began to be seen as something everyone could use. From there, Jobs worked at Pixar to help bring CGI animation from the indie film festival world to the level of blockbuster film. Finally, he returned to Apple, where he was instrumental in transforming MP3 players (iPod), smart phones (iPhone), and tablet computers (iPad) from high-priced oddities to household gadgets. He was probably technology's most effective and evocative ambassador. Some (like Jobs' biographer Walter Isaacson) think that Jobs' ability to sell tech to the everyman puts him in the same league as Henry Ford and Thomas Edison, while others hate Apple and Apple consumers, calling them "hipsters" and "sellouts." My question is why do we care either way? Why does it matter to us if the mainstream accepts or rejects technology and/or gaming? That's what I aimed to find out in this week's TtWaV. Probably the most common reason why people want tech and gaming to gain acceptance is the desire to be accepted. Most people want to be normal, to be one of the gang/herd/team, to avoid stigmatization and ostracization, and to gain a breezy, criticism-free, friction-less life. When gaming rubs up against the mainstream media and culture, there tends to be a lot of friction, which leaves fans of videogames feeling burned. That friction often comes in the form of shaming fans of videogames by calling them immature or "stunted." That's part of why it's so easy to sell the Xbox 360 to teenagers as something more "grown up" than the Wii console. Teenagers hate being thought of as kids anyway, so the last thing they want is "kid-friendly" game console. Move up a few years and the pattern continues. I know quite a few people in their mid-20s who bought a PS3 because it was more "adult" than their "teen-bait" Xbox 360. I know even more people traded in their PS3s for Wiis once they hit their 30s. They've decided to "move on from bachelorhood, spending hours gaming alone in their basements," and to start families where they still game but only a couple of times a week and only as a brood. Come to think of it, a few of those people have kids who are just turning 10 and 11, and naturally, those kids are now begging to "upgrade" their Wii to Xbox 360 or a PS3 this Christmas. With that, the cycle starts again. Though all their choices are different, all these people are running from the same thing: the idea that there is something "age inappropriate" about the games they're playing. Generally speaking, you don't see that kind of age-connected stigma to Apple products, or any stigma at all for that matter. Apple products (and the games people play on them) are more or less considered to be universally appealing and "appropriate" regardless of your age, gender, or cultural background. The crafting of that brand was no small feat, but once you have that brand reputation, it's very easy to start a "blockbuster" chain reaction. When everyone thinks that everyone is supposed to like something, then everybody suddenly wants one. That's why so many ads brag that their film is the "#1 movie in America." Once people hear that something is #1, they feel that it must be the best. Otherwise, why would everyone go and see it, right? The more people believe that the movie is #1, the more people will see it, which will lead to more people's thinking it's worth seeing, and so forth. That's just as true for phones and computers and videogame consoles as it is for movies. That's why companies like Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft fight so hard for mainstream acceptance. They want that built-in mind share because that's where the money is. If they can convince people that they can become better human beings by associating with their products, then they can pretty much write their own checks. It's especially interesting to me when this plan backfires, when people strongly do not want tech and videogames to go mass market. There are people who hate how Apple, Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony have all had their moments where they were beloved by the mainstream. Isn't that weird? Why do they care? My guess is that they have fallen into the trap of counter-conformity and have come to believe that the stigma carried by their respective interests is actually a badge of honor. It makes sense that if you're mocked by the majority for your interests on a regular basis, then you'll eventually come to hate the majority. If you've come to hate the majority, then of course you're going to want hate what the majority loves and further embrace the things that caused you to be shunned in the first place. Is that how hipsters are born? I'm not sure, but I can tell you what I've observed. With videogame hipsters, there seems to be a solid progression. At first, budding hipsters looks to separate themselves from the mainstream by shunning games with mass market appeal like Mario and Angry Birds. From there, they often develop a hatred of Halo, Call of Duty, and Resident Evil, and they instead choose to embrace only small indie titles or obscure classics. From there, I've seen gaming hipsters go full circle into loving Mario again or reject all conventional games for text adventures or games that are made on a strictly non-profit basis. One thing I have never seen is a gaming hipster who wasn't missing out on some great games due to his obsession with keeping up his image. As for me, I'll admit that I have an agenda of my own. I hate it whenever anyone says that something worthwhile is only appropriate for people of a certain age, gender, or other demographic. It's not because of how I think their opinion may reflect on me but rather how their opinion limits them from appreciating something that deserves respect. When you say something is a chick flick, a kiddie game, or butt-rock, it implies that the thing in question is not truly worthwhile. That's why I am quick to point out to people who say that videogames are just for "boys" or "nerds" that they too enjoy videogames. I'll remind them that, at the very least, they must have enjoyed a game of PC Solitaire and then work from there. Again, I'm not here to establish that it's OK to be a "gamer." In fact, there is nothing I'd like more than to show both "gamers" and "non-gamers" that those brands shouldn't exist. Your level of interest in videogames should rightfully have nothing to do with how you define yourself. Once it does, you'll inevitably fall into the trap of either being a blockbuster chaser or a first-class hipster. What matters is tossing out your preconceived notions and biases and honestly looking at the world around you. To do otherwise is to shortchange yourself out of really... living. I don't mean to sound judgmental or to have overly high expectations. I know that videogame culture as a whole is currently dominated by products made to sell death, darkness, and war (with some occasional bouts of nostalgia and dancing). Based on that that, I understand why so many people assume that games aren't for them, which in turn leads to game publishers and developers to not even bother trying to make games for people who don't already like what gaming has to offer.. It's an ugly pattern that keeps gaming and society as a whole from reaching its full potential. That's why I'm happy that Steve Jobs worked so hard to show the world that technology (and the videogame industry that's associated with it) is potentially for everybody. It's not because he helped me to feel like less of a nerd. It's because it's just... true. Technology is for everyone! Everything is potential for everyone, as long as we are willing to keep an open mind and to not limit our options. Apple may have used some trendy tricks and slick marketing to show the world that truth, but if that's what it takes for our current model of human evolution to get with the program, then so be it. OK, enough out of me. What do you think? Does it matter to you what the mainstream thinks of technology and videogames? When was the last time you said, "You dun be a gamer now gurl"? Please tell me it was today. If not, it's not too late. Turn to the person closest to you, let the words out, and make that change. Past Episodes: Talking to Women about Videogames: 3DS 2nd nub panic Talking to Women about Videogames: Gears 3 isn't perfect? Talking to Women about Videogames: Sexy vs. sexist? Talking to Women about Videogames: What makes you want? TtWaV teaser: Sony's online sucks now? Talking to Women about Videogames: I'm not a real gamer? Talking to Women about Videogames: Fear for the future |
| Posted: 25 Oct 2011 08:00 AM PDT Zeonix is no stranger to online trading card games. After reasonably successful runs with Fantasy Masters and Ragnarok TCG, the company set out to create one of the deepest online card games on the market with impressive strides in both gameplay and deck building as well as some top-notch anime artwork. Sword Girls Online entered closed beta this month and, from what I’ve seen so far, they’re well on their way to delivering on those promises and releasing one of the most involved and addicting card games I've ever played.
Sword Girls Online (Flash) If you’ve ever played a trading card game, you’ve got a solid idea of how this all works. Gather cards, build a deck, defeat opponents, and repeat. What breaks up that cycle, however, is the deck-building process. You’ve got the option to purchase cards. At the moment, game tokens cost $0.01 each with pre-built decks coming in at 500 tokens ($5) and single cards at $0.35. Alternatively, cards can be constructed by combining materials found in the game's dungeons. These are earned after every battle, regardless of the result. Even if you lose, you’ll earn something so that next time you might have more of a chance. More often than not, it can be hard to progress in games like this when losing only reduces your odds of winning next time. Thankfully, that’s hardly an issue in Sword Girls. Customizing your deck goes beyond just buying/crafting cards. Each card can be trained and, eventually, upgraded. Training individual cards earns points that are ultimately spent on an upgrade for that card. It’s a fairly deep system, but it can be tedious. Training a card takes a minimum of six hours, and with no system in place to sort out cards that have or have not received training it can be a chore just finding a particular card amongst the sea of duplicates and distractingly beautiful anime portraits. In support of the main training and creating facets, you can send character cards out to collect materials over a set period of hours, break down unused duplicates for more materials, and trade excess of one material for some of another. Again, it’s all just the slightest bit tedious. At times it can feel like a Facebook game, albeit a top-shelf Facebook game, with the way menus are set up and the frequent instances of “wait six hours” to complete a task. Getting lost in the processes and menus as a beginner is to be expected but, once it’s all said and done, a solid deck is worth the effort. For every ten minutes of play time, I probably spent 30 tweaking my cards, changing characters, or browsing the shop. The act of building your deck is a time sink, but the gameplay is definitely an adequate payoff for the time spent in customization. At no point did I feel that I had wasted time, even when I sent my character camping for a few hours while I left my browser up and grabbed lunch. It all pays off in the end.  The combat itself is deceptively strategic. With your character card taking up their post in the center, you have six slots available for follower cards (the front line) and spell cards. Each of these cards has a designated size and your on-field cards cannot exceed a total size of ten. Obviously, more powerful cards will have a higher size and will most likely be less common while weaker, smaller cards are practically throwaways. On the surface, strategy is negligible. I spent the first hour or so of my play time just clicking cards ... and I won a few matches. After a while though, it became clear that you have to optimize not only the cards on the field, but the cards in your hand as well. As followers are destroyed, your character will lose health equal to their sizes. This further enforces the balance between strong and weak cards. I found that more often than not, a full field of weak cards could deal respectable damage without taking too much of a toll on your own health. My first thought was that Sword Girls was more of a deck-building sim than it was a card battle game. To the contrary, deck building was emphasized to allow for a more streamlined battle experience. Developer Zeonix put it this way: “Deck construction is so important because there is no room for useless, or should I say, cards that don’t synergize well with your deck’s theme or overall strategy.” The gameplay is so quick, you have to build your deck with a certain degree of precision to be able to perform well, and their options definitely allow for that.  The single-player “Dungeon” portions are varied, and there are plenty of them. A handful of difficulty levels, each with their own selection of dungeons and boss characters equate to a good deal of single-player content. Right off the bat, I noticed that each AI opponent I faced utilized different strategies. The boss of the first beginner level dungeon was plenty of challenge for me, but they promise that “later dungeon bosses are absolutely ridiculous to beat.” I can’t wait. While the AI is more than formidable, I found the PvP to be particularly exciting. Intentionally difficult programs are tough, but nothing presents more of a challenge then a knowledgeable, prepared human opponent. Pairing yourself up with a random opponent is simple enough; clicking “fight” instantly throws you into a queue where there are plenty of rabid players ready to show you just how bad you are at the game. That said, I totally wasn’t bad at the game ... nope. All of the gameplay is benefited by the immense accessibility of the game. As it's a flash-based browser game, you can play it from any flash-enabled device; phones, tablets, etc. I asked if there were any plans for a 3DS/Vita release and the response was simple: "Our focus right now is to bring the best online card game experience to the Western market." Part of me is really interested in seeing this type of game on the 3DS. Fingers crossed. While the modern trading card game may be staling after years of copy/paste variants of whatever anime happens to be hot at the moment, Sword Girls looks to be making good on its promises to refresh the genre. The deck building is every bit as in depth as I'd hoped (borderline addictive) and even though it's just getting started, there's plenty of content to hold your attention. With the next phase of the beta launching next month, I'm excited to see where Zeonix takes it. |
| Dungeon Siege III DLC 'Treasures of the Sun' out now Posted: 25 Oct 2011 07:45 AM PDT Liked Dungeon Siege III well enough to spend another $10 or 800 Microsoft Points on it? DLC is your answer! Dungeon Siege III: Treasures of the Sun is now available on PC, Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network. It's set in the Aranoi Desert (hence the Sun part?) with mummies and giant skellingtons to fight and a lost Legion hero to find. The DLC will add a few new abilities, raises the level cap from 30 to 35, adds new items, allows you to respec your character throughout the campaign, and adds a new enchanting system. By transmuting items you'll have a chance of creating "Vials" that let you enhance your equipment. If you were a big fan of Dungeon Siege III, this sounds like enough to give it a couple more playthroughs. And no, the DLC does not come with a new co-op camera system. |
| Talk to the developers behind War of the Worlds tomorrow! Posted: 25 Oct 2011 07:30 AM PDT We've been closely watching the progress of The War of the Worlds because it looks like terribly good fun. And we have a very special treat to celebrate it's release tomorrow, as Destructoid plays host to a live webcast question and answer session with the developers of the game over at Other Ocean. Get your questions ready! We will have members of the development team streaming in video and responding to the queries placed before them. Check back right here on this very spot tomorrow at 3pm Pacific when the questioning will commence!
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| Exterminatus is declared upon Space Marine today Posted: 25 Oct 2011 07:15 AM PDT
I only just finished Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine last weekend and Relic is already showering me with more Ork stompah goodness thanks to the free 'Exterminatus' mode. Alas, it won't let you lay waste to an entire planet from orbit. Instead you'll just have to do it the hard and old-fashioned way, with four players cooperatively wielding their warriors of the Adeptus Astartes to purge the heretic, kill the mutant, and burn the unclean. In other words: horde mode for Spoice Mahrine! - The Videogame. You can choose between the Tactical, Devastator, and Assault classes in two Exterminatus scenarios, which have dynamic challenges to complete and score modifiers for da extra pointy bitz on the global leaderboards. Any experience your earn counts as multiplayer experience to rank up and progress across online modes. The free update sounds like a welcome addition for people who are not playing some other shooter game that came out today, and it should be available on PlayStation Network and Steam right now, with the Xbox Live update following shortly. |
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